Disclaimer:

Said Absolem to Mally as they went to school one day,

'Have you finished yet that story that you started late last May?'

Said Mally back to Absolem, 'Your memory's all array,'

'It wasn't May, 'twas actually March, though that seems long ago,

I planned it well, and was upset, and understand'bly so,

When late that March I lost my work when my USB broke.

'I had to start again, my friend, I think it drove me mad,

Of course you nagged me half the time to upload what I had,

But that is not the way I work; be it good or bad.

'It's finally coming to a close, and though I think I'll miss it,

I'm kind of glad – I'm running out of nonsense to put in it –

Of course I'm speaking of – all the disclaimers that begin it.'

CHAPTER TWELVE – A USE FOR ISOLDA

At the start of the fourth day, Mallymkun was beginning to lose what little sanity she had left. However, she felt that this was a reasonable response from anyone who had just spent the past three days trekking through a dimly lit forest searching for lost, naïve, and completely hopeless friends, who could have by now been kidnapped or injured or eaten or – don't think about it – with only a lovesick boy and an irritatingly perfect girl for company. And neither Pig nor Isolda were exactly helping her look for Edith or Tarrant; they spent most of their time crashing through the undergrowth after her, alternating between complaining about the weather and the soreness of their feet, and respectively offering and refusing to give unconditional love.

So when Mally caught the sound of a familiar voice on the breeze, she thought she must have finally cracked.

'Edith?' she called, for what felt like the three-hundredth time, her throat sore. 'Edith?'

She pattered about in a circle, peering through the trees and bushes around her, holding her breath and straining to listen.

'… And a voice like the soft winds of pure melody,' Pig sang off-key as he followed an indifferent Isolda onto the path behind Mally, 'how can I make you understand that you were made for me?'

'Really, Pigmeckun, princesses don't marry kitchen boys –'

'Shut up, both of you!'

They fell silent instantly, cowed by the glare she summoned up – a glare fiery enough to bring down the legions of hell.

'Edith?' Mally called again.

There was silence, then a faint voice came from the left.

'Mally? Is that you?'

Unspeakable relief washed over the Dormouse.

'Of course it's me, you great stupid lump of a girl,' she laughed, scurrying towards the direction of Edith's voice. She suddenly found herself met halfway by a young Squirrel nearly twice her size and skidded to a halt.

The Squirrel looked down at her with a grin as Mally's jaw dropped.

'Edith?'

'Hullo, Mally.'

She was lifted into a stifling hug and then released back onto the forest floor, dazed.

'Leave you alone for half a minute, look what happens, you get yourself turned into a Squirrel,' Mally choked, overcome by the strange desire to burst into hysterical laughter at Edith's twitching nose and bushy tail. Then she noticed what she was wearing, and couldn't hold back the giggles. 'What – what are you …?'

'What? Oh.' Edith looked down at the hideously violent pink frock she was squeezed into. 'The Hatter made it. Apparently it was the only fabric he happened to have on him.' Something in Edith's voice told Mally that she was more than a little sceptical of this. 'And apparently even when you're a Squirrel you have to wear clothes. Something about it being a sign of intelligence.'

'Well, yes, if McTwisp saw you he'd probably keel over,' said Mally, recovering. 'Besides, how would you like it if humans went around stark – didyousaytheHattermadeit?'

'I … what?' Edith blinked, obviously struggling to decipher Mally's suddenly mangled sentence.

'You've seen the Hatter?'

'Oh, oh, yes; he's –'

There was the sound of crunching twigs and grumbling voices, and the bushes parted once more as Tarrant Hightopp arrived on the scene; absorbed in listening to the blue Stone cupped in his hands. He looked up, and his eyes fell on Mally, widening in surprise.

'Mallymkun?'

'Hatter!' She wished she could hug him. 'Where have you been?'

He seemed to fumble for words, his eyes still wide and slightly bewildered, looking from her to Edith and then to Pig and Isolda hovering in the background.

