FANART and RESEARCH NOTES have been posted on my homepage.
Cover art by the astoundingly talented Red Passion (on DeviantArt) a.k.a. Clarice1682 (on LiveJournal).
Notes: So, OK, I thought this fandom needed a totally "different" kind of Alice/Tarrant romance. This is my take on that, such as it is... I hope you enjoy it! (This story is completely independent of my One Promise Kept series, so Alice and Tarrant should seem different from their OPK counterparts.)
Research: For the latter half of this story I did epic amounts of research on Japan in 1867. (My husband is Japanese and a bit of a history buff regarding this period in time, so he was a HUGE help.) Unfortunately, I cannot post my notes and the images they refer to here. Please see the link on my bio/profile. It will take you to a LiveJournal page with all the goodies. And no, I don't think reading ahead in the notes will ruin the story for you, but each note is labeled with the chapter it corresponds to, so you can stop yourself from reading ahead, if you like.
Chapter One: The Return
"As you're not going to be my daughter-in-law, perhaps you'd consider becoming an apprentice with the company?"
It's an intriguing offer, Alice admits. She could imagine it: Alice Kingsleigh, a businesswoman of unparalleled vision sailing off to discover, to do, to dare! In fact, the offer had been so intriguing she'd very nearly accepted right then and there.
But she hadn't.
"Could I have a week to think about it?"
Lord Ascot had been surprised; her father had never balked at a new adventure. But her might-have-been father-in-law had agreed.
And now here she is: home again, having survived her mother's acute disappointment in her during the carriage ride back to the city. After enduring a sleepless night spent with her thoughts and memories of Underland – her head full of everything she does not want to forget... again! – she now stands in a room that is never used or occupied, always religiously tended to, and regularly visited by only herself. Alice considers Lord Ascot's unexpectedly progressive job offer as she regards her reflection in the looking glass in her father's study.
She thinks of high seas and the ocean breeze and import fees.
She thinks of irises of different greens and Tumtum trees and mad teas.
"Hatter," she whispers, reaching out to the glass, as if by doing so she might be able to feel the fabric of his worn jacket beneath her fingertips. She wonders what color it is now. "I told you I'd be back."
And, really, it's that promise she must keep. There will be other oceans, other winds, other adventures. And they will be all the more interesting if she can share them with her dearest, mad friends.
Alice glances over her shoulder at the letter she'd placed squarely on her father's desk. The letter that begins with "Dear Mother and Margaret" and ends with "I've found something useful to do with my life. Wish me luck."
Luck. Yes, she very well may need it. But, then again, perhaps not. "I am half-mad, after all. Perhaps that's just enough."
She takes one more moment to be – to quite simply exist – here in her father's study. One more moment before she scrapes together her meager savings and hires a hack to take her back to the Ascots' country estate and the rabbit hole. One more moment to remember, recall, relive...
And she does: once more, she finds herself wandering past this study door late at night, interrupting her father's meetings, being put to bed, describing her wonderfully strange dream... And her friends' faces come to her in that instant: Chessur. Tweedledum. Tweedledee. Mallymkun. Thackery. Bayard. McTwisp. The White Queen. The Bandersnatch. The Hatter.
"Underland," she whispers.
And then gasps.
She opens her eyes as the strangest sensation engulfs her. Strange and yet familiar.
She's falling up!
And, arms flailing yet catching nothing but air, Alice tumbles down two very tall steps – has she somehow been shrunken again? – and into a familiar opalescent room in what could only be the Palace at Mamoreal. This is her room, she realizes.
"What...?" she hears herself mumble as she picks herself up off of the floor. She pushes her tousled hair back away from her eyes and glances over her shoulder at a perfectly innocuous bench seat and white vanity with its stately looking glass. "How...?" Had she fallen through the looking glass in her father's study? She can't recall leaning that far forward...
And then, as she glances around her, she realizes that it doesn't matter.
"I've returned."
Alice scrambles to her feet and hurries toward the door. She lurches into the hall and turns left, then pivots to go right, then recalling that's the way to the balcony she'd shared with the Hatter and she really ought to locate the queen first and announce herself, she turns yet againand hurries down the pristine halls.
She peers through the windows as she jogs, searching the grounds for the queen, but only the trees wave to her with the help of a pleasant breeze. She passes the throne room – empty except for the echo of her clumsy footsteps – and heads for the kitchens. This is where she finds the White Queen, contemplating a jar of Wishful Thinking as she stirs a cup of no-longer steaming tea with a bejeweled spoon that, had Thackery been present, he would have no doubt been very busy admiring.
Alice pauses in the doorway and studies the pure white light that falls to the pristine worktable from the high windows. The queen glows in the illumination in a simple dress that seems reminiscent of simpler times and maidens passing an afternoon weaving summer flowers into each other's long, flowing hair and whose tokens of affection are little more than squares of carefully embroidered linen.
"Your Majesty?"
Queen Mirana looks up, blinks, smiles. "Alice! You've returned!"
