Heart and Sole, Chapter 2
“Hatter!”
“Here, Alice. Right here.”
She rubs at her eyes furiously with both hands. They feel raw and gummy and her vision swims. She misses the Hatter’s warm grip on her wrist but, at the moment, clearing her vision and ensuring that she is where she wants to be is a higher priority.
“Did I go? Did I really speak to them?” she rasps, blinking up at him.
He smiles gently. “I believe it was a most productive dream.”
She grins back and relaxes. She can only imagine the mess she must look but he doesn’t seem to notice. He simply looks at her and she looks at him, noting the mismatched green of his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the gap between his front teeth. Here, this is the right man for her and she can stay.
Alice reaches for him slowly, shyly this time, but he does not deny her. His hand is impossibly warm on her back (impossible because she is sure she can feel his touch despite the armor she wears) as he assists her in sitting up and leaning against him. Her eyes flood once more and the world turns blurrily violet. “This is the last of the tears,” she predicts. “I’m staying in Underland.” With you.
He trembles in her embrace and she turns toward the warmth of his neck and the softness of his hair. She inhales deeply, marvels at the spicy-yet-slightly-sweaty scent of him, and sheds those final tears. Their purpleness may very well stain his handsome jacket. If he minds, she will find a way to make it up to him… but she doesn’t think he will.
She has made her choice.
“Thank you, Alice,” he lisps softly into her ear. His breath tickles her neck and she shivers but not with cold. With delight, perhaps? The sensation is so new she can’t be sure.
In truth, she should be the one thanking him, but she can’t seem to find her voice. She presses her face into his lapel. If she would be lean back, he might kiss her. Or she might kiss him. And then what? Would he court her? For the first time in her life, the thought thrills rather than disgusts her. But it also terrifies. Not quite yet, she decides and sighs happily when he briefly presses his cheek to the crown of her head.
Behind her, a sudden and startling cheer goes up. She twitches and turns, then smiles widely at the Tweedles who are applauding and Thackery who is banging his ladle on the stones. Nivens looks very pleased and Chessur is - of course - grinning. Bayard barks happily, his great doggy tail wagging furiously. The White Queen clasps her hands together beneath her chin, smiling serenely. Their joy brings even more tears to Alice’s tired eyes.
“So yer stayin’?” Mally challenges her.
“Yes,” Alice chokes out, reveling in the feel of the Hatter’s arm across her back. Even through the armor she can sense its warmth and strength. She wipes at her tears and notes that they are clear now. The Jabberwocky blood is spent. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“Humph!” Mally asserts, crossing her arms. “Yah go changin’ yer mind an’ sommun else is gonna be stuck.”
Alice bites her lip to hold back the smile at Mally’s threat. “Noted.”
Mally nods and, pivoting smartly, marches over to the crowd of Red Knights looking on in confusion. “Right, you lot! Those’oo wanna apply tah th’ White Queen fer reassignment, form a line thar. An’ those’oo wanna be done wi’ yer armor f'r good, over thar!”
“Has Mally been promoted?” Alice murmurs to the Hatter as he helps her to her feet.
“A self-promotion,” he agrees with delight. “Marvelously efficient, those.”
Yes, she can see that to be true. Already, the soldiers are hopping to obey the dormouse’s instructions.
“Alice,” the White Queen murmurs as she glides forward. “I can’t tell you how your decision to stay pleases me.”
“The pleasure is mine,” she replies, grinning. The Hatter still stands at her side (still irreverently utilizing his claymore as a walking stick) and - despite her wobbly knees and throbbing head - she feels as if she could take on a dozen Jabberwockies!
The White Queen holds out a hand to her, which Alice takes. She allows herself to be escorted back to the Bandersnatch. “Will you be staying on as my champion, dear?” Mirana of Marmoreal queries.
“Oh, I…” She honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Ah, yes. Ponder that,” the queen advises. “But first things must come first.” The White Queen leans forward, her fingers dancing in the air, and presses a kiss against Alice’s hair on the very spot where her head throbs relentlessly. “There. Now, up you go. Take care not to pinch him with your armor.”
