Disclaimer:

"Can you write a little faster?"

Manny said to Bernard Black,

"Really this is out of hand,

Your writing ethic's far too slack."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – DOORS

Tarrant shivered involuntarily in the cold. He blinked, and the darkness began to clear, as if it were dark fog instead of blackness. He blinked again, and again, and slowly a familiar ceiling came into view. He was lying flat on his back, staring up at an ancient chandelier. When had he fallen? He sat up, disorientated, feeling on his head for the reassuring texture of his hat. It wasn't there. He cringed. He hated going without the hat.

Looking around, he saw Edith spread eagled on the black and white marble floor beside him, human and grubby and dressed in what seemed to be a tattered white nightgown and faded red coat; a pair of clunky, mud-coated boots on her feet. As he looked at her she rolled over and tried to climb to her feet dizzily – Tarrant thought this to be a bad move, and Edith's legs apparently agreed with him. The girl cried out and flung her arms out, grabbing onto the glass table that definitely hadn't been there before to steady herself.

'W-what?' she stammered. 'But … this has to be a mistake. We're back in the –'

'The Round Hall,' nodded the Hatter, standing and trailing his gaze over the dark grey identical doors which lined the wall of the circular room. 'You would have come through here before, yes?'

'I did. And I …' at that moment she noticed that she was no longer a Squirrel and started in rather comical surprise. 'I'm a girl again! How …'

'The Round Hall is the doorway between Underland the Overland. It usually returns you to the state you arrived in,' he explained absently, walking past the doors, pausing at each one to press his ear briefly to the wood. All were silent.

He heard Edith sigh in relief.

'So where's Aunt Alice?'

The Hatter felt a twinge of annoyance at the word "Aunt".

'Well, obviously through one of these doors,' he said, throwing her an impatient look. She frowned at him, crossing her arms, and he turned back to the door he was currently in the middle of scrutinising.

'I've always wondered what was behind the other doors,' he murmured, tracing patterns in the woodwork with one hand.

Edith was silent. He turned back to look at her. She was shifting her weight uncomfortably, rubbing at one arm.

'The door I came through … it had eyes. Just eyes, everywhere,' she said. 'They weren't exactly pleasant.'

'I doubt that Alice stayed here for seven years because it was pleasant,' rumbled the Hatter quietly. He hunched over, bending down to peer through the keyhole of the door. Only black was visible. Straightening, he shrugged, 'I suppose we have to start somewhere.'

He heard Edith start forward behind him as he turned the doorknob.

'What are you doing?'

With a strong feeling that what he was doing was the wrong thing, the Hatter pushed the door open. It put up a struggle, as if it was glued shut, and he had to slam his weight into it twice before it opened without warning, and he was sucked into the darkness beyond as if into a vacuum.

'Wait, Hatter!'

He turned his head back up. Just before he fell out of sight of the door, he saw Edith jump after him, silhouetted against the dim light of the first room. The door slammed shut behind her, and they were left in total darkness, hurtling downwards and gaining speed.

'Hatter!'

Mally had watched in dismay as first Edith and then the Hatter disappeared through the red door. Tarrant's hat was knocked to the ground by the frame, and when Mally reached it rolling on the forest path she stopped by it, clinging to the brim.

The red door in the tree was swinging wide open. Mally left the hat and approached it cautiously, staring into the darkness.

'Hatter?'

Her gut feeling was telling her to run, to get as far away from that door as possible. But the Hatter had gone through it. So had Edith.

'Hatter? Edith? Come back!'

She heard footsteps and turned to see Pig jogging up beside her, Isolda trudging along behind him irritably.

'Mally. We should wait for them to come back.'

'Wait?' Mally turned back to the door.

'They'll come back out eventually.'

Slowly Mally shook her head, 'No.'

'What?'

'I'm sick of waiting.' Before the voice in her head screaming at her to turn around and run in the opposite direction could change her mind, she scurried full speed at the door, not stopping even when she passed through it into an icy blackness.

The darkness cleared, and she sat up in a room lined with doors.

'The Round Hall?'

Confused, she stood unsteadily, half of her wondering how she got down on the floor in first place, looking from door to door.

'Edith? Tarrant?' she called. 'Are you here?'

