Chapter Two
The bright smiling faces of the flowers in an array of color outside the palace gave no hint of the dangers that might lurk within, but they were mouthy as usual. That kind of reliability was reassuring to Alice in her current state of disarray.
"Hello, Alice," a Daisy chirped as she passed by.
"Hello," Alice responded, slowing down to greet the garden.
"Is it that messy petal-ed flower again?" a red Rose asked in a high pitched voice, attempting to twist in her bed, so that she might see their visitor.
"Yes, it's the Alice flower…with the regrettable petals," a Daisy agreed. "They're nearly flying off her head."
Indeed, the breeze was brisk and her hair whipped about her face, sometimes getting stuck in her mouth.
"Try smoothing them out," a Tiger-lily helpfully suggested.
"It does no good," Alice said with a shrug. Her mother had done her best with pearl handled brushes and blue ribbons and pins, and yet she had nearly always failed to see to it that Alice's hair was not the victim of fly-aways. She doubted she could do much better herself even if she cared to do so. Her mind wandered, and she wondered if her little girl would have fly-away hair as well. What a funny thought: there will be a Someone someday soon that will be some parts me and some parts Tarrant. His nose. Her chin. His talent for riddles. Her endless curiosity. Alice suppressed a giggle at the thought, pressing her lips together in a tight smile of secret anticipation.
"You might ask the gardener to help you with them," a yellow Rose suggested.
True enough: garden twine might hold her locks in place. There were any number of solutions she might try if she truly cared to affix her fluttering petals in place. One was suggested to her quite regularly. "Tarrant thinks I should wear a hat. Would that improve my appearance you think?" Alice inquired, patting her loose, blonde curls.
"Oh!" the bed of flowers cried out in echoing unison.
"That would crush them frightfully," a Tiger-lily wailed. "Please don't consider it."
"She is the most careless flower," a Cabbage Rose bemoaned. "She won't have a petal left at this rate."
"Well, I don't think I'll be donning one anytime soon. The Hatter is very talented, but I do prefer my head uncrowned by headgear," Alice admitted.
"None of us have crowns either," a Daisy said a little wistfully. "On account of our being just pawns."[1]
"Oh, but you're lovely just the way you are," Alice assured them. "A crown atop your petals would be gilding the lily."[2]
"And what of us?" the Cabbage Rose inquired.
"And us?" a Daisy chimed in.
"Well, that goes for all of you. You're all naturally beautiful."
The flowers swayed, dancing in unison, brightened by the compliment.
"But if you'll excuse me, I need to see the Queen."
"Ah, the White Lily's mother," a Tiger-lily nodded in the breeze. "Give her our warmest regards. Her voice is so sweet that I grow nearly two inches when she sings to me."
The Tiger-lily only made some little sense—more than one would expect from a flower—so Alice could not properly promise to give her regards to the mystery woman of whom they spoke, but she waved cheerfully instead, as she hurried off towards the palace.
Having made her way through the winding white marble hallways of the palace to meet with her monarch, Alice approached the White Queen with a level of apprehension she was not used to feeling when dealing with Mirana. She had a foreboding about this meeting, however, that she simply could not shake. No matter her husband's insistence that all would be fine. No matter how she scrubbed behind her ears and shook out her wet tresses.
"Thank you for coming, Alice." The Queen's countenance and tone betrayed nothing, despite Alice's considerable misgivings.
"Can I be of service, Your Majesty?"
Mirana pressed her palms together and fluttered her lengthy lashes. "Should you like to take tea before we discuss business? Thackery has baked the most deliciously daring dried fruit scones—with dates, my dear!—and the Darjeeling is delightful. Doesn't that sound pleasant?"
It is a day for things beginning with 'D', Alice conceded. Indeed, it all sounded most tempting, but she was not sure that she could sit through teatime in her current state of unease. "It sounds lovely, your Majesty, but if it is all the same to you, I would prefer to know how I might be of assistance."
The Queen, who seemed somewhat stunned by Alice's hurried request, paused for a palpable moment before speaking, "If you like. I do have a request. One which I hope you will accept."
Alice's stomach flipped. She could not afford to promise anything without knowing the full extent of the Queen's request. "What is it you would have me do?"
Mirana's hands floated to her shoulders. "I would have you join me as a queen of Underland, my dear Champion."
