THE PRESENT: THE INKLINGS, OXFORD
“S o, the pills won’t work?” Mr. Tick put his teacup aside and wiped his thin lips with a napkin.
“I made sure they’re taken,” Mrs. Tock explained.
“Taken?”
“I’ve had someone pull them out of Carroll’s pockets,” she said. “The ones the Pillar will find, if he so takes that route to save her, are water pills. Useless, just like diet pills.”
“Pretty cruel.” Mr. Tick tucked a napkin into the collar of his vest, getting ready for his six o’clock brownie. “And fabulous, I must admit. I can’t tell you how much you have entertained me today.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Tick.”
“So, the girl dies now?”
“You know we don’t want that to happen.” Mrs. Tock snickered, reaching for a piece of Mr. Tick’s brownie. He slapped her hand away. “Alice needs to live. We’re just preparing her for the big showdown, so we can get the keys.”
“Poor girl.” He gorged on his brownie. “She has no idea what’s going on.”
“It’s the only way to get the keys.”
“And to know if she’s really the Real Alice,” Mr. Tick remarked.
“That too, of course,” she said. “According to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Wonderlastic Time Travels , she will die in the future if she is not the Real Alice.”
“And if she survives?”
“There is a possibility she might be Alice.”
“That’s rather contradictory. If she dies, she isn’t Alice, but if she lives, she may be Alice?”
“Wonderland logic. Can’t argue with that,” she said. “It’s as confusing as the concept of time.”
“Whatever.” He waved a hand after downing the last piece of the brownie. “I’m curious to see how it plays out.”
“Me too, Mr. Tick.”
“But I’m starting to get bored again,” Mr. Tick said. “Not that I haven’t been entertained by this piece of time travel. But I feel there isn’t much pain involved. I need to see tragedies. People in dire pain and agony.”
“I understand. Seeing people in agony makes you tick, Mr. Tick.” She chuckled. “I have an idea. Why not stop time from freezing inside the Inklings?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’d wake up Fabiola.” Mrs. Tock snickered and shrugged. “This way, you can see her suffer when she sees Alice spasming and coughing blood.”
“What a brilliant idea, Mrs. Tock,” Mr. Tick said, and snapped his fingers to unfreeze the White Queen.