"If I cried out loud
all the sorrows I've known,
and the secrets I've heard -
it would ease my mind
someone sharing the load,
but I won't breathe a word.

We're two of a kind, silence and I,
we need a chance to talk things over.
Two of a kind, silence and I,
we'll find a way to work it out."
-The Alan Parsons Project

Tarrant met Mirana at the steps leading down to the inner court, just outside the castle.

"They have arrived?" he asked.

"Yes." Mirana did not look at the Hatter, instead keeping her focus on the pair now entering the inner court hand in hand. Tarrant's attention was now drawn to them as well. They watched as Fred stopped and hugged Lizzie tightly but then released her and disappeared down another path, leaving her standing alone. It was hard to tell from that distance, but Mirana was fairly sure Lizzie was crying.

"I think you should follow your brother," she said to Tarrant. "Something doesn't seem right."

Tarrant nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned back to enter the castle. If Freddie had his memories back as he should, there was only one reason he would head down that particular path without acknowledging himself or Mirana, who he knew would be watching for his arrival. He was running away again.

Tarrant racked his brain for a plan and made a quick stop by Mirana's laboratory. He'd need to hurry, the path Freddie had taken led directly to the west wing of the castle where his room was. If he was too late, his brother would be gone before he could talk to him, and no one disappeared as well as he did. He took the stairs two at a time until he came to Freddie's room. He opened the door to find him, his back to the door, packing.

"Thanks for knocking," said Fred, sarcastically.

Tarrant entered and closed the door behind him. "Just where do y' think you're goin'?"

Fred didn't answer, but began taking his journals out of the chest and stacking them neatly on the dresser.

"So you're runnin' off again?"

"I'm not running off," he said, not stopping to look at his brother.

"What th' hell is this, then?" Tarrant dumped his pack out onto the bed.

Fred grabbed the pack back from him. "Piss off, Tarrant."

Tarrant, not to be thwarted by his little brother, tried a new direction. "Okay, so why are ya' runnin' away from Lizzie?"

"Because she can do better than me."

"You're makin' even less sense than you normally do... So you're leavin' her 'cause she wants to be with ya'?"

"You wouldn't understand," Fred snapped, throwing his clothes back in his pack. He slung it over his shoulder and tried to make his way past Tarrant who stood in his way.

"You're right, Freddie! No one understands you, 'cause you never talk to anyone! You just run off and no one sees you for two or three or fifteen years! You're not goin' anywhere 'til you tell me what the bloody hell's goin' on!"

Fred's eyes flashed angrily as he was forced to stop in front of Tarrant, who stood in front of him, barring the doorway.

"You want t' know what's goin' on? Fine, let me enlighten you, dear brother! You know why Racie killed everyone? You think it was just her bein' her usual delightful self?" He shook his head mockingly. "She told me she was comin' for me, Tarrant. When I was seventeen. She told me she was goin' to ask me t' help her someday."

"Why on earth would she do that?"

"'Cause I can see th' future!" he stormed. "Cause I can read people's minds! I'm a great pet t' have around, just like I was to the king when I was a kid! When she finally did ask me, I said no, and she told me I'd be sorry. Told me to remember everything that happened was my own bloody fault."

Tarrant was at a loss. This was more than his brother had ever told him about himself for as long as he could remember. It explained a great many things. "You should've told me."

"How was I supposed to know what she'd do? I thought she'd just kill me, I didn't know she was plannin' on killin' everyone else!"

"That didn't have anything to do with you, Freddie," Tarrant said, gently. "Iplam and Witzend were the clans leading th' rebellion against her. She'd already threatened to destroy them." He could tell from the surprise on Fred's face that he never knew that. "If you'd stayed around for more than a day, you'd've known that."

"It doesn't matter," he said, refusing to be comforted. "There's more wrong with me than just that."

Tarrant gave him a long look. "That's life. You think I don't have problems? I'm half mad!"

Fred turned away and flipped though the top journal on his stack, ignoring him. Tarrant decided to go back to the only subject that seemed to phase his brother - Lizzie.

"Do ya' love her?"

Fred stopped flipping pages and closed the book, but didn't turn around. "Yes."

"Does she love you?"

A pause. "Yes."

"But you're gonna leave anyway? Why are you in such a hurry to die a slow death? 'Cause that's exactly what you're gonna do if you run away again. Why don't you just save time and get it over with right now."

Tarrant took a small red vial out of his pocket and set it on the dresser in front of Fred.

Freddie looked at the vial and then back at Tarrant, unsure of what his brother was playing at. "What's that?"

What does it look like? It's poison. Go ahead, drink up and get the dyin' part over with if that's what you want. It's time to choose one or the other."

Fred shoved his brother out of the way and left, slamming the door behind him.

Tarrant shook his head and sighed sadly, putting the red vial of water back in his pocket.

Lizzie took a deep breath and walked up through the courtyard to the stairs where Mirana waited.

"Hello Lizzie," she said kindly. "How was your journey?"

Lizzie searched for an adequate reply to the queen's question and finally decided on, "Enlightening."

