Chapter 6 Horrible Queens
CHAPTER SIX
HORRIBLE QUEENS
After much convincing, the hatter agrees to take me to the palace with him for his next ‘Hatting Day,’ which isn’t for another week. Thank goodness.
His head wound is closing nicely, but my attraction to him has only grown in the last few days.
I haven’t tried to escape into the Cheshire Wood again, and I’ve grown quite used to the insanity of Wonderland.
Our tea party is winding down, and no one’s even thrown any food, which is a plus for me because I’m always the one cleaning it up. I’ve often wondered who was cleaning it up before or if some kind of magic reset it before the next party.
“Last night,” Bonnie says, shaking out her feathers. She’s holding her tea cup properly, with a feather that could be her pinky poised. “I dreamt I was a spoon. Could you imagine the adventures you could have as a spoon?”
“I don’t know why one would want to be a spoon,” a frog I’ve come to know as Bert replies. “I think I’d want to be a teacup. Teacups have all the fun.”
When I wander my gaze around the table in confusion, my eyes catch on Hatter, who’s looking at me longingly.
He smiles, and I find my own lips curling up.
I can’t deny the feeling that I’m defiling an innocent man by even entertaining the thoughts in my head, but I also can’t help them.
After the tea party disperses and I’ve cleaned up, I sit at the table, my feet atop it as I take in the trees.
They remind me of birch trees, except these are all whimsical colors: pinks, greens, and purples.
The breeze pushes through them, causing a few to sway, and the sound is comforting and calming.
I don’t hear Hatter approach; his hand on my shoulder startles, causing an unladylike squeal to escape me. “God, Hatter, you scared me.”
He crouches. “Please, call me Finlo.”
I swallow, nodding.
His proximity steals my breath. He stands, his hand remaining on my shoulder. “What are you doing out here?”
This is the most normal interaction I’ve ever had with him. I’ve noticed that when he’s alone, without the chaos of Wonderland surrounding him, he’s more capable of such.
“Watching the trees in the breeze.”
“You have changed little.”
His statement reminds me I’ve been here before and that he knows me. Not only that, but he knows a part of me I don’t even know any longer. You lose your sense of wonder and whimsy as you age, and I can’t even recall a time when Wonderland would’ve seemed entirely normal instead of mad.
“I’ve grown into my head,” I joke.
His green eyes deepen with curiosity before darkening. His lips tip up. “One doesn’t grow into an abnormally gigantic head.”
I gasp, and Hatter laughs.
I realize that I’ve never heard him laugh. Truly laugh.
His hand slides down my arm, causing a wave of shivers to tingle through my bones. “Come to bed.”
The gentle command is more alluring than I think Hatter truly means it to be, but I listen. While I do, I try like hell to ignore the growing fondness towards him currently burrowing its clawed feet into my heart.
Growing accustomed to this world and Finlo won’t do me any favors when I finally find my way back home.
“Madness, madness, we all fall down!” Bonnie shouts, and we all break apart from the circle we’d been twirling in, falling to the ground in a huff of laughter and glee.
Being in Wonderland is always like this. I’m light and happy. There’s no shouting through doors, no hiding beneath my pillow or in closets, no hunger gnawing at me because I’m scared to leave my room to get food.
“Might want to mind your head. It’s already massively swollen,” Finlo says, and I stick my tongue out at him.
As if the sky knows what doom is impending, it darkens as the Knave of Hearts—the queen’s right-hand and general—is followed by her guard, all hustling towards us with impeccable speed.
I scurry to my feet, finding shelter behind Finlo. Our friends scatter, most heading straight home, some hiding beneath the tea table.
“We’re here to fetch the Hatter for Her Majesty,” the Knave says, peeking around Finlo’s side to glimpse me. “Her Majesty has also requested an audience with your pet Eleanor.”
“She is not my pet, and she remains here. There’s no place for girls with enormous heads at court.”
The knave only rolls his eyes. “The queen said you might try to hide her, so if you refused, she said to tell you she’ll send your sweet sister’s head back to you on a platter.”
At the mention of Finlo’s sister, I pop out from around his side. “I’ll go. It’s fine.”
“Elli-roo, you don’t understand.”
“I do. You cannot leave your sister to the whims of such a woman.”
“But I cannot endanger you, either.”
Finlo has always been the kindest to me. He was patient even when I was a scared girl who didn’t know how I got here or if I was dreaming.
I slide my hand into his. “It’s alright. Friends are there for one another, Fin. You’ve always been such a good friend. Let me return the favor.”
“Good. That’s settled. You’ll report to Her Majesty tomorrow morning. Do not be late. You know how she hates it.” The Knave turns, his black, shining armor glinting in the waning sunlight that dapples it.
The Queen’s Guard falls into step behind him, sounding much like a train on the tracks as they march through the Cheshire Wood.
Even when they’re gone, the heaviness of tomorrow looms over us.
Finlo tucks me into my bed but doesn’t stay to read me a story or regale me with tales from his travels.
