Alice's story from Chapter 3 is the plot of the Puccini opera Turandot, which had a very famous aria called "Nessun dorma" that Luciano Pavarotti made incredibly famous. It's a beautiful song and even if you don't like opera it's very enjoyable.

A true thanks to those of you who review, it makes for good motivation. Rain and Brianna get credit for being rad.

Sometimes when we sleep we believe the most absurd things happen. What we usually are relieved to find, however, is that when we awaken we have not been enslaved by large spiders, or that we are not somehow deeply in debt owing to a bad bet at the roulette table, or even that we suddenly decided to free ourselves of the societal and physical restraints of clothing and have bared all to anyone who cares to look. Sometimes, less usually, we are not so relieved, even crestfallen or disappointed. Perhaps we dreamt we won the lottery, or found true love, or crowned ourselves leader of the immediate surrounding area.

It was with less relief than she would have liked that Alice found herself staring at the ceiling of a spare bedroom in the March Hare's cottage the next morning. It was a nice ceiling, to be sure, something of a shade fair between goldsheaf and chartreuse, but a cheerful one in the morning light and it was an immediate object to focus on. Alice's mind, however, was teeming like fishing converging on a small handful of feed tossed idly into a calm pond—bubbling and boiling and thinking hard thoughts that only women can conjure at such an hour.

She was concentrating very hard trying to remember how she had gotten to the precise location where she was now. There was confusion surrounding last night's activities owing to the bizarre nature of the banquet, and Alice wondered (with a squint) if perhaps she hadn't simply dreamt everything. It seemed plausible, but awfully convenient. She would have much rather awoken in her own bedroom, or even a bedroom inside the castle, but it was quite clear to her that these quarters were of a distinctly Leporidian taste. But the real question was how she was there, and to that she had no immediate answer.

There was no point of sitting in this bedroom with no answers to any of life's more presently challenging questions, and so Alice rose and went to the wardrobe in the corner hoping to find her dress from the night before to assess whether it would be presentable. She opened the door and found to her surprise not only her own frock, but a new frock every time she shut and opened the armoir door. She closed her eyes, picked the lavender silk one at random, and then Alice put her smashed curls into a vaguely Grecian updo and went to the door.

At the end of the moderately sized hallway was the mahogany door to the strange library she had seen the afternoon before, but it was closed at present. Passing through the house, Alice called for the March Hare but found no one within. She glanced over her shoulder again at the darkly colored door from her standpoint in the dining room. It was there, and perhaps her host was within and could not hear her. In addition, her stomach was beginning to complain and she did not want to impose herself on someone else's kitchen. Alice knocked softly and turned the handle to enter, willing down the dread thrills in her stomach.

The library resembled her father's, and the lifted ceilings were something of a shock to her from being in the low and narrow rooms of the rest of the house. The tall lead-paned windows on the opposite wall were covered with velvet drapes, with bolts of pushy sunlight striking through, and a sticky, stifling warmth permeated the dust on the furniture. It was the unmistakable air of something starkly different from the rest of the house that really struck her, however, and Alice began in earnest to inspect the empty room carefully.

Books, of course, on many subjects foreign to her, such as Whippetson On Care of the Bealzestock, Poke Sallet Toxicity, and even Aphids of the Greater Wonderland, sat in neat rows upon rows along the dark shelves. There was a whole row of books on politics as well. On the far wall from the bookshelves hung several lithographs of various city maps, but what caught Alice's eye was the unusually realistic image of a large group of people and creatures she recognized as a daguerreotype. In the middle, just above the words "Privy Court of the Late Season," sat a dark-haired moody woman scowling while everyone around her sat with tense blank stares, waiting for the slow exposure time. She was startled—here was the old Queen of Hearts, and tempestuous she did look indeed.

Next to that was a newer picture, unframed but tacked directly upon the wall: this time of the Duchess and her six named princesses, but no one else. Alice glanced back at the older image; there had been far more official courtiers under the old tyrannical monarch, but the new ruler apparently chose to surround herself with an elite few. She looked carefully at each of the beautiful women. Their faces did not betray the hint of fear on those who were sitting near the Queen of Hearts in the other picture; instead, they seemed quite content. Smug, perhaps. The Duchess herself was the kingpin of calm in her seated throne as the women stood about her in various graceful looks and glances. Alice had the feeling that the royal's eyes would follow her if she moved, and quickly looked over to one of the maps nearby.

