They were sitting in Mad Hatter's airy parlor – airy because all the windows were still open, in spite of his having proclaimed his intention of nailing them shut. The four of them were there, Alice and Mad Hatter and the two rabbits. The frog was still reciting poetry in the tower for all Alice knew; she had wondered whether it was polite to go off and leave him but Mad Hatter had taken her arm and shaken his head and hadn't let go again until they had gone two full turns down the stairs.

The White Rabbit was telling a long story about shopping for gloves in the market, which wasn't very interesting. Alice was feeling very drowsy and had almost fallen into a sort of doze when she took in a breath and sat up straight. There was a face peering in through one of the open windows. On it were two eyes that seemed overly round and large for a human face, a mouth that was all one thin line and an exceptional network of lines and wrinkles and jowls. It was just the sort of face which should not be allowed to appear suddenly at windows, particularly windows with shrubs growing in front of them, the face blooming through the leaves like some repugnant flower. Alice was understandably alarmed. To express this, she said "Oh!" and pointed her finger, which drew the attention of the others. By the time their heads were turned, though, the face had vanished with a rustling of leaves. The Hatter squinted at his shrubbery before looking to Alice.

"…Deutzia gracilis," he offered. "Blooms white, you know. Dashed attractive."

"There was somebody there," said Alice, frowning.

"Oh," said the Hatter, and they all looked again.

"There isn't anybody there now," the March Hare said after a moment, which Alice thought was unhelpful.

"Well of course there isn't now, but there was a moment ago. He was staring at us through that window."

The Hatter looked again, but as one might expect, this didn't make the face reappear. Alice thought it was rude for him to turn and look at her the way he did, kindly, patiently, obviously convinced that she wasn't "all there", but not overly concerned. She probably wasn't really dangerous, he was thinking, just terribly confused. Alice knew he thought so, and could tell from the shape of his lips that he was about to say something soothing, probably something that started along the lines of now, now, my dear, or the equivalent. Presently his mouth started to open, and she was about to become infuriated when, instead of the things he had planned to say, his face changed in a moment and his jaw dropped, a shrill scream issuing forth. Alice was startled, but prepared, and as her own head jerked around, it was just in time to afford her a brief glimpse of an ugly face pushing back from the window across from the previous one of interest, vanishing in an instant. Her breast filled with vindication. "Ah!" She turned to the Hatter, nostrils flaring. "There, you see."

She stopped short of a full recital of how right she had been, an enjoyable pastime, because the Hatter did not look exactly as she expected him to. She had not found his reaction just now to be entirely…manly. However, anybody who screamed like he had done ought to have the decency to look startled. This was the odd part, because the Hatter didn't look startled at all; in fact, he had already risen from his chair and was striding across the room to brace his hands on the sill and stick his head out, looking left and right as if to make sure that the intruder was really gone, and as he drew back into the room, Alice had the bizarre impression that he had screamed on purpose to startle the face into retreat. He turned to her, rubbing the side of his nose calmly.

"My mistake. Still, you should've said so sooner. This is really awfully bad. Do you suppose he saw you?"

Alice blinked, having failed to anticipate such a question. "W-well…yes, I suppose he must have. He was looking right at me. I told you as much."

"Of course, you said he was looking through the window," Mad Hatter indicated same with a gesture of his hand. "But you didn't say he was looking at you."

"Why should it matter who he was looking at?"

"It matters a great deal." The Hatter became impatient. "Really, my dear young lady – but I haven't time for such diversions just now. Come on – best not to waste time." He reached out and swept up his hat from its resting place beside its chair, thumping it on over his curls. Alice rose to her feet instinctively, casting a curious glance at the two rabbits to see if any of this business made sense to them. They nodded, wordlessly and out of time with one another, but it made her feel a little better. It wasn't that she held their opinions particularly higher than the Hatter's, but a general consensus must always be preferred over a single voice, when the voice is not your own and is saying strange things.

Mad Hatter was coming toward her now, holding an arm out to usher her forward, and it became apparent that they were leaving. Normally, upon being shoved out of somebody's home without so much as a 'do call again', Alice would've felt a little slighted, and would probably have spent some time wondering if she had done something wrong. That was not the case at present. The Hatter seemed brisk, even agitated, but there was nothing in his manner to suggest he was suddenly sick of the sight of her. In fact, as Alice turned and walked toward the door, he followed, and she realized that he was coming with her after all.

"Keep out of the jelly," he instructed over his shoulder, making the White Rabbit's nose twitch as though he'd just that moment been thinking of getting into the jelly the instant the door was closed. Then he put his fingertips on Alice's spine and propelled her outside.

They passed through the garden quickly, because the garden was not large. Alice waited until they had started back up the path through the woods before she spoke, feeling somehow that he would only shush her for attempting to speak out in the open. "Where are we going?"

The Hatter glanced at her, his eyes narrowing in thought as though he were still deciding whether to answer her at all. Alice couldn't tell how the debate was going until he closed his eyes completely and shrugged. "I'm taking you home, of course."

"But why?" The question sounded strange, and she groped for a handful of her skirt to lift it a little; the pace they were keeping was a rapid one. "That is, I want to go home of course, only why are we hurrying so?" He reached out a hand and pressed it lightly to her back, directing her to cross in front to his other side, avoiding a stump that had fallen across the path. "Is it because of the man at the window?" Alice continued from her new position. "Who was he?"

The Hatter glanced up in the direction of an interesting bird-call, examined the effects of the breeze on a wispy cluster of clouds overhead, and finally looked over at Alice. "He's a damned nuisance," he said flatly. Alice felt her face turn into an expression of disapproval, because this was not only needlessly blunt, it was also unhelpful. The Hatter's mouth drew itself off to the side, but he grudgingly obliged. "He is the royal consensus-taker."