Feeling a bemused grin curving her lips, Alice does as she’s told, wondering if a kiss really might have a kind of healing magic here in this world. It could simply be her imagination, but her head already feels better.
She settles between the Bandersnatch’s shoulders and the queen nods. “Excellent. Now, tell me…”
Alice looks at her over the furry head of the Bandersnatch. The queen’s tone demands her full attention.
“Just how green is the grass on the other side?”
Alice grins. “In all fairness,” she answers honestly, “it is just as green as it is here. But…” her gaze flicks in the Hatter’s direction. He doesn’t notice; he’s busy giggling at some observation Tweedledum (or perhaps it’s Tweedledee) had made. “It just wasn’t for me.”
Smiling, Mirana pats Alice’s armored thigh. “That’s good to hear, Alice,” she replies on a confidential whisper and with a queenly wink.
As the queen drifts toward her mount and the thoughtfully-provided steps leading up to his back, Alice straightens up on the Bandersnatch, breathing deeply and glorying in the wind that pushes gently at her back. She surveys the battlefield, the card soldiers and chess guard. She smiles at her motley assortment of friends. She stares helplessly at the Hatter who, in that moment, looks up and meets her gaze with a friendly grin. Blushing, Alice smiles back.
Yes, this is her world now. She has made her choice. For better or worse.
*~*~*~*
Things could have been worse, although not by much. Hamish frowns into the looking glass over the washbasin in his room and frowns. Today, he is not scowling at his own sleep-tousled and rampantly orange hair. No, this scowl is for Alice and wherever she had inexplicably disappeared to yesterday.
And really, he still doesn’t know what to think about that.
Had she really said “hatter” of all things? Had she really been pulled somewhere else? Some mysterious place that is somehow both very near and yet unperceivable?
His stomach - always sensitive to his mood - twists in a most discouraging manner. Yes, perhaps he ought not think of yesterday, of the reassurances his mother had given the guests - “Alice is resting and her family are looking after her at the moment” - and the quiet explanation his father had provided to several guests - “Alice is still in mourning for her father, the late Charles Kingsleigh. When she is ready, she will reconsider Hamish’s proposal.” Lies, every last syllable. Including his own words. As his father’s explanation had made the rounds, whispered from man to wife and so on, Hamish had answered sympathetic looks and murmurings with brusqueness, “Thank you for your concern, sir and madam. I’ll pass along your kind words to Alice.”
He breathes out harshly, noticing that he’s glaring at the looking glass again. Well, it’s Alice’s fault, really, that he’s in a foul mood. She should have been there, on his arm as they’d made the rounds and spoken to each guest. She wouldn’t have had to say much, simply be there. After all, such explanations are better distributed indirectly, a task which his mother and father had taken up and performed admirably. Like a well-oiled machine. After a half an hour, Hamish had taken refuge in the house, citing the need to check on Alice’s condition. He’d only returned when the guests had started drifting toward their carriages.
Through it all, his stomach had been in knots. More than once, he’d stopped pacing in the hallway and glared at the space of empty wall beside the potted fern.
Concern had made him wonder: Where are you, Alice?
Irritation had made him accuse: You shouldn’t have left me here to face them alone!
“Blast it,” Hamish mutters, turning away from his own reflection with a blustery sigh and reaching for the water pitcher. Glaring at a bit of lead-backed glass will get him nowhere and he has things to be getting on with today!
He rolls up his sleeves and splashes water on his face. Soaping up his shaving brush is habit by now and he scrubs the lather onto his face efficiently, barely glancing in the mirror. The razors edge is cool against his skin and he finds comfort in that sharp moment of normalness. Yes, the whole incident from the day before might be utterly mad and incomprehensible, but at least this routine hasn’t changed in the slightest.
He shaves carefully and methodically, referring to his reflection in the looking glass more out of habit than any real need to orient himself. His hands know this task well, as does his face which accommodates the razor’s straight edge one expression at a time. He has just finished his upper lip and chin when suddenly, his fingers twitch and the razor tumbles from his grasp into the sudsy basin.
