Mad About the Hatter (9 page)

He ladled some into bowls for the two of them. For the moment, Henry seemed more inclined to feed his face than exercise his tongue, and since Hatter was hungry as well, silence descended on their little campsite.

Afterward, they each stretched out on the grass, making themselves as comfortable as possible. Hatter fished around in his pocket until he found a pair of clean, if threadbare, blankets, and gave one to Henry. Rolling himself up in the second, he feigned slumber until he heard Henry’s soft snores.

Peeping out from under his eyelids, he watched Henry doze, thoughts spinning through his own mind too fast to allow for slumber.

Hatter noticed Henry’s face was quite attractive when sleep softened its almost constant surly expression. His hair was as blond as his sister Alice’s was, with a slight curl to the silky strands that made Hatter’s hands inexplicably itch to touch them. Long, light brown lashes edged eyes he already knew were the color of a summer sky. The lines of his high cheekbones and sharp, square jaw were indisputably masculine, yet still quite beautiful. Hatter could see Henry’s stubborn streak in the set of his jaw, even while asleep.

Henry’s lips were full for a man, soft-looking, although Hatter already knew from experience the sharp tongue that lay behind them. Day-old whiskers dusted Henry’s jaw, so pale they were practically unnoticeable except when viewed up close.
A few more days,
Hatter mused,
perhaps as long as a week, and he’ll sport the beginnings of a strawberry blond beard.

All in all, Henry was more than easy on the eyes, a fact Hatter knew would make traveling with him both interesting and extraordinarily dangerous, because if there was one thing Hatter loved most in the world, it was beauty. He was drawn to it, whether he wanted to be or not. Beautiful women, beautiful men, both stirred a fire within him that, as often as not, got him in trouble sooner or later.

A thought bubbled up from the back of his mind. What might Henry do if Hatter tried to kiss those soft, plump lips?

Probably punch Hatter squarely in the face.

Again.

Hatter ground his teeth and turned his back on Henry.

Don’t be stupid, Hatter. Don’t even think about such things. One kiss inevitably leads to a second, then before you know it, your emotions get involved, and things get intolerably complicated. You need to turn him over to the Queen, remember? Such an involvement, however pleasant, would only serve to leave you broken in the end, and quite possibly without a head.

He was still trying to talk some sense into himself when he finally fell asleep.

That night, rolled up in a threadbare blanket on a bed of grass, Hatter dreamt of sky-blue eyes, strawberry blond whiskers, and almost too-full lips.

T
HEY
BROKE
their fast over a quick meal of tea and biscuits pulled from Hatter’s pocket, during which Hatter barely spoke more than a handful of words.

Henry wondered why that was, what had changed, since the day before he feared the only way to get Hatter to shut up would be by nailing Hatter’s lips together. He’d prayed for silence yesterday, but today, now that it was here, he found it a bit disconcerting, although he didn’t want to admit it. The silence made him uneasy, and he found himself wondering whether he’d said or done something wrong, only to question why it should matter to him even if he had. Therefore, it came as a sort of relief when Hatter finally deigned to speak, if only to quiet the bewildering voices in his head.

Until, that is, he tried to make sense of what Hatter was saying.

Hatter had packed everything up by depositing each item, one at a time, into his pocket—a feat Henry still couldn’t figure out—and hopped over the split-rail fence. He was facing Henry, and motioned for Henry to join him before taking a few steps backward. “Ti fo kcank eht teg uoy litnu tluciffid si ereh gniklaw, Yrneh, tnaligiv eb.”

Henry cocked his head. “Why are you talking like that? You’re speaking gibberish, Hatter.”

Hatter glared at him. “Yob diputs.” He turned away and walked backward toward the fence again, then climbed back over. “Weren’t you listening last night? I told you this marked the boundary of Drawrof.”

Henry merely shook his head and hunched his shoulders. “Never heard of it.”

Hatter rolled his eyes. “I should have known. Tell me, Henry, what did they teach you in school? You did go to school at some point, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did! I was getting ready to graduate this June, hopefully with honors.”

