Family (Insanity Book 7) (6 page)

“Exactly. If you’re thinking this, then I must be thinking that. I could never think this.”

“But it’d be cool if you think that while also thinking this. That’s the point of the phrase.”

“It’s impossible. There is always one this and one that. We can’t be thinking the same this or that.”

“You’re right. It explains why only one man discovered electricity, not two.”

“Because he was thinking this, which in this case was electricity.”

“But how about lovers?” Tom says. “Who believe they know each other, thinking the same this or that?”

“STOP IT!” The guard bursts out all of a sudden, though I feel a bit of relief after talking nonsense with Truckle. “Do you want me to open the coffin?”

“I’m afraid we’ll see something we might not now want to see,” Tom says.

“Ah,” I say. “You think it’s Inspector Dormouse in the coffin.”

“Now you’re thinking what I’m thinking.” Tom grins.

“Why would you think it’s Dormouse?”

“I think Inspector Dormouse discovered something about the Pillar we shouldn’t know of. So the Pillar killed him and decided to get rid of us all, including you.” Tom completes his theory. “He faked the phone messages and gathered us here while providing fake documents to the police and having them ambush us.”

“And the coffin with Inspector Dormouse’s corpse is like a joke, a big smug grin while the Pillar is smoking his hookah somewhere, laughing at how stupid I was.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t think we have enough time to keep guessing,” I say. “Let’s open the coffin and see.”

The guard breathes impatiently, now that he finally gets to show us who is inside the coffin. The lid is lifted and slowly our new visitor is shown. He is lying on his back, like Dracula, in a deep sleep — or an eternal death.

But he is not Dormouse. In fact, he is someone whose appearance debunks every theory we’ve had about what’s going.

Inside the coffin lies Professor Carter Pillar.

Chapter 20

The Queen’s Bentley State Limousine

 “Are we there yet?” asked the Queen.

“Almost,” Margaret answered impatiently. “I’m still not sure why we’re heading over to a place where a great massacre might occur.”

“The Queen of England has to be there while the police catch the terrorists. They need to see me in control. I’m contemplating if I should declare having discovered the terrorists myself.”

“And what about my messenger?” Margaret looked miffed.

The Queen turned and eyed the Duchess with a suspicious gleam. “Is there really a messenger, Margaret?”

“What? You think I made this up?”

“I don’t know.” The Queen shrugged her shoulders and looked out the window.

“Why would I do something like that?”

“Come on, darling,” she said without looking back at Margaret. “We all know that everyone of us is into this whole thing for personal reasons.”

Margaret shrugged, and even looked out her own window. She wouldn’t want the Queen’s piercing eyes exposing her true intentions.

“It’s okay,” the Queen said. “As long as you’re not planning to kill me. I know what you want, and I promise to give it to you when I get what I want.”

“Your promises are nothing but a castle of sand.” Margaret sighed.

“Unless you give me what I want, too.”

Margaret turned to look at the Queen still facing her window. “And what would that be?”

“The main reason why I am into this.”

“I thought you were on Mr. Jay’s side, only wanting to serve and win the Wonderland War.”

“Partially, yes. If Black Chess wins, I want a piece of the cake.”

“But there is another reason?”

“Of course there is. And you know it.”

“Ah.” Margaret mopped her forehead. “Your sister.”

The Queen nodded silently.

“You want revenge.”

“Aye.”

“For what she did to you in your childhood?”

“Aye.”

“You could have done this long ago. Why tell me now?”

“Consider it just a reminder. I promise to find your son if you help me kill my sister.”

“When do you want me to do that?”

“Not now, of course. I still need her. Just be ready.” The Queen turned and faced Margaret. “And be honest with me.”

“But I’m always honest with you.”

“So the messenger is real?”

“I’m not going to repeat myself,” Margaret said. “I told you he is real.”

“Then who is doing this?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s a brilliant plan. I assume this is why we’re driving to the asylum. You think whoever planned this might be there?”

“Could be, but I actually have another reason.” The Queen flashed a broad grin, pulling out a playing card from her pocket. An Ace.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Margaret said.

