Playing Hearts

by W. R. Gingell

  “Happy–”

  “Moderately–”

  “Who are you, not how are you,” I said. I flicked a look between the two of them and said testingly: “That was stretching a bit.”

  Purple eyes slid sideways and back. Black eyes regarded me slyly. “Her ears are bigger than Dormy’s ears,” said the Hare.

  “I did notice,” said the other. To me, he said: “I’m the Hatter. You may have noticed.”

  “Noticed–? Oh, the hat. Yes. It’s very...odd.”

  “Thank you!” said the Hatter simply. “I made it ’specially! Do you know what skill and dexterity it takes to make a hat with this kind of oddity? Facets from every realm of probability and even a few from the realms of possibility!”

  I didn’t understand that, but from my position atop the tea-table I could see a coach fast approaching over the crown of the hill, so I asked instead: “Who’s that? In that old-fashioned coach? Are those horses?”

  “Horses are for courses, not for coaches,” said the Hare disapprovingly. “Those are card sharks.”

  I had a brief, unsettling memory—or was it a dream?—of sharp teeth clicking at me, and the red velvet darkness of a sack that I seemed to remember being thrown over me. “I’ve been here before,” I said again, with a squeak in my voice.

  “Back! Back in the teapot!” said the Hatter frantically, poking me in the stomach with his long fingers in an attempt to overbalance me back into the teapot. “Mind your ears, back in the pot!”

  I fended off his fingers and darted behind an oversized milk jug. “Ow! Stop it!”

  “SHE WASN’T INVITED,” said the Hare. I thought he meant me, but he was looking at the coach with wide, wild eyes. I understood why as soon as a card shark sprang from the back of the coach and opened the door. The first thing to emerge from the coach was a vast balloon of red velvet punctured by a small, silver mirror, and one pointed red shoe. The balloon grew in size until it was dimpled by a bodice in white lace that had a front point as sharp as the shoe, then the Queen’s terrifyingly straight back descended in a line exactly parallel to the slanted steps. It had been four years since I’d seen her—four years of the real world being ground into me by life in a series of foster homes—but it hadn’t been quite long enough to purge the deeply buried nightmare memory of her. I was old enough this time to know that she wasn’t the Queen of England, though I was still certain she was a Queen. She wasn’t wearing a crown this time, but her head-dress was so wide that it almost overtook her skirt in size. A cloud of white netting adorned it and frothed behind her as she at last extricated herself from the coach: it was the last of her ensemble to emerge from the door.

  The Hatter, his big hands white-knuckled around his tea-cup, mumbled to himself: “Wasn’t invited. No room. No room at all. Wasn’t invited and shouldn’t be offered tea.”

  The card shark closed the coach door and put up the stairs again, but the coach wasn’t quite empty. Through the window I could see a head of pale golden hair, slicked back and smooth, above a collar of dark crimson. It turned slightly to the side, displaying an arrogantly tilted chin and a narrow, aristocratic nose, and I felt the clutch of my fingers in the fabric at my waist. My finger—the one that had been pricked in that odd, childish dream so many years ago—was hurting.

  “Jack,” I said, the name falling rusty with disuse from my lips.

  “What did I tell you?” whispered the Hare, frantically soft. “Her ears are huge!”

  As the Queen shook her skirts out in massive stateliness, I dropped from the table to the grass, scuttling between chair legs and tablecloth until I was safe beneath the table. There were grass-stains on my clothes but I ignored them, wriggling vigorously until I could see a sliver of the action from beneath the scalloped edge of tablecloth. The Hatter’s legs were close and I hugged his skinny ankles, pressing my cheek to the purple stockings and tattooing the buckle from his knee-breeches on my left temple. It was by far the least comfortable position I’d ever been in, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the most comfortable seat at the tea table. Not when the Queen was sweeping toward it with fear before her and danger in her wake. Behind her the coach window framed Jack, who didn’t move– who didn’t even look toward the unfortunate two at the tea-table. Almost as if he knew that things were about to become unpleasant for Hatter and Hare. Why was the Queen so angry?

  “I see you’re still at tea,” she said. The card sharks had ranged behind her in something like a v-formation, but as she drew closer to the table they spread out to surround us. Three of them mounted chairs and then the table to cross over to the Hare’s side. I heard their sharp, metallic footsteps on the table above my head, and then the soft thunk of feet hitting grass behind me. I didn’t like them being out of my sight but I preferred to keep my eyes on the Queen.

