"I told you it's love, darling," the seated woman puts on her lipstick without looking at us.
"We met in an asylum," the Pillar winks at the woman and points at me. "Isn't it romantic?" The woman feels uncomfortable when she hears this and sits a couple of seats away. "If I remember well, all you cared about this morning was saving the little girl," the Pillar continues.
"It's still all I care about," I agree.
"So forget about the Reds and let's keep on moving," the Pillar says. "We know the White Queen can lead us to the Cheshire now. We should be going. On the way, we could look up the names of the girls the Cheshire asked for and hopefully find a connection."
"You're right," I hang onto the pole and breathe slower. I can deal with the nonsense later, after I save Constance for the second time. "So where is the White Queen? What is she in this world, a ghost in a white dress?"
"Believe me; you will never guess who she is."
“Another Wonderland Monster, I assume.”
"Not at all," the Pillar smiles, as if remembering a loved one. "She is quite a nice woman. Let's not waste time, we need to get to the asylum and change before we visit her." He turns around to talk to the driver. It's not the chauffeur this time. Just a normal guy. "Bus driver, could you please let us off at the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum?"
"It's not on my route," the driver blurts.
"I'm sure you will make an exception for two fugitive insane patients like us," the smug look on the Pillar's face is priceless. People start to part away from us now, begging the driver to send us home to the asylum.
"Thank you very much," the Pillar says and turns to me. "This way, we'll be on time to catch the plane."
"We're flying? To where?"
"The Vatican, of course."
Chapter 43
Emirate Airlines - Somewhere in the Italian Skies
It’s only hours before we’re on a plane to the Vatican. I don't even know what's going on. Everything is happening so fast. I feel like Alice whisked to a surreal, but real-life Wonderland.
All I am hoping is that I can save Constance in the end. At least this would be the only sane thing that happened in the last couple of days. Whenever I remember her hugging me and making me promise her I would never give up on her, I remind myself that this is why I am following the Pillar. I wonder if she’s still alive.
The Pillar is looking forward to the sunset, and hoping we’ll catch it while on the plane. We have a few hours before I have to be reassigned back into the asylum, as per our unbelievable deal with Dr. Truckle.
“I can’t believe you blackmailed Dr. Truckle to buy us the airplane tickets,” I comment, looking over the Pillar’s shoulder to see the world from above. He’d insisted on sitting next to the window. Sometimes, he sounds like a four year old.
“I can’t believe he didn’t get us First Class tickets,” the Pillar pouts. “Besides, I have never been comfortable with Emirates Airlines. I don’t like their slogan: When was the last time you did something for the first time.”
“Why? I think it’s a brilliant slogan.”
“’When was the last time you did something mad.’ That’s a slogan, Alice.”
I ignore his comment and start surfing the internet on my phone, looking up the girls’ names.
"Someone's learning fast. Yesterday you weren't comfortable with typing on the phone," the Pillar notices, turns his head, and puts on his glasses. "What are you surfing? Celebrity gossip, Barbie games, and music videos?"
I discard his silliness. "Actually, I am studying the names of the girls the Cheshire killed," I say, scrolling on.
“Why the ones he killed, and not the names on the list?”
“The ones on the list are just young girls Lewis Carroll photographed,” I say. "They are black and white photos, and sometimes sepia. Some of them are actually a bit creepy. I don’t know what to do with those photos of girls who died a long time ago. So I had to start somewhere. The names of the Cheshire's victims seem convenient to me."
"And what did you find, Inspector Alice Wonder?" he lowers his glasses and peeks into my phone. It's one of the rare moments he looks like a real college professor.
"I researched the names of the six girls he killed," I explain. "Two of them were from the same town, and the other two from another. Only the last two were from two different towns."
The Pillar looks puzzled.
"The four towns the girls originally came from are nearby Warrington, Cheshire, where Lewis Carroll was born," I elaborate.
The Pillar raises an eyebrow. "Interesting. Anything common among the girls?"
"Not in a physical way. Not even their ages or their hobbies. Some of them were blonde, some brunettes. Some seven and some fourteen."
"But?" he cups a hand behind his ears.
"The towns they came from have something in common." I am proud of my research.
"The Towns? Curiouser and curiouser." The Pillar gives me his full attention.