This is the first port in which Tarrant can truly earn his contract fee and he applies himself to his work with a diligence Alice has never seen before... in this world. For a moment, she’s not standing outside on a lovely afternoon on an autumn-colored mountaintop overlooking the summer-hued vista of Nagasaki below. For an instant she’s in a room that’s too red, surrounded by hats that are too black and standing next to her dearest friend who is too mad.
She focuses on him. He’s not mad anymore. No, not in the slightest. Well, not to her. He giggles as Mr. Mutsu attempts to explain his request to a very befuddled-looking craftsman. Apparently, not many people specifically ask to smell the dye that is used to make the fabric that has enchanted Tarrant so thoroughly that he had demanded to be permitted this day trip.
“How can I determine if this product can be made available in the quantities milliners would require if I do not know how it is made?”
An excellent question. And one Lord Ascot would have wholeheartedly approved of indulging. That is why they’d enlisted the assistance of consultants this time, after all. With the larger trading companies focusing on commodities, Lord Ascot is hoping to carve a niche for their small organization in the specialty sundries market. The employment of not only a milliner, but other tradesmen had been a necessary step in ensuring that the goods purchased would meet the very highest standards in each industry.
Alice is not unaware of the irony of the situation: she had been the one to propose this change of direction to Lord Ascot. And Tarrant would not have become a member of the consulting team had she never presented her proposal in the first place. In a way, she is responsible for his presence here. In a way, she had been the one to make all this possible. What she once would have deemed impossible she had made possible with no deliberate plan of her own.
She had mentioned this to Tarrant once, aboard The Wonder. They’d stood side-by-side on the bow. It had taken Tarrant a long time to get his “sea legs”, but he’d found them at last, much to his obvious relief. Alice had congratulated him on it and he’d replied:
“I fear I was learning far too much about the durability of the ship’s cosmetic applications.”
“That would be my fault. Indirectly,” she’d replied.
“How so?”
As the wind had whipped by them, Alice had confessed, “This was my idea; change our business focus to high-end sundries in the specialty and crafts market. I suggested to Lord Ascot we’d have to hire on consultants to assist us with choosing quality goods.”
He’d grinned and she’d known he’d grasped the miracle of it all. “Then I must thank you, Alice, for my current employment.”
“No thanks are needed. Nor have they been earned. I didn’t plan it to turn out like this.”
“But Alice, the best plans are the ones that aren’t made at all.”
A plan that is not made...
A miracle.
Alice had felt quite proud of herself for solving that riddle. It’s Tarrant’s way to speak in riddles that express more than frank speech ever could. And now she is faced with another:
I do not wish; I do not want...
She fears she knows the meaning of this one, too.
She watches him wait rather impatiently for the outcome of the negotiations taking place. In truth, her presence hadn’t even been required on this trip, but she’d been curious as to village life up here in the mountains and, as leader of this trade expedition, she’d nominated herself Tarrant’s assistant. He hadn’t protested despite the laughable notion that she can assist him with anything concerning a trade he knows ins, the outs, and the soft, fleshy underbelly of like he knows his own hat.
His hat... no, not the one he’s wearing today (a chestnut brown top hat with a violet band and a cluster of red cardinal feathers just to the left-of-center as seen from the front) but the one he’d given her. How many mistakes has she made with regards to that hat? How badly has she abused it? Out of ignorance or hubris? No, she’s never handled it roughly and it is, even now, safe in its box and locked in her cabin aboard the ship. But all that the gift had been meant to symbolize, the affections of its former master, and its former owner himself... she must take more care with him!
Mr. Mutsu manages to placate the craftsman... or perhaps convince him of Tarrant’s sincerity or competence. The man smiles and the gesture pulls his dark, season-roughened skin into deep lines of welcome. He gestures emphatically, waving his hand to and fro as if shooing away a pest; where Alice would have hesitated at the mixed signals, Tarrant doesn’t.
“That mean go to him,” Mr. Mutsu says unnecessarily as Tarrant steps forward, pulling off his gloves and shoving them into a trouser pocket before shrugging out of his colorful – indigo today! – jacket. The pair – one short, stocky and sun-baked and the other tall, slender and pale – disappear into the nearest building. The screens and door panels had been removed, permitting the breeze to blow through the humble workshop. Tarrant toes off his boots and excitedly hurries after the craftsman into the depths of the modest, earthen structure. He easily ignores the giggles and laughter of the children clustered nearby; they are entertained by his stockings – more vibrant than his hair and less of a matched pair than his eyes. Alice does not follow him. She can see him just fine from here, and in all honestly, she would not be interested in looking at anything else.