“Jack Diamonds.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve invited him and his girlfriend, Lorina, to come along. He is in the limo behind us.”

“Okay?” Margaret cocked her head with anticipation. She wondered what devious plan the Queen of Hearts had in mind.

“I want you to talk him into something when we arrive,” the Queen said.

“Me? What do you want me to tell him?”

“I was thinking, if Alice dies in the asylum today, it’d make it a bit more cinematic, theatrical; something tense like the ending of Scarface.”

“That’s a pretty old movie,” Margaret said. “I’m not sure I remember it.”

“Think of it as a messed up version of Romeo and Juliet.”

“Now I’m really confused.” But Margaret wasn’t. She instantly caught the connection. The Queen was asking for the most brutal of endings. “You don’t really want me to ask Jack to…”

“Kill Alice? Yes.” The Queen grinned, clapped her hands, then her feet, tried to jump off the backseat but failed due to her weight. If she could somersault to celebrate her ingenious idea, she would have. “I want Alice not only to die, but by the hands of the boy she loves the most. That’d be so Wondertastic.”

Chapter 21

The Radcliffe Asylum

Tom Truckle and I take our time staring at the Pillar’s corpse in the coffin. There is little or nothing that I can say. This must be the second strangest day in my life since I went to Mushroomland. I wonder what’s really going on. Nothing makes the slightest sense.

“I didn’t expect that,” Tom says. “So the Pillar is dead?”

I kneel down and check his pulse. “No,” I say. “He is either sleeping or someone sedated him.”

“Why would someone sedate him and send him over?”

“That’s the million-mushroom question. If it proves anything, we’re now sure the Pillar didn’t invite us here.”

Tom scratches his temples. “Then who did?”

“I say we wake the Pillar and ask him.”

The guards are taking care of this part, lifting the professor’s body and transporting it to his VIP cell. We follow their footsteps in silence, still thinking. No conclusions come to mind.

Once he is lying on his couch, I rummage through his pockets and pull out his phone.

“Checking sent messages?” Tom asks.

“Yes. Actually, I can’t find it.”

“So he didn’t send it. Someone managed to convince you it was his phone through some technology.”

“Why use the Pillar as bait?” I’m wondering.

“Because, as ironic as it sounds, you trust him the most,” Tom says bluntly.

“You’re right. I trust him, as puzzling at it seems,” I say. “I trust the man whom I joined to kill or something. I’m so confused.”

“Don’t be,” Tom suggests. “If he is your father, it’s understood. Emotions rule over logic.”

I take one long inquisitive look at the Pillar. Could he really be my father? We don’t even look anything alike.

“Ah-ha! Found it.” I hold the phone up in triumph after pulling it from a hidden pocket in his coat. I distract myself by scrolling through his phone for any clues. “Here,” I tell Truckle. “Proof the Pillar didn’t arrange this meeting.”

Truckle takes a look. “Wow. The Pillar received a message from you, Alice, to meet him at the Inklings Bar?”

“Our mysterious host must have invited him there and then sedated him.”

“It’s hard to believe the Pillar being so foolish.”

“Unless this mysterious host is someone he knows very well.”

“You’re suggesting our host is someone we know?” Truckle says. “One of us, to be precise.”

“Or how would he have sedated the Pillar?”

“Point taken,” Truckle says and points at the TV again. “Look, here is an explanation why the Pillar has been sent to join us.”

I raise my head and stare. This can’t be happening.

Chapter 22

The Radcliffe Asylum

Titling my head, I watch the host announce the Pillar being the mastermind behind the terrorist organization. Professor Carter Pillar, also known as Pilla da Killa, with twelve — or fourteen — people killed, proves to be an easy target. It’s really easy to fake a story about him being a terrorist.

Tom almost chuckles as he watches the Pillar’s profile, blood covered in Tibet, making fun of the Duchess in the Drury Lane Theatre, shooting people left and right, CCTV cameras showing him killing people inside parliament — my naive soul dragged along in a chair, of course — and last but not least, the Pillar’s bloodbath in Colombia.

