Tarrant fic OUT OF MIND YET INSIDE IT 01/02

[solanyxe]

Alice in Wonderland 2010 fanfiction
Spoilers: the movie
Title: OUT OF MIND YET INSIDE IT
Summary: Underland is too big to fit inside one single head. Tarrant-centric, leads to Tarrant/Alice.
Pairings and characters: Tarrant, Tarrant/Alice, various characters from Underland,…
Word count: ~14.600 in total, ~5.000 for this part
Rating: PG -13
Warnings: death of an original character (in the past), brief mention of a railway accident, somewhat strained family relations
Other 1: Tarrant’s head is a bit messy, so the text might appear messy as well.
Present tense indicates the present, past tense the past events.
The cursive style indicates the events that happen in Underland.
I know some find it painful to read anything in cursive style, so I included the fic in PDF format HERE, where I used a different font instead of cursive. (I spent a lot of time trying o find a font that would be distinguishable enough from Calibri yet wouldn’t be completely atrocious for the eyes.)
Other 2: This was supposed to be a video, but it expanded and became a fic instead. I think I’ll still do the video eventually.
Other 3: Apologies for any possible historical inaccuracy and remaining mistakes.

The FOOTNOTES are HERE.

---
Mostly Mad
---
In his dreams he’s mostly mad.

The images are blurry each time he wakes, but of this he is convinced.
It’s not his usual kind of madness, the one his aunt Abigail always reproaches him for.
In his dreams, his hair is red, and his eyes glimmer with a wayward shade of green. The bags under his eyes are as purple as his lips, and his clothes are a woven rainbow of patterns and colour. He makes hats, of all things. Or at least he used to; he seems to do nothing of importance these days.

Perhaps it’s the other way around, and those are not dreams but the truth.

Then in his dreams, his hair is as black as raven’s feathers, and so are his eyes. Under them his greyish skin counts his sleepless nights (and must have lost that count by now), while his clothes are a drab shade of brown. His endeavours are not worth of mention either. Chasing and writing news for the Examiner proves not to be as thrilling as Tarrant has imaged at the boarding school. Perhaps it would be different if he worked for Times, Herald, Weekly dispatch, or even Punch, but fact stands that Tarrant doesn’t work for any of those. His life is dull, incredibly dull in comparison to the rumours about the lifestyle in London. He blames aunt Abigail and her utter respectability.

“This must be a dream, then,” he murmurs and halts on the street. “I’m dreaming right now.”
He looks around, carefully watching the ladies and gentlemen hurry their way up and down the street.
“Yet it looks so real. How can it be a dream?” he says to himself.
‘If I turn the street corner before four carriages pass me by, then it’s not a dream,’ he thinks.
One.
Why would he ever make hats? He can’t even hold a pen without smearing his hands, and if he ever tried to sew, his fingers would soon have as much holes as a sieve. Perhaps they do, and Tarrant can’t recall it because he’s dreaming now. Dreams tend to be strange like that.
Carriage number two.
There were talking animals on the other side, in his other dreams, and that is plainly ridiculous.
He speeds up his steps. Unless it’s plain ridiculous that animals can’t talk at all.
Third carriage.
Tarrant is almost at the corner. He is in a dream after all. He’ll awake and find himself as a hatter who does nothing, as his true life goes.
Carriage number four.
Tarrant touches the street lamp at the corner and makes a turn.
“Four carriages. Then this life here must be the truth. I am Tarrant, and I’m a miserable journalist who lives with an aunt, who in turn makes his life even more miserable.” He laughs a bit at his ‘discovery,’ and the idea that he could have been a hatter seems absurd already. “It’s a figment of my imagination. Of course it is.”

It was the type of silliness he should have discarded long ago, Tarrant knows, but the dream, this beautiful and mad dream, has persisted. It has faded with years, as idle fancies should when one reaches adulthood, but Tarrant could still grasp some colours and images - the smiling roses, ribbons and pins, and teacups. There is a sense of wonder in it, despite the sadness and the anger that plague his slumbering self as much as his wake self.
It may be that he keeps dreaming of the nonsense, of hats and pins, because his mother was a seamstress. Not a real one, as he discovered later, but she did mend and sew for her customers.

