THE PRESENT: DIRECTOR’S OFFICE, RADCLIFFE ASYLUM, OXFORD
D r. Tom Truckle was enjoying his mock turtle soup when Fabiola crashed into his office. He wasn’t sure who she was yet. He’d only seen her serving beer and cracking jokes in the Inklings a couple of times. He’d always joked she looked like a dark version of the famous Vatican nun. But, of course, she couldn’t be her.
“I need your help.” Fabiola stood by the door, her tattoos barely distracting from her impressively athletic body and good looks.
“Only my wife asks for help with a sword in her hand.” He drooled some of the soup back into the bowl. “Want to be my next?”
“Shut up,” Fabiola said. “Alice is about to find her Wonder.”
“Alice?” He frowned. “Her what?”
“She has to die.”
“Are we talking about the mad girl in the cell below?”
“You know she isn’t in the cell below.” Fabiola stepped up. “I know all about you. About the Pillar manipulating you into letting her out.”
“Great.” Tom dropped his spoon. “Excuse me if I need to pop another pill to talk to you.”
“You’re not going to do anything unless I tell you,” Fabiola said.
“Trust me, the pill helps with all your Wonderland madness.” He reached for the drawer, but Fabiola stopped him, waving a threatening sword in the air.
“I know who you are, Tom,” Fabiola said. “I know what Lewis told you about this asylum, so drop the mask.”
Tom shrugged. Did others know about this? Lewis had never told him this Fabiola had anything to do with this. “What do you want?”
“Now we’re talking.” Fabiola leaned against the edge of his desk. “Like I said, Alice Wonder must die.”
“Why?”
“You don’t get to ask questions, Turtle,” she mocked him. “You will only follow my orders.”
“If you say so.” He really needed that pill now.
“I will need an army to kill Alice when she wakes up.”
“Wakes up?”
“I told you not to interrupt me.”
Tom sat up, listening carefully.
“You did a good job, all those years, collecting sane people into the asylum,” she said. “Now, it’s time to use them.”
“Really?” Tom’s eyes widened. So Lewis’ prophecy was useful.
“Yes,” she said. “I will need all the Mushroomers in your asylum.”
“Need them?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Fabiola said. “Alice is coming back, and I’ll need all your insane — or sane — patients to kill her.”