“Don’t push me, Pillar, or I will tell Alice who you really are — and how we met before.”
“You keep saying that,” The Pillar says. “If you have something to tell her, do it now you liar.”
“Not now,” the Chessmaster counters. “It’s too soon. I want my masterpiece to be unveiled slowly. What good will it do me if I’m not entertained by my plan?”
“What plan?” I ask.
“The plan that will force you to find the rest of the pieces, Carroll’s Knight included, for me.” The Chessmaster seems sure of himself.
“You can’t make me do it.” I say dismissively.
“Don’t ever threaten me, Alice of Wonderland,” the Chessmaster laughs. It’s a bitter laugh, tinted with sadness and outrageous anger. My curiosity about him increases by the minute. So he isn’t just a mad chess player who wants to end the world, and not only Death itself. Then who is he really? Why is he doing this?
“Listen, mustache man,” The Pillar says, checking his hand watch. “Unless you have something really scary to show us, I’d like to leave and get me some new clothes and a new haircut.”
“Not funny, Pillar,” said the Chessmaster. “Whatever you do you will not be the ‘He Who Laughs Last’.”
He Who Laughs Last? The words remind me of The Pillar’s theory with the giant. I am beginning to think the Chessmaster was telling the truth about previously having met The Pillar.
“As for you, little Alice,” the Chessmaster says. “I hope you are ready to play.”
“Play? You mean that last game of chess?”
“Indeed, but it’s not like anything you’ve prepared for.” The Chessmaster says.
His words are followed by another rattling and drone underneath the chessboard. This time, something else accompanies the sound. Not an earthquake, but an incredibly horrifying joke.
The tiles in the chessboard part and human-size blocks of glass rise from under the earth. The whole thing is done with a most unimaginable technology. Slowly, I realize the chessboard is coming to life; each life size piece of chess, black and white, is standing upon the chessboard, only they’re trapped in glass prisons.
“What is going on?” My mouth hangs open.
I squint at the glass blocks and see the large chess pieces inside aren’t anything but real humans. They’re rapping on the glass from inside out, panicked, just like me.
The glass blocks are foggy from inside, so it’s hard to see their faces. Out of nowhere, a block of glass rises and imprisons me as well, in a flash of an eye.
I start rapping on the glass from inside, wanting out, demanding to know what is going on. But a fog fills the glass and it gets harder to see.
I keep wiping it out with the back of my hand, realizing my screams are only echoed back in my head and are hardly audible outside.
But then, through a small oval clearance in the glass, I see outside, and in that same instant, I glimpse at a few others who’d managed to wipe clear a small opening through their glass blocks. It’s shocking, and incredibly terrifying, when I recognize a few faces behind the glass.
In no particular order, I recognize three of them: Fabiola, the Duchess, and the Queen of Hearts.
Chapter 58
Aldates St, Oxford.
“This is no time to sleep again!” Tom Truckle pinched Inspector Dormouse awake.
Tom was in his car, driving to a place where he and Inspector Dormouse could further investigate the Fourteen Secret Society. They’d almost reached Oxford University when Dormouse fell asleep again.
“Wake up!” Tom’s voice pitched up. The hectic traffic was already getting on his nerves. “What kind of Inspector are you? A serial sleeper?”
“Oh, sorry.” Dormouse brushed at his beady eyes, blinking heavily against the soon-to-set sun. “Where were we?”
“You said we should come to Oxford to meet someone who can help us with figuring out why the twelve men The Pillar killed had the same name.”
“Yes, of course,” Inspector Dormouse said. “I see you’re about to park. Good. We should meet with that man soon.”
“Just stay awake, please,” Tom pleaded, parking his car. “After we figure this out together, I have a suggestion for you.”
“Suggestion?”
“Yes. I think you’d better retire from your job.”
“Retire? And do what for a living?”
“A professional sleeper. I’m sure there is such a job in this mad world we live in,” Tom pulled his keys out and popped down a few pills. He was getting a bit drowsy himself, but he wasn’t sure if it was the jinx from being with Dormouse or if he’d been swallowing too much medication lately. “So, let me think this over again. The Pillar killed twelve men whose original names were also Carter Pillar?”
“The same twelve men whom he had a meeting with every year. The Fourteen.” Inspector Dormouse confirmed.
“So he basically knew these men for some time. Are you saying he played them, suddenly betrayed them, and killed them?”
“Maybe something came up and he had to do it. What’s puzzling to me is why they all had the same name and then changed it.”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense at all,” Tom said. “But if you ask me, I’m most puzzled by the name of their little secret society.”
“The Fourteen?”
“Yes. Let alone the fact that this number always pops up in everything related to Wonderland, Alice had it scribbled on her wall. It’s the date of Lewis Carroll’s death.”
“Could it be that The Pillar planned Carroll’s death with the twelve men and then had to kill them? Of course, I’m just going along with what you told me about Wonderland being real, a bonkers idea, I must say.”
“Wonderland is real. So are Wonderlanders. I’m one of them. You better believe it now or you’ll pay the price for not believing, trust me,” Tom said. “As for The Pillar having killed Lewis, it doesn’t make sense. Why kill him almost hundred and fifty years ago, then kill his accomplices now?”
“You’re right about that,” Inspector Dormouse followed Dr. Tom Truckle outside, heading toward the university. “So, back to my puzzlement. Why name the secret society the Fourteen when they were only thirteen attendants to the meeting, including the real Pillar of course.”
“Now you’ve got a point,” Tom said, crossing the Tom Tower entrance. “So tell me why we’re meeting that cook again?”
“He is the one I told you about. He used to eavesdrop on their meetings in the past.” Dormouse said.
“But you said he knew very little.”
“I managed to persuade him to tell me more.”
“How so?”
“It turns out the cook we’re about to see was a fan of the Muffin Man. Remember him, the cook from Wonderland whom Alice and Pillar killed some weeks ago?”
“I do. So you told him The Pillar killed his idol cook and now he wants to tell us what he heard exactly? I think I’ve underestimated you, Inspector Dormouse. You’re brilliant.”
“Only when awake,” Dormouse nodded, looking flattered.
“We’re all knuckleheads when we’re asleep. Ever seen a brilliant sleeper?”
“That’d be me too,” Dormouse said, about to smile broadly, but stopped, staring at the scrawny cook waiting for them in the hallway with a kitchen knife in his hand.
“Is that him?” Tom said worriedly.
“Didn’t I mention him being a former patient in your asylum?” Dormouse said. “You permitted his leave a few years back.”
“On what basis?” Tom couldn’t remember him, but he didn’t usually remember any of the lunatics who entered, except Alice and The Pillar of course.
“You mentioned he was a danger to the Mushroomers in your report,” Dormouse shrugged. “And preferred him to live in so-called sane world, over terrorizing your beloved mad people.”