THE PRESENT: RADCLIFFE ASYLUM
T om stood watching Fabiola lecture the Mushroomers. She was telling them of the Bad Alice and all the details they hadn’t known about earlier. The Mushroomers, holding to the bars, listened tentatively.
“So we’re not mad?” one of them asked.
“Not the least,” Fabiola said. “It was this man who framed you and brought you here.” She pointed at Tom.
The Mushroomers produced noises of anger and were about to shoot laser beams out of their eyes at him, Tom thought. “I was asked to do this,” he explained. “Lewis Carroll told me.”
It didn’t seem to change anything. If they were set free now, they were going to eat him alive.
“Tom is right,” Fabiola broke in. “He was instructed by Lewis Carroll to make an army out of you. You do know who Lewis is, right?”
“The madman!” all the Mushroomers said in one breath.
It was then when Tom realized the Mushroomers had lost it. He wasn’t that surprised, though. Locking a sane man in a room for too long, and expecting him to come out as sane as he was before was a big joke. The shock therapy, the lonely nights, and all the things they went through. Who wouldn’t lose their mind?
“What’s going on, Tom?” Fabiola said.
“I think we’re too late,” he said. “I don’t think they will be useful.”
“Another dead end.” Fabiola puffed.
“It’s the truth,” Tom said. “First of all, I don’t think they will kill Alice if you let them out. I think they like her a lot. They will kill us instead.”
“Are you saying Lewis’ plan didn’t work?”
“He was a good man, but we have to admit he was as bonkers as the rest of us.”
“Then you’re as bonkers for following his instructions.”
“A friend of mine once said, ‘We’re all mad here.’”
“Shut up, Turtle!” Fabiola was losing it. Tom thought she’d better go back to being a nun. It helped her calm down. “What am I going to do now? Who is going to kill Alice if she comes back?”
“My question is, why don’t you do it yourself?” Tom proposed. “I see you’re ready to kill for your cause.”
The impact of Tom’s words twitched every pore of Fabiola’s face. He thought he even saw her hand tremble. The White Queen seemed to have developed a certain affection for Alice. That’s what this really was about. Fabiola’s weakness was now her affection for a Bad Alice.
Damn that Pillar , Tom thought. The man is a genius. Why not, when Tom couldn’t yet figure out how the Pillar entered and left his cell with no one ever knowing how?
Fabiola dropped her sword. “I hate you,” she said.
“Come again?” Tom said.
“I hate you for making me love someone so bad.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Tom said. “Are you sure you’re talking to me?”
“Of course I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the Pillar, wherever he is.”