"What do you think makes Time tick? I can't ever get him to accept my invitation to afternoon tea."
Hatter sat all poised, balancing a tower of ladyfingers and sponge cake, all held together by dollops of buttercream. There were five layers and although it had a sturdy base, it had no structural integrity, as anyone who had ever attempted to make a tall cake knew to use piping or something to pin it together.
"Even if we had all the seconds in the land, I doubt he'll show," Cecelia said with a smile, easing into her joke by grabbing a second helping of tea out of a teapot with the number 2 glazed brazenly onto its paint in small scripture, one of the Dormouse's pottery work made for fun whenever he was awake. After all, he adored the mouse sized vestibules to sleep in. "It never is anything but afternoon tea here."
"All the more reason for him to get this, so we can make six brave enough to move onto seven," he replied, adding a seventh layer, forming a formidable shadow over the small teacup saucer.
The March Hare screamed, "It will fall over onto my plate if you don't put a pin in it!" pulling his ears down the sides of head with his paws, very much mimicking grabbing hair with hands in stress if he had any.
"Oh yes, that would ruin the fun," he said, just realizing the state of leaning the cake tower had gone into.
Hatter took some needles out of his pincushion wristband and stuck it in the cake. It seemed stationary enough as a butter and toast fly passed and sucked on a bit of the butter from the overflowing cream at the top of the stack. Its toast wings instantly regained its buttery coating.
"If you plan on sending that, I doubt he'll get the message and think you're trying to irritate him more. Who wants pins in their cake? Surely not the Queen of Hearts," spoke an annoyed voice.
The dormouse gasped, woken up from the commotion. Looking at the situation, his head lifted out of a purple teapot, he said sleepily, "Here we go again. Wake me up when September ends," going back in.
The mad hatter's frizzy hair glowed as if it had caught fire, glaring daggers at their new guest who joined in the middle of the tea party. He stabbed a spoon into the table, bending the metal into an uncanny angle. "Do my ears deceive me or did I hear some jagged note?!"
Hatter and the Queen of Hearts had always had their quarrels with the way each other did things, but they knew better to respect each other's boundaries when visiting the other's domains. Although it had been fair enough that the man offended time and her royal highness at her high court with his song while Time was present, the card soldier had no right bringing her name up without need.
If there was one unspoken rule at the ruleless tea party, it was 'Don't bring up things that ruffle feathers to those attending said tea party.'
The black spades card soldier, not knowing the rule of the establishment or being able to read the room, continued, "I said surely not the Qu- mpmh mpmh mm"
Cecelia had run across half the length of the long table to put a hand over the soldier's mouth, beckoning him to hush until he fell silent. Panting, she answered, "I think what he meant to say was that Time will tick upon eating that, but not in the way you wish. And surely not with a queue of tarts, isn't that right?"
With a hand no longer on his mouth, the card soldier nervously repeated, "Yes, yes. Not with a queue of tarts." While he usually was afraid of his queen beheading him, the playing card realized the ferocity the Hatter could have as well. No wonder the pair were always up in arms with one another in court.
The man with the expensive hat eyed them both suspiciously. He went back to his stacking with relative ease, "That'd be ridiculous! Tarts," he scoffed. "Why, this is much better."
As he put on the eighth layer, proud of himself for having the patience to make such a feat, he looked over at Alice at the end of the table, in her favorite swiveling wooden chair. She wasn't paying attention to anything at all, continuously prodding her cake and making swirls in the leftover cream with her fork.
"Alice, you're quieter than Dormouse. Your mind must be swimming. Pardon me, but do you think he'll accept this as an apology?"
She sighed, mindlessly chewing on a grape, "I don't think it matters. Endless cards, cakes, candles. You might as well send a balloon to fly and it will do the same as getting no reply."
"Hmph, that just won't do." He chucked the plate with the cake tower behind him, it landed with a splat on the bush, disappearing without a trace as the Infinite Maze gobbled up the mess with its continuously moving vines. "Maybe you've got the right idea. He'll have to listen if I send one of his precious pocket watches into the sky, unable to be read by even the accordion owls as there's no sheet music on them." He attached a miniature clock face to a balloon and sent it flying. "That will show him!"
