“Because you know I lost the Six Keys a long time ago.”
“What?” I almost hit the brakes. “You lost the keys?”
“Not that they are of any particular use anymore. We lost the war when the Queen grabbed hold of the Six Keys,” Tom says. “But you already know I lost the keys. Oh, wait. I mean the real version of you in this world knows that. Of course, you don’t know, because you’re not really from this time.”
I am too dizzy to think about this paradoxical situation. “I just want to know how you lost the keys, and how come I found this note.”
Tom takes a moment to think it over. I trust he has figured out the puzzle. “I get it now.”
“What is it? Please tell me, because nothing makes sense in this future anymore.”
“Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock.”
“What about them?”
“They don’t really want you to die,” Tom speculates. “They wanted everything that happened to happen the way it did.”
“How so?”
“They have access to the future. They planted the note so you’d follow it, because they knew I stole the keys from you.”
“You stole them.” The truck bumps against something on the road. I speed up to cross it, realizing I have so little strength in me now. “I thought I gave them to you.”
“Don’t worry about this part,” Tom says. “What matters is that Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock, or whoever hired them, thought I have the keys, and wanted to find them through you. They planted the note because they knew I wouldn’t open up to anyone, even you, about their location.”
“Even me?” I am dizzy, not sure if I am catching every word, barely able to drive ahead. “Why wouldn’t you tell me about their location?”
“Because in this future I trust no one. You could be the Cheshire disguised, for all I know — and don’t talk to me about him being unable to possess Wonderlanders,” Tom says. “I am only opening up to you because I know you’re from the past, because if you find the keys and put them in the right hands, you can change the future.”
“And that’s what they want exactly,” I say. “They want me to return with the keys so they can take them from me.”
“You’re getting the picture now. Think of it—why isn’t there another Alice from the future? They must have done something to her so she wouldn’t warn you or tell you the truth.”
“It’s hard to really comprehend all of this,” I say. “But I get their plan to get the keys now. I get it that they thought you’d give me the keys only when you realized I am from the past. What puzzles me is how you lost the keys.”
“Didn’t exactly lose them,” he says. “I handed them to the wrong person.”
“Who?” I enter a dark tunnel, wishing I could lose the Reds in here.
“I gave them to Jack.”
And with that the darkness drapes its curtain of deception down on me. Because let’s face it. In the future, Jack is not Jack. He is the Cheshire, fooling Tom. Having fooled me as well, making me think that Jack affected him so much he loved me. The Cheshire never changed. A nobody, disguising in people he meets, parasitizing on their thoughts and emotions, just like the sneakiest of devils.
My hands give up on the wheel. My strength withers. And I fall down on my head.
Chapter 38
THE FUTURE: MOUNT CEMETERY, GUILDFORD
The Pillar was digging with all his might. As fast as he could. Sweating and panting. He’d never felt the need to save someone like he needed to save Alice now.
And there it was, finally, Carroll’s corpse, lying on its back, strangely mummified, looking as if he were still alive. The Pillar wasn’t surprised. Carroll was full of surprises. He wouldn’t discard the possibility that the famous mathematician had found an embalming method like the ancient Egyptians.
The Pillar knelt down to reach for Carroll’s pockets. The dead man’s shoulders snapped, just a little, probably an odd reflex of muscles being exposed to oxygen or light.
“Relax,” the Pillar told him. “I’m just here for the Pills. She needs them or she will die.”
But Carroll’s dead body snapped again, as if not wanting him to reach for them.
“Look,” the Pillar said. “I know you don’t want her to take the pills, not in the future, but I can help her.”
The corpse still stiffened, its arm bent awkwardly. The Pillar needed to break it to get to the pills.
“Aren’t you the one who kept showing up in her dreams? Didn’t you meet her in the Tom Tower? Didn’t you meet her back in Wonderland through the Einstein Blackboard? And after the circus, she said she saw you with the Inklings.” The Pillar talked to Carroll’s corpse as if it were alive. “Didn’t you show up to her in the Inkling, thanking her for saving you from Carolus and telling her she is the Real Alice?”
The corpse didn’t move—and, of course, it didn’t talk back.