She throws it at me; it swirls and slices through the air before it reaches me, neck level.
I find myself catching it with a firm grip, right at a spot without blades.
“Learned a lot in your None Fu training, huh,” Lorina says.
I say nothing to her, but threaten to throw the fan back at her while running in her direction. Lorina thinks I am going to try to cut her with the fan’s blades, but I am not a killer. I won’t stain my hands with the blood of scumbag bullies.
I keep treading with fiery eyes, happy to see the horror in hers. I keep pushing her until she falls backward into the cage through the opening where they wanted to trap me a while ago.
I watch her trip backward and lock her inside.
“How does it feel standing inside the circus now?” I say. “How does it feel to be the clown?”
Lorina starts pleading and playing good sister with me, like last time. Thankfully, I have learned my lesson. I won’t be fooled.
I stare at the key in my palm and smile. Now I have two keys. I think this is my real journey. To collect the Six Impossible Keys to Wonderland—for what reasons, or cause, I have no idea.
But just when I think I have it all under control, I sense someone standing behind me. I turn to face them, thinking it will be Edith.
But it’s not.
It’s a man with a long hat, and teacups dangling from his black tuxedo.
Chapter 73
Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford
Time remaining: 22 minutes
“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” the Hatter says, although I can’t see his face—he wears a funny mask. Not so funny, really, since it’s a clown’s mask.
“Why show yourself now?” I grip my key harder, feeling it has to do something with it.
“Because you did like I planned,” he says. “To the letter.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You made me think I am chasing a rabbit, leading from place to place, so I could remember my past. What’s in it for you?”
“A lot,” he says. “But first let’s look into what happened. They call it the Rabbit Hole, a scientific term, I believe?”
The memory of me sitting in the psychiatry office in the asylum returns. That man in the dark with the smoking pipe telling me I am insane, that I am just a crippled girl living in my own imagination to escape the horrors that happened to me.
I remember he did tell me about the Rabbit Hole, one of the methods to push a patient’s imagination with their backs against the wall until they remembered what they were trying to forget.
“I had to go through all these puzzles, so I can tickle your memory,” the Hatter says. “You’d been in the asylum for so long and hadn’t remembered anything yet, Alice. Time was running out, and I needed you to at least remember one part of your past. A part that interests me the most.”
“My childhood?” I ask.
He says nothing. I think his clown mask is trying to forge a smile. A dark one.
“Ah,” I say. “I get it. You weren’t after my memories. Not really. You were after...”
“This.” He pulls my hand and snatches the key from it in one move. “The first key in six, so I can open the doors to Wonderland again.”
How foolish am I? Really!
“I don’t care about you at all,” the Hatter says. “I only care about the keys, which I believe Carroll hid with you, and then you hid them in separate places in this real world. Let’s say it wasn’t hard getting this one.”
I realize this Hatter is much stronger than me. I can’t get this key back. But I also realize he doesn’t know Lewis gave me a key before, in the Tom Tower dream. So, if it’s any consolation, and even if he finds the next four keys, I will always have one he doesn’t know exists.
“I am going to leave now,” he says. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
“What makes you think I won’t stop you?” I step forward.
“Because you still have a rabbit to catch.” He grins. “Haven’t you seen the TV? The world is in a panic because of a tiny rabbit.”
“Because you made them, and me, think there is a bomb inside.”
“Who said that isn’t true?” He pulls off his hat and then a rabbit from underneath, the one ticking with the bomb. “Please take it,” he says. “Figure a way to stop the bomb. You have about eighteen minutes to do that.”
I hug the rabbit in my arms and pat it gently. Poor thing, pushed into a mad world of Wonderlanders.
“And by the way,” the Hatter says. “I wanted to make this as exciting a finale as possible, so I called the police. They are surrounding the house. People are out there everywhere. They all demand the rabbit be killed—choked, or drowned in the river to get rid of the bomb.”
“Why would you do that?” My mouth is agape.
“Why wouldn’t I? What’s the point of life if there isn’t enough madness?” he says. “See you later, Alice. For now, you’re stuck between exploding with the poor rabbit in your arms or giving it away to the people outside so they can kill it themselves. Talk about a paradox.”
Chapter 74