Suddenly, I realize I have a last wish. "Pillar." I grab him by his collar. "I need to know who Jack is before I die."

"Don't worry about your boyfriend, Alice," he says, still looking over my shoulder. "You're going to meet him in a few minutes when we die."

My hand drops like a dead thing from his collar. I'm not really sure of anything. This is another Catch-22, I guess. If I die now, I haven't been mad at all. What a way to prove one's sanity.

"We have been seduced to solve a trail of puzzles that only lead us to our own deaths," are the Pillar's last words, just before I experience my first sneeze.

Chapter 4 2

Queen's chamber, Buckingham Palace, London

The Queen of England sipped her five o'clock tea while sitting in a bamboo chair in her private garden among her Welsh corgis. She wore her solid red coat, matching her red hat with white feathers and few flowers wrapping it. She didn't like her tea much though.

A few hours earlier, she had been bored to death, taking selfies of herself back in her chamber. Selfies sucked when you barely knew how to smile, she had thought. So she took snapshots of her bowls of Brazilian nuts, which looked even more delicious in high-resolution photos.

Now, sipping her tea in her balcony, she was waiting for someone. The Queen hated waiting, but things had gotten out of hand. She needed to fix them by meeting a few people.

Another sip reminded her of how she missed the Mad Hatter's tea. This Twinings tea she was sipping was nothing compared to his genius invention—and oh, those mad parties.

But those were times gone past. She wasn't even sure if the Mad Hatter would be on her side if the Wonderland Wars really took place.

She wondered if the wars were necessary. But then, people loved wars, whether they admitted it or not. Wars were always profitable and a great release for years of suppressed anger, and the gushing of blood.

But the Wonderland Wars weren't going to be like that. Blood and gore were merely the background of their war. It was a war of minds. A war of truth. More than anything, a war of insanity. Those who'd stay sane long enough usually won these kinds of wars.

The Queen sipped that poor tea again and spat it out on the floor near one of her dogs. Not Bulldog. It was Maddog, her favorite female corgi. She had been cured from her constipation and was in good health again.

Maddog licked the tea obediently from the floor, then panted pleadingly. Maddog had eyes the color of pale pearls.

"No more nuts today," the Queen declared. "They're addictive and they cost me a fortune. And you get constipated."

Maddog looked disappointed.

"I apologize for being late, Majesty." Margaret Kent arrived in her grey business suit. She wore a twenty-four-carat blood-diamond ring on her left hand today. It didn't distract from the grumpiness in her surgically enhanced face today. The beautiful Parliament woman looked overly exhausted.

"Apology denied." The Queen merely waved her white-gloved hand. "You're lucky I can't chop your head off," she muttered with fake, super-white teeth. "I still need you."

Margaret Kent sat next to her, unable to look Her Majesty in the eyes. "I know the situation got out of hand," she began. "I never thought the Cheshire would go that far."

"He wouldn't if he hadn't gotten his grin back." The Queen poured herself another cup of tea, knowing she'd eventually spit it out like the last. "That was a terrible mistake. You should have stopped him."

"It's all because of Alice Wonder," Margaret said. "She gave the Cheshire his grin back to save some poor girl's life."

"That's not the Alice." The Queen reached for a spoon, disgusted by a little stain on it.

"How do you know, Majesty?" Margaret asked. "Are you sure?"

"I am sure." The Queen stared at the spoon, thinking of chopping some servants' heads off.

"But Carroll's potion left us oblivious of her looks," Margaret reasoned. "He protected her from us this way."

"True." The Queen called for Maddog to come lick the spoon clean for her. "But Carroll's potion didn't leave the Real Alice unable to recognize who we are." Maddog licked the spoon religiously and the Queen put it back in the cup, stirring two cubes of sugar inside. "If she was the Alice, she'd have recognized us and killed us all."

"It's a plausible assumption," Margaret said. "But there is the incident of this Alice killing her friends in a school bus. She might have lost her memory because of it."

"If she did, she should have already regained her memory under the Pillar's influence." The Queen sipped her tea.

"I doubt the Pillar doesn't know what he is doing," Margaret said. "If he picks a girl and thinks she is Alice, he has enough evidence to back it up."

"Of course, the Pillar knows what he is doing." The Queen wondered why her tea had dog saliva in it this time. "He is playing games with us."

"I am not following, Majesty."

"Damn this tea!" The Queen spat the tea back on the ground. Maddog licked it. "The Pillar needed to have a powerful weapon against us. What better to draw us to the illusion that he has found Alice?"

"You mean he picked just any girl to play us?"

"Not just any girl." The Queen poured tea in a newer cup again, hoping it had no dog saliva in it this time. "He was very smart about the girl he picked. Think of it: an insane girl who killed her friends and used to think she was Alice from Wonderland. Almost every poor girl in this country dreams of being Alice so she could eat big mushrooms and grow stronger and bigger. Pillar picked a troubled, friendless, mad girl, then used her complicated history and insanity to make up a cute little story. Also, he needed to find a lonely and confused girl so he could persuade her that she is the Real Alice."

"So, we shouldn't worry about the Pillar?"

"You should worry about the mess happening in this country!" The Queen reached for the same spoon but stopped. She decided it was better to use a newer spoon to make sure everything was clean this time. "A head stuffed in a football in front of millions of watchers? Then watermelons stuffed with kids' heads? And now a mass murder at Drury Lane Theatre?" She stared at the new spotless spoon and saw it was definitely clean. A smile filled her face as she started to use it to stir the sugar. "A murder by peppers?" she asked Margaret. "What the bloody bollocks of hell!"

"It won't happen again, I promise," Margaret said. "The Cheshire helped the Muffin Man escape the asylum. He taught him all the dirty tricks and backed him up with the killings. He used the Muffin Man's anger against him, and against us."

"The Muffin Man has always been angry since what happened to him in Wonderland.” The Queen said.

“Not just Wonderland, Majesty,” Margaret began, but was cut off by the Queen's waving finger.

“Enough,” Apparently, the Queen didn't want to delve further into the subject. “I don’t want to remember any of this.” She decided to sip her tea when she met Maddog's pleading eyes again. The Queen lowered her hand and let poor Maddog sip from the teacup. If she couldn't give her more nuts, maybe a few sips of tea would make her favorite dog happy. "You should have killed the Muffin Man, I mean your cook, back in Wonderland," she told Margaret as she leaned back in her chair.