Interlude
A big rabbit-shaped stuffed animal was slumped against the wall. Its hair, once soft and bushy, was now all clumpy due to humidity. If the cuddly toy was squeezed into an embrace, it would have started dripping like a sponge.
Smothering a moan, the girl moved a bit and changed her position: the grooves in the floorboards had imprinted on her buttocks, leaving painful marks. Still, these marks were harmless when compared to those left by the handcuffs, but moving the arms was too risky: every time she tried to move the bracelets, the clatter caused by the metal against the heating made the man furious.
She would never have believed that such a small man could terrify her so much.
On the other hand, when she was wearing that blue dress and that black bow in her blond hair, he could be really soft. In that case, if he did not scare her anymore, he disgusted her with his sick stare, looking at her knees, wrists and throat.
She was an 'old Alice', he said, yet she was only sixteen years old.
The presence of the teddy made her cry, as she known: the teddy bear testified that younger children had been in this room before.
She could no longer swallow. When he had kidnapped her, she was wearing polish, a detail that had gotten him mad and she had to take it off. Without a nail polish remover, she had no choice but to nibble the lilac-colored layer, disgusted by the resin particles on her tongue and between her teeth.
As a result, her nails were now really damaged, but at least they were no longer a cause for anger.
Suddenly, a glass break sound has been heard behind the door, the one that led to the living room, and the girl almost screamed before biting her lips just in time: screaming was like rattling chains, the Hatter could not stand it. It did not fit his staging.
Without understanding, she heard her kidnapper shouting in rage from the other side, then noises of struggle. What was going on? The police? She doubted it: she was tied up in the entrance, right in front of the door — the exit she had been dreaming to use for four days —, so she would have seen them.
After a few moments, the living room door opened and a huge silhouette, crowned with two pics, appeared. The half-light turned it into some nightmare. The rustle of wings she heard came from everywhere and from nowhere at once. Were there bats in Alice in Wonderland? She could not remember.
Oh wait! Yes, she did! At the very beginning! The Hatter had made her read the book about thirty times to make sure she would know the lines by heart for the tea time, and this one came back to her mind:
"Do cats eat bats? ... Do bats eat cats?"
"It's over." Assured the bat in a tender voice. "You'll be fine, now."
Using the key, he opened the handcuffs and, with gentle moves, began to massage the victim's bruised wrists, warming the blood, perhaps checking the pulse at the same time.
After several minutes, Alice managed to get up and let the nocturnal animal carry her. If his cape had turned into real wings, she would not have been surprised. She would even have been delighted! Then they went through the front door and the rattling of the chain — which would have irritated the Hatter — was musical.
Chapter 2 – The labyrinth burrow
"We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look – what's going down?
We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look – what's going down?"
For What It's Worth – Buffalo Springfield
"Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life."
Stefan Zweig
Before being warned that the Joker had attacked the bank on Chesterfield Street, Batman had been told by Commissioner Gordon about a strange kidnapping: the headteacher of a middle school located in the northern of Sheldon Park had reported that one of her students was missing.
According to witnesses, five young girls were chatting on the sidewalk in front of the school, waiting for the doorbell to ring, but just before the watches indicated eight o'clock, one of the students suddenly turned back and walked away from the group without a word. A monitor had tried to call her back, believing it was an attempt to skip class, but the teenager had ignored him with surprising stubbornness.
Her hair color, her small height for her age, and her cell phone — which could send but also receive signals — were too many coincidences that lead them to think about Jervis Tetch's recent release.
Even if dawn was not a bat's favorite time of day, James Gordon contacted Batman who accepted to locate the source of the signal of the cellphone.
And the signal was displayed again on the Batmobile's GPS.
The vigilante was back on track.
"Bats, do you remember?" Joker asked, gesticulating. "Two years ago, do you remember? The Hatter had kidnapped a girl who was wearing nail polish. That loony thought she was provoking him, and she had to remove it with her own teeth! She nibbled her polish on her nails! Can you believe it? I do! The taste must have been disgusting!" Joker talked about it as a memory with friends. "Of course you remember, you were the one who saved her. Oh, I still see the pictures in the newspaper! Sure, everybody had cried, but you know what? The literati suffer a lot more. Aren't you going to ask me why? I'll answer you anyway: they could kill to get those rare editions of Alice in Wonderland and keep them away from the hands of that addict!"
