Fit the Third: The Melancholy

The skirts of her gown, gauzy as mist, trailed behind her as she marched down the alabaster halls of Marmoreal. Her slipper-pillowed step was a bit hastier than would normally be expected for someone merely accepting an invitation to tea.

She arrived at the room where the Dormouse, the March Hare, and the Mad Hatter sat, sipping from porcelain teacups. One wall of the room opened out to a luxurious garden.

"The right Alice (it is the right Alice this time, isn't it?) has joined us for tea," the Hare announced. "Though you are half-past too late. Or is it still a quarter 'til too early?"

"Early or late, Alice is always welcome," the Hatter retorted.

"But right on time just won't do."

"Ah, what you meant to say, dear Thackery, is that on the right time won't do justice."

A chair pulled itself (or some invisible servant pulled it) up to the table, and Alice took it.

"There he goes again: putting words in poor Thackery's mouth," the Dormouse chided.

"If that is the case," said the Hatter, "I do apologize. Besides, his is not the mouth I would most like to put words in. Alice has been gracing us with her presence for the better part of half a minute now, and has said nothing on the subject."

"What subject would that be?" Alice inquired.

"Why, your welcomeness, of course. Or, at the very least, your timeliness."

"I don't feel I have much say on the former, but as I did not know when I was expected, whatever time I come must be considered the right one."

The Hatter smiled at her. It was his dizzy, distracted smile. "Quite right. How do you take your tea?"

"One lump of sugar, no cream," she replied.

The tea was quickly provided, along with a scone with butter and jelly.

"It is curious to compare the similarities and differences between Underland and my world," she said conversationally. "On one hand, the tea is very much the same, and upon reflection it is remarkable that you speak a variety of English quite similar to that of England. But on the other hand, Underland has talking animals, giant flowers, and magic potions, whereas England, as far as I've heard, has none of these things.

"Your England doesn't know what it's missing out on," Mallyumkin declared.

"Perhaps. At any rate, I find the similarities far surpass the differences."

"Then perhaps your world and ours have never been as far apart as either side believes," the Hatter suggested.

Alice smiled warmly at his words. "I suppose not."

When tea was finished, the dishes and trays were cleared away from the table. Mallyumkin disappeared into a crack in the wall, and Thackery, after declaring that it was nearly teatime, dashed toward the kitchen.

"Tarrant, would you mind walking with me in the garden?"

"Mind? Dear Alice, though I have long since lost my mind, I have far more than half a mind to walk with you in the garden."

"Good." She offered him her arm, and waited stubbornly until he took it.

For a minute, they strolled along the garden path silently. Alice couldn't help but think about the night before the Frabjous Day, when Tarrant had come to her on the balcony with his top hat tucked under his arm. If a man had approached her like that in England, she would have thought he had come to court her, but here? She had no inkling of what the Hatter's intentions had been, or were. Had that been only friendship in his eyes that night in the Red Queen's castle?

"I don't suppose I will ever understand this world," she muttered.

"Do you understand your own, then?"

She reflected for a moment. "No, I can't say that I do."

"Then I wouldn't concern myself overly on that point if I were you."

"I've also found that, in this world and mine, mad or not, no one seems to say what they mean."

"I always say what I mean, but I don't always mean what I say. There is a difference, you see."

"Yes, I have seen. If I ask you a question, do you promise to answer it and answer it honestly?"

The Hatter hesitated for a moment, as if nervous of what she would ask, but then he smiled. "Of course."

Alice removed her arm from his and turned to face him. "Where is Mirana? What happened to her?"

"Mirana is here."

"If she were, she would have come to greet me, or at least I would have seen her by now. Everyone's acting as though she's still here, but she can't be. You promised to answer me honestly."

"I promised to answer one question honestly; you asked two. The Queen is here."

He took her hand and led her back into the palace. They went to an empty room, where he opened a hidden panel, revealing a spiral staircase made of stone. The staircase climbed to the top of a tower, where two guards stood in front of a door. They exchanged looks with Tarrant, then stood aside, allowing them both to pass.

The room they came to was mostly empty. It had a window looking out over the land, a tapestry on one wall, a table set with a variety of sweets (all untouched), a hedgehog playing a harp, and a chair, in which sat the White Queen, staring toward the window with an expressionless face.

"As for what happened to her, that I can't answer," the Hatter whispered sadly.

Alice approached the chair. "Hello Mirana," she said.

The Queen did nothing to indicate she'd heard her. When Alice got close enough, she stooped down and looked Mirana closely in the face. Mirana made no movement other than the rise and fall of her breath and the occasional blink.

"How long has she been like this?"

"Weeks," he answered. "She was found like this one morning. She was her usual self at breakfast, but by the time she got to her throne room, she was like this. All her friends and physicians tried their hand at rousing her, but nothing has. The Red Queen's reign is still fresh on everyone's memories, so we decided it would be best if news of her condition did not leave the palace. It could cause panic throughout the queendom."

"I see. Does anyone have any idea what might have caused it?"

"Poison," Tarrant said with a shrug in his voice. "When the dishes from her last breakfast were cleared away, this note was found stuck to the bottom of her plate." He lifted a tiny slip of paper from the table and handed it to Alice.

The paper was pale green, with faint pink roses printed around the edges. In the middle, in rather untamed cursive, was written a sort of poem:

There is a sadness
Akin to madness,
A restless
Desolation.

"No one recognizes the hand," he added.

Alice looked at Mirana. "This is why I was brought here?"

"Come. We think it's best not to speak too much of this in front of her." He took her arm and gently tugged her out of the room.

"Since she fell ill," Tarrant explained as they descended the staircase, "Mirana's physicians have tried every cure they know, no matter what diseases those cures were meant for, and her scholars have been pouring over books in the royal library. One of the doctors mentioned that it just seemed the light inside her had gone out, and that comment sent the scholars running back to the library in search of an ancient tome. It seems there's a beast that's quite handy at striking a light, and happens to go well with greens. A committee of all the Queen's physicians, scholars, and cooks decided the one sure cure is snark salad, with basil, cranberry, and walnut, dressed with herb-infused olive oil. Such a dish, they all declare, will not fail to break our beloved Queen of this debilitating bleakness."

"Did they try it?" Alice inquired.

"Uh, no. There's just one problem: snarks are notoriously hard to catch."

"So...where do I come in?"

A troubled look crossed Tarrant's white face for an instant. "Everyone seems to be quite convinced that if anyone can catch a snark, it's the champion who slew the Jabberwock."