JMJ

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Making Two Lines Rhyme

Alice had never had a real English teacup in her hands before. Turning it carefully so as not to spill the tea near to the brim, she recalled her grandmother's old china in the corner cupboard. They were painted with roses, stars, and other delicate things. Though Alice was not one for frill and doilies, she had always liked the teacups together like that. Perhaps it was because every antique cup was a bit of a cup of wonder in a way. Inside the little centers was a secret glossy door to some unknown tiny realm of mystery just as much as behind every oak in the local park there was a secret rabbit hole and every old book beyond her reading level told the story of some ancient fairy realm and every looking glass hid what was beyond its reach round the corners it could not reflect.

Yet it was Wonder itself now to realize that the cup in her hands and its tea were the least of wonders here.

She was in a little cluttered home filled to the brim with so many little curios of fancy. There were the tea things that looking normal despite often being in strange places like teacups used as tiny lamp shades and tea balls used as moth balls with tiny moths insides them instead of keeping them away. The non-tea things were tape measures that stuck to you when you touched them, bobby pins that looked like old Sherlock Holmes styled policemen hats, and spools and spools of threads and ribbons, leather and felts. Buttons made of butter and butter flying as harmlessly as moths that could be caught between two pieces of bread if one was quick enough, which Alice certainly was not.

"Always make sure," said the host who was himself never a butterfingers when it came to catching condiments, and he ushered Alice beside him to look into the tea pot that he had opened for her to peer inside, "to keep the storm inside the teapot instead of letting it out into the cup. It's much better that way. That's why they use a spout to only spout out the tea."

She was indeed mesmerized by the tiny cloud that caused the steam to rise and did not come from the hot tea itself at all. It seemed to be blowing a tiny whirlpool inside with tiny strikes of lightning, but she could not be sure if it was somehow static. She though static was mostly a thing that happened with polyester, but perhaps if the pot was made out a sort of poly-something else… she wasn't sure what, as there were many words that started with 'poly'— it would cause static even in tea.

"But isn't the storm outside?" asked Alice.

No matter how interesting the little pot was, she could not help but be drawn yet to the blackened window overlooking the table where the darkness was brewing far stronger than the shadow of a monstrous crow.

"Well, every storm is inside some pot or some cup," insisted the little man so pompously that Alice had to smile despite herself even if a little nervously. "The bigger the storm the bigger the cup."

"We would have to be in a very big cup," Alice remarked.

"Oh, of course, but it is at least contained in the cup even if not contained in the pot to begin with. It can't spill out unless someone's there to do so, and even then there's a saucer," said the Mad Hatter more sagaciously still, but he grinned suddenly as he put the hat on his head upon a peg and hopped merrily onto a chair to sip his own tea. But then he sighed. "Oh, if only March and Dormy were here things would get along better, you know."

"I'm sorry," said Alice taking the initiative to seat herself upon the chair next to him even if a little shyly.

She sipped her tea and although she had only ever had tea with lots of sugar before, she found this cup surprisingly lovely even with only a cube.

"It's good," she said more to herself than to the Hatter, "even if it is strong and bitter. Maybe tea just tastes better in a tea cup rather than a mug. Of course, that's just all in one's head, isn't it?"

"Well, a jaw is in a head, so naturally once the tea passes the teeth as a sword passes into a sheath, the tea is in there even if not alone. Why should what's in the mouth be different from what's in the head, right?" said the Hatter. "'Come, what's in your head now?' one might ask and it's sure to be in your cup once it leaves the cup into your head."

Alice made a face not understanding in the least. What alarmed her; though, was not that she did not understand what he was saying, but that she could not decide whether the question in that jumble of words was meant to be answered or was just an example. When he looked at her in what she felt to be expectantly, she felt dismayed that it might be true, so just to make sure, she had to think what was in her head aside from worrying about what to say.

"Tea stories," said Alice.

"Oh, really?" asked the Hatter a little skeptically. "What sort of tea stories?"

Alice in Wonderland's Mad Tea Party itself was what first came to mind, of course, but she was afraid it might bring up something painful if she mentioned it. She could think of no other story with tea so prominent. Nothing else came to mind at all, so she answered meekly, "I don't know."

"Just a little one!" the Hatter exclaimed putting his hands eagerly onto the table.

Alice sighed. She had to go through with it now, but what story besides Alice in Wonderland could she tell? Well, maybe she could simply tell another story about the Hatter. After all, Peter Pan liked listening to stories about himself. Maybe most fairy tale people did like that sort of thing, because they did not have fairy stories of their own worlds because they were living them.