Alice was aware that Tarrant considered her a Queen of his Heart, and he had reminded her on more than one occasion that she rightly was a queen of Underland, but she had brushed this off as nonsense—she had no wish to be a monarch. "I'm quite happy as I am," she hedged, trying to dissuade Mirana from what she no doubt considered a considerable honor.
"You are aware of the unrest in Queast?" Mirana asked, floating across the room slowly, her heavy, white skirts swaying as she moved.
It was as she thought. "Yes. Tarrant believes them to be Grumblers."
"No doubt Hatta is correct, but…their grumbling makes me feel…" the Queen paused, twirling her fingers. "Their ingratitude raises dark thoughts in me Alice. I imagine what it would be to wipe out all Grumblers. No one would take advantage of my Goodness then. I can teach a painful lesson if need be." As she spoke, her teeth flashed white between blackened lips, suddenly seeming threatening in their perfection.
Oh, Alice wished Tarrant had been correct. Generally she liked to be right, but this once she wished heartily that she had been wrong. What would it do to him to know that his Queen, for whom he had sacrificed so much, had such terrible darkness threatening within? Threatening all of them. For it would no doubt only begin in Queast and end in sheer Madness.
Alice opened her mouth to rush in and cover the somewhat shocking confession of the Queen's with lighthearted words, but Mirana pressed on. "The power I wield as the sole Queen of Underland is intoxicating, Alice. As the years pass, I find that I don't like it, this feeling of drunkenness."
Mirana's plastered on smile made Alice feel coldness in the depths of her soul. Would Tarrant stand as Champion for the Queen and be forced to wield the sword against the villagers of Queast? Alice was unsure her husband's soul could take such a beating. He was a good creature, the best of creatures, and he would revolt against it, she was sure.
Mirana stood before a gilded chair, the top of which she traced with a graceful finger. "You're very quiet, Alice," she said in a tone Alice could not read.
"I'm merely curious." Mirana would no doubt believe that: Alice was famously curious.
"Yes, I should explain how you might assist me. That is no doubt weighing upon your mind."
"A bit," she confessed, attempting to smile, but failing.
"Underland is meant to have many kings and queens," the Queen explained, gesturing airily to her five-pointed crown. "There were once seven kingdoms and Underland was a more peaceful place for it, the monarchs less…mad. " Mirana laughed before the smile fell from her face so suddenly that Alice imagined she could hear it hitting the floor and shattering on the marble. "You would be doing me a favor by taking up one of the abandoned crowns, you see. You would remove some of my temptation and carry some of the burden of power for me."
"Am I not already technically a queen of Underland?" Alice asked softly.
Mirana shook her head dismissively. "Not anymore, my dear. You waited too long to claim your throne when you returned."
"Nivens says I am always late."
The Queen hummed, contemplating her White Rabbit servant's penchant for punctuality. "He likes to keep to a very strict schedule, as he owes his fortune to promptness," she said, holding up one finger, "but in this case you are not too late. You will simply have to go through the process again. Alone. Two cannot be on one square, do you understand?"
Not in the least, but if the process was not dangerous, this was perhaps something Alice could do for the Queen, for her husband, for the whole of Underland if indeed the Queen was beginning to teeter on her totter. "What must I do?"
Mirana's smile suddenly seemed more sincere or at the very least imbued with relief. "The countryside is laid out in squares like a giant chessboard. If you can move all the way to the eighth rank, I will make you a Queen."
"A giant chessboard?" Alice echoed. "I hadn't noticed."
"I don't suppose you were Looking. One must really look, you know."
She did not know there was anything but hill and vale for which to look. "No, I don't suppose I was looking." Alice swallowed. "Will it be dangerous?"
Mirana swept forward and folded Alice into her arms in a crinkle of chiffon and lace and beads and pearls. "No, no. Of course not, my dear. It will simply test your Resolve, but you have that in spades." The Queen released her and drew back, eyes gone wide and her white teeth flashing in inspiration. "Would you like to be the Queen of Spades, Alice?"
"I…I suppose I wouldn't mind being anything but the Red Queen."
Mirana tilted her head thoughtfully, "No, I don't suppose any of us are eager to have that throne be occupied. But there are five other kingdoms from which to choose."
"I'm sure any of them would suit me."
"Well then, is it settled?"
Alice nodded, "Yes, I suppose it is."
…
Although Alice was eager to return home, she did not manage to escape the palace without being further detained. Half way to the main entrance, the Cheshire Cat materialized before her, looking particularly snide.
