“She always talks about you,” her mother explains. “I wonder why you never showed up. She said she keeps inviting you to dinner, but you’re busy saving lives.”
“I…” I am speechless, afraid that I’ll burst into tears when Constance comes through the door. Did the Cheshire Cat plan this on purpose?
“Yesterday, she told me that even if the Cheshire kidnaps her again, you promised her you will always save her.”
“Of course….”
“And now that it’s happened, I believe you’re here to…”
“What’s happened?” I interrupt.
Suddenly, we both realize the horror. She doesn’t know why I am here, and I don’t know why I am here. The Pillar played me.
“You don’t know?” her mother looks puzzled. “Constance was kidnapped again yesterday by the Cheshire.”
“What? How?” I slump to the bed, tears filling my eyes but refusing to burst out. “Didn’t the police protect her? What is this, a jungle? The Cheshire kidnaps a girl twice? Why didn’t you take care of her?”
“She wasn’t taken here,” her mother explains. “She went to the Alice Shop in Oxford. She was planning on buying you a present.”
“The Alice Shop?”
“Yes. You must know it. It’s on 83 St. Aldates.”
Chapter 32
St. Aldates Street, The Alice Shop, Christ Church
It takes me some time to find the Pillar. He keeps playing that silly game with me on the phone where he sends me messages and guides me through town to find him. Instead of firing back at him for playing me, he’s disarming my anger by using the tactic of wait. I have no choice but to play his game. At this moment, I have no one else but him to help me catch the Cheshire.
And I will catch him. I feel so close to Constance, and this is beginning to become personal between me and the Cheshire.
I end up in front of the Alice Shop at 83 St. Aldates Street. It’s a gift shop, really nice. It screams Victorian style, but has a red door with the number 83 on it. A young crowd visits and leaves with a Queen of Hearts playing card, a drinking bottle that says ‘drink me,’ a big fluffy rabbit in a tuxedo, and all kinds of souvenirs.
A breeze of cold air rushes behind me all of a sudden. When I turn around, I see it’s a school bus speeding up. It’s just a normal bus, and nothing bad is going to happen. It just reminds me of my dream, where the rabbit killed my friends. Why does everyone else think I killed them? I don’t even know what’s real and what isn’t.
My phone rings.
“Historians will tell you that the Alice Shop is what inspired Lewis to write about the Old Sheep Shop in Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass,” the Pillar says on the phone. “The truth is, this is the shop itself. Lovely, isn’t it?”
“Can’t quite say that, after you shattered my childhood memories.” I purse my lips.
“You don’t have ‘childhood’ memories. You have Wonderland memories. They will come back to you sooner or later. I don’t promise you will like them, though.”
“So why did I dream about the Alice Shop?”
“I can’t think of something that could help in that shop. It’s just the shop the Cheshire followed Constance to. That’s it. Tourists come to visit it from all over the world. Constance just loved you so much, she wanted to buy you something special from it,” the Pillar says, and I don’t know his location. “The fact that you dreamed about it, only backs up my theory that you’re destined to save lives outside the asylum. You still want to stay lazy in your cell downstairs?”
“No,” I’m confident about it. “If not to save lives, then to save Constance and catch the Cheshire this time.”
“Can you write this down and sign it please, so I can use it in court when you change your mind again?” he says.
“Stop playing games. I learned my lesson. If Constance thinks I am her superhero, I will be. So don’t waste time, and tell me something useful. Why did the Cheshire kidnap her again, after I saved her?”
“Maybe you didn’t really save her the first time. Maybe he let you save her.”
“How so?”
“Maybe he just let you think you saved her,” the Pillar says. “So he could know if you’re the real Alice because if so, you’ll be a great threat to him.”
“How can I be a threat to the Cheshire? And why don’t you just tell me what happened in Wonderland in the past?”
“Other than the fact that I don’t know everything, I have to protect certain assets of mine. Wonderland is like relationships, very complicated. Do I have to remind you that you and I weren’t allies in Wonderland?” his voice is sharp, as if he wants to carve the recognition into my skull.
“I didn’t think I was friends with a serial killer,” I rebound.
The Pillar says nothing for some time. His silence is killing me. All kinds of crazy thoughts fill my head.