'Good heavens,' he managed. 'Where did you all come from?'

Mally noticed the Stone in his hands was emitting the faint grumbling voices, but before she could wonder at that the sight of the Stone stirred something else her mind, and she remembered that she was angry with him. She wished she could slap him.

'Hatter!' she shouted, and he took a step back from her. 'WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? You left us! You just ran off when we needed you!'

'Oh no,' he said pleadingly, 'no, no, Mally, please understand, I knew you were – I would never have –'

'And I've been looking for you for DAYS, worried out of my skull – and – and YOU!' she hollered, turning on Edith now, who also stumbled back in utter shock at the suddenness of it all, 'you think it's all very amusing to wander off into the dark, don't you? "Ooh, look at me, I'm a Squirrel now!" Well, did you ever consider that maybe I was trying to find you?'

'Well, I didn't think …'

'No, I suppose you didn't!' Mally finished crossly, folding her arms and glaring at the pair of them.

There was a very awkward silence. Edith fidgeted, the Hatter seemed to be in shock, and Mally shifted on the spot, breathing heavily.

'Well,' said Isolda sweetly, 'at least we're all together again, aren't we?'

'Don't get any ideas about a group hug,' Mally snapped without turning around. She took a deep breath. All these outbursts couldn't be good for her. 'Now. Shall we go and find dear Alice?'

'Well,' began the Hatter somewhat tentatively, 'the Stone hasn't exactly been cooperating. It talks, you see.'

'I noticed,' said Mally dryly.

'Ooh, get off your high horse, young Dormouse!' sniffed a crabby old voice from the Stone.

'I'm beginning to lose patience,' she frowned, trying not to think that she was back-chatting a rock.

'You're beginning to lose patience? I'M beginning to lose patience!' shrieked another voice, making everyone wince at its grating pitch. 'The indignities we've been subjected to!'

'Bundled up and carried like a common garden pebble!'

'Slithered over!'

'Stolen.'

'Dropped!'

'Drooled on!'

'Stolen back!'

'We've been passed from person to person like a game of Pass the Parcel!'

'Please,' said the Hatter, trying to soothe them, 'lower your –'

'FOR THE LAST TIME, MAN, I WILL NOT LOWER MY VOICE!'

'Decrescendo!' tittered a little girl.

'Crescendo!' squawked another.

'What are they doing?' cried Isolda, clapping her hands over her ears as the voices began to build up into an all out shriek-fest.

'What they've been doing rather a lot, I'm afraid,' sighed Tarrant.

'Allegro!'

'Ritenuto!'

'Rallentando!'

'Rallentando? Tarantallegra!'

'SPEAK ENGLISH! I don't understand half those long words, and what's more, I don't think you do either!'

'They're worse than the two of you put together!' shouted Mally over the growing racket, plugging her own ears, nodding at Tarrant and Edith.

'Some people have too much pepper, that's the problem,' Pig muttered in the background, barely audible over the screaming.

'The train is about to jump a brook! Steady on!'

'Four fifty to Flitwick! All aboard!'

'I thought it was Paddington?'

'Ah! Flitwick's little brother! It's me, a clown!'

'Clowns are terrifying.'

'Especially ones with A TEARAWAY FACE!'

'Oh, do shut up!'

'No, you shut up!'

'YOU FIRST!'

'YOU FIRST!'

'I SAID IT FIRST!'

'THERE MUST BE OTHER FACTORS!'

'YOU DON'T HAVE ANY!'

'NONSENSE!' Isolda shouted.

The Stone fell silent. Everyone turned to stare at the young woman, who was standing fist-clenched, her cheeks coloured the same delicate shade of rose pink as her dress.

'It's all nonsense,' she said decisively. 'I want to know which way we're meant to go and I want to know now!'

Mally saw her foot twitch, as if she was trying hard not to stamp it.

