"Edith got punished that day because she was taking care of you, and you escaped her," Lorina can't stop snickering. I understand why Edith is dead serious now. Guilt is eating at her. She hides it by being a jerk.
"Shut up," Edith owns her sister with a sharp look. I wonder how I escaped her when I was a kid.
“Please, girls. Stop it,” my weakened mother pleads.
“Why stop it?” Edith says. “I don't buy it that she doesn't remember."
"Yes," Lorina backs up her elder sister. "She has to admit the horrible things she has done since she came back that afternoon."
"Horrible things," I tilt my head. "Other than killing my classmates?"
“Remember your boyfriend?” Lorina inquires.
"I have a boyfriend?”
“Had a boyfriend,” Lorina objects. She seems like she may have had a crush on my boyfriend. “Before you killed him along with everyone else on the school bus two years ago.”
“Why would I do that?” It’s really hard asking someone else about things you have done, but I truly don’t remember.
“Who knows,” Lorina rolls her eyes again, snickering at Edith.
“I remember she said something about monsters from Wonderland,” Edith laughs back. Her laugh is dull. It’s like she’s lazy, barely lifting her lips.
“Wonderland Monsters?” I narrow my eyebrows. I am not sure if they’re joking, or if that is what I said. Somehow I don’t care about all of this. I don’t care about my mother’s submissive silence, my mocking sisters, not even about the Wonderland Monsters. What I do care about is the boyfriend that I killed. It strikes me as odd. Even with a partial memory, I don’t think I would hurt someone I loved. “What’s his name?” I ask.
“Whose name?” Edith and Lorina are still laughing.
“My boyfriend, the one I killed.”
“Adam,” my mother speaks finally. “Adam J. Dixon.”
I don’t know how or why, but the name Adam J. Dixon suddenly brings tears to my eyes.
Chapter 10
Alice’s Cell, the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum, Oxford
Sleeping has become increasingly hard since I learned about my boyfriend, Adam. It’s not like I remember him or the incident of killing my classmates on the school bus. But Adam to me is like Wonderland. I can't remember them, but something tells me they are real.
What bothers me about Adam is that I am strangely mourning his death. I don’t know if science has an explanation for my feelings, but I can't escape it. I feel I want to cry for him, visit his burial ground, say a little prayer, and leave roses on his tomb. To me, it's a very genuine feeling. I don't think I even feel this way about my family.
I wonder if it’s possible to forget about someone but still experience a feeling toward them. It’s as if I have written his name on the inner walls of my heart. As if I am stained with his soul. Whatever we shared is buried somewhere in the abyss of my mind. I just don't know how to swim deep enough and return to the surface with it.
My thoughts are interrupted by Waltraud's knock on the door. Sometimes it feels like I am the only patient in the asylum.
“I am really tired,” I say. “I don’t want to eat, go to the bathroom, or meet anyone. Leave me alone.”
“It’s Doctor Tom Truckle,” he says, and enters my cell. He has never entered my cell before. When he steps inside, his hands are behind his back. "How have you been, Alice?” He has never asked me so politely.
“Mad.” My favorite answer. I think I should copyright it.
“I’ll make it short,” Dr. Truckle discards my complaint. He looks disgusted with my cell. “This might be outrageously silly, but I really need to ask you something,” he shrugs. I have never seen him shrug. He looks uncomfortable with Waltraud's presence. "How much is four times seven?” he asks quickly, as if embarrassed to say it. Waltraud and Ogier try their best not to laugh behind his back.
“Twenty eight,” I shrug my shoulders. Then a surge of emotion hits me. It reminds me of my buried feelings about Adam. A light bulb flickers in my head. Suddenly, I realize I know the right answer to the silly question. Whoever told Tom Truckle to ask it to me is sending me a code. I don’t know how, but I know. “Wait,” I interrupt Dr. Tom’s departure. “It’s fourteen,” I answer with a hint of a smile on my lips.
Chapter 11
The Pillar’s Cell, Radcliffe Asylum, Oxford
“Fourteen it is!” Pillar chirped, coughing some of the hookah’s smoke in the air.
“That’s the right answer?” Truckle couldn’t see the Pillar clearly behind the smoke.
“Indeed,” the Pillar said. “Now, bring her to me.”
“No. No. No,” Truckle snapped. “That’d be a serious breach in the asylum’s rules.”
“I’ve always thought insanity was about breaking the rules,” the Pillar said. “Be a good mad boy with a suit and necktie, and bring me Alice Wonder. This just gets better and better.”