With a sigh, she traversed the room and stopped in front of him. The shoes were perfect. They didn't rub her heels or bother her current blisters, and her feet didn't slide around. They fit like a dream. "Is there anything you can't do?" She glanced up at him, startled when his brows shot down angrily. "What did I say wrong now? It was a compliment."
"Your compliment sounds remarkably like belittling."
"Defensive much?" Melody looped her arm around one of his, pressing close into him. She pecked him on the cheek before he had time to pull away. "Thank you. Not only for the beautiful clothing and shoes, but for being a gentleman and taking me in. Sunny too."
Hatter studied her, as though waiting to see if she'd tack on something else he'd consider insulting. When she didn't, he said, "You are welcome." He pulled his arm free and gestured to the corridor before retrieving the jar he'd set aside. "Allow me to show you to a guest bedroom."
Melody followed him to a quaint little room with a double bed and a single candle lit beside it. The patchwork quilt was composed of starburst patterns of bright blues and purples so vivid they stood out in the low lighting. Sunny had already made herself at home on the quilt and picked her head up from her paws to regard them when they entered.
He held out the jar. "For your blisters.
She unscrewed the lid and sniffed at the amber substance. A hint of tea leaves, honey, and something she couldn't name wafted from within. "You used tea in this?" Melody gripped the little container with both hands.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Always trust the tea, my dear. If you need anything, my room is down the hall." He pointed.
"Hatter..." she said as he crossed the threshold to leave her. He stilled. "What's your name? Your real name. You shrugged it off before, but I feel odd calling you by your trade. It feels impersonal." Like he was slamming a door shut to keep her from finding out too much about him.
His shoulders hefted and lowered as he exhaled slowly. He bowed his head ever so slightly. "It has been a very long time since anyone cared to know it. Hatter is who I am. Hatter is all I ever will be." He closed the door behind him.
"Looks like it's just you and me now, Sunny." The cat yawned in response.
Melody toed off her shoes and reached behind her to undo the lacings on the bodice and realized...she couldn't. There also wasn't a mirror to help her figure out where he'd tucked the end of the strings. One thing was for certain: she wasn't going to chase after him to ask for help undressing. Look where that sort of thing had gotten her sister!
Devrel's words, combined with the devastated expression on Gareth's face, tore through her like a lance of white hot guilt. She'd shown no mercy and received none in return.
Resigned to sleeping in her brand new gown, Cadence grabbed the jar with the ointment and headed to the bed.
***
Sleep proved impossible with Melody down the hall. Her feminine scent lingered even when he was away from her, as captivating as a cherry tart, but her last question haunted his mind.
"What's your name? Your real name."
Quickly burying the memories of his past before they overcame his thoughts, he rolled over on his bed and stared at the ceiling. It neared the middle of the night, which meant the sun and moon would soon share the sky, splitting the land between darkness and light. It was his favorite time of the day, but now it was the last grain of sand in an hourglass, mocking him. When this time occurred on the morrow, Wonderland would surely discard Melody like it had her sister. Like it had Alice.
But not me.
The creaking of his door being pushed open caught his attention. He'd left it cracked in case Melody yelled for him in the night. Some people had trouble sleeping in strange places, and as a child he'd been one of them. The feline hopped to the foot of the bed and observed him.
Hatter smirked and held out his hand for the creature. Timidly, the cat approached and sniffed at his fingertips. Then she rubbed the side of her face against him, finding enough courage to climb on to his chest and allow him to pet her.
Though he tried not to think about it, the feline wasn't the female he wanted to be caressing in his bed. Disappointment he expected, the desire he did not. She was very beautiful and though he kept to himself, he still had urges. Unlike Gareth, Hatter would keep his hands to himself. Why court what he could never keep? When she left the following night, it would only be cruel if either formed an attachment. Melody's sister had suffered and faced a life of confinement due to telling a truth no one could ever believe. And Gareth... Hatter hated feeling sympathy for him. Things were so much simpler when he could dislike him on principle alone.