There was a very tense silence as everyone's gaze went from Isolda to the Stone and back again, waiting with held breath.

'Well. You're facing the wrong way to begin with,' said a little girl's voice meekly. 'You'll have to face north-east.'

'Then straight ahead for some time, if you please, miss,' added a young man.

Isolda smiled a sickeningly gracious smile.

'Thank you,' she said, with a superfluous nod of the head, then gathered up her skirts daintily and turned north-east, (seeming to instinctively know which way that was).

'Oh, and mind the creek ahead,' called the voice of an old woman, 'you'll want go left up it forty paces to cross where it's shallow.'

Mally realised her mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a snap.

Edith looked like she was torn between jealousy and begrudging respect, and the Hatter's eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets as Isolda floated between the two of them, leading the way.

'Are you all coming?'

Immediately Pig threw himself after her, trying to express so much admiration at once that his mouth was only capable of spitting mangled half-sentences.

'You … the most wonderful – and I've never – how did you – it almost – oh my … You melt even the hearts of stones, my sugar-sprinkled cream puff!'

Mally groaned to herself as she trudged after the still shocked Hatter and Edith, rubbing a hand over her face. There would be nothing in the world capable of shutting Pig up after this.

'O 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!'

Pig was still singing, (unfortunately, quite literally singing), Isolda's praises three hours later, and as much as Tarrant had previously liked the boy, he was finding the madly-in-love version of him more than slightly intolerable.

'I'm certain he wasn't this much trouble as a lad,' he complained to Mally as he walked in the head, as far from the others as possible without going out of range of Isolda, who was now the only one who the Stone consented to be held by. 'He was a bright young thing, but not so … giddy.'

'Yes. Well,' said Mally shortly, 'people in love can be …'

'Hard to understand?'

'Infuriatingly thick,' she said, and smiled up at him tightly.

'Thick?' he said, non-plussed. Mally was perched on his shoulder, swaying slightly with every step he took. Every step he took closer to Alice, he realised with a sudden thrill of anticipation.

'Yes,' he heard her continue, 'a little too infatuated to see what's staring them right in the face. Or sometimes what's going on around them.'

'Mm-hmm,' he nodded vaguely. Would she look any different to the last time he had seen her? How old was she now? The last time he had seen her was the July about three months or so after her thirtieth birthday …

'You know, it's a good thing there's no tea here. If Pig had to pour a cup it would probably overflow because he'd be too busy gazing at Isolda's face while she talked. And then he'd flap his arms about and fall over himself apologising and put his elbow in the vanilla slice. And then poor, dear Isolda would laugh her pretty laugh and wash a hanky and help him clean the cake off his jacket.'

Jackets … vanilla … Tarrant nodded again in a non-committed sort of way.

'Yes, it's a good thing there's no tea here.'

'Tea?' He looked down at her. When had they started talking about tea? Mally looked back at him, arms folded, both amused and irritated.

'Yes, Tarrant,' she said softly, 'tea. You really are hopeless.'

Tarrant stared at her, wondering what he had missed. He smiled, confused.

'You do say the strangest things sometimes, Mally.'

The Dormouse sighed and didn't reply.

'Mally,' he said tentatively. She looked up.

'Yes, Hatter?'

'What am I going to say to her?' he said, his voice hushed.

'Alice? I don't know,' she replied, shrugging her shoulders. He suddenly noticed how tired she looked.

'You need rest,' he said, glancing down at her in concern.

She just laughed, 'I'll only get it when this mess is all over.'

'It nearly is,' said Tarrant, marvelling at the statement, 'it nearly is. The Stone said we were nearly there – five minutes or so. Five minutes or so, and we'll see Alice again; really, Mally, can you imagine it? That Stone's been leading me around in circles all this time. If only the girl had come along sooner,' he said wistfully.

'What, so that you could have Alice all to yourself first just like you planned?'

He flinched instinctively at her tone.

