Family (Insanity Book 7) (12 page)

“Yes, that Alice.” The mother sighed. “Can you believe she thinks Alice is real? The Hatter, too?”

“She said something about the Hatter?”

“Many things. He is her second favorite in the story. She thinks he is the one who really understands Alice.”

“I liked Alice in Wonderland as a child, too,” the Pillar said. “Though I preferred the Caterpillar over the Hatter.”

The woman gave the Pillar an inquisitive look. “Are you going to help Constance?”

“I’ll do my best.”

And then the woman let him inside…

Entering Constance’s room wasn’t much trouble. He’d knocked and told her he was the Caterpillar, the real Caterpillar, and that he’d been friends with Alice and the Hatter. Constance opened the door immediately, and though she didn’t buy into his story, she let him in, rewarding his effort.

“You think I’m insane, too?” Constance said while she continued drawing pictures of Alice on the wall.

The drawings were all of Alice Pleasant Wonder. In a logical world it wouldn’t have made any sense that a seven-year-old introvert would guess how the Real Alice looked.

But Constance wasn’t a normal girl. She was the Inklings’ number six. And she knew it. But she rarely told anyone, because who’d believe her?

“I do think you’re insane.” The Pillar sat on the only sofa in the room, legs resting over one another.

Constance grimaced, and thought of telling him to leave.

“But I love insane people,” the Pillar said. She smiled shyly. “Insane people are the smartest.” He leaned forward as if they were old friends with a life-long secret. “They know things that others don’t know.”

Constance nodded eagerly, but then her faced dimmed. “But the others think they are the ones who are sane.”

“How would the insane know they’re insane?” The Pillar waved a hand. “Don’t bother. Just believe in yourself.”

“You know something?” She leaned forward, too. “I think you really are the Caterpillar.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “But you told me you didn’t believe me when I was at the door.”

“I was afraid I’d scare you away. I mean, I knew you were trying to be funny and play along. But you are the Caterpillar. Just like many other Wonderlanders I meet. They don’t know they are Wonderlanders.”

“Hmm…” The Pillar rubbed his chin, thinking deeply. “So Wonderland is real, right?”

“Always has been. I’ve seen you there, but you weren’t a good man.”

“Really?” The Pillar squealed in a funny manner, so she wouldn’t fear him. “Aren’t you afraid of me then?”

“I’m not, because you don’t remember that you were evil. You don’t even remember that you’re the Real Caterpillar.” She snickered playfully, cupping a hand on her mouth.

“So not all Wonderlanders remember, huh?”

“I do. But can’t find anyone else who does.” She looked sad. “I’m an Inkling.”

“Ink-what?”

“Inkling. We’re Lewis Carroll’s army. We used to fight the bad people.”

“And what happened then?”

“It’s a long story, but we were transported to this world. So were the bad guys.”

“Then how come you remember who you are?”

“Because I’m strong.” She flexed her right arm’s muscle in a playful way.

“Come on,” the Pillar teased her. “You’re tiny and short. You’re only seven. You can’t be strong.”

“You don’t understand. Lewis made me strong.”

“How so?”

“Okay, listen.” Constance gave it a thought, as if trying to find the right angle from which she could make him understand. It’s as if she was worried the Pillar wasn’t smart enough to get the picture. “Do you remember the photographs Lewis Carroll took of the children?”

“Of course.”

“Those girls were his power. Some kind of spell.”

“Spell?”

“Lewis knew he’d die after he’d hidden the Six Keys, and…”

“Wait a second,” the Pillar said. “You know about the Six Keys, Constance?”

She nodded silently, her eyes concealing the rest of what she knew.

“Do you know where they are?”

She shook her head.

“Come on, Constance. You’re a terrible liar.”

“Trust me, I don’t know. I just know that Lewis hid them, then chewed a flower that forced him to forget where he did.”

The Pillar wasn’t convinced, but he decided he could postpone looking into the Six Keys for now. He was here for a most important question.

“Never mind,” he said. “Tell me about the girls he photographed and the spell.”

