Puffin's Note: If you are coming back to this story specifically for the updated chapters, you'll want to go one chapter back before you read this. There is an interlude before this, which also contains new material.

As per popular demand, this chapter directly follows the last moment with Alice and Foris in the locked room. This section went through a painful number of drafts before I nailed down exactly what needs to happen. I'm still not entirely happy with it, but it's time to post the d*&n thing and get on to the next bits.

Something important had happened while he slept, and it was very important that Tarrant not remember what it was. It seemed to Tarrant that if he did remember, everything about his current predicament would only get infinitely worse.

Not that Tarrant's situation was all that good to begin with. In fact, all things considered, 'good' couldn't honestly be applied to anything about the past several days.

He still couldn't see anything when he awoke. Strangely, he didn't remember falling asleep, though he must have done so, for he was lying with his cheek digging into the stone floor; he had the impression that he had been dreaming. Tarrant thought that someone in the dream had been asking for him, though who it was or what they had wanted, the hatter did not know. Perhaps Tarrant was still dreaming, and this person was waiting for an answer. But Tarrant did not know what question he had been asked.

It was entirely too dark here, the hatter thought. Without the sun, day and night had quickly become muddled; now it seemed that sleep and wakefulness were becoming just as blurred. If he could open his eyes, the hatter thought he might be able to sort it out. But opening his eyes didn't seem to make any difference at all. Tarrant had thought the room was dark before, lit by a dim glow that seemed able to mount only a token protest against the ever-present shadows. Now the glow was gone entirely; in its absence, Tarrant found that he missed it greatly. In its place was a blackness so thick that it almost seemed a presence in its own right, something with weight, that clung to the walls like a tapestry. The hatter had the strangest feeling, that if he spoke aloud in such a place, the darkness might choose to reply. (Because someone is waiting for an answer. But what was the question?) But Tarrant did not think he wanted to hear anything the darkness might tell him. The darkness' silence was eerie enough; he did not want to encourage it with speech of his own.

Carefully, Tarrant freed one arm from the pocket of his jacket, and waved a hand in front of his face. He felt the breeze of its passing as a faint flicker against his cheek, but he couldn't see it at all, not even so much as a flicker. The hatter wondered if he might be underwater. But he wasn't wet; he felt that this somehow ruled out the prospect of his having drowned.

The joints in his fingers were still unaccountably stiff. Wondering if he might have chilled then, the hatter tucked his hands under the front of his waistcoat, nestling them firmly into his armpits. Could he have frozen them? The hatter didn't think so, but it would explain the stiffness. But the hatter did not feel cold, and several minutes of attempting to warm his fingers produced no appreciable affect.

Tarrant wished very much that Alice were still with him, instead of away in whatever place she'd disappeared to now. The hatter recognized it as a Selfish Idea immediately; surely Alice would be better off anywhere else than here. Where had she gone, exactly? Tarrant felt a sudden twinge at the question. (Something important had happened, and he ought not to remember it.) Strange; the hatter thought that by now, he would have become used to the girl's comings and goings. By now, he ought to be accustomed to being alone. But, it is always harder to be alone when one is alone in the dark.

Something important had happened while he slept. Tarrant was sure of that much - but Alice had left before it had happened, hadn't she? She had gone through the door; she had promised him that she would. And Alice wouldn't have broken a promise, not to him. At least, Tarrant didn't think she would. He wouldn't break a promise to her, and it seemed that such an important thing as promise-keeping ought to be reciprocal, or there wouldn't be any promises in the first place. Alice had promised, so she would have left, just as she ought to. Just as they had planned.

And just as they'd planned, Alice wouldn't be coming back.

Which left Tarrant alone to determine what he was going to do about himself.

Cautiously, Tarrant rolled onto his belly. The noise still caught him off guard, a metallic clatter, as though something had dropped to the floor along with him. He wanted to cover his ears, but he didn't want to touch his own head if he could help it. If he didn't touch it, he could pretend that he still had hair. Tarrant thought it curious that such a small detail should bother him, given what else had happened. Blind, bald, and crawling; he might as well be an old man, ancient enough to outlive his usefulness.

