Tom Truckle’s car, Oxford University
I nspector Dormouse was back in Tom’s car. He’d picked the keys from the sleeping man’s pocket and walked the Tom Quad all alone, the only man awake in this neighborhood. He plugged the flash drive into the car’s stereo and listened.
The recorded sessions were really long, mostly boring, but Dormouse caught a few slip-ups here and there. The story was peeling itself apart.
Back in Wonderland, the Pillar had conspired with Alice to create fourteen lives with an unholy ritual. The Pillar and the Cheshire turned out to be lifelong nemeses, who, in spite of the significance of the Wonderland Wars, were purely shameless monsters who cared for no one but themselves.
There may have been a long-lasting war between good and evil, personified in the Inklings and Black Chess, but there was another great war between the Pillar and the Cheshire. A war of souls. Who possessed more lives? The Cheshire, being a cat, had been granted nine lives through an ancient mask, which Lewis once tried to scatter all over the world. The Pillar’s technique was that of being a caterpillar, morphing into a cocoon then a chrysalis and then a butterfly, which gave him a lifespan of four short lives. The Pillar wanted much more.
The recording also told of the Pillar’s plan to kill the fourteen after two of them betrayed him by taking their powers into their own hands, and the other twelve thinking it over.
Dormouse couldn’t fathom the carnage of evil in this world, let alone Wonderland. Wasn’t it supposed to be the children’s friendly place with all the cute rabbits and enchanting roses? What made it that way? Was this Carroll’s plan, or did something evil slip from this beautiful creation?
How in heaven’s name did our beloved and enchanting childhood turn into this bloodbath of adulthood?
Dormouse didn’t know what to do. It was all clear now. But somehow he had a soft spot for Alice. First, she reminded him of his daughter. In fact, she reminded him of all the struggling teenage daughters in his neighborhood. Those girls fighting for their own identities in a world that imposed nonsensical rules and obligations to grow up.
What if every teenage girl from around the block had the power to save the world? Which teacher or parent in this scary world outside would ever notice?
Inspector Dormouse didn’t feel like sleeping now. It was the Pillar he had to get, at all costs. This evil embodiment of darkness. He had to be put back in the asylum—or prison.
But where would the inspector start?
A question with a simple answer that he suddenly heard on the recording. One of the fourteen people was explaining why the Pillar couldn’t track number fourteen.
It turned out that the mysterious Mr. Fourteen, with a plan to beat the devil, longed for the help of another devil. The Cheshire.
Inspector Dormouse chuckled listening to this. Everything was really messed up in this story.
Mr. Fourteen asked the Cheshire to help him. Why? Because it turned out that the Pillar, having decided on killing them, had to kill each and every one of them. Kill only thirteen and the ritual was reversed, meaning the Pillar’s life’s expectancy was lessened and shortened. That was why the Pillar was having a skin problem, a rare disease that he kept secret.
Of course, the Cheshire liked the idea, and granted Mr. Fourteen the power of splitting his soul in two—it was the best the Cheshire could do, but it was more than enough.
Doing so, apparently so many years ago, helped Mr. Fourteen have two bodies, one that traveled abroad and left the continent completely, and the other that still lived in London, under a disguise and different name.
The Cheshire’s plan was to delude the Pillar into killing the one in London, making him think he was safe, and then he’d die suddenly without even knowing it.
“This isn’t Wonderland,” Dormouse told himself. “This is London’s Chainsaw Massacre tripled by Hannibal Lecter’s madness. In short, this is a British horror story.”
In the end, Inspector Dormouse needed a lead. Something in the recording that would give a clue to where to find Mr. Fourteen, because, thinking logically, this was why the Pillar had come back to London all of a sudden, instead of helping Alice.
The Pillar was about to kill Mr. Fourteen, and Inspector Dormouse was ready to stop that from happening.