The Kew Garden
T he woman in red fur walks us into the humongous structure of the Kew Garden, an impressive garden of botanical plants. She brags about how exquisite they are. How old they are. How rare. None of what I see are mushrooms, though. If the March is supposed to remember now, I have so many questions to ask.
“So we’re not in danger here?” I ask her. “I mean you’re not the enemy? You don’t want to hurt us?”
“I will never hurt you, Alice,” she says. Her face starts to seem familiar to me. I can’t remember where I’ve seen her before, if I ever did. Must be an old Wonderland thing. The glasses cover most of her face and fur and a red hat with one single feather in it. It makes her look like a combination of Victorian and Steampunk characters.
“Only me?” I say.
“Neither you or the March,” she says. “The rest of your friends, I am not sure.”
I don’t respond or counter the argument. What puzzles me is that none of them comments. Fabiola only made one effort to deny the woman’s claims. Lewis is collapsing in his sudden unknown pain. Is he fading out for some reason? Jack is usually silent in his haze, so I am not sure.
“And Constance?” I ask the woman in red fur.
“I have never seen her in Wonderland.”
“That’s because I am the sum of the girls Lewis photographed. You wouldn’t recognize—” Constance stops midway when I interfere.
“Wonderland?” I say to the woman in red.
She sighs. The first time she does show a snippet of emotion. She gazes at Humpty. “Go play outside in the garden, please. I promise if you do, I will give you more candy.”
The boy strolled out happily.
“Yes,” she tells me. “I am a Wonderlander, just like you.”
“I have never seen you,” Fabiola finally speaks.
The woman in red doesn’t feel the need to explain herself. “I wasn’t involved in all the events.”
“That doesn’t explain why I haven’t seen you,” Fabiola says.
“I lived on the other side of Wonderland.”
“What’s that?” I wonder, looking at Fabiola.
“Don’t look at me. I have no idea what that is.”
“But Lewis knows,” the woman says.
Lewis sits on a chair, moaning in pain. It’s like he has a stomach ache, but he can’t speak. Fabiola seems to know what’s troubling him. She is not making much effort to help. But Lewis nods agreeably about the woman’s claims.
“Lewis?” Fabiola truly doesn’t know. “Who is this woman?”
“G-lass,” Lewis stutters again.
“Glass?” I say.
It’s Constance who gets it. “Through the Looking Glass?”
The woman in red shows as a hint of a smile on her lips. “You’re not as dumb as I thought you’d be,” she tells Constance. “Yes, a mirror in Wonderland that sent you to another Wonderland.”
“That’s getting too confusing,” Jack announces.
“It is, but you don’t have to know much about it,” the woman says. “Wonderland and the real world are made of so many dimensions. I like to call them Ages.”
A silence sweeps all over us. From wanting to expose the March to the mushrooms, we’ve gone to knowing much more than I’ve bargained for.
“I am sorry to make it so hard on you, Alice,” she says. “Do you remember when you went back to the past through the Einstein Blackboard?”
“Of course.”
“I suppose you noticed how many things don’t make sense since you’ve returned,” she says. “I mean the Pillar being a nerd a few years ago, then turning evil so fast?”
“I questioned that, but I have so many questions about the Pillar. This is the least I am worried about.”
“How about your husband from the future?” she says.
“Husband?” Jack squints.
“It’s a long story, Jack,” I calm him down then turn back to the woman in red. “I do. It didn’t make sense.”
“That’s because you didn’t go back in time,” she says. “You just went to another dimension.”
“Dimension?”
“You see every second we live exists and never vanishes,” she continues. “It sticks to the universe in a certain time and space. But we’re just incapable of bringing it back. Another version of us still lives it day after day. Sometimes the versions, the Ages, collapse, and one of the characters or events don’t go through.”
“Listen,” I exhale. “I don’t care about this complicated stuff. I only care about who you are. Did you say you lived in a world beyond the glass in Wonderland?”
“I did.”
“Why did you cross over?”
“It’s a long story. What you need to know is that I’ve seen the end of all of this on the other side.”
“You did?”
She nods with confidence. “It could be another version of course, but I know a few things.”
“Enough things to make you wait for us here?”
“Enough to let me watch your moves, the Queen’s moves, and all that happened the last few months, and yes, to know you’ll be coming here.”
“Then what’s going to happen next?” Constance has her hands on her waist.
“I can’t tell you, or I will die,” she addresses me, not Constance. “But I can still help with guiding you.”
“Who. Are. You.?” I say.
“The Red Queen.”
“The Red Queen is dead,” Constance says.
“That’s a common misunderstanding,” she argues. “People think the Red Queen is the Queen of Hearts as well. Lewis knows this, but I know he can’t talk now.”
“Then explain,” I demand.
“Lewis wrote about the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Then he wrote about me, the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. The Queen of Hearts is evil. I am good. You know nothing about my story yet.”