So I spend the night checking the pot.
This is when an idea comes to me. To bury the Pillar’s note in the mud in the pot. Carefully, I start digging through it with my thumb.
Instead of tucking the Pillar’s note inside, I find another note. One similar to the Pillar’s.
What’s going on? Did I do this before in the loop of time?
I dig the note up, rub away the dirt, and unfold it. It’s in handwriting that I think is mine. The words delight me. They make sense:
This is me, writing a note to me. Don’t panic. Time is a loop we’ll never understand. Just read the note:
A little lower it says:
You’re alive because you found your Wonder. Which isn’t Jack. Your Wonder is YOU, Alice. Beating the evil inside.
My heart flutters with a mix of euphoric emotions. I even hug the thin note. I am fine with the Wonder being mine, although I’m oblivious to how and when I wrote this message.
It doesn’t matter.
I beat the evil me. I beat my recklessness, my anger, and my weakness to Black Chess. My name is Alice Wonder, and I save lives.
Epilogue Part One
ST ALDATES STREET, OXFORD
Two days later, I’m discreetly walking near Oxford University. It’s heavily raining again. I’m hiding underneath my hood so no one knows I’m alive. My hood is grey, the color of rain. The color of invisibility. In order to make the Bad Alice disappear, the Good One has to vanish as well.
It sucks being invisible. It sucks not having friends. It’s been only three days and I feel as lonely as the homeless man on the corner of the Alice Shop I’m passing by.
All I can think about is the Wonderland Monster who is supposed to arrive in a few days. I wonder what I did to him in the past – I wonder what the Bad Alice did to him.
It’s almost impossible to keep saving lives, knowing who I really was and how many people I hurt. This isn’t so much about doing good anymore. It’s more like repenting and giving back to the people I hurt in the past.
What in the world happened to me after the Circus? How did I become a Bad Alice?
I tap my hand on my breast pocket, where I keep the Pillar’s note. I really want to know what his Wonder is.
Walking further, I notice a black limousine has been tailing me for a while. I wonder if someone knows I’m still alive. My feet urge me to stop, but it’s not like I really want to know who it is. I’m just so goddamn lonely I’d enjoy a conversation with the devil right now.
I stand in silence. The limousine stops. I’m unable to see inside because of its black glass. I wait a little, but no one comes out.
Curious, I step down from the pavement, toward the limo. I reach for the door’s handle and pull it open.
The limo is pretty dark inside. But I see silhouettes of people. Silent people.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“We knew you’re alive, Alice,” a voice speaks to me from the dark. “But we thought we give you time to heal.”
“I’m not sure who you think I am.” I say. “Who are you?”
“Let’s not play games,” the voice says. “How long will you pretend you’re not one of us?”
So it’s Black Chess. They found me, and they want me back.
I pull back, about to close the door. “I’m not her anymore. She is dead.”
“Don’t you want to meet him, Alice?” the voice says.
“Meet who?”
“Mr. Jay.”
I say nothing.
“Don’t you want to know who he is?”
I am not sure what’s happening to me. It could be curiosity. It could be my inner Bad Alice wanting to answer to her employer. Her boss. Black Chess. Her past.
I don’t know.
“Don’t you know if you’re mad or not?” The voice says.
I almost flinched at the assumption. I am tired with people trying to mess with my mind. “Is that another Black Chess trick?”
“Not at all,” the voice said. “You may have been told we’re evil –which is very much a point of view – but the reality is we’ve never lied to you.”
“I won’t fall for your this,” I stress the words. “I’m Alice Wonder. I’m Mary Ann. I’m the orphan girl. In fact, I’m the Bad Alice. I am not mad.”
“You’re definitely the Bad Alice. And most of what you just said is true,” the voice says. “But not everything you learned is real.
“What do you mean?” My hands grip the edge of the door. An inner urges me to shut it close. Right now, before my heads starts to reel again. I know enough about myself. Maybe it’s not wise to know more.
“Come on, Alice,” the voice says. “Did you forget about the Lullaby pill?”
“What about it?”
“You’ve swallowed a whole lot, enough to make you lose your mind.”
I should have closed the door. Images of what happened to Tom Truckle hunt me. I’ve seen him pop the Lullaby pills like M&M’s. I’ve seen what they did to his mind. Who said I haven’t been affected like him? I really should have closed the damn.
“The Pillar doesn’t have all the answers. Only Mr. Jay, your psychiatrist, the founder of Black Chess, knows the little details about you, Alice,” the voice says. “They say the devil is in the detail. In Black Chess, we believe that madness is in the detail.”
I’m lost in the space of my head again. What is the person in side the limo talking about? A stranger need overwhelms me. I can’t explain it.
“Think about it, Alice,” The voice says. “You tried to change the future, and were slightly successful. You saved Jack, but that’s all. Everything stayed the same.”
“What’s your point?” I have a feeling I’m about to get into the limousine. I hate that feeling. But hating something never prevented it from happening.
“The future always finds a way,” The voice sounds confident. Comfortable with the darkness it comes from. “We will win the war. It’s inevitable, even if you change a few things.”
“The Pillar and I will fight you – “
“The Pillar will die soon. That’s also inevitable. Give in, Alice. It’s fate.”
It’s hard to explain how I feel in my chest. Those mixed emotions of love and hate. I feel like there is a magnet pulling me inside the limo. I say, “Yes, I want to meet Mr. Jay.”
Am I so lonely I want to meet with the mysterious psychiatrist?
“Please get in,” the voice said. “Mr. Jay is waiting. He has important plans for you.”
And here I stand at the crossroads of my life.
Am I really going to enter Black Chess’s headquarters? Will I be a Good Alice and kill them all and save the world? Or will I give into the Bad Alice in me and help destroy the world?
I wonder.
Epilogue Part Two
THE FUTURE: MOUNT CEMETERY, GUILDFORD
THE UNTOLD PART
When Carter Pillar ran out of the cemetery with the Lullaby pills, his heart raced. He was afraid he’d miss Alice and that she’d die because of him being late. Panting, he was on his way to his motorcycle when something caught his eye.
He suddenly forgot about Alice and approached that something. A tombstone outside the cemetery.
The Pillar stood before it, unable to comprehend what he was looking at. This must have been a mistake. How could this be true? Was this really going to happen?
The Pillar was simply staring at his own grave.
Things didn’t get crazier than that. Staring at your burying place in the future while you’re still alive in the present.
But that was only half the horror.