Chapter 2 Madness is Catching
CHAPTER TWO
MADNESS IS CATCHING
Tea time is hectic. So many conversations are happening simultaneously, and none of them seem to make good sense.
A duck sitting caddy corner to me is angry that her shoes wandered off again; when how did they wander off in the first place without her feet inside them?
That conundrum perplexes me until the badger beside me tells me that a frog at the market told him that the second Tuesday in April is the worst Tuesday around when he thinks the third Tuesday in December is clearly the worst.
It’s madness, the lot.
Somehow, I’m perfectly okay with it.
The man beside me takes it all in. He never adds or takes away from any conversation; he only seems happy to be amongst friends.
His face is painted white, and his hair is a dark chestnut. His ethereally green eyes are so round and captivating that I could get lost in them. I mean… someone could, but not me.
I have to find my way back to reality.
To my reality.
Not whatever this is.
“Where am I?” I finally gain the nerve to ask.
The man’s green eyes widen as he looks at me. “Wonderland.” He says it as if I should know that.
“Is this hell? I mean, I fell through the world. I fell so far.”
“Sometimes, one must fall far away from their path to find their center,” he says, as if he’s given me some life-altering advice.
“How do I get home?” I ask him. “How do I leave Wonderland?”
His green eyes harden as he snaps them toward me. His hand holds his teacup perfectly still against his lips. “Wherever could you want to be other than here?”
I swallow. The tea’s notes of orange and jasmine linger on my tongue as I grapple for an answer. “I have a life up there.”
“Had.” He says it matter-of-factly, as if I’ll never return.
Sadness curls in my chest, but then I stop and wonder why.
I have nothing to go back to. I had nowhere to go.
I only had people who didn’t want me or people who had me and didn’t know how to treat me.
“Drink your tea,” he tells me, and I denote the kind tone of his voice as I nod, wiping away a tear. “Tea will make it better. It always does.”
The afternoon slips away, and I try to keep a handle on my sanity; I really do.
The conversations around the table are absurd. And by the time that tea is over, it’s getting dark.
The man I’ve come to know as Hatter stands, and the entire table disperses, saying goodbye and heading off in every direction.
“Lewis!” I shout, running after the rabbit, who’s a head taller than me. “Where am I to stay? You can’t just leave me here. I have nothing. I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“You do.” He smirks.
“What? Where?”
“You’ll stay with Hatter, of course. It’s where you belong.”
“I can’t stay with Hatter. I don’t know him. This is madness!”
Lewis smirks. “Perfectly so. Goodnight, Eleanor.”
“Goodnight, Lewis,” I mutter confusedly, watching him rush into the woods before I return to the Hatter.
He’s leaning against his chair, picking at his teeth. “Ready?”
“For?”
“Bed, of course. Don’t be silly.”
I want to scream that the last six hours of insanity around that table was silly, but I’m so tired. Tired, confused, and emotionally drained.
“I’m ready,” I answer in a huff.
Following Hatter up a hill behind the massive tea table, I’m silent as I take it all in.
The air smells like cinnamon, and the night has sounds I’m familiar with: crickets and the hoots of owls.
With the Hatter’s eyes off of me, I take a moment to catalog more about him. He’s very tall, every bit of six feet.
He’s dressed in tattered pants and a long-sleeve button-up shirt. The buttons, however, are mismatched and buttoned incorrectly, just the perfect amount of off-center, just like him.
Finally, we happen upon a cabin. The frame leans slightly to the left, and the angle appears twisted.
Hatter opens the door for me to enter, and I tentatively step inside.
The inside is just as chaotic as he is.
Hats are everywhere, hanging from the lights, tossed onto tables and counters, and thrown on the floor.
They’re everywhere.
So are clocks and trinkets. It looks like an antique store if the antique store was disorganized and only sold three variations of items.
“Welcome home,” Hatter says, and I swallow thickly.
“This isn’t my home.”
“Always was,” he growls, moving to the sink to wash the paint off his face.
I’m stunned to silence when he turns around, and his beauty strikes away my thoughts.
He’s got a straight nose and perfect lips. His jaw is hard as stone and angled beautifully.
He takes off his haphazard shirt delicately, as if it wasn’t thrown on in haste as it appeared to be.
His body is chiseled perfection, and I swallow as I clear my throat.
“Where am I to sleep?”
“Well, your room is for the hats. So, you’ll sleep with me.”
“Why would I have a room?”
He only sighs. “Rooms have angles. So does Eleanor, so she must have a room.”
Okay?
He leads me upstairs, all while losing pieces of clothing.
I’m thankful when he leaves his briefs and climbs into bed, patting the empty side for me to get in.
A candle illuminates the room on his bedside table, and I look at my filthy clothes as I hesitate. “Do you have anything I could wear? I don’t really have anything.”
Tossing back the covers, he gets out of bed. “You have everything.”
His riddles are getting on my nerves because I’m so tired. More so now that I’m in the presence of a bed, nevermind that I don’t know the man I’m about to sleep in it with. That’s the least worrisome aspect of my life currently.
When the Hatter begins to undress me, I swat his hands away.
The look in his eyes has guilt churning in my stomach, and I fumble with the front of my hoodie. “I’m sorry. I just… I can do it.”
He nods, tossing me a button-up shirt with mismatched buttons running its length before padding back to bed and getting inside.
