Alice & Dorothy Read online

  “Enough,” said the March Hare. “I think this fair-haired child of Eve should tell us a tale.”

  “What?” asked Alice. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Then the Dormouse shall!” the Mad Hater screamed, bringing his hand down in an arc. The silver butter knife he’d palmed up his sleeve earlier reappeared in his hand, flashing in the yellow sunshine.

  The knife went into the Dormouse’s forearm, causing the creature to shriek demonically. Black tar spurted from the wound, splashing The Hater’s face. The Hater laughed until his eyes bulged, face going from ivory to red to purple.

  “I told you about that,” the Dormouse hissed, cradling his wounded arm. “Now I’m going to pull your spine out and crack each bone with my teeth.”

  “I should love to see it,” the Hater shrieked, his harsh, coughing laugh setting lose strands of drool from his mouth. “I should loooooove it.”

  The Dormouse wrenched the knife from his arm and held up to the Hater’s face, pushed the blade against the skin at the corner of his eye. Ebon blood marred the Hater’s perfect ceramic skin, which puckered around the spot where the Dormouse was holding the knife to his face.

  “Ahh yes,” The Hater said, his mouth open in an unnatural grin. He ran his tongue across the bottom of his teeth. His breath escaped like the hissing of a punctured tire.

  The Dormouse moved as though he was going to punch the Hater in the face with his other hand, then, at the last moment turned and flicked his wrist. There was a flash of blood and something flew from the Hater’s face into an empty teacup.

  The Hater burst into his hysterical, shrieking donkey laugh again. He clutched at his face and sucked big gutfuls of air as tar ran down his cheek. The Dormouse smiled, winked at Alice, and threw a ceramic shard from the Hater’s broken teacup onto the table. The jagged edge had a bright smear of blood, across the bottom half of it. He reached into his teacup with the same hand, and came up with one of the Hater’s perfect teeth. There was blood and meat clinging to the bottom of it, between the roots. He flicked it back into his teacup, where it plunked and rattled around before coming to rest at the bottom.

  “Oh, haha! You’re going to pay…haha! For that one,” said the Mad Hater, choking on spit. “Oh my little rodent companion, I’ll not soon forget this.”

  “Please,” said The March Hare. He held up his teacup and sighed. There was blood like spilled ink on the side of it. “Can we shift down a seat please? I should like a clean cup.”

  “Yes, let’s,” said The Hater. He grabbed a napkin, stuffed it in his mouth, then pulled a silk handkerchief and dabbed the blood from his face.

  The three of them stood up and moved down one seat, closer to Alice. Now The March Hare was sitting at a fresh spread, while the Dormouse was sitting at The March Hare’s old spot, and The Hater had taken the spot previously occupied by the Dormouse. The March Hare helped himself to tea and bread and jam. The Dormouse folded his arms, pushed the dishes aside, and laid his head down on them. The Hater picked up his teacup and smiled.

  “Ah ha!” he said. He pulled the bloodied napkin from his mouth, revealing a black hole in his perfect white wall of teeth. “I was wondering where you got off to.”

  He held his missing tooth up in the light. A spot of tea ran down the white silk of his gloves, staining them brown and red.

  “It was there the whole time,” mumbled the Dormouse.

  “So it was,” said The Hater. He noisily jammed the tooth back in place. Then bit at the air a few times as though testing it out. Smiling, he turned to the Dormouse. “You were about to tell us a story, friend.”

  “Very well,” the Dormouse muttered. “Once upon a time there were three sisters. Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. They ate treacle and lived at the bottom of a well—”

  “What?” Alice balked. The confusion and chaos of her hosts was starting to wear on her. She was having problems keeping everything straight in her own head, as though their madness was rubbing off on her.

  “Confused?” said The March Hair. “Don’t be. It’s just the garbage floating around us.”

  “What’s a treacle?” Alice said.

  “Molasses,” said The March Hair. “You know; black tar.”

  “Yes, but this was Treacle of Andromachus,” said the Dormouse. “Very tasty.”

  “You can’t live off molasses,” Alice said. “It’ll make you sick.”

  “And so they were,” replied the Dormouse sweetly. “They were very sick.”

  “So, it made them sick but they kept eating it anyway,” said Alice. “Doesn’t make sense. None of this makes any sense at all.”

  “You’re right,” said the Hater. “Doing something that makes you sick is a silly thing. Regardless of how good you feel when you do it.”

  “Some people never learn,” the Dormouse said. “Some people are trash.”

  “There, there,” said The March Hare. “Have some more tea, Alice.”

  She looked down at her empty cup.

  “I haven’t had any,” she said. “I can’t take more.”

  “You mean you can’t take less,” said The Hater. “It’s easy to have more than nothing.”

  “What?” Alice said. She felt like she was drugged. The whole situation was overwhelming. “Nobody asked you.”

  “Ha!” cried The Hater. His smile was a crooked gash across the bottom of his face, but beneath that gash laid pearls. “Who is making personal comments now?”

  Alice shook her head.

