Chapter Text
Chapter 1
She had not known what to do, here, on this battlefield. Honestly, she is still not sure how she had managed to defeat the Jabberwocky. With pure muchness, the Hatter might say. But now is not the time for reassurances meant for her. She regards the Hatter – the tasteless, thick blood of the Jabberwocky coating her tongue – and knows that this moment is not for her. It is for him. And, for the first time in her life, Alice knows the right thing to say.
“Hatter, why is a raven like a writing desk?”
The smile he gives her is full of sorrow and pride and hope and something else that does more than tighten his stretchy smile and puff up his chest. Something that makes his eyes glow and the tension bleed from his brows. Something…
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he confides.
She is entranced by that look, by the meaning that is bursting to make itself known to her.
The Hatter takes half a step forward – Why only half a step? she wonders. He is not a man who bothers with half measures! – and whispers softly in her ear.
“Fairfarren, Alice.”
His breath is warm and stirs the strands of her disheveled hair against her sweaty neck. When he half-steps back, that look is still there, straining against his simple, happy smile. Straining…
She leans toward him, entranced by that look, aching to understand… and then suddenly she is floating-flying-soaring (Yes, now she knows what it must feel like to fly!) up the rabbit hole. The light from the mildly overcast day blinds her as she scrabbles and scrambles out of the hole. For a moment, she sits on its edge, contemplating the abyss below her soles. Her dress is smudged and probably ruined. Her hair is loose and she suspects the sharp pain in her head, near her temple (where she’d knocked it against the stones on the battlefield) will develop into a very annoying goose egg before the day is out.
But she cannot dawdle here, dwelling on that; she has much to do. The party, Hamish, her mother… they all have to be dealt with. But not yet. Alice takes one more moment to remember the Hatter’s parting expression, to savor his proud smile. She recalls his nearness in that instant in which he’d bidden her farewell. “Fairfarren, Alice…” She regrets that she hadn’t thought to inhale just then. Or even lean her forehead against his shoulder. Or…
“Humph!” she scolds herself. She could not stay. There are questions she must answer and things she must do!
And she does them.
“I’m sorry Hamish. I can’t marry you. You’re not the right man for me. And there’s that trouble with your digestion.”
“I love you, Margaret, but this is my life. I’ll decide what to do with it.”
“You’re lucky to have my sister for you wife, Lowell. You’d better be good to her. I’ll be watching very closely.”
“There is no prince, Aunt Imogene. You need to talk to someone about these delusions.”
“I happen to love rabbits, especially white ones.”
“Don’t worry mother. I’ll find something useful to do with my life.”
“You two remind me of some funny boys I met once in a dream.”
Part of her is proud of herself for asserting her independence – she makes the path, after all! – yet, as she listens to herself, part of her is appalled by her own very poor manners. These guests had taken the trouble to come all this way to attend her engagement party. True, she had not consented to – or even been properly informed of – the engagement itself until it was too late to do anything about it, but these people do not deserve such ungrateful words.
And yet, for this very bad behavior, she is rewarded.
“You’ve left me out,” Lord Ascot gently interjects.
“No I haven’t, sir. You and I have business to discuss.”
And they do, despite her childishly daring dance. Lord Ascot listens to her proposal, asks her to apprentice with the company and Alice can feel herself smiling but…
She is confused. Horribly confused. What is going on here? Why does she feel as if she is a passenger in another girl’s body? Why is her life moving onward without her expressed permission? Why does she keep moving forward, as if she is a mere puppet or an unwilling actor in a play? What can’t she stop herself?
Suddenly, Alice is overwhelmed with new work and responsibilities. The tedium of her burgeoning career, her mother’s disappointment and London itself swirl, become a frightening whirlwind, around her. Surrounding her! For a time, she can only close her eyes and imagine pressing her palms to her ears. She does not want these duties, these boardroom meetings, these colleagues who look down their noses at her, a mere girl in their midst! But, despite her efforts, she cannot shut her eyes and ears to them completely. The Alice that everyone sees does not seem to mind or notice their scorn. But the Alice within – her true self – feels the sting acutely.
