Henry Hatter

Theophilius Hatter. A name I'd never utter out loud again.

Being mistaken for my brother has always been the bane of my existence, for all Hatters look alike. Yet, I for one am not mad. At least, that is what mother tells me. If it weren't for that damned Alice, Theophilius wouldn't be mad either.

Yes. It always came back to Alice.

What did that girl have that my Edith did not? Mother tells me that Edith was the ugly duckling, yet I saw no feathers and I have seen every inch of Edith. Alice was nothing more than the pigeon that ruined my life. And my brother's, for that matter.

When Edith arrived in our world, something in the air shifted. It was a soft and elegant shift. Not like that wretched pigeon crashing through the doorway like a bewildered moose complaining on how she'd, "lost her way". No. Edith was polite and quiet as a dormouse. Even the Bread-and-Butterflies paid her no mind.

"What is this place?"

Innocent words that left the lips of the sweet girl who first set foot in our lands. First. She was first. Before Alice tore my brother's heart to ribbons, her sister Edith was first and she was all mine.

"You can't keep her." Theophilius sneered. "She doesn't belong here. Even the violets are upset. Simply revolting, she is."

It took everything in my power not to strike my brother. "And who's to say we belong? We were most sincerely not the first to make roots in this world, Theophilius. So, why is this creature of absolute light not welcome?"

Theophilius furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes at my Edith. "She reaks of high society and butterscotch. It is a horrible combination, Henry."

Edith remained stoic with her half-witted smile and nearly lifeless gaze fixated on Theophilius. It made his stomach turn, yet it made my heart flutter.

"You see, Henry? She is not all to do! This creature is unwell! She hasn't even blinked since we started conversing!" Theophilius huffed, took a step back, and straightened his bowtie - utterly flustered by the mannequin-like state Edith seemed to be stuck in.

"Oh, put your foot in it, Theophilius." I waved my hand in front of my dear Edith's beautiful yellow-green eyes and she offered her first blink along with a delicate line of drool that slipped from the corner of her mouth like a liquid diamond. It was purely magical. "You see? She is perfectly perfect!"

Theophilius shook his head. "Where did you find this thing, Henry? What hole have you pulled her from?"

"She climbed in from the rabbit's hole! That damned rabbit beat her nearly senseless with his broom when her head popped through! And you know what she did?"

Theophilius sighed deeply. "She climbed in?"

"She took that long-eared rat by the ears, spun him round and round, and gave him a hell of a toss into the brambles!" I could feel my cheeks heating with pride."I've never liked that rabbit...and you know it!"

Edith let out a series of extraordinary giggles and adorable snorts and chortles that made my heart beat a thousand per minute. I was in love with this girl. Theophilius would just have to get used to her. For she was mine and I was hers. Yet, I feel the rabbit's beating had knocked her a bit silly.

I gave Edith her own room in my home. It didn't seem right to sleep next to her just yet. So, I cleaned out my study and adorned it with things just as exquisite as she. My dear loved it. Edith remained in her very own room for weeks before she found her way to mine. The rest is a love story for another time. The story I am telling now isn't about love. It's about death. It's about murder. And it's always...always...about Alice.

Theophilius never gave his approval of Edith. He called her brutish, ugly, and downright demented. He kept telling me to put her back where she belongs. He teased her any chance he could and tormented her day and night hoping she'd up and leave of her own accord. But, Edith loved me, and I her, so she stayed.

One strange morning a raucous occurred in the flower beds. The roses were screaming, the violets shouting, the daisies laughing like deranged hyenas, and in the middle of it all stood a fair-haired girl in a blue dress spewing insults to the blossoms.

I watched from behind the brambles as this newcomer strut her way through the flower bed with her freckled nose in the air and storm up to the mushroom to begin an argument with the caterpillar. I watched as she barked orders at him until he imploded and burst into a cloud of wings and smoke. I listened as he screamed her name from the clouds, "Alice".

It's always about Alice.

I decided that this awful girl wasn't worth my time and wished her a hurried passage to the palace where she'd surely lose her rotten head. The thought made me warm inside until I heard the mumbled cries from my dear Edith behind me.