  “The story—,” she said. “Why did they live at the bottom of the well?”

  “Yes,” the Dormouse said. “They lived there because it was a treacle well. And because someone had tossed them to the bottom. Nobody loves bad girls, you see. They have to take care of themselves.”

  “Oh, she knows,” said the March Hare. “All too well, don’t you, blond girl?”

  Alice answered with a confused look.

  “Simply put,” said The Hater, “They live at the bottom of the well because they must live at the bottom of the well, because if they didn’t, then the story ceases to exist and all of this, every bit of it, has been for naught. Now please, shut your mouth so my friend can continue his story.”

  “They were learning to draw,” said the Dormouse. “They drew all sorts of things. Anything beginning with the letter M. Mouse traps. Bleeding Muffs. Moustache rides. Muchness. Ever seen a drawing of a muchness, pretty plaything?”

  Alice shook her head, no.

  “I don’t think—,” she said.

  “THEN DON’T FUCKIN’ SPEAK!” The Hater screamed, jumping to his feet and slamming his fist on the table. “IF YOU CAN’T FORM A SINGLE FUCKING THOUGHT IN THAT BOUNCY RETARD HEAD OF YOURS YOU KEEP YOUR CUNTING MOUTH FUCKING SHUT!”

  “You know what?” Alice said, standing quickly. She knocked the chair back behind her. Grabbed a rather nasty looking lobster fork in one hand. “I’ve had it with you crazy assholes.”

  “Murderess.” The Dormouse said through his teeth.

  “FUCK YOU!” she screamed, smashing the fork into the table. The wood was soft, like flesh, and she buried it up to her hand. The March Hare pulled his teacup away from the table, as though shocked by her sudden outburst. The Hater simply watched her, not moving or saying anything. The Dormouse rolled his nose on the table, yawned, and tucked his face back into the crook of his arm.

  “Fuck this shit,” Alice said. She swept her dishes off the table with a crash, and then grabbed a butter knife. “Anyone who follows me gets their balls cut off.”

  She walked backward away from the table, eyes on the three lunatics. Then she turned and stalked off toward the side of the large rabbit house. When she got to the corner she turned and spared one last look back at the table.

  The Mad Hater was busy stabbing the Dormouse in the top of his head. Behind him, The Mad Hater had pushed the Dormouse’s coat halfway up his back, and was mounting him from the rear. She could have sworn the Dormouse was sleeping.

  Fu
rther into the woods there was a tree with a door on it. Having no direction in mind, no place to go, Alice opened the door. It was warm inside, brightly lit, and Alice stepped into a hallway. She slammed the door behind her, but at the last moment it stopped and drifted open again. Alice turned and looked.

  It was the Hater, his clothes stained with blood and jam, one tooth knocked crooked in his perfect smile, fingering his watch and staring her down with bright, cheery eyes.

  “Hello Honey,” he said. “I’m home.”

  He dropped his watch. In that instant he was moving at Alice, moving impossibly fast, so fast he seemed to stretch out and elongate, as though she were seeing him in two places at once, still standing in the doorway and intolerably close to her face at the same time, his black claws tearing through his satin gloves and raking at her flesh, cupping her head in his hands like a Faberge egg.

  “Shhhh...” he whispered, his face so close to hers she could see the writhing bands of muscle and jagged scar tissue under a layer of facepaint and stage makeup. The serene calm his face projected was only a facade. It was a parlour trick. The Mad Hater wasn’t a creature prone to occasional bouts of fury, like her father was. The Hater was chaos incarnate wrapped in a pretty picture; like opening the most beautiful present under the Christmas tree and triggering the bomb that had been hiding inside it.

  “It will all be over so quickly,” he whispered, and a line of drool dropped from his mouth to Alice’s teeth. It burned where it touched. The Hater rolled her like a doll in his arms, grabbing the side of her face and putting his mouth close to her ear. “It might sting a little, Pretty Plaything.”

  And then he was stretching again. Alice felt like she was falling into a swimming pool of The Mad Hater; he poured over her body like molasses (treacle, she corrected) and seeped into her pores. He flooded her nose and ears, forced his way past her lips and around her teeth. She felt him wiggle past the tears in her asshole, in to her cunt and under her fingernails. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, and when he poured into her eyes and flooded her tear ducts with his madness she couldn’t see either. Her lungs were for screaming for air, but they were full of The Mad Hater and she could feel him swirling into her blood like a flushing toilet, sucking and snorting like a pig rooting in shit. And then it was over and she was lying on the ground sobbing and scratching at her ears and face.

  I am always with you, The Hater’s voice said from deep inside her mind. I am always with you.

  Alice stood up.

  Oh, you’re going to be just perfect for what I have in mind. Let’s walk a bit shall we?

  Alice started walking. She had no idea where The Mad Hater was taking her, but something told her it was going to be terrible, no matter where it was.

