Chapter four
Four months later...
Alice leant against the kitchen counter with a warm mug clutched close to her chest as her mother busily chopped vegetables.
"I was thinking of taking Ha...David to that village we went to last year. For our anniversary." Alice stared off into the distance as she spoke,
"Anniversary? You've only been together a few months."
"Exactly, the anniversary of the day that he came back." Alice smiled to herself as she drained the last of her coffee.
"Yes, explain to me again how it is that you two met?" Carol asked, raising an eyebrow and turning around to face Alice.
"I told you mom." Alice said, turning her back to her mother as she placed her mug in the sink, "We met before I met Jack, he had to move away and I thought I'd never see him again, that's why I never mentioned him to you, but then after he found me that night in the old Warehouse, he decided not to leave after all. He wanted to stay here, with me." Alice smiled; the last part was at least true. "Anyway, I think he'll like the village. He's from a place where there's a lot of countryside, you know, lots of trees and grass. I think he liked the city at first because it was different but I can just tell that he misses the little things. I also have a little surprise for him." Alice smiled to herself as she stared at a picture of the two of them stuck to the fridge.
"What kind of surprise?" Carol's tone changed as she put down her knife and turned to look at Alice, "You're not?" her eyes travelled to Alice's flat stomach,
"What? No, no!" Alice clutched her stomach protectively, "I've bought us a house." She explained,
"A house? But the two of you live here." Carol's face grew pale,
"Mom, we can't live here forever. We need space, you know, a place of our own."
"What's wrong with finding a place in the city?"
"Mom..." Alice furrowed her brow at her mother just as the front door opened, "We'll talk about it later." she skipped into the main room and kissed Hatter on the cheek.
"Bought another hat have we?" she smiled as she looked at the shopping bags in his hands,
"Just the one." He smiled like a child as he took it out of the bag and placed it on Alice's head, "But I also got this." He grinned as he took a can opener out of the bag and handed it to Alice.
"Oh...a can opener... you shouldn't have?" she forced a smile at the object.
"Yeah. It's amazing. I mean cans of food themselves are amazing enough, but this." He held it up and smiled; "I can't tell you how useful this would have been in Won..." he trailed off as Carol walked into the room.
"Well, I'll put it in the suitcase, as I've got a surprise for you too." Alice smiled as she threw it down on the sofa, "We're taking a little trip, to a village that I think you'll like. It's all organised, I've rented a house for the whole week and we can spend our four month anniversary there."
The village was much as Alice had remembered it. A small, rural place with plenty of trees and grass and mostly friendly people. She pulled up in her borrowed car in front of the house that she had rented and stared up at the building.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Alice stated, her eyes filling with wonder as she took it all in. It had a bright red door with an apple tree planted out front and a big rose bush was creeping up the side of the house.
"At last, actual grass." Hatter grinned as he got out of the car to inspect the front garden,
"Typical, I bring you here to enjoy a romantic anniversary getaway, and you're more interested in the grass." Alice rolled her eyes,
"I'm sorry, but come on! Look at it, it's actually green and not like that muddy stuff we had back in the city. You know, back in Wonderland I had my own patch of green grass..." he began but Alice cut him off,
"Do you miss it? Wonderland I mean." Alice looked to the ground guiltily.
"Yes and no." Hatter half-smiled, "It was my home and I guess I miss the things that I never thought I'd miss. Like the trees or the grass or just understanding things in general. But I would never go back there, not without you at least. Wonderland may have its...well wonders, but I've grown to love your world. With its handy little inventions like the internet or the cell phone, or that thing, what's it called? The thing you showed me last week for cooking ready meals..."
"Microwaves?" Alice offered,
"Yes! Microwaves! I love your world Alice, and I can see us really settling down here."
"I'm glad you said that actually, because, I have another surprise for you." She scuttled ahead of him and stood in front of the front door, looking back at him with a grin, "I want us to live here."
"We are, for the next week." Hatter stated,
"No, not just for the next week. I want us to live here for the next ten years, at least. I bought this house Hatter, for us."
"You bought this house?" Hatter asked incredulously,
"Yes, well I rented it for the first week, then I said I'd give her an answer as to if we wanted to buy it at the end of the week." She stood with her arms wide but they fell when Hatter's reaction wasn't as she had pictured.
"But Alice, I've just got used to life in the city. I moved worlds for you, and now that I'm finally settled with a job and a place to live you want me to move towns too?"
"I thought you'd like it here, please Hatter, give it a chance." She walked towards him and took hold of his hands, "Trust me." She pleaded with her eyes.
"Fine, I trust you. But please, Alice, can you promise me that you won't make a decision until we are both agreed? Let's just get through this week then see how we feel at the end of it."
"Great." Alice grinned and took hold of his hand, "There's something I want to show you." She flung open the door and led him up the stairs and to the first room on the left. The big, oak door opened to reveal a beautiful master bedroom. In the centre of the room lay a double bed with a patchwork quilt laid lovingly across the bottom of it, on the wall opposite the bed hung an ornate mirror with an intricate bronze design decorating it's edges and on the far side a set of double glass-pained doors with netted curtains sat closed, waiting to be opened.
"This would be our room, and the best part of it is..." she ran over to the double doors and flung them open to reveal a balcony that overlooked the woodland area of the village, "It has the best view."
She stood out on the balcony and Hatter wrapped his arms around her before kissing her neck, "This is beautiful." He sighed, "All that's missing is giant chess pieces and Charlie banging on about toenail readings and I'd think we were back in Wonderland." Hatter said and Alice laughed, relaxing into his body.
Night had just started to fall on the sleepy little village so Hatter and Alice returned inside and shut the balcony doors. Hatter lay on his stomach on the bed with his feet on the pillows whilst Alice propped herself up with her elbow as she studied him. He was picking at the patchwork quilt.
"The woman who owns this house made it." She explained and Hatter looked up, dosed, as if he had just been disturbed from a deep thought.
"Oh, I like it." He smoothed it out and Alice crawled down the bed until she was beside him,
"Really? I've always thought they were a bit old ladyish myself." She shrugged her shoulders,
"No. My mum used to make them; I used to sleep with one at the bottom of my bed almost every night. She had cut all of the pieces from things that meant a lot to her, like a patch from the underskirt of her wedding dress, a patch from the shirt my dad wore when he first met her, a patch from the curtains in the house that they lived together in; things like that." Hatter explained, looking away and blushing slightly at the fact he was revealing a part of himself,
"When you put it like that it sounds really special." Alice said, running her hand over the many different materials in the quilt, "You don't talk a lot about your family, why is that?"
"Because there's not much to tell." He coughed to signify that he was ready to change the subject, "So what made you like this village so much?"
"I don't know really. Me and mom came here once last year when I thought I had a lead on where dad was." She rolled her eyes at her old hopes of finding her father in her own world, "I was a different person back then, but I could still tell that it was somewhere magical. I hadn't thought about it since, until the other week when I found a picture of mom and I here, it just reminded me of Wonderland so much, I knew I had to take you here, I contacted the woman who owns this house and we came up with the offer of a kind of try before you buy deal."
"I don't know. I think you've been a city girl too long, you'll miss it." Hatter smiled,
"I think you've been away from fresh air for too long." Alice raised an eyebrow, "One week here, Hatter, and you'll be begging to stay longer."
"We'll see."