“Well, what sort of school was it? A school of fish? Because it certainly couldn’t have been a school of learning if you never heard of Drawrof before!”

Henry ground his molars, trying hard not to give in to temptation and punch Hatter. “It was high school, and I’m willing to bet no one else in my class has heard of this place before either. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Fine. Everything in Drawrof is backward. Once you clear the fence, you need to speak backward, walk backward, think backward, eat backward, pee backward, and practically bend over backward or else Snilmerg, the guardians of Drawrof, will send you back over the fence to the beginning, forcing you to do it all over again.”

“Backward. Everything? How do you think backward?” He really didn’t want to think about how one might pee backward. He promised himself he’d hold it until his eyes turned yellow before finding out too.

Hatter seemed to consider this for a moment. “It’s best not to think at all. Now, are you ready?”

Henry sighed. He really didn’t see where he had a choice. He nodded. “I suppose so.”

“Then, let’s be off! Daylight, as they say, is wasting.” Hatter hopped over the fence again, and began walking backward. After a moment or two, Henry joined him.

It was disconcerting to walk backward through unknown territory, to say the least. Surprisingly, he didn’t bump or trip at all, though. Perhaps it had to do with the magic of Wonderland. Surely if he tried this at home he would’ve broken an ankle or been run over by a car long before now. Then again, he’d seen nothing larger than a squirrel about, so being trampled really wasn’t much of a threat.

He still thought it was unnerving not to be able to see where you were going. It dawned on him that he’d never really appreciated the gift of sight before. He’d always just taken it for granted, but now that he couldn’t see the road before him, he missed it, and was very grateful for his 20/20 vision.

Hatter chose that moment to get over his self-imposed silent treatment and spoke. What he said, and what Henry heard was “Emithcnul erofeb edis rehto eht hcaer dluohs ew. Ssorca ediw yrev ton si Forward yllufknaht” but what Henry understood was “Thankfully Drawrof is not very wide across. We should reach the other side before lunchtime.”

Well, what do you know? It seemed that while in Drawrof, one’s brain ran backward as well, allowing one to easily understand backward speech. That made things much easier, and encouraged Henry to continue the conversation. It still felt strange to have his lips forming the words backward, although he was confident Hatter would understand him when he said, “Is the Red Queen’s castle on the other side of Drawrof?” but it came out “Forward fo edis rehto eht no eltsac S’neeuq Der eht si?”

Hatter nodded, and of course, Henry understood the gesture to mean “no.” “Wonderland is usually a very large place. I doubt our journey will be so short.”

“Usually? How can a place usually be large?”

“How could it not? Ask yourself this: Are there always the same number of blades of grass in a field year after year? The same number of birds in the sky, or deer in the forest, or Bandersnatch chicks in a clutch?”

“Um, no?”

“Of course not! So therefore, the area in which they live must at times be larger, and at other times, smaller. It’s only logical.”

“I… but that….”

“It’s best not to think about it overly much. Logic can be toxic if taken in large doses. Suffice it to say, it will take us some time to reach the Queen’s castle.”

They walked on for a while in silence as Henry tried hard not to think about Hatter’s convoluted and thoroughly flawed logic, and marveled at how Wonderland, riddled with such rules, managed not to collapse in on itself like a dying star, leaving a gaping black hole behind.

He found distraction easily enough by watching the native fauna going about their backward business around him. Bees flew backward and deposited nectar from the hive to the flower. Frogs hopped into ponds and changed into tadpoles. Birds flew backward, taking worms from their offspring and delivering them to the ground. He found out quickly enough that sand here felt wet, but water felt dry, and roses stunk like dirty feet, while dandelions smelled a bit like heaven.

It was all very confusing. And oddly beautiful at the same time. The colors were all so luminous, although they were also backward. The sky was a perfectly unmarred stretch of rich emerald green, while the grass, trees, and shrubs came in every shade of blue from navy to periwinkle. Flowers painted in shades of gray paled next to vibrantly colored weeds, while butterflies wore somber cloaks of gray and black, but moths, beetles, and spiders dazzled the eye with a rainbow of hues.

