"You can pick any dress that you desire," Tarrant said, opening the doors of the wardrobe wide to reveal the multitude of colored outfits inside.
"You made all of these?" Alice asked softly.
Tarrant nodded proudly. "Hats are my main forte, but anything from cloth is just as well—but, of course, you knew that!" he added, smiling at his wife, who was still looking at the dresses.
"I wonder whether purple or white would be more appropriate," she said.
"For the wedding?" Tarrant thought. "I would imagine that most of the decorations would be white; she is the White Queen, after all. But there's bound to be purple, since she's marrying the Prince of Purple. You, however, would look absolutely stunning in any color that you chose to wear."
Again he grinned at her, and again she did not shift her gaze or return the smile.
"Don't worry," the Hatter said reassuringly. "No one will fault the Queen's Champion for wearing what she likes. Go ahead and try some on. I'll be in my workshop."
Alice nodded, and Tarrant gave her a light kiss on the cheek before leaving the bedroom and closing the door behind him.
The Overland girl placed a hand to her cheek, her fingers touching the spot where his lips had touched it. Her brow was furrowed slightly, as though she were attempting to solve a difficult puzzle. Then she lowered her hand and began to page through the dresses, lingering on some, but always moving on. Eventually she stopped and pulled out a frilly, white dress, very much like the kind that Mirana wore. Alice stared at the dress for a while, her hand again fingering her cheek, and then she crumpled the dress up and threw it across the room, determinedly turning her back on it.
As soon as she'd turned away, she looked back at the discarded gown, wringing her hands in a nervous manner akin to how Nivens McTwisp often did. She slowly approached the dress again, and then she picked it up, smoothing out the wrinkles. Alice sat down on her bed, holding the white dress close to her chest, cradling it, hugging it, as she blinked tears away from her eyes.
Unbeknownst to her, an invisible feline sitting on top of the wardrobe decided that he had seen enough and evaporated off towards his next target.
XXX
Tarrant quietly closed the front door of his house and walked off into the trees, heading down one of the winding paths through the Tulgey Woods. His expression was distant, as though he had no destination in mind, but was letting his feet carry him where they would.
After a few minutes of traipsing, they took him to the old tea table, where he had spent his days keeping up a front of utter madness to keep the Red Queen from suspecting that trouble had been brewing for her in the Woods. The Hatter looked at the table, an expression of surprise upon his always so readable face. He glanced around, but he was alone. The hare who owned the table was absent, the multitude of tea sets unattended.
Tarrant walked around the table, resting a hand first on the arm of his old chair at the head of the table and then on the one to its right, where Alice had always sat whenever she had joined them for tea. He smiled, chuckling to himself as he looked fondly at that chair, apparently lost in happy memory.
Then, the soft laughter abruptly stopped. Tarrant's bright green eyes had shifted back over the table, looking across it at another chair, which had several objects stacked in a slender tower on its seat. The Hatter slowly walked around the table again, his eyes only on that chair as he approached it.
He paused once he stood beside that chair, looking at it with an odd expression on his face. Then he turned back towards the table, picking up a white teapot. He opened the lid and peered inside, but it was empty; there was nothing to see.
"Where are you, lass?" Tarrant whispered, setting the teapot back down on the table again and replacing its lid. "I haven't seen you since…"
His voice trailed off, and he looked around again, this time slowly, searching. When his scan once again yielded no results, the Hatter returned his attentions to the table. He reached down and picked up something tiny, holding it first between his thumb and index finger before setting it in his open palm. It was a miniscule teacup, large enough to hold maybe a few drops of tea at the most. Tarrant stared at the little cup for several moments, a strangely dreamy look on his face.
Suddenly, he dropped the teacup, a look of horror crossing his face. He quickly backed away from the table, his eyes flecked with yellow.
"But I'm not—She's just a—I'm married!" Tarrant stammered. Then he turned and ran back into the trees, towards his house.
Chessur materialized on the table, his narrowed eyes watching the fleeing man, then turning on the teacup, which now lay on the table. He nudged at it with a paw, tilting it upright again. Despite its fall onto the hard surface, the tiny cup had only suffered a crack.
"So small, and yet so durable…" the cat muttered. "Just like its owner. He shaped and broke them both, the latter probably not on purpose…"
Such musings would have to wait. Chessur still had one more person to watch, and the royal wedding was less than twenty-four hours away…
XXX
"Your Majesty, we've just received the white roses, and—"
"Will this be enough seating?"
