Uninvited Strangers

by Jae Loren

the other children had forgotten she was ever in the classroom, although Oliver had noticed her from time to time.

  One day, completely out of the blue, her verbal floodgates burst open and no one could get the dam on her mouth fixed back to normal. On and on and on she went about this place called ‘Wonderland’ and the white rabbit and Queen who had all her possessions designed in the shape of hearts. The colors were predominant in her tales: purple and green and red and white. No thing or person was left without description, even if it made little sense to the rest of them. As a schoolboy, Oliver had thought her pretty, if not severely unbalanced, but strangely enough, the one thing Oliver remembered most clearly was the story of the Hatter, his perverse rabbit friend, and their endless tea party. It was so absurd that it had stuck with him all these years: that one single scene she had talked about with excitement flashing in her eyes.

  Only now, the Hatter was all alone. That didn’t seem quite right. “I thought you had a friend or two.”

  The Hatter cocked his head, his gloved hand reaching delicately to pick up a headless shortbread cookie, “I have many friends; But you see, they come and go so often…”

  There was a scraping noise from inside the teapot on the table, and the Hatter smiled, “But there are some friends that are still around.” He picked up the lid of the pot, peering inside, “Is that you, Doormouse?”

  There was a squeak and scuffle of tiny nails against china that barely made it out of the pot before the Hatter put the lid back on, “No, I forgot. Doormouse is gone now too…. Never mind that, I have made two new friends today. That is reason enough to celebrate.”

  Oliver tried to sneak a glance at the pot, but the Hatter pulled the teapot to the side, offering his new guest a smile that made Oliver’s skin crawl. “Fancy a cup of tea?”

  He really didn’t have the time, but Oliver agreed with a faint noise. He didn’t understand the unease in the bottom of his stomach. The whole affair had a nice, peaceful setting, even if it was slightly odd. He watched as the Hatter pulled the hot tin kettle from the small smoldering piles of coal in placed in a small pit and pulled his teacup closer to him. Perhaps a little tea would be nice….

  The Hatter lifted the lid of the teapot and poured the scalding water from the kettle inside. A few small shrieks let out before the lid smothered out the rest of the sound, the bubbling and popping ricocheting off the inside of the ceramic like oil and water in a hot pan.

  Bile threatened the back of his throat. Oliver choked, “What are you doing? What is that?”

  The Hatter frowned. “Mouse tea, of course. What else do you do with a mouse in a teapot, stupid?” He picked up the pot, sloshing the contents a few times before pouring into one of the teacups.

  Oliver stood, “I don’t think I feel very much like tea at the moment, thank you.”

  The Hatter placed the cup down, “How rude to stand while in a tea party. It’s very rude, you know. Where are you going?”

  He should have never come down here. “I came here for something. I must get it and head back home. The dormitory is very strict with curfew, you see.”

  “Are you leaving me?”

  Oliver didn’t bother to blink at the petulant tone. He began to walk away from the table, all too eager to leave behind the mouse tea and headless cookies for his normal home and normal tea.

  Had Alice said the Hatter was a complete basketcase? Oliver thought back to the long days spent in his childhood schoolroom, tried to remember the girl with yellow hair and large blue eyes. Odd little man, she had said, an odd little man with odd little friends. He remembered vaguely something about butter in a watch, and endless tea, but he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to join such a repetitive never-ending event.

  “I’m afraid I don’t like it when my friends leave me.”

  That voice. Oliver spun around, finding his eyes level to the top of the tall purple hat, the shorter body of the Hatter starting at the top of his neck. There was nothing little about this Hatter, he thought. It was all the clothes that swallowed his average form. Alice was barmier than he gave her credit for. He would have pushed the smaller man aside if it wasn’t for the strangled grip he held on the dripping butter knife.

  Dripping…like water out of a leaking bucket. Dripping with what?

  Red. Deep, dark, unmistakably Red… The split skin on Oliver’s arm tingled in awareness.

  It was then that he had tried to run, back into the forest in the direction he thought he had started in so that he could find the burrow hole that would lead him back home. So many people got in his way…. The Cat had promised him directions, but had only tricked him in the arms of those Tweedle Brothers, who then had brought him to the Queen’s castle as a prize.