Her long white fingers were working above the colourful textile without a break. The room was stuffy and small. The bed, the desk, and the chair were taking up almost the entire space.
“Not now, Tarrant, mommy has to work,” she said when he clutched at her skirt.
“Why?” he said. “Why do you have to work?”
“You know we have to pay the rent to Mr Thomson. And Miss Mary will be sad if she doesn’t receive her dress on time, don’t you think?” His mother caressed his cheek and smiled. “You’ll be a good boy, won’t you? You can play with these, as long as you’re careful.” She pointed to a box with ribbons, sewing threads, and other sewing accessories.
Tarrant picked up a thimble. “This looks like a teacup. A very small teacup. For a mouse or something like that.” Then he opened the needle case. “Here’s a sword. A whole set of swords, look.”
“Be careful with the needles,” his mother said.
Tarrant was already searching for new things. “And a shield.”
Mother smiled. “Thread winder.”
After playing with a thread winder and an imaginary pin for a while (mum didn’t allow him to play with a real pin), thrusting in parrying as a brave warrior, Tarrant said, “Why does father never return?”
Mother’s hands halted.
After minutes of silence, she spoke, looking him in the eyes. “We’ve talked about it. He won’t return. He can’t, he’s in another land.”
“What land? Or did you say Underland? Like a goblin? Where goblins live? What kind of land is that?” As mother didn’t reply, he insisted. “Why can’t we go meet him, then? Is it far away?”
“It’s indeed Underland,” mother whispered. “It’s not far away, but it’s not very easy to reach. It’s somewhere deep inside the Earth. They say it’s different from our world, but nobody really knows.”
“Father does,” Tarrant said.
Mother didn’t look happy about that, though she was smiling. “But he won’t come back to tell us. Nobody does. The way back doesn’t exist, and that’s how it is. You should eat something now.” She put the dress on the bed. “Come.”

Tarrant notices where he is, only when he finds himself two buildings past the one he should have entered.
“Well, mother, it seems you found your way to him instead. And I’ve lost my way a little bit, I fear,” he says in low voice. He corrects his neck cloth and walks back.

---
Friends
---
He tries to compile those small articles about London companies branching out, about petty everyday crimes, and what similar there is, but fragments from dreams keep intruding into his reality. Unless it’s the other way around, and fragments of reality are barging into his dream.
There is only one person he trusts enough to ask.
“Molly,” Tarrant says. “How do you know we’re not dreaming?”
Molly is busy, wading through hundreds of pages and sorting them. Still, she lifts her head expectantly at Tarrant. “What?”
“How do you know this isn’t a dream? Sometimes I dream such weird things that I’m ashamed of even mentioning them. It’s always the same dream, as far as I can know. Only I can’t remember much lately, and I’ve began to think that I’m dreaming now. That would explain why I can’t remember much of my real life. You know how sometimes you can’t remember who you really are in a dream? How do I know what I see now is not merely part of a dream?” Tarrant says.
“Why would it be a dream? Do you want me to pinch you? If it’s a dream, you’re bound to wake up.” She raises her right hand, looking menacingly at him. Rather, she tries to look at him menacingly, but as usually she fails.
Tarrant thinks of it for a moment. “Perhaps that would help.”
Molly jumps to her feet and pinches his cheek, quickly and sharply.
“Ow.” Tarrant places his hand where she pinched him.
“See? Not a dream; I wouldn’t dream of these.” She points to the pile of documents. “I would dream of things far more…” Her eyes linger on Tarrant’s face for a while, and he waits for her to continue, although Molly looks as though she was waiting for Tarrant to say something first. At last she sighs and shakes her head at him. “Things more interesting.”

