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“Let’s get this over with,” Tweed grumbles, opening the hat door and waltzing in as if we didn’t just have a little freak feast in the hallway. Cash hangs back to answer the question in my brows with his cheeky grin.
“Shrinking potions don’t work on us.” Holding out his arm for mine, we enter the room that’s a combination of a library and a castle. “Our metabolisms are too lethal, so I needed to take it directly from the source. Didn’t count on a hitchhiker though,” he glares at Tweed’s back.
“I go where she goes,” Tweed barks harshly, firing a hate-filled gaze at his brother.
“And the orgasm?” I interject. “Was that part of the process too?” No answer comes so I’ll take that as a Tweedle special. Pulling a cupcake from the deep pocket of his tweed jacket, Tweed hands it to me. I lick the frosting suggestively and the tension in his shoulders lessens just a fraction. Trying to fight a smile, he whips the cake back to signal that’s enough and I wiggle my fingers, shooting back to full size.
I presume the Tweedles don’t need my blood to re-grow, but just then, a pair of tiny piranhas attack my ankles. Rejoining my sides, I swipe a small amount of frosting from the cupcake in Tweed’s hand and push it behind my ear for Stan.
“At least my clothes stayed on this time,” I chuckle when both Tweedles groan regretfully. Tweed strides away while Cash steps into my body, his hand snaking up my vest.
“We’ve made a few advancements since you were last here,” Cash tugs on the tag at my side and the material tightens snugly around my middle. I gasp in delight. When I get the chance, I’m installing a resizing label into every piece of clothing I own. Or will own when I manage to get my hands on some.
Cash strides away, leaving me to face the inside of the Hattery. Observation one, it’s a shithole and two, where are all the hats?
Beyond the crooked windows, water still puddles in the crevices of the cobbled street from the tsunami Stan created. Thick clouds coat the sky, casting the interior in shadow but I dare not power up the lanterns dotted around the room.
“Hatter!” I whisper shout, walking directly into a spider web. Stumbling back, I trip over a stack of boxes and land hard on my ass. The shop is a mess, even by the Hatter’s standards. Ribbon and reams of fabric thrown everywhere, hanging from the railing of a second level. The stairs are lost amongst towering boxes, Damp tingles my nose, drawing a sneeze from me and Stan in unison. The Tweedles have abandoned me amongst the shelves stretching high so I drag myself up and navigate the material maze alone.
Ducking beneath a length of lace, I shuffle forward, reaching around for stability. Dust coats my fingers from the shelves, the boxes wrinkled from lack of use. Wrapping my hand around the base of a railing, I trip up the first step of the staircase and then continue onward. No noise sounds beyond the low whistle of wind through a cracked window above, yet the distinctive tingle of being observed raises the hair on the back of my neck.
The twins are somewhere, watching my every move to see what I do. Curious to see what I uncover. Breaching the top level, I decide I’m safe to twist the nozzle of a lantern and light the rest of my way. It’s tidier up here, as in I can actually step forward without falling onto my shins. Bookcases line the walls, a desk of papers and scribbled notes displayed before me. The chair has been tossed over the railing, shattered on the floor below.
Skating my fingers over the notes, Stan’s nose wriggles against my ear. Dropping onto my shoulder, he clambers down my arm to glide across the desk and land in an ink well. His little feet scurry over the pages, marking the words with splotches of ink. I bat him away, grabbing the sheets that appear to be diary entries torn free from a notepad. Dates mark each page that I roll into a wad and stuff into my pocket for later. Grabbing Stan, I shove him back behind my ear before he can mark any of the photographs concealed underneath.
Large blue eyes glare out from the image, a mass of blonde hair filling the frame. A sheet of plastic clutched in the girl’s hands displays my birth name, prison number and the date of my initial arrest. I lift it, trying not to shake at the sight of my hollow eyes and chewed bottom lip. Blood is splattered across my porcelain cheeks, an orange jumpsuit clinging to my shoulders when the pajamas I entered the station in were taken as evidence. Certain memories I was happy to suppress, so why is this here?
Beyond that, my eyes skim the desk and cork backboard in more detail this time. Newspaper articles litter the surfaces, screaming the headlines my sister wrote.
Crazy Carroll’s Kid Spins Another Story.
‘Wonderland’ woes for Author’s Delusional Daughter.
Locals call for Alice to enter Asylum.
Breaking News: Crazed Kid turned Killer. Lewis Carroll Stabbed by Psycho Offspring.
That last oneis my favorite. A brown envelope holds my police statement, the words of a nineteen-year-old murderer staring back at me. From the court’s findings, jury’s verdict and all corresponding paperwork, my entire life is summed up in this wad of paper. More curiously, it seems the Hatter has been trying to make sense of it all in a mixture of scribbles, post-it notes and highlighters. Tucking the file into my pants, I pull my vest over the top and move to leave when a flash of red catches my eye. Lifting a newspaper on the backboard, a message has been written in what I hope isn’t blood, for the Hatter’s sake. The small flies feeding from it though, prove it is.
Believe and you’ll receive.
Frowning,a shuffle catches my ear to the left. I twist my head, hunting for movement in the shadows. A figure ducks aside just as the bookcase shifts, slotting back into the wall. Running towards it, I try to pry it back out of the wall with no avail. Pulling out books in quick succession, I throw them over my shoulder. I know what I saw. There must be a secret hatch somewhere.
A brass statue of a rabbit stands beside the shelves, a pocket watch clutched in his paw. Rolling my eyes, I tug on the floppy, brass ear, which turns out to be a lever. The bookcase pops free of the wall behind. Peeling it open, I duck into the hidden room without thinking twice. The bookcase closes behind me, locking me inside a circular space. Like that of a turret, lit by a large chandelier a few meters above my head.
“Malice!” a Tweedle shouts from the other side of the bookcase. I hear him tugging the shelves in an effort to free the lock, but I pay it no mind. Before me, a series of paintings hang from the round wall at uneven angles. The scenes are all baron, devoid of life and displaying a different scene. A farmyard around Cook’s and Mary Ann’s cottage, the forest upon the hill, a large nest made of feathers, a lengthy table set for tea and more I don’t recognize yet.
The frame holding a painting of a maze entrance judders, knocking against the wall. Lifting the edge, I peer at the wall behind. Except there’s no wall there at all. A spiral swirls, just big enough for a large rodent to wriggle through. Or a slender woman who’s passed on puddings for the past twenty years for this exact reason. Couldn’t be too big to fit down the rabbit hole when the opportunity arose.
With the image of the maze entrance on the other side, I spy a hare in a blue waistcoat and glasses. His brown fur is tufty, evident by the way he scratches his arm with indecision. Peering back through the portal at me, he flinches and hops into the maze, with me right on his tail.
“Malice, wait!” a shout sounds behind as I launch myself into the portal. Fingers skim my ankle but they’re not quick enough. Hurtling onto the hard ground, I barely wait long enough for the pain to shoot from my knees to hips.
Scrambling upright, I dart past two sentinel statues of playing cards holding their spears in an X above the entrance, diamonds decorating their fronts. The tip of a white tail disappears from view so I race inside, intent on catching that hare. No thought process on what I’m doing or why, only that it feels right. The Hatter is missing, after apparently stalking me, and Hare is my best shot at finding him. Damn all other consequences.
16
Two years after Alice’s disappearance
