Death of the Mad Hatter (33 page)

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-
T
WO

(
Ryley: One year ago in Wonderland)

A cluster of spiders were loosening
the yo-yo’s string from around my neck. Their proximity made me want to gag. One day I would get over my irrational fear of spiders, but today wasn’t that day. Their webs were everywhere. The silk shimmered different colors, depending on how the light hit them. My headache pounding was almost crippling. I’d kill for an aspirin. I reached up to rub my temples when someone slapped my hand out of the way.

“If you move too much, Genevine won’t be able to finish.”

A spider sat on the hag’s shoulder with its butt to me. Genevine pulled a thin silk thread from the spider, slid it through a needle, and lowered it to my neck. Genevine pulled back on the string. I felt a tug on my neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked. My voice didn’t sound like me. It was far too rough and deep, but I was still too out of it to think straight. Everything seemed backwards but moving in fast-forward.

“I’m doing the impossible,” she said
. “If you can, then so can I.”

I tried to think of what had happened before I lost consciousness.
There was the fight with the Joker. I recalled the Wall of Weapons and watching the Joker’s body go limp. Knives, swords, and other pointy “toys” stuck out from him.

A smaller spider—daddy long leg—held up a mirror for me to see. Genevine was cutting a string t
hat was attached to my horribly bloody neck!

“Impossible,” I muttered, moving my neck. The slightest movement hurt, but I wasn’t dead.

“This is a world of impossibilities,” the daddy long leg said, giving me the mirror.
“Life after death may not be possible in the Otherworld, but nothing is impossible in Wonderland.”

I cringed at the idea of being so close to a spider, and I tried not to think that their webs were holding me in place. I studied
Genevine’s handiwork. I should be dead. Right? Still, I was moving, talking, and breathing.

“You should be careful though, the stitching could tear at any moment. I’d hate for you to turn your head too quickly and have the darn thing fall off. All you boys in the Edgar family are far too handsome to be headless.”

“How is this possible?”

“Magic,” Genevine replied. “You don’t get the title of
MTS—Most Talented Seamstress—in the court for nothing.”

I sat up. The movement was nauseating. I held my wobbling head
for a moment before looking for an escape. The fire pole would be my best bet. I could get out of this demented place and—

“Where is Alice Mae?” I asked, speaking so
quickly my question was barely audible.

Genevine grabbed my ha
nd, stopping me from my attempt to stand. “You have to let her go.”

“Like hell I do!”

“I’m a seamstress, not a doctor,” she stated, calmly. “The yo-yo’s string cut deep into your neck. The spiders were able to remove it before it severed everything… but, even though I stitched you up, it doesn’t mean I’m a doctor. I don’t have medical training.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, looking from her to the spiders for an explanation.

“Well, the Joker did slit your throat with that nasty yo-yo,” Alfred said. “In the Otherworld, does a person live long after his head is semi-detached?”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-
T
HREE

(
Alice Mae: Present time in Wonderland)

“For most of your life, you’ve been guilt-ridden. I couldn’t bear the thought of you punishing yourself because of what happened to me, so I didn’t want you to hear about my unconventional survival,” Ryley said, tucking a straggly piece of my hair behind my ear. He smiled one of those infuriating, sexy smiles. “
I stay in this house of cards where no one will look for a deadman, thus, I stay under Hearts’ radar. I’ve taken over M.H’s candy operation since everyone referred to me as the second Mad Hatter anyway. It seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy so I didn’t fight it. Anyway, when Genevine showed me the recipe you wrote, I knew you were planning to return. You were taking some kind of barbaric risk when it would be easier to just stay away. So that meant it was useless to hide from you too.”

For a year I thought he was dead!
I slapped his hand away from me. I pushed away from him. His eyes were wide and wild, not knowing what I’d do next.

“Next time you think you’re doing me a favor, don’t!” I planned on kicking him with my pointy shoes, except he
kept backing away from me. So, I took off my shoe and threw it at him. The heel of the shoe stuck into the playing card wall next to the Jack.

“I thought the Joker predicted that the
HATed fool would die
twice!”
I screamed at the old man.

