Gorgon's screams are audible now. They must have started to torture him.
"All right." Lewis sighs. "I guess I will have to do this. You stay here, Alice." He turns to his rabbit. "You will distract the Reds. Make them chase you for a while so I get through. I know how to fight the guards and free Gorgon. He should be able to run, right?"
"I don't think he is hurt much," the rabbit says. "Except for his eyes, if he loses one."
It's only a moment before Gorgon screams louder and we hear something pop like a cork out of a bottle. My eyes widen, and the rabbit digs the ground to hide its head.
There is no stopping the nonsense factor in Wonderland. I hear the Queen laugh loudly and happily, as if she has been told a sincerely amusing joke.
It gets even weirder when Gorgon's eye comes rolling before us and stops in front of me. The rabbit sticks its head out and stares at the eye, with ears flipped straight and goose bumps all over its arched back.
I know it's gory and unfair, but I still can't think of it as reason enough to transform him into a child killer. I think I have become slightly indifferent toward all the blood spilling around me.
"Help them!" someone screams from inside the circle I can't see past.
"Who is saying this?" I ask.
"It's Gorgon!" the rabbit says.
"Why is he shouting, 'Help them'?" Lewis asks.
"Help who?" I say.
"Maybe he lost both his eyes and is calling for them." The rabbit pulls out a bag and tucks the lost eye in, looking away as it does it.
"That's it." Lewis' anger peaks. He stands up and doesn't even wait for his rabbit to distract the Reds. He starts chopping the heads of the Reds army off.
Chapter 5 6
I am astonished at how skilled and agile Lewis is. Did he learn to fight because of Wonderland? What happened here and made him lock them all away?
My watch says I only have four minutes left.
I pick up my fragile seven-year-old body and run through the Reds as Lewis fights alone.
"Queen of Hearts," Lewis shouts. "I demand you free this man."
"Help them, please!" shouts Gorgon.
For the first time I am able to see him. He is held by the Reds, unable to free himself. They have his hands and legs roped and tied to trees on four sides. The Queen, although I can't see the details of her face, is pouring pepper onto him. Gorgon sneezes, risking his other eye popping out. She loves torturing him. She doesn't look worried about Lewis fighting her guards behind her.
"This will teach you to never steal my pepper again," she growls. "This will teach everyone in Wonderland to fear me forever." She laughs like an evil witch.
I use my small figure and keep chugging through the red cloaks all around me. I have to reach Gorgon. Maybe it's not about what will happen to him now, but later. If I help him escape the Queen now, it should divert the course of events in the future and save him from turning into a killer.
I stumble over something tiny, and fall on my face. The watch says three minutes. Looking for what I stumbled upon, I find a few croquet balls scattered on the ground. No mallet, though. I pick up a bunch of croquet balls and carry them in my yellow dress. Before I can use them, two Reds hold me by the arms. I kick and moan in this child's body, but it's all in vain.
"Help them, please!" Gorgon begins to cry out of an eyeless eye socket. I wonder how a big man like him isn't capable of freeing himself from the Queen.
And who is he, asking us to help? I don't get it!
I kick the Reds in the faces, but it doesn't help much. Behind me, Lewis starts calling for me. "I told you to stay away, Alice!" He slashes at the fighting Reds with his swords, but he can't get near me or Gorgon. Lewis Carroll in a priest's outfit, fighting the Reds in Wonderland, is a scene that will stay with me for a long time.
"Please, Majesty," Gorgon says. "Let me go, or they will die."
"I want them to die," the Queen growls. She has such a scary growl for such a short person. "Children have small heads. I can use them as croquet balls for my games." She sneers and pours more pepper on him.
Finally, I realize what Gorgon means. Someone has to save his kids from something in his absence. I pull out a ball and hit one of the Reds in the back of his head. It works, but I need to free myself from the other one.
"He wants us to save his children, Lewis!" I yell. "He probably left them back in his house when he went to get the pepper."
"I don't know where he lives." Lewis sounds exhausted from fighting.
I kick the other Red with the ball, but it doesn't hurt him enough to fall. So I try to kick him in the balls with my fragile legs. Oddly, this works fine. His red cloak falls to the ground and whatever was inside it disappears.
On my feet again, I run ahead as I throw balls at each every one of them. If they have swords, I have balls—pun intended.
From afar, I aim one ball at the short Queen's head. Bull's-eye. She gets dizzy, birds chirp around her, and then she falls slowly to one side like a chopped-off tree. I run at Gorgon and try to free him. The knots are too tight for my stupid small body. He has been tied from all fours to different trees in the garden.
My pocket watch says two minutes left.
"Where are your children?" I ask.
"They are trapped in my house." He can't stop crying, trying to free himself, as we don't have a sword or a knife handy. "I live in a mushroom house, and have them locked inside."
"What?" I hold my head with my hands. "Why lock up your children?"
"There is a beast who eats children, roaming in Wonderland. They asked me for pepper. Thee little one asked me for muffins. I paid the Duchess for the muffins, but she ate them in front of me after she took my money. She said Galumphs like me shouldn't eat muffins, as it's considered a luxury to eat them in our times. I have always tried to fulfill my children's wishes after their mother died. I made a mistake and stole from the Queen's kitchen. She caught me. Save my children, please. They are locked in the house."
"It's okay," I say, trying my teeth on the strong rope.
"What?"
"I mean, it's all right," I say, not quite believing myself. "If they're locked, we will get to them once Lewis kills the Reds and frees you."
"It's not all right," Gorgon protests. "I left them three days ago. The food in the house isn't enough. They will die of starvation."
"Three days ago?" My whole world tumbles around me when I hear this. I have to go and save them myself. Maybe take Lewis with me.
"Tell me where you live, Gorgon," I demand. "Where is your mushroom?"
And right before he utters it, the answer already rings a high note in my ears.
"I live on Drury Lane!"
Chapter 5 7
I run as the nursery rhyme rings in my head. The nursery rhyme was made after him. Because the Muffin Man, captured by the Queen, was never able to go back to Drury Lane and save his children. That's why Lewis told me, I couldn't save them, in my vision. I wonder if I will be able to save Gorgon's children.
I tell the rabbit to show me the way to the Drury Lane of Wonderland.
I have only one minute left.
Lewis picks me up, having learned we need to save the children. He takes me by hand toward another blackboard he hid in the forest for immediate escape when he couldn't fight the beast everyone feared by himself. Lewis has many Einstein Blackboards with mirrors hidden everywhere so he could easily escape Wonderland to his office in Oxford when needed.