Present: The Wonderland War, London
“S o the children reading books is what keeps Lewis alive?” I ask Constance after hearing her story about how they survived the bus.
“Keep us alive,” Constance says. “And hopefully the whole world.”
I take my time to comprehend things. When I was in the asylum I used to read some books to kill time. I remember I hated when people in the books died and came back. I always thought it was an author’s cop-out. But in this — if this is real life — I like it.
“The question is,” I say but Constance shushes me.
“The question is what are we going to do with this gift of resurrection.” She says.
“Kill the Jabberwocky,” I had told her about what the March told me.
Constance nods in agreement. “And only you can do it, bad girl,” she jokingly touches my cheeks. “You and your Vorpal sword.”
We’re jogging the streets while we’re talking. We have become accustomed to the chaos and deaths all around us. Escaping mushrooms and falling buildings has grown as mundane as in a video game.
I notice something though. It’s not only mushrooms that grow all around us, but also plants. Huge Tiger Lilies and more.
Those flowers bring back memories I hadn’t remembered in a long time — I assume so, at least.
Memories of me and Jack walking hand in hand in Wonderland.
Among the mushrooms and talking plants.
I never thought I knew him that long.
“Where are we going?” Constance asks.
“To find the Jabberwocky,” I say. “I had a scooter a while ago and now it’s gone missing. We have to run until we find a vehicle.”
“How are you going to find the Jabberwocky?”
“I have no idea. My best — and fastest — guess is the Reds.”
“What about them?”
“They tried to kill me earlier, and then tried to fool me into killing the Pillar. They did it to spare the Jabberwocky confronting me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m not sure about anything. I’m trying to go with the flow,” I take her hand and detour farther from the growing plants. I have a bad feeling about their long sharpened green vines. I don’t remember them looking like that in Wonderland. “Come with me.”
“So you think if we kidnap a Red, he can lead us to Jabberwocky?” She asks.
“Wow. You read my mind.”
“It’s actually the only thing that came to mind,” she looks suspiciously behind her.
“What’s going on?”
“I think someone’s following us.”
“I think it’s the plants,” I tell her. “I have a bad feeling about them.”
“Yeah. Where did they come from? I thought it was only mushrooms rising up from the ground.”
“I thought so too. The March said nothing about plants with razor-sharp thorns.”
“Maybe we should find the March.”
“I thought about it, but look around, Constance. Where will we find him?”
“Like you found me.”
“You found me.”
“But you went to the bus first.”
“That’s what I meant by not finding the March. You, I knew where to look for you. The March fell off some mushroom.”
“I see,” she says, running off with me.
“So who were you really talking to on the bus?”
“No one,” I squeeze her hand. “Forget it.”
“I thought someone sounded like you on the bus. I heard the word Malice.”
“Nothing, Constance. Trust me. I talk to myself sometimes when I’m stressed.” I’m not going to scare her and tell her my darkest side came out. I’m not going to tell that I suspect the mushroom incident allows us to separate our darker selves as physical beings. It will scare her.
Besides, I have no proof I wasn’t hallucinating. Or else why did Malice escape when Constance arrived?
“Tell me about you,” I change the subject.
“What about me, Alice?”
“Why separate from the others?”
She takes some time to answer. I’m not sure if it is intentional or not. I’m looking ahead to avoid the plants.
“I panicked,” she says. “Resurrections struck me as mad, and I left the bus running, thinking this was the afterlife.”
“Poor girl. I’m glad you’re alive. At some point, we should find the others. I just don’t want to waste time. I wonder why they didn’t come looking for you, but I assume everyone deals with their own problems in different ways.”
“You said you saw Fabiola.”
“Yeah. She didn’t tell me how you survived, but her story makes sense. She wanted to kill the Pillar. I left her chasing him.”
“I think we should find Jack.”
I tense. “Stop asking me to find others. Do you think I don’t want to find Jack? We have no time for sentiments. Once you spot a Red, tell me and I will get him to tell me where to find the Jabberwocky.”
Constance reverts to silence and I don’t want to look at her to know how she is feeling. I’m being hard on her, and myself, but I can’t be distracted from my purpose.
A memory of Jack attacks me.
We’re still holding hands in puppy lovey Wonderland. As we walk and dance, I find myself suddenly stop in my tracks, so does Jack. I’m not sure why, but I think I’m staring at some dark shadow next to me. The Jabberwocky.
I can’t see him but I feel it. Suddenly Jack disappears and I’m alone facing the dark man himself.
“Look!” Constance screams as she pulls me down.
I duck, snapping out of my memory, and looking at where she is pointing.
We see the plants attacking people all over the streets. If the mushrooms brought down buildings, the plants are the assassins for the end of the world.
Their long snappy vines swing all over like Godzilla’s tail and cut everything in half. People, their heads, their arms, and even cracked parts of the building and cars.
“What the hell is this?” I am talking to myself.
Constance is shivering next to me. I haven’t seen her as scared before. “I can fight Reds and dark souls and everything that comes my way, but how can we fight this Alice?”
She has a point. This is not nonsense or madness. This is pure death in the shape of plants coming out of the ground.
You can fight humans, animals, and even fight yourself, but how can you fight nature. It has no soul. Doesn’t spare. It’s unpredictable, and it has been here before all of us, so it has the mother-load of advantages. Sometimes I think we, humans, are strangers to this earth. At some point, we came and settled.
But these plans? They’ve been here since day one. They’ve created this place.
Constance and I drop flat on our backs and watch a huge plant sweep an inch above us. Wails and screams escalate everywhere. Blood drops from the vines edge down my face. Blotches of dark red from the sky.
We roll onto our sides on our way to escape. I hold onto my sword. It occurs to me to cut through the plant, but who knows if it will work? What happens if you miss killing the devil? He will haunt you for the rest of your life.
Once we find space with no overhead plants, we stand up and run as fast as we can.
“There must be an explanation to all of this,” I shout.
“What are you talking about, Alice. Run!”
“First the mushrooms, but then plants invading the world and killing everyone,” I talk in chopped syllables. “Where do they come from?”
“It’s the end of the world,” Constance reasons while ducking under an arch of a building. “It’s like raging seas or meteors.”
“It doesn’t make sense, Constance. Someone knew the mushrooms would erupt. Someone almost knew the date. And they aren’t just a sign of the times. They are growing everywhere and now plants kill everyone. This is an invasion.”
“Stop it, Alice. Just run,” she begs me. “You’re hallucinating. Plants are invading the world, trust me. It’s just the end of the world.”
I don’t reply to her. I have an idea in my head. Something just hit me.
The Looking Glass.
The dark man in my past in Wonderland.
The fight between light and dark.
Between the Inklings and Black Chess.
It just hit me.
“Constance!” I stop running. “I know what’s happening.”
Constance stops reluctantly, looking sideways for attacking plants. “What, Alice? Why do you want me to stop?”
“This isn’t a fight between Black Chess and Inklings. Not a fight between good and bad. Not between Alice and the Jabberwocky.”
Constance closes her eyes, her lips twitch and she sighs, “Then what the freaking heck is it, Alice?”
“I know what the mushrooms and plants are for. This is a war between fa—“
My words stay in my mouth as I watch a plant curl like a snake around Constance’s leg and pull her away into the labyrinth of the ashen-colored, mushroom infested London.