by Lotus Rose
He brought out a little hollow glass tube with a cork sealing it. “Oh, my apologies. I don’t know how to console you though. There is no other way. But you’ll feel much better after you get rid of your hate. And your hair will grow back, of course.”
Alice sighed. She now felt too emotionally numb even to cry. “Fine. Whatever.”
“Very well. I have a kind of lotion that I will rub on your scalp. After a few moments, all your hair will fall out and you shall be as bald as, well, me, or a cue ball.”
Alice merely nodded meekly, and peered forlornly at the top of her desk as he rummaged. Soon, he had brought up a little container, which he unscrewed then began slathering the noxious goo into her scalp like shampoo, while she sat with her hands resting in her lap, no emotion upon her face.
It began to tingle and feel warm amongst her follicles. The Witch Doctor snarled and grabbed a hold of her hair and twisted, but it hadn’t yet detached from her head and she yowled. “Ouch! That hurts!”
“Oops, sorry.” He looked into her eyes, which had wettened from the sudden pain. “Go ahead, cry. I shall collect your tears.”
Then with a fizz and snap, her hair broke free. He chuckled. Alice shrieked. “You bastard! I’ll kill you!”
He was standing in front of her, smugly holding her golden locks. “If you say so, baldy.”
Alice scowled, then she shook her head. “No, it is wrong to want to harm others. That is why you must help me!”
“If I do, will you please muster up a few tears, my girl? For my potions. If you do, I’ll even cast a temporary skill-increasing spell that will allow you to beat the Queen in billiards. Okay?”
“Ha! I would love to see her face when I beat her. No, I mean, it would make her oh-so-sad to lose. That would be mean, and it’d be like cheating.”
He arched his brow while staring at her.
Self-consciously, Alice raised her hand and ran it over the top of her head—yes, it was bald and smooth, it almost felt like it was waxed. She pulled a face.
“Well, okay, my girl, if you do not wish me to cast the spell, then I shan’t…”
Alice nodded. But then she felt them coming on again—the dark thoughts. She tried to fight them off, but they were too strong. “No! Do it, before I change my mind! Ha! I want her to suffer humiliating defeat! I promise I’ll cry for you!”
“As you wish, milady.” He rummaged, brought out another liquid-filled tube. He grinned. “I managed to obtain some of the Queen of Heart’s sweat while she was playing billiards with me.” He opened it with his mouth, since he still held her hair in his other hand. “I shall now sprinkle her sweat upon your cue ball head…there we are. And now I shall place my hand upon your smooth head. Now don’t squirm, my dear. And now I shall recite some words in my native tongue.” He launched into a guttural chant in a language unfamiliar to Alice. “And voila!” He removed his hand. “Now, whenever you play billiards during the next few days, you shall be highly skilled and able to make the most astounding shots! It will be near impossible for you to lose! And now that that’s done, let us move on to the matter of you unburdening your dark thoughts, shall we?”
Alice nodded. “Quite right.”
After some more rummaging, the Witch Doctor produced a band to tie Alice’s former hair with, then he brought out a jar of glue he used to stick the hair onto the doll. As they waited for the glue to dry, the Witch Doctor handed the bone pins to her. “Now listen up, my girl. What you shall do is, you shall place one hand to your heart and hold a pin with the other. Then you shall bring up all those dark hateful thoughts of revenge and cruelty. With my aid, those dark thoughts shall transfer to the pin, which you shall then stick to the doll version of you.”
“Where shall I stick it?”
“Why, to the doll’s heart of course. There, you see?” He pointed to the doll’s chest, where there was a red heart painted. “You shall empty your heart of your hatred and transfer it to the doll’s heart, where it shall be kept. Then you shall be free from those thoughts!”
“Oh my! Such strange magic indeed! What would happen if the pins were removed from the doll?”
“Well, then those dark thoughts would be freed, so I suggest you don’t let that happen. Even so, the effect won’t last forever, for you are capable of growing new hateful thoughts to replace the old ones.”
