“A re you telling me the Pillar is the real enemy?” Tom Truckle seems alert all of a sudden.
I nod, unable to truly utter the words. It’s the only conclusion that makes sense. Tom listens to me as I recite all the events since the Chessmaster told me about my family, all the way to Edith’s story about Him and how I supposedly joined Black Chess to have my revenge.
Tom takes a moment to let it sink in. He looks like he could use another pill but prefers to sober against the temptation. “So the Pillar, in some major twist, is the evil of all evils, and the whole search for the Six Keys has one purpose: to find his weakness and kill him?”
“It’s hard to believe but it does explain a few things,” I offer.
Tom is still processing. “Not everything, though it explains his fake affection for you. You’re simply his only hope to find the keys that could kill him. Once he gets them he will destroy them.”
I say nothing. It’s hard to fully theorize the Pillar’s motives, but it definitely is somewhere close to Tom’s speculations.
“The real irony would be that he is using the same technique you used with him in Wonderland.” Tom laughs awkwardly. “You pretended to be his friend to get your revenge. Now he is doing the same to you. What a sneaky, smoke-puffing mastermind.”
“I’m surprised you believe it,” I tell Tom. “You’re the last one I expected to buy into this theory.”
“You should thank Inspector Dormouse for that.”
“Dormouse? Why?”
“He contacted me a few days ago, seeking help with chasing the Pillar.”
“I’m not following. What happened?”
“A long story short, it all has to do with the number 14,” Tom began. “Turns out Professor Pillar didn’t just kill twelve people before arriving to the asylum, but fourteen.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tom recites his adventures with Inspector Dormouse in detail. How they found out that the Pillar killed fourteen people in a ritual to have fourteen lives, akin to the Cheshire’s nine. He tells me about Dormouse chasing the Pillar in the hospice, and that the Pillar probably killed him.
“So Dormouse isn’t just asleep somewhere?” I say. “The Pillar killed him?”
“Most probably,” Tom says. “We’ve been played, dear Alice. Pilla da Killa deserves an all-time Oscar for best performance in a supporting role by the Academy of Lunatics of the World.”
I blink a couple of times, unable to comprehend the revelation.
“If he is really your father, then you’re a descendant of evil itself,” Tom says. “No wonder you’re half as evil as him.”
I ignore the comment and ask the most important question at the moment. “Then why do you think he asked to meet me in here?”
“That, my dear Alice, is a question that I don’t think even Einstein could answer.”
But the answer came, faster than expected, in a most brutal way.
I watch the March Hare suddenly storm into the cell. He is panting, sweating, half of his old-man’s upper torso bending over. He rests his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“March.” I pat him. “What are you doing here?”
“Now that’s what I really need.” Tom rolls his eyes. “Another lunatic in my asylum.”
“Shut up.” I elbow him. “March, are you all right?”
“I am, Alice. I am,” The March says, straightening up. “It’s you who I’m worried about.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Alice.” The March pulls out his phone, scrolls down to show me something.
This is when I begin to have an idea of the Pillar’s new game.
“You sent me this message, Alice,” The March says. “You said I have to immediately meet you in the Radcliffe Asylum. You said: “It’s happening .”