“Why are you here?” The high-pitched voice pierced Alice’s skull.
Alice glared at Danika, hating the fairy in that moment. Hating her because she’d been happy, she’d had her dreams and hopes and coming here had dashed them all and made them seem much less exciting and wonderful. “Because he doesn’t want me.” She shifted on the bed, pulling her knees further against her chest. “I wanted to go back home. The stupid door was supposed to take me anywhere I wanted.” She looked at her feet. “I wanted to go home,” she said again in a reed thin whisper.
Four hours later, alternating between anger, woe-is-me, and a horrible need to cry, she’d finally come to the realization... the Hatter she’d known (or thought she’d known) had been a figment of a child’s overactive imagination. He’d never existed. Her crazy, kooky, Prince Charming did not exist.
He was just a shell, too damaged to love anything.
“The door cannot return you until the three days are up— ‘tis the way of it in Fairy. Your time is not yet done, Alice. You must go back to him.”
“Why?” she snapped, angry again. “Why did you freaking bring me here? He doesn’t want me,” she laughed, a thread of hysteria lacing her words. “He’s damaged goods, Danika. There’s nothing cracking that shell.”
“No, no,” Danika shook her head. “Not so. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
Alice jerked to her knees, crawling forward on the bed, backing the little fairy into the wall.
“The same way he looked at all the others I’m sure. I’m just another Alice, another loser. Just like my great-grandmother.”
Danika dropped to the bed, her tiny wings buzzing like a hummingbird’s. “You don’t believe that. And neither do I. You surprise him, dearie. You understand him. None of the others did, or could.”
Alice stopped and sat back on her butt, wrapping a strand of hair around her finger, tugging on it like she used to when she was younger. “I want to free him, Danika. I do.” And she did. Even though he made her angry and want to cuss and do things her mother would blush to know about, she still wanted to help him. Save him. “But it’s impossible. He’s too wounded, too fragile. Every little thing I say or do seems to piss him off. I can’t do this. He doesn’t want me. He sees her when he sees me, I can’t win.” The last came out a petulant whine.
Danika hovered in front of her, splaying her tiny hand on Alice’s chest. Heat poured through Alice like molten lava and her heart felt like it swelled, growing to twice its size.
“But don’t you see? The land has already begun responding to you.”
She shook her head. “What does that even mean? How can I make this place fall in love with me?”
“By making him fall in love with you.”
“But he loved my grandmother.”
“No,” Danika was adamant, blondish gray curls bounced attractively around her head. “What he felt was pretense. Lies. Lust masked as love. Had any of the other Alices encouraged him, his love would have turned to hate and that is why in part, he despises them now. It wasn’t real. In fact, I believe deep down he knew that. That’s why he never laid with them. Not one. In fact, I doubt he touched many of them.”
“Then neither is this.” But then Alice remembered his caresses, his kiss. Her heart thumped. He’d touched her.
“No, dear, you’re wrong. I know you’re his equal. The mate I’ve searched for all these years. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
“Why do you think it’s me?” And why was her freaking heart pounding so hard? It didn’t matter. None of this mattered. She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t. Right? She shook her head, trying to stop the weird thought that said it was totally possible. Totally do-able.
“Because you’ve loved him all your life. He’s been real for you all along, Alice. You have to make him see that. He must know the truth. Make him see you. Do whatever it takes-- but make him see you. If you can make him see you, the land will accept you as part of itself. The curse will be broken, Alice.” Her blue eyes sparkled, black lashes quivering with gathering moisture.
Alice closed her eyes. “I can’t stay, Danika.” Though it was a ripping wound to say it. But she couldn’t abandon her life, her family. Not for a man she barely knew who didn’t want her anyway.
The smile turned into a frown. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, wee Alice.” Danika patted her hand. “Go find him, girl. Do not listen to the mad ramblings of a broken man. He means none of what he says and only half of what he doesn’t. You’ve got but two days, not even.” She glanced out the darkened window.
“That literally made no sense.”
Danika grinned, the twinkle back. “Aye, well, I guess he’s rubbed off on me.”