"I could have told you this was going to be a problem."
"To which problem do you refer?" she asked, although she knew enough by now to suspect that Chessur was in the know about Everything, even matters of State.
"There are several problems aren't there? But, you presently wish to keep one of them a Secret, so I won't spoil it, although I'm sorely tempted."
Alice frowned, attempting to sidestep her unwanted floating companion, but he had a nasty habit of rematerializing just in front of one. It irritated her to think he might know something of the Secret she shared with her husband, which did not count as a problem unless it forced Tarrant to step forward as Champion. That would be grave indeed.
He sized her up. "No, I mean to say that I could have told you that by removing one Mad Queen, you would only create another. But no one thought to ask me."
Yes, this Cat, who did not like to mix in politics, knew a great deal about the realm. "You usually don't like to be bothered," she retorted.
He rolled end over end, a flash of grey and turquoise. "Try to stay on task: the Queen is as mad as…well, a mad hatter, which makes you rather unusually well equipped to deal with such a Predicament. What do you mean to do about it, the Alice?"
Alice closed her eyes: what could she do but take up the crown herself, unpleasant as it struck her?
"You'll end up walking into a wall if you don't open your eyes. You've been spending too much time around your mad husband, I fear. Walking about with one's eyes closed, honestly. Must I remind you that eyesight is terribly useful for proper maneuvering, hopeless girl?"
Stopping short, she spun to address him, "The Queen isn't Mad."
"That's pure nonsense. We're all mad here," he said with a grin that nearly split his face. "Now," he said, motioning with a flick of his tail, "shall I show you something?"
"What would you show me?" she asked, although she was already following him. The reminder of some of the nasty things Dinah at times had been eager to present to her made her stomach give protest.
"The Oraculum isn't the only thing worth reading, you know," he said, hovering before the entrance to Marmoreal's Royal Library.
"You want to show me a book?" Thank heavens! There would be no headless mice laid out in great ceremony.
"Oh dear," he said, narrowing his eyes in mischief, "you can read, can't you?"
She had no intention of honoring that with a response. Instead, she brusquely pushed the heavy white door to the library open. Once inside, she could see that a sizable book in leather binding was already spread upon the wide reading table at the center of the brightly lit room.
"An illiterate queen would be so unfortunate," he purred, settling on the table and winding around the book, as Alice approached it.
Before bending over the text she chuckled, "It would serve you right if I named you to my high council."
"Oh, wouldn't that just boil the Hatter's blood? I might even consider it for pure sport," Chessur mused. "But never mind that. There is a lovely sunny spot I'd rather be sleeping in, so if you would apply your rudimentary reading skills…"
"Yes, yes," Alice said, fingering the yellowing page as gently as its apparent age called for. "What is this book?"
"The Lost Book of Underland. Only, it isn't lost. It's Found, but the Royal Book Binder is busy today and couldn't be bothered to change the title page. Besides, I thought it best not to raise too much suspicion about the Queen's state of mind. We might end up short another head if the villagers in Queast thought their Queen Mad and not just Derelict in her duties."
"She isn't derelict," Alice corrected the Cat a little defensively. "There is simply a lot to be done."
"Undoubtedly," Chessur replied acerbically.
"Did you find this?" she asked, flipping a page.
"It was lost in the Duchess' library at one time." Folding one paw under the other, he considered her, "I believe you'll find ample justification within it for becoming Queen Alice."
"I needn't be convinced. I've promised the Queen already."
"Oh, yes, you've been a dutiful subject thus far, but you're not Happy about it and as Time passes, you'll be even less Happy about it. You're bound to learn about a great deal of Unpleasantness as you make your journey."
How encouraging.
"Nevertheless, the thrones of Underland must be filled," he said, as the fur on his back bristled. "We might have done better to crown another than remove Iracebeth, I fear, unless she was already too far Gone. The more the Merrier in this case, it would seem," he said, resting a paw on the open page, indicating with an extended claw a circle that contained within it seven overlapping symmetrical circles.[3] The colors of the circles of the illustrated symbol alternated red, black, and white. "Seven, Alice: there must be seven. When your husband does not want you to go traipsing across Underland, remind him of this: seven days in a week, seven notes in a scale, seven virtues, seven metals, seven colors, and seven kingdoms of Underland. You begin removing them and the rest go…unbalanced, Mad. We'll all suffer for it."