Batman did not loosen his lips. As for him, he remembered a young girl with barely developed breasts, sitting and weeping next to a filthy teddy bear, traumatized by a man no taller than her who had called her a 'whore', blaming her for a crime she had not committed.
The Black Knight often thought about the victims of his enemies, and this one, like many, had moved him. He knew that when he came out of the apartment: this Alice-in-spite-of-herself will become a young woman trapped in a body that would change against her will.
"The Mad Hatter is sick. And if Arkham can't find a cure, then he'll stay there forever, never allowed to go out."
"Come ooon. If we all stay there, you'd be bored without us, Batsy."
No, he could be sleeping. Especially at this hour.
"If only all of you could give this town some peace sometimes."
"We don't always get what we want. Look at me!"
"You?"
"I'd kill for an ice cream right now, but I'm afraid my tongue will give you lustful ideas…"
Batman gave him a violent blow in the jaw.
Policemen, their feet in puddles that tried to rival the sea level, stood around an open manhole. Water was flowing inside in miniature rivers, filling the hollow void. A few more days of rain like this one and the sewers would be flooded.
The batmobile stopped a few meters away. The wheels were dripping so much that the rubber seemed to become liquid.
"Are you really going to leave me here?" Joker looked offended.
"You'd be a burden. Wait quietly in the car or I'll tie you on the roof and leave your seat to the Hatter."
"Do you even have a Bluray player in the batmobile? Cable? I'd like to see Wall-E again, that movie always makes me cry!"
"No."
"How about 101 Dalmatians? You know, that old Disney with Harvey Dent's aunt who wants to get a coat?"
The second refusal was translated by a door slamming and a locking noise.
"He truly thinks that his car is the best…?" Joker mumbled, looking at the dashboard. He taped his fingers on his lap, thinking about his favorite pastime: finding a way to kill boredom.
The policemen called Batman and gave him the more details they could about the situation.
First, the student had headed northwest of town. Patrols had checked the surrounding area, hoping to surprise Jervis Tetch, but they had found nothing. The girl had stopped in a waste ground to pick up a crowbar, then turned back, taking the same road but in reverse. The police felt puzzled. After a few kilometers, she had approached that manhole and had opened it with the crowbar.
Batman slowly nodded his head, his jaw tensed:
"Tetch is covering his tracks."
"And he knows that a whole patrol can't go through that manhole. You, on the other hand, could be able to follow her?"
Batman did not doubt it at all.
Under the admiration of the police, he slipped into the narrow conduit, showing remarkable agility. The smell of the water was powerful and every drop that burst was an autumn flower that opened. The water courses, despite being thin, were gnarled like roots, creeping everywhere, snaking towards the belly of the earth.
Batman stepped into the sewer's first corridor, wiping his wet face, and was surprised by the look of the tunnels: everywhere, from floor to ceiling, plants had bloomed in abundance, hiding every brick, every grate.
Batman then remembered that he had arrested Poison Ivy three weeks earlier here: she had made the sewers her refuge — perhaps she had been helped by Killer Croc for this time — so she could poison Gotham's biggest companies from underground.
The vigilante had to chase her through this maze that had already begun to bloom. But this morning, it was an underground greenhouse.
Although Batman knew of Poison Ivy's talents, he was still amazed: there were plants there that could never have survived in this dark environment without the botanist's help. On the ground, the moss was plentiful and soft, but foul-smelling. Mushrooms did not removed their caps of various shapes and colors for welcoming the intruder, still they shared their scent of forgotten humus. Above Batman's head, wisteria let its bunches hang, looking like garlands of purple and green. Ivy, respectful of its siblings, did not suffocate the plants around it: it was just multiplying its thick leaves, playing with the buds of the roses that scattered.
It was a real fairy-tale tunnel and, luckily, in the grass, there was mint: the stems, broken by the footsteps of the girl, bled with a powerful smell.
