Present: Ferris Wheel, London
“W hoa!” the Pillar clapped his weary hands at the sight of Fabiola’s chopped-off head. “The Queen of Hearts would have loved the sight of her sister’s head chopped off.”
The Cheshire said nothing. Even though having killed Fabiola, he felt unusually exhausted and confused. He’d done it on a whim. On a feeling. A cat’s hunch.
“You did good, Cheshire,” the Pillar said. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me a lot,” the Cheshire whipped the deadly hose in the air.
“I forgot,” the Pillar smirked. “Now we have to kill one another. You want to have my face and body for life?”
“So it’s true. Huh?”
The Pillar nodded. “I’m a narcissistic butterfly,” he laced his fingers together and shaped them into a butterfly flying free and breaking all the rules. “I want to live forever.”
“But you couldn’t, so you made a devilish deal with the mirror.”
“The guys in the dark magic departments hadn’t discovered immortality, but they have some messed up spells.”
“And whoever gets your face and body will end up being you somehow?”
“They should end up being their version of me. I don’t really care. My face lives, even when I’m long dead.”
“So, for you, this isn’t about living a long time?”
“I’ve done all I want to do,” the Pillar smiled, almost feebly, as if hiding something, the Cheshire thought.
“The funny thing is, Pillar, is that you’re like me. You don’t really know who you are,” the Cheshire said. “I have no face and couldn’t decide whose to wear—ending up in a Joker’s mask.”
“It sucks, by the way,” the Pillar said.
“And you have a face but don’t know which side you’re on, Black Chess, Inklings, Jabberwocky, Alice.”
“Oh, I know which side I’m on, Cheshire. Don’t be a smartass.”
“Yeah?”
“Mine, you stupid furry nonsense,” the Pillar said. “Look, I’ll let you keep the hose, and even let you kill me whenever you like. I just need one last favor.”
“You mean one more trick. I’m not buying into this.”
“Well, you should trust me after killing Fabiola. How did you know about her?”
“At first, I wanted to stop her from killing you until I’d figured out what to do about your curse, but then her insistence to kill you didn’t make sense.”
“Meaning?”
“I knew she wanted to hurt you. All that choking and stuff, I had a feeling she would never truly kill you. She wanted to test your suffering limits. To punish you for what you did to her.”
“That doesn’t make sense. She wanted to kill me.”
“I’m the Cheshire, Pillar. I’ve been into so many human minds and bodies. I learned that what people say and what they mean are two different things.”
“She doesn’t love me,” the Pillar smiled in a bittersweet way, crooked curves on his lips while shyly brushing the ground with the bottom of his boots.
“Oh, she does,” the Cheshire said. “She wanted an apology for the past, but for some reason, she loved you. Who am I to say why? I’ve never been in love with anybody but with myself.”
The expression on the Pillar’s face puzzled the Cheshire. It was like the Pillar wished the Cheshire was right about Fabiola loving him—and also wished he was wrong.
How the Cheshire wished to know what was going on in the Pillar’s head. What last secret or trick did he keep from the world?
“Anyway,” the Cheshire broke the silence. “That’s when I knew she wasn’t really Fabiola.”
“She isn’t,” the Pillar raised his head, facing the Cheshire. “She is her darker side.”
“I figured that out, because, like I said, the real Fabiola wouldn’t want to hurt you. But how does this work, Pillar? I mean since the Mushrooms popped out of the earth, people have doppelgangers now?”
“Nah, that’s their darker half, Cheshire. It’s a sign of the end of the world. The mushrooms are Wonderland’s way to invade the real-life through a crack in the Looking Glass. Fiction wants to rule over fact, the same way facts repeatedly debunked fiction for years.”
“So the darker side is everyone’s fictional side?”
“You could say that. It’s the duality of life’s nature. Night and Day. Sun and moon. Fact and fiction. Good Fabiola, Bad Fabiola.”
“You know what,” the Cheshire considered. “I think I will let you do that last thing before I whip you to your grave. You’re pretty useful and informative, Pilly — if you don’t mind me calling you that. I can learn a thing or two from you before wearing your face and wrecking havoc all over the world. So what is your last wish before dying?”
The Pillar ran a hand over the skin of his forearms and smiled to himself. It occurred to the Cheshire to ask if the Pillar was going to die from whatever skin disease he had before he enjoyed killing him, but then the Pillar said, “I want to find the Real Fabiola before I die.”
“Tell her you love her?” the Cheshire raised an eyebrow. “You cheeky bastard.”
“None of your nosey business.”
“Okay, let’s go find the love of your life. Though I thought you’d want to find Alice.”
“Alice doesn’t need me. She is strong enough now.”
As they trotted out of the park in the dark, an idea nagged the Cheshire, “So if everyone’s darker side comes alive, how come you and I don’t have doppelgangers, Pilly?”
The Pillar laughed walking next to his nemesis, “Cheshy, Cheshy, Cheshy, when are you going to get it?”
“Get what?”
“You and I, my friend, are already evil and dark enough there is no darker side for us—and before you ask, it’s not reversible, you will not find a goody-all-goods version of the Pillar or the Cheshire walking around. We’re remorseless.”