Chapter One
The dust shimmered in the morning sunbeam like falling snow, Alice mused, as she watched as Tarrant set a steaming cup of tea on the table beside their bed. There had been a great deal of snow this winter. The practice of lumping several winter nights together produced a frightful amount of snow and cold, Alice found, although Underlandians believed it to be a superior way of dealing with winter. She absolutely preferred these dust motes in their cozy home to the frigid flakes that had fallen outside, however.
"Morning," he whispered, crawling over her form and slipping back beneath the sheets and patched quilt.
"The sun makes it look warm outside. Is it?" she asked, tucking her cold feet beneath him.
He giggled in surprise at her touch. "You're cold, Alice!"
"You left me all by myself," she playfully wheedled, reaching for the robin's egg blue cup and taking a hesitant sip. Her husband had assured her that his Tea could never possibly hurt her, but she was careful out of force of habit.
"Only to fetch you and the babbie tea, love. Tea for two."
She murmured her thanks into the cup. The tea did help settle her stomach in the morning. She and the baby appreciated her husband's thoughtfulness, she wagered. The Queen might have more magical remedies at her fingertips, but keeping their upcoming arrival between the two of them for the time being was a Secret they could both agree upon.
"It is warming up," he answered her weather related question.
"Warm enough to put in the garden today?"
Tarrant's face knit in concentration. "There is the wise adage to make hay while the sun shines, although I do think that somewhat presumptuous. I shall speak with the seeds and see what they think—it will be their bed, after all—but I believe it will be warm enough."
"Good," she said, setting the cup back on the pine wood table and wiggling down in the bed. She had been looking forward to putting in their garden for weeks now. Tarrant claimed it was always May, but it had definitely felt very much like winter for several months and she longed for sunshine and fresh green growth.
"Just think, Tarrant," she urged him, as he placed his hand on her middle.
"I'll do nothing but," he promised her.
"We'll be putting in the garden today, and we'll be bringing in peppers and pumpkins and parsnips by the time the baby comes." She smiled down at his hand. "It will be a Harvest Baby."
She was still getting accustomed to the idea of having a baby. It had felt like a surprise, despite it being planned, and equal parts terrifying and fantastic. Talking about their baby with her husband helped make it seem Real, helped her try out the sound of it on her tongue, crawl inside the Notion and wear it like a cape.
"Why do you insist on calling the babbie 'it'?" he lisped, drawing circles on her middle.
"You would prefer 'he'?" Alice asked, trepidation creeping into her voice. There were those Above who would call an unborn child 'he' in the arrogant assumption that male issue would be the ironclad outcome. She had not thought Tarrant would feel that way, but perhaps he would desire a boy child over a girl child. Perhaps he would want a boy to carry on the Hightopp line in the way a girl child could not. That would be perfectly normal. She could not fault him for that, although she did feel some disappointment that Tarrant would be so very Normal.
"Until we've chosen a name, I thought the wee lass would prefer 'she'," he said pressing the flat of his palm to her. "Aye, my wee bairn?" he whispered.
Alice smiled: she knew Tarrant was not one of those men. "We can call the baby 'she' if you like, but we had best pick out names for boys as well, so we are not caught unawares."
Tarrant rested his chin on her, blinking wide eyes. "Seems like a waste of Time, Alice, and you know he doesn't like to be wasted."
"Why would it be a waste of Time?"
"Because she shan't need a boy's name."
"You really believe that the baby is a girl?"
"I don't believe: I know," he insisted, pressing a kiss to her still flat stomach through her eyelet trimmed, white nightgown.
"There is no way to tell what the baby will be that does not involve any number of foolish old wives' tales."
"Which old wives?"
Alice shook her head, "Never mind. I only meant that there is no way to tell whether we will be having a girl or a boy."
"I didn't need to souse it out," he explained, walking his fingers up her sternum. "She told me herself."
Alice ruffled his hair, wondering if he was teasing her. "The baby told you herself?"
"Aye. Why should she keep it a secret from me?"
"You're quite serious, aren't you?"
"As serious as I ever can be."
"The baby. Spoke. To you."
Perhaps his nattering away in the vicinity of her stomach was not mere whimsy as she had assumed it was.