  Another outsider, they called him.

  The Queen had barely looked at him from her heart-shaped chair, her scepter held in her right hand. “He is what the Hatter wants?”

  Oliver didn’t have time to breathe before he was pulled by the shackles on his wrist and he was sent back to the tea table at the edge of the forest. The sunlight had been his last piece of warmth before he was thrown into the cellar and chained to the wall.

  “Let the Hatter have him,” The Queen had said. “It will keep him from pestering us, anyway.”

  All Oliver could think as he was placed in the cellar of the house by the Tea Table was, how could such a small man pester so many people if he never left his tea parties?

  Yes, something had gone horribly wrong. Alice had said that the Queen would call to execute anyone who displeased her. Not that Oliver didn’t want to be beheaded, he reminded himself. But what was so disturbed about the Hatter that the Queen would hand him back over? Why had he been spared?

  Why hadn’t he been sent home?

  There were always two ends to a story. Oliver sincerely believed that he had chosen the wrong rabbit hole.

  The Hatter had let him out one day for tea, carrying around a stuffed animal that he persisted in talking to when Oliver refused conversation.

  “How rude, isn’t he, March Hare? How rude to sit at our table and ignore our tea…”

  It was always tea-time at the Hatter’s but Oliver remained in the dark cellar. The steady drip-fall of water along every wall and the constant grumbling of his empty stomach was enough to drive him insane. There were no visits, there was no light, and there was no food because even he wasn’t hungry enough to chase after the occasional scurrying rodent that pattered over his legs or the overlarge insects that crawled on his body with confident curiosity.

  Thinking about it all didn’t do him much good either. Oliver could think of nothing but how he should have never gone to search for that playing ball. How long had it been, a week now? Did his friends miss him? Was he going to be expelled from the University for failing to be in attendance? Had he already been expelled? What else had happened back where he truly belonged?

  The thoughts tiring him out, Oliver tried once more for sleep, closing his eyes and pillowing his head against his shoulder. He had almost blocked out everything around him and slipped into a shallow doze when the cellar door opened.

  “How remiss of me! It’s always tea-time, and I forget to invite my friends.”

  Oliver looked up at the voice, seeing the shadow that was outlined in the doorway by fading sunlight. He couldn’t see anything but the silhouette, but the smile in the voice made him wish his shackles were long enough that he could go for the Hatter’s throat unhindered.

  “No need to worry,” The Hatter said, “I always bring the tea for my friends. I forget how lonely it could be outside while everyone else is enjoying the cellar.”

  Enjoying the cellar? Oliver snorted then froze, staring up at the Hatter as he closed the door, carrying the lit candle, teapot and teacups. Everyone else…?

  “Now, we mustn’t be rude, my friend.” The Hatter gestured to the teapot, taking a few steps closer to Oliver. The candlelight framed his small body with a soft, aura-like glow. “Tea?�
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  Oliver tried to scoot away, tried to scoot anywhere from the man approaching. His fingers brushed through dirt and then against something cold and hard-soft. Startled, he ran the tips up the object, feeling the outline. He picked it up to test the weight and textures. Without light he had to rely on his sense of touch more than all else. There were rather familiar dips and angles, a few sharp points to the frame. It was stiff and rigid when he pressed against it, and he sincerely hoped that the leathery, dried feeling it had was fabric.

  “I see you found him. Did you truly think I would be so heartless to leave you alone?”

  Feeling his heart throb against his lower rib cage in a painful staccato, Oliver tested his voice, trying for nonchalance as his fingers kept touching the leathery surface. “Him?”

  The Hatter moved the candle over to Oliver’s side, so that he could see the browned, leathery hand that he was feeling and drop it in disgust. The limb fell with a soft thud against the cellar dirt, the fingers clattering together.

  It was a man’s hand, he could tell even as he scooted further into the wall unsure of what lie to his other side. A shock of short blonde hair and black, empty eye sockets were all that remained recognizable of the small corpse stuffed into a girl’s blue dress and white pinafore, pristine but for the front stained brown and black with old blood.

  “He was my first tea party friend.” The Hatter said, lips