And then – at last! – a peaceful patch of clear weather calls to her. When she dares to look around her, she finds herself on the bow of a ship, dressed for travel. The color of her suit mocks her, reminds her of the garments she had worn in Underland, the garments that had been thoughtfully altered for her, but this is not Underland! Where is she going? To China? On an adventure – a meaningless, silly quest that hardly compares to the death-defying trials she has already endured – to buy spices for people who will only ever want more-more-more?! She stands on the bow of the ship, alone.
Alone!
Is this her life now? Having rejected Hamish, she must now take this lonely path? She stares out at the flat, featureless water and the endless horizon. Two halves that are destined to be apart, no matter what her eyes show her.
This is WRONG!
Alice despairs as she considers the wide world before her. Where are her friends? Why is her life leading her away from them? Away from Underland and him?
NO!
And then a bright blue butterfly flutters past her cheek. Her heart leaps with painful intensity within her chest. “Hello, Absolem,” she whispers, relieved. Absolem is here and even if she is a stupid girl, he will take her home.
She watches as he ascends into the uncharacteristically fair English sky. She aches to join him, to go with him, to fly. The suit she wears is too bulky, layered, stuffy and heavy. The shoes are too stiff and tight. The air is too empty of laughter and the world around her lacks any trace of friendship or goodness or even warmth.
Friendship, goodness, and warmth… She had felt them in Underland, even in the most unlikely of places: at a moldering tea table in the shadow of a ramshackle windmill, in the Bandersnatch’s frumious hut, in the hat workshop at Crims with the Hatter’s iron shackle clinking with his every movement…
She stubbornly stares up at her fluttering friend. Tears stream from her eyes. They burn her skin as they spill onto her cheeks but she doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away.
Take me with you! Take me HOME!
The sky seems to scream with light, to pulse with infinity and still she does not look away.
She screams back in silence. Regret bursts forth from her very being in the form of a single word:
Hatter!
“Alice?”
She flinches, cringes against the odd, unyielding casing that rubs against her body. Her mouth feels sticky and too warm: with her silent screams, some of the Jabberwocky blood she had swallowed has pooled in her mouth again, clinging to her tongue and teeth and lips.
“Alice?” a man’s voice whisper-lisps at her. She feels his hands on her face, cradling her head.
Emotion rushes, hot and thick, into her throat. Hatter? she wants to ask, but can’t. Asking implies an acceptance of whatever answer is given and she will not tolerate a denial. He must be the Hatter. He must be! She doesn’t know what she’ll do if the sound of his voice is merely a trick that her ears are playing on her.
“Alice?” he tries again. His tone is tireless and taut with tension. “Have you decided to stay?”
And because the answer is a resounding yes, she opens her eyes and sighs with acute relief.
The Hatter is kneeling over her on the battlefield, beneath the overcast sky. The clouds themselves grumble as the sun endeavors to shove his way through and illuminate the realm of the White Queen with the light of victory. At the periphery of her sight, the queen herself and Alice’s friends still stand. Alice knows she ought to be embarrassed by her predicament. Here she is, having quite obviously collapsed onto the stones, and now the Hatter cradling her across his lap in a posture so intimate she ought to be alarmed. She isn’t.
“Alice?” he prompts again, waiting. As he waits, his fingers brush against her cheeks, wiping away her tears, and she sees the iridescent gleam of a viscous, purple liquid upon his stained and scratched fingertips. The blood of the Jabberwocky, she realizes, and the tears that had felt burning-hot against her face are one in the same.
Still, she cannot speak around the knot of Everything in her throat. How is it she is here again, having just lived months – no, years! – Above?
“Have you chosen Underland, Alice?” he lisps, his brows twitching as he supports her armored shoulders amongst the weed-crowded stones.
She studies his face. Behind the pleasant expression, she senses a desperation that makes him stare at her, unblinking.
Is that what she had just experienced? A choice? The blood had shown her what her life could be, were she to return?
“You…” he rasps. His tone sharply contrasts with his benign countenance. He clears his throat. “You could still go back,” he warbles, his voice cracking on the final syllable. “But you must take care not shed another tear while your eyes are open here.”