However...
“Mr. Mutsu,” she says as he moves to follow them. “If you would assist me for a moment?”
“Mr. Hightopp?”
She glances toward the interior of the large hut where Tarrant is gesturing quite... animatedly. “He’ll be fine for a moment. If you would assist me with the delivery of our gifts?”
Alice follows Mr. Mutsu’s lead. Bowing and holding out the basket of fish they’d brought from the market, she stumbles through the phrase she’d requested he teach her – “Kore, tsumaranai mono desu ga, doozo...” – to express her thanks for their hospitality. She also passes on a larger basket of fruit and vegetables which are received with avid enthusiasm by the children.
At this point, Alice asks Mr. Mutsu to go see if Tarrant requires his translation skills and Alice turns back to the women who are exclaiming over the fish. The kind or quality or quantity, she’s not sure.
Alice clears her throat to draw their gaze, points to herself, and the to the women, and then to the fish and mimes a motion she hopes looks... helpful. She would like to help clean and prepare lunch with them, if they will allow her to. It would certainly take her mind off of... things.
But, laughing good-naturedly, they refuse her. A few minutes later, Alice finds herself sitting at a low table in what is undoubtedly the nicest home of in the entire village, and yet painfully modest. She listens to the women as they work in the backyard, cleaning and scaling the fish. The older children sort through the produce and wash the items their mothers and aunts and older sisters direct them to. It’s a picture of domestic bliss. Happiness.
But, Alice wonders if it will ever be for her. Will she ever want this? Want to be part of a scene like this?
She fiddles with a pair of chopsticks. She’s always had trouble with the things. She’d tried countless times in Hong Kong to master them and Tarrant has giggled at her incurable clumsiness at every shared mealtime since their arrival. This pair slips and tumbles through her grasp when she tries to manipulate them. With a frustrated huff, she sets them down and tries to focus on enjoying the breeze, the shade, the atmosphere of this place she never expected to see... and may never visit again.
She startles as her hair catches on something. Turning, she sees a small girl... perhaps eight years old, scuttle back with wide eyes. Before she can turn tail and run, Alice smiles, chuckles, and makes that odd “shooing” gesture that Mr. Mutsu had explained as meaning “come here.” The girl creeps forward, curious.
Alice likes that look. She has always enjoyed curiosity, both her own and that of others’. She turns and collects the chopsticks, positions them in her right hand, moves them a bit, and watches as they clatter back to the table.
The girl laughs, her delight ringing through the mud-and-thatch dwelling like bells made from flower petals and hardened in the frost of early spring.
“Help?” Alice asks.
The girl clamors closer and kneels at the table next to her. She taps Alice’s gloves and although Alice can’t understand a word of what she’s saying, she obligingly removes them. She tucks them into her belt and returns her attention to her teacher.
Her teacher stares at her skin, reaches out a finger and gently traces the blue line of a vein. “Shiroi hada...” she informs Alice with a smile and then holds our her own hand. “Kuroi!”
Alice laughs with her but then splays her fingers on the table and counts them. “One... two... three... four... five.” She then points to each of the girl ’s fingers and counts: “One... two... three... four... five!”
They cannot understand each other, true, but there is a glimmer of meaning there, of comprehension. They smile and giggle and then the girl picks up the chopsticks and holds them. “Mite kudasai. Kore. Kore.”
Alice curves her fingers to mimic the girl’s and she slides the chopsticks into Alice’s grip. For a moment, Alice simply stares at the the things. The girl giggles and wiggles her fingers, obviously encouraging Alice to give them a try. Warily, she does.
And, amazingly, they do not spring out of her grasp immediately.
Alice beams and practices pinching bits of air between the tips. Her teacher gives her a soft pat on the shoulder in praise.
Alice looks up to thank her and that’s when she notices a brewing tension out in the village center. An officious looking man wearing the dark robes of the swordsmen in town is speaking forcefully to a strong, able-bodied villager she thinks must be the head of this cluster of people. As Alice watches, the agitated newcomer looks up and frowns fiercely in her direction. With a gesture over his shoulder, a half dozen other sword-carrying men, step up into Alice’s field of view.
Beside her, the little girl has frozen.
Perhaps that is why a chill skitters down her own spine?
Outside several other village men join the first. They are dressed shabbily, yes, but they also carry swords tucked into their belts.
“Mr. Mutsu,” Alice breathes. “Mutsu-san.” She glances at the girl and repeats her request firmly. “Mutsu-san.”