"Hmm...that's an answer that begs another question. You'll have to tell me all about it later. Where has Freddie gone to?"

"He left," she replied, bluntly, avoiding the queen's gaze.

Mirana looked suspiciously at her. "I can see that. Where has he left to?"

"I'm sorry, Mirana, I don't know." She didn't think telling her that he'd left to kill her sister was a good idea.

Mirana decided to leave it at that for now. Lizzie looked as though she could sleep for a week. She dubiously hoped that was the problem with Freddie as well. She trusted Tarrant had been able to find him.

"Come, you look as though you could use a warm bath, hot meal, and soft bed. Follow me."

"Thank you," said Lizzie, grateful at not having to explain anything further. She followed Mirana up through the castle until they arrived at the dressing room she had been in previously where a large tub of warm water had already been drawn for her and clean clothes had been laid out on the table by the door.

"I'll leave you be," said Mirana. "A footman will be stationed outside the door, and he can show you to your room when you're ready. Please, don't hesitate to ask if you need anything."

"Thank you, so much, Mirana."

"Not a problem," she said, smiling. She closed the door and left Lizzie alone in the room.

Lizzie undressed and sank into the water. She felt numb, as though a great slice of her soul had been cut away and had taken her with it. Perhaps she was in shock, she thought. She had hoped, up until the instant he'd left her, that Fred would change his mind. She wondered where he was. Was he still here? Somewhere in the castle? Probably not. He wouldn't want to be confronted by Mirana, who obviously knew something was not right, nor his brother. She closed her eyes and concentrated, wishing desperately her mind could find his across their distance, but there was nothing. She was alone. As she thought of him, the numbness receded, replaced instead by an inconsolable grief for that which he had stolen from her...himself.

He didn't really know where to go after Marmoreal. He didn't really care. The moment he left, the darkness which had kept itself at bay when he was with Lizzie crawled across his mind, leaving oily black fingerprints across his vision. He stumbled to the first door, with only the barest acknowledgement that the last time he'd gone through, fifteen years ago, his life as 'Drop Dead Fred' had been in the future. It seemed like he'd lived several lifetimes since then. Perhaps he had – for him, it had been decades, though barely any of it as a "real" person. He'd been running then, and in truth he'd been running all his life. He'd run from the castle as a boy to find peace, he'd run from Racie and from his past, he'd run from his vision on the Hill, and in Elphyne he'd run from what he couldn't remember. It was all he knew. He, Freddie, all alone. Once, he hadn't cared. Once upon a time, he'd welcomed the silence with open arms. Now, the silence was deafening, a roaring thunder in his head, and without Lizzie (my Lizzie, whispered his heart), there was nothing left to stem the madness.

When Lizzie finished her bath, she dressed and asked the footman to show her to her room. As they neared the the room, a courtier exited the open door.

"My apologies m'lady," he said. "I was asked to deliver some books to your room."

"Oh...okay," she answered, confused. "Thank you..."

The courtier gave her a quick nod and left, resuming his duties.

She entered the room and closed the door behind her. Her eye was caught by something that hadn't been there before. On top of her dresser, stacked neatly, were Fred's journals. She went over and picked up the top book, almost not wanting to open it, not wanting to see Fred's writing which was all she had left of him. The journal seemed to weigh twice as much as normal in her shaky hands. She took it and sat on the floor with her back resting against the bed and opened the cover.

"Land Dwelling Vertebrates
No. 1
Province of Crims"

Page after page of creatures filled the volume. She flipped through it absently, not really looking at anything in particular. She leaned back and closed her eyes, her mind replaying their trip back to Marmoreal. If she could only see the doors, she'd try to follow him, but since they were invisible to her, that wasn't even worth thinking about. Her mind visited each place; the Crimson Sea, the field of gowen, the cliffs, the Forest of Queast. It stopped at the last one...she'd almost forgotten the strange object she'd taken from there. She grabbed her pack off the bed and brought it back down to the floor with her. She'd put it in a side pocket to keep it from getting lost. Feeling inside, she pulled out the rings she'd plucked from the strange tree. Now that she had time to examine them, she noticed the intricate patterns on them. They looked almost as though they'd been engraved (though how that could be from something that had grown on a tree she wasn't sure). They were both dark brown, obviously made of wood, but the etchings on them were thin golden veins, twirling around themselves, each in a never ending spiral.

She wondered if the tree was in any of Fred's journals. She picked the one she'd looked through first off the floor and stacked it near the others. Opening the covers of the books, she set each one aside until she came to one entitled:

"Trees of Underland
No. 2
Charms of Prime Deciduous"

That one sounded encouraging. She noted all the trees in the book seemed to possess some sort of charm or spell. She flipped through the book, page after page, until she found the one she'd been looking for. Under a drawing of the tree itself, sitting on it's grassy knoll, and others of the leaf structure and the concentric rings, Fred had written the following:

"The Promise Tree
Est. 340 years old
Location: Forest of Queast: .8 miles W of Queast-Sea gate, .4 miles S of Queast-Snud gate.
Fruit: Red berries in late spring, .3 inches, inedible
Other structures: Male/Female concentric rings, appearing by late summer

Male and female rings of the Promise Tree, when exchanged, bind the giver of each to a promise made to the receiver.
Rings must be used in conjunction with each other."