The fact that he does not even notice the rhyme shocks her, awakens her to the gravity of the situation. She has cried out most of the Jabberwocky blood. If she loses any more, the path that leads back to her family and London will be closed to her. Alice thinks about that path and considers its destination: China. She then imagines a different way she might choose Above, an alternative choice… until it leads her to marriage to a lord. Unacceptable!
The Hatter gently brushes her damp, Jabberwocky-blood-soaked hair back from her temples and she leans into the thoughtful touch. She does not know where this path – the one that leads her from this battlefield – will take her. She suspects that, just as she had lived the one in London in a whirlwind of moments, she is living this one with the speed of a slow spillage of treacle.
She takes a deep breath. She fights against the hinges of the gauntlets and uncurls her fingers, reaches for the Hatter and holds onto him as he holds onto her.
His wide-eyed gaze travels over her erratically as she moves and shifts closer to him. He looks as if he expects to wake up any moment, as if he suddenly fears it is he who is the dreamer and she the dream. “Alice…? Your family…” he reminds her, breathlesssly. “Your home…!”
“Is here,” she answers, at last raising her arms. He leans forward just as he had when she’d replaced his hat, accommodating her as she loops her shaking arms around his shoulders. She curls her steel-encased fingers into his jacket and hangs onto him. “I am home.”
She does not know what she will do here, who she will be, but she will not be that lonely, ungrateful, ambition-drunk girl on a boat. She will not. She will be better. She simply hopes that the Hatter, and all her friends here in Underland, will show her how.
But first she still has things to do and questions to answer.
“Is it real?” she asks him, her throat tight and eyes stinging. “If I go back now, and speak to them – say my farewells – is it real?”
He considers both her expression and her words. “If you’re dreaming, then nothing is real.”
“No,” she suddenly decides. “If I’m dreaming, then everything is real.”
“Including me?” he dares.
She smiles. “Especially you.”
The Hatter grins happily and Alice sighs, content in that moment. But it doesn’t last. It can’t last! Not when there are people waiting for her Above. Yes, there are things she must do, but…
Alice removes her arms from the Hatter’s shoulders and then shakes off her gauntlets, tossing them aside carelessly. She reaches for the Hatter’s purple-smeared fingers and wraps them around her left wrist. “Hold on to me,” she orders him thickly. She can feel the last of the tears burning against her eyes. If she sheds them now, she will lose this chance forever. But if she sheds them above, she will lose him… “Hold on tightly and don’t let me go.”
His expression moves from a flicker of puzzlement to earnest dedication in an instant. “I will help you remember,” he swears.
With a nod and a tight smile, Alice closes her eyes and swallows deliberately so that every last drop of blood slides down her throat. She thinks of her home, the party, the rabbit hole, and…!
“Ow!” Alice cringes away from the root she’d butted with her head. Dirt from the rim of the rabbit hole rains down on her and she spits and shakes her head to get it out of her mouth and eyes. She sighs and glances up at the bright circle of light just beyond her reach. She digs the toes of her boots into the hole’s earthen walls and, with a bit of scrambling and a great heave, she manages to emerge.
Alice levers herself onto the grassy knoll and gazes down into the hole’s depths. Her eyes sting, as if she’d just been crying. She lifts the somewhat clean backs of her hands, pressing one after the other to her cheeks, but feels no trace of wetness. How odd. With a sigh, she returns her attention to the abyss beneath her. Had she truly fallen down there? She must have. Her head aches a bit and, when she lifts a grimy hand to her hair, she feels a hard bump on her scalp. What had happened? It’s difficult for her to remember. Before she had fallen, she’d been running, chasing something… She’d seen it just after Hamish had asked her to—
“Hamish!” she gasps, horrified. “Oh, well done, Alice. Running off like that. Truly a moment of grandeur, that.” Groaning, she pushes herself to her feet. What is she going to tell him? She doesn’t know. But she certainly can’t hide out here or even down that old rabbit hole forever! “I have to tell him I can’t. I can’t marry him,” she mutters to herself.
