The Uninvited Guest

The guests sat at the supper-table fawning over her dress, over the meal they were all eating, over the pile of presents on the parlor table. They even fawned over the mild, splendid fall evening. Everything was just wonderful or marvelous or splendid. Alice could have sicked on the table if she thought she would be able to bear the mock sympathy it would bring. No, she would smile, agree, nod, reply, smile, nod, smile, reply, repeat, repeat. From time to time she would amuse herself by insulting one or several guests through a series of compliments. "Alice!" Mary Elise raised her glass, "I have a toast to you!" She clinked her glass delicately with her spoon, fluffed her curls excitedly and announced: "May your wits and poise remain strong while you're off at university!"

Mary Elise knew nothing of wit, nor poise, nor did she care at all for Alice's future, but standing up to make the toast would help show off her expensive silk dress and the very low cut at the neckline. Yet she had tried so hard to sound intelligent it almost made Alice sorry for what was coming to her. But Mary Elise had a habit of heatedly pursuing her friends' beaus, then tossing them to the side once she'd torn apart any chance of their former relationships. Sooo...

"And may your fiancé turn out to be everything you truly deserve!" Alice replied. Bert, the fiancé her parents had arranged for their daughter, was as cold, cruel, and jealous as a man could be all at once. And he was a mere clerk who was supposed to get a good inheritance. So he managed to convince her parents. Mary Elise was as good as boxed up for life. Her face went tight, as did the faces of the other young ladies at the table to whom Mary Elise shared her woes. The few gentlemen nodded appreciatively, as they knew nothing of Bert. The young affianced smiled and batted her eyelashes at everyone, sitting down quickly.

Alice's mother, Clarice Hervey, picked up on none of this. And worse, Clarice was as good at Alice's game as Alice was herself. But unlike Alice, Clarice Hervey never knew she was insulting. "Oh thank you, Mary! Why, I don't think Alice could hope to ever make a friend better than you and these other fine young ladies!"

Alice almost choked. It was horribly true. She really couldn't expect anything better than the company she was now seated with. This was as close to "companionship" as she had been with her peers over the past six years. They hadn't changed. Neither had she. And there was nothing in any of them to bridge the huge gap. Alice was different. Some said she was "mentally unwell" when she was a child because of the stories she told. And those were the kind rumors. No amount of her propriety made her warm to the people who considered her still "touched in the head." And many of these girls would be attending university with her. The rumors would spread from her little town all through the campus. This was, indeed, the best she could hope for. She looked around the table from happy vacant stare to bored indifference to spiteful pout, over and over. Clarice had to be one of the most unwittingly cruel women ever to live. And so sadly right.

Alice wished she could cry.

"If we are all done with dinner, let's repair to the parlor for some tea." That was Marissa, Alice's ridiculously lovely sister, rising from her place across the table. Marissa was a far sight smarter than their mother. When it was clear that Alice's "condition" was not going to get any better, Marissa did the smart thing. She put miles of emotional – and physical – distance between herself and her mentally ill sibling. That move had won her the handsome husband who rose at her side, and good social standing. Bravo, thought the younger sister, and not for the first time.

Alice stiffly stood from the table and all but marched to the parlor. Her father somehow managed to get right behind her and rest his hand on her back. It was enough to draw some of the tension from her shoulders. When they all found their places in the parlor, Patrick had made it a point to sit beside his daughter. Alice was somewhat surprised. He was rarely so open about his comfort and support for her. In fact, he usually kept to the opposite side of the room so the two could exchange long-suffering glances or catch each others' eye in glee when Alice landed a particularly acid remark on a particularly nasty guest.

Alice was surprised at how warm she felt at her father's nearness right now. She wondered if he was already missing her as much as she was missing him, despite her departure for university being several months away. A real smile started around her mouth. Patrick caught it out of the corner of his eye. His smile mirrored hers. As the rest of the guests took their places at the various couches, sofas and divans around the room, he turned to say something, anything to his daughter. Just to keep that real smile on her face a little longer...

Diiiiiing Dong.

Heads all over the room shot up, looking towards the foyer and the front door. Who on earth would come so late to a party? Were any of the invited guests not accounted for? Hushed chatter started up around the room. Alice's sister rose and started to head for the door. "Wait!" Alice called, "I'll get it! It's probably a friend from school or something!" Patrick felt acute disappointment at the missed opportunity to speak with her, but then, what did he have to say?