“Oh no no. I learned my lesson. I shall once again strive hard to remain a good little girl, who bears no ill thoughts toward anyone! I won’t even let such notions begin!”
“Er, if you say so. All I care about is getting ahold of a of some of those precious tears of yours. We have a deal, right?”
“Oh, yes yes.” She waved her hand. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
And so Alice did as instructed. As she was about to stick the first pin in, the Witch Doctor encouraged her: “Now focus on your thoughts of revenge. What would you like to do to the Queen of Hearts, and the Tweedle Twins, and all the other rascals who torment you every day? Hmm?”
Alice closed her eyes and brought the hatred up from her heart. “I would love to stab them and cut them, then maim then barbecue them then behead them then feed them their own barbecued heads!”
“That’s it! Gorge on your hate! I love it.” He made some chants and hand movements, then Alice felt some of the hateful feelings shoot from her heart up her chest, then down her arm and into the pin. “Now stick the needle in!”
Alice stuck it into the doll heart, then felt some of her hatred lessen. She repeated the procedure four more times, and each time the dark thoughts lessened until they were gone completely and each time the heart on the doll darkened until it was black.
Alice took a contented sigh and grinned big. “Ah, now I feel most lovely. I am my old self again. I harbor no ill thoughts towards anyone anymore!”
He peered at her. “Well, that’s great. But there is still the matter of my tears you promised me.” He stared at her eyes, but there were no tears brimming there.
“Oh yes,” Alice said. “I remember, but I’m just so dang gummed happy, I have no tears right now.” She hugged herself and squeezed while squealing with delight. Then she pounced on the Witch Doctor and hugged him. “Oh, you’re my hero!” she shouted.
He pushed her off. “Oh that’s enough of that, my girl! Now I must make you cry. You promised me!”
He glared at her. She shrunk back and said, “You like making little girls cry?”
He grinned menacingly. “I, my dear, love it.” He slapped her hard across the face.
She screeched at that and pressed her hand to her face. “Ow! That hurt!”
“It was meant to,” he sneered.
“That wasn’t nice!”
“I know. But I don’t fear you at all. I know you won’t do anything about it. All your dark thoughts were stored away in that doll. Don’t you miss them?”
“No,” she said, with her eyes brimming with tears, but she didn’t cry, “for I know I am pure of heart. I don’t know what is going on with you. We all make mistakes, after all. I forgive you.”
The Witch Doctor just stared at her for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “My, what a virtuous girl you are. But I don’t have time for this nonsense. I must get back to the Queen to inform her that I have fixed you.” He took a moment to take in her bald head. “Why, you used to be such a pretty little girl.” He made a tsk sound with his mouth. “But now, I daresay, your appearance is…below par.” He began rummaging in his bag again. Pulled out a hand-held looking glass, then held it up so she could see her reflection.
Alice stared in horror at the bald-headed version of herself.
Softly, he said, “Think of it. All your beautiful golden hair is gone. Think how long it will take to grow it back. The situation is utterly dismal, I’m afraid.”
Alice’s lower lip began to tremble.
The Witch Doctor said, “The leaves have fallen from the tree. The chicken has been plucked of its feathers. I hate to say the word, ‘ugly’, s
o I shall refrain from doing so. Your hair, your beautiful hair, is gone.”
And that, as they say, is the straw that broke the camel’s back. The levee broke and the tears were unleashed.
And in an instant, he was there to encapsulate and enslave a few of those sacrificial tears to the glass cages of his cork-topped tube.
Once he had scooped up the tears he wanted, and given her the bone she asked for, he made a quick exit. Leaving Alice all alone, but at least her heart was no longer burdened by dark thoughts, and she began to hum and sing, just an angelic sweet little girl once again.
The next day, she went to visit the Queen of Hearts at her billiards table once again. The Witch Doctor was absent this day.
As Alice approached, the Queen of Hearts pulled a face, and said, “Yick! What happened to you?!” for Alice looked quite different from yesterday.
Her head was still bald, but also, during the night, she’d grown curious and had used the Witch Doctor’s lessons to stick a bone through the inside middle of her nose.
