Checkmate (Insanity Book 6) by Cameron Jace Read Free Book Online Page B

that hadn’t been done earlier in literature.”
    The Pillar grimaces, searching for answers, but it’s me who surprisingly knows. I don’t know how. It could be part of my lost memories coming back, or something that had been buried in me for years I just forgot about it.
    “She was,” I begin, realizing that what I am about to say puts so much weight on my shoulders if I am the Alice in the book. So much weight that I feel I am not really doing enough to save the world or stand up to the model Lewis had made out of me.
    “She was what?” The Chessmaster nears the screen, eyes glinting.
    “She was the first female lead in children’s literature, ever,” I say. “Before her, children’s books had only male heroes.”
     

Chapter 16
     
    My words don’t seem to affect the crowd around me. They’re nothing but the right answer to them, so the woman won’t get her head chopped off like the last. But to me, they make me ashamed of myself. Lewis had written about me as the first girl in a children’s book to stand up to adults and speak her mind freely and criticize the mad society she – or he – lived in. And still, I let him down and turned into a Bad Alice at some point in my life.
    “Magnificent,” the Chessmaster says. “I am now sure it’s you and your old caterpillar who can find Carroll’s Knight,” he doesn’t explain why and says, “But first, I need to give you the first clue, and to do so, you need to answer a question you don’t have an answer for.”
    “You mean you want to kill this woman anyways, like the one before?” I clench my fist. “Why is it important you kill them?”
    “Life is a game of chess, Alice. One move at a time. With each move, doors either open or close for the next. Some of us are lucky to come upon several doors in a row. Pure luck, if you ask me. Some are doomed with a closed door after their first move,” the Chessmaster says. “Now here is my last question, which I promise to let the woman go if you answer correctly — but then again, you don’t know the answer, and The Pillar isn’t allowed to contribute.”
    “I am ready,” I say.
    “No, you’re not, but here it is: what was the color of the cover of the 1965 version of Alice in Wonderland’s book, published by McMillan at the time?”
    “What kind of question is that?”
    “The kind that kills,” he says. “Lewis Carroll insisted on that color, even though his publishers thought it would scare kids away.”
    I glance at The Pillar who looks like he knows the answer, but if he tells me the woman dies. I myself have no idea. A color that Lewis Carroll insisted on two centuries ago? Why would his book’s color matter? Should I just make a guess?
    “I don’t know the answer,” I tell the Chessmaster.
    “Then the woman will die. Thank you very much.”
    We all watch the man with the sword about to chop off her head when an old man calls out from the crowd. “Stop!”
    The man with the sword actually stops, and even the Chessmaster seems to be interested in the old man from his screen.
    “Stop! Don’t kill my wife.” The old man steps ahead with both hands in the air. “I will tell you what you want to know?” He is speaking to the Chessmaster.”
    The Pillar and I exchange glances.
    “Do tell,” the Chessmaster says. “Before it’s too late.”
    “I will tell you how to get Carroll’s Knight,” the old man says, now hugging his wife, who was about to get her head chopped off.
    “So this is what it’s about?” The Pillar says. “This whole game was a threat to make whoever knew the secret about that Carroll’s Knight speak up before his loved one dies. This was never about Alice and me or the puzzles.”
    “Genius, isn’t it?” The Chessmaster winks.
    “Sick,” I retort.
    “I had my doubts if it were the first woman or the second,” the Chessmaster elaborates. “Since no one came to save the first woman, it wasn’t her. But the second is. And her husband knows the