Present: The Wonderland War, London
I still have a question to ask the March, like what he meant when he said he remembered tomorrow, but a crack in the earth underneath interrupts us in the craziest way. Both of us topple backward toward the earth.
I hang onto a couple of vines on my way down and catch my breath before I find a safe spot to land on. When my feet hit the floor, I realize I lost the March.
“March!” I scream from the top of my lungs.
No reply.
I doubt he can hear me with the earth spitting infinite amounts of mushrooms out. The world is a cacophony of noises all around me. The feeling of wishing this was all a dream returns. How I wish I could wake up and realize that none of this ever happened.
Strange enough I’m still gripping my Vorpal sword. The March is right. It’s time for my final battle. And since I don’t know what Mr. Jay looks like, I thirst for my battle with the Pillar first.
“March!” I shout again, running frantically all around.
But the streets are too dangerous to walk now. I don’t want to leave the March behind, but what difference does it make. Everyone I know dies around me. I’m more of a plague than just a mad girl.
How can I find the Pillar?
A question that will have to wait.
Why?
Reddish shadows emerge from behind the mushrooms. Too many to count. It’s an ambush. They have been waiting for me. It’s hard to mistake the Reds whenever they show up. I never understood whom they really work for. The Pillar said they were simply mercenaries working for whomever pays more.
“Alice!” One of them addressed me.
They’re circling me from every direction. I can’t see their faces as usual. Blank darkness beneath their hoods. Swords in their hands.
“What do you want?” My knuckles whiten, gripping my sword.
“You, Alice,” their leader says. “Dead.”
The circles close in on me, one inch at a time. I can hear their breathing, lusting for my blood. “Who sent you this time?”
“Does it matter?” the leader says snakily. “Black Chess.”
“Who in Black Chess?”
“It’s over, Alice. That sword isn’t going to help you.”
“Tell Jabberwocky he still needs me. He can’t kill me,” I see them getting closer and closer. They’re still slow though. Which means the Red is bluffing. They’re afraid of me, or they would have just come and killed me.
“He does,” the Red admits. “But now that the mushrooms erupt from the earth, he prefers to get his hands on the secret of the next round.”
“The next round?” I grimace, cautiously eyeing my assailants all around me.
Surprisingly the Red’s leader signs for them to stop. They do. I’m perplexed and confused.
“You don’t know there is another round?” he says.
“I don’t know what you mean by that, no.”
“The mushrooms were supposed to be a sign for the final battle but it all got out of hand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t the March tell you?”
“Tell me what exactly?”
“Aside from the secret of how to control the children of the world, didn’t he tell you about tomorrow?”
I squint at the amount of information I’m supposed to comprehend at once. Do the Reds know what the March means by I Remember Tomorrow ?
But wait, he didn’t tell me the secret of how to save the children as well. He fell as the earth cracked.
“Talk to me Alice,” the leader demands.
I need to think fast. They think I know how to save the children or control them. That’s my ace card. I have to use it. But I also want to know what the other round and tomorrow means.
“I want to meet the Jabberwocky.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You have no choice. If you want to kill me, then go ahead,” I threaten him. “But what if I know more than your boss knows?”
The Red resorts to silence for a while. The others look at him for orders to kill me.
“What do you know?”
“I know how to control the children or save them.”
“I doubt that,” he says. “If the March told you then you would have applied the solution right away, or why would the children all over the world be reading Lewis Carroll’s books in every city?”
I hadn’t known about that. What does it mean? Who told them to do that? But I will use it in my favor. It’s an easy trick. It doesn’t take me long to fabricate the perfect lie.
“Who do you think told them to do that?”
The Red lets out an unusual sound of surprise. Never have I seen them lose their cool. “It wasn’t you?”
“I told them how to protect themselves,” I play along, not sure what’s going on. “Jabberwocky can never infiltrate their minds and souls as long as they’re reading Lewis’ books. I also know how to stop them.”
“Then we’ll have to kill you,” he says. “What’s the point if you won’t cooperate?”
“Tell me about the other round and I will tell you how to stop the children,” I’m bluffing. It’s a weak try but I have no choice.
The Red laughs. “I will never tell you. It’s your weak spot. You won by getting your hands on the secret before Black Chess, but Black Chess will win eventually because you have no idea what ‘Remember Tomorrow’ means, even though you once crossed to the other side with the mirror. I guess your shock therapies in the asylum made you forget things.”
“Enough with the puzzles,” I shout in desperation, waving my sword in the air. “I want to meet Jabberwocky, face to face. It’s our final battle like Lewis Carrol predicted. I’m fed up with the talk.”
The Red lowers his sword, looking at a looming car approaching in the distance. “Actually Jabberwocky didn’t send us.”
“Then who did?” I follow his line of sight, staring at the approaching car in the distance. I can’t see it in detail with the ashen atmosphere all around.
The Reds back away, as if intentionally making way for the car to arrive.
“The Pillar sent us, Alice,” the Red keeps laughing. “Trust me he is the one who wants you dead, now that the game is over and Black Chess lost.”
The Reds disappear behind the mushrooms and I realize the approaching car is the Pillar’s limousine.
It stops right next to me, and the back windows slide down.
The Pillar peaks out and smiles, “Missed me?”
I don’t even reply or comment. My sword lands swiftly down his neck.