The girl nods and grabs Alice’s wrist. The confrontation in the center of the cluster of humble homes is heating up. There are shouts now and angry gesturing toward Alice and also the seaman who is still standing awkwardly beside the cart they’d arrived on.
Before Alice manages to gain her feet, both groups outside are closing ranks on each other. She doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine that they’re the equivalent of a tossed glove away from drawing swords.
“Nigero!” the girl shouts, shoving Alice out the back of the house. She stumbles in her stockinged feet and spares a brief thought for her shoes which are outside the front door leaning against the worn step. But then more hands – the hands of her hostesses – are pushing her toward the forest. All around her she hears the same word spoken again and again:
“Nigero!”
“Nigero!”
“Nigero!”
She has never heard it before today, but she knows what it means: Run!
And just like she had done at Salazen Grum, she does. She does not know where Tarrant is. She does not know if Mr. Mutsu can help him. She thinks of the seaman, hopes he has enough self-preservation to make himself scarce. She limps, stumbles, flails her way into the forest. Her heart is swollen with too many beats and stuck in her throat and its so hard to focus! Why is it so hard to focus? She must think! But what can she do even then? How will thinking solve this problem? She is in a wood without shoes and she does not know where Tarrant is and she does not know what those men will do if they catch him or catch her!
Her revolver is in her pocket. Should she stop here? Make a stand? She has five bullets. There are more than five of them.
She lurches further into the dense tangle of brush. Pressure builds within her, blinds her. She panics, tears her trousers and long jacket on the ends of grasping branches. The trees catch her hair and her frantic mewl echoes along with her thrashing, crashing through the woods.
Alice yanks herself free from a particularly vengeful thicket of bushes and her mind clears. For a moment, she pauses, catches her breath, covers her mouth with her hand so that she might be able to listen.
And then the pressure builds again. She gasps, spins, and throws herself deeper into the forest. They are coming for her! She can feel it!
The bout of mind-blanking panic consumes her. For how long it holds her in its black, animalistic grasp, she does not know. When she comes to herself again, she’s crouched behind a tree, shivering, her hands and wrists scratched and punctured to bleeding, her fingernails caked with mud and last year’s rotting debris. She scans the forest, checks her pocket for her revolver, then leans back against the nearest tree and tries to breathe.
The moment of peace is too short.
The feeling comes again. The pressure. Someone is out there. Seeking her. Pulling...
Alice gasps, struggles to keep a firm hold on her mind.
Tarrant! she realizes and the panic disappears in direct proportion to her dawning understanding. Tarrant is Choosing her.
Yes, of course! The Jabberwocky blood! How utterly stupid of her to forget about it!
Tarrant... she thinks, wishes, Accepts.
And then he’s there, not two steps away from her. “Alice!”
She reaches for him. He takes one stumbling step in her direction, lifts his hands – his bare hands – toward her and then he pulls them back, fumbling in his pockets. “Alice, your gloves. Put on your gloves, Alice.”
Her momentum sends her crashing forward. Her bruised palms take the brunt of it. “Gloves?” she repeats to the inanimate forest floor. “Gloves?!” Here she is, frightened out of her life, a bit battered and rather sore all over – both without and within! – and completely drained and in need of just one moment with his arms around her and he demands gloves?!
She staggers to her feet and inquires once more, “Gloves?” Even before she has finished biting off the word, her bare hand is set on a course for his face.
He ducks unsteadily and she knocks his lovely hat off of his head.
“What have gloves to do with anything?” she shouts.
“One or two things!” he replies, stumbling back as she takes another step in his direction.
Her hands fist. She’s tempted to pursue, to strike out. The next assault will not be an open-handed slap, however. The next blow she aims at him would consist of a fist and deliberate intent and she...
She...
No matter how much she is hurting and lost and frightened at the moment, she will not do that to him.
Alice turns away, reaches for the gloves she’d tucked into her belt.
They’re gone.
She searches the leaf-strewn ground but they are long gone and likely far away. Somewhere between here and the village.
Lost.
And Tarrant will not let her touch him without them. Exhausted, she wraps her arms around herself.
“Alice.”
“I don’t have my gloves,” she answers, shakily.
“Are ye well, lass?”
She shakes her head and gazes up into the yellowing treetops and the fall colors remind her of the phenomenon of Tarrant’s eyes. “Why would I be? I’ve run I don’t know how far and without shoes. I’ve fallen I don’t know how many times without gloves. And the one thing that might make things a bit better is denied me because I cannot choose!”
“Choose, Alice?” he lisps, his boots crunching in the leaves as he moves a step closer.
