..
The next morning at breakfast, the three of them agreed on leaving the bulk of their supplies safely in Hatter's office. They could retrieve it on their way back to the Palace, and this way they wouldn't have to drag everything through the Library with them.
"Flashlights, matches, food enough for three days or so, and water," Hatter insisted. "That'll be all we'll need. Any more gear will just drag us down."
"Three days?" Alice looked at him with skepticism written all over her face. "You don't think we'll really be there that long, do you?"
"Best be prepared," Hatter said darkly.
They said goodbye to the horses (or rather, Charlie gave Guinevere a rather tearful hug and instructed her to watch over their camp), packed up, locked up, and headed back out into The City. Hatter and Alice were still on tenterhooks around each other, both of them feeling the lingering remains of the fight the night before, but Hatter still didn't even ask before reaching to hold Alice's hand tightly through the entirety of the hike there. This was something she intensely appreciated, as the path to the library had neither widened nor sunk any closer to the ground in their absence, and vertigo sent occasional shivers of panic up her spine.
It wasn't long until they reached The Library, although it didn't look much like Alice remembered it. She climbed out of the underground bus to find the golden hallways of what had once been a Resistance stronghold now dim, the stale air smelling of mildew and that musty book-smell she'd always associated with libraries as a child. She stepped forward to run a hand along the firm wood of the balcony banister, fingers drawing lines in the dust. She peered tentatively over the side to look at the Library below – it had felt sad and dirty when it had been filled with dirty, tired, and hungry refugees, but also somehow warm and safe. Now, void of all life except the sleeping history of Wonderland, it looked… darker, scarier, more sinister. Alice couldn't help the feeling, looking down into it, that it looked somehow even more alive than it had been before.
"Alice!"
Hatter's voice cut through her thoughts and she turned back to look at him. "Hatter," she said, blinking her thoughts away and shrugging off the shiver that had run down her back. "How big is this library?"
"Big," he replied shortly, coming up to her and placing a hand on the small of her back as he glanced over the balcony as well. "Really big."
"It is said," Charlie intoned eerily behind them, "that The Great Library, before the Red Queen's reign, spread over a third of the Earth, kept underground so that whole cities were literally built upon the foundations of knowledge!" He spread his fingers wide upon his cheeks, eyes growing huge with childish excitement. "The Librarians that o'erkept the place were not hired, but born into a society that lived the entirety of their lives within the Library's bookish depths! Only they were able to navigate its labyrinthine twists and turns, where up becomes down, right becomes left, and-"
"I don't suppose any of them are left to help us, right?" Alice interrupted. It suddenly made sense why Hatter had wanted to bring three days' worth of food. She brushed a weary hand through her hair. "Well, go ahead, Charlie. You still think you can help us?"
He straightened, looking affronted, his armor clanking as he moved. "But of course, milady! It will take only a moment's foray into the wide expanse of the vorpal plane to lead us toward our legendary tome. Observe!" He hunched over, eyes squeezed tight and long, pale fingers waving up toward his temples. "Galadoon…" he muttered, "t'poosh!"
Alice glanced over at Hatter to see the skepticism she felt written all over his face, but she didn't say anything and neither did he. All of a sudden, Charlie's eyes opened wide and he gasped.
"Sacred soup tureens!" he yelped. "Follow me, comrades, together we shall move where the ancient winds lead!" He scurried off towards a staircase nearby. "Come!" he barked when they only stared after him, momentarily stunned. They collected themselves quickly and followed. He set a pace surprising for such an old man.
They started down a staircase that led off of the balcony and onto the books themselves, across platforms of hardbacks, around corners of pop-up books, even past a tower of tomes that appeared to be vibrating with a low thrumming sound. Hatter lit torches whenever they happened to pass by one in an effort to mark where they had been, but Alice had the sense that methods such of these, while sensible in an Oyster labyrinth, wouldn't be nearly as effective here. This feeling intensified when she looked behind her shoulder at one point to see a torch, which had been moving slowly to the right, stop still as though it knew it had been caught. Still, it was nice to have the light, and a comfort to think that they were at least doing something as they delved deeper and deeper into the heart of the beast.