“Bugger all,” he swears softly, noting the darkening spots of used water on his shirtfront. Well, there’s no point in redressing before he finishes up, is there? Significantly more irritated now than he had been moments before, Hamish reaches for the submerged razor, glances up at the soap-dotted mirror, and freezes.
“What the devil…?”
He blinks as the small flecks of shaving cream upon the surface of the glass seem to sway, as if pushed about by a gentle breeze. They move one way, and then another until they spin gently. For a single mad instant, Hamish imagines they are waltzing across the surface of the looking glass!
He blinks, shakes his head, reaches for the towel to wipe the surface clean and-
Is that… Alice?
Hamish squints at the image now reflected in the mirror, his arm upraised and towel grasped in his hand. Surely, that cannot be Alice, dressed in white with skirts frothing around her, dancing with a very wildly-orange-haired man in an equally white suit and a terribly shabby, dark and battered top hat. Surely, Hamish is merely dreaming still!
He stares at the couple twirling together on the dance floor of a ballroom that could only belong in a royal palace. He gapes at Alice’s bright smile and sparkling eyes. He has never seen her look so happy. Nor has he ever seen her so taken with a man as she is clearly taken with this one. It makes no sense at all that this odd man with his flyaway orange locks and disreputable hat could hold such fascination for her, but he obviously does.
Hamish would have looked away then, scowling against the bitterness of his own envy, but suddenly Alice and her dance partner halt in their tracks. A motion in the background draws his attention.
Is that a platypus conducting the orchestra?!
Perhaps it is. The creature lowers his baton, signaling the end of the song. And then Alice moves suddenly, her shirts flash brilliantly white, catching Hamish's eye and he watches - thunderstruck - as she rises up on her toes, clearly intending to kiss her bizarre companion on his pale cheek. In that moment, however, he seems to giggle and turns toward her, his lips forming themselves around an observation or response which Hamish cannot hear. The man moves as Alice leans in and her lips press not to his cheek, but to the corner of his mouth.
Hamish has never seen Alice blush before as she does now, in the looking glass. The man, however, merely smiles kindly and offers her his arm with admirable aplomb. His lips move again and Hamish finds himself leaning closer, as if a closer proximity will be rewarded with sound. He is mesmerized by the shifting expressions on Alice’s face as they move from mortification to relief to something that makes his stomach roll with foreboding and trepidation. Something that looks very much like disappointment, only a hundred times worse! A variety of dread with which Hamish is unfortunately acquainted.
And then-
Knock, knock.
Hamish startles, jumping guiltily and dropping the razor back into the basin again.
“Sir?” The voice of the country estate’s butler is muffled by the closed door. “Lord and Lady Ascot are taking breakfast. They request that you join them.”
Clearing his throat, Hamish replies. “Yes, I understand. Thank you.”
Unsettled - for he realizes that he had not been dreaming just now - Hamish glances warily at the mirror. A new assortment of froth splatters have joined the previous mess. He studies the looking glass, watches as each clump of soap slowly slides - with no swaying or twirling - simply downward. There is no ballroom, no platypus conductor or orchestra, no blushing Alice in a white dress, no oddly hatted man smiling indulgently.
“Madness,” he summarizes and then wipes the mirror clean with a few impatient swipes of the towel in his grasp. Once again, Hamish fishes the razor out of the basin and sets the blade against his skin. This time, he manages to finish his shave without further interruptions. Shrugging into a new shirt, he ties his cravat as he moves toward the door. He frowns at the fabric, and does his best not to wonder too deeply at the vision he’d witnessed, for if it had not been a dream…
His stomach twists.
Yes, it’s best not to think such things. Finishing off the knot at his throat, he lifts his chin and marches downstairs to breakfast. There’s the matter of a venture to China that still needs to be discussed. He had promised Alice, after all. And it would be unforgivable to let a perfectly sound idea go to waste because of his distraction with some ridiculous, anxiety-fueled daydream!