"Gordon, I'm following in the footsteps of the teenage girl, I'll get back to you as soon as I find her."
The commissioner's response was interspersed with sizzling.
"Gordon?"
This time there was only silence.
As Batman hung up, a jovial voice rose behind his back:
"Ivy has outdone herself! You know, the mayor should hire her to take care of the green spaces, don't you agree, Batsy?"
Joker.
Batman's fists clenched.
"You… snake."
"Have you noticed? You often associate me with phallic symbols!"
Actually, Batman associated his enemy with the reptile's ability to sneak out of any trap. If Bruce Wayne had been more religious, he would have even mentioned the fact that the snake represented evil, but since he disguised himself as a bat, a chaotic symbol, the remark would have been hypocritical.
He grabbed the Joker by the collar and pinned him to the wall, hanging him in the wisteria.
"What have you done to the policemen?!"
"They left right after you disappeared, Bats! There was no one left!"
Batman was forced to notice that there was no trace of blood on the clown's hands, which were still handcuffed by the way. How had he managed to get out of the batmobile?
"You know, I think your help makes the cops lazy: they just leave you to do all the work… Don't you have a trade union for flying mammals who are exploited? Don't you?"
Maybe Batman could knock him out and use a rope to hold him in the car seat? But before he could do that, he would have to fight the Joker, who was, even if handcuffed, a strong opponent.
And the mint trail would fade in a few minutes.
No, time was running too fast.
"I mean it: you look tired, Bats. I feel so sorry for you, so I'm going with you! My plans for today have been canceled, but hey, you already knew that."
"Go back in the car."
"No way! I want to be there when you scold the Hatter!"
Certain that he could control him in case of danger, Batman kept his cool and decided to endure the Joker's presence. However, he was not unaware of the danger:
"Listen to me, Joker: at the first suspicious gesture, I'll knock you out and tie you. I'll break both your arms and legs if I have to."
"But will you knock me down first so it won't hurt so much? You always had been big-hearted, Bats," the Joker approached, showing his twisted smile. "It'll lose you someday."
Without answering, Batman grabbed him by the arm and forced him to move forward.
"Won't you take these handcuffs off me? If I can be useful, I might as well be free to move."
"Nice try."
Batman let the criminal sulk.
To show his displeasure, Joker rattled his chains in an exaggerated way, but the nature that covered the tunnel muffled the echo. Another advantage of this garden.
There were green crossroads, corridors that unfolded into several lanes, but the path remained visible thanks to the neon lights that managed to shine.
"Batsy, I feel something in the air."
"It's the plants."
"Ah. Ah. Ah. That was a really poor joke, Bats, worse than Harley's. One more like that, and I'll kick your bottom. No, I was talking about something electric. Something gothamesque."
Batman sighed, trying to ignore him.
They walked for another five minutes, five minutes during which Joker tried to joke without tearing out the slightest grin, when the tunnel stopped: this end led to an exit three meters above. The ladder that allows the workers to reach the upper floor had been destroyed by the plants: its metal bones were twisted and had been thrown to the ground by the powerful ivy.
The footprints stopped here, however, the mint had been trodden upon, proving that the teenage girl had been there. Batman stepped forward and, with his fingertips, grazed the vines, looking for holds that could have been used by the victim, but the stems were intact.
Alice had not climbed this wall.
Joker rubbed his palms as he paces around the bat:
"Come on, detective, tell me what you're thinking about. Jervis could've waited for her with a rope or a ladder, but he's too delicate and lazy for that."
With a nod, Batman confirmed that he agreed with the clown: the Hatter would have come for Alice much earlier if he had wanted to welcome her himself, but he relied exclusively on the waves to hypnotize his victims while he remained in his burrow, luring them.
"Have you ever seen Shining, Bats?"
"What's your point?"
"You should see it: it's a film as cold as you, you should like it, but spoilers, big boy: at the end, the kid tries to leave his father behind in a snowy maze."
"But his footsteps leave traces in the snow…"
"Oooh, look how clever he is!"