No, it was better for him to remain distant from Melody. The less time they spent alone together, the better.
For them both.
***
Gareth paced the floorboards. Melody hadn't shared Cadence's features by much, but there were subtle things like the shape and color of her eyes and face. The resemblances were enough to gut him. He'd been such a fool to allow himself to fall for someone he'd just met. Cadence was so different from the females he'd known all his life. She was refreshing and new.
That doesn't make it love.
It didn't matter since he'd never see her again.
"You're wearing a hole into the floor," Devrel observed from his perch on the windowsill. The light from the rising sun reflected across the cat's eyes, making them seem to glow an eerie blue-green. Through the window across the room, the moonlight left its subtle hue. It was thirteen o'clock. Melody had one day left, and then she too would be gone.
Gareth shook his head sadly. "What happened to Cadence is my fault. I did this to her. Me. The supposed hero. I'm nothing but a selfish villain. I wanted her, I had her, and now she is doomed to spend her remaining days ostracized for it."
"Actually, I'm the one who brought her. And correct me if I'm wrong, but she wanted you as well."
"Hatter is right. I was irresponsible. He didn't say it, but I could see it all over his face the moment he realized what occurred. He's always looked down on me. I have no idea why, but this must have justified whatever issue he has."
Devrel nodded and flicked his tail. "I don't think he dislikes you. He doesn't know how to fix you. Art comes in varied forms. Creations, revision, and perfecting. You've been without direction. It bothers him."
Unsure how he felt about that comment, Gareth asked, "Hatter told you that?"
"I visit him a lot. I observe. Besides, he's going to be snarly, now, isn't he? I mean, he's smart, that Hatter, but his solutions to problems are not always best. The new findling intrigues him, and seeing what happened with you and Cadence will merely ensure he pushes her away and ignores his own desires."
Gareth paused his pacing to peer at him more closely. "What are you talking about?"
Devrel tilted his head back as far as it would go and exhaled loudly, eyes wide and bright. "Melody. He likes her. Didn't you notice he made up a reason to move her to your seat? When does Hatter ever let someone skip halfway down his tea table? His walls are breaking apart all around him, and he's not even aware of it yet."
The oddity might have stood out more if he hadn't been so preoccupied wanting to hear about Cadence. "Mayhap you're right." Gareth rubbed his chin and considered what Hatter's predicament meant. On the one hand, helping push Melody and Hatter together would do them both good. While he didn't begrudge Melody's thoughts on his relationship with her sister—she had valid points—she would be less judgmental if it happened to her. Yet, if Melody didn't leave Wonderland, what would that do to Cadence who was left behind and couldn't find her way back? Mayhap not setting those two up would be better. For Cadence.
"Is leaving her with Hatter unsupervised a good idea?"
Devrel laughed so hard he rolled out the window, disappeared over the edge, and then reformed on the floor, chuckling. "Oh, you were serious? You think tightly-laced Hatter is going to come unraveled over a findling and compromise her virtue? The same H
atter who becomes offended when someone doesn't snip a loose thread off their shirtsleeves. That Hatter?" He rubbed the back of his paw under his eyes, wheezing from the struggle to control his mirth.
"I hate it when you have a point."
"I'm sad for you then because I have several." He grinned wider and flexed the claws on his upraised paw to demonstrate the sharpened points of his teeth and claws. Gareth did not find it impressive.
"What do we do?"
The cat stretched and contemplated the question. "There is nothing that can be done. Someone wise once told me chaos is the purest force in existence. There are no limitations, no rules, and no barriers to keep the waters of chaos from moving wherever they wish to flow. I hadn't meant to be drawn to Cadence, yet there she was, and without thinking, I brought her to you. I cast a net out for her to return, and Melody tumbled right into Hatter's empty arms. Mayhap he needed to know her as much as you needed that time with Cadence to show you there was more to life than you knew."
"Would have been better if she stayed." He hadn't expected to be drawn to her either, but she'd captivated him.
Devrel shrugged. "Chaos doesn't grant favors. Only ebbs and flows."