It was becoming clear to her that the task set before her was greater than she had imagined. "We need to reseat all of the kings and queens of Underland."
Chessur rolled onto his back. "Well, 'we' is a regrettable choice of words. I believe there are people in these parts that call you 'Champion'. Why not put those championing skills to use, hmm? Make yourself useful and not just the Hatter's mate?"
I believe you know why. "Very well, I'll work to reseat the kingdoms of Underland, if you mean to say that it won't be enough for me just to become queen."
"Well, it's a start," he said, licking one paw. "Mirana was rather better balanced when her bulbous headed sister sat the throne. Give her a Queen Alice and it might buy us seventy years."
That sounded like a very long time, and it made the task seem less insurmountable. Good people to sit a throne were not easy to find, but if she had decades to do so, it might eventually be accomplished.
"May I take this with me?" she asked, hefting the book. There were a great many questions still left unanswered.
"Sticky fingers," he grinned.
"Perfectly clean, I assure you," Alice replied, using more Sauce than she presently felt.
"See that they are. I won't have the Royal Librarian rubbing my fur the wrong way over soiled pages if not." She was nearly out the door when Chessur issued one final warning, "And don't even begin to consider dog-earring the pages: that's just the sort of thing a dog lover would do."
…
Tarrant had trained his ear—not as skilled as his fingers, but still a useful body part—for the sound of Alice's return, as he sat at his hats, his shirtsleeves rolled up his arms, and twiddled away with feathers and buttons and pins. Therefore, the sound of her feet scuffing on the threshold of their home, as she knocked the dust from her boots, was more than enough to alert him to her presence. Springing from the workbench in a cloud of flying trim, he nearly tripped over the table leg in his eagerness to reach the door. Flinging it open, he stood before his wife, who looked somewhat stunned, her hand extended as if to reach for the doorknob.
"Alice," he lisped, opening his arms.
"I was only gone for the day," she good-naturedly protested, as she stepped into his embrace.
"Yes, but I missed you." Her Aliceness was vital to his contentedness after all. There was the magic of Underland always working to keep them on the same path, drawing them together when they parted ways. The feeling was not painful exactly, but a tugging at the spirit when the distance between he and she grew too great. Beyond the magic of it, however, simply her being Alice made her indispensible to him. Every bit of her from her little toe to the freckle on her earlobe. She had a lovely beauty mark above her right hip that he sometimes covered with his hand while they were…
"He's opened me twelve times since noon," the knob began to grumble, but Tarrant gave the door a swift kick with the back of his heel, sending it open wider and gaining some distance from the meddlesome, mumbling knob.
She brushed back his springy hair, twisting a lock of it around her finger, before kissing him on the cheek. She had missed him too it would seem. Once she had allowed herself to do so, Alice had given herself over to him most freely, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, to be herself with him, to be free together. Likewise, now that he felt sure of her regard, depending on someone had never felt so liberating, and missing her occasionally was a small price to pay. It only reminded him of what a share of his heart she occupied.
"Are you tired from your walk? Would you care to sit down? Or perhaps you would like a cup of tea? Are you thirsty, love? Or perchance…" He had always been solicitous, but since they had discovered they were to be three, he had taken Solicitousness to new precipitous heights. There was always something More he could do for his Alice and his little Alice.
"I'm fine," she assured him, patting his chest reassuringly as she slipped by him and entered their home. "The walk was refreshing and I have…good news, I think."
He stopped, a wide grin lighting up his face. "I was right." He knew he would be. There was no possible way that he could not be. Things were looking up, and his Queen turning on her people did not fit within his Vision of his future, Alice's future, their future together. It was not quite the Oraculum, but he had set some store in that Vision.
"Don't crow, Tarrant. You might not like what I am to do," she said, pulling a book she must have acquired at Marmoreal from her sack and setting it down on the table with a sizable thud.
He watched her silently as she chucked the empty sack into the wingback chair in the corner and dusted her hands off on her knickers. She looked only slightly harried from her day's travels, but he feared the real disruption was on the inside and not her most estimable outside. His right hand twitched at his side. What had the Queen asked of his wife? Perchance it was not worth hearing at all. "You might consider putting your hand over your mouth."
"Why," Alice began, but Tarrant interrupted her in his eagerness to stop her.