As it happens sometimes with Molly, Tarrant has the impression that there’s something he should gather from her words, but he never does. Yet if Molly never expresses herself clearly, perhaps it’s not for him to prod into it.
“What kind of things?” he ventures nevertheless.
“What about your dreams? They sound more interesting,” she says instead of answering.
Tarrant shrugs. “I can’t remember much.” Although he makes every effort to catch the gist of his dream, there are merely few pieces that insinuate themselves into his vision. Hats, his hands, which hold a teacup with bandaged fingers, and there’s…
“But there’s a girl,” says Tarrant, “a girl with long blond hair. I don’t know what she looks like, and I don’t know why, but in my dream I’m always waiting for her. She will save a kingdom and… she is… special to me. Does that make any sense?”
Molly brushes her brown hair with her fingers. “Not much, Tarrant. Those are only dreams. You’ve probably been reading too many fairy tales. I think you should look around and see what you can do here, instead of wasting your time with dreams and fairy tales. If you’ll keep waiting for magical blonde girls to appear, you’ll never notice the girls that actually exist.”
“No, that’s the funny thing,” Tarrant says. “I do notice them, but when I look them in the face, I see they’re not her. They’re never her. And if there’s something I know it’s that it must be her.”
Molly is short of stature, but the way she pulls up her head and shoulders now makes her look twice as tall and at least three times as imposing.
“I see that you’re still sleeping, truly. We have work to do. Wake up.” Her voice carries a hint of exasperation, and she pinches him again, only harder this time. “Any better now?”
“Yes,” says Tarrant, for it would not be wise to contradict, and for she is right. Wasting time on dreams is futile.

Tarrant hears a muffled laugher - Tuck is smirking into a sleeve.
“What is it, Tuck?” Molly says.
Tuck drops his hand, but he doesn’t stop smirking. “Nothing. Tarrant, come with me. I heard there was a railway accident close to Canobury; we should be the first to get there, the first to write about it, and the first to publish it. News!”

Tuck is as mad as a box of frogs or as mad as a hare during March. Wherever he needs to go, whatever he needs to do to fish up a piece of news, he does. What surprised Tarrant, however, was that Tuck often invited him to go along.
Tarrant asked him once as to why.
“You’re like me, aren’t you?” Tuck replied. “You need adventure, don’t you? You need to feel alive. Colours, events, news! Oh, look, that man over there, isn’t he… Yes, quick!”
It was as though Tuck has found that little madness Tarrant has been barely managing to hide, and acknowledged it as the most natural thing in the world.

‘Because we’re mad in a similar way,’ Tarrant thinks and says only, “All right.” Not that he is too eager to see the victims of an accident, but being in the office is not for him. His mind always wanders, just like Tuck’s does.
Molly rushes to get her coat. “I’m coming with you!”
“As you want,” Tuck says.
Before they exit the office, someone calls after them, “Miss Hartman, where are you going?”
Molly curses in a low voice. Then she turns back, and the tone of her voice changes; it becomes gentle, almost sleepy. “Mr Stanovic? To the railway crash, where else?”
“We don’t need so many people there. Plus, I asked you to search for that article from last year, didn’t I? I need it today. And while you’re at it, I need some fresh tea here.”
Tarrant can’t remember any excuse to persuade Mr Stanovic that Molly should go to. He fears that Molly will give the man a piece of her mind, yet Molly says, “Yes, of course.”
She looks at Tarrant. “Next time he does that, I’ll put out both of his eyes, I swear. See you later.”

---
Tales
---
When Tarrant returns home and tries to sneak into his room, aunt Abigail comes to greet him. “You’re late again. You have no respect for manners,” she says in a chiding tone.
Not as late as Tarrant wishes he would have been, as Abigail’s guests are still sitting in the living room. Now they are craning their necks to see Tarrant.
All of them are old ladies, and Tarrant knows they have chatted away their whole afternoon, since four o’clock. No doubt, in the middle of the conversations, aunt took a footstool for her feet, as that was supposed to ail the varicose veins. By now each lady must have been competing to show that she is the one with the most troubled health, from the upset stomach, to the rickets, and to the pained spine.