Gareth kneeled beside Devrel and gave him a scratch behind the ears. "And who was this wise person who told you about chaos."
With a purr, Devrel's smile widened though sadness seeped into his expression. "My grandfather, Chesh." The Boojum Alice had named the Cheshire Cat. A name that had amused Chesh so much that he and the other Boojums started calling each other that. "I miss him."
"I know you do."
What a pair they made. If not for each other, they'd be truly alone.
CHAPTER NINE
A sharp jab to the hip jolted Cadence awake. Panic set in as the stone room came into focus. The dingy, lumpy mattress below her smelled like it was washed out to sea and dragged back, but with the castle in disrepair, she'd not had a better option. It beat sleeping on the hard ground.
Squirrelpoleon popped onto the pillow in front of her face and waved his rapier in the air. The little pest had stabbed her! Rubbing the puncture, her hand came away with a streak of red. She sat up, controlling the impulse to backhand him away from her. He'd saved her life from the bandersnatches, so she could handle a little blood.
Before she had a chance to question him, a feral, bleating growl raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
What is that?
Though her first notion was the bandersnatches had found them, the volume alone differed from the beasts that had chased them through the wall. It was larger, deeper, insidious even.
Cadence rolled to the floor and crawled on hands and knees toward the slit of a window. Pink and blue hues streaked the sky, and the moon fading over the horizon. She had one day to find Gareth. If Wonderland expelled her twice, she wanted to at least see him one last time. That's all she asked. Hopefully he'd find Melody and keep her safe if she had come through before her.
A twinge of sadness mixed with jealousy. What if he preferred her sister? She was older, prettier, blonder. Smarter too. Don't think that way.
They'd taken refuge on the fourth floor of the castle. Not quite at the top, but as far as she cared to explore in utter darkness. Now that she could see the ground below, she realized she must have taken a room on the opposite side from where they had come out of the Tulgey Wood. An overgrown labyrinth stretched as far as the eye could see, and it hadn't been maintained in years. Vines and twisted branches turned a once majestic piece of landscaping into a sinister sight. The river came to an abrupt end just past it.
Movement to the left caught her attention, and she watched, wide-eyed, as an honest-to-God greenish-gray dragon climbed out of the labyrinth. On his hind legs, he—most definitely a he—stood roughly as tall as a giraffe, skinny with leathery wings folded against his back. Two large whisker-like appendages, similar to those of a catfish, stuck out from the sides of his snout. A long tail whipped back and forth as he tilted his head and red, flashing eyes in her direction as he sniffed the air. Cadence flung herself away from the window and into the dark corner, thankful there wasn't another window in the room.
"Beware the Jabberwock," the poem she'd read a hundred times over the past year mocked.
Could it be the same kind of monster Gareth killed? This one lacked a waistcoat, like he'd described the other as wearing, and she randomly wondered how Gareth's Jabberwock had come to find a waistcoat in his size. A thought that seemed to puzzle her more than how another could possibly exist. Did anyone know it was here? Was that why the kingdom was uninhabited now?
The room darkened as the light coming in through the window became obscured. The Jabberwock was peering inside. Cadence held her breath and shut her eyes.
Why didn't I go to the highest point of the castle for shelter? Since the creature could fly, it probably wouldn't have been much safer.
When the shadow moved away, Squirrelpoleon hopped around, pointing his sword toward the doorway. Argument seemed futile. She raced into the corridor and toward the stairs. Squirrelpoleon sped ahead of her, leading the way as they twisted around and around stairs in the corner tower. They entered a storeroom. Barrels were stacked and thrown, most lay empty and broken on the floor as if the room had been raided in a hurry. A few might have still contained the original content on the rack in the middle, but they'd be hard to maneuver until the room was cleared. A bitter smell, a wine or whiskey—definitely alcoholic—burned her nostrils.
Squirrelpoleon picked out one of the empty barrels in the back, turned over on its side and pointed.
"You want me to get inside?"