Instead, he clicks the door closed, likely sneaking into his workshop to work on my unfinished hat.
Sitting up, I look around to find Finlo lying on his back. His are hands steepled over his chest as he sleeps. He’s even more beautiful like that.
My dream lingers as I wipe tears from my cheeks. My feet hitting the cold wooden floors, I tiptoe to the door and slip out, padding down the hall to where the memory told me my room is.
When I open the door, I find a scene different from what Finlo painted for me.
He told me my room was for the hats, so I needed to sleep with him.
My room is the same as in my dream. Not a thing is out of place. My bed is made, albeit dusty. There are clothes neatly folded on the foot, and my saddle shoes, scuffed and worn, sit just out of sight, tucked beneath the end of the bed.
My tears only fall harder as I take a seat on the edge of the bed, allowing my safe place to wrap around me.
“I am sorry I lied to you.” Finlo’s voice breaks through all the warring emotions in my chest.
I sniffle. “Why did you?”
He leans against the doorframe, his green eyes raking over the room as if he hadn’t graced its fissure in a long time. “You’re different. Before, you were full of wonder and innocence. Now, you’re…”
“A woman?”
“I had trouble riddling the two Eleanors and how this new one makes me feel.”
His admission has my stomach clenching. “You were a solace in my life before, Fin.”
He chokes on his next breath, dropping his face. “No one’s called me that in so very long.”
Standing and walking closer, I tip his chin up to look at him. The emotion settled in his eyes makes him look much less mad. “You were the safe place I could hide before.”
He nods. “And you were the big-headed girl with the heart of gold that fell through a hole in my garden.”
I can’t help but smile. “That’s how I got here?”
He nods.
“Tell me what happened in the end. Tell me why I never returned.”
“I cannot. One can’t ruin the end of a story before it is time, Tiger Lily.”
I sigh. “When will it be time to know the end?”
“When you understand the beginning.”
More riddles, great.
“You kept my room the same,” I breathe. I don’t know if he truly understands what his love and devotion mean to me, even if he doesn’t know me now.
The fact that he loved me then, when no one else did, means the most.
“I did. I couldn’t come in here. My chest hurt too much, but I kept it. I couldn’t get rid of you. But you don’t belong here now.”
It’s almost like he has to reconcile the things he feels for me now with the innocent child he shielded all those years ago.
While I’m no longer a child, he knew me as one, so it makes perfect sense to me.
“No. I don’t.”
Leaning into him, I kiss his cheek. I linger in the haze of his scent, like vanilla and tobacco, even though I’ve never seen him smoke.
“You smell like smoke,” I whisper, breathing him in.
He turns his face into mine, our lips hovering dangerously close, which feels like an awful thing to do in my childhood bedroom. “I know a caterpillar who smokes.”
The sentiment makes me giggle, and it’s enough of a reprieve that I find my sanity and pull away from him, dropping off my tiptoes to the floor.
“Fin?”
“Hm?” he asks, stepping back and ushering me out of my bedroom, shutting the door behind us.
I turn toward him once in the living space, noting he’s tossed hatting materials around the room again when I just cleaned it. “Where is your sister?”
My heart pounds loudly in my ears. If he’s still hatting for the queen, it stands to reason she’s still a hostage. The thought makes me angry.
“The palace still.”
“Do you have a deal with the queen? Will she let her go after so long?”
Bonnie said the last time I was here, I was fifteen. I’m thirty now, and Fin’s sister was already a hostage when I started coming here, so if there was a deal, the queen isn’t honoring it.
“No deal other than if I continue to hat her bulbous head, my sister remains alive.”
“Is she well cared for?”
“She claims she is.”
Sadness burns in my chest. “Well, we’ll find her and bring her home.”
“The queen won’t like that.”
“Fuck the queen.”
“Eleanor!” he reprimands, grabbing my wrist and pulling me to him.
He slaps a hand over my mouth, looking around the room as if somewhere, hidden amongst the tulle, one of her guards lies in wait to report treason.
“You mustn’t speak like that. What if someone heard?
She’d cut off your beautiful head and deliver it to me. ”
“You think my head is beautiful?” I whisper when he drops his hand.
“You know I do.”
“And you’d miss it if it were off my neck?”
It’s not lost on me how delusional I sound right now, but I can’t help it. It’s his presence, this world.
“How would I finish your hat if you had no head?” he whispers back, and once again, we’re dancing around a kiss I long for him to give me.
I know he’s fighting it because of the Eleanor he knew before, the one who popped up in his garden, looking for safety and comfort.
“Tiger Lily, I—” he starts, but a knock at the door summons his attention away, and his head turns.
I could strangle whoever it is!
“Hatter!” Lewis’s voice sounds anxious as he raps away on the door again.
Fin looks at me, and I nod, straightening my bed clothes as if Lewis will be able to tell the state we were just in a moment ago before his interruption.
Fin smirks, swinging the door wide.
“What is it, Lewis? You’re early.”
“The Queen. She summons you. Make haste! We’re already late!”