  “I like to think that I’m not a demanding monarch,” she was saying pleasantly. “However, I really do expect my subjects to rise when I deign to approach them. Remove your hat, man!”

  I let go of the Hatter’s ankles just in time. He scrambled to his feet, and the billowing of the tablecloth suggested that he was bowing.

  Across the table, the Hare’s voice said: “WHAT’S THAT SHE SAYS? SHE WANTS TO REVIEW THE CAT?” and was cut off in a grunt as something metallic went schwik! There was a thump on the table-top– was the Hare dead? I felt my lower lip tremble, and heard Jack’s younger voice saying again: You’re not to cry. I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t.

  Above my head, the Queen’s voice said: “I’d hate to think that you’re sharing your...tea...around Underland. It’s not healthy.”

  There was a garbled mumble from the Hare that made me thankfully aware that he was still alive, and Hatter sat down. I immediately seized his legs again, and though they were as skinny as ever they weren’t as stiff. I had the feeling he was as glad for me as I was for him.

  “Not healthy for you, and certainly not healthy for them,” said the Queen. I didn’t think she was really talking about tea, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. “The type of tea you’re spreading about has a nasty habit of poisoning the drinkers.”

  “Poisoned tea is no use,” said Hatter, his legs quivering. “All our guests would die. Dead guests are so hard to entertain. Perhaps a little sip of Syrup of Poppies instead?”

  “Number Six, restrain the Hare,” said the Queen. Her voice was soft and plump, like a pillow. A pillow pressed against my face so that I couldn’t breathe. “I’ve heard that a hare’s foot is good luck.”

  Above my head there was a brief, violent struggle, the sound of smashing crockery and what sounded like the Hare’s huge back feet beating against the tabletop.

  “CALUMNY!” yelled the Hare, his voice more frenzied than before. “A HARE MAKES HIS OWN LUCK, MADAM!”

  “Or is it a rabbit’s foot for luck?” wondered the Queen. “Perhaps it was a hare’s foot for face powder. Do you know, I’m almost certain that it is. Oh, hold him down Number Six! I don’t care where you’re bleeding.”

  “NEVER TOUCHED A GRAIN OF POWDER IN MY LIFE!” bawled the Hare. “LIES! ALL LIES!”

  I gripped Hatter’s knocking knees harder, my confused brain trying to make sense of the Queen’s subtleties and the Hare’s babble. They were doing an even more incomprehensible version of the adult talk I heard at my ever-changing foster homes. I wriggled myself down until I was clutching Hatter’s ankles instead of his knees, and carefully peeked out beneath the hem of the tablecloth again. My eyes travelled up her red pouf of a dress until I was staring unblinkingly at her right ear. I didn’t quite dare to look at her face properly: part of me still remembered a time when Jack had warned me against looking her in the eye, and I seemed to remember a nightmare smile I’d once glimpsed.

  Jack. What was Jack doing? Why was he in the coach? Why wasn’t he helping poor Hatter and Hare? I wriggled out a little further, the tablecloth draping around my head, and craned my head to look around the Queen’s skirt at the c
oach. Jack was still there, gazing out on the scene. His eyes were inattentive and even slightly bored, his upper lip curled. He was playing with a ring that was big enough to see from where I was. I considered waving at him, but I was too frightened of the Queen to try it. Besides, how was I to know if he would be willing to help? He certainly wasn’t doing anything at the moment. I glared at him from my hiding place, and as if he felt my eyes on him, I saw Jack’s eyes rise from his ring, slowly, slowly; panning from ring to window, then to grass, and from grass to–

  He saw me. His eyes widened slightly, his fingers curling suddenly over the scrollwork at the window. I gripped the Hatter’s legs a little tighter: was Jack going to call out to his mother? The Hatter’s hand, trembling slightly, appeared below the tablecloth and passed me a small, iced cake. I took it in my own damp hand and insensibly squashed it almost to dough, my eyes flying to the coach and Jack’s face again. His index finger was up, and as I watched he lowered his finger slowly with his eyes steadily on me. Get back under the tablecloth, said the gesture. I wriggled back a little way but kept to my position despite Jack’s narrowed eyes. All of him was narrower—older and narrower—and I didn’t think he looked as nice as he had looked when he was younger. It seemed like he was still watching out for me, though, and that made me feel better. Why wasn’t he watching out for Hatter and Hare as well?

