The lie

“Clever boy,” the queen gasped, grinning through her pain. “You were always the best of tricksters.”
“What?” Alice asked, glancing over at Quinn.
“And she still doesn't know!” The fat woman barked out a short laugh, grasping tightly at the wound in her side. “Her mighty protector is the thing she fears most! You do more damage than I could ever, Quinn Hunter, Mad Hatter. I should have seen it.”
“Mad... Quinn, what is she talking about?” Alice took a step back, glancing from one to the other.
“Come now, girl, don't be stupid.” The queen glared at her like she was an ugly sore. “You know what I am. But he can see me; he can hurt me. Something nobody else was ever able to do.”
“I told you, Alice,” Quinn lied smoothly, “We're the same brand of crazy. Of course I can see her.”
“Hah,” she stood, wincing from the wound. “Girl, your precious Quinn is the same Mad Hatter you've been running from. He's tricked you, lied to you, betrayed you. He's trying to worm his way back into your mind. He wants to send you back to the hospital.”
“That's not true,” Quinn said, gliding over to her. “I would never hurt you, Alice, ever.”
“But you would lie,” reminded the queen. “And you have; again and again. Even now you lie to her. You are the Hatter.”
Quinn took her hands in his own, but she pushed him away. She stared up at him, hurt in her eyes.
“She's lying,” Alice whispered, looking for any confirmation in his face. He remained stoic. “Tell me she's lying.”
And Quinn looked away.
Alice stepped back, a sob catching in her throat. “No. No no no! I can't believe this!”
“But you do,” the queen hissed, grinning like the cat. “You trusted him, and he betrayed you—he was never your friend from the start.”
“That's a lie,” Quinn finally spoke. “I was your friend, Alice; I still am! Please, trust me—I never meant to hurt you, even from the beginning.”
“No,” she whispered, backing away from him. “Stay away from me.”
Quinn's features began to change as she looked on. His gray wool coat took on a purple tinge, and odd stitching began to weave its way across, changing the fit to make him seem larger, hulking, and less human. His hair pulled itself back, growing longer and spilling over his collar like a waterfall. The fedora warped, twisted, and grew until it was the top hat. His gray gloves became fingerless and brightly colored, his watch chain looped around one shoulder
All that remained unchanged was the card, tucked into the band of his hat, and the strange, haunted look of his dark eyes.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered, almost choked, and pulled the card from the band of his hat.
It was the ace of spades.
Alice stared for a moment, trembling, before she turned and ran. She did not scream, did not cry, simply ran—and that was enough to break him.

Shorts

More random shorts. These are shorter than the last ones, but I still like them all. Maybe not together, but oh well.


“But...” Emily hesitated for a long moment before continuing. “Some people are good.”
“Not all good.” He smiled thinly. “You'll see it more when you get older. But I've never met someone who was all good—and the ones who seemed it at first sometimes turn out to be the worst of the lot. The prince who smiles and laughs and keeps peace with everyone seems good, but he will send a man to his death for nothing, should that man cross him.” The wizard paused for a long moment, clasping his hands in front of his face, his mask of a smile for the moment gone. “They do evil in the name of good. Those are the worst of them; who believe they are righteous. At least a highwayman admits he is stealing.”

-----

Adara paused, watching him carefully. “Why does a spirit of darkness look to the light?”
“We all are attracted to that which we do not have,” The Dead Spirit replied quietly as he washed the dirt out of the wound, letting her blood stream away into the blackness of the cavern beyond. “The moth emerges from its dark cocoon to seek the flame.”
“You could have light,” Adara murmured.
“As the moth can,” the Spirit said. “And it is destroyed.”

-----

“You idiot!” Chester thundered, huge voice defying his small frame. “He's dying for you, and you still can't believe him? He's never wanted to hurt you, Alice!”
“How would you even know?” she sobbed, jerking away. “You've never been there!”
“I've always been there!” Chester caught her again, and she could've sworn his skinny fingers were claws. “As much as he has. And let me tell you something, Alice. If he dies, you're going to die, whether at the hands of the queen and her lot or when that medicine 'saves' you. He's Quinn, he's Hatter, and he has never hurt you.” Chester forced her to look at the fading, stumbling, dying warrior still in the street. “She's not the one killing him, Alice! You are!”

-----

Sometimes, only sometimes, she would see him once more, through the half-conscious fog of the sticky medicine Malise gave her, right before she fell asleep. He would come up the stairs quietly, appearing in the darkness like a ghost with a scarlet mark, so that neither Malise nor Kalida nor Eldon nor their master would know he was there. He would sit with her then, far closer than he did in the mornings or the afternoons—he would touch her hair, and hold her head in his lap, and she would smile up at him in a daze, and when he thought she was asleep, he would whisper things that she could never remember but loved so much to hear. But the feeling of his touch and his quiet voice would send her to sleep again, and when she awoke he'd be far away again, in the wooden chair that seemed a million miles from her bed.
She wanted to call him over to her again, to make him repeat the words that she could never remember until they were burned into her mind, tattooed onto her memories like the scarlet bird. But she didn't. She couldn't. It wouldn't mean anything if she did.