Turning, I remove my clothes, shimmying out of my jeans, hoodie, and bra to get into the shirt Hatter offered.
I’ll have to convince him to let me wash them somehow tomorrow because wearing his shirts will not cut it.
However, his woodsy scent that wafts up my nose from it might not be so bad to have on my person.
I leave my panties on.
It’s probably not a great idea to leave that part of myself exposed while in bed with a man I don’t know who speaks in riddles and rhymes.
Once I’m in bed, Hatter seems satisfied. He blows out the candle and bathes us in darkness.
“Your head is perfect,” he whispers. “I’d very much like to hat it.”
What?!
The morning brings confusion. I wholeheartedly expected to wake up beneath the ruins in the park, shivering and soaked to the bone with rain, having dreamt up the entire fantastical scene last night.
Nope.
My eyes open, and I gasp.
I’m face to face with the Hatter from my new reality.
“What are you doing?” I manage as he leans over me further.
He’s between my legs, and a very delicate part of me is against a huge part of him, and I have no room overhead to wiggle away. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.
He’s got my head firmly in hand, a fabric measuring tape around my head, and he looks determined.
“I simply knew it.” He sits back. “The perfect head.”
“What?”
He scrambles off me, still in his briefs and looking even more deranged than he did last night.
“Maybe cotton? No… wool. No, Hatter, that’s mad. Wool will make her itch. Wool will, will wool, say that five times fast.”
What is his damage?
Guilt swarms me because clearly something is the matter with this man, and it’s not my right to judge. But, in his defense, everyone around that table yesterday seemed a bit… off, to put it nicely.
“Sir,” I cut in, trying to stop his verbal spinning.
His eyes snap to mine, frantic and ethereal green. “No!”
I startle.
“Suede. You have just the head for suede.”
I let out an exasperated groan. “I don’t need a hat! Listen, do you know how I can get home? I’m desperate to find my way back to my world…”
“This is your home! Doesn’t need a hat, what nonsense is that? What will keep her ridiculous head warm?” He continues muttering as he exits the room.
“Hey!” I shout, tossing back the covers and following him. “You said my head was perfect!”
Don’t get drawn into his delusions, Eleanor!
“Your head is… perfectly alright.”
I’ve angered him. That much is certain.
“Listen, I’m sorry. I need a hat. It’s just…”
“Suede?” he asks, his voice husky with excitement.
I can’t help it, my own heart races. “Sure. Suede.”
He claps his hands together. “Go, then. Let me work! Shoo!”
“Hatter!” I shout, stomping my foot as he turns to escape the living space to the back of the house, where I assume his workspace is, though every room in the house looks like a workspace.
Turning, his green eyes take me in as a piece of his brown hair falls over his forehead, making him look far more innocent. It also makes him look darkly handsome.
“I asked you a question,” I say, exasperated with every interaction with this man.
“Did you?” He turns toward me, and I lick my lips as I let my eyes peruse his fit form again.
“I did. I asked you how to get home.”
At this, he gives me a smug look. His hands perched on his hips. “I answered your question, remember? You are home. There’s nowhere to go. Now, go find someone else to bother while I create your perfect hat!”
I’m stunned as he strides to the back of the house.
A door slams, and I’m left standing in the middle of what I assume was once a living room, as I can see a couch peeking out from beneath a pile of tulle.
Hatter never comes back.
I’m left to my own devices all day.
I never see another soul. Not even when I get dressed in some of his clothes and wander out to where the insane tea party was all day yesterday.
There’s a mess over the table, so I tidy it up.
It’s not until the sun is at its peak that I realize how long I’ve been working. Deciding to find something edible to forage in the woods, I grab a basket from the pile near the front door and head just inside the tree line, the entire time keeping my wits about me.
What was it Lewis said about the trees liking flesh?
I wonder what kind of flesh the trees deal in when I hear a voice from above.
My fingers pause on a berry I’d been plucking from a bush just beyond where the light touches.
“I wouldn’t eat that one,” it says.
Gasping, I look up.
Eye-shine and glistening teeth smirk wickedly at me, and I take two steps back.
“Or is it the other ones you can’t eat? Hmm, a riddle, indeed.”
“I have two kinds of berries in my basket,” I reply. I don’t know why I do. Everything I do here is strange. Everything I see here is strange.
“Well, one of them will make the soles of your feet itch. They’ll itch and itch until the very flesh runs away from your bones.”
“Which berry is it?” I lift my basket for the strange entity to peruse.
“Like I said, I don’t know.”
I sigh. “Well, then, I guess I can eat neither.”
“If you can solve a riddle, maybe I’ll tell you which berry is safe.”
“You just said you didn’t know…”
“Did I?” Tumbling from above, the creature sails to the forest floor, landing in a crouch as light spills through the trees behind me and casts over a man.
A very naked man.
He stands to his towering height, the same wicked grin on his lips. “So, do we have a deal? A riddle for a berry?”
I swallow, stealing a look over my shoulder toward Hatter’s house. “I think I should get back.”
“Well, when you feel like a bit of fun, come see me.”
Tossing the basket toward him, I take off, making it to the door right as Hatter opens it.
“There you are! I need your head!” He shuts the door, none the wiser at what happened with me and the strange man in the woods.
I’ve never been so relieved to be in the presence of a lunatic before.