His reaction had been a shade different from hers from the start, but then, Alice understood his joy. Her husband was given by nature to Unbridled Enthusiasm, but she suspected that his reaction in this case was due to her Tarrant being a Family Man. He had been a part of a sizable one by birth, which had been taken from him, and part of one by choice, an odd little collection of cobbled together tea companions. It seemed where he was most comfortable—in the bosom of a family.
Alice was his family, certainly, but he had not so secretly wanted this new development for longer than she had. Their minds over time had come to an accord on this, as with everything, but she felt certain their reasons were different. Tarrant not only wanted it, but also needed it, she imagined. A father already, just waiting for his bairn.
His gap-toothed smile seemed to indicate his amusement at his wife's confusion. "Can faithers not hear their babbies when their weemen-fowk are biggen Above?"[1]
Alice shook her head. "Certainly not, and I suppose you mean to say that they can here Below?"
"Yes, certainly. The weemen-fowk nurture and feel and the men do the listening," Tarrant explained, briefly touching his ear to her. "Otherwise how can they bond properly?"
"Well, I don't suppose they have much of a role at this stage."
He smoothed out her nightgown, which had been rumpled by his ministrations. "That's dreadful," he said scornfully. "I wouldn't like that one bit."
Alice felt something bloom in her chest. "You're quite sure: it's a girl?"
He smiled broadly up at her. "A little Alice."
"You're happy?" she asked, although she could see that he was, as his emotions were always right at the surface for all to see.
"What a ridiculous question, Alice. You might as well ask whether I'm breathing."
"Are you breathing?" she asked.
"Certainly," he asserted, rolling onto his back.
"Then it follows that you're happy?"
"Indeed, it does, Inquisitive One."
Alice stared up at the ceiling. Tarrant had painted it after she came to stay forever. Woeful white would no longer suit, he had solemnly stated. Bright, swirling, delicate strokes that reminded her of the watercolor illustrations in the books of her childhood now decorated the wooden ceiling. Yet, the painting did not exactly illustrate any one particular thing. She saw different things in the shapes above her head depending on her mood each night or every morning, and it was not merely her Imagination crafting these images. That, Tarrant said, was the point. They were Magical illustrations, and at this moment they seemed to be bursting with possibility, ready to recreate themselves and bring something new into being.
Alice ran her hand over herself. "A girl." It suddenly seemed much more Real if her husband could hear their baby speak, if their little girl was not an 'it' but a 'she'. "A little girl."
"Sugar and spice and all things nice."[2]
Alice laughed, "Don't be carried away by the thought: I believe I was a great deal of trouble, as well."
"You were, as I recall. But that's even better," he lisped, jerking as her cold feet brushed him once more. "You're still cold! Your tea did not do its job," he frowned over at the cup.
"It settled my stomach," she assured him. "Rest assured, not all is lost." Her husband's sweet words had turned her thoughts. "Besides, I can think of other things that might warm me," Alice teased, sliding down deeper within the sheets.
"Are my husbandly services required?" he smirked, waggling his brows.
"Aye, guidman," she burred, reaching to grasp the back of his neck. "Dae your warst."
…
A tapping sound at the window woke them from their blissful morning doze.
"I wonder what that could be?" Tarrant questioned, yawning and sitting up in the bed naked to the waist in the white sheets.
He leaned forward to see what might be causing the wood on glass sound, inadvertently dragging some of the sheets with him. The cool air roused Alice as much as the tiny tapping did. She likewise sat up, rubbing her eyes and regretting their being awakened.
His hands rested on the windowsill. "How peculiar: it's a rocking-horse fly with something in its mouth."
A miniscule rolled note, it seemed to Alice as she squinted through the bubbled glass. Her first thought was not the contents of the note, but how long the creature had been outside their window and what it had seen. Can rocking-horse flies speak? Perhaps she should suggest window coverings as a creative task for her husband that he might relish. It would certainly protect their privacy—from all but Chessur. The notion came too late for this morning, however: there was nothing to be done about it now. Spilt milk, as her mother had sometimes said to stem her tears after an Alice Blunder.
She sighed, "Better open the window, husband."