"Oh, you mean census-taker."

"I certainly do not!" The Hatter stepped hard on a stick on purpose, breaking it. "I mean precisely what I say. He is the royal consensus-taker and a damned nuisance!"

Alice found his behavior childish, and told him so by pouting her lips and letting out a breath of air very quickly. "Well, I certainly can't see why that should be so bad. After all, it isn't as though he's some sort of tax man or anything."

"Not so bad!" The Hatter reached out and ripped a leaf off a tree they were passing in cold blood. "That just shows what a woman knows about politics. I'd like to see how you like having all your consensuses taken. It would put the curdle to your cream, I can tell you."

"But a consensus just means people's opinions," Alice said. His latest remarks had made her suddenly snappish. "There isn't anything awful about asking people's opinions."

"Ask! My child, my babe, you make me laugh. He doesn't ask people's opinions, haven't you listened? He takes them. And if you think it's a pleasant thing, having all your opinions taken away, well, I envy the little world of sugar-cakes and fancy you must live in." He sighed. "That's why you'd better go home, before he comes 'round again and starts taking your opinions. Lord knows that's all we need, a whole batch of brand new ones running around. Besides, I… well, it's just safer to nip it in the bud, eh?"

"But…but that's absurd," said Alice after thinking about this for a few moments, while they followed the path around a little bend. "You can't just take somebody's opinion away from them." Or could you? Certainly it wouldn't make any sense at home, in England, anywhere in the world, but this wasn't anywhere in the world; it was someplace else entirely. This raised another question in her mind, one that should've been there some time ago. Alice asked it after a moment had passed and the Hatter did not respond to her last statement. "How are you going to take me home? You don't know where I live. Besides, I don't even know how to get back myself."

"Well, why should that matter? Lots of people take other people places they don't know how to get to. What's the point of taking anybody anywhere if everybody already knows how to get there? Anyway, you do know where you live, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Then I can't see what the problem is."

Alice was silent for a little while, but they were passing a pretty sort of flowering tree, and perhaps the sight of it made her introspective. "I rarely understand what you're talking about," Alice said quietly.

Mad Hatter laughed.

It surprised her. It was not a short, barking laugh, or a jeering laugh, or even a condescending, bemused laugh. It was a real one, fully cooked and ready to be served, full and genuine and probably as unexpected to him as it had been to her. He clapped a hand over his mouth and tried to stifle it, either because it was loud or because it started to interfere with his gait, but gave up quickly and used the hand to slap his own arm instead. The laugh shook his shoulders and trembled that curl on his cheek for some time even after the staccato Ha! Ha! Ha! of its birth had been smothered into little gasps. His eyes were even starting to tear up. Alice watched him, wide-eyed, until finally he took a breath and wiped his eyes.

"Good – lord – I was – been trying to think of some nice way to – say the same thing to you – all afternoon!"

Alice closed her fingers around a lock of hair that had fallen over her shoulders and found that she was somehow not offended, just astounded. "Me? But – but I'm not in the least bit confusing. At least, I don't…." She trailed off. Didn't what, didn't think she was? But perhaps nobody thought they were confusing. She looked at the Hatter, still shaking his head, and thought to herself that he was really one of the most obnoxious people she'd ever met, and should have annoyed her more than he seemed to actually do. Probably, it was just the shock of the whole odd experience.

They were coming to the edge of the woods now. Alice didn't realize until they'd actually stepped into the sunshine that this was not the way they'd originally come. Or it might have been, for all she knew, but this was certainly not the place they'd come from; instead of a broad green meadow, this was a small clearing, with woods all around it. There was a river of about twelve feet in breadth running through the center of the clearing, with a little stone bridge crossing over it. She turned a curious look on him. "This isn't the way I came in."

"Probably not," he agreed, and because she had stopped walking, he took her elbow and led her along toward the bridge. Alice thought of another question to ask right away – several, in fact – but she thought perhaps she'd better not, because either he would not answer them or he would, and neither prospect sounded very appealing, come to think of it. As the neared the bridge, the Hatter slowed, and cleared his throat a couple of times. Alice didn't think much of it until he addressed her, in a quieter tone than usual. "Well, I… awfully good of you, old chap. Don't suppose I'll be seeing you again, so… so goodbye."

"Oh." This hadn't occurred to Alice. She had come into his company so easily that she'd never stopped to consider the fact that this was all either a dream or else something so impossible as to all but prohibit repetition. After all, it had been years and years…. She nodded slowly. "Why… yes, I suppose so." This wasn't a very satisfying speech, but his freckled face had gone all over earnest, and Alice didn't know what to make of that. How, after all, are you supposed to behave toward somebody you've had tea with, having not known them before today, when you won't ever see them again? They looked at each other in silence, until the Hatter breathed in and straightened.

"Well," he said, and then he stepped forward and one of his arms went under her knees and the next thing Alice knew, he had lifted her easily off the ground and was now striding across the bridge with her. Alice had not been picked up since she was a little child. Alice had never been picked up by a young man. Her mouth opened and she made sounds like the start of several words, but none of them could make it past the vacuum which was sucking the air out of her lungs. They had reached the middle of the bridge. The Hatter stopped.

"What," Alice managed, in a voice like a stringed instrument out of tune. The Hatter inclined his chin to her; his hands were occupied and he could not lift his hat.

"Miss Alice," he said, and was so close that she could feel his voice in his chest when he said it. Then he leaned over the edge of the bridge and dropped her.