But then the oddest thing happens. A strange pressure – from some invisible source – squeezes her left hand. She looks down at it as she curls her fingers in and then stretches them out and wiggles them. She waits. Nothing happens. Perhaps it had simply been her imagination that, just now, it had felt like someone had grasped her hand tightly. Yes, just her imagination. Nothing more.
“Right. Hamish,” she scolds herself and, with a deep breath, sets off in the direction of the unwelcome engagement party.
*~*~*~*
“She left me standing here without an answer,” Hamish mutters. He can hear the resentment in his tone and silently rebukes himself for it. It will do no good to express his mortification here, in public. Things are bad enough already.
He shoots a glance at Alice’s sister who is studiously avoiding his gaze. He resists the urge to turn toward Mrs. Kingsleigh. He does not want to give the guests any reason to suspect that he blames Charles Kingsliegh’s daughter or widow – the family of one of his father’s oldest friends – for Alice’s behavior. Still! Alice must have known about today’s event! She must have guessed! And certainly someone here would have told her once she’d arrived. The whole lot of them are absolutely dreadful at keeping things – especially other people’s business – to themselves. Alice had been given plenty of time to compose herself so that she might accept gracefully instead of bounding off into the wood!
He cannot bring himself to address the guests. The shame is too great. His mother steps forward and murmurs discreetly, “Perhaps she… Oh!”
A collective gasp of horror echoes in the garden. Hamish turns and looks up and sees…
“Alice?”
He studies her sullied dress and ruined shoes and tangled hair. Dear God, it looks as if she…
“Are you all right?” Lord Ascot inquires.
“What happened to you?” Helen asks.
Hamish opens his mouth to ask if she has sustained any injuries but Alice turns toward him, interrupting his thought.
“Hamish, I’m sorry.” The entire garden is utterly silent, breathless with anticipation. “I shouldn’t have run off like that. I panicked. It was silly,” she apologizes to him with a sheepish expression and then, with a look, extends the comment to Lord Ascot. Then glancing at her mother, she replies, “I fell down and hit my head.”
Slightly mollified, Hamish holds out a hand to her. She takes it. His entire being breathes a sigh of relief. Yes, everything will be all right. The moment of shame, though it had seemed to last for an eternity, is over.
“Could you see me inside?” she asks him softly. “I think I need to sit down and rest for a moment.”
Hamish is a little startled that she has made this request to him rather than her mother, but he says nothing on that subject. As this is the first sensible thing Alice has said all day, he happily acquiesces. “Of course.” He bows briefly in her mother’s direction. They will need a chaperone, after all. “Madam Kingsleigh, if you would accompany us?” Hamish intones humbly.
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
With Hamish on her left and Helen on her right, they escort Alice toward the house. Already, Hamish can hear the whispers and speculation, but he endures them with his head held high. In truth, it could have been much worse. The moment the three of them enter the parlor, Alice steps away from them and, rather than taking a seat, stands tall and straight in the center of the room.
“I’m sorry I ruined your proposal, Hamish.” She glances at Helen who is still standing beside him, looking prepared to catch Alice at a moment’s notice should the girl suddenly swoon. “But I have something to say, and I couldn’t say it… out there.”
“What is it?” Helen demands, still examining her daughter for other signs of distress.
“Mother, when you sold father’s company to Lord Ascot, my future was discussed, wasn’t it?” She glances away from Helen and toward him. Hamish feels his shirt collar become suddenly and most irregularly warm. “And it was decided?”
“Alice…” Helen begins but says no more.
Alice takes a step in Hamish’s direction and faces him squarely. Her boldness startles him. Who is this creature who had dashed off into the forest not fifteen minutes ago? “Hamish, you know I’m not… the sort of person who would be a proper lady. But you asked me anyway. Thank you for caring about my future. But I’ll be fine. And you need someone… right. For you. We both know that’s not me.”
He opens his mouth to argue – he and Alice have had quite a bit of practice with arguing and the habit is unfortunately ingrained at this point – and then closes it. “I do care for you, Alice,” he admits but the words come easily. That, in and of itself, tells him that they are friends and will never be more than that – even if they were to wed – but he can sense now that that is very unlikely to happen.