Alice huffed with exertion and a mild sense of panic as they trekked across a walkway, seven hardbacks wide and bridging a sizable gap perhaps thirty feet high. Her eyes flickered down briefly, cursing herself even as she did so – but what she saw made her stop. "Hatter?" she called.
He turned immediately at the sound of mild panic in her voice. "Alice," he said, "it's not even that high, really, just take my hand."
"That's not it," she said, pointing across and down into the space below them. "Look at that torch."
Hatter's gaze followed the direction of her finger, but his expression remained thoroughly nonplussed. "What?" he asked again.
"Is that torch upside-down!"
"Oh," he said. "That just happens here. The library's not too particular about dimensions and things."
"What!" she choked. "Hatter, are we crossing this bridge upside-down!"
"Probably. Don't worry, it's just a Wonderland thing, try not to think about it if it makes your head hurt. You're not going to fall though, I promise." He shifted impatiently. "Come on, we're losing Charlie."
Alice made a strangled noise that Hatter apparently took for Yes, I'm coming, because he turned neatly on his heel and jogged away. Meanwhile, Alice's pleas for help were caught painfully in her throat. A cool sweat had begun to bead on her forehead, and her stomach rolled. She wondered idly whether, if she threw up, the vomit would fall to the floor like it should or to the endless chasm that stretched… above… her head…
She squeezed her eyes shut against the dizzy swirling feeling in her head and tried to calm down the full-force panic attack she felt coming.
Alice, she thought forcefully. You are not going to throw up, or faint, or freak out. You're not. Just take a deep breath, and open your eyes.
One shaky, thin breath hissed its way through her teeth and into her lungs before being sighed slowly out. Then another, then another, until the tingly feeling in Alice's head and fingers began to subside.
She opened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was the cat suddenly sitting maybe two feet in front of her, casually lounging as though it had always been there, its tail twitching impatiently. The second thing she noticed was that it was exactly the same cat she had found in the forest on her last trip to Wonderland – she knew it was the same cat because Alice would know those gray and black markings anywhere, a distant and deeply resonant call from her childhood.
"Dinah?" she whispered. "How did you get in here?"
The cat looked up at her with the dour expression that only cats are able to achieve. Alice swallowed.
"You're the Cheshire Cat, aren't you?"
"You know," the cat said clearly in a voice that could have been described as either masculine or feminine but not both, "If you're worried about falling, you shouldn't glue down your hair so tight."
Alice blinked. An errant hand came up to brush the tips of her hair. "Excuse me?"
"You're lost," it said simply, standing and stretching its front legs. "I can always tell. You people have a special scent to you."
Alice hesitated, not quite sure how to respond. "I suppose so. I—wait, did you just say I smelled?"
"Follow me." The Cheshire wound around her legs briefly before walking away.
"I can't," Alice mumbled.
Cheshire flipped to its front paws and stood on his head to look back at her. Odd that it would choose to do that instead of just… turning around, Alice thought.
"Why not?" it asked.
"If I move, I'll fall."
"Fall where? Why would you fall anywhere?"
"I'm upside-down."
The cat grinned. Upside-down, it looked like a disturbingly toothy frown that sent shivers down Alice's back. "So?"
Alice groaned in frustration. "It's called gravity, okay?"
"You should probably tell your hair," the cat said, his tail disappearing and reappearing in boredom. "And your skirts too, I should think. All of your body parts should be in consensus about these sorts of things – someone is liable to get left out, and if their feelings are hurt, well, that's just on your conscience, isn't it?"
"What are you—" but Alice stopped, now suddenly conscious of the weight of her hair against her shoulders, lying there innocently as it had always done. "My hair!" Realization dawned. "It's not… in the air… So I'm not upside-down?"
"Well, according to your own definition, I suppose not," said the cat. "Now, believe it or not, I actually do have other things to do, so can we leave the coordination of your mind and body for another time, hmm?" He vanished without so much as a pop or a puff of smoke, simply reappearing at the other end of the bridge and looking back at her with a condescendingly smug expression.
