Hello again, Dear Readers. Here is a quick little chapter from Alice's side of things to hold you over until I get the next one up – it's drafted, so expect it soon.
As always, Vanilla212 has done a great job betaing this. Huge kudos to her!
Over a week passed before Jack came to the shop again. To Alice, it felt like much longer.
She had become so skilled at running the tea counter that she often found herself growing bored and daydreaming. Sometimes, she thought about the parts of the building that she had not explored yet. There was a lot more here than the shop and the rooms they used for living space. There were inconspicuous doors, for instance, some of them locked, but quite a few of them unlocked. She went through one of these once while she was supposed to be cleaning, and was disappointed to find nothing more than a bare unpainted room, instead of the winding tunnels and hidden storage compartments she imagined might be in a tea runner's house.
She also thought about what it would be like to leave the city, alone, and see what the rest of Wonderland was like. She didn't know much about what was beyond the stacked buildings and enormous lake, and what little she did know she gleaned from snatches of overheard conversations and faded but sensational publications. If such sources could be believed, there were massive borogove colonies outside the city, and ancient forests with monsters and warriors, not to mention giant chessboards. She wasn't sure how much of what she learned was true, or what else there might be…which was why she wanted to go see for herself. But how could she get to any of it? She had no idea.
It didn't matter anyway — as much as she enjoyed daydreaming about it, she wasn't brave enough to go out there alone. It was as much as she could do to manage in the city. It was as much as anyone could do to manage the city, with its murky canals and empty streets, all wrapped in the perpetual twilight that blanketed the lower and central levels. Hatter had taken her on several other expeditions since the shopping trip, mostly to get food and supplies for the shop. He still wouldn't let her help with the tea running, which was fine with her. She did not want to see Ricky again anytime soon, or any of the other tea-heads from her past that Hatter might cross paths with. The thought made her slightly sick.
She still hoped that Hatter would consider letting her help with the teas that he kept away from the Suits' scrutiny, though, and had mustered the nerve to mention it to him soon after they planted the flowers. The request had not upset him, much to her relief, but the appraising look he'd given her had left her feeling…well, she wasn't exactly sure what she felt, but it was new and not entirely comfortable. She eventually convinced herself that it must be Irritation, since nothing else seemed to fit. And why shouldn't she be irritated? She wasn't a piece of merchandise anymore, so he shouldn't look at her like one.
As far as the tea was concerned, he said to give it a little more time. Part of her wondered if he put it off in retaliation for her asking too many questions, but she could not quite bring herself to believe that. Hatter wasn't like that.
She served another customer – a street thief who had been in here more often than usual this week. She wondered if Hatter had noticed this; he was usually aware of any unusual happenings in his shop, but he had not been on the floor much recently. A quick check told her he was not there at the moment, and she made a mental note to tell him about the thief later.
She surveyed the floor again, observing the customers and their interactions with keen interest. Despite her lack of social experience, she was becoming quite adept at reading body language and lips. Her observations led to her to realize that many of the Wonderlanders who came to the shop were deeply unhappy. While she couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for them, she did wonder how Hatter could be so offhanded about the money he made from their misery. She wondered about this a lot — how could a kind person like Hatter behave this way?
Hatter puzzled her. She knew that she was missing many of the pieces that made him who he was. Her curiosity about him seemed to grow a little each day, and wondering about him took up more of her imagination than all her other daydreams combined. Who was he? Why had he, a tea runner who used to work for the Hearts, taken her in and treated her so well? It made no sense.
She noted with pleasure that the flowers on the shop floor were healthy and vibrant.
Or at least, most of them were.
Much to her frustration, sometimes some of the plants were flattened by the noisy crowd that packed the floor on trade days. She did her best to doctor these back to health. She knew they needed water, and she thought it might be helpful to pluck the dead blossoms off. She buried these in the bare patches of dirt on the floor, because Hatter had explained to her what seeds were. It couldn't hurt to try to grow more plants, since the ones living now were in so much danger of being trampled to death.
Hatter seemed to like the flowers, and Alice was glad about this. She would have liked them whether he did or not, but it was nice to know that they both did, even though it was just a small thing. A peculiar warmth flooded her when she thought about the day they had planted them. It was one of nicest things anybody had ever done for her – not for her, since he obviously had not had her in mind. They were for the shop, a business expense, but he must have known that she would like them. That meant they were sort of for her, at least in a roundabout way. And he had tucked a flower behind her ear. Alice felt the warmth again, and smiled a little.
But why was he so secretive about his past? Her curiosity would not let it rest. If he had simply worked for the Suits in the tea trade, what was there to hide? It really was not her business, but she couldn't suppress the urge to find out. Was he ashamed of it for some reason? He seemed so open and sincere, but was that really just a mask? The customers she watched in the shop hid their bitterness behind false smiles and grating laughter; what if he was doing the same thing, only with greater skill? Was the man she knew, with his kindness and animated chatter, the real Hatter? It confused Alice to no end.
She knew she would not be able to stop herself from eventually questioning him again – and she had no real intention of even trying to prevent it. She wanted to know more about him, and she felt reasonably sure by now that he wasn't going to beat her or throw her out. Reasonably sure wasn't the same as completely sure, though, so she hesitated.
She knew that Hatter wasn't anything like Ricky. She had almost never spoken around Ricky, and in spite of her caution he had still become incensed enough to threaten her life more than once. Hatter had never done anything like that, in spite of her questions, temper, and ignorance. Still, one thing she knew for sure was that everyone had a limit. Hatter was patient, but what if all it took was the wrong question, or simply one question too many, for his patience to run out?
That was the nagging dilemma she couldn't settle: she could keep quiet and burn with unresolved curiosity, or she could ask her questions and risk ruining the only safe situation she'd ever had. The sensible choice was to keep her mouth shut, but she knew her irrational desire to know more would eventually win out.
A familiar figure crossing the trade floor jerked her abruptly out of her musings. Alice felt her skin grow hot all over, and quite involuntarily brought her hand to her mouth. Jack had returned.