She stood in silence for a moment, watching the doors. She could almost feel eyes on her, prickling the back of her neck, as if the doors were watching her back. Or as if someone behind the doors was watching her. All was deathly quiet. Nothing moved but the old chandelier above her, swinging slightly in a non-existent wind.

'I'm going to have to go through one of the doors, aren't I?' she sighed. Closing her eyes, she spun around three times. When she opened her eyes once more she made her way across the room to the first door her gaze landed on – a door exactly like the others; dark and forbidding. Then she hit on a problem.

'How do I reach the doorknob?' she thought aloud, looking up at it from the floor.

As if it heard her, the handle turned, and the door swung open of its own accord. Mally expected more yawning blackness and was surprised when it opened onto green hedgerows. She stepped inside, her sense of foreboding growing stronger.

The air was thin and crisp; the sky a pale winter blue. Mally's breath left clouds of steam in the air. She turned back to look at the door into the first room. It swung shut behind her, clicking and locking into place.

Taking a breath to steady her nerves, Mally set off down the row of hedges, gravel crunching beneath her feet. Instinct was telling her to run – exactly where she didn't know, but the urge was building inside her like panic.

Stay calm. Stay calm.

She breathed in and out, forcing herself to walk slowly. She rounded the corner and found another passage made by the hedgerows, stretching some feet in front of her before finishing with a dead end. She nearly ran back to the door then and there, but pushed ahead, a theory springing up in her mind. Sure enough, when she reached the dead end she found it was a spot where the passage diverged into two paths of hedgerows.

'A maze?'

She turned back and forth, weighing up her options. Both paths looked exactly the same.

'Edith? EDITH?' she bellowed as loud as she could muster, 'HATTER?'

Just when she thought she would get no reply, she caught the faintest voice; a steady murmur from her right.

'Hello?' she called out. It didn't sound like either of her friends. But it was definitely familiar.

The urge to run was getting stronger than ever. Walker faster, she took the right path, following the voice.

Pig had refused to go through the door.

'We should wait here,' he said, trying his best to cross his arms and stand firm. Unfortunately, being firm was not one of his strong points.

'What if they're in trouble?' said Isolda, inspecting a nail meticulously. 'We really ought to help them.'

'I don't think I'd be much help,' he said, his voice coming out small and rather pathetic.

She shot a look at him.

'You're not very brave, are you, boy?'

He felt his cheeks burn under her gaze.

'I – I … I could be … I –'

'Prove it,' she said. She looked at the open door pointedly, raising an eyebrow at him. 'You'd do it for me, wouldn't you?'

His heart skipped a beat.

'Yes,' he said immediately. 'But I really think –'

'You said you loved me,' she sighed, turning her back to him, facing the door so that he couldn't see her expression.

'I do,' he said, dodging around in front of her. Her expression was so utterly blank that he shivered involuntarily. 'Er … Isolda? Are you alright?'

'Why won't you do this one little thing for me?' she said, her voice piteous and her face cold.

He stared at her, and suddenly felt that something was very, very wrong.

'Come with me, boy,' she said sweetly, her hands fiddling with his lapels. She smiled up at him with pale lips. 'Don't you want see what's inside the doors?'

Before he could obey the urge to run from her, she delicately pushed his chest with the tips of her nails and he lost his balance, falling backwards into the cold and the dark.

Edith wasn't sure how long they had been falling. Every now and then she would bump against something in the darkness; things soft or furry or hard or slimy. She was just glad that no eyes had appeared yet. A cold wind was whistling past her, making goosebumps pop up on her arms.

'Hatter?'

'I'm here,' came the reply, a foot or so below her.

It was the strangest thing – it felt like she was falling and staying in the same place as well. Or as if the world was flying upwards past her.

'What if we should come out the other side?' said the Hatter, raising his voice above the wind.

'In Australia?' said the Edith, confused.

'Australia?'

'I'm told it's on the other side of the world.'

There was high-pitched laugh from the Hatter.

'Do the people all walk upside down then?' There was a nervous tremor behind the joke, and for once Edith could sympathise with him.

'Will we ever stop?'

As though answering her question, a piece of ground suddenly met them with a muffled thud. Edith sat up. All around her was a very simple blackness, but she could see the Hatter sitting before her. And she wasn't at all sure about what she could see of him.