Tarrant fixes his eyes at the aunt’s wooden brooch; she has worn it since the first time he has met her. A wooden rose varnished with dragon’s blood. How horrifying the brooch had seemed to him, until he has learned that dragon’s blood was only the name of a resin.
“Will you greet my friends, Tarrant?” Aunt Abigail pulls him in.
“Ladies,” Tarrant says, glancing toward the door.
“He’s a journalist,” says aunt Abigail - she has never failed to say that. “Will you tell us where you’ve been today? It must have been some important news to detain you for so long. I bet it will be featured in tomorrow’s newspapers. Tell us.”
Tarrant sighs, wondering why she doesn’t say outright, ‘Amuse us. Dance with your legs up, or pull a rabbit from a trouser. Amuse me.’
“I fear there was nothing thrilling today,” says Tarrant. “A minor accident on the railways close to Canonbury.”
“Ooh,” many of the ladies say.
“My goodness,” say others.
Again Tarrant sighs. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard yet. It’s not precisely the Clayton Tunnel crash. Not one single death, I’m afraid. It’s hardly worth a mention. There should have been at least three victims to be considered worthy news. ”
The ladies say, “Ooh,” again, or “Thank goodness.”
Aunt Abigail shakes her head. “Tarrant, the way you talk, it sounds as if you’re sad there were no deaths. Sometimes you look like a raven, preying on corpses to feast on them. You should be ashamed.” With a wave of her hand, she dismisses him.

Night begins to fall, and Tarrant looks himself in the mirror. The dark bags under his eyes stare defiantly at him. There’s something wrong with his whole countenance. The bleak face, the black hair, the dark clothes. The eyes do resemble a raven slightly, perhaps. Something is missing. Colours, hues, something.
He croaks and looks at his reflection again. “I don’t look like a raven - I don’t even sound like it.”
It s not his fault, however, even if he did look like a raven. He hasn’t always been this way, preying on boring news. Before, he had his stories. The stories he used to scribble and even draw.
There was a Sparrow bird, a distracted pirate captain, which Tarrant named ‘Sparrow.’ There was a marmot, Wonky Willy, who worked in a chocolate factory, and there was Ichabod the Raven, who could solve mysteries by inspecting corpses. Or was it Ichabod the Crane? Tarrant can’t recall anymore.
There were other stories, but Tarrant can’t even remember where his manuscripts are now.
“Not that it matters,” he whispers.
Nobody seemed to like his stories anyway.
“Perhaps Molly would. No, she thinks dreams and tales are a waste of time.”

---
Down With the Bloody Big Head
---
Tarrant coughs, spitting his tea back into the cup. “My mother was not a seamstress or a milliner. The same goes for my father, especially for the seamstress part.” He puts the cup down and nods to himself. “Anyone can try and make hats, but being a Hatter is not a profession. It’s a vocation, a call. ”
He stands, walks a few steps, and takes a new teacup.

It’s a lazy morning, as most mornings are, when the lackeys of the Red Queen were not about.
“Then how did you become a Hatter, Hatter?” Mally kicks a porcelain fragment off the table.
Tarrant sits down and pours himself some fresh tea. “I was brought to the palace. It was a long time ago. There, the White Queen said she expected me, and when I asked why, she said it was written in the Oraculum.”
“How does this oratorical affair work?” says Thackery. “Everyone is talking about it, but isn’t it just about talking?” The March Hare covers his eyes and giggles.
“Oracular,” says Mallymkun.
“Oraculum,” says Tarrant. “It’s a compendium of all days, you should know that. I’ve seen it for myself.” He glanced around, making sure there were no curious ears waiting among the trees. Although he couldn’t spot anyone, he continued in a lower voice. “It showed me that I was destined to become a hatter. The Hatter.” He touches the brim of his top hat. “I found this hat when nobody else in the palace could. And whoever finds the hat becomes the royal Hatter.”
“Where did you find it?” Mally says.
Tarrant smiles and points upward with his index finger. “It was waiting on the roof of the highest tower. I knew it was there, because that was the most logical place for it to be. The top hat was on the high top. The highest top. That’s when the White Queen renamed me into Tarrant Hightopp.”
“Top hat!” the March Hare cries and throws a spoon into the grass. “How did you know it was a top hat?”
The smile on Tarrant’s face becomes a pensive pout, which soon breaks into a smile again. “I would never wear anything but a top hat.”
Thackery is fishing for a new spoon, when he asks, “What does it do?”
The Hatter shakes his head at them. “It makes my head look pretty.”
“But what makes it so special?” Mally says.
The Hatter leans down. “What makes it so special?” He puts his right hand at the side of his mouth and whispers, “It’s mine.”
After straightening his back, fixing his gaze in front of him. “Everything was as it should have been. Everything was as it should have been until…” His eyes narrow.
“What about your parents, then?” Mally says before he could continue.
“They come from the Witzend, like me and Thackery.” Tarrant tries to say something more, but he can’t remember anything. His mother, his father, nothing. There are floods of images and sounds choking the air out of him, yet very little meaning. He feels as though someone is pushing words down his throat, words, which then rise again like bile. Raven, rose, sewing thread, white, Alice, desk, black, red. And there are voices... All those voices, and he can’t remember where he is or why.
When the images and noise fall still, Tarrant realizes he’s been screaming, “Down with the Bloody Big Head!” for some time.
“Are you feeling better now?” Mallymkun says. She’s next to his arm, her pin set upright in the air and shining with red.
“Yes. I’m sorry.” Tarrant looks at his left hand and draws a finger over the tiny drop of blood that emerges from his skin. “I’m fine.” His throat feels dry, his voice is croaking.
“Mally,” he says. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
There must be an answer, because there is the question. Why would the question always torment his mind if not for the answer?
Mallymkun sheathes her swords. “I don’t know. Maybe you should drink some tea.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” says Tarrant and takes his tea in big slurps. His hands still shake a little. “I think I will ponder on the words that being with letter T. Tarrant, tea, trouble, turmoil, talion.”