“Here, Alice. Right here.”
She rubs at her eyes furiously with both hands. They feel raw and gummy and her vision swims. She misses the Hatter’s warm grip on her wrist but, at the moment, clearing her vision and ensuring that she is where she wants to be is a higher priority.
“Did I go? Did I really speak to them?” she rasps, blinking up at him.
He smiles gently. “I believe it was a most productive dream.”
She grins back and relaxes. She can only imagine the mess she must look but he doesn’t seem to notice. He simply looks at her and she looks at him, noting the mismatched green of his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the gap between his front teeth. Here, this is the right man for her and she can stay.
Alice reaches for him slowly, shyly this time, but he does not deny her. His hand is impossibly warm on her back (impossible because she is sure she can feel his touch despite the armor she wears) as he assists her in sitting up and leaning against him. Her eyes flood once more and the world turns blurrily violet. “This is the last of the tears,” she predicts. “I’m staying in Underland.” With you.
He trembles in her embrace and she turns toward the warmth of his neck and the softness of his hair. She inhales deeply, marvels at the spicy-yet-slightly-sweaty scent of him, and sheds those final tears. Their purpleness may very well stain his handsome jacket. If he minds, she will find a way to make it up to him… but she doesn’t think he will.
She has made her choice.
“Thank you, Alice,” he lisps softly into her ear. His breath tickles her neck and she shivers but not with cold. With delight, perhaps? The sensation is so new she can’t be sure.
In truth, she should be the one thanking him, but she can’t seem to find her voice. She presses her face into his lapel. If she would be lean back, he might kiss her. Or she might kiss him. And then what? Would he court her? For the first time in her life, the thought thrills rather than disgusts her. But it also terrifies. Not quite yet, she decides and sighs happily when he briefly presses his cheek to the crown of her head.
Behind her, a sudden and startling cheer goes up. She twitches and turns, then smiles widely at the Tweedles who are applauding and Thackery who is banging his ladle on the stones. Nivens looks very pleased and Chessur is - of course - grinning. Bayard barks happily, his great doggy tail wagging furiously. The White Queen clasps her hands together beneath her chin, smiling serenely. Their joy brings even more tears to Alice’s tired eyes.
“So yer stayin’?” Mally challenges her.
“Yes,” Alice chokes out, reveling in the feel of the Hatter’s arm across her back. Even through the armor she can sense its warmth and strength. She wipes at her tears and notes that they are clear now. The Jabberwocky blood is spent. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“Humph!” Mally asserts, crossing her arms. “Yah go changin’ yer mind an’ sommun else is gonna be stuck.”
Alice bites her lip to hold back the smile at Mally’s threat. “Noted.”
Mally nods and, pivoting smartly, marches over to the crowd of Red Knights looking on in confusion. “Right, you lot! Those’oo wanna apply tah th’ White Queen fer reassignment, form a line thar. An’ those’oo wanna be done wi’ yer armor f'r good, over thar!”
“Has Mally been promoted?” Alice murmurs to the Hatter as he helps her to her feet.
“A self-promotion,” he agrees with delight. “Marvelously efficient, those.”
Yes, she can see that to be true. Already, the soldiers are hopping to obey the dormouse’s instructions.
“Alice,” the White Queen murmurs as she glides forward. “I can’t tell you how your decision to stay pleases me.”
“The pleasure is mine,” she replies, grinning. The Hatter still stands at her side (still irreverently utilizing his claymore as a walking stick) and - despite her wobbly knees and throbbing head - she feels as if she could take on a dozen Jabberwockies!
The White Queen holds out a hand to her, which Alice takes. She allows herself to be escorted back to the Bandersnatch. “Will you be staying on as my champion, dear?” Mirana of Marmoreal queries.
“Oh, I…” She honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Ah, yes. Ponder that,” the queen advises. “But first things must come first.” The White Queen leans forward, her fingers dancing in the air, and presses a kiss against Alice’s hair on the very spot where her head throbs relentlessly. “There. Now, up you go. Take care not to pinch him with your armor.”
