“It’s puzzling,” Carolus said. “We’re not sure our theory is right, but the two women got ill after each piece was discovered.”
“That’s nonsense,” the Queen said. “What is this, witchcraft, where you kill a person by poking needles and pins into a puppet?”
“A chess piece, this time.”
“How could they possibly be connected to a chess piece?” the Queen snarled. “I am not buying this. Are you sure Margaret and Fabiola aren’t faking it?”
“I suppose they’re not. Fabiola is doing pretty badly. A special consultant of doctors are on her case, flying her to the best medical centers across Europe.”
The Queen paced around her chamber, hands behind her back, trying to put reason to this unreasonable world. “Assuming the chess pieces are so powerful, we need to know who the Chessmaster is.”
“We must.” Carolus said. “He is beginning to scare me.”
The Queen’s telephone rang. It was Mr. Jay, so she dismissed Carolus and answered.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Jay?”
“Things are getting complicated.” He said.
“I assume your men failed in catching Alice?”
“True, but it turns out that Alice is least of my worries at the time being.”
“How so?”
“My men discovered the true identity of the Chessmaster.”
“And?” The Queen shrugged.
“It’s not good news.”
“Is he a Wonderland Monster?”
“It’s hard to tell.”
“But you said you know his identity.”
“And that’s the problem. The Chessmaster did something in the past, in Wonderland, that’s too scary to imagine.”
“So he did live in Wonderland, among us?”
“Yes and no.”
“I’m puzzled, Mr. Jay. Who is the Chessmaster?”
“Let me read his story for you.” Mr. Jay said.
“Read his story?”
“It was written by Lewis Carroll’s sister, part of his lost diaries.”
“Why hasn’t Lewis written it himself? I’m so confused.”
“You’ll get it once I finish reading the story. Let me begin with its title.”
“It’s a diary entry with a title?”
“Yes. The title is a number: 01141898.”
“Is that the date of…?”
“Yes, now don’t interrupt me, and listen.”
Chapter 42
Lewis Carrol’s Diary. An entry written by his sister in
Guildford, United Kingdom on the fourteenth of January, 1898
As I write this, my lovely brother Lewis is dying in his room in my house at Guildford in the United Kingdom. He's been here for some time due to his recent illnesses – mostly the intensifying migraines and the possibility of being schizophrenic.
I haven't seen much of his split persona he claims to encounter. On the contrary, my brother’s presence has been so pleasant that I regret not having spent more time with him earlier in life.
He will die unmarried and without children, but having affected every child in the world with his books – and of course, he can’t stop talking about that girl who inspired him to write the books, Alice.
But I am not here to bash about my brother. I am here to write about what just happened and what I saw with my own eyes. Better write it right away before my fragile old memories escape me.
Let's start with Lewis having been obsessed with chess since he'd been to Russia many years ago. He couldn't get it out of his head that he had to write Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, shaped after a game of chess.
Even since he arrived from Oxford to my modest two-story house here, he brought his own chessboard with him.
It's been set up and ready on a table next to his bed for some time. Every time I asked him about whom he was expecting to play with, he laughed wearily and told me he was expecting an opponent to arrive any moment.
I never understood, neither did I pay much attention to it. I was ignorant about chess and Lewis had always been an unusual man. You don't ask him about what he is doing, for he is like a child who does what he wants when he wants.
In the last few days, his health had deteriorated much, and it was devastating watching him like that. He sometimes joked that I need not worry because he will not die, not until he plays that last chess game with his expected opponent.
Which made it harder for me to hold my tears, because I thought he was hallucinating.
But the unexpected guest came.
It was late at night when the doors to my balcony sprang open due to a snowy wind with an aggressive appetite for destruction. I stood up, locked the window back, and was about to go back to bed when I heard Lewis talking to someone.
Tiptoeing, I approached his room and could instantly see that Lewis had left the bed and sat on the table for a game of chess. Opposite to him, sat the awaited, and most unwelcome guest. I couldn't see his face though, not from this angle. All I was sure of was that he was wearing a red cloak.
"I thought you would play the game, using your special chess pieces carved from your own bones." The guest told my brother Charles – I mean Lewis, as most of you know him by this name.
"I knew you'd ask for them, but you will never find them," Lewis said. "I’ve had someone help me keep them away from you."
"Nothing is that far away, Carroll," the guest mused. "I will find the set. I will find the Knight, eventually."
"Then it will take you years and years to do so, because I scattered them all over the world."
"The world is mine, not yours," said the guest. "I have time, you have none."
"Don't get carried away. You haven't beaten me yet."
"None has ever beat me when their time came, Lewis."
"There is a first for everything."
"My first will also be my last."
"And it scares you," Lewis looked unusually competitive. I wondered who the guest was.
"It does scare me," answered the guest. "But when it happens I remind myself that I never lose. It just never happened, because I am..."
"No need to tell me your real name," Lewis raised a hand. "I’ve known your name since the days of Wonderland."
It was sentences like these that made me doubt my brother's sanity. He had lost his grip on reality thinking Wonderland was real. But the guest didn't seem to object.
"If only I had enough time in Wonderland," said the guest. "I'd have killed so many."
"But it still wouldn't be enough," Lewis remarked. "Because your sickness of killing is unquenchable. Blood will never taste like wine from Eden, no matter how much you spill."
"You know I have the right to do what I do."
"I sympathized with you in the beginning, but no more."
"Why? Because you know it's her who made me what I am?"
"Leave her out of it,” Lewis said and made his first chess move. That's when I noticed the small cups of liquor on both sides of the board. With each move they had to follow up with one drink.
At some point I was going to enter the room, but then Lewis discreetly waved me off. I respected his wishes and stood watching, still wondering about the guest cloaked in red.
Later it was clear that Lewis was losing. What troubled me was the fear showing on his face with every move. It was unreasonable, not the kind of fear that shows in a game of chess, no matter what the price.
But the cloaked guest had another opinion. Closer to Lewis' seventh move the guest was laughing. "Tell me Lewis, what’s the most you’ve lost in a game of chess."
Lewis preferred not to answer. He looked certain to lose, but wanted to make the best of his last move.
"Say my name, Lewis." Said the guest in a mocking tone of voice.
Lewis said nothing, making his last move, which seemed to make things worse. Instantly, the guest moved his knight and said, "Checkmate."
Lewis shrieked in a silent way, unable to breathe properly. I wanted in again, but he waved me off again, nervously – I gathered I had to stay away, or I won’t be safe from the cloaked man.