  And what was the Hatter saying? “Really weren’t expecting you,” I heard him reiterate sullenly. “No room. Absolutely no room.”

  Even to my seven-year-old brain, that stuck out. They had both said it: Hatter and Hare. Weren’t expecting. No room. Not invited. And so loudly. Almost...almost as if they hoped to be overheard. But overheard by whom?

  “Don’t lose your heads,” said the Queen pleasantly. “I’ve no interest in your poxy little tea party. The only interest I have is making sure that you don’t import it to any other tea-tables.”

  “Don’t import tea,” said the Hatter. “All Underland leaf, purple as it comes. Import biscuits sometimes. Danish butter cookies.”

  “Then I suppose our interview is at an end. Before I go, however, I’d like to leave you both a little reminder. Number Five, cut off the Hare’s forepaw.”

  A scream, shrill and inhuman, jolted me with such force that I jerked away from Hatter’s legs, instinctively curling in a ball with my quivering arms wrapped around my knees. There was a kind of fizzing in my ears, and my eyes, frozen open in shock, saw the blossoming of wet redness on the Hare’s side of the tablecloth.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said the Queen, her voice softer than ever. It was hard to hear through the buzzing in my ears. “Did I say leave? I meant take. Bring it with you, Number Five.”

  I heard the massive rustling of her skirts as she swept away, heard the slap of the card sharks’ feet over the tabletop to follow her; but all I could understand was the spreading patch of red with its liquid centre and quickly browning edges. The coach must have rolled away again at some stage. I didn’t notice; but somewhere in all the whimpering and blood and moaning, Hatter’s big hands pulled me from beneath the table. When I came back to myself, shivering away my shock, I was curled up on a large, spotted dinner plate with Hatter patting my head as if I was a small dog instead of a small girl. Through the tears in my eyes I could see a blurry grey and red figure across the table.

  “Blue blood!” whimpered the Hare. “Father told me I was blue blood. Hatter, they took my blue blood and pumped me full of red. I’ll never be royalty now.”

  “Tea and cake,” said Hatter, with terrifying calmness. “You’ll be as good as new.”

  That made me sit up, because I was very sure that tea and cake were not going to help something that was bleeding as freely as the Hare’s stub of an arm was bleeding. “You have to sew him up,” I said, pushing my tears away with the grass-stained heel of my palm. “He’ll die, otherwise.”

  “Tea and cake,” Hatter said obstinately. He reached over me to the sausage warmer, and when he lifted the lid I found that it wasn’t a sausage warmer but an iron stove-top. Where was the rest of it? It certainly hadn’t been under the table when I hid beneath it: I would have noticed that scorching heat.

  “Back in the teapot,” the Hatter said, and suited the action to the words by lifting me by the collar and depositing me gently inside. He put the lid back on it, but cracked it open again for a brief moment to add: “And don’t pop your top.”

  I found myself sitting in the herby dregs of cold tea, and shivered. Was he trying to send me back? I didn’t think it worked that way. Outside my teapot someone screamed again, sharp and short, and I hit my head on the teapot lid with a clang. Perhaps that’s what Hatter meant by telling me not to pop my top. Regardless of the warning, I shoved myself up and out of the teapot, my eyes blinking against the sudden return of brightness.

  “Hare?” I said, in a tremulous voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Nice little girls don’t sit in the tea,” said Hare, his voice a rasp. He was still there across the table, his eyes blacker and wilder than before, but his mutilated arm was behind his back and there was a singed sort of smell to the air. One of them had haphazardly piled teacups and saucers over the sticky red stain on the tablecloth; and the sausage warmer, which seemed to exude the singed smell most strongly, now had a cake perched on its lid.

  “Nice little girls stay in the teapot when they’re put there,” added Hatter reproachfully.

  There didn’t seem to be anything sensible to say to such contradictory statements, so I merely said: “The tea was cold anyway,” and climbed back out.

  Hare made a fastidious moue. “Ugh. Cold tea.”

  “If you ask the sun nicely he’ll dry you out,” said Hatter.

  “Oh. Won’t he do that anyway?”

  “Yes, but this way he won’t sulk about it.”

  I was almost certain that Hatter was changing the subject, but I was feeling rather chilly, so I merely held my damp skirt away from my underwear and said to the warm sky: “Please will you dry my skirt?”