It took her a moment or two to comprehend what she was inspecting because it lacked a map key and title, but Alice soon realized she was looking at the capital city. There was definitely an oval tract of land to the east that hinted at a large palace and grounds beyond. In the west was the edge of the forest, and she could see a bit of a lake or perhaps a river in the north. Prominently displayed, however, were the intricately scribed and recorded buildings in the city. Alice looked carefully and found all manner of proper businesses, greengrocers, government buildings, and the town square. Here was the jail with a panopticon in the top, here was the docking station for the military zeppelins. Just south of the library was an old museum of history which was marked "closed" in a handwriting different from the mapmaker's. There was even, and Alice smiled at this, just south of the letter-writing shop, a haberdashery.

"My dear?" said a quiet voice from the door, and Alice turned to find the March Hare looking quizzically at her, barely peeking through the door.

"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, I was only curious and--" She stopped speaking and twisted her hands together awkwardly.

"No, it is altogether fine," said the Hare, not entering the room. "But come, you must have some breakfast. Leave these old books and things be, boring old things." Alice did not think so at all—rather, she would have loved to pore over every detail, albeit perhaps in one of the more welcoming rooms, but did not say as much and followed the Hare out into the garden and to the large larderboard table. It was laden down as usual with every good thing a baker could be proud of, and at its end, with his large green spat-clad feet propped onto it, sat the Mad Hatter. Or rather she could guess—he had a large newspaper before him. Local Flute-player Harvests Record Number of Preserved Habaneros, said the headline. Alice furrowed her brow at this.

"Good morning," she ventured, and seated herself. The newspaper shifted and rattled together, and Alice heard a slight bumble from beyond. The March Hare shrugged before standing on the table to reach for a blue pot of jam. It seemed to be a pleasant enough morning, Alice thought, and here was plenty of food, at least. She was ever so slightly hesitant to simply help herself, given her host's preceding track record in hospitality, but neither party before her gave any protestation at her presence. She busied herself with a pink checked pot which had a knitted cover shaped like a cat before pressing for conversation. The intent was to squeeze for information, but really Alice was unsure of what route to take—she did not want to start a fight on such a fine morning when she so badly needed someone to tell her what she was looking for. Alice pushed back the image of the green gate in the forest and bravely sipped her tea.

"What an odd dinner party the Duchess threw last night." The Hatter did not reply to this in the slightest, but the Hare seemed willing to indulge her in conversation.

"Did she? She throws far stranger fetes than the old Queen did, I have heard it told."

"Do you not go in to court often, then?"

"Oh, no, I am hardly welcome there."

"May I ask why not?"

"Certainly," he replied brightly. Alice stumbled at this, but caught herself accordingly.

"Why are you not welcome at court?" The Hare folded his paws together and looked back up at his cottage carefully and did not speak for a time.

"I suppose... it is because... it is her preference." Alice set down her muffin and pursed her lips with frustration at the Hare, who did not notice.

"She does not seem to care for a large group of followers anyway," she said in the same continuing line of questioning.

"The Duchess is a vastly private lady. She moves in mysterious ways her wonders to perform, if you can call them that. Maybe she enjoys the illusion of mystery—those creatures she keeps around would make an excellent team for a Canasta set."

"She ordered me to do something," said Alice with a clever thought, casually adding another drop of cream to her tea. "Something about those missing residents you mentioned earlier." If ever there was a convenient time for the March Hare to indeed be an actual talking hare, it was now, for his large ears flipped upward before he checked them stiltingly, and they came down with much reluctance. Alice took careful note and continued casually. "Apparently it is serious enough to concern her."

"Did she mention anything else?" One of his ears jerked into a crease and quivered while he managed to keep his face barely stonelocked.

"Merely that she expects me to come to circumstances with the cause—and why she would choose me is quite beyond my understanding--"

"Need I remind you, my dear, that you are something of a legend," said the Hare, his curiously coded tone disappearing as he experimented with a mixture of jam and the lavender growing out of a vase in the middle of the table. "People come here quite often, you must know, and after one visit I think they find the place sufficiently beyond their narrow comprehension and use their return ticket home as fast as they can. You, on the other hand, border on insistence at your own presence. You are, in short," and he smacked his lips with satisfaction at the completion of his blend, "An anomaly at large."

"How does that give me any advantage? You haven't changed your attitude toward me, I think it would be just as difficult for me to go about asking question as anybody: you're still likely to give a strange answer."

"Unlike other people who wander through to Wonderland, you are far more willing to work to reconcile the logical fallacies you perceive," he said smiling and relishing his tea. The crumpet with the lavender jam had been reduced to a pile of crumbs. "Most visitors say, 'Dash it all, this really is too much, you know!' and bung back through the rabbit hole on to... wherever it is you go when you are not here. That other thing."