“Alice!” Thackery says and hits the table with his hand. “Everything will be normal again when McTwisp finds Alice and brings her back.”
“Yes.” Tarrant smiles. Tranquility is returning to his mind. “Things will change when Alice will return.”
Mally crosses her arms. “You always speak of Alice. What if McTwisp never finds her?”
It doesn’t even bother Tarrant that Mally replies this way, it doesn’t shake his hope. “Nonsense. Of course he will return.”
“How do you know?” Mallymkun’s voice is louder now. “Why is it so important? We don’t need Alice anyway. I don’t need Alice, you don’t need Alice. We don’t need her. We can overthrow the Red Queen ourselves.” She stomps her leg on the table.
“Shh.” Tarrant puts a finger to his lips. “Someone might hear you. I need Alice more than anyone else. I’ve seen it in the Oraculum, and I know Alice will return to slay the Jabberwocky. Even without the Oraculum, I just know it will happen.”
He simpers into his teacup, while Mallymkun glares down at her sword.
“Well, then we will just sit here and drink more tea until this Alice appears,” she says, her arms still crossed.
“Yes,” the Hatter whispers. “We’ll wait for Alice.”
He can finally taste the aroma of his tea atop its usual bitterness - almond blossoms, and he has to smile again.

---
Heavy Rain
---
At this late hour, the streets are almost desolated.
Rain is coming down in buckets, its noise drowning the sound of Tarrant’s steps. Even though his steps are more often a splish-splash rather than a clump-clump. Inside his shoes, his feet are wet through and through.
Splash, splash, splash, clump, clump, splash, he counts.

Tarrant has stopped wiping away the drops from his face a while ago, now he simply lets them drift down his face and soak his clothes.

It’s not the fact that he had to rewrite three of his articles in the last two days that bothers him. Not entirely, although Tarrant isn’t too happy about it either. Whatever this feeling is, it’s closer to a general dissatisfaction, a lack of something, rather than being a definite problem.
Plash, plop, slosh.
There is something important he has to remember; there is always something important to remember, though he can’t figure out what. What could it be? Something from his dream?
Thump, thud, clack.
What is he waiting for? Whom is he waiting for? Something big to happen and change his life? Someone to arrive and set everything right?
Splish, splash.
It’s never that easy.
Tarrant stops, hunches his body, and looks into a puddle of water. The raindrops incessantly stir the watery surface, and it’s dark, so Tarrant makes out only the outline of his face.
Dark as a carrion bird, dark as a raven… Shouldn’t it be different? Shouldn’t his face be different?
Tarrant begins to walk again. To occupy his mind, he counts the most recurrent crimes that happen on the streets of London at this late hour, praying none of them happens to him.
Thievery, beating, murder, rape.
Still, there’s something missing, something forgotten.
He begins to look for things that begin on letter R.
“Something’s wrong,” Tarrant whispers, when he can’t find one single thing. Then he laughs at himself. “Rain, raindrop, rainfall.”
A thunderbolt lightens the sky for a moment, and a clap of thunder follows.
“Rainstorm,” Tarrant says, “rancour, rage, redemption, …”