“And I care for you,” she replies. “That’s why I must say no.”
He lets out a long breath. His disappointment stems not from the loss of a future with Alice Kingsleigh, but from the wretchedness of this whole episode. Alice frowns slightly and glances down at her left hand. She shakes it a bit and Hamish again wonders if she had hurt herself out there…
“Unfortunately, Hamish has already asked. Publically,” Helen reminds them gently and unnecessarily. “Would you shame his family – and ours – by refusing?”
Alice’s hand must not be hurting too badly because she swiftly gives them both her full attention. “That was why I needed to have a moment in private with you, Hamish,” Alice says. “We need to think of a reason to cancel the engagement. Something that doesn’t embarrass anyone too badly.”
Hamish blinks, startled. The Alice he knows never would have spared a thought for the feelings of others, for gossip and the judgmental nature of Society. Nor would she have cared about family honor. “What do you suggest?” he offers, wondering how far Alice’s forethought has traveled.
“I... I might refuse on the grounds that I’d rather not be looked after by your father. You haven’t begun working yet, Hamish, and… really, it was unfair of them to encourage you to propose when you’re not… settled yet.”
Hamish raises his brows. It is an excellent point, even if his pride is stung both on his own behalf and on behalf of his father.
“That, compounded with my own difficulties…”
“Difficulties?” Helen demands.
Alice smiles sadly. “I still miss papa. I’m… I’m not ready to…” She motions with her hand toward the nearest curtained window and the garden party beyond it and then, once again, she frowns at her own arm. This time, she wraps her right hand around the opposite wrist and rubs it.
Again, Hamish thinks to send for the doctor. Again, he is interrupted.
“Our main concern,” Helen says softly, reaching out to pet her daughter’s shoulder, “was for your welfare, darling.”
“I appreciate that, Mother, but this isn’t…” She sighs. “I don’t want this. And it’s unfair to Hamish.”
Helen’s lips tighten with an unpleasant thought. “Lady Ascot will want you to reconsider, Alice.”
Alice, oddly enough, looks ready to argue with the woman. “I know. It’s fine. I’ll handle this, Mother. I’d rather you not be involved directly.”
“Well,” Helen exclaims softly. She glances at Hamish, brows lifted in surprise. Clearly, he is not the only one to sense a change in Alice. “In that case, I suppose we’d best invite Lord and Lady Ascot to this gathering.”
Alice nods.
As Mrs. Kingsleigh departs, Hamish regards this more somber, thoughtful, and contentious Alice, and he finds himself intrigued by and yet frustrated with her. She appears to have become the sort of young woman he would choose to marry of his own free will, with no parental urging to guide him, and yet she has already refused him. The irony is bitter.
She lifts a dirty hand to her head and winces. Hamish, silently chastising himself for his lack of hospitality, inquires, “How is your head, Alice? And your hand?” he adds, recalling her apparent irritation with it. “If you’d like, I could ask Doctor Benton to come in. He’s just outside in the garden…”
Alice shakes her head slowly. “No, thank you. It’s just a bump. And my wrist is… I’m fine. Although…” She wanders slowly away and carefully studies the fireplace even though she’s seen it countless times before. Frowning into the looking glass above the mantle, she confesses, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have ideas for your father’s trading company but I don’t want…” She bites her lip, lifts a hand to her eyes as if trying to press back oncoming tears. “That’s not for me, either,” Alice finally announces her voice thick with a repressed sniffle.
Before Hamish can think of some way to console her, she meets his gaze – no tears, thank God! – and says with a sad smile, “I don’t suppose you would be interested in going to China and setting up a trade office there? It would be very lucrative for the company.”
The business proposal distracts him from his mild concern for her emotional state, which seems to be a bit more precarious than usual. Her suggestion is daring – like Alice herself – and full of potential. He can’t help but agree with her assessment. “I will suggest it,” he promises.
“It was my father’s dream, trading with China. Bringing the whole world to London.”