In truth Alice had no one from school that she expected to come, save the ones already present. And those had been coerced into coming by either Alice's mother or their own parents.

It was the only true surprise she was likely to get for her birthday, and she intended to get the most she could out of it.

But when she opened the door it was no one she could ever remember knowing. Yet when she laid eyes on the young man standing rigidly at the door, she felt a jolt in her belly and tears stinging her eyes... as though she did know him. As though she missed him.

He was taller than her by several inches, but not so much as he seemed at first, for he was so thin as to be exceedingly lanky. He looked as though he'd been stretched by his hair and toes so that everything in between was long. His face was a bit long, his torso, arms, legs, even feet. Alice scarcely saw the black pants, the black vest or the long white coat. Her eyes were darting between his ice-blue eyes and the black and white striped top hat with a 10/6 stuck in the black band around it. Then she took in the red-maroon hair that had been obviously just been chopped off handful by handful, completely unevenly. Even then, it trailed a ways over his shoulders. After a moment she noticed that his face looked fake. He looked as though he had put a thick layer of pale makeup over his face, but well enough that it almost matched the rest of his skin.

After several seconds of just looking at him, neither inviting him in nor sending him away, nor even greeting him, he finally grinned a nutty little grin and made a gracious bow. "Shall I sit at your tea uninvited, Alice, or are you going to un-uninvite me?"

The voice was slightly high-pitched for a man, but still almost melodious. Except that he clipped words unexpectedly so one never knew if he was done speaking mid-sentence or if the was just pausing. He tilted his head up from his bow, still bending from the waist, and cocked his head to the side at her.

"Alice? Dear, who is at the door? Why don't you invite in our guest?" Mother is calling from the parlor.

Alice leaned her face closer to the young man's, an utterly perplexed expression on her face, as though she'd misplaced him somewhere in her mind and was having to shuffle some items around to find him.

"Alice?" Father this time. And he's concerned. "Yes, yes we're coming, Father, Mother!" was all Alice managed to reply, though she still didn't let go of the door handle and still didn't invite the man in.

He grasped her hand on the door handle and pushed it a bit farther open to let himself in, then transferred her hand to the crook of his arm, patting it staccato, as though tapping out some odd rhythm that no one but he could hear. His grin widened even more. He just looked so...

Happy.

The thought was the first coherent one to enter Alice's mind. He looked as though he had a day pass from an asylum, but he really looked happy, too. She found herself smiling back, though her brows were still mostly knit in perplexity. She knew him? He knew her name. She should know him...

He all but pulled her along into the parlor on his arm, stopping abruptly just as they reached full view of all the guests. Alice hadn't stopped staring at him, and he was looking around the room cheerily, seemingly soaking up all the different faces. Finally Clarice broke the silence. "Er, do come in and join us, young man. You must be a friend of Alice's, but I don't believe we've met." She advanced across the room, stretching out her hand to him. He took it with his free hand and held it up in front of his lips, still grinning maniacally but not moving to kiss it or to shake it. After a moment Clarice cleared her throat and continued. "I'm Clarice Hervey, Alice's mother, and this is my husband, Patrick Hervey," she stammered on, gesturing towards Patrick. He still didn't release her hand, but began to giggle just a little. The other guests began to whisper very quietly, so Clarice once again stepped in. "And you are?"

"Mad!" the young man replied.

"Matt! Yes, good to meet you, Matt!" This time it was father, crossing the room to shake 'Matt's' hand.

'Matt' abruptly dropped Clarice' hand and took Patrick's. Patrick shook his hand vigorously then dropped it, so as not to allow the young man to retain his grip. But he needn't have worried, for the next second 'Matt' clapped his hands together and locked eyes with the servants helping to lay out the tea, who had stopped in mid-task at his entrance. "TEA!! I really AM just in time, aren't I?"

He picked up a cup, then started to help hand out the rest. This spurred the servants into action and between them they managed to finish serving.