"Umm…" Alice began, "you… um, the Mad Hatter, you find a teapot in uh…" she thought about where a Hatter might find one. "In a tree? And then… uh…" She laughed bashfully. "You can't reach it so you need to get something to reach it like… um… the March Hare and the Door-mouse. But it's still not high enough, so you get the pot from the table and the cups and then you pull on the tree branch to reach it. You grab it and hug it a-a-a-all safe."

The Hatter looked so contentedly listening that it encouraged her to feel looser with the story.

"Then," she said, "you hug it and pet it like a kitten, but you forgot to get down, you know? So then the March Hare trips because the Door-mouse falls cuz he's as asleep as doornail. Then you all fall and the tea pot flies up through the air all the way into space."

"Aww…" moaned the Hatter for the tragedy of it.

"Oh, don't worry!" Alice begged. "Then he drank some tea and he felt better after he had a funeral for it, but it might not be dead, so it's okay, and besides then you saw a pie when you were in the tree. You can have that, since you already have a teapot and tea, but you don't have a pie. And then the March Hare isn't angry with you anymore. You all have pie with your tea and sing a ballad about the pot and a… jig, that's a happy song, I think, about that you got the pie instead!"

The Hatter was so pleased he nodded and drank some tea right then and there. Then he said, "Now! I call for intermission! You know what that is, right?"

"I think," said Alice after she thought a moment. "That's when you stop in the middle of a long movie and go to the bathroom and stretch and talk about stuff after sitting for too long."

"That's all settled then. I think we ought to have some pie, after all! After we wash up!"

"Wash?"

"Well, I'm not about to have bath at tea!" sniffed the Hatter.

Alice blinked and then said, "Oh! That doesn't mean a bath, that means—"

"And then we can sing that song you said we sang!"

Again Alice blinked but with far more alarm. "But I don't know the song. I just made the story up now."

"I'm sure you will once we pick up the pie and it all comes flooding out unless it's in the tail-end. It stands there fixed in unified verse, so you'll have to put it into a more lyrical mood to get the rhyme and reason of it all, and after that it'll have to go round and round till we finish the whole thing together."

"You'll help me?" asked Alice wincing as she did not understand much except that something was going together to make a song about pie or… with it?

"Well, I won't have you eat the whole pie yourself," the Hatter explained, "That would give you more line than meat here." Or did he say 'meteor'? 'meter'? It could not have been 'meet her' as that did not make any sense, but whatever the Hatter had said, Alice heartily agreed to it, and began to think of how a song would go that the Hatter might make up. There was no time, right? So she had all day to think of it or would that be all in one second?

For some reason that was a frightful thought, but she ignored it. She put pencil to paper with hands far stronger and mind far more educated as a woman rather than a little girl until…

Alice blinked back and she was not Alice, but she filled in the secret kept even from herself…

Esther had been here before, but this time round she was not the only stranger to Wonderland. The storm was back but different this time. It was different even than when she first put the book into her mouth. She had known all along that she had written the song that the Hatter had recited. Though, she had written it down far after the time that she was with the Hatter as a little girl.

What was more important was that pair of blue eyes.

She held her breath as she gazed at Matthias.

Songs and children's magical lands did not seem as fantastic as those beautiful pools looking back with recognition. Real and living and loving in a beautiful cerulean glow more welcoming than tropical paradise bays glowing in warm sunshine into impossible blues sky and water together. The black of the pupils was a gleaming looking glass reflecting her awe and the tears that glistened in her eyes.

The book was lying on the box as though neither she nor Matthias devoured the literature. It surprised her at first, but why should it have? No book devoured by a reader was not there after it had been devoured. Rather the opposite. It usually felt more present than it had when it was only a cover with the unknown in between. The full circumference was understood afterwards. The full sphere of its knowledge from the words within and the understanding between the lines once it was digested, made one see what was once a mere boxy shape for the world of its own that it truly was.

As Matthias and Esther had eaten so slowly and carefully and even at first hesitantly but still deeply satisfied, it was the whole 'pie' so to speak. Matthias was hanging on the part that he felt most akin to just as much as she had delved into a deeper place that she had nearly forgotten.

The cover now had full meaning, and the dash after 'Esther' was gone.

Esther Alice Haddler.

She swelled with the first time she had heard someone say that name in-full, and now it was heard at last again through the gentle voice of Matthias as he barely breathed it into the warm glowing air, "Esther Alice Haddler."