"Because no news is good news," he advised, demonstrating briefly how a hand might be employed to keep News from escaping. If she did not say it aloud, it would not be Real. They could both ignore it, like the pile of linens in the corner of their bedroom to which neither of them was eager to see.
"No, that shan't be necessary," she promised him.
"But…" he said, letting his instructional hand slip from his mouth, "you are not to be Champion."
"No, I'm not."
"Well then," he said with a careless wave of that same hand, "it can't be so bad."
"I'm to reclaim my throne. Underland is not finished with me yet, it would seem. Don't say 'I told you so'," she warned, pointing a finger at him.
He only just thought better of snapping at that finger, as if to bite it, nibble it, lick the length of it. Instead, he stated most solemnly, "Wouldn't dream of it." He bowed, swinging his arm before him. "Queen Alice. How charming. How lovely." Visions of gowns and capes and hats fit for a queen flitted through his churning mind, although he knew that Alice would no doubt turn her nose up at all those things. Still, he would not mind making her a coronation gown if she could be convinced of the necessity of such a garment under ceremonial circumstances.
She shrugged, looking uncertain. "Apparently, Underland plans to continue having its way with me without reference to what I might Want."
Tarrant swallowed, his Adam's apple making his bowtie bob nervously. He repeated inwardly to himself that Alice Wanted him. That had been his unquestioned reality for some time now, and he had no desire to go back to the dark place, where the madness lurked and stalked him. She had chosen him. While she was his wife thanks to Underland's magic, she was Happy, having also chosen him of her own free will. "You're happy," he croaked with the hope that by saying, he would remember the truth of it.
Alice glanced sideways at him as she twisted her soft blonde hair about her fist, attempting to tame it into staying behind her shoulders. "Not particularly."
He felt his stomach tighten. His lunch of cheese on toast would look most unpleasant coming back up, he wagered.
"I never wanted this," she continued, seemingly blithely unaware of his inner turmoil, "and it sounds tiresome to me, but I have promised the Queen I would do it for her sake, and the sake of us all."
"Alice," he lisped, hearing the whisper of voices that for many months had been nearly silent now increasing in volume. She never wanted you.She had no choice at all.She would be at home Above if she could. You can't make her happy!
"You know I don't care to be queen," she said, attempting to fluff up his sorely deflated bowtie. "I never wanted that."
He shook his head up and down more than was necessary, reassured to remember that Alice only dreaded being a queen, not his wife. They would not be separated again. "Mother of Underland," he murmured in relief under his breath.
"What's that, Hatter dear?" she asked, as she finished her ministrations with a satisfied smile.
He breathed deeply. Her little endearment and care for his appearance did as much to soothe him as the clarification—being Queen was a tiresome prospect, not his wife. "It is Mirana's wish for you to be queen?" he asked with the brightness of his tone returning somewhat.
"Yes."
She looked as if there were more words to say, but they refused to spill out. That pretty mouth of hers promptly shut and put an end to all speech. Something niggled his brain, warning him that something Bad was afoot. Quiet, you. There was nothing to fear.
"Shall there be a party?" he giggled. "I do love a party, you know."
"There will be at the end of it all, I suppose, but not until after I travel the chessboard of Underland and reach the eighth square."
"How long will that take?" Time being who he was, it was best to be Specific.
"I haven't a clue."
He hummed and gestured towards a stack of hats, brows knitting in hesitation. "I suppose I can put aside my work for the time being. Surely the Queen will understand that you will need an escort and forgive the delay in production. Do you reckon I'll need to shine up the Hightopp claymore? It is dreadfully heavy to lug about, what with all the buttons I will need with me for emergencies filling my pack. Oh dear," he bemoaned, as he pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat to take stock of the timing of this journey. "I will be dreadfully behind before it is all said and done: with the coronation there will be more hat requests than I am accustomed to, no doubt. But, never mind, Duties to Alice come first."
"You can focus on filling hat requests. It is a path you travel without companions."
His heart skipped, once, twice. "Who says?" Who would attempt to keep the pair of them apart? Why, we are a Pair for the Ages! Did they not know it was virtually impossible to part them?
"Mirana, my dear. It has to be me alone, I'm afraid."
He shook his head, his voice growing rough, "Oh, Alice: don't say you're afraid, for if you are afraid, I shall lose all nerve." And while Alice was a lass that Understood his spirit and had forgiven him countless times when he had gone to Pieces, he rather preferred to preserve his masculine dignity as best he could when he possibly could.