It was then that he noticed something so very strange that once realized, it stood out among all the other peculiarities of the place. “Hatter? This place is very beautiful. I would think people would like to live here. Where are they? I haven’t seen anyone since we came over the fence. In fact, so far, you’re the only person I’ve met since arriving here.”

Hatter looked shocked. “Of course there are no people! And people say I’m mad.”

“What do you mean? Why are you looking at me like I’m crazy?”

“Just when I was ready to concede you might not be as dull and witless as your sister…. Most people here, evidently myself excluded, know to steer clear of Caterpillar’s Lair lest they want to spend their days in a hallucinogenic fog. And here? Think about it, Henry. Everything in Drawrof is backwards! People would be born old here, and progressively grow younger as they grew. What sort of parents would children make, I wonder? What sort of infants would full-grown adults make, toddling about in diapers, sucking on pacifiers? How difficult would it be for an adult-child to burp a child-adult? And toddlers in the throes of the terrible twos! Why, the first temper tantrum might end in bloodshed!”

Henry’s mouth formed a perfect letter
O
. “Oh. I didn’t think about that. I suppose that wouldn’t work well for anyone, would it?”

“No, indeed. In fact, by the time we reach the fence at the far side of Drawrof, we’ll be younger than we were when we first entered it. Unfortunately, once you cross back over the fence, the effects begin to fade and you begin to age normally again. There are those in Wonderland who visit here regularly just for the purpose of shaving a few years off their age.”

“Do you come here often? How old are you?”

“Bah. As a wise man once said, I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth, and that’s good enough for me. I don’t need to be any younger, thank you. Age is just a number, anyway, and only a good one for a very short time, so why bother keeping track? Besides, I’m a special case. I was once cursed by Time, and there’s no reversing its effects, even if I wanted to.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m older than you, but younger than the dirt under your feet. Satisfied?”

Henry threw his hands up in the air. “Gah! You make everything complicated, even the simplest questions.”

“Why, thank you!” Hatter shot him a wide, delighted smile.

“That wasn’t a compliment!”

“Of course it was. Why would anyone purposely seek to be dull and succinct? That would make for a horribly boring person, I should think. No, it’s much better, in my opinion, to be large and delightfully intricate as much as possible.”

They both suddenly came in contact with a hard, unmovable object, bringing their walk—and their conversation—to a grinding halt.

“Ah! Good. We’re across.” Hatter began crab-crawling backward over the wall.

Henry rolled his eyes and began to turn around to climb the fence, but Hatter stopped him.

“No! You’re still in Drawrof! You must move backwards or the Snilmerg will force you all the way back to where we first crossed over!”

Henry froze, his body halfway turned. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw horned and vaguely threatening figures moving through the tall blue grass. He quickly turned back and carefully scaled the fence backward, holding his breath until he dropped over the other side.

“You can turn around now. We’re clear of Drawrof.” Hatter patted his shoulder. “You did well. We didn’t get sent back once. That’s rare for a first-timer.”

“Thank you.” Henry slowly turned around; he half expected little clawed hands to grab him and drag him back over the fence. Before him spread a swampy, overgrown area that seemed much less inviting than Drawrof had. “Where are we now?”

“A place I’d never planned to revisit.” Hatter removed his hat and swept his arm over his forehead, which looked damp with sweat. “Welcome, my friend, if one can ever truly be welcomed into a place as nasty as this, to the Neverglades.”

T
HE
SMELL
was nauseating and overpowering.

It was the odor of the sewer, of wet, slime, mold, and mustiness, of swollen and bloated dead things. Hatter fished in his pocket and retrieved a scented handkerchief, using it to cover his nose. Happily, it was one of the chocolate-scented ones. The last hankie he’d pulled out had been trout-scented, although even the stink of old fish would be preferable to the stench of the Neverglades. He found a spare and handed it to Henry. He caught a faint whiff of strawberry as he passed it over.

Henry’s voiced sounded slightly muffled through the hankie. “What’s that horrible smell? It smells like gone-over deli meat.”