Her wistful tone twists his heart. “It will be done, Alice,” he swears and earns a bright smile for his efforts. “But what of you?” In refusing him, and with her mother’s income severely limited due to the sale of the company, Alice will have a difficult time of things unless she has made very careful plans for her future. Even though they won’t be marrying, Hamish is still very concerned for her. They’ve known each other nearly their whole lives, after all.
She swallows thickly. “I—“
At that moment, the parlor door opens. Hamish’s mother and father, along with Alice’s family, enter the room.
“Are you all right, son?” his father asks softly as the lady of the manor bustles past and rounds on Alice.
“What’s this all about?” Lady Ascot demands. “Alice, why the delay in accepting Hamish’s proposal? I thought you would be a bit more—“
“She isn’t accepting it, Mother,” Hamish interjects on Alice’s behalf. He can guess what his mother would say next and it does not need to be said. “She has excellent reasons. With which I concur.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Hamish moves to stand beside Alice. They are in this together against the dragon his mother can be when her plans are disrupted. Usually, Hamish follows his father’s example and simply steps aside to give her more room to bellow and fume. Not this time. He steps up, takes up the gauntlet as it were, and discovers that he rather enjoys the experience. Smiling, he explains gently, “Alice has very selflessly encouraged me to become my own man before being a husband and a father and I am accepting her offer.”
“Ah,” Lady Ascot responds, her frown lifting. She gives Alice an evaluative look. “So you’re postponing the wedding? Well, I suppose that can be arranged—”
“No, I’m afraid you misunderstand, madam,” Alice replies in such a clear, strong voice that Hamish can only look on in awe. “Hamish and I will not be marrying.”
“You’ll get no better offers, young lady,” his mother scolds. “If you can get any offers at all after this debacle. Why the shame of it—!”
“The shame,” Alice responds most rudely, “is yours for speaking of your son as if he is a commodity.” Alice glances past Lady Ascot’s shoulder at her sister. “He’s a fine man, but I think we can all agree that I am not the right one for him.”
Again, Alice shakes her left hand, fisting it this time. It doesn’t seem to distract her from her purpose, however. She turns back to Lady Ascot and says factually, “After this, I don’t expect to have any offers – at least not from anyone in London Society – and that’s fine.”
“Oh, Alice,” Helen sighs wearily.
Margaret looks gravely concerned.
Hamish’s own mother is blatantly horrified.
Hamish wonders if he can convincingly mask a chuckle behind the act of blowing his nose. Probably not. Pity. True, he should probably be equally scandalized by Alice’s announcement, but he can’t bring himself to manage it. The young woman before him has burst forth from her dull, brown chrysalis with magnificent beauty. Even the dirt and mud, sticks and scrapes cannot distract from that. This is Alice. This is the woman she is meant to be. For the first time, Hamish wonders if he might not be on the same par as her. The thought, rather than being demoralizing, motivates. He and Alice have always enjoyed something of an adversarial relationship. He will not allow her to out stripe him now!
“Alice’s acceptance of the proposal was an unreasonable expectation in the first place,” he adds, seeing the gathering storm in his mother’s thunderous expression. “She has only recently lost her father, with whom she was very close. Asking her to join our family is not a decision she can make now. It was wrong to force it upon her so soon.”
There’s really nothing his mother can say to that. Abject grief is – as it has always been – an untouchable subject with regards to criticism. Alice should be admired for her loyalty toward her late father. And while she clearly still misses him, Hamish doubts she is truly incapable of making decisions about her life. Well, this wouldn’t be the first time grief for a loved one has been used as an excuse to delay or avoid an unpalatable decision and it won’t be the last. It’s a perfectly sensible reason to refuse a marriage proposal, and he admires her for utilizing it so skillfully.
“Oh, sister,” Margaret says, stepping away from her husband and approaching Alice. “You silly fool. What will become of you? If you go back out there and tell everyone…”
Where Alice had stood dry-eyed and stolid against the bluster of Lady Ascot, she folds in the face of her sister’s love. Her eyes shimmer with tears. “I must do this,” she chokes out.
Margaret pulls Alice into a warm embrace despite her younger sister’s ruined clothes and dirty hands. “Dear Alice. What is the matter with you?”