'Mally … I …' he looked down at her again, and happened to catch such a miserable look on her face for half a second that his stomach curled before the expression was swiftly erased. 'I'm sorry about what happened with the creature. I did follow; I looked to make sure you were safe –'

'Didn't exactly come to our rescue though, did you? When we needed you? When I needed you –' she dropped his gaze, rubbing a hand over her face tiredly. 'We … we used to be such good friends. Do you know,' she said, looking up fiercely, 'I'd do anything for you. I would have saved you.'

'I've never been under illusion that you needed saving, Mally,' he said, smiling amusedly.

'That's not the point!' she cried suddenly, throwing her arms in the air, and he blinked in surprise, edging his head back from her. She exhaled sharply again, and turned back to him, trying to make him understand. 'Has Alice ever needed saving?'

He chuckled at that, 'No.'

'But you've always saved her.'

'That battle was different, Mally, I had to interfere or she would have … That was helping, not saving.'

'Other times, I mean. Over all these years.'

'I don't …' he was completely confused now. 'There hasn't been any danger or …'

'Oh, Tarrant, don't you see? There was no battle or danger it was just … problems. When she had problems she'd always come to you.'

He had stopped walking now, and Mally was looking up at him, her dark eyes bright.

'When there something with the company, some situation she didn't know how to handle; or someone she didn't like who she had to get along with for the sake of her job; all those worries she had about her sister's husband; the arguments she had with her family – she always talked to you.'

'Mally, that's just advice –'

'But don't you see what I mean?'

He shook his head, bewildered. She stared at him in frustration, in disbelief.

'You saved her just by being there. I think … I think she felt adrift sometimes. But you were always there. Waiting,' she said, and he almost caught the bitterness in her voice.

He stared at her for a moment, unsure of what she was trying to say.

'That's not saving. Not the kind you were talking about.'

'Then what are you doing right now?' she said quietly. 'You're trying to save her right now, aren't you?'

'But you and her, Mally, you're different. That's … that's different.'

'Exactly. If it was Alice being chased by some great beastie, you'd drop everything and run for her, ready to mow it down with half a broken teapot and a tin platter and a few pins.'

He opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off.

'But I would have saved you. Can't you understand why that …' she seemed to struggle to get the words out, fumbling, 'why that might hurt me?'

It wasn't easy for her, he knew, talking like this. He had been friends with her long enough to know that she didn't open up easily. Which was probably why she was being so confusing.

'Mally,' he said gently, 'please don't compare yourself to Alice, or to anyone else. I think … I believe you know why I've always had a tendency to – to 'save' Alice, even when she hasn't needed me to. You're my very close friend. I know that you've noticed that I – how I feel about her.'

'I have,' said Mally slowly, seeming to choose her words carefully. 'And sometimes … I worry that – I mean, it's always been a worry … I've seen you crash hard when she isn't around, and what if–'

'Please, don't.'

'What if you get to this place and find out she's –'

'I'm trying hard not to think about it,' Tarrant confessed.

'Even then … I suppose, if I'm honest,' said Mally, not meeting his eyes, 'I'm a little worried you'll just forget me once you skip off into the sunset with Alice.'

Tarrant stared at her once more, taken aback.

'Mally, I don't think either me or Alice could ever forget you. You wouldn't let us, now, would you?' he teased lightly, bobbing the shoulder she sat on so that she laughed, taken by surprise. 'You're like a little sister to me,' he added sincerely.

She stopped laughing abruptly, her ears turning faintly red.

'Mally?'

She was silent for a moment, then said in a very small voice, 'Thank you.'

'I'm sorry,' he said, feeling his own cheeks redden, 'I didn't mean to embarrass you.'

'You haven't embarrassed me, Tarrant,' she murmured, avoiding his gaze again.

He cleared his throat.

'I don't think there'll be any sunsets with Alice anyway,' he said.

'There – there won't be?'

'No,' he attempted a rather weak smile.