-----

“Well, you have to fix it then.” Emily ventured cautiously. “You keep telling me everyone needs to be responsible for what they do, but if the good man being gone is bad than you need to be a good man too.”
“I could never be him.” The wizard shook his head. “I had too much darkness in me for too long.”
“But you don't have half as much darkness now,” she pointed out. “You do all sorts of nice things.”
“Just because I'm not lost right now doesn't mean I have a map.” He looked up at her with that same false smile. “But I'm alright, I swear. I just don't like to think about it much.”
She examined him. “You're lying.”
“Only halfway.” The smile faltered a little, but then he turned away. “But it's almost dinner. Come help in the kitchen.”

The Shattered Mirror

The old door didn't so much creak open as it banged, and Alice practically lunged inside with the heavy box of decorations. She dropped the box with a relieved sigh. The thick dust that covered everything poofed out in all directions as the cardboard met the wooden planks of the attic, catching the golden light that filtered through the dirty windows. Alice shoved the box up against the wall with her foot, and stood, surveying the scene for a moment.
Janice hadn't been kidding when she'd said they didn't come up here much. The dust now swirling around the air clung to everything, and abandoned spiderwebs glittered in every corner. The ceiling sloped inwards, peaking above the door, with three great beams that corresponded to the big pillars in the library below. A series of boxes much like the one she'd just dragged up the long staircase lined the walls, some with an old copy of a ruined book gracing the top of the pile, and others with less natural adornments, like old tinsel, or buckets. The warm yellow light of the summer afternoon suffused the room, and for a moment, she felt a strange nostalgia, like she was hiding in grandma's attic until far after she should have gone home.
That feeling snapped abruptly as her eyes rested on the floor at the center of the room.
There was a mirror. At least, there had been a mirror—what remained was a mess of fragments, scattered across the floor almost up to the door where she stood. The remains of the frame were missing. But the oddest thing was the total lack of dust on the mirror—even the floor it sat on was coated, but the mirror itself was completely clean. No footprints led up to it, or away from it.
Alice, quite suddenly, had to get back downstairs right this second.
She turned, but the door had closed behind her. She grabbed the handle, trying to open it until she remembered Janice's warning about the sticky lock. She bit her lip, trying to fight down the panic as she twisted the doorknob this way and that to no avail. She was stuck.
“What, leaving so soon?” A voice she knew from bad memories echoed out from behind her. “Alice, I thought we were better friends than that.”
She swallowed hard. “You... are not real.”
“Am I?” She refused to turn around and see him standing there, rising from the mirror like she would rise from a pool of water. “Then why, my dear Alice, are you so afraid of me?”
“You're a bad memory. A figment of my imagination. I'm not crazy anymore, darnit, and I know that you are not real!”
“Of course you're not crazy, Alice. You were never crazy.” His voice was smug, smooth, intoxicating, the perfect gentleman that he wasn't, he wasn't, she knew he wasn't. “But do you really have to take it out on me? I'm hurt.”
“You're a fictional character. I thought you up when I read Alice in Wonderland when I was seven. You don't exist. I know that.”
He laughed, like bells. “Alice, you know I was there before that.”
“So I was crazy before that. I'm not crazy now. Go away.” She clamped her eyes shut, keeping her hand on the doorknob as an anchor to reality. “You're not real.”
“Alice...” His voice was pleading in a way that already had what he wanted, the way he always had. She could feel him stepping across the fragments of the mirror, flickering in and out of reality as he touched them. “What happened? It used to be so easy for you to believe in me—all you needed was a book. Just that, one book, one afternoon—and you knew I was there.”
“I was crazy.” The words came in a half-sob. “Go away. Wherever you've been for fifteen years.”
“I never went away, Alice. You stopped believing, but I never went away. The others did, but you know...”
“Go away!” she shouted, finally whirling to face him. “I'm not crazy, I refuse to be crazy! I'm imagining you because of the mirror and the stress and I must be panicking, that's it, I'm panicking because the door won't open and oh no don't come any closer...”
“Shush.” He put a hand over her mouth, balancing precariously on a shard of mirror. “Now, Alice, dear, won't you calm down? This does neither of us any good.”
He was different than she'd remembered him. The parts were all there—the long curly hair barely held back in a ponytail, the well tailored suit jacket, the ridiculous top hat and white porcelain teacup in one well-manicured hand. But he was different—his eyes were darker, though still half hidden in shadow; his hair was brown now, instead of white, rich and dark like coffee or dark, expensive chocolate, shining like silk as it curled around his half-smiling face. The hat was even more ridiculous, if that was even possible—it had gained bits and pieces of belts and metal and a clock, stitched in to the grey fabric with black as night thread. The coat was a different cut, with flaired sleeves and a tie wrapped around one arm. And the ace of spades winked at her, tucked into his hat band, just as it had been when she had last seen him fifteen years ago.