"Thas ma sistah! Ma sistah! Alish! Alish!"

"Edith dear, calm yourself! It's just a weed, love, I assure you it is not your sister! Perhaps an ivy of the poison sort or even a sumac she could be!"

My dear had quite the temper and she didn't like when I contradicted her. Edith took me by the throat with her wonderfully strong hands and wrung me near to death as she shouted, "Ma sistah!", over and over.

Luckily, Alice didn't hear sweet Edith's cries and the rotten pigeon just kept on going. At that specific moment, I thought to myself it was a good thing that Alice kept on. Yet, I should have known that luck would take her to my brother, Theophilius, and his tea table. Everyone is drawn to the tea table here, even newcomers like Alice. But, we're not quite there yet and I was losing consciousness in Edith's grip.

Edith refused to let up that night, even trying to escape our loving home to go after Alice. She took my wood axe to the door when she could have just asked for the keys. I bolt it each night to keep out the mome raths, you see. Sneaky little shits, they were. Always getting into everything.

The next morning, Theophilius stepped through the shards that were left of my front door. The look on his face was simply bewilderment and I knew...I knew why that was. It was a bewilderment of love and I bet my finest button that it had to do with that girl. That Alice.

"My dear brother, Henry, I would ask what happened to your door - yet I see your pet is still getting on, so that is answer enough for me." Theophilius rolled his eyes and waved a disgusted hand at Edith. "What's wrong with her today? A touch of gout, perhaps? I don't even care, Henry. Do you know why? Do you know why I don't care?"

I knew why. However, I didn't want my Edith to know why. I knew in my heart that Alice was who Edith said, yet, I also knew that I'd lose my Edith if she knew the truth. It was all too much.

"I don't care, my simple brother, because of Alice."

That's all it took. The sound of that pigeon's name leaving my brother's lips was all it took to light the fire of fury inside my Edith. Murder washed over her and for some reason - it was aimed toward me! I couldn't believe it and I still can't to this day.

"Thas...ma...SISTAH!" Edith screamed so loudly that my eyes rattled within my skull. She lunged for me and I caught her, yet her jagged nails dug into the flesh of my cheeks and I instinctively let her go.

Theophilius was taken aback. Edith climbed overtop of me and cornered my brother, her heaving breaths leaving her body like wildfire.

"Tak me to ha." Edith spoke in a low growl. It was enough for Theophilius to comply.

"Y-y-yes, Edith, I will take you to her. Please, I promise you." Theophilius shot me a frightened glare as Edith dug her nails into his arm and drug him through my shattered front door.

As I watched her cross the threshold, my tears broke free. I reached for her as I cried out in a pain so deep it shook me to my core.

I followed them in the shadows. I couldn't bear to have Edith look into my eyes when she came face to face with Alice. She was already so angry I feared the poor girl would burst if she saw me then.

Theophilius took Edith to his tea table where the March Hare sat nervously waiting with a fair-haired girl.

"Edith! Where have you been?" Alice queried in a shrill squawk. "We've been searching for you for ages! If it weren't for the shred of brown linen at that rabbit hole, we'd never see you again!"

Theophilius's eyes widened.

Edith began shouting just then. She pointed in my direction, though I do not believe she knew I was there. My poor girl was so distraught I couldn't understand a word that left her lovely mouth.

Alice turned to Theophilius, "Where is your brother?"

With cheeks of red and a disposition near to tears, Theophilius pointed to the bramble bush I hid within. "He is just there."

The two girls snapped their heads in my direction, gazes burning with murderous fury. They moved slowly as if they knew I would run. But, I did not. I stood slowly and held my ground, for I did nothing wrong. I gave my Edith a gift that few others have been given. I gave her a free ticket to our wonderous world and a home to live within it.

"You kidnapped my sister." Alice spoke slowly as if I was too daft to understand. I understood fully and it was purely nonsense.

"I did NO such thing you wretched pigeon! Edith loves me!"

Alice scoffed at my insult. "Theophilius told me everything, Henry Hatter! Even your own brother disapproves of you!"

Theophilius shied away from the table, yet offered Alice a loving and apologetic gaze to which she crushed with her icy return. He had betrayed me.

