Circus - Jace Cameron - Страница 20

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“Please tell, Professor Jittery.”

“Every time I entered it, it led me to an even scarier place where bad things happened in the past. Stay away from that location, whatever the temptations are.”

“Does this place inside the place have a name?”

“They used to call it the circus.”

Chapter 33

The White House, Washington, DC

The man in the room, one of the American president's closest confidants, pulled open the envelope.

He had an idea about what he would find inside, but he needed to make sure.

As he read the invitation, a wide grin slowly formed on his face. Finally, the Queen of England had taken the initiative and called for the Event.

He flipped the envelope over and saw the list of the names invited. He was impressed.

God, if all of those people got together, there would be no stopping the likes of him and the Queen.

He tucked the envelope in, knowing he couldn't make it to London in time. But that was okay. He'd send one of his men, currently in England, to attend the Event on his behalf.

It was about time Black Chess revealed itself to the world.

Chapter 34

Glasgow International Airport

Time remaining: 14 hours, 13 minutes

After a two-hour flight, we land in Glasgow in some private plane arranged by the Pillar.

I can’t help but wonder about the Pillar’s connections—and fortune—but he dismisses my inquiry whenever I ask. The idea of a super-rich professor favoring being in an asylum over his wealth in the outside world thickens the pile of questions on my part. I know the Pillar will only tell me what he wants to tell me, so it’s up to me to figure out the rest of the puzzles.

Once we leave the airport, we’re told we’ll soon meet up with Inspector Dormouse at the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. It’s an hour drive to Dumfries, where it’s located. I also learn that the inspector had to coordinate with Scotland Yard to allow us a visit to the garden.

“So you actually knew about Snail Mound?” I ask, sitting in the back of another limousine, driven by the Pillar’s chauffeur.

“I knew about the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, but not Snail Mound,” the Pillar says, entertaining himself with a hand-held hookah. “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation is incredibly vast, so it needs a specific map. I didn’t know there was a place called Snail Mound inside.”

“So what is this garden exactly?” I scroll through my phone, staring at the unbelievably amazing pictures of the inside of the garden. Uncannily, it reminds me of Wonderland. I think whoever sees it would think of Alice’s books instantly. I wonder why Lewis Carroll movies haven’t been shot here.

“There are two versions about the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. One that is told to the public, and one that is the truth. Let me educate you with what is generally told to the public.” The Pillar drags from his pipe. Eyes turning beady. He loves it. “The garden is a thirty-acre sculpture garden. It was created by professor, architect, and landscaper Jittery March at his own home, Portrack House, near Dumfries in South West Scotland.”

“Okay?” Still looking at the pictures, I am mesmerized by the garden’s beauty. It’s almost hypnotic looking at it. Part of it is designed to look like the man-sized chessboard in Alice in Wonderland, only its square tiles are green and silver.

“Common people will tell you that the garden is inspired by science and mathematics, with sculptures and landscaping on these themes, such as black holes and all that hard-to-comprehend stuff,” the Pillar says. “The garden’s main motif is green, but it actually has very few and selected plants. People will tell you that Professor Jittery was looking to represent mathematical formulas and scientific phenomena in a setting which elegantly combines natural features and artificial symmetry and curves.”

I blink at the complicated words. Am I insane to not understand half of what he just said?

“See? It’s all some jibber-jabber, snobbishly complicated talk, mainly meant for you to not understand anything and not question why it looks uncannily like the Wonderland carved in the collective conscious of the world.” He coughs. “Scottish tobacco. Horrible.” He puts his small hookah away and orders the chauffeur to hand him a Scottish bagpipe. Instead of playing some tune with it, he amazingly starts to drag from it like a regular hookah. “Hmm...” His beady eyes smile. “So where were we?”

“You told me about how the public is supposed to think of the Garden of Cosmic Speculation,” I remind him, in case he is wasted by now.

“Ah, that.”

“So what is the version the public doesn’t know about?” I say, pretending I didn’t hear it from the March Hare. I’d like to hear the Pillar’s version.

A moment of silence passes before he continues. “This garden was created by the lunatic scientist you met in the secret asylum they call the Hole.” The Pillar lowers his voice, as if reading a children’s mystery novel in a book club. “Who in reality is the March Hare, another Wonderland character thrown out into this world.”

“So what?” I shake my shoulders. “This isn’t the first Wonderland character who lives a completely different life in the modern world and excels at it. Like Fabiola.”

“Indeed, but the March Hare designed this garden for a reason,” the Pillar says. “The March Hare mapped the Garden of Cosmic Speculation after his faint memory of what Wonderland really looked like. That’s what they don’t tell you on Wikipedia.”

Chapter 35

The Pillar’s limousine on its way to the Garden of Cosmic Speculation

Time remaining: 14 hours, 04 minutes

“Why would he do that?” I ask the Pillar, as his chauffeur takes a bump in the road. I am trying to dig more info about the garden and the March Hare, although I already learned most of what I’m hearing now.

“Because he wanted to find a way back to Wonderland,” the Pillar explains. “Jittery is one of the most sentimental people/hares. He wasn’t in tune with living in this modern world. He didn’t like it. He thought it was utterly harsh, insane, and rubbish. Unlike others, he looked for you all the time.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you, Alice. He believed you can take him back to Wonderland.”

“But you need Six Impossible Keys to go back.” I am not even going to discuss the fact characters like the Cheshire did their best to escape Wonderland. So why go back?

“Of course you need the keys to go back.” The Pillar drags from his bagpipe some more. “Jittery, however, claimed he found a magical way back. Some kind of a cosmic spell.”

“By replicating Wonderland in real life?” I am just guessing.

The Pillar nods. “It’s some kind of bizarre wishful thinking, if you ask me. I never paid attention to the idea. I believe the March Hare was just nostalgic, unable to live in the mad world we live in now. Replicating Wonderland helped him cope with his own insanity. The March Hare had always been a child in a grown man/rabbit’s body.”

“So the Garden of Cosmic Speculation is actually a replica of Wonderland?” I think this is insane, but also incredibly fascinating. It means we have some kind of clue of how Wonderland looked like.

“Not exactly,” the Pillar says, debunking my speculations. “But it works fine as a map. Meaning the distance and location of places is very similar to Wonderland, although he changed the names of locations to sound modern and scientific.”

“That’s why you didn’t know what Snail Mound is.”

The Pillar nods.

“So why does this Hatter hide the rabbit in the garden?” I ask.

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