“That’s why we need to see her in the cage one more time.” Edith pushes me harder, the cage against my back now. “Come on, Mary Ann. Entertain us one last time.”
Edith’s push does something to me. Something I was looking for all along: I remember them torturing me in the basement now. Vividly.
It’s an even worse memory than remembering the Mush Room torture. The humiliation. Their friends they invited over to laugh at me. The worst memory a person can relive.
But one thing strikes me the most. In that memory I’m gripping something behind my back. Something I don’t want them to see. I can feel it in my hand. It’s cold. And small.
“Get in the cage!” Edith roars now.
I close my eyes and don’t respond to her. My closed eyes are the draped curtain of my theatre of life, but they also open up another place in my memory when I was seven years old.
What was I holding in my hand back then that was important to me?
I can remember I didn’t care about the pain. I only cared about that thing I was gripping.
What was it?
Then I remember seeing buckets in the corner of the room. A lot of cleaning tools next to them. What did I do with those buckets?
Risking the loss of my precious memory, I open my eyes, seeing if the buckets are still in the corner of the room right now.
They are!
Something inside me tells me I hid that precious thing in the back of my head in one of the buckets. Something tells me that this is what all this is about.
I am supposed to find what’s in the bucket.
Edith and Lorina freak out when I aggressively beeline through them toward the buckets. I pull them out of the corner and rummage through them, having no idea what I am looking for, but knowing I will recognize it when I see it.
“What?” Lorina says behind me. “You missed your buckets, Mary Ann?”
“My buckets?” I turn back. “They are mine? Did they mean something to me?”
“The whole world.” Edith rolls her eyes.
“What do you mean?” I insist. “Why did I have them?” I can’t tell them about what I think I hid inside, because I’m somehow sure they shouldn’t know about it.
If only I could remember it clearer now. If only!
“Here.” Lorina holds a broom with the tips of her hand. “Yuck. Hold this.” She gives it to me.
The broom is old. I don’t know why it should mean anything to me. “What is this?” I shout then take a step forward and almost choke Lorina with one hand. “Tell me what’s going on. What do these buckets mean to me?”
“They were—” Lorina is choking under my grip, so I turn to Edith.
“They were tools,” Edith says.
“Tools for what?”
“Cleaning tools, duh!” Edith says. “Let my sister go.”
I do. I loosen my grip, and Lorina slumps to the floor.
But I don’t even bother. Cleaning tools?
“Yes, Alice.” Edith glares at me. “You were homeless. You were mad. You thought you came from Wonderland. You told us about that stupid circus. And we made fun of you as a kid. And guess what, you were also the maid!”
Both of them laugh at me again.
“That’s why you loved your buckets, soaps, and brooms.” Lorina’s voice is sour, but challenging. “Along with your crazy Alice books. You came to us in that dress you wore. Mum wanted to make you one of our sisters, but we insisted you stay the maid you probably were from wherever you came from. Mary Ann the maid.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, but I try to forget about them. Because my childhood couldn’t have been such a wreck. My existence, mad or not, must have a reason. A noble cause.
I kneel down and look for that damn thing in the buckets. What is it? Please make it something that brings back some of my dignity, my sanity.
And there it is, right in front of me.
I knew it.
I knew that my existence in this world must have a reason.
Chapter 71
Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford
Time remaining: 39 minutes
I am staring at a golden key that looks exactly like the one Lewis Carroll gave me in the Tom Tower dream.
One of the six keys to Wonderland. The Six Impossible Keys.
Why I hid it here, I can’t remember. All I know is that it’s one of the six keys, and that as a child I hid this one here, for one reason or another. It meant the world to me, and was worth the humiliation I went through.
“What did you find?” Lorina demands.
I push her hand away.
Edith swings and misses my head as I duck an inch, or less. Time for some None Fu again.
I pull Edith’s arms and swing her whole body as if she were my own baseball bat against the wall. She sticks like a fat piece of fresh meat for a moment, her eyes rolling back, then slides down into my buckets.
Lorina surprises me with a kick in the back.
“Take this, $%$#@!” she shouts.
I find my body plastered against the wall. She kicks me once again in my lower back and I drop to my knees, drooling.
How come this Barbie doll is that strong?
When I turn to face her, I see she has unfolded her fan again. For the first time I notice how edgy it is. It could cut like a knife.