“Yes, choose! I know you’re waiting and I’m sorry! You deserve an answer and... and...” She struggles against a sob and forces out through gritted teeth: “I’d just like to be close to you! To touch you once! Is that so much to ask?”
She does not hear the moment of silence that follows so much as she feels it.
“You know it is,” he answers in a soft, puzzled, needing tone.
Her bark of laughter bangs around in the forest before diluting completely.
“That’s what you think, is it? That I know?” She turns and glares. “Don’t you remember, Tarrant? I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he checks, his eyes narrowing, re-evaluating.
In answer, she turns away again. She can feel the heat of tears coming and she does not want to cry in front of him. Or, at least, not where he can see. She makes an effort to relax her face, draws a deep breath, but senses it’s useless. They’re coming and there’s nothing she can do to stop them.
“Alice,” he whispers, stepping closer still. “I hate the morning. I... dream of you... of touching you... and then I wake up to the truth: I can’t. Did the queen not tell you why? You said you saw her, when you returned, on the Unshattermade...”
She shakes her head. “No,” she whispers as the first, hot tears overflow. “What is it you think she told me?”
He takes another step and places his gloved hands on her hunched shoulders. “’Tis th’ Jabberwock blud,” he explains softly. “If’n our skin were teh touch, even by no deliberate intent o’ our own, the blud will out.”
“Out?” she asks.
“Aye. Neither o’ us woul’ be able teh travel teh Underland by Choosin’. We woul’ have teh find ano’her way.”
She closes her eyes. Lowers her head. Nods. “Yes, I understand. You’ve a cup of Witzend wine waiting for you there and—”
“Alice!” His hands tighten, his fingertips curl into her muscles painfully, press against her collarbone. “I d’nae care abou’ th’ bluddy wine! I—!”
He pauses and Alice looks up and off into the distance. She’d heard something just now. Something other than Tarrant’s voice and her own heartbeat and wild imaginings and incorrigible hope and...
“Did you hear something?” Tarrant muses softly.
She nods.
There!
Alice focuses on the sounds in the distance... approaching sounds. Glimpses swaths of dark fabric, the garb of aristocratic men... men with swords... men who had objected to their presence here.
Between her and Tarrant, the two of them have enough ammunition but she is not sure if she can hit her target amongst these trees! She is not sure if Tarrant can, either.
“Fez!” he swears.
Swears, and gives Alice an Idea.
She pulls away from him, turns, and meeting his gaze (his eyes have gone bright yellow with worry and fear and whatever else) she commands, “Follow me.”
And then she Chooses.
*~*~*~*
She falls up, lands, and opens her eyes.
It’s dark.
For a moment, she panics. Why is it dark?
But then, as she gropes about and her fingers encounter wood paneling, she relaxes. Sighs with relief. She runs her hands over the wall.
Yes, she is precisely where she’d Chosen to be.
And a moment later she can feel him. Choosing her. She grimaces, closes her eyes and Reaches for him even as she wonders if he’d felt like this every morning and night. If he’d endured this sensation that pulls one’s heart from within one’s chest, this pain that burns through one’s mind and leaves nothing but desperation, this need that must be answered or it will tear one limb-from-limb.
In her panic earlier, in the forest, and in the heart-pounding wake of realization, she had not been able to properly appreciate this agony. She feels it all now.
“Alice?”
She gasps in the dark, nods, but realizing that he can’t see it, grits out, “Yes—I’m—here!”
“Ye foolish, lass! Nex’ time, le’me gauw afore ye!”
She might take him up on that, actually. Bloody ow! She keeps her hands to herself as he moves closer. She judges the distance he travels through the soft rustle of his clothing and his booted steps.
Boots. Lucky for him.
“Alice,” he asks, his gloved fingers gently pushing her hair out of her eyes. “Where are we?”
Her confidence wavers. “You... don’t... recognize it?”
Slowly, her own eyes are beginning to adjust to the dull light that filters in through the windows from the street. Her breath nearly caught, Alice straightens and moves toward the front door.
“You brought us to my shop?” he queries in disbelief. “To London?”
“That’s what I intend to confirm,” she answers, reaching the front door and fiddling with the lock.
“But why?”
“You said ‘Fez’,” she reminds him and then her dirt-caked fingers find the small lever on the lock mechanism and the door swings open.
“Alice!” he hisses, striding toward her. No doubt he means to stop her from going out onto the street and, in all honesty, she probably shouldn’t – not without shoes and wearing naught but torn stockings on her bleeding feet – but she needs to know if it had really worked. Had she truly Thought herself back in London?
