The bus is full of girls. Why girls? Why do they have to die? Who are they?
One of the girls is so scared she submits to my threats and actually tries to open the back window. I smile wickedly at her, encourage her to speed it up.
Here she goes. Just a little wider, and I can set my foot inside.
But I don’t.
Someone pulls me by my legs. I slip back, dropping on that someone behind me in the middle of the street, watching the bus fly away.
“No!” I scream, reaching out.
“It’s all right.” The Pillar holds me tight, both of us lying on our backs. “Let it go, Alice. Just let it go.”
When he calls my name, I don’t know which Alice he is talking to. It’s worse than not knowing whether I’m mad or not.
The Pillar’s grip is strong. He is more embracing me than keeping me away.
“The bus is gone,” the nerdy Pillar says. “Whatever the reason you feel you need to catch it, there’ll always be another.”
“No, there isn’t,” I say, knowing it’s too late. I possess no more strength to go after it. I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know who I am or what I want.
“The girls on the bus will live,” I mumble.
“They will,” the Pillar says. “Now just calm down. It will all be okay.”
And it should, the Good Alice reminds me. Like the Pillar said, I just need to let go. I did all I could, saved a boy, a bus, and resisted a great evil inside me—although I am not sure which part of me surfaces most of the time.
But it’s all right. The bus is about to disappear over the horizon.
It’s okay. No harm will be done.
“I think I changed so many things in the future,” I tell the Pillar, standing up.
“You think so?” He tilts his head. “I once read the future can never be changed.”
And he is right, because far in the distance, looking over his shoulder, I see the bus veering off the road and crashed into a building.
Chapter 83
THE PRESENT: INSIDE THE INKLINGS, OXFORD
“What happened?” Fabiola said.
Now that she had no means of using the Muhsroomers to kill Alice, she had come back, wanting to make sure the evil girl wouldn’t return.
“The strangest thing.” Even Mrs. Tock was surprised by the incident in the past.
“What do you mean? Speak up.”
“I think…” Mr. Tick squinted. “I think Alice didn’t kill her classmates on the bus.”
“That’s great news,” Fabiola said. “It means she hasn’t found her Wonder. It means she will not wake up again.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Mr. Tick said. “I also think that everyone on the bus died anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You see,” Mrs. Tock began, “Alice didn’t get on the bus, so she didn’t kill her classmates, but even so, the bus crashed and exploded.”
“That’s impossible. It doesn’t make any sense.” Fabiola gripped her sword tighter, staring at the dying Alice on the bed. This was so hard for her. Her past, and the secrets she knew, obliged her to kill Alice now. But she just couldn’t.
“Sense has nothing to do with time,” Mr. Tick explained. “Time does what it likes.”
“When it likes,” Mrs. Tock added.
“Not a tick too soon.”
“Not a tock too late.”
“I need real answers,” Fabiola said. “Something that I understand. If Alice wasn’t on the bus, why did it veer off the road?”
“Why?” Mrs. Tock shook her shoulders. “I have no answer to that.”
“But we know who did this,” Mr. Tick said.
“Who, then?” Fabiola had to know.
“You won’t believe it,” Mr. Tick said.
“Carolus Loduvicus, although he jumped off the bus and didn’t die himself,” Mrs. Tock said. “He had always been the other Wonderlander on the bus with Alice.”
“And I’ve always wondered why Carolus got on that bus, Mrs. Tock,” Mr. Tick said.
“Me too. His presence on the bus is a mystery.”
“But it does have a meaning,” Mr. Tick said.
“It does?”
“Time is so slick it put Carolus on the bus so that if any of us, time travelers, ever wanted to change the past, it would always have a backup plan. Carolus. Time is so devious, Mrs. Tock.”
“That’s why we love working for it.” Mrs. Tock snickered. “Time is never on your side. It’s only on its own side. The future always finds a way to stay the same.”
“I don’t care about any of this,” Fabiola said. “I need you to answer me this: did Alice find her Wonder?”
“Of course not,” Mr. Tick said. “Her classmates died, but she didn’t do it. Alice is pretty much dead. Evil or good. No Wonder. I’d be writing her obituary if I were you.”
Hearing this, Fabiola collapsed on the chair. She finally had the results she’d sought. But she didn’t know whether to love or hate the situation. She ran her hands over Alice’s wide-open eyes and brushed them to a close. “Good night, Alice Wonder. I’ll always hate myself for wanting you dead, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Chapter 84
THE PRESENT: MARGARET’S OFFICE, PARLIAMENT