'What's happened to you?' she said, horrified. He seemed to have turned into a bright green flame. Dancing around the flame were glowing balls of light and tiny figures, and what seemed to be a slightly bruised lump burning within the green flame itself, beating steadily.

The flame quivered, twisting slightly, and Edith got the impression that he was looking down at himself.

'Oh, good heavens. That's never happened before.' He only seemed mildly surprised and vaguely interested. He looked back up at her. 'That's a rather starved heart you've got there.'

'What?' She looked down at her own body, and let out a little shriek when she saw that in its place was a bright red fire, surrounded by its own motley assortment of spheres and figures, including a slightly stunted-looking lump of her own, burning in the centre of her flame. 'What's happened to us?'

'I think we've been turned inside out,' said the Hatter thoughtfully, 'it happened to a cousin of mine once. Nasty business.'

'But … but …' Staring at herself in shock, she recognised a squat little figure trying to break away from the rest. 'Oh no,' she groaned.

'What's wrong?'

'I think I'm going to lose my temper again,' she said, trying to hold the little figure in. Unfortunately, this was not an easy thing to do without hands.

'Don't worry, I think your conscience and your sense of serenity are holding it back,' observed the Hatter. She decided to let the obviously stifled chuckle in his voice pass.

'This is madness,' she said, wishing that she had hands to throw in the air in exasperation.

'This is Underland,' the Hatter replied, amused.

'How do we change back?'

The green flame quivered again, which seemed to be the equivalent of a shrug.

'I suppose we'll just have to pull ourselves together.'

And with that there was an audible popping noise, like a balloon bursting, and the Hatter was suddenly in the place of the green fire, sitting cross-legged and twiddling his thumbs, looking around nonchalantly.

'She's not here,' he noted.

'How did you do that?'

'Hmm? Do what?'

Edith huffed, trying not to let her temper get loose, 'You're impossible.'

'Come on, hurry up,' urged the Hatter insistently, 'we simply must be getting on to the next room.'

'I can't!'

'Try.'

She glowered at him.

'I won't be able to work it out by myself, you know. I didn't grow up here,' she snapped, 'you did.'

The Hatter quirked an eyebrow at her.

'Is that you asking for my help?'

Biting back a sarcastic reply, she forced out politeness like verbal medicine, 'Yes, please.'

Even the Hatter looked surprised at the 'p' word.

'You're not ordering me to help you? Did I hear correctly?' he said, cupping a hand to his ear. Oh, how she envied him and his current ability to have hands.

'Was I really that much of a brat?' she said bitterly.

'Still are, Edith,' he replied cheerfully, 'but I'm told that admitting it is the first step to recovery.'

'I do try to be nice,' she protested, 'I just don't think I'm very good at it.'

His expression softened slightly, though he still looked sceptical.

'You can't just try,' he said, 'it has to come from the heart. It's something that one has to truly mean.' He looked down at his hands, fidgeting in his lap, then back up at her with something surprisingly close to a grateful smile, 'You're a good friend to Mally. And she needs one,' he added, barely audible as he ducked his head again.

There was an uncomfortable silence, Edith's fire crackling the only sound.

'Could you help me? Please? I'll be stuck here.'

He looked up. For one horrible moment he seemed to hesitate, then a small smile appeared on his face.

'Of course,' he said, and lifted a hand to his head as if to tip his hat. When he found it wasn't there, he seemed to try and cover up the motion by scratching his head awkwardly as he got to his feet.

'What you need to do,' he said, 'is very simple.'

Edith would have rolled her eyes if she had them.

'Of course it is.'

'And don't roll your eyes at me,' said the Hatter absently, ignoring her spluttered reaction. 'What you need to do is pull yourself together.'

'You said that before,' she said impatiently, tacking, 'sir,' onto the end hastily as he shot her a reproving look. 'How am I supposed to…?'

'Well, think about it. What would you do to pull yourself together?'

'I'd … sort of … pull myself –' Before she could even finish the sentence, her stomach, wherever it was, jolted sickeningly. Edith felt her ears pop painfully, and clapped her hands over them. 'Ouch!'

'There we are, all normal and right-way-out again; even the right size and species,' grinned the Hatter, 'isn't it nice when everyone's that way?'

