Author's Note: The italicized section is meant to be confusing. There is a method (I think) to my writing, and, I hope, through this snippet and others to come to offer you insight into a character that is very loosely based upon a character in Through the Looking Glass (the name is really the only connection). Of course, the snippets are intended to eventually add up to something relevant :-D
Thank you for reading, and enjoy!
1
We are all born for love … it is the principle of existence and its only end.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Rumors always persisted that the first warden of the prison hanged himself, an act which apparently warranted memorializing Audley Aberdeen's inglorious demise by renaming the prison 'Aberdeen's Gate.' However the prison earned its namesake, it was, ultimately, irrelevant. What mattered was that Aberdeen's Gate was my home.
My mother gave birth to me within the walls of the Queen of Hearts' most infamous prison and then died shortly thereafter. For lack of creativity, they named me Red for my father, who was called Martigan Red. At the time of my birth, he was not dead, but, to my knowledge, he never saw me, and I never saw him. He, like the other unfortunate prisoners of Aberdeen's Gate, was used for experiments. Experiments ended in one of two manners: death or insanity. Though no one ever told me his fate, I preferred to believe that Martigan Red died, for insanity meant the Great Vault, and the Great Vault was both the nightmare and the hell of Aberdeen's Gate.
I knew little of the Great Vault except that it was a place of unspeakable horror where the deranged were tested upon without regard to even the barest semblance of morals. I did not necessarily fear the Great Vault; I merely avoided it and often tried to pretend it simply didn't exist. Unlike my mother and father, I was not exactly a prisoner. I had neither fought on the side of the Resistance, as they had, nor had I committed some fault or crime against the Queen of Hearts. I had, in fact, only the misfortune of being born to inmates. As such, I possessed a larger cage, though it was a cage all the same. My leash did not extend beyond Aberdeen's Gate, but I was not confined to a single cell. However, I was experimented upon; that much was true. But the children of prisoners were subjected to relatively harmless tests – tests that were so much a part of my life that I did not question them. Indeed, it all seemed a natural part of being because it was the only life I knew. My entire world existed within the walls of Aberdeen's Gate.
Yet despite the prison's infamy, Aberdeen's Gate was only one piece of the Queen of Hearts' seemingly infinite cruelty – a piece about which the people of Wonderland were remarkably ignorant. No one understood the prison's true nature. No one understood the queen's purpose and any inkling of understanding died in the fire that consumed the prison. After the fire, Aberdeen's Gate was forgotten, as were those people imprisoned there … as were those people who perished there.
But I did not forget; I never would. I would never forget losing the man I loved, and I would never forget losing the infant son I'd never been allowed to hold.
As Alice rummaged through the closet for whatever it was she felt she needed for their return to Wonderland, Hatter studied the strange riddles and rhymes – his riddles and rhymes. He recognized the script. He had definitely written all that rubbish. The problem was he didn't actually recall writing it.
"Why's a raven like a writin' desk? (1)" Hatter read the bizarre question aloud. It was a riddle that appeared on the wall several times. "What's that even supposed to mean?" He looked over his shoulder. Alice was crouched in front of the closet, tossing random items aside as she searched through the mess that was the bottom of their bedroom closet, a mess that was courtesy of Hatter. He kept all that was visible within the apartment neat enough, but when it came to closets and drawers, he collected enough junk to be the envy of the most seasoned of pack rats, a term Alice used to describe him on more than one occasion. Though Alice complained of his penchant for collecting what she called "garbage," she humored him because she understood he simply found so many things about her world rather amusing.
Alice paused in her work, looking more than a bit frustrated. "Do you really need all these hats?"
Hatter shrugged; it often bothered him that he'd had to part with his own hat – a hat that's design wasn't exactly fit for everyday wear in Alice's world. Over the course of his time here, he'd managed to – rather reluctantly – accept what Alice called a "baseball" hat because that was what many of the employees wore to the construction site before donning their hardhats. And, ultimately, it was Hatter's goal to blend into the Oyster world as much as possible for Alice's sake, though she'd never actually asked him to act or dress in any particular way. At this point, he still thought baseball hats looked funny, and he'd managed to acquire quite a few in the hopes of finding one he genuinely liked … along with countless other hats that went by bizarre names like homburg, fedora, trilby, beret, gatsby, cowboy, boater, bucket, and panama.
"You can't answer a question with a question," Hatter pointed out as he avoided defending his acquisition of so many hats, which was a conversation they'd already had several times before anyway.
"I don't know what it means," Alice replied before she returned her attention back to the closet. After a moment, she announced, "Here it is." As she stood, Hatter noticed she was holding his hat. Alice brushed off the bit of accumulated dust before turning toward him and closing the small distance between them. When she stood close to him, she reached up and placed the hat upon his head. "If we're going back to Wonderland I think you need this."
Of course, the hat certainly wasn't going to do either one of them a damn bit of good, but the thought touched him nonetheless. "Thanks, Alice," he said as he somehow felt a bit more like himself despite everything that was clearly not right with him.
Alice offered a fleeting smile, leaving Hatter to realize how very much he missed her smile. Over the past few months, Alice's smile had become a rare occurrence, though, obviously, Hatter understood why that was the case. He didn't smile much either because, honestly, neither one of them really had a great deal to smile about these days.
"Well," Alice began, "I'm going to change." She glanced down at the simple dress she'd worn to meet her mother for lunch. It was reminiscent of the dress she'd worn when she and Hatter first met. "I'm not up for running around Wonderland in a dress and heels again."
"Right," Hatter said as Alice, regrettably, stepped away from him. Smiles aside, intimacy had been another aspect of their relationship sorely lacking over the past couple of months. Naturally, it was due to his condition or illness or whatever it was. The increasingly frequent and crippling headaches left little opportunity for … well, for other things.