Batman remembered that little Danny Torrance found the trick of walking backwards by placing his feet where he had crushed the snow. The idea was interesting.
"We didn't see where she could have turned, the smell of mint spreads too quickly. We have to go back."
At each crossroads, Batman inspected the surroundings, checking the flowers to confirm or disprove the Joker's hypothesis. He had no doubt that the idea would have come to him quickly, but the clown's brain, as sick as it was, had always shown a vivid imagination and, in this situation, it was an asset.
"There." Batman pointed to a fence with jasmine wrapped around the bars. The smell of the flower had made the mint's smell more discreet, but further, the peppery leaves betrayed the victim's passing.
Joker took the opportunity to make his handcuffs rattle, jumping on the spot:
"Since I've proved my good intentions, Batsy, can I become the new Robin and be free?"
"She didn't made it by herself: she has no freewill." Batman thought aloud to ignore the Joker's request. "This ruse was dictated by the Hatter, which means he knows we're still on track."
"We. You said we."
"Only for the grammatical form."
"Don't be shy, Batsy, no one can hear you here but me!"
And precisely, Batman would have liked not to hear Joker so much, but his enemy could monologue for hours: his jokes, the worst or the most abject ones, could have the effect of bad waves on thoughts, blurring thoughts and distracting.
Once again, thanks to the habits, Batman managed to ignore him, concentrating only on the track while the clown continued, singing and following the bat with long strides:
"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at! Oh wait, it must be… Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
"What are you trying to say?"
"Thinking about the password to get to the Mad Hatter! You know, if you want to meet him, you must know Lewis Carroll's works."
"I'll use another way."
"Right! With your fists, the good old way! Tell me, why have you picked the bat? The buffalo would've been perfect!"
Batman had no time for philosophy.
After a moment, he knelt down, analyzing the mint. He was certain: the smell was strong and fresh. Soon the Hatter would run out of time and he could not trick them with another trap.
In a quick movement, the chain of handcuffs passed in front of Batman's face. Surprised, he did not react fast enough and felt the steel rings against his throat.
Batman then raised his arms, looking for a hold to swing the Joker in front of him and knock him out, but as he grabbed his enemy's coat, the pair of handcuffs fell into the grass with a dull sound.
Batman saw the Joker's free wrists and heard him laugh:
"It was just a little joke, Batsy!"
Was there even a prison capable of holding the Joker back? Was there a way to hinder him without him being able to get out of the trap like a magician?
In anger, Batman got up, kicked the handcuffs away, and grabbed the Joker by the collar to lift him up. He pressed him so forcefully against the honeysuckle that the blood-drop-colored flowers shuddered. The gnarled stems were sinking into the clown's back; the relief of these nerves were oddly similar to the rigid backbone.
Accustomed to being lifted and punched by the dark knight, Joker clung to the arm, knowing the points of attachment that allowed him to fight against gravity, against the anger of the bat.
"Bats! I was joking! Bat—"
Batman's other hand pressed against his throat: it was not only to hurt him, it was mostly to make him stop laughing. No giggling, no chuckle. The vigilante needed silence.
"Quiet."
Joker tried to reply, but it was like he had lost his voice. A smile was all he could make. His teeth bite into his lower lip, a tic perhaps motivated by pain.
Gradually, his feet went down and finally touched the green lawn. The air, humid, was more intense than a few minutes before. Batman still grabbed the collar of the coat, ready to brutalize him again.
"You have no sense of humor, Bats, but don't be resentful too: I've asked you twice to take off the handcuffs. Even tied up, I'm dangerous, you know that."
"But still less dangerous than free. And more predictable, too: I suspected that you would end up trying to strangle me."
"Predictable? I've never been more insulted! Since I'm predictable, Bats, what did I plan for you this morning? Because I was close to succeeding, you know?"
Still holding the coat, Batman advanced in the corridor. He was certain that the other entrance to this fairy-tale burrow was only a few meters away. This story would soon be over: the Joker and the Hatter would be at Arkham and Bruce Wayne would be at his mansion to get some sleep — at last.
"I've only interest for Jervis' plans. Yours don't matter for now."
Joker shrugged.