Edith felt a wave of relief wash over her as she looked down at her hands.

'I have hands!' she said, struggling not to be ridiculously over-joyed.

'Yes, yes, yes,' nodded the Hatter, 'it's wonderful, I'm sure, but perhaps we should be moving on?'

Edith scrambled up from the floor, straightening her clothes out.

'How do we get out?' she said, looking around for another door.

'That is the question,' said the Hatter, tucking his hands behind his back and putting on a big show of strolling around the blackness curiously. 'A rather good question, considering our present circumstances.'

Edith folded her arms, unimpressed, 'If you don't know how to get the next room you should just say so.'

The Hatter mumbled something unintelligible and vague in response, ferreting around in his pockets for something or other.

'Are we meant to go back up?'

'Hmm?' He was fiddling with something silver, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

'Hatter,' said Edith, 'please. Put the shiny thing away and tell me how we're going to find Alice.'

'Perhaps … if we could just provoke …' he mumbled so low that she barely caught the words.

As Edith opened her mouth to question him he crouched down, frowning slightly, and jabbed at the blackness beneath his feet with the hatpin he held in his hand.

Edith went blind. The blackness suddenly consumed them both – either that or the Hatter disappeared. No, she discovered as looked down at her invisible hands, she just couldn't see anything. She stiffened as she heard something, then realised that it was the Hatter shuffling around nearby.

'Ah,' he said.

'What – did – you – do?' she said through gritted teeth.

'Forgive me, I merely thought – oh, my.'

'You merely thought "oh, my"?'

'No … But for a moment there I could have sworn – there it is again.'

'What are you talking about?'

There was a small silence. Then:

'Are you blinking?' whispered the Hatter hoarsely.

'I … what?'

'When was the last time you blinked?'

'How should I know?' said Edith, annoyed.

'Blink.'

'Why?'

'Just do it, Edith Manchester.'

Edith pursed her lips in impatience, but blinked. She jumped when an image flashed behind her eyes.

'What was that?' she yelped, twisting her head wildly around in the dark.

'Close your eyes,' said the Hatter, his voice cracked with an unidentifiable emotion.

Edith closed her eyes, and her stomach flipped over. She could see where they were standing.

The two of them were in a slightly out-of-date drawing room which would have looked comfortable and inviting if everything hadn't been covered in a thick layer of dust and grime and the feeling of decay wasn't hanging in the still air. Faded and ripped crimson armchairs were grouped around a dark wood coffee table, upon which sat a chessboard. The chessboard was in total disarray; pieces had been thrown across the board and had fallen off the table – Edith even spied a few half buried in the ashes spilling out onto the hearth of the large fireplace, which was stationed right in front of Edith and the Hatter like a gaping mouth.

The thing that caught Edith's attention, however – and which had no doubt also caught the Hatter's – was the giant looking glass hanging suspended in mid air over the coffee table. It was easily taller and much wider than a grown man, and the ceiling was only just high enough to accommodate it. And reflected in the looking glass, her golden hair fanned out and moving slowly around her, her eyes open and staring, was Alice.

Edith let out an involuntary cry. She looked behind herself automatically, but no one was there. Alice seemed to exist within the mirror itself, floating as though underwater and deathly pale. A part of Edith wanted to rush forward exclaiming, calling for her aunt; another part could hardly believe that she had finally found her; and yet another part, strongest of all, wanted to turn and run. There was a sick feeling deep in her gut, something instinctive telling her to get out of that room, to get away from that looking glass. There was something malevolent in the air.

'Hatter …' she said uncertainly, unable to turn her head to look at him, rooted to the spot and frozen with dread.

He moved forwards, coming into her field of vision. His eyes had turned the old sickly yellow colour, and his jacket seemed to have drooped two shades darker; he looked lost and strange without his hat.

'Alice,' he croaked, approaching the mirror, transfixed.

A shadow flitted in the corner of the room.

'Hatter,' said Edith, her unease growing, 'I don't like this.'

He wasn't listening; he was muttering to himself, drawing closer to the looking glass.

'The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes …' He reached a hand out, extending towards the glass.

Edith saw him, her gut lurched with inexplicable panic, and she lunged forward to stop him, but was already too late.

'HATTER, DON'T!'

