Alice Kingsleigh and her aging mother were free to roam the seas. And they had done so for many years, from the spice-laden Sri Lankan ports to the bluest shores of Okinawa. They were like the Koinobori, or carp streamers, swimming with the wind. As soon as Alice's mother found that the streamers were in honor of Children's Day, she could feel the heat of eyes upon her. So, she had past the midpoint of her twenties. So what? She knew that her mother had dropped all "proper" expectations of her daughter when they had begun this voyage. She turned to face her as the sails were filled with a warm breeze.
"Is there something the matter, mother?" Alice asked with all the innocence of the White Queen.
Yet, a mother could always decipher her daughter's intentions. "I know not to expect children of you, my dear." She placed her hands on the rail, "You need neither them nor a husband. But-"
"But, what? What troubles you?"
"I fear that you will miss out on love." Her mother watched the island slowly disappear.
The image of pale skin and tightly curled red hair flashed fiercely in her mind's eye, before she closed her own to evade the pain the image would bring. Despite her desires, she had not seen him in dreams.
"I fear that love… is not in this world for me."
"Is that why we've been travelling for so long?" Her mother placed a hand on her upper arm, "Are we looking for something, or someone, aside from trading partners, Alice?" Her wrinkled eyes searched her daughter's.
"No," Alice almost laughed. "I'm certain I won't find what lies outside of business matters on all of these shores."
Her mother clucked her tongue sorrowfully. "Well, those streamers reminded me of one other thing."
"Hm?" Alice asked wistfully.
"Your sister. My grandchildren."
"Yes." Both Alice and her mother looked down at the wake of the boat.
"It really has been a grand adventure, my dear," Her mother grasped her hand, "but this old lady should be getting home. Those children will need a grandmum to spoil them, you know."
Alice took a deep breath in and out through her nose. No matter how far she went she could never escape the cold, rainy grasp of England. "I suppose you're right."
"Now, now, you're doing well. There's nothing to stop you should I go." Her mother smiled, "just promise to write me letters. Tell me of everything new you find."
Alice smiled back sadly, "I will mother. I promise."
After Alice had reached the English port, greeted her growing nieces and nephews, given them trinkets from new lands and pecked her sister's cheek in farewell, she turned to her mother and gave her a large hug. "Our love is with you, Alice. Always just over the horizon," she whispered hearteningly. Her family stood waving on the planks until they were ants in the distance and Alice couldn't help but wipe a tear from her eye.
A new crew member with neatly tied brown locks stood beside her. She looked over to see an eighteen year old boy with freckles, tears streaming from his green eyes. She couldn't help but smile. "Cheer up, lad. We're going on an adventure... What's your name?"
"Oh, Captain!" He rubbed his eyes, "It's Seamus, m'am." He straightened his back in an effort to look brave.
"M'am, what an awful word," she stuck her tongue out. "Captain is fine, Seamus. Will you be missing someone on shore?"
His head dropped, "My sis. Never been without 'er."
"Well Seamus, I can try my best to serve in her place."
His eyes lit up, "Tha's awful kind of ye."
Her ears burned for a moment, "Seamus, where are you from?"
"Oh, must be the accent. My Da is from Scotland, but I was raised in London."
"I…like it." She was lost for a moment, not noticing his flushed appearance. "If you'll excuse me."
"Of course, Captain!" He saluted as he set out to determine his duties.
The rest of the day Alice continued her work on the upper deck, swallowing against her dry throat. Her ears were struggling to recall the exact words in the rough brogue the Hatter had used when angry. It was something similar to Seamus, and yet, nothing like him at all.
"My Alice..." The sudden formation of the words in her mind thrilled her. Yes, just like that.
"Captain Alice?" Her eyes opened.
She made an effort not to jolt, "Seamus?" she turned.
"Seems I'm to be yer attendant." He beamed.
"Brilliant," she conjured a wimpy grin. She didn't know if it was a torment or pleasure to be reminded of the man who never came in dreams. But, if she had heard his voice, wasn't he useful? Then again, what if it wasn't the Hatter's voice but her own imagination after all?
'Who's to say the difference?' The lisp of his last words came back to her, simultaneously crushing and filling her long-sleeping heart.
"Seamus." He snapped to attention at her words. "The first thing I'm going to need is some tea."
