“The point is… once you’re alone with him, he is known for messing with people’s minds and convincing them with any ideas he wants to seed in their brains,” Dr. Truckle says. “He always has an agenda, and knows how to read through people’s insecurities. I advise you to stay tied in your straitjacket and as far away as possible from the bars of his cell. Or you'll jeopardize your chances of leaving the asylum."
"I didn’t know I had a chance in the first place.” I stare him right in the eyes, making sure he isn’t lying or playing games.
“I know it’s crazy, but you do,” Dr. Truckle laces his hands together. “Your mother’s lawyer has convinced the court that if the asylum proves you’ve been cured, they will rule out your crimes of killing your classmates.”
“She did that?” So the woman with the name I don’t know must be my mother after all.
“She’s been trying with all her might to help you,” Dr. Truckle says. “If that happens, then you’ve committed the perfect crime in my opinion; killed your classmates, pleaded insanity, got cured, and got your freedom afterwards. That must be every teenager's dream.” He continues, “To believe you're cured, we have to either make sure you’re not fooling us when you say you don’t remember Wonderland, or…”
“Or?”
“Or the Pillar proves you’re sane.” Dr. Truckle rubs his chin.
“How would a madman, serial killer, who dresses as if he is a caterpillar, prove that?”
“By proving that Wonderland is real.” Dr. Truckle’s face suddenly changes, and he begins to laugh at me as he nudges me through the door. I guess he was just messing with my head.
Chapter 13
Tied up in my straitjacket, I walk down the hallway to meet with this Pillar. It's a much cleaner and broader hallway than mine downstairs. All cells are empty. All, except the one with a shimmering yellow light. I hear faint music playing in the background. As I walk closer, I recognize the tune. It's White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. Smoke circles out of the cell as I stop in front of it, ready to meet him. Pillar the Killer himself.
The Pillar's cell is luxurious in a mad way. Its floor is levitated almost a foot above the hallway's floor. It makes it look like a performer's stage. The Pillar is sitting, legs crossed, on a huge couch. He is smoking his hookah with one hand and holding a jar with a butterfly inside with the other. The butterfly crashes against the glass, wanting to be set free. The Pillar doesn't care.
Silence creeps into the place and I don't feel like starting the conversation. The Pillar's eyes scan me in a most unusual way. It's as if he knows me, has known me, and is making sure it's really me. Although mad people don't intimidate me, I feel mysteriously uncomfortable. He has such an unexplainable presence for such a short and average-looking man.
There is a chair in the hall facing the cell. I sit on it, not taking my eyes off him. His eyes are beady as he waves the hookah's hose in the air. He does it like a maestro orchestrating the song’s unusual melody. It takes me a while to discover he is writing words with his hookah's smoke in the air. The smoke magically sticks. It's a question, one that may have been easier for me to answer more than a week ago: "Who are you?"
This isn't happening, right? This is too surreal, even for my insanity.
"I'm not sure who I am," I say, wondering why I feel the need to comply. "People around me seem to have an idea of who I am, though.”
“Who do they think you are?”
“They say I killed my friends." I raise my eyes and stare in his, realizing that in the weirdest of ways, we’re both killers.
"Why haven't I ever thought of that?" he sucks on his hookah.
"Think of what?"
"Killing my friends," he puffs a ring of smoke back into the room. "But then again, you can't kill something you don't have."
“You don't have friends?” I didn’t except him to open up to me. Or, is he?
“Neither have you.”
“Actually, I do.”
“Ah, you must mean your Tiger Lily. A very interesting species,” he sounds either sleepy or too comfortable in his skin. An apocalypse wouldn't shake him off his hookah. “I heard you messed up your escape because of it."
"She is the first thing I remember seeing from a week ago. Since then, she has been my only friend."
"I wonder if it meant more than that in the past." The Pillar takes a long drag.
I stop and think about it. Was I attached to it because of an older suppressed memory, maybe? "Is that why you wanted to meet me, to ask about my flower?" I wonder.
"Of course not. I am here to talk to you about Wonderland."
"Then you better read the book," I'm tired of talking about Wonderland. "Because it doesn't exist in real life."
"That's strange. I am quite sure your mother and sisters repeatedly mentioned you talking about Wonderland. A real one." His eyes pierce through me. I am not even going to ask how he knows about my mother and sisters.