It’s an unusually nice night. The moon is out and the street lamps are still burning. She can hear the vague sounds of traffic far, far in the distance. Perhaps opera patrons on their way home via coach? Or is it too late at night for... respectable, recreational activities?
Tarrant stands in the doorway, hesitates, as Alice turns around, takes in the familiar window displays and looks up – for the first time – at the sign above the door.
___________________________________
Hats for Alice
Tarrant Hightopp, Milliner in Residence
___________________________________
It’s not until Tarrant calls her name – quite clearly! – that she realizes she’s staring.
“You... This... Your shop’s name. It’s not on your calling card,” she hears herself complain. She still has that calling card, although it’s aboard The Wonder at the moment. Safe. Far. Half the world away.
“It does,” he argues. “It’s given on the regular cards.”
“It’s not on mine.” She finally lowers her gaze, looks at him.
He leans against the doorway, bracing himself with his arms. “No, it isn’t. I didn’t give you a regular calling card.”
“What did you give me?”
“My... personal one.” Ah, yes. So he had. She’d forgotten. But that reminds her of another point she’d meant to raise with him...
“With Mamoreal and The Wonder on it?”
“Yes.”
“And has no one commented on your choice of illustrations?”
“No.”
“That’s... surprising.”
“No, not really. Not when you consider the fact that I only ever made the one.”
“One?”
“Yes, just the one card.”
Alice can feel herself gaping again. “And you gave it to me?”
“To whom else, Alice? It has been meant for you and only you since I sketched those images. Now, please, come inside...”
Numb, she does. She lets Tarrant shut out the light from the gas lamps on the street and lock the door behind her.
“Tarrant?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you follow me to London? After the battle on Frabjous Day?”
There’s another moment of resounding silence, just like that moment in the forest when he had finally understood the depth of her ignorance.
“The queen... did not mention this either?” he does not ask but assumes.
“No. She said there was some... confusion over what you said before you drank from the vial.”
He sighs. “Of course. Of course. I was hardly lucid at that point. Too many thoughts, you know. It gets terribly crowded at times. Terribly, although it’s quieter with you here. As usual.”
“Tarrant, what did you intend to say?”
He takes a deep breath. “Alice... why did you leave Underland?”
She huffs with impatience, but agrees to play his game of Questions Only. “Because I had things that needed to be done here.”
“No,” he answers.
“No?”
“You left... because you had to choose.”
Alice blinks in the near-darkness of Tarrant’s shop.
He continues, “That is the problem, you see. Underland, Upland... You had to choose. And I... if you have no objections, Alice, I should very much like to be part of that choice, whichever choice you make. Underland, Upland: it makes no difference to me. And, should you choose Upland, perhaps your family will not be... put off by our friendship.”
Alice regards him in the darkness. His form is barely more than an outline, more solid and darker than the other vague shadows around them despite the fact that he is so very pale and he is in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat; his jacket is still somewhere on a mountaintop in Japan.
“Did you do all of this... for me?” she dares to ask. “Hats for Alice?”
“Of course. What else could bring me here?”
“Curiosity?”
“Want.”
“Want?”
“Yes. I do want, Alice.” He pauses and then whispers, “Alice.”
And this time she cannot fool herself into believing the sound of her name is not the sum total of his necessities in life. He had followed her here, had worked day in and day out to build a business and reputation that would bring him into her circle.
“The gala...” They’re more breath than words but he hears them nonetheless.
“Yes, that is the benchmark of success in this town, is it not? When I received my first invitation, I...” He swallows. “I am sorry it took me so very long to earn it, Alice.”
“But... every day, I Chose you and...” She recalls the horrid pain of it when he had Chosen her. “Did it always feel so wretched?”
“No.”
And yet that one word is not a reassurance. In that single syllable, Alice reads another layer, another answer: No, it was worse.
Of course it was. He had wanted to see her, had Wanted! And yet had had to force himself to refuse her. Again and again and again... Twice daily, morning and night. For two years, seven months, nineteen days. And why had he done it? Why had he suffered this burden? For her.
The words I’m sorry will never be adequate recompense for having endured... that.
But, she can think of something that might be a good start...
“I’m ready,” she tells him calmly.
His breath escapes him in a rush of relief. “All right. I’ll take us back. Follow me. Agreed, Alice?”
“Yes.” She’s a little disappointed that he’d misunderstood. But a little relieved as well. Yes, for this revelation, she would very much like to see his expression.
In the blink of an eye, he is gone.
And in the next, she opens herself up to the Truth in her heart and in her mind: she Chooses him.
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