"No need for that," she promised him. "It won't be a long trip. You and I will be back together in this little home of ours together again soon enough."
It would be better with her husband at her side. It would be safer, despite Alice being rather Fearsome all by her lonesome. A most apropos word, that: less lonely. Together was never lonely. Together was not to be, however, if Mirana was to be believed. He felt Suspicion lodge in his chest, although he chided it for taking up residence there: She is my Queen! It might be treasonous, but he doubted his monarch and he worried for his dear wife. "It could be dangerous," he lisped, pressing his hand over her middle.
He was thankful Alice had been kind enough not to dwell on the fact that he had urged her to do this some time ago—take up the crown once more! He had warned her that if she let too much Time pass, she would have to begin at Square One to claim the crown. No, there was no use reminding him of it, for their circumstances had changed in the meantime.
"No…I don't think so," Alice responded uncertainly.
One never knew in Underland, but she had not been born here and sometimes needed reminding—despite having witnessed some of its choicest horrors firsthand—that beneath the now tranquil surface could still lurk unpleasant things.
"Mirana assures me it won't be."
His words tumbled out, quickened by concern, "Perhaps you should tell the Queen about the wee bairn. Botheration, I don't know what to think. My thoughts are all a jumble. If you have it, you want to share it, but if you share it, you don't have it."[4] Perhaps this Secret could also become a Bad Thing and Tarrant wanted nothing more to do with Bad Secrets.
Alice shook her head, 'no'. "It is too early," she said simply.
It may have been her intention to prevent him from feeling anxious by saying no more, but he knew the reason for Secrecy: this early on, things could happen quite easily. There could be a babbie one day and the next day none. His nerves were winding tightly at the thought, the nightmarish thought. He had already lost his family once; he could not bear to have it happen again. He blinked, staring at her middle, where his hand still lay, instead of meeting her gaze. His eyes were shifting slowly into yellow, despite her measured words, as he imagined the empty, hollow, helpless feeling that would sit in his chest if Something Happened.
"I just don't want it to be too late, Alice."
"I'll be very careful," she promised, laying her own hand over his. "Will you support me in this?"
"Of course, Alice. In everything," he promised, slipping his arms around her. "Alice," he whispered, his hands scrambling against her back to fit her more tightly against him. One hand found her temple and a thimble caught in the fine hairs there. Tipping her head back until her neck was exposed to him, he pressed a kiss to her thundering pulse. Her brown eyes were dark with arousal—a look he knew well. It might be that she had been set aflame by his touch and the feel of his breath against her, or perhaps Lust and Fear were strangely related. His lips moved against her skin, marking a path as he kissed and murmured:
"I plunged in the stream, and I drew
My queen from the clasp of the water ;
I crowned her with roses and blue,
With yellow and lilies anew ;
I called her my love and Above's daughter!"[5]
Lately Alice's thoughts strayed to their marriage bed more often than not despite her fatigue, a fact he could not find fault with, as the knowledge that she was carrying his child was unexpectedly exciting.
"I'm not leaving yet," she reminded him, nudging his head until his lips met her own in a brief kiss.
It seemed as if she wanted to forget her worries for the moment or help him forget his. It would not take much convincing to pull him to their bed. To be fair, Alice never had to employ much Convincing.
She found his hand and linked it in hers, drawing him back. "And as of yet I'm still only your queen."
"Aye, ma Summer Queen."
"Just Plain Alice," she corrected, rubbing her thumb over his stained knuckles. "Come help me forget all the rest." She paused, unbuttoning the first mother of pearl button at her throat, as her gaze fixed on the rise and fall of his chest. "Unless you would rather work on your haberdashery."
His smile was practically predatory. "Och na, lass," he growled, "the hats can bide for a speal."
[1] In Through the Looking-Glass, the Daisy, Rose, and Tiger-lily are all listed as pawns, some white and some red.
[2] Gilding the lily is a saying that dates from Shakespeare's King John (1595).
[3] The symbol described is called the Seed of Life and can be found in various cultures throughout history with different symbolism attached to it.
[4] Answer: a secret.
[5] This verse is taken from "The May Queen" by Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), an English occultist, ceremonial magician, and mystic, who also had success in the fields of poetry and chess. It has been alleged that he was a spy for the British government. I have changed one word of this verse. The last line of this verse originally read: "I called her my love and God's daughter!"
