"How can I kill him?" I try to be blunt and precise, like the Pillar.
"That's the easy part." He pulls my umbrella from behind his back and opens it with a joker's smile on his face.
"How did you get that?"
"I had to snatch it from your cell when I visited you last time," he says. "I've always been curious about those gadgets Lewis Carroll invented. Fabiola knows a lot about those, but she wouldn't tell me." He meows like a sad cat waiting to be fed. "But that's all right. I always get what I want eventually. I'm a cat, after all."
"So you know I'm not mad," I say. "You have my umbrella and know I used it to escape the tower at Ypres."
"I don't know that," he says. "You know why? Because we're all mad here." He throws the umbrella my way.
I catch it, and without hesitation, I aim it back at him. I pull the trigger and shoot him. I don't get chances like these often, and I should have killed him in the morgue.
A bullet that looks like a sharp tooth slithers through his stomach and doesn't come out. I think I managed to finally kill the Cheshire Cat.
Chapter 6 3
"Ouch," he says. "That tickled." He grins that awful grin again. "That's why I met you in a dead boy's form, because you can't kill what's already dead. Nice reflexes, though. The bullets inside this weapon are very scarce, so don't shoot me again, please."
"What kind of bullets?"
"Bandersnatch teeth, another Carrollian invention. You know what a Bandersnatch is, right?"
"A monster lurking in the Wonderland forest, according to the books, like mentioned by Carroll in the poem."
"You had three bullets inside. Now two." He furrows his brow. "No other bullet can kill the Muffin Man, unless you're planning to get close to him and fist-fight a big man like him."
"Where is he, so I can stop him?"
"He is in Uxbridge in London, inside the Cadbury factory, stirring some hot chocolate and pouring pepper into it."
"Wait a minute. Something isn't right." Uxbridge shouldn't be far from here. I just don't understand why the Cheshire wants me to kill the monster he created himself. "Why are you doing all of this? You're tricking me."
"It's simple, really." He pulls out the Bandersnatch tooth and hurls it away. "I planned this mess from the beginning only to send you a message. By you, I mean the Pillar, Fabiola, and the whole world."
"Which is?"
"I showed you an example of a man crushed so hard by society he flipped back with anger against it." He is proud of it. "It's a textbook on how to create a terrorist or criminal. Crush him with society's cruelness, take his poor soul to a madman like me, and infest his brain with revengeful thoughts so powerful that he only sees humans as bridges to his cause. Then you've got yourself a first-class nuthead killing for reasons that make no sense."
I stare at him speechlessly.
"What?"
"I just haven't seen anyone sicker than you," I admit. "What are you? What drives your hate to humanity so much?"
"Humans, of course." He spreads his hands wide. "They made me what I am. The same way I made the Muffin Man. I am a reflex to human cruelty and madness; only you weren't prepared for such a powerful reflex like me. And guess what? I am just showing the Pillar and Fabiola how weak human souls are, how I can use most of them against them in the coming Wonderland War. You know how many mistreated men and women walk the streets every that I could take advantage of?"
"Somehow, I don't think this enough reason to want me to kill the Muffin Man," I argue.
"I want to see if you can do it." He steps forward, his dead eyes gleaming with life. "I'm still am curious about you." He throws the yo-yo away. "Either you won’t be able to do it and go permanently insane so I'll stop thinking about you, or you'll kill him, and prove you're the one and only Alice that Lewis trusted so much."
"Then what happens?"
"If you are her?" he asks. "Oh, baby. That's a new ballgame on its own."
I am not sure I want to risk being pushed to further madness. I'd risk waking up crippled in my cell again.
"But I don't think you could shoot the Muffin Man," the Cheshire dares. "You're too weakened by what you've seen in Wonderland. Deep inside, you think he had been a good man mistreated by the grumpy Queen of Hearts, who killed his children."
"We're not sure about that," I object. "Lewis went to save them. He might have—"
"No, he didn't." He grins. "Doesn't it show already? If Lewis had saved Gorgon's kids, he wouldn't be still doing this now. What? You thought you could change the past? The Pillar used you as an experiment to see if the Einstein Blackboard works. Gorgon Ramstein's kids were found dead, their hands scraping at the locked door of their mushroom house, trying to reach for a handle that wasn't going to budge anyway."
I am holding on to the umbrella as strongly as I can. If that really happened, I can't picture it in my mind. Is the Muffin Man supposed to pay for the cruelty of the world, or is he supposed to be killed to save those who, some of them, had been cruel to him?
"I can't believe such a thing happened to the Muffin Man." My jaw aches when I speak. I'm fighting both vomit and tears. But like the Pillar said, I can't keep on whining about the insane world. I have to be stronger, although I don't know the recipe for that. "What happened to Lewis when he saw them?" I am angered I have to get my information from the Cheshire, but I can't imagine how Lewis reacted to this. I know how much he loves children.
"Well for one, he st-t-tuttered f-for a-a while." The Cheshire mocks Lewis's shortcomings with a meaty smile from his fatty lips. I barely keep myself from shooting him again. "But then, after he gathered himself, the mathematician priest had an epiphany of a lifetime."
"What do you mean?"
"Lewis Carroll finally knew what could save the poor children of Victorian times," the Cheshire says, mockery underlining every word. "He decided if children could not get clothes, friends, and goods in real life, he was going to give it to them lavishly in a book. A book full of oversized mushrooms, cakes that make you taller, marshmallows, tarts, and more. All free, but only in the figments of imagination of the poor children."
"You mean..."
"I mean the Muffin Man's story is actually the inception of the Alice Underground books. He actually believed that if Gorgon's kids had such a book they might have not starved so quickly. A 'food for the soul' thing, if you know what I mean." He rolls his eyes, obviously envious of everything Lewis did.
"My God."
"Yes? How can I help you?" The Cheshire tilts his head and raises his eyebrows. "Just kidding. Come on, let's see if you can pull the trigger, so-called Alice." The Cheshire shows me his latest grin. He disappears, evacuating boy's head and torso so they fall down to the ground.
Chapter 6 4
Cadbury factory, Uxbridge, London
The Pillar takes care of getting me into the factory. It isn't that hard, now that it's abandoned. Who wants to make chocolate for a world withering away half an hour from now?
In the elevator to the factory's manufacturing floor, the Pillar pushes the stop button.