Feeling rather embarrassed at being chastised by a cat, Alice took a tentative step forward, found the laws of physics just as she had left them, and hurried across the bridge to follow the bottlebrush tail as it trailed around a corner of self-help books.
..
Hatter had no idea Charlie could move so fast.
He jogged across the bookish landscape, barely remembering to light torches as he passed, straining his ears for the sound of Charlie's clanking armor. It was to his left, far off to his right, just down the hallway – once it had even sounded as though it was above his head - but now, nothing broke through the silence but Hatter's own heavy breathing, now deafeningly loud in his ears thanks to the tiny, enclosed hallway he had paused in.
"Well," he panted, "Looks like we're pretty much fucked, eh Alice?"
He turned around, but the girl he had thought had been following him was not there.
A heavy weight dropped in his stomach. "Alice!" he called, unable to keep the fear from edging into his tone. "Alice!"
Hatter felt the beginnings of full-blown panic rise in his chest. The dark walls on his every side seemed to be closing in now that he had stopped moving. The space felt cramped, hot, and dark… old, stupid childhood fears coming back to haunt him, fears he kept secret... His breaths grew shallow and quick, a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his brow –
STOP IT, he commanded himself, shaking his head vigorously and squeezing his eyes shut. Don't think about it. Plan, plan, come up with a plan to get out of here.
He strained his memory frantically, swearing that he had heard footsteps jogging just behind his the entire way… he looked accusingly at the walls closed in around him, so receptive to echoing noises. "You tricked me!" he shouted. With no other recourse, he lashed out his foot, flinching when it struck what looked to be a 500-pound hardback. He groaned through gritted teeth at his now throbbing toes and jarred ankle. "Damn this library!" One or two of the books within his circle of light shook slightly, as though laughing.
Alice was lost. – and, to be honest, he wasn't doing much better.
"Goddammit!"
He sighed, allowing himself a moment's rest to catch his breath before jogging back the way he came. Charlie would just have to take care of himself for awhile.
..
"Look," Alice slowed down in front of yet another staircase the cat had begun to climb. She was panting heavily, taking in gulps of air. Her legs felt as though they had been running for days, and for all she knew, they could have been. "I don't know where you want to take me to so badly, but my friends and I, we're looking for a book written by the Knights. It's got the instructions on how to create a new Stone of Wonderland inside."
The cat looked at her, eyebrow raised (did cats have eyebrows?), not looking even the least bit ruffled by their long journey. Alice took its stony silence for understanding and pressed her point.
"If you show me where the book is located, I'll keep going with you wherever it is you're taking me." She set her jaw and looked down at the cat challengingly. "Do we have a deal?"
The cat yawned, its impossible amount of teeth glittering up at her. "What if I said no? What would you do then?"
Alice's confidence faltered as she glanced about herself. "I'd find my way around here somehow."
"Really." The skepticism was almost physically dripping off the words. "Well, then, I don't suppose you would care if I just…" And the cat was gone.
Alice blinked, looking around to see where it had gone, but it was nowhere to be seen. "Drat," she muttered. Steeling herself for a long search, she headed down a random hallway to her left.
"You're going the wrong way."
Alice wheeled around at the sound of the cat's gleefully mocking voice to find it hovering in the air behind her.
"The wrong way to the book, or the wrong way to wherever you're taking me?" she asked, her tone biting.
"Both, as it turns out," the cat said. "But your timing is perfectly awful, you know. We're actually almost there. It's right up that staircase." He pointed with his tail at the long staircase Alice had stopped in front of – row after row of books that led up into a dark passageway Alice couldn't see. Her legs ached just looking at it.
"Oh, right up there, huh? That's easy for you to say, you can just reappear there."
"Indeed." The cat faded away so that only its devilish grin was left. "I'll see you there, little Oyster…"
"Wait!" Alice cried, fed up with the feeling of being used. "Where are you taking me?"
To the tomb of course… the cat's voice echoed in her head, followed by a soft giggle. Don't worry – it's not yours.
Shivers danced down Alice's back, but she refused to shake them away. Instead, she took a deep breath and began to climb the wide staircase.
..