“Lewis knew he was dying soon, but he wanted his spirit to live on,” she began. “Through the photographs, he created a bond with life through the children’s love for him. As long as the photos survived, it was unlikely that his spirit would die in the future.”

“That’s why he needed so many, right?”

“Right. But later, when the Alice in Wonderland books became a bestseller, he didn’t need the pictures anymore.”

“Why not?” the Pillar wondered.

“Because the many children who read his books and loved them granted his spirit the ability to live on. It’s the power of love through books. A reader’s mind, when stimulated and provoked, rewards the author with such love so strong that their spirit may live forever.”

“Understood.” The Pillar nodded. “But where do you fit in all of this?”

“I have the spirit of every girl he photographed in me,” Constance announced proudly. “That’s why I am strong, and that’s why I look different now from when I was in Wonderland. Every few years I change my look to be like one of the girls in the photographs.”

“Oh.” The Pillar had never heard about the spell before, but Lewis had been a man of many secrets, so he wasn’t surprised. What mattered was knowing that Constance still remembered who she was herself out of being so many girls inside one body. This made her an unusual little girl, and a strong one.

Now, the Pillar needed to ask her the question he’d come for. He’d already guessed the answer through Constance’s behavior, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“Who is that girl in the pictures you’re drawing, Constance?” the Pillar asked.

“That’s Alice.”

“How did you remember her features so well?”

“Because she’d been my friend back in Wonderland.”

“But I know a girl in this life who looks just the same. You think it’s her, too?”

“The one in the asylum?”

Constance’s words shook him. He wondered what kind of powers Lewis had granted the little child. “Yes, that one.” The Pillar smiled.

“She just doesn’t remember much after the accident.”

“The bus?”

Constance nodded eagerly.

“Do you know what exactly happened on the bus? Do you know why she had to kill everyone on it?”

Constance continued her nods and told the Pillar why. The Pillar listened carefully and then asked her another question. “So here is my final question, Constance, but you have to really pay attention because lives will be counting on your answer.”

“I know what you want to ask me,” she said. “And the answer is yes, the girl in the asylum is the Real Alice.”

The Pillar leaned back and let out a long sigh. He was finally ready to start this journey. He kissed Constance on the head and left to go to the asylum.

Chapter 47

The Vatican, present day

The man in the black suit watched Angelo through the keyhole in the door. Angelo had gulped down the whiskey bottle he’d given him hours ago and lost control. He’d been playing James Brown’s
I Feel Good
and dancing to it alone in the room.

“This is a disaster,” the man in black told another man in black standing next to him.

“You shouldn’t have given him the whiskey.”

“I thought he was tense and wanted to help him ease up before his speech.”

“What are we going to do now? The crowd is awaiting the new pope.”

“And not just any new pope.” The man in black sighed. “The one we’ve been counting on for more than two hundred years.”

“I’d say one of us acts as if we’re Angelo.”

“No. It has to be Angelo. This is a prophecy. It has to be him.”

“So you want the new pope to do a James Brown number to the masses? Good luck with that.”

“I’m not sure what to do. Maybe wait a little.”

“Until?”

“The whiskey wears off.” The man in black sighed again. “We have no other choice. We have to be patient. Today is a day that will be remembered all throughout history.”

Chapter 48

The Radcliffe Asylum

I’m baffled listening to Constance telling me about who she is and about her powers. It’s not quite clear to me how she is the embodiment of every girl Lewis has ever photographed, but it’s something I’m willing to understand later. What needs clarification is how I saw another girl in Fabiola’s vision.

“Like I told you, it’s a trick of perception.” Constance is cute, but determined. She has a sense of unusual sarcasm to her tone, and she treats adults as if they’re stupid. “Do you even remember the face of the girl you saw in your vision?”

“No, I don’t.” I can’t understand why yet.

“That’s it. It’s like dreaming. Most people can’t recall the stranger’s face they encounter in their dreams. Fabiola’s vision did that to you.”

“Then why do I remember every other face I saw?”

