THE PAST: ALICE’S CELL, RADCLIFFE ASYLUM
W altraud wheels me back to my cell. I stare at my immobile legs in dismay. I’m sweating out of shock. But I am not crying anymore. I’ve dried all my tears already.
“Mr. Jay wants you to rethink the Lullaby pill,” Waltraud says, sending me into my cell.
Speechless, I stare into the mirror in front of me. I’ve witnessed this scene before, only I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I was mad. Turns out I’m not. I’m reliving my past in full color.
How I wish I was mad right now.
“There is no rabbit in the mirror,” I manage to say.
“There’s never been a rabbit,” Waltraud says. She whispers in my ear, “It’s always been you. We’re proud of you.”
I let out a chuckle. A painful one. A mixture of laughter and crying. Pain and pleasure. Sanity and insanity.
It occurs to me that I’m just confused. If this is my past, why am I sad? I am the Real Alice. A dark and vicious one that everyone was looking for because they feared me the most.
Why am I sad, then? I can’t escape me. Why is there a nagging part of me wanting me to be a hero?
“I’m really sorry I broke your knees,” Waltraud says. The irony. “You were under the pill’s influence. I had to stop you from escaping. I’m really sorry.”
When I raise my eyes to meet hers in the mirror, I realize she is scared of me. Now that the pill’s influence has worn off, she is expecting me to return to my real self. She thinks I will hurt her.
“I hope you don’t hold grudges against me,” she says. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The irony, times two. Or better, times Walraud’s weight. Even better, times the number of times she will fry me in the Mush Room in the future.
“Do you want me to wash your feet?” she offers. “Mr. Jay says it’s going to take you six months for your knees to recover.”
“No, Waltraud. I don’t want you to wash my feet. I want to ask you about Dr. Tom Truckle.”
“The pill-popping fool who thinks he is building an ark and saving the Mushroomers to win the Wonderland Wars?” Her whole body shakes when she laughs.
“So, he doesn’t know about me?”
“We let him pursue his plan with Carroll’s legacy,” Waltraud says. “I pretend I fear him the most when he talks to me, just to keep up the act. But he’s a pawn in Black Chess’s plan.”
This explains a lot about him in the future. The poor man is chasing a loom of nothingness. But I don’t want Waltraud to sense my sympathy. I’m not sure why my inner self resists being the Bad Alice, but it’s how I feel.
Maybe it’s because of what the Pillar showed me in the future. Maybe it’s been the Pillar’s plan from the beginning: to show me the good person I can become in the future, preparing me for a hard choice when I learn who I really am in the past.
My head isn’t clear yet, and for whatever reason, I need to play along. “Good. It’s best to keep Dr. Truckle in the dark.”
Waltraud’s smile broadens. “Does that mean you’re not taking the pill? Does that mean you’ll stay one of us?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Not before I meet the Queen of Hearts. I need to ask her something.”
“Of course,” she says. “I will call her right away.”
And now the Queen is in the palm of my hand. I own her because I’m Black Chess’s favorite. Who would have thought?