---
Fevered Dreams
---
“What have you been doing? Do you know what time it is? What will the neighbours think? Why can’t you behave as a proper man should?” Aunt Abigail says, her eyes narrowed. “You’re doing this on purpose to torment me. Look at you.” She points at his wet and muddy clothes.
Tarrant shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve been walking.” He can’t keep the rebellious tone out of his words. “Walks are good for heath, they say.”
“In a thunderstorm?” She sneers. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, dear auntie, I’m old enough to think for myself. Good night.”
She wagged her finger at him. “You can’t speak to me that way. Who took you in and helped you all this time?”
“You hardly took me in, aunt. We haven’t seen each other in years, and I always thought you preferred it that way. I certainly did.”
Aunt Abigail gasps. For once at loss for words, though not for long. “You possess no gratitude at all.” Her voice turns screechy, pained. “I should have sent you to the orphanage, I should.”
“Yes, you should have. What a terrible mistake you made.” However he tried, Tarrant couldn’t calm himself anymore. The words came up on their own, as regurgitated food. “Big, big mistake, terrible, horrible mistake. But don’t worry, you can throw me on the street tomorrow if you wish. No, you won’t have to do even that. I’ll leave on my own.”
As his aunt yells at him, Tarrant goes into his room.
He feels mad when he lies in his bed. It’s too late to apologize and take the offensive words back now. His entire body is strange… unusual.
“Just sleep for now,” he whispers to himself.

Alice returns to Underland.
She’s grown older and at the same time much smaller, in more ways than one.
They say she’s the wrong Alice, they say McTwisp has made a mistake, but Tarrant knows better. He could recognize Alice anywhere. There is no doubt in his mind - it is the right Alice, regardless of how much upelkuchen or pishsalver she has had, or how frightened her heart is. She’s always THE Alice.
Tarrant doesn’t know how he recognizes her. He just knows, the same way he recognizes his face in the mirror. And Tarrant can recognize his face in the mirror almost any day, sometimes more than once.
Alice doesn’t know Tarrant, however. Tarrant doesn’t care - how could Alice remember him when she doesn’t even remember herself?
She insists she doesn’t slay. Doesn’t slay, pha! And the Vorpal sword doesn’t cut, and Hatter doesn’t have a hat. The Red Queen will reign forever. Gallymogger ideas, the first as much as the rest. The ugly Big Head is going to roll, and soon.

The bloody Red Queen’s soldiers take him prisoner, and in the bloody slurking dungeons, Stayne tortures him. Alice is safe, at least.

Tarrant awakes in his bed, with sweat sticking to his back, and the room spinning around him.
He tries to sit, but aunt Abigail pushes him back.
“What do you think you’re doing, you mad, mad… If you weren’t about to lose it already, I’d chop your head off myself. Walking in the rain for hours is fun, isn’t it?” Aunt Abigail screams. “I knew you’re not capable of taking care of yourself, just like your mother wasn’t.” Her nostrils flare. “You think it’s enough to be nice and smile to others, and everything will be solved by itself? Well, it doesn’t work that way. The world is not a fairy tale.”
Tarrant can’t remember having ever behaved that way, but he doesn’t find any strength in him to oppose.
“Drink.” She pulls him up and pushes a cup of tea in front of his face.
“You rush in danger, you die. Be glad you didn’t catch pneumonia,” she carries on. “What have I ever done to deserve this? Do I deserve to be disrespected at my age? Do I deserve to be frightened by my own nephew? Does nobody think of my heart?”
Tarrant croaks, “I never frightened you. What…”
“Yes, screaming in the early morning with fever is very salutary for my old heart. I’m starting to suspect you want to kill me. Sleep now, or I’ll make you regret you’ve been born. The doctor will come to visit in a few days again.”
She doesn’t mention throwing anyone out, Tarrant notices.
As aunt finally leaves, he falls back into his bed and closes his eyes.

