Chapter 8

As Alice hurried down the sidewalk towards the White Rabbit’s house, I went to follow her. I was excited. The White Rabbit had actually shown up! Things were looking good in Wonderland. The animals could see me, I swore Alice was starting to – she looked my way a few times, as if to say something. I don’t know what I was doing to correct this world, but it was working! Score!

            I hit a wall.

            Not like a literal wall. It was more like an invisible wall. I could see Wonderland; I could see Alice at the White Rabbit’s house. The Mouse looked back, looked around, and then looked scared.

            “Mouse! Mouse! I don’t know what’s happening!” I screamed at the wall while I banged my fists against it. He just turned away and scurried down the sidewalk towards Alice and the White Rabbit’s house.

            “You think you can fix this?” A deep voice boomed from behind me. He ended his question with a cackle. It was the most ominous cackle that I had ever heard.

            And like an idiot, I turned around.

            What greeted me was a man, cloaked in all black, sitting on a velvet chair. His arms were spread wide, like he was inviting me into him. Without thinking I walked toward him. After a few involuntary steps, I stopped myself.

            “Who are you?” My voice was like a mouse – small and squeaky. Great first impression, Cassie, just great. I held my hands in fists at my sides, willing myself to stay where I was, and to fight the urge to walk towards this hidden figure.

            “You may call me Roderick.” He didn’t move from his throne. He looked so…smug. I wanted to hate him, but I just couldn’t. He was both a stranger and familiar.

            “Okay, Roderick. What do you mean by ‘you think you can fix this?’ I don’t understand.” I dug my nails into my fists.

            “Cassandra, Cassandra. You will fail.” Now he got up from his seat and walked towards me. I took a few steps backwards, in response to his steps. “They sent a girl. Why would they send a girl to stop me?”

            Now that he was in front of me, his cold hands gripped my shoulders. And it hurt. He was much stronger than he looked. Up close, he looked older, worn, but sinister. His black eyes were filled with hatred towards anything and everything. There was no love in his eyes. And by the look of him, he had to be in his late 60s. He had lived a hard life, by the look of the wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. Each line on his surprisingly handsome face told a new story of destruction and chaos.

            “How do you know my name?” I tried to move free, but he had me by my shoulders firmly.

            “Oh my sweet, failing child. I have known you your whole life.” His balmy hand caressed my cheek in an all-too-familiar way. It creeped me out. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

            Okay. Creeped out, to the max now. I needed to get back to Alice. But I was frozen in place. Afraid of what this man might do to me if I were to run, and afraid of myself for what could possibly come out of my mouth.

            “Well,” I gulped, “that’s really nice, and all. I hope that I didn’t keep you waiting too long. But you see, my friends are back there. I think I should be getting back now. I need to find a way home…”

            “Oh, you’ll get back to Wonderland. Just not yet. I’m not done playing with you.” He put his arm around my shoulders and lead me from the canvas that is Wonderland.

            In what could only be described as a gallery, Roderick introduced me to a slew of portraits that he had acquired over the years. But these weren’t normal portraits. They reminded me of the moving pictures in Harry Potter, or the gifs on Tumblr. They were like millisecond moving pictures, small scenes from books or plays or poems come to life.

            “Do you like my collection, Cassandra?” His insistence on my full name was starting to bother me. But I didn’t want him to call me Cassie, it would have been too weird. “I started collecting stories years ago. I began with the stories people didn’t care about any more. So I swooped in, covered it in darkness, and made it my own. You are more than welcome to jump into any of the paintings and take a look around.” He stopped in front of a story that I had never heard of before. There was a man by a lake, looking across it. He was a man who was obviously not from around there. He looked lost.

            “It’s called Ladies Whose Bright Eyes by Ford Madox Hueffer.” His breath tickled my ear.

            “I’ve never heard of it,” I found myself admitting.

            “Of course you haven’t,” Roderick told me. “It’s a forgotten book. This is what becomes of forgotten books. I put them into my gallery.”

            “Why would people forget books?”

            “People are forgetting books by the minute. We have too much to do! We’re confined to 140 characters, and emojis, and texting. Books, like gods of the past, are being forgotten by the ton.”

            It was such a sad concept. But a true one. I knew too many people who were proud to have not read a single full-text in their lives. I saw how people brushed off a perfectly good novel, saying they would just wait until the movie came out. What has happened to our society?

            “I started off small. I grabbed the oral traditions first. They’re the easiest to forget. The written word is harder to destroy. But, with persistence, and a few key inventions, people slowly forgot the importance of stories. Shakespeare’s lost plays? Mine. Who needs Shakespeare?” He laughed as he led me down the gallery. Painting after painting called after me, begging for a read through. Begging me to save them.

            “I need Shakespeare,” I whispered to myself. I was nearly in tears over the destruction of books and stories.

            “You are alone.”

            I wanted to cry. I wanted to run. But I couldn’t I needed to do something. I was never more empowered to read in my whole entire life.

            “You are wrong. People need stories. Humans want books. We want to be entertained? What’s wrong with Twitter? NOTHING. It’s perfect in it’s own little literary world. What we need are less people like you!” He was laughing as he faded from me.

            And I was finally back in Wonderland. But it had changed.