She sipped gingerly at her tea as she sat reading over her charts. Seamus attentively stood by the doorway to her cabin. She glanced up at him briefly before returning to the warmth of her cup. She closed her eyes, searching for the man in her head. There she was in Underland, in her old blue dress on a balmy summer day. Somehow her seat on the opposite end of the long table obscured him from view. She missed the Hatter; how he could laugh at nothing and everything just sitting at the table with Mallyumpkin and the March Hare. What did his laugh sound like again? What color were his eyes when he was at the peak of happiness? Of rapture? She felt a faint buzzing in her ears. No, no. She was certain she'd never seen that. What crude thinking. For all her yearning she hadn't heard from him in years! Certainly, if he was interested he would have made an effort by now. The thought stung relentlessly like a wasp.
"Seamus!"
"Captain!" He sprang.
"I can't focus with this silence. Can you speak to me?"
"…Speak?"
"Yes, as background noise while a do my work. Don't mind me if I don't respond."
His eyebrows fluttered, "What an odd request."
"Yes, Seamus. The whole crew will tell you I'm an oddity. And they do well to recall that I'm the one who affords their wages." She arched her brow to let the thought settle. "Now, if you please."
Seamus spoke of family, of his home, of the members of the crew- he rattled on and on until Alice could no longer decipher individual subjects. As she closed her eyes, she felt a peace wash over her she hadn't felt in years.
"It'll ne' be tha' easy."
She blinked at the empty tea cup in her hand. For a moment it sounded exactly like him. "Say that again." She looked determinedly at her cabin boy.
"I said tha' it looks like rain."
"Just now?"
"Been goin' on about the weather for a while na'." He seemed confused.
Her lips pursed as she looked back at her ivory cup. "Perhaps I've had too much tea. Will you take this to the kitchens for me? That should be all for the day. Thank you, Seamus."
"Yer welcome, Captain." Seamus nodded as he took the cup and made his way to the exit.
"Ugh!" Alice stood after he left, releasing her hair to rake her fingers through it. "Infuriating man! Will you never know that I like you?" She filled her lungs and let out a sigh, "I can't even have you in dreams." A relaxing bath, she thought to herself, that's what I need. Now if only there was something to wash my mind out.
"Seamus!" She stuck her head through the door.
"Captain?" He turned.
"On second thought, have the kitchen bring up a bath."
()()()
On Fribjous Day, The White Queen had gifted her forlorn Hatter with a mirror. This was not like other mirrors, for one it had no quips about the owner's appearance. In fact, it couldn't talk at all! My, didn't he feel silly after all the one sided conversations he'd been having. "It's not of this world," the queen had told him with a smile. Well, with all of its stoic silence, he should suppose not! For many months he had used the ornate, full-length object as something of a hat rack for ongoing projects. That was, until the day he saw Alice's face appear under the felt and blue feathers.
"My Alice…" He gasped. Oh how he missed her! And my, had she grown. Now she was absotively, posolutely the right size in every way. He was ashamed to say how his body reacted at the mere sight of her. Truthfully, he'd always felt that way when she hugged him, when she gave him a brief peck on the cheek, when she drank her tea, when she curled up to read, when she was Alice. How was it that she was the only one of his friends to make him feel this way? He pressed a hand against the mirror when she opened her eyes, and she disappeared like the smoke from an unbirthday candle. His brows furrowed as his changing eyes drooped downwards. Even if this mirror couldn't talk, it was terribly cruel!
"Seamus!"
"Alice?" Hatter spoke with a pin in his mouth, startled from the work at his station.
"Captain!" An eager voice sang back at her. Tarrant's eyes became yellow as he observed the boy with caution. He stood fully in front of the mirror, leaving Lady Pashmere's bonnet to wait.
"I can't focus with this silence. Can you speak to me?"
"…Speak?"
"Yes, as background noise while a do my work. Don't mind me if I don't respond."
"What an odd request."
"A perfectly suitable request!" The Hatter objected. "Why, I have my doorknob tell me stories all the time!" He listened to the boy speak as he watched Alice daintily sip her Earl Grey. Oh, those lips wrapped around porcelain… Wait a minute, he had never seen that look on Alice's face before. Her eyes were closed and at ease. A small smile played at her warmed lips as she relaxed in her captain's chair. And although he was distracted by her pleased face, he couldn't help but see the plain desire on the boy's.
"It'll ne' be tha' easy." The Hatter snarled in a thick brogue.
Alice's chestnut eyes opened once more as she vanished.
"Ye cannae take my Alice!" He slammed his fist on the wall beside the mirror, hard enough to draw blood. "She won't have ye!" He breathed heavily, "Show me, mirror; show me that lad and I'll teach 'im a thing 'r tew!" But the mirror remained silent and cold.
Through the mercury stains and calluses, he could hardly feel the pain anymore. As he routinely wrapped the bandage around the front of his knuckles, he wished there were calluses on his heart as well. It was then that his Alice made herself known once more.