Alice comes to Crims for him, to save him, perhaps, but Tarrant knows her path leads elsewhere. She leaves with the Vorpal sword in order to reach the White Queen. The ugly Big Head orders Tarrant’s execution at dawn.

His fingers and toes are cold, and he can feel shivers all over his body. He is not entirely sure where he is. On the ceiling, large eyes form, and a set of teeth grin to him.
“Chessur?”Tarrant says. When he refocuses his gaze, there’s nothing but shadows on the walls. “You always disappear when someone needs you, you slackush scrum.”

The executioner swings his axe, and hidden behind the Red queen’s throne, Tarrant tries hard not to giggle.
When the axe meets the chopping block, the Hatter’s neck is still intact. Tarrant’s hat floats away from the axe, and from underneath Chessur’s fury head appears and grins.

Together they bring havoc to the Crims, Tarrant, Chessur, Mally, and the others, and they manage to escape in the confusion. The Big Red Head’s scream is audible from afar. It’s a joy to listen.
Only in the evening Tarrant and his friends reach Marmoreal.

He meets Alice again that night, the night before the Frabjous Day.
“I wish I’d wake up,” she says, leaning on the railing of the balcony.
“Still believe this is a dream, do you?” Tarrant says.
Alice doesn’t smile. “Of course, this has all come from my own mind.”
The Hatter feels his bones shaking. “Which would mean… that I’m not real.”
He waits for her to disagree, but she says only, “I’m afraid so. You’re just a figment of my imagination. I would dream up someone who’s half-mad.”
In her words, Tarrant finds a glimmer of hope. “Yes, yes, but you would have to be half-mad to dream me up.”
“I must be then,” Alice says. She fixes her gaze in front of her. “I’ll miss you when I wake up.”
Tarrant’s doesn’t know anymore if he is standing or afloat. His dreams are breaking.

His head still hurts, as does his throat. He looks at his hands, waiting for them to disappear. They do not.
“Is this the reality, then? Am I alive?” In Tarrant’s chest, his heart beats at a frenzied rhythm. “What if I’m dreaming her up? Did she disappear?”
He can’t understand who is real and who is not, or who is mad and who isn’t. He pinches himself and digs his nails into his hands until he draws blood.
The room doesn’t dance as much as before, which allows him to open the window and sit under it. The cold air that begins to come in.
If he can remember, if he can dream only if he’s mad with fever, then he better be mad with fever. He has to see Alice again. He has to go back.
“Back. Words that begin with letter B.” Tarrant’s eyes scan the room. “Bed, books, backside, bag, band… bonkers. Totally bonkers.” He smiles. “All the best people are.”
Then he gets up slowly and closes the window.
Staggering, he reaches the bed. The sheets are warm, but not enough to chase the cold away. Thus he waits, waits to fall asleep again, and minutes trickle into hours.

The Hatter offers himself as the champion - he would do anything for the White Queen. Alice still refuses to slay.
She changes her mind at the last moment, as Tarrant has always known she would. She is Alice, after all. His Alice.
The Jabberwocky’s head falls down on the battlefield, cut with Alice’s sword. The red Queen is defeated, and there is no need to fight anymore.
The Red Queen lives, banished to the Outlands, by the orders of the White Queen.
To his surprise, Tarrant doesn’t care. To his surprise, he hasn’t killed Stayne when he could. There are punishments worse than death, the Hatter believes, and living with the Red Queen for the length of one life is precisely such punishment.
Normality will finally return to Underland. Full of joy, Tarrant does the Futterwacken until the White Queen offers Alice the Jaberwocky’s blood.
“Will it take me home?” Alice says.
The White Queen caresses her cheek. “If that is what you choose.”

“You could stay,” says Tarrant to Alice, though he knows she will not.
He forces himself to believe that she will not forget him, even if he knows that’s not the truth.
Alice drinks the blood.
He says, “Fairfarren, Alice,” when he would want to kiss her, to hold her until she changes her mind, and to beg her not to go. To stay in Underland with him, now that…

Alice vanishes.

Tarrant is roused from his sleep, his head clear as it has not been in a while. Alice’s voice resounds in his mind.
“Hatter, why is a raven like a writing desk?”
Tarrant thinks he finally knows the answer. He can finally remember.

PART 2 HERE