Patrick, meantime, had taken his daughter back to the sofa with him and sat her down. She looked pale and slightly shocked, and he was feeling little better himself. He remembered all too well the stories Alice told when she was young, though he was certain that they were creative imaginings of his daughter's already bright and witty mind. He didn't know who this young man was, but he obviously knew of his daughter's stories and was causing more than a bit of a uproar in his home. And in his daughter. She watched in fascination as he balanced three cups, three saucers and a small teapot towards their sofa.

He plunked said items on the small table in front of the sofa and promptly wedged himself on the other side of Alice. Picking up the pot, he then poured out tea for the three of them. He held up his cup to the room, and everyone tried to follow suit, filling their cups. But before the first person could sip, he slammed his cup down and shouted "CHANGE!"

Alice was yanked forcefully from her seat, looking more surprised by the moment. Unfortunately, her father was still grasping her other arm, so he, too, was hauled to his feet. The three managed to topple the small table as "Matt" led them around the room, unseating most of the other guests and breaking china left and right on his way around.

He stopped in front of the couch where Mary Elise was sitting with her boon fellow gossipers, Isabella and Jane. Hauling each of them from their seats and thrusting them towards the center of the room. Croaking and sputtering, the three landed in a heap.

Just as he managed to pull Alice down onto the couch next to him, the rest of the room went into an uproar of people trying to help the ladies up, people making excuses to leave (or just hauling up skirts and hats and making a mad dash for the door), and gentlemen demanding loudly that "Matt" beg pardon of the ladies he had wronged.

"Matt" made to sip his tea, but finding the noise too distracting, he tossed his cup across the room. The resounding crash it made as it went through the china cabinet window brought silence to the room.

"Much better!" he exclaimed cheerily.

Alice started laughing.

No pretense of excuse was made as the remaining guests elbowed past one another to get out the front door.

When the last had finally made it out, Alice finally managed to subdue herself somewhat. "Oh what fun! I've not laughed like that in so long!"

The young man turned his head slowly to her and said quietly, "I suppose then you're not made of wood, to be able to laugh so."

Alice went instantly silent, searching the ice-blue eyes.

"I shall call the police immediately!" Clarice said in a strained voice. Patrick made to intercept her. This was the first time in six years his daughter had shown signs of life and he wanted to know exactly what was going on before he got the authorities involved. He caught Marissa and her husband before they could interrupt Alice and Hatter.

Marissa just stared at her smiling sister and the clearly crazed man sitting next to her in the rubble that was once an orderly tearoom. "Right as two peas in a pod," she whispered. Her husband heard her. "Darling, I'm going to remove this man from the house. You stay here."

"Oh, you'll do no such thing. You will find my hat and coat, and we will depart immediately."

He stood stunned, ready to argue. Marissa looked at the two once more, and smiled slowly before turning to the man next to her. "Darling, you know nothing of my family, least of all my sister. I like it that way, I'm going to keep it that way. Suffice it to say, I am content with the situation here – yes, just as it is-" she said, quickly, holding a hand to his chest before he could protest, "- and, as this is my family and my business, you'll attend my wishes. We're leaving." She hooked an arm through his, kissed the cheek of her sputtering mother, and nodded at her staring father. "Good evening, Mother, Father. I had a lovely evening. We simply must do this again sometime."

She grinned a little at her father before all but pulling her husband out of the room. Over her shoulder, she called, "Happy birthday, little sister!"

Alice didn't notice. The man's eyes were icy and almost white, intense and focused only on her. "Ah, Miss Alice does think she's made of wood? But even wood was once alive, and grew as a tree and felt the cool breezes and watched the moon above. And you are not so much made of wood, are you little Alice? In fact, your wooden mask is only this deep," he said just over a whisper, tracing a line from the outer edge of her eye down to her jaw-bone. A tear's path. He rocked his head from side to side, like a time-clock's pendulum, but never broke his gaze. "No, not so deep at all...no. No little marionette is our little Alice, is she?"

Sapphire eyes widening slowly, Alice breathed, "Oh my...oh... Oh dear... It's you..." She couldn't even make the sound pass her lips, "Hatter."

A.N. Hello again! I figure now is as good a time as any to cover a few points:

- I didn't keep the name "Alice Liddell" from Lewis Carroll's family acquaintance that the character Alice is taken from. Personal preference.

- The rating is "M" because things will get very compromising in later chapters. And the chapters will get longer.

- I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I swear my only works I've let another human being read have been magazine articles and college essays. I need input. ^_^