“Because you’ve already known them in real life,” she says. “And because I’m not one girl. I’m all of Lewis Carroll’s girls in one.”

“That’s odd, Constance.”

“It is. What’s odder is that my face changes through the years. Can you imagine being seven-years-old for two hundred years?”

“I can’t, really. But I assume Lewis had a plan for you.”

“Of course he had. Part of it was to fly under the radar of Black Chess.”

“What do you mean?”

“All this time they’ve known me as an Inkling. That small helpless girl who draws Alice in Wonderland images on the wall. This led them to neglect me and underestimate my powers.”

“Which are?”

“Coming to save you, for instance. That’s only part of the secrets I hold.” She prided herself.

“But why didn’t you tell me when I first met you?”

Constance’s face changed. She looks sideways and begins whispering in my ear. “I will tell you later.”

“Why?” I whisper back, being playful and childish, which she seems not to like.

“Don’t talk to me as if I were a child.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m not comfortable with telling you everything now, because there is a chance we have a traitor among us. Let’s escape this place first.”

It is my intention to insist on knowing more, but then Tom points at the TV screen. Outside the Pillar is approaching the crowd. It’s an important moment. A heavy one. The Mushroomers behind me consider him heroic by giving himself up and letting Constance in. Tom is still skeptical and thinks the Pillar may have fooled us by faking his way out of the situation.

As for me, I don’t know what to think. But there is this ball of fire flaming in my chest. I think the only way to put it out is to either watch the Pillar die or kill him myself.

Chapter 49

Outside the Asylum

In the eyes of the public, the Pillar and his Mushroomers looked as insane as The Three Stooges were. With their blankets covering them like two-cent beggars, they trudged with reluctance toward the police outside, along with the rest of the crowd. The scene should have been intense — the police capturing the most wanted terrorist in the world — but it was absurdly comical at best.

“Right now we’re witnessing a most memorable moment in history,” said the BBC reporter sent to cover the situation in the field. “It almost reminds one of Osama Bin Laden. Killa da Pilla might be worse, or, at least, the modern version of a terrorist in our age.”

Behind her the crowd had been chained into a breath-taking silence. So intense that whispers were very audible.

“Look at his eyes,” a woman told her friend. “Look at the hatred in his eyes.”

“And that suit,” her friend replied. “He is a lunatic.”

Nonchalantly, the Pillar wheeled himself forward with one hand, the other smoking a pipe. He strolled like a man who’d just woken up and was ready for his first shot of caffeine of the day. He also smiled, provocatively. Grinning at the cameras.

“You don’t have the right to smoke. You’re a criminal,” a police officer stopped him, pointing his gun at him.

“Oh,” the Pillar said and threw it away, only to pull out a banana from his pocket. “Nothing against peeling bananas though, right?”

The officer hesitated. “I’m not sure. I will have to check the regulations on that.”

“Don’t bother,” said the Pillar. “I’ll have it finished before you finish your bureaucratic check. Could you tell the Queen I want to speak to her before the police take me to jail?”

The officer hesitated again, but the Queen had heard. With a smug look on her face she signaled for the Pillar to approach.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” The Pillar clapped his hands free and threw away the banana peel. He began wheeling himself closer.

“Remember that all the guns are pointed at you, Pillar,” the Queen reminded him.

“I’m as harmless as a squirrel. Don’t worry. May my fellow terrorists approach, too?”

“Not them,” she said. “Once I hear what you have to say, they’ll be handcuffed and shipped to the worst prison in the world. As will you.”

“I’m humbled with your generosity, Your Majesty.” The Pillar advanced more.

The Queen knew something was off. She didn’t quite get the Pillar’s act. Why would he confess to being a terrorist? Why would he not burst out in public and tell them about Wonderland?

But she didn’t mind. The public wouldn’t believe any of this nonsense. The public wanted a cold-served revenge.

The Pillar stopped too close, so much so that her guards and the police tensed with their guns.

“That’s enough,” she said. “What do you have to say to the public? Do you want to admit your crime and ask for forgiveness?”