Margaret watched the guards take him to execution, not really caring for him. “But truth or no truth, My Queen. We need to find a cure.”
“No, we don’t. I changed my mind,” the Queen exclaimed. “The Jub Jub with the cure. I have a better idea.”
“But you said—”
“Don’t interrupt me, Margaret.” Like a monkey, the Queen jumped on her chair again, pointing a finger straight into Margaret’s eyes. “Forget everything I told you about sending someone after the Pillar.”
“Forget about the Pillar?” Margaret thought the Queen had lost her mind—not that she possessed a healthy one in the first place.
“Yes, Margaret. I have a genius plan. One that, if it succeeds, will have me ruling the world.”
Chapter 65
Brazil
The horror I see on the Pillar’s face is scaring me.
And this time, there is no doubt about it. The Executioner is the Pillar’s bogeyman, not matter how he tries to hide it.
“He doesn’t die,” one of the Reds answers in return. “The Scientist never dies.”
“The Scientist is the Executioner?” I am thinking out loud.
The Reds laugh at me, enjoying it a lot. I want to shut them up and tell them they’re nothing more than playing cards.
“That’s impossible,” the Pillar mumbles.
“Even if he didn’t die in the explosion, why send us here?” I tell them.
“And why hide behind the cloak? It’s not like him.” The Pillar desperately wants to step closer, but is held back by the Reds.
“Maybe he’s disfigured from the bomb. Besides, wasn’t he depicted as a card with clubs for a head in Lewis Carroll’s book?” I comment.
But no one answers me, not even the Pillar. A wicked silence fills the room for a while, and then one of the Reds nudges the Executioner, as if to permit him to talk.
Something isn’t right, but I can’t put my hands on it. I remind myself that we’re wasting time here. We only have twenty-four hours left before the plague reaches irreversible measures like Carolus said on TV.
“It doesn’t matter how I survived,” the Executioner says from behind the darkness of his cloak. “I ordered the Reds to bring you to me for a reason.”
“It’s the key, right?” I say. “You want the Wonderland Key. I’ll give it to you if you give me a cure.” I’m lying, of course. I’ll never give him the key, but I have to try my best. I realize it’s funny that I’m lying to get to the truth.
“I don’t want the key,” the Executioner says. “At least not now.”
“Then what do you want?” I am surprised the Pillar isn’t talking. He keeps staring at the Executioner, wanting to pull off the hood.
“I want you to kill Carolus,” the Executioner says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I lied to you. The plague is connected to Carolus’s existence. Kill Carolus, and the world is cured.”
Chapter 66
Alice’s House, Oxford
The Cheshire watched Edith and Lorina Wonder locking themselves with their mother inside the house. The three of them seemed to have been some of the few people who’d never tried the Hookah of Hearts. And only those were the uninfected.
It had taken the Cheshire a long time to reach the Wonders’ house. Not only was it the distance between London and Oxford, but he had to possess an infinite number of souls to get here. The driver, the old woman at the ticket booth, the police officer, and at some he’d had to possess a toddler when his mom turned out to be infected while the Cheshire was possessing her.
“Possessing you is a dirty job but somebody has to do it,” he’d mumbled when he’d had to enter a rat’s soul at the end of his ride.
But he stood outside the Wonders’ house in a police officer’s soul, peeking inside to take a better look at Lorina and Edith Wonder.
The two sisters were definitely on the dark side of evil. But were they who the Cheshire was looking for?
The problem with finding Tweedledum and Tweedledee was that, like Alice, none of them could remember their faces. Why? He had no idea.
All he remembered was how scary the twins were. Two lunatics walking through Wonderland. He also knew they were siblings. Brother and sister? Two brothers or two sisters? He couldn’t remember.
Earlier, he had contacted someone who believed he knew who they were in this world, but that man turned out to be a liar. Now, the Cheshire roamed England, searching for the Tweedles.
Why the Tweedles?
Because only they and the Pillar were said to be able to enter Mushroomland and deal with the Executioner.
The Executioner who had once managed to chop off the Cheshire’s head in Wonderland. If it wasn’t for the Cheshire’s knife right now, he’d be dead and gone.
He stuck his face to the window to take another look at Lorina and Edith. Could they be Tweedledum and Tweedledee?
They sure looked like it. But they weren’t twins.
There was one way to find out. To possess one of them. Because the Cheshire, with all his powers, could never possess a Wonderlander.