In front of him is a wooden desk with talons at the ends of its legs. Its body is black with a little tale at one end and a large bill at the other. Naturally the wrong end is not in front. Above the bill are two beady eyes and these stare at him until the writing desk comes to some sort of conclusion and quarks loudly "Ecila! Ecila!"
A drawer opens and a tiny girl climbs out of it. She takes a sip from the flask at her left hip and soon Hatter can look her in the eyes.
She smoothes out her dress and addresses him. "Do you have an appointment?"
Tarrant frowns. "For what?"
"To answer the riddle of course. Alice has been in a frenzy. 'I must answer that riddle' she says. But she can't even remember why she wants to answer it. She's mad to go on like this, and not to smart either, keeping Madness with her instead of me. Why if I was with her we wouldn't be in this mess!"
"What mess is that?" Tarrant asks, sensing that this is important to his mission.
Ecila sighs. "Robert woke up Madness. As I'm sure you know Sanity does not like Madness and the more active Madness became the less and less sane she became. Meanwhile I was trying to help her fight Madness but she locked me away from her."
"Why?" Tarrant asks.
Ecila looks hard at him. "When Madness takes over she can't remember. And for her that is a greater boon than anything I could offer."
Tarrant nods, understanding why Alice would lose herself to madness, understanding that some things are best forgotten, no matter what the price.
Ecila continues. "With her memories on the loose Hatred recruited all of Alice's more unpleasant ones and took over. He believes that getting rid of Robert is the best path to take. Love is helping me slightly by pretending to love him, Hatred I mean, but-"
Tarrant interrupts. "I don't quite understand. How could Hatred believe that Love could ever love him?"
Ecila smiles "for all of his personality flaws he is quite handsome."
"Oh. And he believes her?"
"Yes. Occasionally Love is even able to help the resistance, despite her inability to hurt someone. Our greatest victory was when she seduced Hatred allowing me control long enough to get Alice to Underland."
"So Alice doesn't even know that it is ok to be aware, to remember now?"
"No. Love cannot leave Hatred's side and I cannot get in."
"May I see her?" Tarrant asks.
Ecila is about to respond when suddenly they were plunged into darkness.
"What a thick black cloud that is!" exclaims Tarrant. "And how fast it comes!" Indeed it cover the sky within moments "Why I do believe it's got wings!"
"It's the crow!" quarks the desk angrily. With every heartbeat the shadow grows darker and the writing desk looks more and more like a dark bird.
"They hate each other, the raven and the crow!" Ecila yells over the wind. "Hurry climb on." He climbs on the raven and it takes off. Wheeling through the storm they dodge the crow's reaching talons and strike back.
"Jump for it now!" The Raven Quarks.
A blue door appears in the clouds. Tarrant leaps for it and barely grabs the frame. The storm, the raven and the crow recede into the distance and disappear with an last derisive comment "He told you to jump for it not leap!" yelled back at him by the crow. Tarrant pulls himself up and upon regaining his muchness (for he'd left it behind on the raven) opens the door.
On the other side is starlight and a large hat. He jumps down to it and the figure on the other side of it cries out "No room! No room!"
"There's plenty of room!" says Tarrant indignitly and he sits down on the brim.
"Have some tea." The girl (he recognizes her now as Alice) says in an incouraging tone.
Tarrant looks all around the Hat but there is nothing on it but Alice and him. "I don't see any tea." He remarks.
"There isn't any" says she.
"Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it," says Tarrant distractedly.
"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited," says Alice.
"I didn't know that it was your hat." Says Tarrant.
"I never said it was, in fact it isn't." she replies.
She looks at him for some time with great curiosity, and then says "Your hair wants cutting."
Remembering her very first visit to Underland, was it really that long ago? Hatter shoots back "You should learn not to make personal remarks. It's very rude."
Her eyes open very wide on hearing this but all she says is "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
His first impulse is to respond " I haven't the slightest idea." But his Sanity prods him and reminds him that he is here for Alice.
To stall he repeats Alice's words to him on her first trip to Underland.
"I believe I can guess that."
"Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" Astonishingly she uses Thackery's words on that long ago visit to respond. Was this really the Alice? Then he remembers the voice in the garden. This had never happened so this was not a memory.
"Exactly so." He mutters to himself.
"What was that?" Alice asks him.
Tarrant quickly thinks over all he knows of ravens and writing desks and finally responds "They are both subjects of an unanswerable riddle."
Alice grins then frowns. Her eyes turn to blue glass. "True until he said it but it never was true if that was the answer all along but if it isn't then he hasn't answered it and who is he anyhow just landing on the hat as if he owned it and answering the riddle as if he'd heard it before. Pawh! Stupid man. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, Stupid-"
"Alice!" Tarrant cries out.
Her eyes turn crafty and she smiles at him. "What day of the mouth is it?" she asks.
Tarrant looks at his wristwatch. "May 2nd Alice"
"Wrong!" she shrieks gleefully "Two days wrong! You can't butter me up!"
His eyes start to burn orange. He shakes his head trying to keep his madness away. For once his Sanity stays and fights.
"Alice. You are asleep. We both are. It's time to wake up."
She leers at him. He fishes the two green vials out of his pocket and hands one to her.
"Drink me." He prods her after taking his.
She downs it in one gulp then sits down with her legs hanging over the brim of his hat and starts singing.
"Drink me, Shrink me,
Never blink we find ourselves at home."
Tarrant sits down next to her. "But we aren't at home." He says bewildered. "Why didn't the potion work?"
Then he remembers.
"Do ye ken where she locked way her muchness?"
"There is some in here but she must drink it."
Tarrant fetches out the second vial and presses it to Alice's lips. She drinks it without protest. He waits. Nothing happens. He curls up next to Alice and joins her in singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat"; not thinking, not remembering, for that road leads to despair and he has nothing left to try, no way out, and no way home.
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A/N What's wrong? dun dun dun. Is she the right Alice after all? Stay tuned! The next chapter will be up sooner if you review!