I will do as you say, but you will show me the rabbit’s place in return when I finish your mission. Again, does the place have a name?

He takes a bit longer again:

It’s called the circus.

A lot of memories flood into the swimming pool of my brain. It’s as if I know this place, but I can’t really tell. I remember the March Hare telling me about the circus in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, and how dangerous it is. Why did he warn me about a circus? Isn’t it supposed to be a fun place? Unless you meet the clown, of course.

I type back:

If you don’t know where the circus is, how am I supposed to find it?

A response arrives:

Once you pass that door, memories of your past should come back to you. That’s when you will know where the circus is.

I type:

Are you saying you’re one of those who believe I am the Real Alice?

The reply:

You better be, or a lot of people will die. Now get past that door.

Furious again, I write:

How?

He responds:

What do you mean how? I suppose you think you need a key. Not all doors open with keys. Some you only have to knock, and they will let you in.

Chapter 46

Beyond the door, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation

Time remaining: 11 hours, 30 minutes

Once I knock, the doorknob turns and the door opens, and a gust of wind plows against my chest. It smells of mushrooms.

With a numb tongue and misleading vision, I realize I am not underground anymore. Instead, I’m looking at the colorful world of Wonderland.

It seems hard to grasp its vastness at first—harder to believe this is really happening.

But I step forward into a green road with yellow bananas for trees, bending on both sides. The banana trees have their sides peeled. A few birds twitter on top on the edges.

The sky is the color of marmalade, which is gross at first sight, but within the context of all the green and yellow, orange shines through. It all looks like a child’s drawing.

There isn’t enough time to take in the surroundings. I prefer to figure out how I’m supposed to find the circus—which isn’t showing on my Wonderland map.

I walk ahead, looking for someone to meet, but the place seems abandoned.

Where did everyone in Wonderland go?

A banana tree bends too close, as if spying on me.

“What do you want?” I want to say, but nothing comes out. My tongue feels like cotton.

I am not even sure the banana—or the tree—is as large as I think.

When I stare at my feet, they are bigger than the hole I fell through earlier. They flap loudly, as if I’m a seal.

My toe is also scaring me. It’s really awful and big. Red, as if bruised. It’s one big tomato.

I look away.

Where is everyone?

I take another look at my phone. I see a few locations on the map. The Queen of Hearts’ palace, the Muffin Man’s house, and big chessboard land.

I also spot Lewis Carroll’s studio, which looks like it’s on the edge of Wonderland. It makes sense now that I saw him enter Wonderland from a door in Oxford University when I met him through the Tom Tower a couple of weeks ago.

But if Oxford University is tangent to Wonderland, how am I in Scotland right now? Or am I?

It’s mind-boggling. Messed up. Dizzying.

I decide to accept things the way they are, just like the Pillar said.

I hate how the Pillar is always right. Trying to apply logic, or even a fragment of logic, in the insane world I am in is useless.

So I go with the flow.

I have a circus to find.

Strange enough, the map doesn’t show a circus in Wonderland, and I don’t remember a circus in Lewis Carroll’s book.

I have no idea where to find this circus, or why it’s so important—the March Hare warned me of it, and the Hatter desires it. The Pillar doesn’t know much about it.

“Psst,” I hear a female voice call me. “You can’t keep walking like that in here.”

I stop in my tracks, but don’t see anyone around me.

All but a tiger lily bending over toward me, a little too large, of course.

I shake my head, longing for an explanation, as I can’t talk.

“You look like you’re from another world, walking in those jeans and boots,” Tiger Lily says, and suddenly I realize it’s my Tiger Lily. “You should put on the maid’s dress.”

How does she know about the maid’s dress in my bag?

“Hurry!” it insists, as it always does in the real world.

I take a moment to think about it. Whenever she talks to me, I am usually in my hallucinating mode. So what does that mean now? Or is it part of my induced Alice Syndrome?

Tiger Lily grins. I think she knows what I am thinking about. “Ah.” She twists her petals. “You think you’re mad because I’m talking to you.”

I nod.

“I don’t blame you, because frankly: how come a flower talks?” She snickers. “But the thing is, who will you be talking to if I don’t talk to you? In other words, would you prefer loneliness over madness?”

Well, that’s the Tiger Lily I know. I wonder why I am so attached to it. Whatever happened in the past between me and her?

But if I am going to comply with her logic, I need her to do something for me first. I point at my dangling tongue.

“Are you bargaining now?” She takes a minute to think it over. “I like it when you don’t give up easily. Why not.” She spits blueberries at my tongue.

They break open and tickle me, then sting, but finally I am able to speak again. “How do I get to the circus?” I ask immediately.

“Ah, the circus,” she says. “You don’t want to go there, Alice. You don’t want to go there.”

Chapter 47

Wonderland

Time remaining: 10 hours, 38 minutes

“Don’t give me advice,” I retort. “I know what I am doing. I need to find the circus for this Hatter so he’ll show me where to find the rabbit. I think I have around ten hours left before a bomb goes off.”

“Boom!” Tiger Lilly snickers again. I hate her when she goes nuts like that. “Well, first you need to put on the dress, like I told you.”

Since I don’t want to look like an intruder in this world, I put it on. It’s a bit too small for me, but I force myself to fit. “Should I wear the gloves and the fan too?”

“Nah,” she says. “Their time hasn’t come yet.”

“So you know what all of this is about,” I say.

“I do.” She nods. “So do you.”

“What do you mean? I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Oh, you do. You just don’t remember it yet.”

“Then why don’t you remind me?” I sigh.

“What’s the fun in that, Alice?” she says. “One is never told the truth. One has to find it out.”

“Whatever that means.” I tighten the laces of the dress and take off my shoes.

“But I can tell you that the glove and fan in your pockets are useless. All you need is the dress.”

“They can’t be. I found them, according to the Hatter’s clues.”

“Not those,” she says. “You got the wrong ones. The real ones are with the wonders.”

“Wonders?” I blink. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a puzzle you have to solve, but way later, not now,” she says. “Now, let me tell you about what you’re looking for in here.”

“The circus,” I say. “Where is everyone, by the way?”

“Everyone is in the circus.”

“Okay?” I tilt my head. “So it wouldn’t be hard to find it, right?”

“It’s tricky, Alice,” she says. “Very tricky. I mean, doesn’t it strike you as strange that every single Wonderlander is in the circus right now?”

I look around and shrug. It’s extremely unsettling that Wonderland is vacant like this. She is right.