Just then, Edith lunged. My dear sweet girl latched onto my throat and pummeled me to the ground. The earth shook as we landed in a pile of poorly placed rock. She tore at my skin, she spat in my face, she struck and struck and struck until I tasted my own blood, but I couldn't fight back. I couldn't hurt my Edith. However, I could hurt Alice. This is her fault, after all.

I gathered my strength and pulled myself together just enough to push Edith aside, yet it was no easy feat. When I broke free of her sharp grasp, I used the opportunity to lunge at the fair-haired twat just as she lifted a large teapot, cocked back, and hurled the pot as hard as she could. I felt the wind of it as it passed by my left ear. I heard the crash of it as it struck something behind me. I saw the horror on Alice's face when her sister fell to the ground with a large shard of flowered ceramic sticking out of her forehead.

Edith lay still with her eyes wide open, a mesmerizing trickle of crimson tracing the lines on her beautiful face.

"What have I done?" Alice whispered. "Theophilius, is she..."

Theophilius didn't need to near Edith to know she was no longer living. The still of the tea garden was quiet enough for us all to hear the absence of her breath...and the shattering of my heart.

Something broke inside Alice just then.

"No one will know...no one...I can't tell them I found her...it has been weeks...I won't...they won't believe..." Alice was speaking in broken sentences, simply mad with dread and contrition. "Won't tell anyone...not mother...not father...I have to get home...I have to find my way..."

Theophilius was absolutely stunned. He watched as his fair-haired girl stepped back from the tea table, peeled her eyes from her sister's body, and turned toward the way of the palace. Her sobs could be heard for miles.

"Fairfarren, Alice."

I sat with my dear lifeless Edith as Theophilius watched his lady leave. He didn't look at me right away. I think he truly believed it was all my fault Alice left him. But, how? I did not make her throw the pot. If she hadn't thrown the pot, they could have come to some kind of agreement. An agreement that would result in my Edith staying right here with me, of course. It's what she would have wanted, I know it to be true.

"You had to pull that thing through the hole, didn't you? You just had to have it." Theophilius didn't sound like himself.

"Have what, brother? What thing do you speak of?"

Theophilius turned to me then. His eyes were wide as saucers and red as hibiscus tea. A twitch had settled in the corner of his crooked mouth as his hands adopted a tremor. He looked like a madman.

"This is the last time, Henry. We will not let you do this again. That girl..." Theophilius swallowed hard. "that girl did not belong here. You never should have pulled her through. How many times do we have to tell you? They always come looking."

Theophilius was speaking utter nonsense. I had to pull dear Edith. Her backside was far too full to get through on her own, I know it. If she hadn't kicked so much, she'd have made it all the way unscathed.

I had watched Edith in that field, day after day. She needed me. She needed to come here, to escape the life that filled her with sorrow. So what if I pulled! She was mine to take and she needed me! And that damned rabbit! Nearly knocked her back to the other place, striking her with that broom!

"Rabbit was told to stop you if it happened again." Theophilius could see the thoughts swirling in my head. I suppose it was not much unlike Margaret. Although, Margaret was never adorned with a ceramic headpiece. Her fate was much less violent.

"Don't forget Lily as well. And Ivy, and May, and Sylvina." The twitch at the corner of my brother's mouth had grown into a full lip convulsion.

"They needed me, brother. They just didn't know it yet. And this was the one!"

Theophilius shook his head and departed the garden in the way of Alice, leaving me with my lifeless Edith. Alice. If she wouldn't have come looking, we would have lived happily ever after.

That name has haunted me since. Alice. It was always about Alice. Theophilius couldn't go one day without saying her name. His twitch grew and tremors strengthened, yet he still muttered her name. I don't know what happened after she left the garden, but I do know that it had something to do with Alice. It always did.

The Queen came for me not long after. She said so many hateful things when she saw I'd set my poor Edith up at the tea table to have one last pleasant moment with her. It was a tribute.

They tore her away from me, sealed up the rabbit's hole, and took me to the palace dungeon. Here I sit patiently awaiting the loss of my head. I would give it freely for Edith. And I would hope that when it falls from the chopping block...it crushes the life out of Alice.