The hand pressed against the surface of the mirror, and the glass quivered for half a second. Then suddenly there was no glass there, and the Hatter lost his balance; he was sucked inside the looking glass, disappearing completely, leaving Edith to grasp at thin air. She skidded to a halt and tripped, sprawling across the coffee table over the chess pieces painfully, landing with a bone-juddering crash on the stone hearth as her weight up-ended the table.

'Hatter! You idiot!' she shouted, struggling to free herself from the mess of table and chess board and twisting around to see that the looking glass had vanished. 'No,' she moaned, shaking her head, 'no, no, no; you can't leave me here …'

She climbed to her feet, leaving heavily on the mantelpiece to support her bruised legs, head spinning. The room seemed to be getting smaller. Edith shook her head, trying to clear her it. The shadows in the corners of the room were growing, eating up her surroundings with impenetrable darkness. Edith jumped and gasped as one shadow broke apart from the rest, swooping down on her and whistling past her ear – it left an icy coldness in its wake. Two more followed suit, and more and more, until she was pinned between the mantelpiece and the fallen table, stumbling over littered chess pieces as the shadows swirled around her.

One shadow darted forward again and swept straight through her, freezing her insides painfully for a brief moment. The shadows were slowly rising, pressing in on her; suffocating her with their chill; flitting back and forth playfully. Edith was suddenly and vividly reminded of a feral cat she had seen in her garden once playing with a mouse, one paw pinning it down by the tail as the other paw batted at its tiny body. The memory managed to spark a feeling she was well familiar with, the familiarity flaring up against the terror coursing through her. Edith was furious.

'I'm not a mouse!' she shouted at the shadows. She seized the crooked iron poker lying at the hearth, brandishing it like a sword. Although she didn't think lunging would be very useful against shadows, it made her feel better having something solid in her hands. 'I won't let you play with me!'

A shadow nipped straight through her again, as if to highlight how useless her poker was. Edith clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering.

'If you're going to kill me, just do it,' she said, summoning up all the indignity and anger she had in her to stop her voice from quaking.

Where are you, Hatter, Alice? Where are you, Mally?

The thoughts shot through her head before she could stop them, and her stomach flipped with renewed fear. She was utterly alone, without a clue as to what to do, and armed with a dusty poker.

The shadows reared up before her, gathering together like a thundercloud. Edith looked up at them, took a deep breath, and nearly managed to bite back a scream as they swept down upon her and smothered her completely.

'There once …'

Mally wasn't sure how long she had been walking. She felt almost dizzy as she made her way through the hedge maze, following the voices – which were growing stronger. The urge to run was making her feel sick to her stomach. Still she forced herself to walk, checking her pace when she sped up.

'Tell us … please …'

At the first the voices had been a murmur, now snatches of the words could be made out.

'You tell … please … the best …'

'Before she calls …'

The voices were so familiar to her, and still she couldn't pin them down.

'Who's there?' she called again. 'What are you saying?'

The words, too, were familiar; things she had heard a thousand times before. Mally rounded another corner, found another fork, took another path – all automatically by now. The voices seemed to block out every other sense and sound; the gravel beneath her feet, the rustling of the leaves, and the chill; they all disappeared as the voices got louder.

Her pace had quickened now, but she was too much in a trance to stop, or even to notice.

'Tell us …'

'Tell us …'

The voice joined into a chorus as she rounded a corner. Recognition sparked within her. She knew who it was.

She was running, sprinting as fast as she could; taking this path and then another, completely heedless of her instinct to run in the opposite direction.

'Please, brother …'

'Alright …'

Mally took the last turn and skidded to a halt in the centre of the maze – a circle where all the paths opened into a clearing. In the middle stood a round wall of crumbling bricks, faded red and nearly falling down. A little roof arched over it, a bucket suspended on a rope hanging over the hole in the centre.

'There once were four sisters,' the voice whispered up from the hole.

Mally approached it, hardly daring to breathe.

Run. Run. Run. Run.

'Elsy … Lacy …'

She climbed the wall, and looked down into the darkness of the well.

'Tilly …'

'And Mally,' she chanted in time with the voice. 'And they lived in the bottom of a well.'

'What did they live on?' her own voice echoed up from the well, younger and smaller and almost naïve.

'Treacle.'

Mally jumped.