The tears began to fall, and her eyes with them. Had that ring always been on Matthias' finger? She had thought he had taken it off, or someone else had taken it from him, as she was sure she had not seen it where it should have been when she first was sure this was Matthias. But there it was with the crystalline clarity of the cathedral on their wedding day. She could not think about it long as Matthias wasted no time in taking her into his arms and holding her to him tightly. Esther did the same back and pressed herself into him all the harder.

There were no words. They needed no words!

They clung to each other in the warmth of the golden sun in memory of that afternoon that was hardly warm or sunny even if it was just as sweet as this ride. The trees and river's edges were like the pillars and the arches. The boat was like the transept and the prow like the altar. Now, it was perhaps a stupid thing to compare the Hatter to the priest, and yet he was the one rowing them down this stream. At least he stood as a human-like figure in the triangular shape of the marriage sacrament. It was all as though they were being married all over again, and all she could think of were the words, "I do." I do. Oh, how she pressed with the words again, again. Till death parted them. In sickness and health, and for better and for worse, and happiness and tragedy and normalcy and madness.

Forever.

They were husband and wife now as though they had been so since the beginning of time now that Matthias had officially remembered, and Esther was free to acknowledge him! They kissed as at their wedding day purely and with holy sacramental fervor after that pronouncement: husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Haddler. Matthias and Esther Haddler. However it was put it was the most beautiful of letters put together in the English language. Of any language.

Time really did seem to stop. An eternity of beauty took them away into this ethereal golden afternoon. It was a dream of a moment in time snug in this mystic band of memory— the holy bands of matrimony.

The smell of the incense, the feel of the warmth of Matthias' breath, his strong hand, his living body next to hers, but most of all two souls entwined and no word of any language could describe the acuteness of what she felt at this moment like the slow motion meditation on the gratefulness of her marriage day renewed.

Then came the annoying sigh, which could be interpreted universally in any language, and it brought them back to… well, one could hardly call a Wonderlandian boat ride of the golden river of Carrolean lore "down to Earth", but certainly out of seventh heaven. However, the sigh itself was anything but annoyed. It was almost like a part in the story about a rabbit's framing rather than a rabbit's hole. The Hatter was in that frame now rather than in a clerical position. His face about matched the cartoonish lunacy as he leaned over the box with the oars left to rest in their holds. The boat was even drifting a little to the side and threatening to veer into the shore.

Mr. and Mrs. Haddler stared still in arms together even if now defensively rather than at ease, but the Hatter's smile only grew.

"I knew that would calm the mood! How 'bout seconds!" Hatter pointed with his knife to the spine of the book on the table. "Book and tea of course." He motioned to the teapot. "'The secret to a well-balanced life is a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other.' The life lesson of any married couple."

"Did you know?" demanded Matthias suddenly, though still holding Esther rather as though she might be snatched away from him.

"Exactly, Don't contradict yourself. We all know it's anonymous."

"About us," said Matthias impatiently.

"I knew you were coming; I believe we've been over this," said the Hatter with a sniff.

"Did you know that I was your daughter-in-law?" Esther attempted.

"I didn't know you were in law despite your grasp on language enough to have pre-lawed to your work," said the Hatter; it might have been "pre-laud", however; either way it was just as stupid even if Esther would not have it had it any other way with a Mad Hatter.

He was the Mad Hatter, after all. THE Mad Hatter… or at least the same Hatter she knew when she had come… and she had come. It had not been a dream or a childhood game. She had been here in Wonderland. She had, as the Cheshire Cat put it, rescued it.

At least she had rescued it for herself even if not for the literal literary characters. She did not think that Wonderland needed to be saved, which was why she had never really been too interested in stories about a girl warrior slaying monsters to get out of Wonderland. The monsters belonged there in their places, and yet any real monsters were the ones one brought with, especially coming here as a grownup rather than a child. A child had no room for such baggage and knew which fights to pick within a dream-realm, but did Esther now that she was not a child Alice but a grown up one?

Esther was about to say something more to the Hatter. It was all so overwhelming to have both remembered her past as well as have Matthias remember the part of his own that had included her, but Matthias ignored the Hatter after he parted from Esther. He had had enough Hatters to last him a life time, she was sure. It was a gentle movement towards his wife, but it was in full seriousness with all attention upon Esther as Esther.

Alices could wait with the Hatters.

She knew what Matthias would ask better than an oracle before he had even looked at her with wide demanding eyes despite an intense care and that care was for her.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Why she looked at the Hatter first was beyond her. Maybe it was because Matthias had looked at him before parting from Esther as though he had been about to ask the Hatter the same question before directing it at her. It all felt horribly tragic as much as it did pathetically comedic and yet there was nothing tearful or funny about any of it. She opened her mouth not knowing what would come out, but she had to speak. She had to say something.