"Would Your Majesty prefer cream of mushroom, or—"
"—Purple Court is here, shall I show them upstairs?"
"Yes, yes…" Mirana waved the questions away as she walked down a hallway of her castle, which was quite hectic. Courtiers, servants, and chefs seemed to be everywhere at once, putting up decorations, setting the menu, and handling all sorts of other details that needed to be dealt with before the next day's wedding.
Her wedding, to Raymond of Purple.
The White Queen slipped into a side room, one empty of other people for the moment. She glanced around carefully before walking up to a little table, placing her hands on it, and twisting the tabletop ever so slightly to the left. The wall nearest to her slid open, revealing a dimly lit passageway. Mirana quickly entered the passageway, and the wall slid shut behind her.
She sneezed. The dark corridor was very dusty, as though it hadn't been used for a very long time. This did not appear to discourage her, however. Mirana walked down the passageway, which twisted and turned around the rooms of the castle. Once in a while, the clamor of dishes and voices was heard as she neared more wedding preparations, but she always passed these by.
The dark hallway sloped downwards, and soon it became evident that Mirana was beneath the castle itself. She came to a small room, which was furnished by two chairs and a bookshelf, which was full of old, dust-covered books. Mirana sat down in one of the chairs, staring at the wall.
Soon, hurried footsteps sounded, drawing nearer. Mirana tensed and went to stand up, but she relaxed when she saw that it was Nivens McTwisp entering the room.
"Is everything all right, Your Majesty?" the rabbit asked. "I just happened to notice that you had vanished from that room, and…"
Mirana smiled and shook her head.
"Thank you for your concern, McTwisp, but I only desired some time alone."
"Quite understandable, given the circumstances," McTwisp said, nodding. The queen said nothing in response for several moments as she slowly looked around the little room.
"Of all the people in Underland, only four know of these hidden halls," she finally said, her voice hushed. "Myself being first, and you, whom I told during the war. Absolem is third, but he knows everything. The fourth is my sister."
Mirana sighed. "These secret rooms were meant for our protection, but they became our playground. I can still recall running through these halls, hidden from the rest of the world, playing hide-and-seek and other childish games… That was before she changed…before I changed…before the world stepped in and made everything official and proper, and began to expect things of us…
"The number will go up to five, soon. I will have to tell Raymond; these halls exist for the protection of the royal family, after all. I only wish…"
She hesitated, and when she spoke again she was even quieter than before.
"I only wish that the fifth had been her, instead."
There was sadness in the queen's eyes, and sympathy in the rabbit's.
"There was so much to tell her," Mirana continued. "So much of myself that I wanted to share with her…to give to her…but now, now there is no chance to."
McTwisp shrugged."Well, it is the queen's duty to marry, to provide treaties and heirs—"
"You do not need to remind me of my duties, McTwisp," Mirana cut him off. "Haven't I gone over them enough, searching for some loophole, some legislation that I could use to justify following my heart? It is what the world expects. As much as it pains me, I have no choice but to comply! Regardless, what's done is done. Alice is married, and I'm as good as. Wishing will do me no good; the best option—the only option—is to move on."
It sounded like she was trying to convince herself, more than to tell the rabbit.
The queen stood up. "I'll be in my chambers," she said, turning and walking out through a doorway on the other side of the room.
McTwisp watched her leave, and then he turned and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of the Cheshire Cat sitting behind him.
"Oh my goodness!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"Espionage," Chessur replied.
"That is to say, eavesdropping," the rabbit corrected, trying to slow his pounding heart.
The cat shrugged. "Call it what you wish. It's necessary, nonetheless."
"Necessary?"
"I've decided that I disagree with the impending union between our queen and the Prince of Purple," Chessur explained. "A view that I believe you share. On behalf of the needs of our queen and her champion, this wedding should not occur."
"But what can we do?" McTwisp asked. "We're talking about the needs of a nation. This isn't just some easily fixed squabble between lovers, like in those romance novels the queen keeps in her library, in which everyone gets to be with their true love and lives happily ever after."
Chessur's grin widened, but whether it was from delight or deviousness the rabbit could not tell.
"You'd be surprised," he purred, beginning to fade away.
"What are you planning?" McTwisp asked. "Chessur, wait!"
But the cat was already gone, and the rabbit was talking to thin, dusty air.
