“I’m flattered you liked it, Mr. Tick,” said Mrs. Tock. “For a man who always ticks on time, a woman who tocks too late is most delighted.”
“She is suffering now, right?” He pointed at the spasming Alice on the bed in the back room of the Inklings.
“Beautifully.” Mrs. Tock snickered. “Soon she’ll spit blood.”
“It’s a remarkable achievement, I have to say,” Mr. Tick said. “Not since the invention of time have I been so impressed. Imagine her dying in both the future and the past at once.”
“Mind-boggling, right?” She whizzed a hand next to her head.
“I have to be honest with you,” Mr. Tick said. “Although I always arrive sharply on time, I never really understood time.”
“How so, Mr. Tick?”
“For example, what time is it right now?”
“It’s twelve thirty in the afternoon.”
“Is that the time now? Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“You just think so. That was the time when you checked your watch a few seconds ago,” Mr. Tick pointed out. “But between learning what the time is and telling it to me, you were already three or four seconds late. So you basically didn’t tell me the real time. Meaning no one can really arrive on time.”
“Aha.” Mrs. Tock had always been confused by the idea. No wonder she preferred to arrive later.
“Also, it’s around twelve thirty here in Oxford, but not so in Cambridge,” Mr. Tick said. “I very much believe time is an impostor.”
“I agree, Mr. Tick. Look at poor Alice here. She is dying in the now and in the later,” she said. “But wait a minute, aren’t we time?”
“No, Mrs. Tock.” He sipped his tea. “I’m Mr. Tick. You’re Mrs. Tock. We work for time. Remember?”
“I always forget. Forgive me. I prefer we skip this conversation,” Mrs. Tock said. “I think men like Einstein are an expert on time.”
“Really? Did you ever see his hair? Time drove him mad. He only fooled us into thinking he knew about it,” Mr. Tick said. “So tell me, what’s the plan from here on?” He pointed at Alice.
“She is dying because there is a limit for the time an individual stay in the future,” Mrs. Tock explained.
“Does she know that?”
“Of course not. We didn’t tell her. What’d be the fun in that?”
“And if she wants to come back, what does she have to do?”
“Two things. First, someone has to inject her with a Lullaby serum so she can make it back to our present time.”
“Which I suppose the Pillar has the resources to accomplish in the future, right?”
“Indeed. Or we wouldn’t have let him think that he managed to visit the future through the Tom Tower,” Mrs. Tock said. “The poor bastard doesn’t know that I secretly helped him do it.”
“And he has no idea Margaret intentionally made him listen to her conversation, either.” Mr. Tick sipped his tea. “Ingenious plan, Mrs. Tock.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tick.” Mrs. Tock blushed. Mr. Tick hadn’t flattered her since about two hundred years ago.
“But from what I know, it’s impossible to evade death after time-traveling,” Mr. Tick said. “I mean, even if she returns, she will die within a few hours in our time.”
“That’s true, Mr. Tick. That’s why there is only one way to save her life if she manages to make it to the past.”
“What is it, Mrs. Tock?” He put the tea aside. “I’m most punctually, accurately, and timingly curious.”
“Alice can only live if she finds her Wonder.”
Mr. Tick’s eyes shone brightly. The three hairies on his head bent like a banana peel. “You don’t say.”
“It’s true. The only way she can see another day is if she finds her Wonder.”
“Which we both know is almost impossible.”
“Yes, I know.” Mrs. Tock snickered, shrugging her broad shoulders. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s first watch her come back from the future.”
“If she ever manages to pull it off.” Mr. Tick scanned Alice’s spasming body, now slightly bleeding from her nose.
“Before we continue watching, Mr. Tick,” Mrs. Tock said, “what about her?” She pointed at Fabiola standing frozen like a statue beside them. Mr. Tick had stopped time in the Inklings a few minutes ago, so Fabiola wouldn’t bust them when she saw Alice dying. It actually added a lovely sense of quietness to the place. Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock loved it when humans were quiet.
“I will unfreeze her later, Mrs. Tock.” Mr. Tick began sipping his tea again. “After I drink my six o’clock tea. Oh, I feel like we have all the time in the world.”
Chapter 34
THE FUTURE: OXFORD STREETS
“Did you just say Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock?” Tom drives the truck now. “Are you saying you’re not the current Alice and the Pillar?”
“It depends on how you look at it,” the Pillar says. “But if you’re asking if we were sent from the past, then the answer is yes.”
“Oh, my.” Tom panics, turning the wheel. “This isn’t right.”
I can understand that as a Wonderlander Tom knows about the Tick and Tock couple. But why is he panicking? “What’s wrong, Turtle?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Not now. Let’s see if there is a way to save your life first.”
“I want to know what’s going on!” I demand, but then my head aches again.
“Calm down.” The Pillar wipes a trail of blood from my nose. “Or this is going to get worse.”
I stare at the blood, my heart weakening. I think I can’t hear it beat properly.
“There is only one way out of this,” the Pillar says. “A Lullaby pill.” He shifts his stare toward Tom.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“You’re the director of the Radcliffe Asylum,” I say, catching on. “You must know how to get a Lullaby pill.”
“Was the director, about fourteen years ago,” Tom says. “I’ve been trapped in the Oxford Asylum for the last five years for trying to lead the revolution.”
As he mentions it, I glimpse the graffiti on the walls. All hail the Mock Turtle. All hail the revolution.
“This really bothers me,” I mumble. “How is it that Tom Truckle leads the revolution in the future?” Now I am talking to the Pillar. “Why not me?”
“Calm down, Alice,” the Pillar says. “Or I can’t think of a way to get you the pill.”
“Why not me?” I insist. “Aren’t I the Real Alice?”
“I can explain…” Tom begins.
“Shut up!” the Pillar says. “First we have to save your life, then we look for answers, Alice. Look in my eyes and tell me you understand what I just said.”
The Pillar is assertive, wanting to help me. I find myself nodding. Even the nodding hurts when I do it. What’s going to happen to me?
“That’s a start.” The Pillar sighs and stares back at Tom. “Do you happen to know how long she has before she dies?”
“Once the bleeding begins, it takes a time traveler the same time he needs to eat a thousand marshmallows to die completely,” Tom says.
“What does that even mean?” I retort.
“It’s what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Wonderlastic Time Travels says,” Tom explains. “I myself can eat ten marshmallows in a minute. Given that, I suppose it takes about — ”
“Zip it, Turtle,” the Pillar interjects. “Here is what’s going to happen. See that motorcycle at the curb?”
“Yes?”
“Pull over there. I’ll take it and find the pill.”
“You’re not going to leave me here, Pillar?” I ask him, as Tom pulls over.
“I’ll be back,” he says.
“Schwarzenegger used to say that. Now he is dead,” Tom comments.
Neither of us even pay attention to him. The Pillar lowers his head and whispers in my ear, “Stay alive. You can do it.”