"I suppose that does rather set me apart," she said thoughtfully.

"Only you could find it strange, my dear. It is quite in your favor."

"What could possibly be such an issue?" Here the Hare frowned more deeply than ever.

"I think they are far too concerned with the recent consensus. You know, I imagine they counted far fewer courtiers this year than in previous--"

"I mean with the creatures who have vanished."

"Ohh, you must understand. Like a--" he pointed to himself "--out of a--" and then pointed to the newspaper, next to which Alice could just see the brimband of a large hat poking out, "--only backways, you see."

"Just like that?"

"In absentia, and apparently not gone to the old family caravan by the sea. One day someone went 'round to the Caterpillar's leaf, and he was gone."

"But that is not unusual—he left me once in the middle of a conversation."

"Left his hookah and a good supply of ma'sal—I wouldn't be leaving my best collection of jam pots if I weren't deserting. And lots more besides."

"Who else is missing?" The Hare ticked them off on his paws.

"The oysters out of the bay--"

"I thought the Walrus and the Carpenter ate them all."

"They're gone as well."

"Perhaps to another bed of seafood?"

"Half the Heart army--"

"Following their Queen, no doubt, they are worthless without her."

"Who else, the Lion and the Unicorn..."

"That is no mystery," said Alice, "They are off fighting. Or in peace together. Whichever they have decided on recently." The Hare turned to frown at her.

"You certainly take these disappearances lightly."

"But these are all things one would expect of these creatures. It is in their personal nature, it only seems reasonable for them."

"Reason?" The Hare said this with a horrified inflection bordering on offense.

"Of course, in this country, unreason seems to be more popular," said Alice, backpedalling lightly, feeling as though she had taken a wrong turn from the jam-lined sunny promenade of companionship down a dark alley of argument and misunderstanding. To be fair, fights do have a tendency to come out of nowhere sometimes, and Alice was no stranger to the way people's feelings can sometimes overtake their ability to properly interpret the conversation.

"Popularity is nothing but ephemeral speculation and vague subjectivity," said the Hare. "And besides, it is not within reasonable grounds for these disappearances—not unless invisible ink had gotten into the waterworks." He paused to frown into his cup of tea with a mild concern. There was a pause, and Alice watched lines shaped like birds flap their way toward the city in the sky above. "Besides, we only dream of what you call Reason, and would have nothing more to do with it than that. Barmy stuff." The irritation, Alice was glad to see, had gone out of his person and she was left with a hare who hardly knew what they had talked of but the last sentence out of his mouth.

"You dream of normal things?"

"Oh no, they are quite strange indeed. Terrifyingly suspect, the sort of thing one dreads. You might call them normal. Whatever it is that normal is."

"I never have normal dreams."

"That is up to opinion and silly interpretation."

"I should say so, I spent half the night dreaming I was there at the palace again, only with more dancing elephants and a large exercising pool in the ceiling." The Hare shook his head at this while turning his cup as though to read the possibly poisoned leaves within.

"Never ceases to amaze, this tendency of yours to label this 'strange' or that 'normal'. I shall tell you of a strange dream, or rather nightmare, I think, that I had recently. I was in a large meadow with many of my relatives and compatriots, only the whole business was conducted on our hind legs and with a far deal greater fear that something was going to swoop in and eat—either us, or the grass in the fields, I honestly cannot recall. Either way it would not have made a good meal—grass is terribly bland. Indeed, I nearly woke in a cold sweat after such an ordeal. I can't say I know why the deuce we were going about quite nude, either. Perhaps it tells of last night's supper." Alice graciously overlooked the Hare's labels of 'this and that' and took this in with a nod.

"It means you will come into a good fortune soon," said the voice behind the newspaper. Alice looked in the Hatter's direction.

"Have you decided to have some breakfast, Mr. Hatter? It is such a lovely morning, you should put the paper aside and join us."

"Is it?!" he said in pure astonishment, rattling the newspaper furiously. "I should say not, I had a blasphemous headache only the Furies would applaud," and with a loud papery snap, propped the rag between several smoking teapots to read with his elbows on the table, looking at them for the first time. Alice nearly spoke again before she saw what she was confronted with at a breakfast table. The hatless Hatter was leaning forward to stare at them intently, a sleek wooden pipe elegantly curving out of the side of his mouth. Forming slowly in the bowl were soap bubbles, glinting purple and blue in the sunlight before they roiled up and floated away into the trees.