"Would you have believed me if I had told you from the beginning?" she begged.

Matthias opened his mouth. Then stopped. Lowering his head he slumped back crossing his arms over his chest defeated and disgusted. Though she knew that his disgust was not directed at her, she hoped it was not too much at himself.

"I don't know what I would have thought," he said, and after a pause quickly added, "especially in that hamster ball."

Esther blinked. Despite herself, she blinked away from even this deep and ridiculously emotional moment that she had been waiting for since she first followed a fake rabbit down into the first rabbit hole into Heartland. Wherever and whatever that was anymore. That was just it! She knew something more now about this whole thing.

"I was here before," she said.

"What?" Matthias winced.

She grabbed him in full again pulling herself into him, and Matthias held her but it was a little lighter than the first time as he waited for his confusion to be lifted.

"I was in Wonderland before," she said feeling quite beside herself as she went back to his conflict rather than her own. "I wanted to tell you! I mean— I mean, not about me coming to Wonderland, but that I knew you. That you knew me. That we were married just before all this! I wanted you so badly! I'm sorry."

"Esther," complained Matthias. "Don't be like that. I get, I get it, alright? But I—"

"I'm glad it's you," Esther said.

Matthias nodded. Relenting to everything he nodded. "Yes. Me too."

He ran his fingers through her hair. "I'm sorry you went through that. You doubted, didn't you?"

"Nothing is as it seems in Wonderland."

"But it's Wonderland not nightmare land."

"Not yet," shrugged the Hatter.

"Oh, right, you," grumbled Matthias looking at him and adjusting his new hat somewhat self-consciously. "Don't worry, no one's forgotten that you're here. How 'bout you be useful and tell us how to leave Wonderland."

"I can only tell you what you already know. No Alice ever asked me how to leave it yet. Well, once we get to the bank, and we're almost there, you know, I'll have to go to Portage, and you'll probably be better off crossing the Pond without me, but I'll be sure to meet you there."

With a weary sigh, Matthias sat up and released Esther again putting his hands over his knees as he looked Hatter right in the face.

"What are you talking about now? Anything important?"

"It's important in some way or it wouldn't be. There's nothing more important than something that one doesn't know how it's important even if it isn't important to you specifically."

"Is it important to you?' asked Esther, but she shook her head quickly before the Hatter could answer. "Matthias?"

"Yes?" asked Matthias.

"Have you heard of…" she hesitated, "Nick Sardine?"

Matthias paused and grew very contemplative as he stared out along the bank. Esther felt a shiver despite the warmth of the sun. It was as though the shade became more prominent and the sun secondary. The breaks in the shadow were not enough to keep her cozy despite how her body's senses reached for them as she remained visibly still as much as she shivered when it was blocked away.

Had the humidity suddenly gone away? Or was it something far more in her head than that? Everything was in one's head in Wonderland, but what did that mean?

"Yes," he said decisively then. "Yes, I've heard of Nick Sardine. I believe I met Nick Sardine. I believe he was the one who caught me in the trap and that means you've seen him too. Maybe even the first time?"

"I think so," said Esther. "But I didn't recognize him as the same monster, especially when he was in, uh… his human disguise? Or was that someone only working for him?"

"I think it was just him," said Matthias. "I told you I didn't think he was human as stupid as it seemed then. 'Malady had a little fleece/ Whose lamb was white as jade/ And everywhere Nick Sardine went—"

"'—The stench was sure to raid," interrupted Esther; though she jumped as she realized that the Hatter was saying it right in unison with her.

But more than that she jumped because the boat suddenly gave a violent bump.

They hit the opposite earthy shore, which was lower than the one form which they had come. Short enough to stop them short? Well, the Hatter still went on, anyway as though nothing at all had happened, "It landed in the—"

And here he did stop short for some other reason unless the reaction had been delayed, but that was when Esther noticed—

NOTE: Things may be cleared up in some ways but new questions are quickly to follow and more than what Esther noticed. there's more than childhood memories in Wonderland that bring one back to fairy tales. When grownup fairy tales grow more and more the dangers increase and the madness with it through many shards and many worlds and very little in between them to warn one on the way. Nick Sardine is a looming fear as well like a child's nightmare re-imagined for a darker round in part II of the duology called Through Fragmented Glass. I'll start posting this story soon, so stay tuned.