Not to mention the fact that he was going out of his bloody mind. That certainly didn't help.
Hatter watched as Alice grabbed a long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes before heading across the hall for the bathroom and leaving him alone in the bedroom. When the bathroom door closed, Hatter turned back to the writing that plastered the walls. He continued studying the riddles, wishing that he could make sense of it … wishing that he could at least remember writing it, considering it had happened only a few minutes earlier.
Besides the peculiar question about the raven and the writing desk, the numbers 10/6 (2) appeared more than a few times. That, however, at least meant something to Hatter, despite his inability to recall writing the numbers. By the way people in Alice's world used a calendar, ten signified the month and six signified the day, and October sixth was the day he'd ventured through the Looking Glass, leaving his world and everything he knew behind.
Today was the thirteenth of October. So, he'd left Wonderland over a year ago … well, at least over a year ago in Oyster time, which he knew didn't necessarily match the flow of time in Wonderland.
Then, there was the sixteenth of October (3). That was the day he'd found Alice.
"I missed you."
Professing that had been tantamount to admitting he loved her … if, of course, his decision to follow her hadn't stated that fact plainly enough. Simply put, Hatter did not miss people. Due, in part, to the lifestyle he'd lived in Wonderland before Alice's arrival, Hatter never allowed attachment – the sort of attachment that led to missing. That kind of sentiment never amounted to anything good, at least in Hatter's experience … at least in his experience before meeting Alice.
That aside, Hatter realized that the sixteenth signified his and Alice's first day together, or, he supposed, the day they began "dating," as Oysters called it. And Hatter had come to learn that Oysters viewed anniversaries as important events, especially women Oysters. Since learning the significance of that particular date several months earlier, Hatter had considered – quite frequently, actually – what exactly he should do to celebrate that day, which was different from every other day because it meant something to them. He'd debated just asking Alice, but decided against it and instead relied on the advice of the Oysters he worked with and the Oysters who were friends of Alice's and thus, by default, friends of his. He'd even asked Alice's mother. Naturally, Carol thought it was more than a bit odd that Hatter would question her about what he ought to do for his and Alice's anniversary more than six months prior to the date. Still, she overlooked it as she overlooked so many of his quirks and had told him that it was impossible to buy for Alice and that he could save himself the headache by simply purchasing a card and flowers.
Well, Hatter didn't much care for that suggestion, though he thanked Carol all the same. At best, Carol's advice seemed … impersonal. First off, he didn't understand the concept of cards, which, inevitably, ended up in the trash. And flowers … well, flowers died … and then ended up in the trash right alongside the cards.
Then, Hatter had considered simply taking Alice to dinner, which was another popular suggestion. But that just hadn't seemed right somehow.
So, there was jewelry. Thus, one day, he'd spent a few hours at a jewelry store. Hatter had no doubt that the saleswoman thought he was bloody daft, and she'd been visibly annoyed when he failed to purchase anything after wasting so much of her time. Still, he just didn't imagine that Alice would fancy any of the trinkets he'd seen.
Yet despite his initial uncertainty about the entire decidedly foreign event – among all the other issues plaguing him – Hatter had finally concluded that there was only one gift he could possibly give Alice.
As Hatter forced himself to abandon any hope of understanding the riddles and rhymes decorating the walls of his and Alice's bedroom, he opened the top drawer of his dresser and sifted through the contents until he found the particular item for which he was searching.
The item was, in fact, a piece of jewelry – a necklace, actually. But, unlike the pieces at the jewelry store, this necklace meant something. However, Hatter didn't know what it meant, exactly. All he knew was that he'd owned the vibrant, teardrop shaped ruby pendant with its plain black ribbon necklace since before he could remember. No one, his mum included, ever explained the ruby's origin or its significance, but, somehow, Hatter suspected it was important. Obviously, he couldn't explain that suspicion, and he didn't try to explain it. Instead, he only endeavored to keep the ruby nearby, which was why, when he'd abandoned so many other material possessions, he refused to leave the ruby in Wonderland.
He ran his thumb along the face of the ruby, knowing he wanted Alice to have it. But when he heard the bathroom door open, Hatter slipped the ruby into his pocket and turned just as Alice appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.
"We should go," she said.
"Yes," Hatter returned. "No use waitin', right?"
Alice shook her head. "No," she agreed.
Hatter hesitated. "You don't have to go, Alice."
"I know I don't," Alice replied. "But I am. We're going to figure this out, Hatter. Together," she added.
The way she emphasized that single word was, Hatter knew, the same as Alice admitting she loved him.
Strange then, Hatter realized, that neither he nor Alice had ever actually said the words.
Author's Notes:
(1) – Why is a raven like a writing desk? – The Mad Hatter asks Alice this notable riddle at the tea party. Alice gives up, and the Mad Hatter admits he doesn't know the answer either. Originally, Lewis Carroll never intended for the riddle to have an answer.
(2) – 10/6 are the numbers on the card traditionally seen on the Mad Hatter's hat. 10/6 means ten schillings and six pence, the price of the hat in pre-decimalized British money and acts as a visual indication of the hatter's trade. Obviously, I've taken the liberty of changing the meaning.
(3) – I have no idea how many days passed between Alice falling back through the Looking Glass and her reunion with Hatter. So, I chose the sixteenth based on adding 10/6 together.
I also want to thank everyone who reviewed the previous chapter. I truly appreciate the kind words, and I take each review as the highest of compliments. Thank you!
And I apologize if it seems a bit odd that neither Hatter nor Alice have actually said, "I love you." It's simply my interpretation for this story. Neither one of them strikes me as the kind of people who readily admit love and, rather, prefer to let actions speak louder than words.