"Jack!" I tiptoe like a young girl meeting her loved one after he has been away for long.

"With a dress like that, I could get on my knees and propose."

I am sure I am blushing, so I lower my head and lace my hands. Slowly, Jack's finger nudges me back to look at him. "You know I am poor and can't afford a ring, right?"

"You're just silly." I am blushing red roses out of my cheeks.

"I'm not silly. I am mad."

"You're not mad. Trust me." I wrap my fingers around his wrist. I feel as if the world is slowly disappearing all around me. No one's left in it but him and me. "I'm the mad one. I have a Certificate of Ins—"

"I'm mad about you," he says. I don't think he heard what I just said. "I would go to the moon and back for you. You have no idea, Alice."

"Mad enough to die for me?" I shrug. In the name of Mushroomers, why did I say that?

"Alice." He leans in, still smelling of a deck of cards. Normally, a smell like that would spoil a moment like this. It doesn't. I'm in love with all the nonsense aces, spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds he brings to my life. "You can kill me anytime you want. I won't complain," he whispers.

A sticky tear threatens to seep out of my eye when he says that. Now, why did he say that? Should I tell him that I killed him? Should I tell him I have no idea how he is standing in front of me?

"Who are you talking to?" The Pillar waves at me from an aisle of dresses a few feet away.

"It's Jack," I reply. "I have never had him appear in your presence before."

The Pillar says nothing as he walks silently toward me. He briefly checks out the crowd around us before he stops and says, "Jack who?"

"Jack Diamonds," I insist, poking Jack at his chest.

The Pillar looks behind him and then back to me, a suspicious gaze in his eyes. Almost pitiful.

"Look." I sigh. "I know you don't like him, but it wouldn't hurt you to say 'hi.'"

"I would if I could," the Pillar says. His gaze starts to worry me.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I don't see a 'Jack' in here."

"It's Jack, Pillar," I stress. "Adam, my boyfriend. Don't play games with me."

Slowly, the Pillar closes in, standing right behind Jack. "Alice," he almost whispers. "You need to calm down. There is no one here but you and me. Behind us, everyone is taking care of their own business. But right here, there is no Jack."

"You're lying," I say. "I'm not imagining him."

"I didn't quite say that. I just don't see him."

"Nonsense!" I look back at Jack. "Say something, Jack."

"Like what?" Jack looks uncomfortable with the Pillar's proximity.

"Tell him you're not a figment of my imagination," I plead. "Tell the Pillar you're real."

Jack sighs and walks away, brushing against the Pillar. I see the Pillar slightly make room for him. Why is he saying he can't see him? Where is Jack going?

"I am real, Alice," Jack says from afar. "I just don't like this man." He points at the Pillar. "I think he doesn't like me. And honestly, I think you shouldn't be around him."

"Pillar?" I dare him. "You heard Jack. Is that true?"

"What did Jack say?" The Pillar purses his lips, but looks in the direction I am looking at.

"He says you're playing games with my mind."

"Please, Alice," the Pillar says. "Let's forget about Jack. I will tell you who he is when we catch the Muffin Man. You gave me your word."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Jack protests.

"There is no Jack here, Alice." The Pillar holds me gently by the shoulders.

"He is standing right there!" My high-pitched voice catches the customers' attention. The Pillar looks like he doesn't want anyone to notice me.

"All right." The Pillar sighs. "Ask Jack to talk to one of the staff girls. Let's see if they can see him."

"Don't listen to him, Alice," Jack says.

"Do as he says, Jack," I beg him. "Please."

Jack slowly walks toward a girl in the staff and stretches out a hand. She smiles and shakes it back. No one can resist those dimples. They start chatting.

"See? He is real." I pout at the Pillar. "He is talking to the girl."

"No, he isn't," the Pillar says. "What girl?"

"I can't believe you." I push the Pillar away. I am about to pull my hair and scream. I feel like I want to hide back in my cell. Something isn't right. It's like a hidden truth that I feel but can't put my hands on. I return to the dressing room, away from the Pillar, and grab my clothes so I can leave. "I don't understand why you are doing this," I shout at the Pillar in public. The hell with people. I am a mad girl. I can do as I please. "I've had it with you!" I walk away with Jack.

It's time to end this.

Furious, I pull my clothes and accidentally catch on the dark veil covering the mirror. My heart almost explodes at the horror, realizing what I have done. I reach for the veil before it curls down to the ground.

But I am too late.

Once the mirror flashes like summer rays at my eyes, I see that scary rabbit inside it again. My fear of mirrors prickles every hair on my skin. This time, I am too furious and fragile to deal with it.

I faint and drop to the floor like an empty satin dress, devoid of its owner, swirling lonely to the ground.

Chapter 32

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, 1862

I am standing in front of Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on Brydges Street—renamed Catherine Street two centuries later. It's 1862 again. I am back in Lewis' vision, only we're in London this time.

There is a coach and a small crowd waiting outside the theatre's façade. All in all, a few people. Hiding at the edges of my vision I still see a lot of homeless people and beggars, scattered all around like invisible diseases. Those waiting by the theatre pretend they don't see the poor.

A man with a pipe tells his wife about the theatre's history. How it had been mysteriously burned down in 1809. How Richard Sheridan, Irish playwright and owner of the theatre, watched the fire from a coffee house with a bottle of wine. The man laughs and takes another drag from his pipe, which smells of the exact flavor the Pillar smokes.

With all the poverty, mud, and stinky smell of open sewers, these few aristocrats manage to wait outside the theatre, demanding entry to a famous play. Whenever a poor girl or boy in tattered clothes approaches them, they shoo them away like a annoying fly buzzing near their ears. They drink their wine, tell their stories, and talk about the dinner party they should attend after the play.

Not sure if I am invisible in this dream, I keep approaching the rich, wanting to listen to them. They argue whether last night's turkey wasn't cooked properly, whether they should fire their cook. The man's wife, wearing a lot of jewelry, wishes they could afford hiring Alexis Benoist Soyer, a French celebrity chef. Her husband can't agree more. He jokes that their cook, although they pay him decently in such filthy times, probably steals all his meals from a book called Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.

My mind flickers when I hear the name. I think I have seen a copy of the book in Lewis' private studio when I entered it through the Tom Tower a week ago.