'But … I don't understand, I thought you were going to tell her when we found her!' The Dormouse looked more than a little thrown. 'You kept talking about finding her first and explaining, I thought you were going to make a big love confession or something!'

'I … I've already tried that,' he admitted uncomfortably. He looked down at her. She was frozen, gawking at him.

'You what?'

Before he was forced to explain, Pig, Isolda, and Edith emerged from the bushes behind them, having caught up.

'… And vinegar makes people sour, camomile bitter, and pepper, hot-tempered, like you, Edie,' Pig was saying with much waving of the hands and twisting back to look down at Edith as he walked.

'Don't call me "Edie",' she said, sending him a trademark glare as she shoved parts of the bush out of the way with vengeance.

It didn't wither him as much as it was obviously meant to; the older boy winced and picked her up cheerfully as she reached him. She stiffened immediately, staring at him with such ferocity and anger that he thought better of it and set her down right away.

'Isolda does.'

'And Isolda is on my "To Kill" List. And don't touch me,' she added with another glare. 'My hot temper does not come from overdosing on peppers. Only from spending time with scuts like you.'

'And now barley sugar,' said Pig, giving Edith up as a lost cause, 'barley sugar makes people sweet. Like you, Isolda. You must eat a lot of it.'

Isolda turned in a little swirl of skirts and said her sweetest voice, 'What's barley sugar?'

Edith snickered.

Pig turned bright red.

'What other wisdom do you have to share with us, oh culinary genius?' Edith said as she passed him.

'Just that mustard bites like flamingos,' Pig shrugged.

Edith gave him an odd look then sped up to stand beside the Hatter.

'You're being very sarcastic,' observed Mally.

'Only around them. They make me sarcastic,' she protested. 'And I hate being a Squirrel.'

'Seven feet ahead, around the bend,' said a voice from the Stone from Isolda's hands suddenly. 'Can't miss it.'

The Hatter began to walk again, following the path this time. He saw Edith hurrying along at his feet and sped up the tiniest bit. Anticipation fluttered in his stomach, which suddenly felt hollow. When was the last time he had eaten? No matter. He could eat later, with Alice, in Tea Party Clearing. With Alice, with Alice, with Alice. He was going to see Alice again. He felt like he was in some kind of dream which he hadn't yet woken up from.

'Wait for us!' called Pig behind him. There was a squeal from Isolda.

'I don't need you to hold my hand; I can find my own way seven feet up the path!'

'I'm sorry! It's just that they're going to leave us behind –'

'Oh, you stupid boy, they are not going to leave us behind!' the woman snarled.

Tarrant saw Edith sneak a glance at him and walk faster. He lengthened his own stride.

Then suddenly they rounded the corner. Straight ahead of them growing in the middle of the ripped up path stood a tree; squat and thick, with barren, twisted branches and a massive, gnarly grey trunk. Set into the trunk was a crooked little red door with a worn brass handle.

At the sight of it Edith leapt instinctively onto all fours, scurrying towards it. Tarrant broke into a run, trying to catch up to the small Squirrel.

'Hatter!' cried Mally as she was bounced about on his shoulder, clinging onto his jacket for dear life. 'Hatter, slow down!'

Without slowing or speaking he scooped her up, stooped low and dropped her gently onto the ground, sprinting to keep up with Edith, who was swift, and just as determined as he was; now just a streak of brown speeding towards the door.

Tarrant could hear Pig and Isolda arguing and calling out behind them, could hear Mally shouting at him, but at the moment he was completely focused on the race to Alice. The niece was going to reach the door before him.

And she did. With a distorted cry that sounded something like, 'AUNT-ALICE!' the niece turned the doorknob the moment she reached it and hurtled through the door. Darkness was beyond, pitch black and unrevealing.

The Hatter hunched down and ran through the open door, flinching as his hat was knocked off by the low frame. Suddenly he was freezing cold and blind and in utter, choking darkness.