What was I holding in my hand back then that was important to me?

I can remember I didn’t care about the pain. I only cared about that thing I was gripping.

What was it?

Then I remember seeing buckets in the corner of the room. A lot of cleaning tools next to them. What did I do with those buckets?

Risking the loss of my precious memory, I open my eyes, seeing if the buckets are still in the corner of the room right now.

They are!

Something inside me tells me I hid that precious thing in the back of my head in one of the buckets. Something tells me that this is what all this is about.

I am supposed to find what’s in the bucket.

Edith and Lorina freak out when I aggressively beeline through them toward the buckets. I pull them out of the corner and rummage through them, having no idea what I am looking for, but knowing I will recognize it when I see it.

“What?” Lorina says behind me. “You missed your buckets, Mary Ann?”

“My buckets?” I turn back. “They are mine? Did they mean something to me?”

“The whole world.” Edith rolls her eyes.

“What do you mean?” I insist. “Why did I have them?” I can’t tell them about what I think I hid inside, because I’m somehow sure they shouldn’t know about it.

If only I could remember it clearer now. If only!

“Here.” Lorina holds a broom with the tips of her hand. “Yuck. Hold this.” She gives it to me.

The broom is old. I don’t know why it should mean anything to me. “What is this?” I shout then take a step forward and almost choke Lorina with one hand. “Tell me what’s going on. What do these buckets mean to me?”

“They were—” Lorina is choking under my grip, so I turn to Edith.

“They were tools,” Edith says.

“Tools for what?”

“Cleaning tools, duh!” Edith says. “Let my sister go.”

I do. I loosen my grip, and Lorina slumps to the floor.

But I don’t even bother. Cleaning tools?

“Yes, Alice.” Edith glares at me. “You were homeless. You were mad. You thought you came from Wonderland. You told us about that stupid circus. And we made fun of you as a kid. And guess what, you were also the maid!”

Both of them laugh at me again.

“That’s why you loved your buckets, soaps, and brooms.” Lorina’s voice is sour, but challenging. “Along with your crazy Alice books. You came to us in that dress you wore. Mum wanted to make you one of our sisters, but we insisted you stay the maid you probably were from wherever you came from. Mary Ann the maid.”

Tears stream down my cheeks, but I try to forget about them. Because my childhood couldn’t have been such a wreck. My existence, mad or not, must have a reason. A noble cause.

I kneel down and look for that damn thing in the buckets. What is it? Please make it something that brings back some of my dignity, my sanity.

And there it is, right in front of me.

I knew it.

I knew that my existence in this world must have a reason.

Chapter 71

Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford

Time remaining: 39 minutes

I am staring at a golden key that looks exactly like the one Lewis Carroll gave me in the Tom Tower dream.

One of the six keys to Wonderland. The Six Impossible Keys.

Why I hid it here, I can’t remember. All I know is that it’s one of the six keys, and that as a child I hid this one here, for one reason or another. It meant the world to me, and was worth the humiliation I went through.

“What did you find?” Lorina demands.

I push her hand away.

Edith swings and misses my head as I duck an inch, or less. Time for some None Fu again.

I pull Edith’s arms and swing her whole body as if she were my own baseball bat against the wall. She sticks like a fat piece of fresh meat for a moment, her eyes rolling back, then slides down into my buckets.

Lorina surprises me with a kick in the back.

“Take this, $%$#@!” she shouts.

I find my body plastered against the wall. She kicks me once again in my lower back and I drop to my knees, drooling.

How come this Barbie doll is that strong?

When I turn to face her, I see she has unfolded her fan again. For the first time I notice how edgy it is. It could cut like a knife.

She throws it at me; it swirls and slices through the air before it reaches me, neck level.

I find myself catching it with a firm grip, right at a spot without blades.

“Learned a lot in your None Fu training, huh,” Lorina says.

I say nothing to her, but threaten to throw the fan back at her while running in her direction. Lorina thinks I am going to try to cut her with the fan’s blades, but I am not a killer. I won’t stain my hands with the blood of scumbag bullies.

I keep treading with fiery eyes, happy to see the horror in hers. I keep pushing her until she falls backward into the cage through the opening where they wanted to trap me a while ago.

I watch her trip backward and lock her inside.

“How does it feel standing inside the circus now?” I say. “How does it feel to be the clown?”

Lorina starts pleading and playing good sister with me, like last time. Thankfully, I have learned my lesson. I won’t be fooled.

I stare at the key in my palm and smile. Now I have two keys. I think this is my real journey. To collect the Six Impossible Keys to Wonderland—for what reasons, or cause, I have no idea.

But just when I think I have it all under control, I sense someone standing behind me. I turn to face them, thinking it will be Edith.

But it’s not.

It’s a man with a long hat, and teacups dangling from his black tuxedo.

Chapter 73

Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford

Time remaining: 22 minutes

“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” the Hatter says, although I can’t see his face—he wears a funny mask. Not so funny, really, since it’s a clown’s mask.

“Why show yourself now?” I grip my key harder, feeling it has to do something with it.

“Because you did like I planned,” he says. “To the letter.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “You made me think I am chasing a rabbit, leading from place to place, so I could remember my past. What’s in it for you?”

“A lot,” he says. “But first let’s look into what happened. They call it the Rabbit Hole, a scientific term, I believe?”

The memory of me sitting in the psychiatry office in the asylum returns. That man in the dark with the smoking pipe telling me I am insane, that I am just a crippled girl living in my own imagination to escape the horrors that happened to me.

I remember he did tell me about the Rabbit Hole, one of the methods to push a patient’s imagination with their backs against the wall until they remembered what they were trying to forget.

“I had to go through all these puzzles, so I can tickle your memory,” the Hatter says. “You’d been in the asylum for so long and hadn’t remembered anything yet, Alice. Time was running out, and I needed you to at least remember one part of your past. A part that interests me the most.”

“My childhood?” I ask.

He says nothing. I think his clown mask is trying to forge a smile. A dark one.

“Ah,” I say. “I get it. You weren’t after my memories. Not really. You were after...”

“This.” He pulls my hand and snatches the key from it in one move. “The first key in six, so I can open the doors to Wonderland again.”

How foolish am I? Really!

“I don’t care about you at all,” the Hatter says. “I only care about the keys, which I believe Carroll hid with you, and then you hid them in separate places in this real world. Let’s say it wasn’t hard getting this one.”