THE PRESENT: MARGARET KENT’S OFFICE
T he phone rang, and Margaret picked it up. “Who is it?”
“The Cheshire.”
“What do you want?” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to guard the Inklings until Alice awakes?”
“Something came up.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m getting signals from Jack’s mind.”
“Signals?”
“I can read his mind.”
“You don’t say.”
“I’m seeing memories.”
“I bet they’re all playing cards and None Fu games.”
“No.” The Cheshire hesitated. Margaret sensed he wasn’t quite himself. Something was happening to him. “They’re mostly about Alice.”
Margaret shrugged. She stood up, locked her door, and went back to her desk. “Anything useful?”
“A lot of lovey-dovey memories,” he said. “I’m still digging.”
“Anything about her being the Real Alice?” she asked eagerly. “Come on, there must a lead in her past to prove it’s her.”
“You sound too eager to know.”
“Yes, Cheshire, I want to know.” She gritted her teeth. “You know what it means if it’s hers.”
“Not really sure,” he lamented. “I’m not that involved in this Wonderland War.”
“You don’t understand,” Margaret said. “All of the Real Alice’s secrets lay in the few years after the circus. That’s where it all happened. You have to rummage through that wreckage in Jack’s mind. Harder.”
The Cheshire kept to himself for a while. Margaret couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the infamous cat was warming up to Jack and Alice, even if just a little.
“Cheshire,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He was surely lying. “There is this memory about why Jack came back after she killed him.”
“And?”
“I can’t put my finger on it,” the Cheshire said. “But he came back to tell her something so important to him.”
“Tell her who she really is, maybe?” Margaret leaned back in her chair, a smile curving her lips. “That’s fantastic.”
“It’s driving me crazy.”
“You are crazy.”
“You think so?”
“‘We’re all mad here.’ Your words, not mine.”
“Yeah. I forgot.”
“It’s okay. Just know that things are starting to get really exciting.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Just figure out why Jack came back, and if she is the Real Alice.” Margaret hung up, then closed her eyes.
The few past weeks, she had resisted the idea that the Pillar had found the Real Alice. It was a scary thought to Wonderlanders. But there hadn’t been enough evidence to support it.
Since Margaret needed all she could bargain with to get her thing back from the Queen, it’d be great if she came across proof that the girl in the asylum was the Real Alice. That would be perfect timing.