I rummage further through the huge drawer. Far in the back, I find a pair of white gloves. They are small, maybe belonging to a ten-or eleven-year-old. One of the gloves is a bit heavy. There is something inside. I delve into it, and I find a small cell phone.
I push the ON button and look through the contact list. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. But there are no contacts. So what’s the point of it being in there?
Did I miss something? Finding the gloves in the drawer, and the phone inside, is enough evidence that I am following the clues the way the Hatter planned.
Then I hear a beep. It’s a message. No, it’s a picture. I tap my feet impatiently, waiting for it to load while I try to keep an alert ear in case one of my sisters decides to enter the room all of a sudden.
While the picture loads, the phone shows a rabbit late for an important date, running around a green garden.
I have only six minutes to go.
The picture finally loads.
When I see it, I clap my hand on my mouth, suppressing a shriek. My stomach churns. I can’t believe what I am looking at.
Chapter 16
Downstairs, Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford, 10:56 a.m.
Down in the open kitchen, Edith Wonder was chopping carrots to make salad. She almost cut herself when her phone rang. But Edith didn’t worry. As long as she wore her plastic gloves, it was unlikely she would get hurt. She had always used those gloves when chopping. They helped protect her from cutting herself. Or, at least, they lessened the wounds.
Edith pulled her gloves off and picked up her phone. She read the message. Her face began to twitch. Having seen a lot of mad things in her life, surprising her wasn’t easy anymore. But this message was different. Calling it scary was an understatement. It meant that someone knew one of her family’s biggest secrets.
Edith put the phone down and watched Lorina breathe on her recently manicured fingernails while watching TV. A reality show about teenagers aspiring to become professional models.
Looking over Lorina’s shoulder, Edith sighed. She was staring at an invisible memory. A seven-year-old Alice Wonder standing by the door with a glinting knife in her hand, blood trickling from her dress.
A recurring and haunting memory.
Usually Edith couldn’t see Alice’s face clearly in this memory. She always wondered why. Maybe because she wanted to suppress that horrible event and leave it behind.
The easiest way to deal with maddening events had always been neglect, as if nothing ever happened.
Edith snapped herself out of it, still remembering how Alice had tried to fool her last time, when she sent that girl from the Drury Lane Theatre to search her room for clues about the bus accident. Did that girl find anything important? It was unlikely. Lorina and Edith had cleaned the room of major clues years ago. They had only left Alice's clothes and toys, at the request of their too sentimental mother.
Alice was looking for clues of her past in the wrong direction anyway. But it still bothered Edith—it wasn’t exactly the accident that gave away the truth; it was an older memory suppressed under the burden of shock therapy and medications in Alice’s mind.
What if Alice found out the truth? Lorina’s mind was churning.
Alice Wonder was meant to stay in the asylum, busy with her shock therapies, drugs, and sessions. She wasn’t supposed to have enough strength—or time—for detective work. How did she even get out of the asylum? Someone must have been helping her. But who?
And now, there was this message Edith had just received.
“Lorina?” Edith said.
“Hmm?” Lorina was still watching the show while waving a small fan at her fingernails instead of breathing on them.
“I just received a strange message.”
“Delete it,” Lorina said nonchalantly. “Unless they’re messages from cute boys—I delete messages all the time. Mum’s on top of the list.”
“This is different,” Edith said. “You need to pay attention.”
“I am.” Lorina pointed at the TV. “Did this girl really think she could become a model? In a barn, maybe.”
“The message says”—Edith shrugged—“‘I know about the Event.’”
Lorina stopped whatever she was doing. Turned around without the slightest hint of worry. Lorina had always been the opposite of her sister. “Just that?” Lorina cocked her head.
“What do you mean ‘just that’?” Edith began chopping carrots again, trying to silence her inner sirens of anxiety. “Very few people know about the circus.”
“It says 'the Event' but not the other word, right?"
"Are we supposed to wait for the other word? Why would someone send me such a message?”
“Hmm... Do you recognize the sender’s number?”
“Anonymous.” Edith chopped faster. “Can’t call back. It’s weird.”
“It could be a prank.” Lorina shook her shoulders.
“It seems un”—chop—“like”—chop chop—“ly.” Chop chop chop.
Edith accidentally cut herself. She wasn’t wearing the gloves this time. She dropped the knife but didn’t care to wash her hand. The pain could wait.