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23
“Psst.” Furrowing my brow, I shift my head. “Pssssst.” Darkness surrounds my vision, my body heavy and sated. Damp hair tickles the length of my back, having washed myself in the lazy stream before session number two started up. Limbs hold me down, the twin’s even breaths beating against my face. Pushing myself up, I hunt for the noise through the night. A faint light glows between the trees, a teeny figure hopping back and forth like a jumping bean. I wriggle out of the Tweedles hold, intrigue settling in.
Grabbing a bundle of clothes on the way, I dress in the dark while tiptoeing through the crushed leaves coating the forest floor. The closer I get, the more defined the silhouette becomes. A pair of tall, floppy ears. A flat, rectangular body. Hopping backwards, he pulls me forward of an invisible thread before disappearing altogether. Peering over a grassy mound, I find the golden glow emanating from a rabbit hole and being me, dive straight in.
Tumbling a short distance and landing on my face, my body flops into a tunnel without room to move. A knee in my cheek, my arm trapped around the back of my neck, ass in the air. The figure hops around in front of my face, a fraction of my size.
“Monster!” a rabbit screams in my face. Not the rabbit I once knew, but a mutated version. The rectangular body of a playing card sits upon white, furry feet. No suit in particular, just a blank slate as if his future is yet to be decided. Tiny hands poke out either side and on top, the entire head of a white rabbit. “Monster! In my house. Dodo, where’s Dodo? He knows what to do. He would…burn the monster out!” Upside down, I watch his pair of white floppy ears pounce away while I call after him.
“I’m not a monster, Rabbit! You pssst me, practically invited me in!” Hopping back my way with a single match in his stubby hand, the White Rabbit leans in and I puff, blowing the flame clean out. “Stop this nonsense and shrink me at once!” I put on my big girl’s voice and the rabbit falls still. His large eyes shoot to the side. A table behind him holds a glass bottle of brown liquid I really hope wasn’t produced by his, or any, butt. Twisting my head and sticking out my tongue, I lick at the straw until it enters my mouth and automatically begin to suck. No questions asked. Chocolate milkshake washes over my tongue and I moan. The perfect after-threesome treat.
My bones shrink and thankfully, my skin shrivels to match. As soon as my fingers are free, I hunt for the magical tag inside the vest and tug hard. It grazes my thighs, hugging my body in a reformed dress. I realize too late, however, the vest I’ve thrown on is Cash’s striped, purple one – which is fairly transparent. My nipples show through the fabric, the cotton cinched tight at my waist. Oh well, does the job.
The tiny home splayed out before me is meticulously clean. Completely at odds with the character hopping about inside, pinging around like a bee in a jar. His head twists this way and that, his whiskers twitching so hard he might take flight. Grabbing his cheeks, I hold his attention while long ears flop over my arms.
“Hello Mr. Rabbit,” I smirk. His blue eyes spiral in his head so I give him a little shake to come back to me. I know crazy. I’m comfortable around crazy.
“I’m late. Late. My watch, I’ve misplaced my watch and oh. Waistcoat. Must look smart for her majesty. The queen is so mad. Mad, I tell you. We’re all mad, but Hatter. Wait, where is Hatter?”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me,” I sigh, releasing him. He starts hopping again, looking beneath the coffee and side tables. Scratching at the coal alight in the fireplace in an effort to peer underneath, I whistle sharply. Taking the watch from my pocket and swaying it in the air, Rabbit rushes over.
“Oh, such a good girl. A good girl, like Hatter said. Nutty on the out, good on the in.” Following him through his burrow, I watch the white puff of a tail sticking out the back of the card’s body twitch. I drop into a sofa, rolling my neck. The tension pressing on my spine doesn’t budge.
“Sit, Mr. Rabbit,” I bark, clicking my fingers to the nearby armchair. He halts, sliding over to obey. Lowering as much as he can, his feet shake back and forth. It unnerves me to see what they’ve done to him, beyond the obvious. Shimmying forward, I warm up my hands and hold them in front of me. “Focus on my hands,” I tell him. Clapping, I begin to play pattycake with his stumped hands, forcing his attention elsewhere than my questions.
“Why are you a playing card?”
“Queen,” he nods along with my patting and I move on. Clap, pat, clap, crisscross, repeat.
“Why are you hiding?” I settle on next, recalling his photographs around the Cook’s farmhouse. Rabbit either lived or frequented there often.
“Don’t trust the champion. Too alluring. Alluring, must resist.” His eye twitches and I tap his palms harder. Clap, pat, clap, crisscross, repeat.
“Which champion?”
“Traitor of kin. Patriarch of armies. Don’t drink the blood you must repay.” His head trembles violently, his whiskered nose starting to shake. I’m losing him but I have to push my luck. He’s all I have to go on.
“Where is the Hatter?” I press and suddenly, he freezes. Two large eyes stare through me, a scene playing out within his irises. Leaning in, I watch a figure sharpen into existence. The Hatter, sitting at his desk in the Hattery, hunched over a crystal ball. From the rabbit’s point of view, presumably on a stool beside him, I watch the Hatter’s fingerless gloves rub the ball and mutter inaudibly. I almost smile at his image, forgetting where I am. His frantic orange hair, the gap in his teeth.
I spent many a night wishing he were my father instead, pretending it to be so. The Hatter understands me, cares for me.
That much is evident as he reaches for the newspapers he’s been scouring, tracing the words with his heterochromia eyes. One blue, one green. Both more focused than I’ve even see of him. Returning his focus to the crystal ball, I squint upon seeing a yellow-haired figure reflected in the iridescent sphere.
Me.
A younger version on me, from my college years. Sitting on a stone wall, book in one hand, travel mug in the other. The days were peaceful, the nights were promiscuous. I discovered many things about myself during that brief period away from my family home and the fateful Christmas that saw me committed to Charmsfield. My fleeting smile slips as I realize he was watching me, possibly this entire time. Whilst I was convinced I was utterly alone.
The image shifts, blurring to a scene practically the same. This time, the Hatter sits at his workstation, all fabric shoved aside. At first, I thought the memory was clouded, but I soon deduce it’s the Hatter’s coloring that has dulled. His hair is paler, his skin ashy and irises turning white. Hugging the crystal ball to his tattered chest, the Rabbit is more jittery this time, trembling and frantically looking at his pocket watch. Except when he does, the hour hand twists to point towards the Hatter. Like a compass seeking north, whichever way the rabbit turns, the hour hand remains on the man I’m seeking.
Elation burns in my chest, the answer I’ve been looking for nearing. Breathing a sigh of relief, I go to sit back when a shadow in the vision steps forward. No, not a shadow. A solider in steel armor. His face covered by a full-fronted helmet but there’s no hiding the body I’ve come to know well.
Thick traps protrude from the high collar of a steel chest plate, his arms brazenly bare. His right arm coated in ink, one rose blending into the next. As if that wasn’t damming enough, the red heart stamped onto the left peck of the chest plate is. Twisting his head sharply, a glowing green glare shines through the horizontal eye slit as if he is staring right at me.
Storming forward in heavy boots, I edge back in my seat before remembering this isn’t happening. It’s a vision, a memory. Snatching Rabbit by the ears, he’s torn from his hiding spot and the setting blurs. A castle looms in shadow, red and black smoke curling from an unknown source. Then, it stutters and fades away.
Reaching out in an attempt to grab the vision and bring it back, or possibly find a rewind button, I accidentally poke the White Rabbit in the eye and he bounces from his seat. There’s no chance of calming him down now, a foreign incantation bubbling from his mouth.
It doesn’t matter anymore. I know what I saw.
