"Shut up!" their mother yelled. "Your sister is dead."
"Hallelujah!" Lorina rolled her eyes again.
"We're not sure, Lorina. Don't go on celebrating yet," Edith said. "Why wasn't Alice in the asylum? Did she escape?" she asked the girl at the door.
"And where to? Theatre?" Lorina felt the urge to roll her eyes for the third time.
"Unless she was the crazy cook who sneezed the audience to death." Edith snickered and high-fived Lorina.
"She wasn't the cook," the young girl at the door said politely. "She is dead. I'm sorry."
"Are you here to send us a death certificate?" Edith asked.
"No, I'm afraid that is something you will have to do yourself after you confirm her death at the morgue."
"I'm not going to any morgue," Lorina said. "I just had my hair done."
"I have an appointment to...get my hair done," Edith said.
"I will go." The mother stood up feebly.
"But I'm not here for that, madam," the girl at the door said. "I'm here to collect a photo of Alice Wonder for the obituary, which the Theatre Royal will take care of."
"I will get you one," the mother offered.
"I'd prefer to fetch one myself, if you don't mind," the girl said. The two sisters threw her a long, suspicious look. "There is a hefty compensation for you if I pick an appropriate photo that lives up to the standards of our theatre," the girl added.
"Oh," Edith said, neglecting the absurdness of the girl's request. "Why didn't you say so? Please come in. Do you happen to know how much the theatre will pay us?"
Chapter 4 4
Alice Wonder's room in her mother's house
The mysterious girl asked to be alone in the room. To ensure the two sister's compliance, she gave them a reward ticket: a lifetime of free food stamps at most of Britain's junk food stores and a sincere apology on behalf of the Theatre Royal for the death of their daughter.
Edith, who was a bit chubby, with a few freckles on her face, couldn't hide her excitement. Food for life? Now she wouldn't have to worry about the budget she spent on Snicker Snacker double bars, Queen of Hearts Tarts, or the latest Meow Muffins.
Lorina, on the other hand, said she couldn't use the ticket much, since she had to take care of her figure—and, of course, her delicate fingernails. She said she would invite all of her friends and make them owe her. She believed it was always good to have her friends owe her.
Alice's mother said she would use the food to give to the poor and ask them to pray for her dead daughter.
"Insane daughter," Edith corrected her mother. "The fact that she is dead doesn't mean she wasn't insane. If bad people go to hell, and good to heaven, where do the insane go?" She thought it was a funny line, and she laughed at her own joke.
"Was she really insane?" the girl from the theatre asked.
"Since she was seven years old," Lorina said, unsatisfied with the stain the ticket caused on her fingertips.
"Really? What happened?" the girl asked, about to enter Alice's room.
"We lost her when she was a kid," Edith said. "When she returned, she said she was..."
"Was what?" The girl was unusually curious.
"She thought she was Alice and said she had been to Wonderland and back," Lorina replied. "She is insane, no doubt about it."
"You're not telling it like it is," Edith said. "Why are you hiding the best part of Alice's return?"
The girl from the theatre almost tiptoed. She definitely had to know about that part. "What was the best part?"
Lorina shrugged. Edith looked at her mother and back. Her eyes scanned the house as if to make sure there was no one listening. "When she returned, her dress was stained with blood." She craned her neck forward and almost whispered, "She also held a glinting kitchen knife, spattered with someone's blood, in her hand."
The girl's eyes widened. Either the sisters really hated Alice or they were telling the strangest truth. She decided she'd had enough of this family. Her mission here was precise. All she had was to accomplish it and get out of this madhouse as fast as she could.
Inside Alice's room, the girl didn't look for a photo of Alice. She looked for anything that had to do with Alice's friends, the accident, or Adam J. Dixon.
A few moments later, the girl was outside Alice's house, standing before the famous Iris Lake, which streamed out of the River Thames. It was famous for being where Lewis Carroll was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland.
The girl didn't know any of this. She had been paid to come here and fool the Wonder family so she could enter Alice's room. Mission accomplished. She picked up the phone and dialed a number.
Chapter 4 5
Tom Quad Garden, Christ Church, Oxford University, Oxford
Listening to the girl on the phone, I nod a couple of times and thank her. I hang up and lean back in the bank I am sitting on, gazing at the Tom Tower at Oxford University. The sky above is a grayish blue. Rain is trickling like hesitant tears on my face. I take a long breath as I fiddle with the sleeves of the pullover I had exchanged with the girl on the phone. She gave it to me, along with her shoes and pants, in exchange of my bloodstained theatre dress. The dress is beautiful, I remember her saying. Blood can always be washed away.
The rain keeps drizzling in Christ Church.
The few students in the garden shade themselves under the safety of the university's halls, leaving me almost alone in the middle. I am not going to move. I like the feel of trickling water on my skull. It helps me contemplate the things the girl on the phone just told me.
"Sometimes I ask myself, what if the door to Wonderland is hidden here inside the university?" The Pillar's voice resonates behind me. I didn't invite him, but he found me. "Imagine if the real rabbit hole were right beneath our feet." He sits next to me and leans forward. He rests his chin on his cane and stares at the Tom Tower like an obedient dog.
"How did you find me?" I ask.
"People tend to go to certain places when they feel lost," he says. "Places that resemble a god in many ways. Be it a father, a mother, a mentor, a lover, church, mosque, synagogue, or even a real god." He rubs his nose to resist sneezing, an aftereffect of the infinite amount of pepper we were exposed to in Drury Lane. Thank God we didn't sniff a lot of the pepper. "For a girl like you, who is in many ways a character in a book, your god is definitely the man who wrote it."
The Pillar is right, and I hate it when he is. I came here hoping I could meet Lewis through the small door in the Tom Tower. I came here to ask him about the meaning of the vision of Victorian England, and why he "couldn't save them." And if possible, I'd like to know how he managed to stay whimsical and optimistic in hard times like these. Maybe I could use his advice to face the cruel world I live in now.
"How did we escape the theatre?" I break the silence without looking at him, still staring at the Tom Tower.
"It depends on the last thing you remember." He leans back, both hands on his cane.
"I remember sneezing and then you puffed hookah smoke into my face. Then I think I..."
"Blacked out, that's right."
"What happened after I blacked out? How are we the only ones who managed to escape a locked theatre?"