He removed his hand from her mouth as her breathing returned to normal. “There, that's better.”
“You've changed,” she said breathlessly, trying very hard not to believe her eyes.
“You've changed, and so I have too.” He smiled a little at that, ducking his eyes beneath the dark brim of the top hat. “I am whatever you need me to be.”
“Gone?” She quipped, trying to regain her courage.
“Hah, no, not today.” His smile was a little more forced. “You can see me now. That's a start.”
“I'd rather not, thank you.”
“I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that.” He took a step back onto a different shard of mirror, moving like a dancer. “And enjoy my brief time with you. This, after all, is a rare opportunity.”
“If you so much as touch me...”
“You know me better than that,” he admonished gently. She hated to admit that she did. “We could have tea, Alice, what would you say to that? Just how we used to.” He gestured with the teacup.
“Not happening.” She swallowed. “I'm supposed to be working. As soon as Janice notices I'm not back, she'll come upstairs, and find that the lock stuck. And then she'll let me out, and I'll be fine, because there's no mirrors down there, so you can't follow me.”
“A shame.” He sighed. “My one lucky chance, and it has to be ruined completely by your lovely friend downstairs. Perhaps my friend the cat could distract her for a while.”
“Cat wasn't real either, don't you try to trick me like that.”
“I assure you, Alice, Cat is just as real as I am.” He turned, moving back towards her across the shattered glass. “Would you like to...”
“No. You're not real, he's not real, and you stay away from me!” She flattened herself against the door again as he stepped closer. He sighed again.
“You wound me, Alice, you really do. When have I ever hurt you?”
“Let's see, how about when you made me crazy.” She meant for that to sound exactly as bitter as it did, aiming the words like bullets.
“You were never crazy,” he replied placidly.
“Don't you go trying to trick me like that, I was crazy. I know I was crazy. I have to watch out or I'll go crazy again, and so help me if you take one step closer I will go straight back to that psychiatrist and have you medicated out of existence for good!”
“Rather drastic, don't you think?” He stood a few feet away, seemingly lost in thought. “But you would never do that, Alice. You wouldn't give up your imagination for the world.”
“Try me.”
“I'd rather not.” He spun on one foot, pacing back across the mirror shards. “So you won't have tea, and you won't be civil, and you won't let me bring the cat to see you even. What a disappointingly boring adult you've grown up to be.”
“I'm sane. That's what counts.”
“Oh, Alice, I would so disagree.” He stopped again, then motioned to her with the teacup. “Well, if I can't come to you, why don't you come to me? If you are so sure that I am not real, then show me you have nothing to fear. Three steps.”
“This is a trick.”
“What would I gain by tricking you?” he asked patiently, hands outstretched pleadingly. “Three steps. That's it”
“You're going to pull me through the mirror or... or something, I don't know. No.” She shook her head violently. “I'm not coming over there.”
“Both you and I know that's not possible. If I'm not real, and you're not crazy, then show me that you are not so afraid of a broken mirror. Three steps, Alice. It's not too far.”
“No!” She finally broke down, sobbing. “No, no, no! I don't want to have to do this! It's my first day, and I don't know anyone, and I just moved in and I have no friends and now You, of all people have to show up and I...”
“Shh, shh, I'm sorry.” He moved quickly over to her again, wiping her tears with his purple handkerchief. “Don't cry. I just wanted to talk, is all.”
“Why are you doing this...” she whispered, her words half broken by the intermittent sobs.
“I'm not going to answer that until you can stop crying. Chin up, Alice.”
“Why are you doing this?” She choked back the tears, trying to look him in the eye. “Why trap me here, with the sticky lock and the broken mirror, and on my first day? Why are you even here; I mean, don't you have someone else to drive insane?” Her voice cracked again, and he smiled weakly.
“Come now, come now. Every hatter must have his madness.” He put a hand to the doorknob, leaning in close to her as he balanced on the last shard of the mirror. “It's just that you, dear Alice, are mine.” With that, the door clicked open, she stumbled backwards into the stairwell, and the hatter-the Mad Hatter, her hatter, the one she'd created and played with and loved and gone insane for-vanished into thin air.

It's not Alice in Wonderland fanfiction, I swear. It very heavily references that book, but it's not--the book is a book in this story just as much as it is in real life. Which also implies that this Hatter is not that hatter. He's a little bit... different.