"Why are there soap bubbles coming out of your pipe?" The words came before she could reflect on what absurdities they would produce.

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe," said the Hatter with a shrug.

"Yes it is, I can see that it is."

"Not if I say it isn't—now what say you?" he said, and pulled it from his mouth to point it at her dramatically.

"Good on you, old boy, leaving the monocle aside. It really would have lessened the effect," said the Hare, breaking in on Alice's continued protestations. The white-haired man popped the pipe back between his teeth and flicked the side in an apparent attempt to prime the good stuff.

"You think so?" said the Hatter, turning so they could see his profile with the pipe. "Rather dashing, what?"

"Mmm, yes," said the Hare with another mouthful of cake, "Now you need a burnished pointy stick, yes?"

"A burnished pointy stick would be ludicrously perfect at this point!" cried the Hatter in joyful declaration.

"A headache, you say?" said Alice finally. "I awoke quite refreshed and found Mr. Hare's library interesting to peruse." The pipe reached a brief but violent boiling point and a large cloud of perfect spheres floated away before the Hatter spoke again.

"You found the library, did you? Quite fascinating, is it not?" he gave a pointed look to the Hare, who sat quiescent staring into his teacup as though something poisonous were about to crawl out and pinch his nose.

"It is a boring and equivocally disturbing and I wish it weren't there—much rather have a hot house in that part of the lot," he replied with a sigh.

"I didn't think it was--" Alice did not finish her sentence, for the sequence of events that followed swept past her rather abruptly. The Hatter stood, grabbed his hat out of thin air, knocked the soap out of his pipe in one great clack against his armrest, came round the table's corner, pulled her out of her chair, and had her halfway to the gate by the arm extended before she could berate the Hatter for nearly smashing two stacked pots of tea onto her dress.

"Let's go see where they're putting you up, shall we? I hear it's a nice house, in a manor of speaking!" He split forward laughing, and Alice turned to see the Hare, still at the table, one paw round his cup, waving his fingers at her with a vague and sunny smile as the gate knocked shut behind her.

It was a good dozen paces or so along the bricking until Alice finally jerked her hand out of her companion's, rubbing her shoulder where he had been keen to dislocate her limbs.

"Are you dragging me out of there to avoid talking about the Hare's library? You're only making me wonder what's going on in there," she said, thoroughly irked. He sighed and adjusted his white gloves.

"That room," he said, and his tone surprised her, for he was bordering on the precipice of seriousness, "Is nothing but barmy old books and maps that are past their last wheezing breath of usefulness. It came with the house and he's never had the sense to seal the blasted thing off. He wants a hothouse, but I think he should install a conservatory."

"Those are the same thing--"

"Conservatory sounds far more sophisticated, it is all in how you interpret it.

"--why don't you like it? Books and maps aren't anything but useful."

"If you enjoy sitting in a stifling dusty room squinting until your eyes go all strabismus." Alice rolled her eyes and the Hatter gave her a sly sidelong smile.

"There, you see? I suspect you have it from too much time staring at words. And you wouldn't be enjoying anything out of doors with one eye here and the other eye there." He made the attempt at a wall-eyed look, but winced painfully.

"I didn't plan for a morning constitutional, this isn't an ambling gown, you know."

"You're right, it remains lacking in sentient walking abilities. We're only off to see a house, you know."

"Speaking of houses," she tacked in a tactful way, "Do you know where I'm supposed to be staying?"

"No," came the swinging, blithe answer.

"Then how do you know where we're going?"

"I suppose I shall know when we get there."

"How?"

"It will be the last place we look." She was struck momentarily by the absurdity of it all, but Alice could vaguely detect some semblance of actual reality there, muddled though it was, and let herself be led along. There was something else Alice had been meaning to ask, something that had barely pressed itself against the back of her mind since that morning, something that she--

"Why does everyone need a title here? Is that a newer policy under your newer monarch?"

"Number one I imagine it is because we've always had titles, number two I thought not—weren't you Kinged the last time you were here?"

"No, I was a queen." This lent her some time to reflect. "Then why am I being demoted?"

"I rather doubt it being the same," said the Hatter, squinting his nose and trying to decide which fork in the road they would take. "I think you were Queen Alice before, and now you're just a Lady. Left or right? I think left, but perhaps that's what they want me to think..." Alice paused to turn round.

"Do you hear something?"

"... eldritch larks, I know they're after the hat; it would complete their plans in a trap..."

