It went deeper than her lifelong obsession with all things Wonderland. This wasn’t a book, and he wasn’t a faceless ideal. The Hatter was in pain. For reasons she could barely understand, she didn’t just want to help him; she wanted to make him better. Wanted to see him whole again, the perfectly wonderful madcap Hatter.
She rubbed her arms and followed. He stopped by a webbed foot. The frog didn’t budge. It just sat, staring at them with the empty eyed stare of a predator.
She tiptoed to Hatter’s side and slipped her hand into his lax one, trusting him, though her knees knocked having to stand so close to the thing.
His fingers were spread, loose, and for a second she worried he might reject her. Then he sighed and gave her a squeeze.
“Ancient frog beneath the waves,” his deep voice rolled through the eerie blackness, “hiding treasures of olden days.”
The frog’s giant mouth opened a red yawning maw of death. Its pink tongue whipped out and wrapped around their bodies, the sticky wetness making her yelp. And then, it swallowed them.
Alice held tight to Hatter’s hands. She’d show him she didn’t always panic, even though in her mind she was frantically screaming.
Thankfully, the ride didn’t last long. She landed with legs sprawled, flat on her butt.
Hatter, of course, looked as devilishly delicious as before. Not a thing out of place. His clothes were perfect, his brows were raised, and every hair on his head was exactly as before.
He was laughing, and while the sound made her legs weak and stomach flutter, she was not happy that it was at her expense. Alice held her hand out to him with what little pride she had left.
“You know you could be a gentleman and help me up instead of staring at me like I’ve grown a third eye.” Her cheeks burned when he jerked her up.
His hands rested casually on her hips. It seemed like he found any reason to touch her now. Not that she minded; she only wished it wouldn’t always be so hot and cold with him.
She crossed her arms and huffed.
He grinned and her heart jerked. He was breathtaking when he did that.
She turned her face to the side and then her eyes widened when she finally noticed where they were. And the moment she noticed, the cave came alive with a roar of tick tocks.
Thousands, hundreds of thousands of clocks hung and sat in every conceivable corner of the place. They were mounted inside the rock face, beneath the thick sheet of glass she walked on. Funny ones, nautical ones, bedroom clocks, grand domed clocks with large golden chimes dangling beneath; she never knew there were so many different types.
Each clock was set at different times, so that some rang the top of the hour, while others were just starting a day’s rotation, and some even spun in reverse.
“What is this place?”
He dropped her hand and walked to the center of the room, spreading his arms wide. “My tick tock life. Six o’clock, teatime. Don’t be late. Time. My time.” He was mumbling again, his eyes glazed, lost in a different time and place, looking lovingly at each clock.
It was easy to believe he was crazy when he looked like this. His smile became a frown. He looked at her and the madness evaporated. “I’ve lost my way, Alice. I’m no good. I’m lost in time. Pieces of myself. Do you understand?”
She’d started walking toward him, before she was even aware of doing it. Like he was the spark to her fire, she needed to touch him, needed it as much as she needed her next breath. She reached, smoothing her fingers over his pinched brows and he shuddered.
“What happened to you, Hatter?”
He took her hand, fingers tight on her wrist.
“Is it Wonderland? Has the magic made you crazy?”
He shook his head, eyes wounded, distant. She gripped the side of his face, forcing his eyes back to her and away from the madness that always pulled at him.
“I am time here. Don’t you see?”
What did that mean? “Are you saying you are time?”
He nodded.
“You?”
“Sometimes...” he whispered, “Sometimes I wish I could leave.” His voice was so low she barely heard him. As if he was afraid to speak too loud. “To be free, unhindered. To work with hands,” he blinked, and she knew he struggled to remember something in the way his shoulders tensed up, “but I can never leave. And you never stay.”
She dropped her hands. “But I’ve never been here before, Hatter.”
He gripped his hair with his hands and yanked, hair stuck out in different directions. “Always you. Haunting me, driving me crazy. Making me want what I cannot have.”
She denied it, shaking her head so hard the top hat slipped off. “Hatter, that wasn’t me. That was my grandmother. I’m not her!”
He growled and walked up to a cherry wood mantle that appeared like a specter behind him. He rubbed his fingers against a clock face with the obsessive compulsion of a man who’d done it many times before.