The lid rested on the ground next to it, and the creature chittered and sheathed his sword. If she wasn't mistaken, he tapped his foot impatiently.
Heavy footfalls rang out through the castle. The Jabberwock!
Without thinking, she climbed over the barrels in her path and crawled backward into the empty one. "Are you coming?"
Squirrelpoleon waved his front paws at her to hide. Then he slipped underneath another pile of barrels and out of sight.
Cadence scrunched her nose. While the contents had been drained and the remnants dried up years ago, the stench remained, absorbed into the wood. She closed herself inside, grateful there was a small hole in the lid so she could breathe fresh air and see through. Silently, she prayed she didn't knock the lid off if the Jabberwock wandered in.
And wander in it did several minutes later on four legs, squeezing itself into the arched doorway that was large enough for a cart to be brought in for loading and unloading. Cadence held her breath when the beast chuffed and sniffed loudly, hunting for their scents. Its bulky body barely fit, and when it attempted to climb the barrels in the rows in front of her, it quickly learned they rolled out from under him, and he fell heavily onto his side. One rolled off the rack sheltering Squirrelpoleon and cracked like a melon under its heavy clawed foot. She covered her mouth to muffle her gasp. The beast picked itself up, and examined the barrels it could not reach easily. That glowing gaze landed on her barrel twice, but didn't linger.
When nothing seemed out of place, her scent disguised by odor, the Jabberwock turned around, tail whipping through the air and crashing into a barrel five feet in front of her. She bit her lip to prevent making a sound and didn't dare exit until she no longer heard the thump thump of its footsteps. Squirrelpoleon scrambled out from his hiding place when she emerged from hers.
"Can you take me to the Red Kingdom?" she asked him for the second time, and her voice wobbled. He nodded.
It was now a matter of urgency beyond her heart's desire. "Good. We have no time to waste." She would go straight to the Red Queen and summon Gareth and his Vorpal Sword. If the beast was as dangerous as the last one, it was imperative she alert Wonderland to its existence as soon as possible on the chance they didn't know it was out here. However, she recalled its clumsy fall and she frowned. Should it really be put to death? No one lived in the Kingdom of Hearts a
nymore, and he wasn't hurting anyone. He'd scared her, clearly was seeking her out, but he'd not seemed angry or overly aggressive. More like...inquisitive.
Could a Jabberwock exist in Wonderland without causing destruction to the kingdoms beyond the wall?
CHAPTER TEN
Melody frowned when she realized Sunny hadn't stayed with her through the night. She climbed out of bed and glanced down. Whatever Hatter's magic ointment had been, he'd told the truth. Her blisters, while not completely gone, were no longer painful. After she slipped on her shoes, she wandered down the hall in search of her cat.
What she hadn't expected to find was Hatter's door wide open and her traitorous cat curled up on his chest while he slumbered, one hand lying lightly across Sunny's soft, ginger coat. He'd placed his top hat on the table beside the bed, and his dark wavy hair looked velvety in the morning light streaming in from the window. One curled, luscious lock covered his eye and begged to be brushed back.
She sighed, clenched her fingers against the impulse, and ventured past the room so she didn't disturb them, eventually ending up in the main sitting room. There was a dish of water and a plate with a half-eaten fish left for Sunny. Not too far away, Hatter had emptied a shallow crate and filled it with sand. He'd told her he'd done so, but it was the first she'd really seen it.
Great, he's taking care of my cat, and I've been so self-absorbed I've forgotten to do it myself. What kind of pet owner am I?
To be fair, she'd not expected to end up in a fantasy land and her mind had been preoccupied. Still, the guilt sat heavily in her gut. No wonder Sunny slept with him instead of her.
"Your dress is wrinkled."
Melody whirled around. Hatter frowned at her from the hallway, holding a purring Sunny in his arms. His loose, long-sleeved shirt revealed a dusting of dark hairs on his chest, and it took all her strength not to stare. The shirt was untucked over the pants he'd worn the day before. He'd not done much in way of nightclothes himself.
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