“Cut yourself, sis?” Lorina smiled.
Edith neglected her younger sister’s sinister curiosity, and began rinsing the bleeding finger under the faucet. When she turned around to look for a handkerchief, she found none. But there was something hung on the wall. Something she could use. A dress. One she had long forgotten about. It was of a small size, and it looked old. Dried bloodstains still stuck to it. Edith didn’t want to see that dress. It had been always Lorina’s morbid idea to keep it. Edith sighed and used it to dry her hands, then turned and faced Lorina again. “I think someone knows,” she told her again.
“Knows what exactly?” Lorina said impatiently.
“Someone knows what really happened to Alice.” Edith shrugged.
Chapter 17
Upstairs, Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford, 11:00 a.m.
The picture is actually a live video of a young girl, wearing an Alice-like dress. The girl is sitting among her friends in what seems like a kindergarten. She is holding a white rabbit in her arms. Other kids surrounding her are playing and patting the cute rabbit.
When the rabbit hiccups, it glows slightly red. However, the children seem to think it’s cute. They’re infatuated with the rabbit in the absence of teachers.
I grit my teeth at the Hatter’s cruelty. How can he do this to the children? It’s only five minutes to explosion. My heart sinks into my stomach. I feel this unexplainable haze in my mind, pressuring me again. Should I have taken my medication before leaving the asylum today?
It’s only a moment before my phone beeps again. A written message this time. The sender’s name: the Hatter.
The kids will explode in about five minutes from now. I can reset the bomb, give you another 24 hours to find the bomb, if you do as I say.
Without even thinking, or consulting the Pillar, I message him back. My hands are trembling as I do. The picture of the kids about to be exploded by a rabbit already haunts me.
Stupidly, my phone slips from my anxious finger. It drops to the floor and scatters in pieces. Looking at it, I feel my jaw hurting from the tension in my body. I have screwed up.
What have I done?
The clock on the wall says it’s 11:02 a.m.
Chapter 18
Downstairs, Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford, 11:00 a.m.
“No one knows what we’ve done, Edith.” Lorina picked up a mirror and checked her carefully drawn eyebrows, still sitting on the couch. “Boy, I hate my eyebrows. I mean, I love my eyebrows, but not enough not to hate them. Ugh.”
“How can you be sure that no one knows?” Edith pressed against her wound.
“It’s a mad world, sis.” Lorina plucked a stray hair away. A smile captured her lips, as if she’d conquered Rome. “Even if someone knows, who’d believe them?”
“I don’t know.” Edith sighed, frustrated with her sister’s carelessness. “But...”
“But what?” Lorina was done with her eyebrows. “Listen, sis. You need to get yourself together. Actually, you need to go out on a date, but we’ll talk about that later. Right now, we don’t care if anyone knows. Besides, even if someone does? it’s not like we’re alone in this. A lot of people have got our back. Do you think this mirror is a bit foggy?” She wiped the mirror with the tips of her fingers.
Edith said nothing. She only stared at her younger sister. Outsiders usually considered Lorina the airhead, boyfriend-hungry sister, who’d trip wearing her heals in a party. Little did they know that Lorina was the cruelest creature in the world, even compared to Edith.
“So I shouldn’t worry?” Edith said.
“Damn this mirror.” Lorina plowed it against the wall. She looked like a maniac for a second, but then returned to her Barbie-like look again. She stood up, rubbed her middle finger gently onto her lower lip, and approached Edith. “Sis, you can count on me.” She rested her elbows on the kitchen table, facing Edith. “What we have done in the past stays in the past. We’ve done our part. Others will do theirs. Soon it will all be just fine.” She pulled Edith’s hand up and smoothly wiped the blood away. “Is that the knife?”
Edith nodded silently.
“Well, aren’t you sentimental, keeping such evidence at hand.” Lorina rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t you have destroyed it about twelve years ago?”
“It’s a good knife,” Edith argued. She had no idea why she had kept this knife so long, sharpening it every few months. “You still keep the dress.”
“Ah.” Lorina looked at it. “The housemaid dress. But fair enough. Each of us is keeping a piece of the memory. Blood on the dress. Blood on the knife.” She snickered. “Which reminds me.” Lorina clicked her fingers. “Did you get rid of the girl’s body from last week? The girl from Drury Lane?”
“I did.” Edith snickered, influenced by her sister’s morbidity. Sometimes, Lorina’s ease at doing horrible things was the best way to bond the sisters together.