  Chapter 4

  Coming up out of the Rabbit hole was a lot like being deep underwater and quickly running out of oxygen; Alice had the feeling that no matter how fast she moved, she wasn’t going to make it. The world was a black void behind her, ahead of her lay reality, murky and emerald. It was quiet. Pink, ambient light through her eyelids. She could hear the rise and fall of a respirator somewhere. Smells of alcohol and industrial cleaner; her own cigarette breath caught in her nostrils. Someone was crying nearby. Something about rabbits…

  Alice focused on her breathing. Her lungs were sluggish, slow to react to her demands. She could feel a stitch deep in her chest, as though she had been sleeping with a weight on her chest. Her muscles ached. Her head ached. Her eyes were glued shut. Pain, everywhere, nerves stretched and singing. There was something in her mouth. Alice moaned, unable to speak.

  Playing cards.

  She’d been wrong. They weren’t simply a pack of playing cards. That bitch queen and her idiot husband had somehow managed to knock her out. Maybe she’d tripped over something when the cards flew up into her face, struck her head…

  Alice moaned again. She flexed her arms, and succeeded in sending shooting pains up into her shoulders. Whatever the Queen of Hearts had done, Alice was in a bad spot. She imagined herself tied to a medieval torture device, and any moment the ropes holding her down would tighten, pulling her limb from limb.

  “Well hello,” a woman’s tired voice said. “Back from the dead, are we?”

  Alice tipped her head toward the sound of the woman’s voice but didn’t say anything. She was like a goldfish flopping on linoleum; exposed, injured, and unable to defend herself. Whatever this woman was going to do to her, she was free to do as she wished and there wasn’t a thing Alice could do about it.

  “I’m going to take the tape off your eyes first,” the woman said. “But I need you to keep your eyes shut until I’m finished, alright?”

  Alice nodded.

  “Let’s turn this overhead—,” a soft click, and the ambient light dimmed under Alice’s eyelids.

  “Just don’t want you looking up into a fluorescent strip,” The woman said. “It’s a terrible thing to have to wake up to.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then a cool, dry hand was placed on Alice’s forehead.

  “This will just take a moment,” the woman said.

  Alice felt the skin around her eye tighten as the tape was removed, and the woman placed a hand over her eye at the same instant. Alice moved her head slightly.

  “One more, just like that,” The woman said. The skin tightened around Alice’s other eye. “Perfect. That should be a lot better.”

  Alice opened her eyes. They were thick and gummy. There were spots in them. She blinked rapidly a few times, and the world came back into focus. There was a middle aged woman standing over her smiling pleasantly. Dark hair. Nurses smock. Flowers and pink blotches. A stethoscope. When she was a kid, her kindergarten teacher looked a little like this woman standing over her. Same soft face and dark eyes. Waking up from nap time was like this. Not as good as when your mom woke you up, but these kind looking women were a close second.

  “I’m going to remove your respirator now,” the woman said. “And then maybe you can tell me who you are and how your feeling.”

  Alice nodded. She was still half expecting the Queen of Hearts to appear, shrieking about her execution. Her mind flooded with blood and Alice shuddered at the thought...

  “Easy now,” the nurse was saying. “I had to tape this on. You were unconscious, and I didn’t want you to pull it out when you started to detox.”

  Alice looked into the woman’s eyes for a moment. Then looked away.

  Then looked back.

  The woman busied herself removing the tape from around Alice’s mouth, and then pulled the tube away from her face. Alice responded by gagging hard and fought the urge to clench her teeth shut. And then the hose was gone, and the urge to vomit passed. Alice licked her parched lips.

  “I imagine your mouth is going to be a little dry,” the woman said. “We’ll get that taken care of in just a moment or two.”

  “Where,” Alice croaked.

  “Mercyview General Hospital,” the nurse said, finishing Alice’s sentence. “You’re in emergency right now. Do you remember anything about last night?”

  Alice shook her head. No.

  But it was a lie. She remembered it all. The tea party. Shrinking and growing. Being stuck inside the rabbit house and swimming in a lake of her own tears. Croquet in the Royal gardens…the Red Queen, face spattered with gore, chest heaving, the feral look of a wild animal on her face, screaming

  Off with her head!

  Animal heads on posts. The Mad Hater clawing his way into her skull, behind her eyes. She remembered it all.

  “Do you remember overdosing on heroin last night?” The nurse said, intercepting Alice’s train of thought.

  What?

  “Uhh,” Alice said.

  “Somebody thought enough to bring you to the hospital but didn’t stick around long enough to give us any information on you,” the nurse said. She busied herself with monitors and plugs and swabs, anything to avoid looking Alice in the face. “You are lucky to
be alive.”

  Alice tried to think back. There was a fog wall in her memory right before the long hallway with the glass table and all the doors. Something about Rabbit. Wait…

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Alice Pleasance,” she said automatically, without thinking. Shit.

  “Ok, Alice,” the nurse said. “My name is Dana Howard, I’ve been looking after you for the last ten hours or so. Can you tell me anything about the heroin you took?”

  “What?” Alice said.

  “Like, were you smoking or spiking? You don’t have a lot of tracks on your arms, so we weren’t sure if you were a long-term user or not.”