"Infuriating man!" tumbled from her lips.
"Who, Alice?" The Hatter walked towards the mirror once more, "That boy? I should say so."
"Will you never know that I like you?"
His heart stopped as he watched her tousle her hair. His soul was nearly ripped from him, as if Time were playing with the hands of his clock. This was it, the moment he secretly dreaded. The moment when his Alice found love- with someone else.
"I can't even have you in dreams." She sighed.
"Dreams, Alice? Dreams!" Hatter cried out, "Why would ye need dreams when he's ri' in front a' ye?!"
He stalled his madness then. "Wait a moment… she doesn't need dreams." He paced back and forth, "Then, that is to say, she's speaking of someone she needs to dream about." He looked up in revelation from his pacing feet. "Why, I'm someone she needs to dream about. Alice!" He laughed at the empty mirror, "Could it be me?"
()()()
She settled her body into the recently boiled water, keeping her hair dry. Yes, it was certainly far too warm- but perhaps the prickling sting would bring her to her senses. "Look at me," she spoke to herself, "I'm as pink as a freshly angered Red Queen." She laughed silently to herself first, then her teeth came out and her mouth opened and she couldn't stop laughing. She threw her head back as the tears fell freely down her cheeks. "This," she hiccupped, "This is so stupid! Utterly mad!"
"I was told the best people are." A familiar voice reassured her.
"Hatter?" She attempted to open her eyes.
"No, no! Keep them closed," He instructed, "I'm fairly certain that's how the portal works."
"Hatter!" Alice beamed with scrunched eyes. Then she covered herself in modesty, "Well, I should hope your eyes are closed if mine are!"
"I, erm…" She could practically hear him quivering.
"Oh, I wish I could see you for all you've seen of me. Why didn't you reach me before? And what do you mean by portal?"
"I'll look away now Alice, but I'll keep speaking."
She knew he'd afford her that. He probably wasn't interested anyway.
"On Fribjous Day I was given a mirror by the queen. It was a regular fuddy duddy of a mirror; that was until today. Alice-" she could hear the desperation in his voice, "I tried to dream of you, to call your name; I tried to reach you, but every time I did my hand came up without yours. I'm sorry, Alice." He lisped, "I truly am."
She felt her throat tighten, "I'm sorry too, Hatter. It was the same for me." But something piqued her muchness, "A mirror, you say?"
"Yes. Full-length with ornamental carvings in the wood frame. There seem to be little birds in all four corners."
"My-" she breathed, "Why, that's my mirror you described. Have you touched it? Does it feel like dipping your fingers into a pool? That's how I got to you the last time."
He placed his palm on it. "The glass is hard," he whined indignantly.
"I think I have an idea," she smiled. "Keep your hand on the glass." As she stood, the water rushed off her in waves.
"A-Alice!" The Hatter stammered.
"Oh, come now. I thought you weren't looking," she teased. "I'm going to place my hand on the mirror and reach for yours. Perhaps we both have to touch the glass for it to work."
"But you're…"
"Ready? One, two," she reached out for her mirror with her eyes still shut and felt it ripple beneath her fingers, "three!" She grabbed onto his hand and held tightly as she pulled backwards. It wasn't until she felt his weight upon her on the floor that she felt safe enough to open her eyes. "Hatter!" She exclaimed. Her fingers desperately sought his curled locks, the delicate pink of his cheeks against his pale skin, the gap in his smile, "Hatter, it's really you!"
"Alice!" He closed his eyes against the warmth of her palms. "I thought I'd never see you again. I've missed you so. Tea lost its taste without you."
She stilled her hands on his cheeks. "Perhaps the reason we couldn't dream was that neither of us would stand for it to be just that, a dream."
"Dreams are fickle creatures," The Hatter scrunched his face in contemplation. It was then that he recalled his position and scrambled to sit up. He took off his jacket and offered it to her with a bowed head. "I- I apologize for the circumstances. I'm certain you didn't wish for me to see you this way."
"Hatter," she sat up and placed a hand on his chin, raising his head, "I have."
"What do you have?" His brows furrowed.
She laughed, "I have wished for you to see you this way, many times." She suddenly remembered that he may not feel the same and curled her limbs into herself, "That is, if you were to want to."
"Oh, Alice," he sat on his knees as he brushed an errant lock from her face, "I've wanted to for so long." He took a hesitant breath, "Is that strange?"
"For the first time in a long time," she gave a chaste smile, "no, Hatter."
He brought his face towards her, breathing her Alice scent, "What if I were to kiss you, would that be-"
Her lips upon his both silenced and answered the unspoken question.