She grins. "Yes."
The queen stands and drifts over to her, hands in the air, fingers dancing with the breeze that sweeps in through the windows and swirls around the room like a silent, delighted giggle. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you again! And so soon!"
Alice's smile breaks as a puff of laughter escapes her. "I promised I'd be back before... before too long."
By the knowing look on the queen's face, Alice knows she'd noticed the omission and hasty substitution. She does not comment on it, though.
"Where is everyone?" Alice asks instead. "Why is it so quiet?"
The queen gently informs her, "It's the Unshattermade."
"I'm sorry?"
She gestures for Alice to take a seat. "The day that always follows a calamity... or a battle. The day we spend with our families in order to remember that which is most important to us."
"But you're..." all alone. Alice winces at her own tactlessness. "I'm sorry."
"Never mind that, dear Alice. You're here and so is Tarrant. A queen couldn't ask for better company than her bravest and most loyal champions. Thank you."
Alice glances up. She can feel the smile stretch her lips as widely as possible. And perhaps it's the glow of the room that infuses her with energy and hope until she feels as if she might burst from it. "The Hatter's here, too?"
Mirana's dark brows draw together in a delicate frown. "Well, naturally. He showed you the way back, did he not?"
Alice's smile dries up and blows away as the queen's confusion does not fade, but deepens. In an instant, that glorious moment of happiness – of rightness – vanishes like a Cheshire Cat. A terrible wave of dread rolls through her yet Alice forces herself to explain, "No... I came back alone."
The queen simply stares at her.
"Your Majesty... where is he?"
"I... he... In Upland." Alice hears the words but somehow she doesn't understand. The queen continues cautiously, "You... have not seen him?"
Heart still frozen in her chest, Alice shakes her head. "No... no, I haven't."
Queen Mirana slumps in her seat.
Alice leans forward. "Tell me. What happened? Please!"
In a wooden tone, she does: "He caught the vial. The Jabberwocky blood. When you... dropped it. And he finished it. We all thought... That is, he said he..." The queen's voice trails off as she submerges herself into the memory of that moment. Just when Alice is sure she'll be forced to rudely interrupt the woman's thoughts, the queen says, "He said... well, honestly, there's been quite a bit of debate regarding this point. Mallymkun says he'd shouted about a fez. Tweedledum is sure he heard him say you'd never tried on one of his hats. Yet, as Tweedledee tells it, Tarrant had insisted you needed a hat of your own. But as for myself... well, I thought he'd proposed... something else entirely..." The queen trails off with maddening delicacy.
"That's all?" Alice hears herself demand when one moment and then another of uncertain silence pass.
"Is that not enough?"
It is. It's more than enough to lead everyone to believe that the Hatter had been thinking of Alice when he'd drunk the blood and had disappeared. And they both know it. "So he's..."
"Gone. To Upland, to you. Or so we all believed..."
"But I haven't seen him!"
The queen blinks, seems to return to herself, and tilts her head to the side thoughtfully. "Do you wish to?"
Alice gapes at her, at the honestly curious tone in the monarch's voice. "Of course!"
The White Queen's lips stretch into a slow but delighted smile. "Then all you must do, Alice, is choose to see him again."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The blood of the Jabberwocky will take you anywhere you choose."
"So, I just have to want to see him?"
"No. Choose him, Alice, and you will find yourself there with him."
"Shall I... do it now? I could stay with you for a bit first."
"While I appreciate the offer, dear Alice, I would feel better knowing Tarrant is not alone. Not today. Not on the Unshattermade."
Alice nods and rises from her seat. "All right." As she had in her father's study, Alice closes her eyes. But then she pauses and smiles at the queen. "I will be back again."
"I don't doubt you will."
And with that settled, Alice closes her eyes once more – with finality this time! – concentrates on his infectious grin and delightfully mad gaze and Chooses...
For an instant, she's falling up again.
And then she isn't.
"Hatter?" she asks, even before she opens her eyes. And when she does...
Mirana of Mamoreal is regarding her with a gob smacked expression on her lovely face. Utterly gob smacked... with a teaspoon of Horror...
"Your Majesty? What just happened? Did I not...?"
"You did," the queen assures her, stunned. "But you could not."
Alice frowns, swallows, tries to ignore the vibrations of approaching Panic. "Why didn't it work? Is he...? Am I too late to...?"
"No, no, he's fine. I know. A monarch always knows when one of her loyal subjects... passes. He's alive and well. It's simply that..."
"What?"
Mirana hesitates, and a moment later Alice realizes why. The queen says, "It must be that... he does not wish to see you, Alice."
This news is... is...
Alice marvels that the queen had dared to defy her own vows – her vows not to harm another living creature – in order to deliver it.
This news is not something her knees can support her against.
Heart throbbing, Alice sinks down onto the nearest seat. In disbelief, she begs for clarification, "... I'm sorry?"