Feeling a bemused grin curving her lips, Alice does as she’s told, wondering if a kiss really might have a kind of healing magic here in this world. It could simply be her imagination, but her head already feels better.
She settles between the Bandersnatch’s shoulders and the queen nods. “Excellent. Now, tell me…”
Alice looks at her over the furry head of the Bandersnatch. The queen’s tone demands her full attention.
“Just how green is the grass on the other side?”
Alice grins. “In all fairness,” she answers honestly, “it is just as green as it is here. But…” her gaze flicks in the Hatter’s direction. He doesn’t notice; he’s busy giggling at some observation Tweedledum (or perhaps it’s Tweedledee) had made. “It just wasn’t for me.”
Smiling, Mirana pats Alice’s armored thigh. “That’s good to hear, Alice,” she replies on a confidential whisper and with a queenly wink.
As the queen drifts toward her mount and the thoughtfully-provided steps leading up to his back, Alice straightens up on the Bandersnatch, breathing deeply and glorying in the wind that pushes gently at her back. She surveys the battlefield, the card soldiers and chess guard. She smiles at her motley assortment of friends. She stares helplessly at the Hatter who, in that moment, looks up and meets her gaze with a friendly grin. Blushing, Alice smiles back.
Yes, this is her world now. She has made her choice. For better or worse.
*~*~*~*
Things could have been worse, although not by much. Hamish frowns into the looking glass over the washbasin in his room and frowns. Today, he is not scowling at his own sleep-tousled and rampantly orange hair. No, this scowl is for Alice and wherever she had inexplicably disappeared to yesterday.
And really, he still doesn’t know what to think about that.
Had she really said “hatter” of all things? Had she really been pulled somewhere else? Some mysterious place that is somehow both very near and yet unperceivable?
His stomach - always sensitive to his mood - twists in a most discouraging manner. Yes, perhaps he ought not think of yesterday, of the reassurances his mother had given the guests - “Alice is resting and her family are looking after her at the moment” - and the quiet explanation his father had provided to several guests - “Alice is still in mourning for her father, the late Charles Kingsleigh. When she is ready, she will reconsider Hamish’s proposal.” Lies, every last syllable. Including his own words. As his father’s explanation had made the rounds, whispered from man to wife and so on, Hamish had answered sympathetic looks and murmurings with brusqueness, “Thank you for your concern, sir and madam. I’ll pass along your kind words to Alice.”
He breathes out harshly, noticing that he’s glaring at the looking glass again. Well, it’s Alice’s fault, really, that he’s in a foul mood. She should have been there, on his arm as they’d made the rounds and spoken to each guest. She wouldn’t have had to say much, simply be there. After all, such explanations are better distributed indirectly, a task which his mother and father had taken up and performed admirably. Like a well-oiled machine. After a half an hour, Hamish had taken refuge in the house, citing the need to check on Alice’s condition. He’d only returned when the guests had started drifting toward their carriages.
Through it all, his stomach had been in knots. More than once, he’d stopped pacing in the hallway and glared at the space of empty wall beside the potted fern.
Concern had made him wonder: Where are you, Alice?
Irritation had made him accuse: You shouldn’t have left me here to face them alone!
“Blast it,” Hamish mutters, turning away from his own reflection with a blustery sigh and reaching for the water pitcher. Glaring at a bit of lead-backed glass will get him nowhere and he has things to be getting on with today!
He rolls up his sleeves and splashes water on his face. Soaping up his shaving brush is habit by now and he scrubs the lather onto his face efficiently, barely glancing in the mirror. The razors edge is cool against his skin and he finds comfort in that sharp moment of normalness. Yes, the whole incident from the day before might be utterly mad and incomprehensible, but at least this routine hasn’t changed in the slightest.
He shaves carefully and methodically, referring to his reflection in the looking glass more out of habit than any real need to orient himself. His hands know this task well, as does his face which accommodates the razor’s straight edge one expression at a time. He has just finished his upper lip and chin when suddenly, his fingers twitch and the razor tumbles from his grasp into the sudsy basin.
