Outside the Lifespan Hospice, London
“W hat was that all about?” I ask the Pillar, once he walks outside on the pavement.
“What?” He shakes his shoulders, pacing ahead.
“You’re deluding people by promising them they can stand in the face of death. I find it unethical.”
“Unethical?” He rolls his eyes. “I’m sure death is pretty unethical, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Fight unethical with unethical,” he tells me. “Or better, fight death with nonsense. Laugh at it. I’m pretty sure Einstein said that.”
“I’m sure he didn’t. And what did the woman mean by saying you’re one of them?”
“Forget about it, Alice.”
“I want to know.” I grab his arm, stopping him. “Are you dying?”
The Pillar shoots me a flat stare. It’s the one he uses to conceal a big secret. I know him well enough to tell by now.
“Pillar,” I say gently. “If you’re dying, you have to tell me. Is it that skin issue you have?”
“Someone is going to kill me.” He knocks his cane once on the ground, his face strangely unreadable.
“Are you psychic now, knowing someone is going to kill you?”
“I’ve seen it in the future.” His chin is up, and he’s avoiding my eyes.
The realization strikes me hard. “Is that why you were the same age when we time-traveled in the future? Because you weren’t supposed to be there?” I cup my hands on my mouth. God, the Pillar will be dead fourteen years from now.
“I saw my grave, Alice.”
“And it said you were killed, not a normal death?”
The Pillar nods, though I still feel he isn’t telling me the whole truth.
“So you feel like you basically belong in the hospice, waiting for your death? That’s not like you.”
His flat expression lasts a whole minute, torturing me with his silence, as I fail to read his mind. It ends with him walking away toward the street.
“Where are you going?”
The Pillar doesn’t answer but stops at a café a little later. I stop next to him, watching the café’s TV broadcasting the latest news about the incident in Russia. The host comments on the Pope’s bad moves in the game and that he may be the next to die. The screen shows the world leaders sweating at their chessboards, most of them having played two moves out of the seven. Most of them have also sipped that poison that might eventually kill them.
“How can he possibly play with a hundred and thirty people at once?” I ask.
“It should be easy for a man who played chess with God and won.” The Pillar drags on his pipe.
“You don’t really believe that.”
“It’s a great marketing scheme, instilling fear in everyone. It works. I don’t have to believe it.” The Pillar nears the TV. “Nice handlebar mustache, and look at that armor he is wearing.”
“He is a madman who needs a psychiatrist,” I comment.
“Or a fashion designer,” the Pillar says. “I find it humiliating that the world is threatened by a man so out of fashion that he’s still wearing armor.”
“Do you know him? Is he a Wonderlander?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve certainly never met him before.”
“He looks very much like Wonderlanders,” I say. “Eccentric, mad, and evil.”
“You’ve just described every politician on TV.”
“This chess game strikes me as a Wonderland theme.” I stare the Pillar in the eyes. “Like the chessboard of life in the Vatican.”
“Are you implying something?”
“I think you know who he is and aren’t telling me.”
“Usually I am, but not this time.”
I try to believe him but can’t. “So why is the Chessmaster doing this?”
It’s exactly this instant when the Chessmaster approaches the camera and begins to talk.
“I will be brief,” he says. “Before I reveal my intentions and demands, I need to make sure only those who are qualified to meet my needs apply.”
We all watch him pull each side of his handlebar mustache after every couple of words.
“Listen carefully,” the Chessmaster continues. “Because you have no idea who I am. I mean, I am so scary that I sometimes prefer not to remind myself who I am.”
“You think he could be the mad barber on Cherry Lane Road, who’s responsible for half of the male Brits being bald?” the Pillar asks, but everyone in the café shushes him.
“In order to let your world leaders live, I need you to bring me something,” the Chessmaster says in his Russian accent. It makes him sound both funny and intimidating, which puzzles me. “I want you to find something called ‘Carroll’s Knight.’”
Everyone in the café starts to murmur and speculate. I look at the Pillar for answers.
“Carroll’s Knight.” He drags from his pipe. “Sound’s interesting.”
“Don’t bother trying to figure out what it is,” the Chessmaster says. “Only those who already know will understand.”
“I guess my work is done.” The Pillar is on his way out of the café. “Because I don’t know what Carroll’s Knight is.”
“Wait,” I say. “The Chessmaster must be a Wonderland Monster. Carroll’s Knight sounds Wonderland related.”
“To get what I want, I will ask you to solve the following puzzle,” the Chessmaster says. The Pillar stops at the door. I guess he can’t resist puzzles. “If you are the few who are capable of getting what I want, you should be able to answer the following question. It’s a puzzle, the answer to which leads to a place.”
Everyone is listening.
“The puzzle is: Where is Miss Croatia 1454?”