"Are you listening to me?"

"... possibly not..." The Hatter held a fistful of dirt and grass up to his eye, preparing to scope out the deceitful iota loathe to make his life easier.

"Or possibly I should just leave you here and go back to the house. I thought the Hare mentioned clotted cream earlier and I never did have a scone," said Alice, looking back along where they had come. From her companion came a noncommittal mumble. "What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything."

"I thought I—there it is again. Truly, do you hear that?"

"Hear what." Alice pulled at his sleeve slowly at first and more insistently as the soft gorging burzing sound rose from a deep undetectable bass into a low register that was barely audible. The Hatter frowned and stood upright from his bent over inspection of the ground.

They listened together at the white and purple sliced birch trees silently peeling in the darkness of the shade just beyond. The forest seemed to grow about them very tightly, expanding and claiming something from the pair. And then Alice distinctly heard it. The distant buzzing noise as before, a bee hive mixed with an approaching bubbling that steered upward into a grind, a noise that spelled danger in her stomach and kicked up dust from a long distance yet. There was a shudder among the mass of undifferentiated leaves above, and together they took a step backward, Alice with her hands out as if to work the noise into submission. A tree fell, followed by the sucking, cracking sound of others upon others while the ground resisted and conducted the buzzing to beneath their feet until they felt and heard and saw the effects but nothing besides.

"Ohcrumbs," said the Hatter, his eyes growing wide. He turned fully to her, and looking once more over their shoulders toward the searing hot noise and great Something that was pulling down the trees with it as it walled them, Alice felt a numbness growing up from her feet to the tingling fire in her stomach. "How do you feel about running?" he said, and without a pause but great force Alice felt a jerk forward and they moved, suddenly and completely forward, sprinting through the forest, abandoning the path altogether.

Rushing right at them through the sylvan spaces, the trees appeared to move back and forth crossing the narrow spaces. Whether the intent was to stop them or to impede the hissing grinding stomping mass behind them was unclear, but as the Hatter strafed his way past mossy rock, the aerodynamics of the thing lessened by hat and skirts and hoops and very large feet, but resolute above all.

The Hatter did not stop the great lopes his legs could drag them both until they had run at full speed straight between a tall hedgerow and come out in an open space, and even as they both collapsed against a bush he did not let go of her arm. There was silence now under the bluest of blue sky, and no trees but for the other side of where they sat, couched in grass and twigs. Alice closed her eyes, shuddering and heaving and tried to think if she had seen something she could now recall; the forest had been a sharp whistle in her ear and the dire sound cut a swathful rampage. But she had no memory beyond the trees capsizing and the Hatter's face turning before black trees sliced together at angles.

"Bit late for morning calisthenics, I think," the Hatter said, and removed his hand from where it had been digging into the brim of his hat. He was becoming microscopically more useful than five minutes ago, as Alice reflected that he was awfully good at running. Abandon him altogether, wouldn't that have been a fine idea and then winding up in the belly of something that noxious. She was winded in an icy biting way, both from being dragged through the forest and from sitting on the ground in a corset—it was a rather uncomfortable situation, but better discomfort than being lost in the woods or devoured by some swinging mysteriousness that was out there. There was an awkward silence in which they listened to each other gasping and rustling the leaves to find a comfortable situation before Alice threw her hands up in the air and began in exasperation,

"Is that normal, then? To be chased about the countryside by dangerous monsters, running in terror for your life?"

"I can't say I've ever really--"

"Or do you take your tree lifts to avoid the paths? What is wrong with this place? I don't mean that in the usual sense, either, this business of everyone around here being as resolutely and firmly strange as they can manage, but don't you think, don't you think it's all rather odd to be hunted down while on a simple walk? Surely you agree that it is at least slightly normal to be able to go about your daily business without being mangled to pieces by some gnashing abomination?"

"Well--"

"You have no inclination to give me an answer, I think." And here she folded her arms and felt very cross indeed. She was not angry with the Hatter, but what had come out of her mouth felt very satisfying to say when what scant information she had been given so far had led Alice around in circles and deeper confusion. It was only natural that things should turn out this way, she thought, given she was foolish enough to come running straight into a thoroughly mucky business. When the Hatter spoke, it was with a kind diplomatic incline.

"First of all, there are no 'tree lifts'--I've never heard of anything so improbable. Those jokers work by a system of rotational and lateral physics, but that's awfully rummy to explain and not the point. No, I've never been chased through anything, least of all a forest, and I have to say that was about as much huffing and puffing as I care to do for another hundred years. In fact, I think I may have damaged some internal thingy related to a good lie-down..." He paused, and Alice listened to the quiet that pervaded the space over her shoulder. "Would you like some advice?"

