"Don't tell me it's this miserable fellow you found." He points at the corpse, and I nod. "And I thought you began to pick up on Wonderland's nonsensical humor and brought me a sample."

"Do you know how this is possible?" I pray he has an answer. This is so important to me.

"I do." He closes his eyes for a second. What is it he knows about Jack?

"But you're not going to tell me?"

The Pillar says nothing. He glances briefly at the chauffeur then breathes back into his hookah.

"Look at me," I demand. "Is Jack a fig—"

"I will tell you who Jack is exactly when you finish this mission." He is strict, although not looking at me. I want to believe him.

"Deal." I stretch a hand across the corpse. Somehow, delaying the knowledge of Jack's identity is a relief to me, because I am so afraid there is no Jack in the first place. I wave my stretched hand again, but the Pillar isn't shaking it back.

"I prefer we don't shake hands." He looks irritated. "Germs and bacteria, Alice." He points at his gloves. "You just came out of a morgue, for Edgar Allan Poe's sake."

The rude son of a...

I take my hand back. I don't care. I need to solve the Muffin Man puzzle, stop the crimes, and maybe know if I am the Real Alice, and then my reward will be knowing who Jack is. Please, God, give me a reasonable explanation to his existence.

"You know it's not 'wee-woo,' don't you?" the Pillar says to his chauffeur with a tinge of disgust in his voice.

"Then what is it, Professor Pillar? Please help me," the chauffeur says. People driving by swear at him. Other London drivers fire back at him, saying things like "You're a nut!" and "Get your sorry ass back inside!"

"It's 'woo-wee,' not 'wee-woo,' you mousy fool!" The Pillar takes a drag and smiles at me. "Everybody knows that."

I try not to laugh and lean back, thinking of the Muffin Man puzzle. It occurred to me how crazy the journey has been. I mean, last week I met so many humans who turned out to be Wonderlanders. Who'd believe me if I told them? The thought opens a question in my mind. "Tell me, Pillar," I say in the same investigative tone he practices on me. "If Margaret Kent is the Duchess, Fabiola is the White Queen, you are the Caterpillar, and of course the Cheshire is the Cheshire, then I have to wonder how many other Wonderlanders live among us here."

"Oh, Alice," the Pillar says. "They are many, not mentioning those the Cheshire hadn't set free yet."

"I mean, Margaret Kent is a Parliament woman. Fabiola is the Vatican's most beloved nun. Does it get crazier than this?"

The Pillar leans back and smiles with beady eyes. "You have no idea."

Chapter 24

Queen's Chamber, Buckingham Palace, London

 

The Queen of England—yes, that Queen, whatever her name is in this mad book—awoke in the middle of night, furious and maddened, and slightly scared. She suspected an intruder had been into her chamber in the Buckingham Palace.

Of course, the Queen's chambers were immaculately secure, particularly after a thirty-one-year-old psychiatric patient had scaled a drainpipe and sauntered into her chambers a few years ago.

Tonight, laced in her expensive nightgown, she regretted sleeping alone without guards in her chamber. A few guards would have caught the intruder right away.

The Queen had previously caught her guards and footmen stealing from her at her son's wedding. And what in Britain's name did they steal?

The guard dared to steal the Queen's exotic nuts, exclusively imported from Brazil. She ordered all her precious nuts removed to her private chambers and prevented any of the guards inside.

The Queen's nuts drove everyone nuts.

The Queen was known to love two things dearly: Her five o'clock tea parties, which had been once exclusively hosted by the one and only Mad Hatter—but that was a long story she didn't want to remember now. And, of course, her nuts and munchies.

Right now, the Queen tiptoed as cunningly and slowly as a cat, her back slightly hunched, and proceeded to the corridor outside her enchanting bed—her bed was too high; she needed a small stepladder to embark it. Sometimes, she secretly jumped right off it when no one was around. Being a queen, with all of this etiquette she had to fake, certainly bored her sometimes.

The Queen tiptoed on her way to check her endless bowls of exotic nuts in the corridor. She had them set at five-meter intervals, adjacent to the corridor's wall. They were set on waist-high tables so she could reach them effortlessly. She considered it ridiculous walking back a few meters when the appetite for a nut hit her. A five-meter span between each bowl of nuts was just convenient. Also, laziness sounded like a brilliant hobby.

If queens didn't indulge in laziness, who would? she'd always asked herself.

She stopped in front of a bowl of nuts and dipped a hand inside. Even with her eyes closed, she could almost tell if a few nuts were missing from each bowl.

The Queen gasped. This bowl seemed to miss a few.

Who's been nibbling on my nuts?

The Queen's face tightened, and her cheeks began to redden.

"All right," she hissed. "I have to make sure before I punish anyone."

She continued walking ahead, targeting a few other bowls at the end of the corridor.

As she walked, one of her dogs came padding and panting toward her. It was a Welsh corgi. She had five of them. Meals were served for each dog in their own bowl, with Britain's flag drawn on the outer shell. The meals were usually readied here in the corridor, with a few precious nuts on the side. The dogs' diet had been meticulously approved by veterinary experts from all over the world. It cost twice the income of a middle-class citizen who had two children to feed on average. But those weren't just any dogs. They were the Queen's dogs—and, in many ways, Wonderland Dogs.

Sure, the dogs never attended the meetings at Parliament, nor did they have word in the country's economy. But they were important by law. Again, being the Queen's dogs was no joke.

However, nuts weren't allowed in the dog's diet. But the Queen, being the Queen, broke the law and allowed them a few nuts as a gesture of love and pampering. Anything to make the Queen's corgis happy.

If the Queen didn't break rules and get away with it, who would? she had reminded herself.

"Sweet doggie." The Queen knelt against the pain in her knees to play with the dog. This one she called Bulldog—he looked weirdly like a bulldog and was excitedly funny. Her favorite dog, Maddog, wasn't here. Probably still recovering from constant constipation, which had been the reason why she couldn't attend the match at Stamford Bridge. "Are you hungry?" She ruffled Bulldog's ears.

Bulldog panted and gave her a sweet look.

"You haven't by any chance been nibbling at my nuts, have you?" she asked the dog.

Bulldog's smile widened.

"You terrible, bad boy." She squeezed his ears. "I told you to only eat those I personally serve you in your bowl." The dog lowered its chin to the floor and sniffed.

"But wait a minute." She rubbed her own chin. "You couldn't have eaten any nuts from those bowls." She pointed at the set of bowls by the end of the corridor. They were higher than the rest. To reach them, the dog had to roll the bowl over. "Let's check those. I have marked them."