  The sun became noticeably warmer, a radiant, personal presence that dried the wet tea in no time and somehow managed to warm the inner chilled feeling that had nothing to do with the cold tea. As my skirt dried and stained slightly, I said to Hare: “How is your hand?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” said Hare, shifting the stub a little further behind his back. “She’s got it. She could be mistreating it, for all I know. Didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.”

  I left my skirt to its own mending in the sunshine and leaned over to kiss Hare’s wiry cheek by way of consolation. “That’s not a medically proven remedy,” said Hare, but he seemed pleased and the wildness in his eyes faded a little.

  “Why is the Queen so angry with you both?”

  “She’s jealous of my hat,” sighed Hatter.

  I looked up at it, then back at Hatter. “She has a crown. Why would she want your hat?”

  “Can you see the past, present and future in a crown? Of course not! All you see in a crown is a reflection of yourself.”

  “What do you see in your hat, then?” I asked curiously.

  “Your ears are still too big,” said Hatter. “You should do something about that. Think of Underland as a pool. No, think of it as a looking-glass– no! as a reflection.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Underland isn’t real. Well, it is, but it’s a different real to everyone: it depends on how you see things. You come by water, but it’s contrariwise to those who come by looking-glass. We’re a different reflection.”

  “Oh,” I said thoughtfully. I thought I might have the smallest inkling of what Hatter was talking about. His top hat was sewn with myriad shiny pieces of reflective material: a bunch of oddly-shimmering sequins here, a piece of mirror-like satin there. There were even chips of glass in the tall, curving height of it, and I was certain that the patch at the top was a small, rippling piece of water. Did Hatter see Underland contrariwise, too?

  “Y
ou can see a different reflection of Underland in your hat,” I said. I had an idea that was beyond my understanding to grasp, and without being capable of voicing it, I finished lamely: “It’s different.”

  “It’s time for you to go home,” Hatter said abruptly.

  A little indignantly, I demanded: “What did I do?”

  “What will you do?” countered Hatter, and swept me from the table in a flutter of tea-stained skirt. “Don’t think I’ve haven’t seen the ripples you make in the reflections!”

  “I don’t make ripples,” I said in confusion, as Hatter dragged me away across the grass and toward an ornamental pool.

  “DID SO TOO!” hollered Hare, back at the table. “JUMPED RIGHT IN, DIDN’T YOU? BOTH FEET!”

  “Yes, but that was because I was jumping into water!”

  “Exactly,” said Hatter, hefting me up onto the pool’s rim. “What did I tell you? And ripples make things hard to see.”

  “Will I be coming back?” I asked, anxious to stay. I was afraid for Hatter and Hare.

  “Shouldn’t think we can stop you,” said Hatter, and pushed me off the rim.

  I made a tiny, off-balanced bunny hop into the water. For a breathless moment I both felt the splash of it around my ankles and the weight of it rushing over my head in waves of pressure. Hatter’s anxious purple eyes followed me through the rippling of water. I thought I could still see him when the splashing of water around my ankles died away into ripples and I found myself ankle-deep in the pond in the real world. I knew I was back in Australia because the sun here wasn’t anywhere near as personal as Underland’s sun. It was just warm, muggy, Australian summer.

  I told myself that I would be better prepared next time I found myself in Underland. I never really felt that I’d quite gone away, if it came to that: the feeling of being watched that I’d had ever since my first tumble into Underland only intensified after I left it for the second time. I would have thought it was just my imagination if it weren’t for the fact that I actually saw my watchers. Mirrors were particularly prone to showing a flash of Underland: a flicker of red and gold here, a glimpse of Jack and his black-flecked eyes there. At first it was mostly Jack, his thin, arrogant face and perfectly pressed suits appearing and vanishing in windows and mirrors everywhere I went. I made faces at him whenever he appeared in the windows at school—which made him roll his eyes and sniff—and even a walk down the street was enough to display running scenes of Underland in the passing shop windows. I didn’t recognise all of it by sight, but there was that kind of personal, friendly warmth to it that made me certain the sun there was alive, and that it could only be Underland. I caught a glimpse of Hatter and Hare quite often, but they were always so hard to see in the mirrors and windows. The light fractured around them, splitting the glass into reflective shards, and the only reason I knew Hatter’s face was because of his purple eyes.