The March Hare, the fellow house compatriot of the chaotic man, nudged his friend. "Can't you see that Alice isn't quite right today? She's got no funny bone in her, ever since you told her the time when she arrived."
The hat maker was confused. By any means, Alice looked the same. Well, minus her usual teasing of any riddle or question that he pulled out. "Have you lost your laugh?" he asked her, genuinely concerned.
"I had it this morning, but it slipped away," she mumbled, stacking tea cups on top of one another. She poured some tea through the top one and took the bottom one out of the pile, it being significantly cooled through Wonderland logic that way, a perfect temperature to drink.
"Sounds like we're packing for a house party," Cecelia said. Clapping her hands, she decreed, "Anyone who isn't part of the Hidden Cat Club, this place is temporarily out of order."
The card soldier went out first, followed by the rustling of some werebears and a herd of animals. The estranged mother closed the garden door and the Wonderland signs that typically pointed the opposite way of the tea party, now pointed towards it with an extra message saying, 'This Way to Grow'.
A smile appeared in thin air, followed by an ear and a furry tail, until a whole body immersed from the space. "Did I hear my specialty?" Cheshire sat on Alice's shoulders, his tail tickling her nose to get her to smile a bit before she brushed it away.
The Spanish speaking woman rolled her eyes, "Yes, gatito , your services are required. She's lost her laughter."
He put one paw to his mouth, acting absolutely shocked before putting back on his unnerving smile unbefitting of an Upper World cat. "You don't say?"
If anything, the cat was amused that the club he named was finally going to have its first house party, a private meeting if you will. He never expected that Cecelia would be the one to call it for Alice though. Losing laughter was a grave problem indeed, considering the bubbly was known to be able to find light anywhere, bringing it to them most of the time.
"Pass me your watch," Cecelia beckoned to Hatter, as he let her view the time. "Ah, I see when we are to have caused this upset."
The watch said it was April 14th, a time of Spring and festivities to all but the blonde young woman. For Alice, it was the anniversary of an ordinary day when things went bad, where nightmares of a scary witch came true and she was marked with a spiral on her wrist, the remnant of a powerful curse which separated her and her papa.
As if Cheshire could read her mind, the cat reappeared on the lady's shoulder as she whispered to him. "Dear me, her heart is jumbled up," he commented as she nodded. He reappeared on a branch of a tree nearby as Cecelia moved slowly towards the girl.
She put her arms around Alice's shoulders, hugging her from the one side as the arm rest was keeping them apart. "Honey, I know how much this day means to you. We'll get through this together."
Cecelia got her to put down the fork and ushered her into the March Hare's cottage. She mouthed to the others to follow and Cheshire gingerly scooped the Dormouse out of the teapot, still murmuring in sleep.
As they got to the couch, Alice laid her head on Cecelia's lap. The others sat around on the sofas in the living room. She combed her fingers through the girl's wavy tresses in hopes of comforting her as she had done to her daughters before. Alice looked up at the ceiling for a minute until her blue eyes met the older woman's soft brown ones, a kind gaze lingering on her as she waited for the girl to speak.
Alice asked, eyes shimmering and her voice breaking, "Do you suppose my papa's okay, wherever he is?"
The air grew tense as they knew she was talking about death, the thing that plagued all mortal beings. Cecelia cleared her throat and said without doubt betraying her, "I'm sure he is, considering he's a real fighter like you."
"A survivor as you always say. Maybe he is sailing on the seas now, hmm?" Cheshire booped Alice on the nose with a careful bean pad lest his claws caught her. "Always wanted to do that," he said with a sultry purr.
"Perhaps. I never saw him sail, but he always yearned for the ocean, painting and doodling the Jolly Roger often." The young woman continued, her demeanor very much like one of a flower or a teenager that never quite grew up, nostalgia bringing a gentle lilt to her voice, "Do you think when we dream, we truly see each other?"