“You act like you’re upset that I’m
not
dead! Sorry to disappoint you,” Ryley mocked. “Besides, you’re the one who said I shouldn’t hold much clout in the Joker’s predictions. You said that he’s not as gifted in seeing the future as his great-great grandfather! You insisted that he often gets his predictions wrong!”

For a
year—a freaking year
—I believed he was dead! I was half-tempted to kill him to prove a point! “You could have told me the truth, Mad Hatter!”

“Don’t call me that,
ever again,
” Ryley said in a tone so ominous that shivers enveloped my body. Yet, I couldn’t care more about what he wanted. I’d shiver all day long if he could feel one ounce of suffering I had felt.

“Mad Hatter!
Mad Hatter! Mad Hatter!”

“Why do you insist on talking when you should just shut-up
and listen,
stupid girl
?”

“The walking, talking DEADMAN wants me to shut up?”

“I like to think of my situation as
living-impaired
.”

“Splitting hairs, aren’t we?”

“As long as I stay in this realm, I can live. My death is permanent if I venture into the Otherworld.”

My other shoe didn’t drop—I kicked it off
at him. He dodged it. When it hit the floor, he charged me. Grabbing my arms, he kept his body pressed up hard against mine.

“Get off me you inconsiderate
dead freak!”

“Don’t you ever stop talking?”

Before I could answer, he kissed me…

…
I held
nothing
back. I made sure he could feel just how peeved I was with my lips. I didn’t have to scream insults at him, but I used my tongue to get my point across. Biting helped too.

And then it was as if someone flipped a switch inside me.
As angry as I was, my fears bubbled up. I don’t know how he did it, but Ryley made me feel every single emotion I had for him at the same time. All my anger, sorrow, fear, and love rose out of me. They came out in the form of tears, trickling down my cheeks and onto our lips. Ryley drank them in as he kept me close in his embrace.

I imagined that Ryley and I would have spent the rest of the night either screaming at each other, or doing other things with our lips, but Genevine coughed one of those,
you’re not alone
kind of coughs.

“We still have a queen to kill,”
she said.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-
F
OUR

(
Alice Mae: Present time in Wonderland)

“
You
don’t have to do this,” Ryley said. “I would do it for you.”

“No, you can’t,” Genevine said, stealing the words I was to say.

Even though she was fighting for my cause, I couldn’t help but to be curious. “Why can’t he?” I asked.

She picked up the robe and
the bottle that I’d dropped by the door. She handed them to me. I peeled myself away from Ryley to take them. It was more difficult than I imagined. Being an inch away from him made me queasy and dizzy simultaneously. I shoved the bottle in my pocket before Ryley could snatch it away from me.

“Because, I have to make a few stitches in the Mad Hatter’s neck every
couple of days to keep his head from rolling off his shoulders. Since the spiders’ thread is what I used, it means that the tonic they drank, at your request, is in the threads around his neck,” Genevine said, inspecting Ryley’s scar. “And you tore some stitches in your tussle with Alice Mae.”

“No matter,” Ryley said. “I can still take Alice Mae’s place.”

“No, you can’t,” Mr. Ruth said, handing back his hat. “I promised Alice Mae a long time ago that I would keep you safe. I technically failed, but I’m not one to repeat mistakes.”

“They are right. You cheated death once,” I said, clutching the robe. “I’ve already live
d one year
knowing
that you were dead. Call me selfish, call me insane, call me
stupid
, but I don’t want to live like that
ever
again. If anyone is going to die, it’s going to be me.”

“
Woo’ld yo i’ike t’tho k’now?” the Jack said, quietly. He was still sitting on the couch, blending into the shadows, long forgotten. He clutched a deck of tarot cards. “Woo’ld yo I’ike t’tho k’now if yo wil’l i’ive t’tho see t’tho’omorrow?”

No, I would not like to know the future!
I couldn’t shake my head fast enough. Conversely, I couldn’t say the same about Ryley. He looked exactly how I imagined a mouse would appear, gawking at a piece of cheese on a trap.

“If we know, for sure, that you will die
on this vendetta, then I will volunteer to take your place,” Ryley said.