“Good morning, Your Highness!” She beamed.
“Why you look like that Witch Doctor, except much shorter.”
“Yes, I’ve never had a bone in my nose before. Speaking of the Witch Doctor, where is he?”
“Oh, he shall be along shortly. Yesterday he annoyed me quite too much, and I got so angry that I couldn’t tolerate him anymore, but I cut him down to size. He shall no longer speak to me in such a rude manner. But he told me that he had fixed you?”
“Oh yes!” she said with a giggle. “I took all those bad thoughts and stored them away!”
“Ah yes, on the doll, correct?”
“Yes. It is a most ugly, yet glorious doll.”
“I shall be wanting that doll. Where is it?”
She pouted. “It’s at my hut. But what use do you have for a doll? You’re a grown up.”
She folded her arms. “Because I want it, and I get what I want.”
Alice pouted again, but then she tried to think of why the Queen would want it. Maybe the Queen was sad because she had no toys! “Well, I hope it makes you happy, Your Highness!”
The Queen chuckled. “I daresay you have been cured, my child.”
“Thanks!”
The Queen rolled her eyes. “But I’m afraid that non-hairdo of yours shan’t do. I shall have someone whip up a special potion that will speed-grow your hair, but it shall come in black…”
“Ooh, pretty.”
“Quite. Now, let us play a game shall we? There is your crate. But first, I don’t think I can bear to look at your bare noggin’ a second longer! Why I can see my reflection in it!”
“You can?” Alice pressed her hand self-consciously to her head.
“Not literally. I was just mocking you.”
“Ohhh.”
“Now, I have come up with a solution for your ugliness until your hair grows out again. Guard!” One of the guard cards stepped forward, holding a wig of long black silky hair, which he handed to the Queen. “Ah, here we are. Now stand up on your crate so I can put it on you.”
After a few moments, the wig was adjusted upon Alice’s head.
The Queen handed her a pool cue. “Now let us begin the game, shall we? I shall break.”
Alice tried to remember the rules. What the Queen was doing was called racking the balls. All the balls started out in a triangle. She removed the rack. Next, the Queen would hit them with the cue ball, which Alice didn’t see on the table.
Reading her mind, the Queen said, “Ah, I have it right here. We shall play a slightly different game today.” She was reaching down at the side of the table. “I told you the Witch Doctor would be joining us, and here he is…” She brought up an object in her hand and set it on the table.
Alice squinted down, trying to make sense of it. It looked a most curious ball. It was not completely smooth and round.
She gasped. “Crikey! It’s the Witch Doctor’s head!” She stared in horror at it—the eyes were sewn shut, and it looked slightly more wrinkly than it had been when it had been normal-sized, but there was the bone in his nose, just like the one she wore.
The Queen sniffed. “It seems to be, yes. I’m glad he taught me the whole head-shrinking business. It was a bit tricky, but I managed well enough.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because he mouthed off to me.” She hit the shrunken head with her pool cue, and it rolled wobbily and hit the side of the triangle of balls with a thud. It obviously hadn’t struck where the Queen had intended.
“Oh bollocks,” the Queen of Hearts said as the balls lazily separated. “I’m afraid his head doesn’t make a very good ball. I had to put lead on the inside to give him some heft.” None of the balls had gone into a pocket. “But do the best you can my dear.”
“Oh I shan’t! He was my friend! He helped me!”
“He was a rude obnoxious jerk! Now you shall play, or you shall rue your disobedience. Now it is your turn! You must hit the cue ball.”
Alice struggled to hold back her tears and calm her frantic breathing. “Yes, My Queen.” She repositioned her crate then stood upon it again.
“Do you remember my lessons?” said the Queen.
Alice nodded meekly. Her lower lip trembled. She was thinking about the poor poor Witch Doctor.
“Go ahead, then, make your shot.”
Alice looked down at the head, then looked away. She couldn’t bear it.
The Queen encouraged while she pointed. “See that ball? You have a straight shot. Remember the poem?”
