Present: The Wonderland War, London
M y sword fails to kill the Pillar. Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s me who actually stops midway.
Frozen in mid-air, I stare at my arm and hands and wonder if it’s a spell. My Vorpal sword is only an inch away from his protruding neck—and irritable smirk.
Time hangs heavy in the air. I have nothing to say, and I can hardly hear my heart beating. Perplexities and insanity overwhelm my soul.
Why can’t I kill him? What’s wrong with me?
“I assume the Reds told you to kill me,” he squints at whatever lay behind me.
I’m frozen as the statue of liberty. I can lift my sword back high, in hopes to land it harder down the Pillar, but I’m frozen. I can swing up but never down his throat.
“I see they left,” he cranes his head outside the back window, pretty sure that I’m not going to cut it off. “Sneaky bastards.”
“No one told me to kill you,” I say in almost slow motion.
“Not even the March Hare?” he wiggles his eyebrows, as if this is all a joke, as if the world isn’t coming to an end.
“How do you know about the March?”
“I don’t,” he shakes his shoulders. “It's just a guess. Life is pretty predictable if you stop caring about what people think of you.”
I shrug. How am I going to complete my mission if I can’t kill him?
“Could you please make way?” he asks, opening the door. “I’ve always wanted to take pictures with big mushrooms while the world was coming to an end.”
I scooch over, lower my sword, and watch him amble outside. He takes a deep breath of the ashen weather as it were all Jasmine and flowers all around.
“Ashes to ashes,” he says with amusement in his eyes. “And mushrooms to Mushroomers,” he laughs. “You remember the Mushroomers, Alice?”
My lips are sealed. I don’t know where this is going, and I’m so mad with myself that I want to chop off my own head for being a coward.
“Amazing memories,” he sighs. “I really loved those losers. I mean they wanted you to leave the asylum and succeed. They rooted for you.”
“Stop playing games, Pillar,” I stand up for myself. “What kind of magic did you use to stop me from killing you?”
“Oh,” he looks so mischievously innocent for a second. “You wanted to kill me?” he leans over, resting both hands on his cane. “Really, Alice?”
“I know I have to. At least to help me see clearer without the games you keep playing.”
“I’ve never played games,” he leans back. “I did what’s necessary to help you find your purpose.”
“Which is?”
“Knowing who you are, Alice. Trust me, that's what everyone wants in life.”
“I know who I am. Do you?”
“I do,” he tilts his head with a snicker. “The question is do you ? Can you fight the Jabberwocky? Did you learn enough to know how to do it? Did you pay attention to the lesson you supposedly learned every mission you went to save lives?”
Again and again, I have no idea what he is talking about. Why can’t I just kill him?
“I’m not who you want to kill,” he says. “The Reds fooled you.”
“Why would they?”
“Jabberwocky sent them to kill you, but they saw your sword—and also saw it in your eyes.”
“Saw what in my eyes?”
“Saw that you’ve grown, enough to deserve the sword in your hand.”
“How do they know that from my eyes?”
The Pillar wiggled his eyebrows again and took a deep ashen breath. I guess it’s no different from his hookah smoke. That’s why he can tolerate it in concentrated quantities. “It’s that look that we call ‘growing up.’”
“Oh yeah? You think I grew up? I’m a bit too young for that.”
“Age isn’t quite an accurate measurement for adulthood. It’s what you experience that makes you older, not the barcode in your passport,” he says. “A few weeks ago you cared whether you were mad or not, whether you were doing the right thing or not. Hell in heavens, a few weeks ago you still cared about your past and held it like a chip on your shoulder, not knowing that the past has passed . It doesn’t matter. We all messed up in the past, or there would’ve been no point in the future.”
I hate that I like his words. I hate myself for liking him. “Back to the subject,” I break through his hypnotizing stare. “The Reds were sent by Jabberwocky to kill me?”
“He is kinda worried you can hurt him,” the Pillar nods. “He’s always avoided this ending. That’s why he never attacked you himself.”
“Why?”
“I guess it has to do with both of you crossing over through the Looking Glass. He saw you raging and was secretly scared of you.”
“That doesn’t sound like an impressive villain. It would make a bad movie to have a cowardice villain like him. I thought he was the devil himself.”
“He might be,” the Pillar smirks. “Did you ever notice the devil’s greatest trick was using others to do the work for him?”
I nod. It makes sense. “So the Reds were sent to kill me and saw I will fight back, then?”
“They saw my limousine and decided to deal a last card in their boss’s favor,” he explains. “Tell you that you should kill me.”
“How would they benefit from me killing you?”
The Pillar looks offended as if I should utterly get it. “Really, Alice?”
“Really, Pillar. Answer me.”
“You’re weaker without me, Alice.” He says it bluntly, unapologetically, in a tone that’s neither serious or happy. He is just reciting a fact.
And he is damn right.
Whoever he is, whatever his intentions are, and whatever darkness lurks in his past, he has always been the father whom I’ve never had. It’s hard to admit but it’s true.
But I don’t make a big deal of it. My own hands betrayed me after all. I take a moment to think. All I need is more info to understand what’s going on.
“What do you know about the phrase, ‘I remember tomorrow!’?”
“So you talked to the March,” he says. “Did you unlock his mind with the six keys?”
“Should I assume you don’t know yet what the six keys are?”
He shakes his head into a no. It’s ironic how the rare moment the Pillar says the truth shows on his face. It’s like he truly becomes human for a second. Like he is capable of emoting in all honesty.
“The cap on his head,” I tell him. “The six keys have been in front of our eyes all the time.”
He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t think it’s ironic. I think he is mad at himself for never figuring it out. “That’s…” he searches for words. “frustratingly genius on Lewis’ behalf, so genius I rather regret giving him the mushrooms to forget.I assume the bolts simply unlocked his memory—that’s why Black Chess planted a light bulb in his head at some point.”
I nod in agreement. “He told me all about the Looking Glass. Lewis, Jabberwocky, and I crossing over and—“
“I know the story.”
“But you never told me.”
“There is a lot I’ve never told you. Tell me what he told you about the children? How do we save them from Jabberwocky.”
“He was sort of cryptic about it, or he didn’t have enough time,” I explain. “The mushrooms erupted and he fell. I lost him.”
“Is he dead?”
“Could be,” I imitate the Pillar’s bluntness, avoiding the guilty emotions of killing everyone around me—even if by accident. “All I know is that I should fight the Jabberwocky like Lewis predicted in his book, and then it will be shown to me how to save them.”
He nods absently, rather in disappointment. “I remember tomorrow means…”
This is when someone shouts my name in the distance and interrupts this crucial information.
“Alice!” the woman’s voice shrieks. “Don’t let him fool you!”
Oh. My. God.
It’s Fabiola.
“You should have killed him!”