"From you?" The Hatter looked around.

"Who else would give you advice at a time like this?"

"Never mind, what did you want to say?"

"Do keep half a mind to circumstances, if I may say so. Getting all gluey in the details won't help your plan for discovery. Remember where you are. It's all swings and roundabouts after that." Alice looked ahead for a few moments and then she turned her head to look right at him.

"Could you lend a hand in all of this? Usefully, I mean? I know it's orders, but I shouldn't care for you to be burdened with anything." The Hatter did not respond but gave a faint half-smile and looked out over the sunny lawn before them, sighing instead. It was a few moments before he became preoccupied with rifling through his own expansive coat pockets.

"The soul cries out under duress—I think I have a restorative elixir here somewhere--"

"I hope you mean tea and not anything else. Bombay reserve in your coat pocket and half a snifter of brandy in your shoe, wouldn't that be--" The Hatter hesitated by a breadth of a second and Alice gave a breathy scoff. "Oh, this is absurd—how on earth do you keep everything in those pockets?"

"Pleating seams go an awfully long way when you've got the determination for big pockets," he said with several pauses for breath, and passed her a cup of tea with a lemon round on the brim. He uttered a quiet cheers and sipped. Alice drank deeply and felt warmly restored—she had forgotten how much she had missed the light sharpness of lemon on her tongue. This was only Ceylon, but it reminded her of afternoons spent in a window seat listening to her prim oldest sister read aloud from Pilgrim's Progress or some other exacting tome. Her sisters were probably talking of velvet and what sort of flowers to put in the bridal bouquet, splashing about in their bathing dresses and building a castle of sand in the air towers of the open beaches. She wondered what color dress the bridesmaids would wear, and realized she was actually caring about something she had so longed to forget. There was some residual feeling of nostalgia or sadness, but Alice set the cup back into the saucer.

"I think you are obliged to tell me if you know something specific. The Hare was far more forthcoming with details than you've been. That monster—was it what I thought it was? A Jabberwock I should--" He jerked his head around and simultaneously hissed and choked, sloshing tea on the grass. Alice swept her train out of the way and folded her hands in patience.

"Don't—summon--dangerous--arck--"

"You should have told me if you knew." She cast a wary eye onto him. "That isn't what that was, was it?"

"That was whatever that was, that was," he recovered in a significant tone, to which Alice replied with a sardonic look and pursed lips.

"I don't suppose you would care to tell me how lost we are? Or do you not know?" Mr. Hatter reached for a branch in the hedge behind them and began to pull himself up and forward, dusting off his orange morning coat and casting a look about. "And don't tell me 'we are whereever we are,' I know we're i someplace /i , but everyplace has a name and I suspect we are in a place known as 'someone's back garden that does not allow for trespassers'."

"No no no, look:" he said, and she followed his arm to where he pointed. There was the cottage, the front door, the post box about, and three ladders curiously poking into different pieces of the thatched roof. The man in the hat and the girl in the skirts exchanged a look and pulled forward. The large green lizard in suspenders met them at the front walk.

"Whose place is this?" said the Hatter with a wrinkle of the nose, for it was in much disrepair and need of some ample construction. "And who did they leave it to in a will—run fast and far from this one."

"'S'one's a deserter," replied the lizard, unconsciously flicking his tongue. "S'empty, like. Fin' it up for the guest of the Crown, I imagine. Hoy!" he shouted, and Alice jumped, "Git th' crete ou' here!" A lumbering mass of something like a bored bear came snorting from around the corner with a large wooden barrel that puffed and dusted up grey when he let it thunk onto the ground.

"Oh! then it must be for me," said Alice, coughing politely as she could, "The Duchess told me I should have someplace to stay." Lizard foreman stared at her without changing expressions.

"Zat right." The Hatter had wandered off to look inside the post box as though he expected to find something of greater interest.

"May I ask—who lived here before?" she queried, "It does look as though someone has moved out."

"Naw, 'e's gone an' left everything."

"The house is still set with furniture?"

"E'el set it up new-like, right, y'can't keep it if it in' yours."

"Well, whose is it?"

"The White Rabbit moved out?" said the Hatter from directly beyond her elbow. He was standing with his head cocked at a curious angle and a strange sort of concern squaring off at the blue in his eyes.

"Left all a sudden, I hear'," mumbled the bear as it shuffled back around the corner.