The description ended there, which struck Lizzie as odd because all the other specimens had copious explanations and stories sometimes filling several pages. Still, that was more than he'd offered her in Queast. Now she understood why he'd tried to stop her from picking it. "Bind the giver to a promise"...what exactly did that mean?

Her speculations were halted by a knock at her door. She answered to find Raenie, the messenger-girl, smiling brightly at her.

"Welcome back, Lizzie! I'm to tell you that dinner is served. If you would follow me, I'll show you the way."

Fred lost track of how many doors he passed through. He wandered aimlessly from the Hill to Crims and the Dead Wood, opening doors seemingly at random until he found himself at a door he knew very well. He had exited from Crims into the high-lands of Witzend...to his home. When he'd been teaching in Witzend, he'd built a small cabin in a lee, bounded by the foothills of the Outland Mountains, not 500 feet from the door he'd come from.

Only scorched rubble remained of the meager dwelling. He stepped over the threshold, into what used to be a small living area with a fireplace. The soldiers had done their work thoroughly. Nothing stood, not even the rocks which used to form the chimney. Freddie walked across the foundation, past the remains to the rocky rise beyond. The hills here, like the mountains above them, were pocketed by crags and caves. Freddie only hoped the soldiers had passed on without checking out the surrounding area. He stopped at a huge boulder, nearly as tall as himself. To anyone passing, it would have appeared to be part of the hill itself, but it had taken Freddie all the ingenuity he possessed to haul it there. One edge of the rock lay flush against the native rock while the other side set apart about a foot, the gap filled with smaller rocks. The rocks were still there. Freddie removed them with sweaty hands as he realized that within lay the one part of his life which had lain untouched since he placed these same rocks here, so very long ago.

Weather had not been kind to the cave he slipped into after he'd cleared the entrance. He found the lamp and lit it with the vial of lighting fluid stashed beside it. The light cast eerie shadows over the walls. Roots that he'd once cleared from the ceiling now grew unbounded over the simple shelves and desk he'd placed within. The floor had risen a full two or three inches at least with dried mud brought in by over a decade of spring rains. None of this concerned him. There was only one thing important in here. Shielded from both the roots and mud on the second shelf was a small chest. He removed it and brought it back outside into the light. The key was lost, well not lost per say (it had been on a chain beside his non-existent bed in his non-existent house), so he was obliged to pound at the lock with a rock until it finally broke. He flipped the catches and opened the lid with trembling fingers and removed the folder that lay at the top.

The pictures left in the chest at Marmoreal had been ones that he had drawn while there, except for the pictures of his students which Mirana had asked to see. This chest, this folder, held the only links Freddie had left to his life as it once was. The first drawing was of his parents. His father, Laren, was a hatter by trade like his brother with the complexion to match, ashen from the mercury he used, though his eyes were blue, like Freddie's. Beside him stood his mother, Ellen, her green eyes captivating in her small elfin-shaped face. They had both passed away when he was a teen. His father from mercury poisoning, his mother from no definable illness, save a broken heart. He put the picture aside. The one underneath brought the tears to his eyes. It was his sister, drawn only from memory, but that was all he'd had left when he'd sketched it. A little girl with wispy red curls, blue eyes, and dimples smiled up at him from the page.

"Elsa..."

There were other pictures, ones of Tarrant, Mirana (none of Racie – he'd set fire to those long ago), Chess, of his cabin, places in Underland that were special to him, and a few scraps of verse he'd written here and there. At the bottom were a few trinkets he'd kept and in a small wooden box, his parents wedding rings. There was, of course, nothing in here of the one person his soul longed to see. He put the pictures back in the folder, placed it carefully back in the chest, and latched it. He put the chest back on the shelf in the cave, blew out the lamp, and resealed the entrance.

The light of day was fading now, but Fred didn't have the energy or conviction to build a fire. It would be too cold to stay here, but Southern Witzend was only two doors and less than fifteen minutes away. He headed back to the door, yet as he placed his hand upon the knob, he had a sudden vision of the Red Guardsmen, waiting on him to exit that first door. In his wearied state of mind, he couldn't tell whether it was a vision of the past or of the future, though the Red Guard had been disbanded with the slaying of the Jabberwock two years prior. In the falling darkness of night, he could not bring himself to open the door. He trudged back to the side of the hill, curled up against the rocks for warmth, pulled his cloak about him, and waited for sleep to come and fill the loneliness inside him.

Lizzie ate supper and then asked the footman if he would show her back to her room. She didn't feel like being social or talking to anyone...she just wanted to go to bed. She blew out her lamp and crawled under the covers. As she lay thinking of everything that had happened, by reflex her hand moved beneath her pillow. There was a piece of paper there. She didn't even need to look at it to know what it would be, but she pulled it out anyway. It was the poem from his journal. She placed back underneath while the sobs she had avoided since he'd left her racked her shoulders and her tears fell unbidden from her eyes.

"Fred," she pleaded into the darkness, "please come back to me..."