After much searching for a magnifying glass with which to read the tiny notice, Alice and Tarrant sat beside each other staring down through the glass at the Queenly summons.
"Oh dear," Alice sighed.
"A deer couldn't have authored this. Their script is much too large."
"No, I am expressing regret over the contents, not the author." Whoever did manage to scribble out this miniscule missive.
"Never mind, love: we can put the garden in tomorrow, when you've returned," Tarrant assured her, patting her knee. "It is only a delay: disagreeable though it is, it isn't a disaster. Do you imagine it is a day for things beginning with the letter 'D'?" he pondered, not requiring a response.
She shook her head, "No, it isn't the garden that distresses me."
His smirk seemed to indicate that her choice of words had convinced him that it was indeed a day for 'D'. "If not the garden, what is it, then?"
Alice set aside the magnifying glass and proceeded to roll the tiny notice back up without crushing it between her fingers. She almost wished she could ignore the summons completely. It would be so easy to ignore something this small. If she tucked it behind her ear, why, no one would even comment!
But she could not. Duty, duty to her queen, called in a distressingly loud voice. For having chosen her Hatter, having chosen Underland, Mirana was now very much her queen as much as she was Tarrant's. Now she was not only Mirana's Champion, but also her subject. However, it was the position of Champion that truly concerned her.
"I'm worried this is about the business in Queast." She watched him for a reaction, but all he betrayed was a small twitch in his left brow. "I'm worried she will need my…services in dealing with it."
"Villagers will grumble, Alice," he said brightly enough, although his smile suddenly seemed patently false.
It had begun with grumbles, certainly. The people of Queast had arrived at the throne room full of petty complaints. Even as the Queen attempted to fulfill their numerous requests, the grumbling mounted until signs along the roadside in Queast were being torn down, a messenger of the Queen was pelted with spoilt vegetables, and it was rumored that the villagers were organizing.
"Mirana seems troubled." As troubled as the Queen ever seemed, which was not much, but Alice felt certain that disquiet lurked somewhere behind her pale, practiced serenity.
Tarrant bit his lip until the color drained from it, turning as white as the rest of him. "What services do you refer to?"
"Serving as her Champion," she confessed.
Alice watched Tarrant's stained hands ball in his lap. "Mirana would not...she would never…turn the sword against her own people."
"Even if they are rebellious?"
"The people of Queast are not rebellious. They are merely Grumblers. With the Other One gone, they have free license to Grumble. Mirana does not interfere with her subjects' expression. That is all."
Alice nodded, although she was not convinced. "What should I tell her in case you are wrong?"
Tarrant crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not."
Her husband could be as stubborn as she when he felt he was in the right, but there were good reasons for Tarrant to cling to the notion of his Queen being above such things. Otherwise, what had the sacrifice been for? His sacrifice? His family?
Alice stretched out her hand and rested it on his forearm. "It isn't a matter of muchness…"
"Of course not! The Idea!" he stuttered. "You're muchness itself."
"But I couldn't be her Champion, Tarrant…if that is what she wanted me to do. Morality aside, I can't afford Adventure of that sort now."
His eyes settled on her middle. "A'm glad tae hear ye say that."
She squeezed his arm. "You still imagine me to be that selfish?" She had been once, making decisions in relation to herself and no one else, not even those who loved her most, but no more.
He frowned at her—a Significant Look given the fullness of his brows. "Na, luv, A'm juist glad tae hear ye say it."
Alice worked her way into his arms and stayed silent until she felt them relax around her, his lean muscles unbunching.
"What do I tell the Queen though? I don't want to tell anyone about the baby…yet." It was too early, much too early. For now it needed to be their Secret, one they had been happy to keep for the time being.
"Hmm…Tell her your husband is a controlling brute," he teased, smoothing her hair back. "Tell her your terrible, fearsome husband will stand for you if necessary."
Pressing a kiss to his bare chest, she murmured, "I don't want it to come to that."
"It won't."
[1] biggen – pregnant (Sc)
[2] "What Are Little Boys Made Of" is a nursery rhyme originally composed by English poet, Robert Southey in the early 19th century. The rhyme is as follows:
"What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails
And puppy-dogs' tails,
That's what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And all that's nice,
That's what little girls are made of."