Alice nodded. Quietly she muttered:
“Strike it straight on when you’re making your shot,
To make it roll in a path that’s direct,
Or strike at an angle at just the right spot,
To make it twist just like you’re snapping a neck!”
“That’s right. Go on then…”
Alice closed her eyes and wildly poked the cue sticky thingy out. It struck the cue head and then she heard a ball roll into a pocket.
She opened her eyes. She’d hit the ball in!
“Wow, you did it! With your eyes closed and everything! It must be beginner’s luck.”
“Can I stop now, Your Highness? I don’t like striking my former-friend’s head. It seems somehow disrespectful.”
“No, we can’t let your lucky shot be the last of it, can we? I want to see you miss one. Why you’re just an amateur. And here we’ll see it proven.” She pointed to the balls. “Now look where your cue ball head is positioned. Since you are now stripes, you must hit another stripe in, but look, the cue ball is against the edge there, see, and its way is blocked by all those solid balls. If you are to hit the stripe in, you must make the cue ball curve. Do you remember how?”
“Yes’m.”
“Very well. Now move your crate. There is no way you shall make this shot. You haven’t got the skill. But we must fail in order to eventually succeed, yeah?”
Alice set the crate down and stood on it. “Yes, My Queen.” She positioned the pool stick.
“Remember from the rhyme?”
“Yes. Strike at an angle at just the right spot, to make it twist just like you’re snapping a neck!” She closed her eyes and struck out wildly with her pool stick.
The stick connected with the miniature head—she heard a bunch of balls clacking and bouncing and dropping into baskets.
The Queen exclaimed, “Impossible!”
Alice opened her eyes to see that she had sunk every single striped ball into a pocket. The shrunken head was in the middle of the table upside down and facing away from Alice.
Alice giggled. “Wow, that was easy.”
The Queen scowled and tromped over to Alice. “Give me that,” she said as she yanked the pool cue from Alice’s hand.
Alice yelped, “What?” in surprise.
“Your Highness does not wish to play this game anymore. Now begone with you. I’m tired of looking at your boney face!” In a huff,
she grabbed up the shrunken head and stormed out of the room.
Alice sighed. She hoped she hadn’t hurt the Queen’s feelings by playing so well. She shrugged, then prepared to go about the rest of her rounds. She had a certain amount of creatures and people she had to visit each day. She hoped she could put a smile upon their faces, now that her dark thoughts had been stowed away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mad Hatter
When Alice was 11
Alice was going about her daily rounds of ridicule and humiliation. She had just come from her session with the Tweedle twins. She had to keep telling herself the twins didn’t know any better. It was a good thing that a couple years ago she’d stored all her hateful thoughts away in a voodoo doll, but slowly she’d been growing more dark thoughts, so she often had to remind herself to be nice to others.
Next up on her agenda was a visit with the Mad Hatter. He wasn’t as cruel as many of the other citizenss of Wonderland. Most of the time he merely liked to stare at her creepily. He’d requested that today she meet him at his hat workshop.
Alice had a bit of a soft spot for him. He was actually quite handsome and dashing in his exquisite hats, but he was also quite mad, from all the chemicals he used to make his hats, it was rumored.
She watched as the door of his workshop opened and the Mad Hatter came out, not wearing a hat on his head, but holding one in his hands, though. He looked more off his rocker than usual, in fact he looked outright raving mad. His eyes rolled about and his head lolled from side to side.
“Aaaliiicccee,” he said. “I’ve been awaiting anxiously.” He staggered toward her—he nearly stumbled.
“I say, Hatter, are you alright? You seem out of sorts.”
He was standing in front of her now, blinking rapidly while twitching. She could see now that his face glistened with a heavy sweat. “My apologies for being quite more mad than usual, milady, but I’ve been working on a very special hat. It required such precise calculations, exotic techniques, and such concoctions and chemicals, why…they seem to have really affected me!” He waved his free hand and twitched.
She looked down into the top hat—she was staring at the inside of it, lined with soft felt. “Is that the hat?”