Rather than lean her head on Margaret’s shoulder and weep, as Hamish expects she will (and has braced himself for), Alice stiffens. “What… what did you say?”
“Alice?”
But Alice doesn’t appear to be listening. Her eyes, still shimmering with unshed tears, unfocus. In a dazed tone, she murmurs, “Did you say… hatter?”
Margaret frowns. “No, I didn’t. I said ‘matter’, Alice. What is going on?”
Alice, however, merely mumbles, “What is the hatter with me? Hat… hats… hatter…”
Just when Hamish wonders if, somehow, just when Alice had been at her most lucid and sane, she had suddenly – at the mere turn of a phrase – been pushed past the brink of sanity, her eyes focus again. Her expression morphs into one of horror as she now clutches her left wrist in her hand, lifting it to her chest in a gesture that is nearly desperate. “I’d forgotten. He told me I would and I did. I have to go back,” Hamish thinks she mumbles, but he can’t be sure.
Before he can ponder the utterance, Alice says decisively, “Margaret, I love you, but this is my life. I won’t allow the benefits of privilege to dictate my choices and you shouldn’t either.” She looks past Margaret’s shoulder to Lowell. “I think you two have a lot to discuss about the expectations you have for your marriage.”
Without waiting for a response to that very personal remark, Alice turns to her mother. “I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, but I’m not meant for this place or this life. We both know that.”
“Alice, what—?”
Hamish watches as Alice embraces her mother tightly and presses a kiss to her cheek. Speaking over the startled woman’s shoulder, Alice says to him, “You are a fine gentleman, Hamish. “
His throat tightens as she chokes on the last syllable of his name. Her eyes are swimming with tears now as she releases her mother and steps back. Hamish frowns at the sight of those tears – strange tears. They seem to be an odd, luminescent lavender but that can’t be right… Purple tears cannot be leaking from her eyes and clumping viscously in her lashes. That is impossible.
“I have to go now,” she announces and then, before any of them can snap out of their shock, she sprints for the parlor door.
“Alice!” Helen shrieks on a gasp. The sound of her voice startles Hamish into motion and they both race to the door. It has not yet struck the opposite wall; they are only a moment behind Alice. Surely, they will catch her.
On the threshold of the hallway, Hamish hears Alice say in a strangled whisper, “Hatter! Bring me back. Bring me back.”
Her words make no sense at all. He is accustomed to Alice not making any sense, but in this case he is alarmed. He has never heard her sound so in need of anything. He has never heard her beg. She is begging now, just out of sight, a few steps down the hall.
Hamish crosses the threshold and turns toward her an instant before Helen. He can see Alice crouching behind a massive potted fern. He opens his mouth to call out to her.
“Hatter, bring me—“
And then Helen is standing in front of him, blocking his view. She hurries blindly toward her daughter. Hamish thinks he sees a flicker of movement over Mrs. Kingsleigh’s shoulder and then the woman pulls up short, her gaze locked on the space on the other side of the fern. Her hand lifts to her face to smother a gasp. The sound pulls Hamish forward and he hastens to her side. He reaches her not a moment too soon. He catches Helen when she swoons and only then does he glance up.
He stares at the place where, only a moment before, Alice had been whispering furiously. The space beside the massive plant is vacant. He looks up and down the hall, but the gesture is futile. There are no nearby rooms or nooks in which she could be hiding. Alice had, quite simply, disappeared without a trace.
Several moments pass. Hamish at last gathers his wits when his mother stomps into the hall demanding, “Well? Where has she run off to this time?”
“I do not know,” he admits as Margaret hurries to her mother’s aid. “She is… gone.”
“Gone?” Lady Ascot scoffs. But when Hamish says nothing in reply, she glances at Helen and her expression melts into one of apprehension. “That cannot be, Hamish. She couldn’t have vanished into thin air. That’s impossible.”
Perhaps it is, but it had happened nonetheless. He glances back at the place where Alice had just been. Had she done the impossible? Hamish chides himself; he shouldn’t be surprised, really. If there is anyone in this world who could recognize and harness magic, it would be Alice Kingsleigh. Of that he has no doubt whatsoever.