The Radcliffe Asylum
T om Truckle and I take our time staring at the Pillar’s corpse in the coffin. There is little or nothing that I can say. This must be the second strangest day in my life since I went to Mushroomland. I wonder what’s really going on. Nothing makes the slightest sense.
“I didn’t expect that,” Tom says. “So the Pillar is dead?”
I kneel down and check his pulse. “No,” I say. “He is either sleeping or someone sedated him.”
“Why would someone sedate him and send him over?”
“That’s the million-mushroom question. If it proves anything, we’re now sure the Pillar didn’t invite us here.”
Tom scratches his temples. “Then who did?”
“I say we wake the Pillar and ask him.”
The guards are taking care of this part, lifting the professor’s body and transporting it to his VIP cell. We follow their footsteps in silence, still thinking. No conclusions come to mind.
Once he is lying on his couch, I rummage through his pockets and pull out his phone.
“Checking sent messages?” Tom asks.
“Yes. Actually, I can’t find it.”
“So he didn’t send it. Someone managed to convince you it was his phone through some technology.”
“Why use the Pillar as bait?” I’m wondering.
“Because, as ironic as it sounds, you trust him the most,” Tom says bluntly.
“You’re right. I trust him, as puzzling at it seems,” I say. “I trust the man whom I joined to kill or something. I’m so confused.”
“Don’t be,” Tom suggests. “If he is your father, it’s understandable. Emotions rule over logic.”
I take one long inquisitive look at the Pillar. Could he really be my father? We don’t even look anything alike.
I distract myself by scrolling through his phone for any clues. “Here,” I tell Truckle. “Proof the Pillar didn’t arrange this meeting.”
Truckle takes a look. “Wow. The Pillar received a message from you, Alice, to meet him at the Inklings Bar?”
“Our mysterious host must have invited him there and then sedated him.”
“It’s hard to believe the Pillar being so foolish.”
“Unless this mysterious host is someone he knows very well.”
“You’re suggesting our host is someone we know?” Truckle says. “One of us, to be precise.”
“Or how would he have sedated the Pillar?”
“Point taken,” Truckle says and points at the TV again. “Look, here is an explanation why the Pillar has been sent to join us.”
I raise my head and stare. This can’t be happening.