Figment - Jace Cameron - Страница 42

"Seventy years, and no one discovered Carroll's secrets but a madman—a.k.a. Professor Einstein himself." The Pillar rubs the blackboard clean. The chalk doesn't come off.

"Secrets?"

"Technically, Carroll discovered time travel." The Pillar looks at me. "But since he wasn't sure a Wonderland Monster would end up using it, he kept it a secret."

"And Einstein discovered that secret seventy years later when he entered the room?"

"Along with other things, like the Zebra Puzzle, but that's irrelevant now. Lewis Carroll wasn't just anyone, Alice. He was an artist, photographer, writer, priest, and mathematician. Have you ever met anyone like that?" the Pillar chirps. Suddenly, I remember Lewis telling me about Einstein the last time I climbed up the Tom Tower. I believe the Pillar isn't lying. "Einstein reinterpreted Carroll's work by staying in his room in Oxford many years later. Do you know his messy hair was an aftermath of repeatedly using the time machine in this room? It rather fried."

"Why didn't Einstein tell the world about it, then?"

"Are you kidding me? You know what those lunatic politicians and businessmen out there would do with such a device?" He stops and looks at the blackboard. "Besides, the time-travel machine has never been fully functioning."

"Are you saying it doesn't work?"

"I never tried, myself," the Pillar says. "I only read about it, and Carroll used to hint at it. It works for only fourteen minutes, and I believe it has certain limits."

"Fourteen?" I grimace. "What's with this number popping up everywhere?"

"It only popped up once on your wall in the cell. This is the second time," the Pillar says, and then shoots me a suspicious glance. I know it shows up all he time. "Did it show up somewhere else?"

I shrug. Lewis' vision was on the 14th of January, but he told me not to tell the Pillar about the vision.

"Aha." His tongue plays with the insides of his cheeks. "Little Alice has been having visions." I try to act oblivious of what he says. "Are you sure Lewis didn't give you anything last time when you met him through the Tom Tower?"

I hesitate, thinking he knows about the key to one of Wonderland's doors. I am glad I hid in the wall.

"It's okay." The Pillar doesn't push it. "We'll talk about that later. Now, we need you to go back in time to meet the Muffin Man."

"Which we will do how?" I crane my neck and squint.

The Pillar says nothing, and points at the blackboard with sticky chalk. "This is called Einstein's Blackboard, the one he used for lecturing when he was here. It's one of the world's most valuable artifacts. Historians will claim the original one is in the in Museum of the History of Science, and that this one here is a replica. Actually, it's vice versa but they don't know it. Originally it was Carroll's blackboard, and it is used to time-travel."

"And how is that possible?"

"It's easy," he says. "You write the date, time, and name of person you want to meet, and then use it as a doorway to the past."

The blackboard is actually tall. Hypothetically, it looks like a door a mad girl like me could walk into. But unless the board's surface turns into rippling water or air, I don't see how.

"So I just walk into it?" I give up and assume fantastically.

"Oh." The Pillar's lips twitch. "Of course not. Don't be silly."

Chapter 5 3

The Pillar paces toward the red curtain by the window and looks for something behind it. "There it is," he murmurs, and looks back at me with a smile that soon shifts to a serious straight line again. "Now, before I show you how, you need to know what you're getting yourself into."

"I was waiting for you to say that."

"This time-travel method lasts for only fourteen minutes." He pulls out his pocket watch and tucks it in my hands. "It's very close to my heart. Use it with care and bring it back to me—along with you, of course. It's an old watch, so there is no timer. You have to memorize the fourteen minutes."

"What else should I know?"

"There are two possibilities where you won't come back and probably die." He has that piercing look again.

I pretend I am not afraid, and hold a shrug.

"The first one is if something happens to you in the past, you get killed, set back, or simply stay there more than fourteen minutes. I can't help you if any of that happens."

"And the second?" I feel I can deal with the first one myself.

"If you're not the Real Alice," he says. "Which I believe you are."

"Believe or know?"

"Believing is knowing," he says. "It's up to you if you believe in yourself or not. You still can walk away from this."

"And stay for what?" I say. "The death of millions tomorrow?"

"I thought you'd say you could never live without me." He musters a sad face.

"I'd rather succeed, come back tomorrow, and find you gone," I tease.

"I'm hurt." He puts a hand on his heart and blinks twice. "Which reminds me." He pulls out a small piece of paper. It looks like it was an A4 size and folded repeatedly to become that small. "I've got a present for you." He doesn't hand it to me but squeezes it in my front jeans pocket.

The sincere look on his face worries me. "What is it?"

"It says who Jack really is."

The urge of pulling the paper out and reading it now tickles my finger. There is this burning sensation of anticipation in my chest.

"I thought if something happens to you there, or you're about to die, you get to know what you desire the most," the Pillar says, walking toward the red curtain before the balcony. "Not that I am fond of Jack, not one little bit."

"I think I should thank you," I say.

He shakes his head, lips pursed. "No, you don't," he says, and looks peeks behind the curtain to check on something. "Because the only way to walk into Einstein's Blackboard isn't going to be pleasant." He turns back to me.

"I'm ready to know how." I straighten my back.

"No, you aren't." He is sure of himself. "Think of how no one else all these years was able to figure Carroll's time traveling secret. I mean, the blackboard was here, right in front of them. Carroll and Einstein's writings fill the university's archives. Still, no one ever found out about the secret."

"Tell me how, Pillar," I say. I am both impatient and worried at the same time. "I'm not afraid."

"You can only time-travel through the one thing you're scared of the most."

I shriek immediately. There is no question about it. A lot of things scare me and intimidate me, but one is the one, and only that brings to my knees.

"A mirror," the Pillar says, confirming my fears. "I have one behind the curtain. If I lay it opposite to the blackboard, you will be able to step inside through the—"

"Looking Glass." It all starts to connect now. "Like Alice did in Lewis' book Through the Looking Glass." I remember clearly how in one chapter she entered Wonderland through a mirror. Lewis wasn't over-imagining or fictionalizing. This was true, except the mirror had to be entered while set opposite to Einstein's Blackboard.