“Of course I can have all the cake.” He pointed at the brownie in his hand. “I always do. Figure out a way for Alice to kill her classmates and make sure she gets the keys.”
“I don’t know how to do that, Mr. Tick.”
“Mr. Jay will be very upset.”
“Margaret hired us to send Alice back in time to get the keys. She never said anything about keeping the timeline intact.”
“But this will change a lot of things.”
“I know, Mr. Tick. She will also die without killing her classmates. Because she will not have found her Wonder.”
“Which means we will not even get the keys, if she has them.”
“We don’t need to, Mr. Tick. We know that the keys are with Jack.”
“So?”
“Last I heard, the Cheshire managed to possess Jack’s body. With a few tweaks and digging into his mind, the Cheshire will know where they are.”
“That’s genius, Mrs. Tock. But how about Alice? Doesn’t Black Chess want their fiercest warrior back?”
“Can’t help her now,” Mrs. Tock said. “Like I said, if she doesn’t kill her classmates, she dies.”
“She is already dying.” He pointed at Alice on the bed. “Look at how fast she is bleeding.”
“Farewell, Bad Alice,” Mrs. Tock said. “We’ll miss you. You were real fun.”
“Look at the endless number of kids she inspired for a century and a half,” Mr. Tick said. “Did the kids know she was the Bad Alice?”
“Some did.”
Mr. Tick let out a long sigh, took another brownie bite, then combed his hairies. “I guess that’s it, then. Alice dies and we get the keys from Jack.”
“I believe so, too.”
“I’m just really unhappy with the passengers on the bus staying alive,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen someone capable of changing the past so dramatically. It’s always been a few small changes, but not enough to change the course of the future.”
“I agree, Mr. Tick. We all know those on the bus must die.” Then an idea hit her. She rested a forefinger on her lips as if she’d discovered time itself. “Don’t you think time won’t let her change the past?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the future always finds a way to stay on course. Rule number 47 in the Wonderlastic Guide to Time Travels.”
“I read the rule, Mrs. Tock. But every rule has an exception.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Maybe not.”
Chapter 82
THE PAST: BUS STATION, OXFORD
Instead of slowly withering away, the terrible Alice inside me surfaces again. I guess it’s because of my weakness that I can’t oppose her now.
With blood trickling down my cheeks, I stand up and push my future husband away, about to catch up to the bus I am supposed to kill everyone on.
Talk about schizophrenic.
The boy holds me back for some reason. “You’re still bleeding,” he says. “You need a doctor.”
I push him off me, realizing I still have enough strength to get the mission done. He falls back. “I really have no idea why I will marry you in the future,” I say, standing up.
“Wow, hold your horses, girl,” the boy says. “Not so fast. We were just fooling around.”
I don’t pay attention to him and run after the bus. All around me, Black Chess are still watching me, waiting for me to make it happen. Although I’m in evil mode, I wonder again and again why I have to kill those on the bus.
I run after the bus, realizing that I’m limping. Why not? I’m dying. Slower, I limp like a mad girl with blood on her face.
People make way for me. They don’t want to have anything to do with me.
The last girl gets on the bus as I cling to the rail on the back. I’m going to get on it. It’s the only meaning in the Bad Alice’s life. It’s the only way that I can live and return to the present, I suddenly realize. If I have no Wonder as a Good Alice then I bet it’s the Bad Alice with the Wonder of killing her classmates.
The bus starts up and I cling harder to the rail, my legs scraping against the asphalt.
My knees hurt like hell. I should be dead already. I am trying to gather the strength to climb up. The girls in the back window stare at me as if I am terrorist. Well, I am. A Wonderland Monster.
I manage to pull myself up, bending my knees, and begin to climb up toward the top of the bus, like a poisonous spider who’s come to finish the job.
“Let me in!” I pound on the glass. I must look like a demon now. “Let me in!”
The bus is full of girls. Why girls? Why do they have to die? Who are they?
One of the girls is so scared she submits to my threats and actually tries to open the back window. I smile wickedly at her, encourage her to speed it up.
Here she goes. Just a little wider, and I can set my foot inside.
But I don’t.
Someone pulls me by my legs. I slip back, dropping on that someone behind me in the middle of the street, watching the bus fly away.
“No!” I scream, reaching out.
“It’s all right.” The Pillar holds me tight, both of us lying on our backs. “Let it go, Alice. Just let it go.”
When he calls my name, I don’t know which Alice he is talking to. It’s worse than not knowing whether I’m mad or not.
The Pillar’s grip is strong. He is more embracing me than keeping me away.
“The bus is gone,” the nerdy Pillar says. “Whatever the reason you feel you need to catch it, there’ll always be another.”
“No, there isn’t,” I say, knowing it’s too late. I possess no more strength to go after it. I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know who I am or what I want.
“The girls on the bus will live,” I mumble.
“They will,” the Pillar says. “Now just calm down. It will all be okay.”
And it should, the Good Alice reminds me. Like the Pillar said, I just need to let go. I did all I could, saved a boy, a bus, and resisted a great evil inside me—although I am not sure which part of me surfaces most of the time.
But it’s all right. The bus is about to disappear over the horizon.
It’s okay. No harm will be done.
“I think I changed so many things in the future,” I tell the Pillar, standing up.
“You think so?” He tilts his head. “I once read the future can never be changed.”
And he is right, because far in the distance, looking over his shoulder, I see the bus veering off the road and crashed into a building.
Chapter 83
THE PRESENT: INSIDE THE INKLINGS, OXFORD
“What happened?” Fabiola said.
Now that she had no means of using the Muhsroomers to kill Alice, she had come back, wanting to make sure the evil girl wouldn’t return.
“The strangest thing.” Even Mrs. Tock was surprised by the incident in the past.
“What do you mean? Speak up.”
“I think…” Mr. Tick squinted. “I think Alice didn’t kill her classmates on the bus.”
“That’s great news,” Fabiola said. “It means she hasn’t found her Wonder. It means she will not wake up again.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Mr. Tick said. “I also think that everyone on the bus died anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You see,” Mrs. Tock began, “Alice didn’t get on the bus, so she didn’t kill her classmates, but even so, the bus crashed and exploded.”
“That’s impossible. It doesn’t make any sense.” Fabiola gripped her sword tighter, staring at the dying Alice on the bed. This was so hard for her. Her past, and the secrets she knew, obliged her to kill Alice now. But she just couldn’t.