“Bugger all,” he swears softly, noting the darkening spots of used water on his shirtfront. Well, there’s no point in redressing before he finishes up, is there? Significantly more irritated now than he had been moments before, Hamish reaches for the submerged razor, glances up at the soap-dotted mirror, and freezes.
“What the devil…?”
He blinks as the small flecks of shaving cream upon the surface of the glass seem to sway, as if pushed about by a gentle breeze. They move one way, and then another until they spin gently. For a single mad instant, Hamish imagines they are waltzing across the surface of the looking glass!
He blinks, shakes his head, reaches for the towel to wipe the surface clean and-
Is that… Alice?
Hamish squints at the image now reflected in the mirror, his arm upraised and towel grasped in his hand. Surely, that cannot be Alice, dressed in white with skirts frothing around her, dancing with a very wildly-orange-haired man in an equally white suit and a terribly shabby, dark and battered top hat. Surely, Hamish is merely dreaming still!
He stares at the couple twirling together on the dance floor of a ballroom that could only belong in a royal palace. He gapes at Alice’s bright smile and sparkling eyes. He has never seen her look so happy. Nor has he ever seen her so taken with a man as she is clearly taken with this one. It makes no sense at all that this odd man with his flyaway orange locks and disreputable hat could hold such fascination for her, but he obviously does.
Hamish would have looked away then, scowling against the bitterness of his own envy, but suddenly Alice and her dance partner halt in their tracks. A motion in the background draws his attention.
Is that a platypus conducting the orchestra?!
Perhaps it is. The creature lowers his baton, signaling the end of the song. And then Alice moves suddenly, her shirts flash brilliantly white, catching Hamish's eye and he watches - thunderstruck - as she rises up on her toes, clearly intending to kiss her bizarre companion on his pale cheek. In that moment, however, he seems to giggle and turns toward her, his lips forming themselves around an observation or response which Hamish cannot hear. The man moves as Alice leans in and her lips press not to his cheek, but to the corner of his mouth.
Hamish has never seen Alice blush before as she does now, in the looking glass. The man, however, merely smiles kindly and offers her his arm with admirable aplomb. His lips move again and Hamish finds himself leaning closer, as if a closer proximity will be rewarded with sound. He is mesmerized by the shifting expressions on Alice’s face as they move from mortification to relief to something that makes his stomach roll with foreboding and trepidation. Something that looks very much like disappointment, only a hundred times worse! A variety of dread with which Hamish is unfortunately acquainted.
And then-
Knock, knock.
Hamish startles, jumping guiltily and dropping the razor back into the basin again.
“Sir?” The voice of the country estate’s butler is muffled by the closed door. “Lord and Lady Ascot are taking breakfast. They request that you join them.”
Clearing his throat, Hamish replies. “Yes, I understand. Thank you.”
Unsettled - for he realizes that he had not been dreaming just now - Hamish glances warily at the mirror. A new assortment of froth splatters have joined the previous mess. He studies the looking glass, watches as each clump of soap slowly slides - with no swaying or twirling - simply downward. There is no ballroom, no platypus conductor or orchestra, no blushing Alice in a white dress, no oddly hatted man smiling indulgently.
“Madness,” he summarizes and then wipes the mirror clean with a few impatient swipes of the towel in his grasp. Once again, Hamish fishes the razor out of the basin and sets the blade against his skin. This time, he manages to finish his shave without further interruptions. Shrugging into a new shirt, he ties his cravat as he moves toward the door. He frowns at the fabric, and does his best not to wonder too deeply at the vision he’d witnessed, for if it had not been a dream…
His stomach twists.
Yes, it’s best not to think such things. Finishing off the knot at his throat, he lifts his chin and marches downstairs to breakfast. There’s the matter of a venture to China that still needs to be discussed. He had promised Alice, after all. And it would be unforgivable to let a perfectly sound idea go to waste because of his distraction with some ridiculous, anxiety-fueled daydream!