The end of the road was marked by a damp light flooding the tunnel from a manhole. Waterfalls still streamed down, drowning a ladder whose rungs were hit by armies of drops. The regular sound seemed to resonate for all eternity.
Close to the exit, and thus to the surface, Batman managed to locate the spot they had reached on his forearm screen: they were on the west coast of the Bowery, the district where Jervis Tetch had set up his hat shop.
"So many detours for that!" Joker laughed when he saw where the bright spot was. "He knows how to drive us crazy, good old Jervis, a gift he shares with his favorite character."
"And with you."
The manhole was open but Batman had to be careful: he would have to pull himself up slowly to see what could be waiting for him and…
"What are you going to do, Bats? What are you waiting? Go! Fly to the rescue of Alice in the Distressland! Wait! Maybe it's risky: Jervis has never killed anyone, but you know how it is with paranoid schizophrenics: you make them a little angry and bam, they start doing stupid things!"
Joker always used endless speeches to express an idea or suggest a solution, and Batman did not have the time to listen to him, not even the will:
"What's your point, Joker? Tell me."
"What if I got out before you?"
'Why' was the first question that came to Batman's mind, but he knew that this kind of question never had an answer with Joker, so he opted for another approach:
"What do you get out of it? Do you have a score to settle with Jervis?"
"With Jervis?! Not at all! He never even touched Harley despite his obsession for young blondies. In fact, with the other inmates of the asylum, he's quite a nice little guy. He had offered flowers to Ivy once, and he may be the only man who did so without asking for her flowers in exchange."
Joker laughed, proud of his pun.
"You're only giving reasons to refuse, Joker: I don't want you to help him."
"Help him?! Your jokes are still that bad, Bats! Soon I'll have no other choice but kick that muscular butt or yours, but maybe that's what you're looking for? Come on, don't look so afraid, your ridiculous cape would stop me anyway." With a curiously friendly gesture, Joker leaned on the vigilante's shoulder. "Listen, Batsy: Jervis knows you're coming for him, so imagine his surprise if it's me who drops by instead of you? I'm not going to help him; I'm going to help you!"
Batman was tempted to push the clown away, but the clown hung on, whispering:
"You won't regret this, Bats."
The girl had just walked through the door. Although soaked to the bone, her body, totally under the influence of the hypnotist, did not tremble, obeying no rules of survival.
Jervis had put towels on the floor for Alice so she could dry herself. After that, she would put on her clean and dry blue dress.
The abandoned building was not really the ideal setting for a reconstruction of Lewis Caroll's universe, but for an artist like Jervis Tetch, nothing was impossible: he had exploited enough elements, like the checkerboard tiles and the wooden stairs, emphasizing their slightly outdated beauty. Damaged walls had been hidden by striped hangings, imitating Victorian wallpaper. In the center of the main room, the man had added a round table hidden by a large white tablecloth. Surrounded by wrought-iron chairs and armchairs, this installation completed the ambience of an English lunch in a garden.
The Mad Hatter had thought he could not do anything against the smell of humidity and dust, but the tea and cakes had granted his wish by distilling their perfume, followed, in a more discreet tone, by the two bouquets of roses on the table.
Once dressed in her costume, Alice took her seat and the Hatter grabbed the teapot to fill the cups.
"Alice, you were almost late, I thought my invitation had been lost!" He looked at the cell phone. Such a useful tool for hypnotizing from a distance! "But came the age when invitations can't get lost, don't you agree, Alice?"
He was babbling alone, giggling and waddling, when a knock against the door broke his good mood.
"Oh no… no, no, no, no…" Jervis grabbed a long knife and quickly examined the blade. "It was supposed to cut the cake, not a bat…"
The Hatter sneaked up to the wall and flattened himself against it, preparing for his attack. He pressed the handle and swung the door, using it as protection and to surprise Batman.
The guest's shadow was long and threatening, accentuated by two spikes that adorned his head.
"Am I late, Jervis?"
The hatter choked an exclamation. He leaned over and saw Joker, soaked despite his coat, with his hands on either side of his skull and his forefingers raised.
"Is there still room for the March Hare?"