“I do remember the BBC portraying him as a hero a few weeks back,” I comment. “They praised him for stopping the greatest drug lord in the world.”

“People forget, Alice,” Tom says. “The media can easily turn yesterday’s heroes into today’s villains. News is sometimes like bad remakes of remarkable movies. All jumbled up.”

I watch the Pillar’s footage of killing drug traffickers in Mushroomland, now portrayed as an insider war between drug lords. In truth, it’s hard to blame anyone. I, myself, don’t know what to think of this man.

However, something else puzzles me.

“If whoever invited us all had a chance to kill the Pillar, why didn’t he?” I ask Tom.

“I am assuming it’s someone in Black Chess,” Tom says. “For some reason the search for the Keys and the whole Inklings against them didn’t matter anymore. They know something we don’t. Something powerful.”

“Enough to want to ambush and kill us?”

“Why not? They don’t need us. Not even the Pillar. And because they’re not sure they can do it themselves — considering you and the Pillar always stand in the way — they decided to make you the public’s enemy number one.”

“I understand why we’re now terrorists, but I have a feeling I don’t understand what you’re implying.”

“Think of it, Alice.” Tom stares at the TV. “Don’t you see what’s going on? Our photos are being engraved in the minds of every British citizen in the world. We’re doomed. We’re the reason for every mother, father, and children’s pain in the last few years. This isn’t just about killing us.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about labeling us. Even if we make it out of here, how can we ever persuade people we’re the good guys? By telling them we’re characters from Carroll’s book who just happened to be real? It’s some devious, and genius plan.”

Tom is right.

Having been concerned with the puzzle of my own family, I overlooked the fact that we’re deep in the mud right now. It’s going to be hard to even fight Wonderland Monsters anymore. I wonder if this is really our end.

My thoughts are interrupted by the Pillar’s moans. He raises his heavy head for a brief moment, glances at me with beady eyes, then falls back again.

This is when a slither of hope slices through the grayness of the situation. “What if the Pillar was sent here for another reason?” I challenge Tom.

“Who cares? We’re all mad corpses waiting for exile.”

“Don’t be like that,” I try to cheer him up. “It’s time you think of what’s happening, Dr. Truckle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember why you’ve installed the surveillance cameras inside his cell?”

“Of course, I remember.” Tom was about to burst, but a soft breeze of epiphany cooled him down instantly. “Holy Lord of the Rings. You’re a genius, Alice. How did I forget about that? The Pillar knows how to escape from the asylum and return as he pleases.”

“See? There is hope after all.” I smile.

Chapter 23

The Queen’s Bentley State Limousine

Having arrived, the Queen got out of the limo to talk to the police. Everyone seemed surprised by her presence, but she was welcomed, especially by the press. But before she started babbling on national TV, she’d made sure to send Jack to talk to Margaret in the limousine. Margaret had blurted the words out as bluntly as she could. She’d asked Jack to kill Alice. And Jack said yes, so spontaneously that Margaret had to investigate.

“Just like that?” she wondered. “You’re ready to kill the girl whom you know loves you so much?”

“She doesn’t love me,” Jack said. “She used to stalk me.”

“You’re used to killing anyone who stalks you?”

“Not really, but Lorina, my girlfriend, really hates her guts.”

“Oh.” Margaret was about to slap him on the face, but figured she didn’t want to upset the Queen to get what she wanted. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“Lorina and Edith taught me. They’ve asked me to kill Alice as well.”

“Some family,” Margaret mumbled. “So, I guess my work is done here.”

“All in the name of the Queen,” Jack said. The boy sounded as if brainwashed, but Margaret didn’t want to ask. “All in the name of Black Chess.”

“You know about Black Chess?”

“The Queen told me I should work for them. She promised they will pay my college fees and help me marry Lorina.”

“I see. Can I ask what you really like about Lorina?” Margaret refrained from saying more about the bratty girl with no empathy whatsoever.

“She likes me, so I like her back.”

“You sound so dumb,” Margaret said under her breath.

“What did you say?”