T he March Hare panics, seeing the police are about to break in. He leaves us to look for more writing on the walls. He still believes he’ll find more clues, if not an in-your-face conclusion about Patient 14.
I stand exchanging looks with the Pillar and Truckle, the Mushroomers have left with the March to assist him.
“You don’t really think the police will break in, do you?” Truckle says. “They’re supposed to wait another seven and a half hours.”
“I think they’re just bluffing to scare us,” the Pillar says. “Whoever designed this situation wants it to look legal to the public. They won’t risk breaking the deadline. The media loves poetic justice, and hates when the hero breaks a promise.”
“Still, we need to find a way out of here,” I challenge the Pillar. “Why not tell us, or are you planning on leaving all alone?”
“That’s a good point,” Tom remarks. “The Pillar may have planned to get in to fool us and play innocent, and in the last minute he will escape.”
“So many theories, so little time,” the Pillar says. “The way out is underneath your feet, Alice.”
I look down. There is a carpet I’m standing upon. “How so?” I ask.
“There is a tunnel underneath the carpet. You access it by opening a hole in the floor. It can only be done with a rare kind of magic using my hookah’s smoke.”
“That’s how you did it!” Tom jabs a finger at the Pillar, who avoided it the way you avoid an annoying mosquito.
“Why are there tunnels underneath the floor?” I ask.
“Lewis Carroll was a devoted supporter to mental illnesses, because he was worried he was mentally ill himself. The migraines had increased and he had recurring relapses of blackouts where he didn’t remember what he was doing,” the Pillar says. “He ended up investing in the Radcliffe Asylum to cure himself, and later, to have Tom Truckle create an Inkling army of Mushroomers.”
“It doesn’t explain the tunnels.”
“The tunnels were Carroll’s Plan B to escape if Black Chess ever attacked, just like today.”
“But Tom told me there is no way out, only a contained bunker of some sorts. The walls and all that.”
“That’s part of the truth.” The Pillar shushes Tom before an attempt to object. “Lewis never told Tom about the tunnels.”
“And he told you?” I mock him.
“No, he didn’t. I learned about them later,” the Pillar says. “The reason why he hadn't told Tom is that the tunnels were a mess. Lewis wasn’t a good architect. He screwed up the math. Most tunnels reached dead ends and never led the way outside.”
“Then how did you get outside?”
“I used my own magic spell. It widened the size of the tunnels and lead to a backstreet, right underneath a public toilet,” the Pillar says. “Unless you’ve got something against the smell of human urine and poop, I shall show you.”
His remark almost makes me laugh. Sometimes I feel as if the Pillar has a spell on me. This unexplained feeling of caring for an unethical person like him urges me to ask the question I’ve postponed so long.
“Pillar.” I dance on my tiptoes, feeling tense. “We’re not leaving before you answer an important question.”
“Again?” He sighs impatiently. “We’re about to get killed.”
“I don’t care, besides you said they might be bluffing.”
“Questions will get you nowhere, Alice. It’s all in the Wonder note.”
“I doubt this question is.”
“What do you want to ask me, Alice?” His voice stiffens and he knocks his cane against the floor.
“Are you my father?”
Suddenly, the air in the room isn’t enough for both of us to keep breathing anymore.