“It doesn’t wor
k that way, Ryley. The prophecies never make any sense until it happens. Just because our future is predicted doesn’t mean I want to know it. I lived my whole life knowing I was Wrong, according to the
BackWards Wanderer Prophecy
. But, the thing is, everyone makes ‘wrong’ decisions. To predict that someone would do wrong is like saying someone will eventually die. I’ve been chased by the ghosts of my past. I thought M.H. would suddenly wake from the dead, but it was he and
you
that the
Madmen’s Prophecy
was regarding,” I said.

Standing on my
tiptoes, I gave him a quick peck on the cheek and stole his hat. The fabric was old and worn, but it felt good in my hands. And, it smelled like him—like home with a faint aroma of sweets. I turned to leave, but he held onto my hand.

“Let’s run away together,” he said. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight again, and if you don’t survive…”

I pressed my finger over his lips. “Death is a friend I’ve been waiting a very long time to see. Besides, if I’m to die, then I’ll haunt you until the end of time.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-
F
IVE

(
Ryley: Present time in Wonderland)

Even in the desolate, run-down, dark room that screamed
crypt
, Alice Mae stood defiantly graceful. Even though she was dressed in rags, her beauty couldn’t be hidden. There was a spark of crazy in her eye that only came when someone lost everything, but residing in there was her overwhelming sense of intelligence. I had no doubt she’d kill the queen, sacrifice herself if it came to it—that was what terrified me.

“The queen will awake soon,” I said and kissed her hand.

She smiled again—a twisted, sly smile that sent chills down my spine. Her blue eyes turned as cold as ice. After turning on her heel, she walked out of the room I’d made entirely of cards. She walked so soundlessly, I could trick myself to believe she was a ghost. As soon as the door shut behind her, I turned to the Jack.

“Will she survive?” I would chase her down, tackle her if I had to, and kill the queen myself if it meant she would be safe.

The corner of the old man’s lips twitched. He reached up and plucked a blonde hair off of my jacket, Alice Mae’s. He pulled out a red one from his pocket. It had to be Hearts’. Twisting them around each other, he held them over the candle’s flame. It sizzled, leaving a puff of white smoke. He gestured to my scarf that I’d used to bandage my hand. I unraveled it and handed it to him. On a single thread he wrote
: ONLY ONE SHalL SURVIVE. The one wHosE heArt bleeds the most will peRsevere buT a full recovery iS unlikely.

I paid close attention to the capital letters and lower case. H.E.A.R.T.S was capitalized. AL was not. “What does this mean? AL will survive? Will Hearts bleed?”

“The
She Prophecy
is about Al and Hearts. You asked if
she
shall survive. One
she
will watch the other
she
die. That much is certain, but the length of said survival is uncertain,” the Jack said, speaking without trouble.

“Your tongue—I thought it had been cut out,” I said.

“What you think is the truth, and what is reality is not the same.”

I grabbed the Jack’s collar and pulled the old man up so we were
face to face. The red wool clothing felt as slippery as silk in my hands so I twisted it around my fist. The more fabric I gathered, the more loose his clothing became, like it was peeling away from him. The color of his skin wavered, like he was made of water. The tighter I pulled his clothing, the more that slipped through my fingers. He turned his back to me and walked away. A ball of clothing was wadded in my fist, draping from his collar.

“Enough parlor tricks!”
I said through gritted teeth and chased after him. “If Alice Mae is to die, I’ll take her place!”

“One
she
will come out alive, but it is
certain
that if you go anywhere near the tonic Alice Mae carries,
many
deaths will follow.”

He traced the spider web stitching along my neck. He didn’t have to point out that the
tonic that the spiders drank was laced in their webbing. I would become the target, just like the queen.

I shoved him away. He collapsed onto the furniture and
chuckled, amplifying to a full-blown laugh. A dreadful feeling burst in the pit of my stomach. I raced to the door. Locked. I turned back to the Jack, planning to demand that he unlock it, but the old man was gone. Only Genevine and the white rabbit stood in the house of cards.

“You may have ended the Terror plaguing this court when you took the Joker’s life, but in the end he was
still family, and I loved him regardless of his faults,” the Jack’s voice echoed even though he wasn’t visible. “Tit-for-tat. One will die, but will it be the
she
who wears the mad man’s hat?”

I beat the door
well after the shards shredded my hands.