“So humans didn’t just call us mad then,” the Queen said. “They thought of us as a plague. And our plague, or disease, was an invisible one that affected our brains and had no well-known cure. Thus, the Invisible Plague.”
Tom let out a sigh. Now his suspicion about the names of the people on the list was confirmed. Each and every one of them had been mad once. True, most of them were of notable prestige in their countries—senators, mayors, and even people who worked in the White House and the British Parliament. All of them had also been mad at some point in their lives.
How the government hired people who were once mad always boggled his mind.
Tom was sitting among more than two hundred mad lunatics from all over the world. Rich. Famous. Powerful lunatics.
“Now, you understand why I have summoned you to this meeting,” the Queen said. “We’re all the same, whether some of you were a Wonderlander once, or just labeled mad in this world.” Her gaze intensified. “And you know what humans do to those of the Invisible Plague. You know what happens to you when you’re called mad in this world.”
Tom scratched his head. What was she talking about?
“I’m not talking about asylums and straitjackets,” the Queen said. “I’m talking about the atrocities humans committed against those who needed help instead of being called ‘mentally retarded.’ I am talking about what humans have done to the likes of us in the past. I’m talking about the...”
She raised her hands in the air, and with them the crowd stood up. The mad crowd from all over the world, saying the same words in unison, as if it were a ritual: “You’re talking about what happened to us in the circus.”
Chapter 56
The circus
Time remaining: 7 hours, 00 minutes
Before I can comprehend what Waltraud and Ogier are doing here, several people are pushed into the cage.
The crowd is screaming. I grit my teeth against their squeals. All of them stand up and clap, blocking my view.
I am going crazy. Who is in the cage below?
I try to look, but the crowd won’t let me. Furiously, I jump outside the tier to the small aisles. I still can’t see those in the cage, so I descend the rows barefoot, the image clearer with each step down.
This can’t be true.
This can’t be true.
This can’t be true.
I see Lewis Carroll holding the bars of the cage from inside, pleading for mercy.
What is going on? I run faster.
Then I see Duchess Margaret Kent behind him. Everyone is booing and throwing cotton candy at her.
I run closer.
I see the Queen of Hearts, her hands cuffed as she screams at the crowd. Then I see the Muffin Man. The March Hare.
Oh my God. What’s going on?
“Please don’t,” Lewis says to the crowd. “You don’t understand. They’re just different. They won’t hurt you.”
I am a few steps away from the cage when I see Fabiola in the back, crying herself to death. Then there is Jack.
Jack!
I grip the cage. “What’s going on, Jack?”
“You shouldn’t be here, Alice,” Jack shouts at me, cotton candy sticking to his face. “Run!”
“I won’t run, Jack.” The scene is overwhelming. I’m going to cry. I realize that almost everyone from Wonderland is inside the cage. “Tell me how I can help.”
“Run, Alice!” Lewis yells. “Run!”
I turn and look at the supposedly sane people of the world, shouting and discriminating against those behind the cage. Men, women, and their children. Where in the world does such madness come from? Why do they hate them so much?
As answers form slowly in my cloudy head, the ringmaster spells it out for me.
“Look at those freaks!” he announces. “Aren’t they funny? Aren’t they amusing? Aren’t they disgusting?”
Freaks? Is that what humans thought of the Wonderlanders when they crossed over to their world? Because they looked and acted differently?
“Those mad, mad, mad creatures!” the ringmaster says. “Hit them with your cotton candy. Laugh at that grinning cat. Amuse yourself with this short freak that thinks she’s a queen. Entertain yourself with the silly jokes of the man with the hat who throws tea parties and always thinks it’s six o’ clock.” He points at someone with a long hat. I can’t see his face in the shadows, but I’m assuming he is the Mad Hatter.
Suddenly, the crowd is given teacups, and they start throwing them at the Mad Hatter.
They laugh at them.
My head veers between those thought of as mad, freaks in the cage, and those supposedly sane people throwing cups at them.
“Stop it!” I scream at the crowd. “Who the heck do you think you are? It’s not them who’re freaks. It’s you!”
Then I realize my mistake.
Everything stops as they stare at me.
Chapter 57
Meeting Hall, Buckingham Palace, London