The years had passed her by as she had scoured Wonderland with Cecelia on a search for the antidote on their matching curses, but they hadn't physically aged in the sense, not the same way as those in the Wish Realm or New Enchanted Forest did respectively on the top side. Alice had only noticed it when she went back from Wonderland how new things had appeared in the market and saplings had grown taller than her, even though she'd only been gone a few months. Of course, Wonderland's time was quite naturally the same as the top but not at the March Hare's. However, with the tea party as their base, their days were spent on an eternal afternoon which could count strokes of a calendar but 'Time never ticked by' as Hatter had put it.
"Possibly." The March Hare bit into a crumpet before looking puzzled. He knocked the griddle cake onto the coffee table, making a solid wood sound, so he chucked it out the broken window. He grabbed another and ate it, continuing with crumbs spilling down his vest, "Possibly not. Just like how one crumpet looks like the next, they ain't the same. We might be looking into another worldly version of ourselves."
"Or say we do, but then we forget," Hatter added, spreading some clotted cream and jam on his crumpet. "Who's to say we're not dreaming in this instance? It doesn't make it any less real, the feeling deep in your soul."
Alice sat up and nuzzled her head onto Cecelia's right shoulder, "Even if there was a cure, do you reckon Papa will welcome me with open arms? I'm not the little girl he left anymore," she said disheartened.
The older woman laughed, little lines wrinkling around her eyes as she said, "Sweetheart, it's normal to grow up and live a little. Maybe not all of Wonderland agrees, but here, our hearts can grow wide with love." She held one of Alice's hands and kissed it reassuringly, "There's not a day that goes by where I don't miss my husband and girls. Wouldn't you still love your papa if he got old, with some gray hairs like me?"
"Yeah, I suppose so," she said assuredly with a half smile. "Not one bit less and all the time more because he'd still be Papa to me."
"Then no more moping. Give yourself the chance to be happy and more," Cecelia said, tickling her shortly, bringing the girl into a fit of laughter. Before Alice could tell her to stop, the motherly figure pulled her into a bear hug, asking, "You think you've got your laughter back?"
Alice nodded, her eyes watering as the other members clambered around her, even Dormouse got up from his light sleep to join the group hug. Tears fell from Alice's eyes as she put her arms up to hug everyone else's arms. She had always been strong before, having only herself to rely on since Papa and her were cursed, whether trapped in the tower or freed from it. The physical and emotional support Alice didn't know she needed made herself feel overwhelmed in the best ways possible, knowing she was in good company.
"I guess I just didn't know what to do or how to react in company after learning what day it was." After a heavy sob, her chest heaving up and down, her lips quivering from trying to stop herself from crying, she said wiping her face, "I'm sorry for ruining the mood on this golden afternoon."
"No, nothing of the sort as golden hours last, but feelings don't. I should be the one sorry for not noticing earlier," the Hatter said.
"This is what the emergency club was made for," the Cheshire Cat chimed in. "We're not gonna let anyone feel sad alone."
The March Hare noted, "If you want, you get to decide what to do today. We could play hopscotch, watch a croquet game, or read 'Thyme for Rhymes' in the funniest voices we can muster," suggesting options in case she had lost her wit as well.
"I like the idea of the latter of them all," Alice replied, a giggle erupting from her at the absurd options. 'Thyme for Rhymes' was really a cookbook that happened to have some comedic poetry sprinkled throughout its less than helpful instructions. "Bet you guys can't name a single berry in that book."
"I can," the Dormouse said excitedly, "Snake Catroon Berry!"
"I think you mean Saskatoon berry," Cecelia corrected.
The mouse crossed his arms, "That's what I said, exaca- taca -ly," nearly falling back asleep again.
The group laughed, Cheshire putting him on the bookshelf to nap, before they followed the blonde adventurer into the kitchen to retrieve the aforementioned book. All of them made the most quaint noises as they read, sounding like old maids or animals, except for Alice, who mimicked many voices she could remember her papa made when she was small as he told his very real but tall sounding tales.