"Alice, just as you can choose where to go, you can also choose not to be found," Mirana educates her. "Tarrant also drank the blood of the Jabberwocky. Therefore, he has just as much control over his location and find-ability as you do. If you cannot travel to him, then it must follow that Tarrant... is preventing you from doing so."
"I don't understand. Why would he do that?" He'd looked so sad when he'd bid her farewell. So sad and yet hopeful. As if he'd pinned himself to the promise she'd made to return before he'd known it. Or perhaps he'd pinned her promise to himself...
"I haven't the slightest idea, Alice."
The echo of his words from that moment on the battlefield is excruciating. Alice pauses, swallows, fists her hands on the table and tries to think. And in a moment of Truth, she realizes that she has returned to Underland not only to see her friends again, not only to revel in the wondrous madness of this world again, but to see him. And without him, Underland is merely a land. It's still unlike any other, and she still has many beloved friends here, but it is qualitatively... less now that he can't share it with her.
And so she thinks – for it would never do to not think. (She has a vague memory of being scolded by the Hatter – a very long time ago – for daring to declare that very thing: "I don't think...") But when nothing comes to her, she pleads, "What can I do?"
"Wait, dear Alice. You must wait. When he is ready, you will know. He will Choose to see you and you will feel him draw toward you. If you permit it."
"Or I might go to him, if I were the one doing the Choosing?"
"Precisely."
Alice stares at her clenched fists. "And in the meantime?"
"And in the meantime... live, dear Alice. I would expect nothing less of my champion. As would Tarrant."
And because that is utterly true, Alice cannot fight it. Perhaps she does not wish to fight it; she has no desire to stay in Underland when he might be waiting for her in London. Perhaps at the train station or around the corner from her mother's house or even now he might be standing on the stoop with his hat held under his arm!
"Fairfarren, Alice" she hears Mirana whisper.
"I'm sorry to leave so soon," she hurriedly answers as the gently floating sensation wraps around her, as the not-wind lifts her.
"Do not be. Go. Find him. And return again."
"We will."
Mirana smiles and then everything glows bright and white. Alice has to close her eyes to shut out the brilliance of it lest her mind be scrubbed clean of every thought she's ever had.
And when she opens them again, it's just as she catches her toe on the edge of a rug. She stumbles. Falls to her knees and coughs at the dust cloud that's raised from the depths of the Persian design.
She looks up and around the familiar four walls of her father's study.
She's back.
The morning light is still illuminating the office. The letter she'd left behind is still resting on the desk.
Gazing at it, she feels her resolve return. She will try once more! Perhaps this time – when she Chooses to go to him – she will manage it!
She closes her eyes.
She imagines him.
She Chooses him.
And after a brief, chaotic wind-but-not filled moment – could it be working? – she finds herself nearly exactly where she'd started... only half a step to the left.
Despite the queen's reassurances, she worries.
Where is he?
Is he safe?
Is he well?
What will he do in this world with no money in his pockets and only delightful madness in his mind?
Yes, she worries. She worries as she had when she had watched him give himself up to the Red Guard and she'd spent a sleepless night under his hat in the wilderness, when he had nearly lost his mind in the presence of the Red Queen, when she had left him behind at Salazen Grum. She worries as she had when she hadn't known if he'd lost his head or had managed to keep it.
But worries solve nothing. Accomplish nothing.
"You must live, Alice," she scolds herself, biting her lip and blinking the blurry heat from her eyes. "You mustn't lose..." She takes a deep breath and shies away from the word – an M word! – that her thoughts summon. "... all that he gave you."
But the expectation – the responsibility! – does not give her the strength to leave this room, to return to the world she'd thought she'd be leaving today. No, the weight of all the things she ought to do cannot move her.
Anger, however...
The room's scent and silence is not a comfort any longer. Her failure echoes, amplifies, and presses in on her until she cannot bear it. She snatches up her undelivered letter and crushes it in her fist.
When her mother sees her red, swollen eyes that evening at dinner, Alice informs her of Lord Ascot's job offer from the day before. She could do something with her life. She could travel the world. But she would have to leave her mother and sister behind in order to do it.
"So... you are not regretting the... answer you gave Hamish?"
"No, Mother. We're not suited for each other."
"Suitability takes effort, Alice. If you tried..."
"But I won't. My mind's made up."
And it is. The following spring, when she boards Lord Ascot's newly built and christened ship – The Wonder – and smiles farewell to her family from the bow, her head full of thoughts of adventure and trade agreements and exotic atmospheres, Alice spies a brilliantly blue butterfly. It lands on her shoulder. It reminds her although she does not need the reminder.
She has not forgotten.
She has never forgotten.
And every morning and evening, she never forgets to Choose him.
And every morning and evening, he never accepts her.
"Hello, Absolem," she whispers, holding her smile together with an act of will.
The expression only becomes easier as he takes to the sky and flutters away, taking the memories with him. But not the pain.
No, the pain is Alice's alone and, with her, it must, necessarily, remain.
End of Chapter 1