Have I outlived my usefulness, Tarrant wondered. I did something very useful for Alice not so long ago, and that should have been the end of it. But it wasn't. It wasn't the end at all.

The hatter did not know if this was a comforting notion, or not. Was there more for him to do, then? Or was it that his story was already finished, and he was merely waiting for the ending to catch up with him? Tarrant did care for that sort of waiting; he had lived through too much of that already, in recent days.

Was there anything to be waiting for? He was not waiting for Alice; Tarrant was absolutely certain she wouldn't be back. Who else, then? (Someone had been asking for him.) There was the Door itself, or the creature who inhabited it. Tarrant had never seen it, but he remembered its voice - precise, mocking, and ironical. He is trying to remember that he is human - which he isn't. The hatter did not wish to speak to it; he could hardly think that it would want to speak to him, either. Aside from the djinn, there were walls, and stones, and a perpetually locked door.

Hardly the furnishings Tarrant would have chosen, for a room in which to spend the remainder of his life. He might as well be inhabiting a tomb.

That appeared to decide things very definitively – he shan't stay. He shan't stay; there is no reason to do so, and there is one road still open to him. The long grass grows in its fields; the hawthorn trees guard its borders. The wind will be blowing in the tops of the branches; perhaps the snow has already melted. He will know, soon enough.

Raising one hand, Tarrant flicks his stiffened fingers, in what might almost have been a gesture of farewell. Crossing his arms over his breast, the hatter allows a curious expression to creep over his face. A smile, it might be. Possibly even a laugh. A moment later, the expression flickers out like a light, and Tarrant is somewhere else entirely.

Tarrant came to himself crouched on hands and knees (proper hands and knees; and he could see them), shuddering in the long grass. The hatter looked up, startled and half-expecting to see the domed ceiling of the locked room arching over his head. Instead, he found himself staring up into the branches of a very familiar-looking tree. It was a hawthorn, ragged but still full-leaved, with a curious fork in its branches. The sky was dark, a thick sort of pervading twilight hanging over the tree, thick enough to blot out the highest boughs. For a moment, Tarrant did not known whether the tree was growing up into the darkness, or whether the darkness was growing down into the tree. Here and there, the stars were beginning to peer out between the branches. They were strangely red, as though they were not even stars at all, but bits of flame.

Tarrant thought it looked very much like the end of the world.

Red stars or not, the hatter was reasonably certain he had ended up in the right place; he could just make out the dark double line of the paddock fence, running along the bottom of the hill.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Tarrant threw himself down into a boneless heap at the base of the hawthorn tree. He could feel tufts of thick grass brushing against his cheeks; the blades were too close for him to seem them properly. They were green, though it was so dark he barely saw the color, but he knew that they was real; the color would be vivid, and alive. His trees still held their leaves; his grass still grew beneath them. Here, if nowhere else, things were as they ought to be.

Tentatively, Tarrant felt along the back of his neck; he was immensely relieved to feel the springy, matted curls of his own hair. Unexpectedly, his thumb brushed against velvet; Tarrant snatched at the brim and pulled the hat into his lap at once, letting the pale ribbon trail across the backs of his hands. The hatter sighed once, rubbing his cheek lightly against the velvet top. If this bit of himself had come back, then Tarrant trusted that everything else of consequence had been returned to him as well.

Just to be sure, the hatter spent the next several minutes doing a comprehensive examination of all of his various parts, just to make sure that he had remembered them properly. The hair, of course, and the top hat - first time in nearly a week that he'd seen the dratted thing. Arms and fingers, legs and feet, and toes, he thought, wiggling them inside of his shoes just to make sure they were accounted for. Shoes, indeed - something else that Tarrant had dearly missed; it had been too cold to go about bare footed. Hats and shoes, thought Tarrant happily; everything is better with the proper accessories.

The hatter allowed his eyes to slip closed for a moment, basking in the blissful sensation of owning a proper, Tarrant-shaped body again. It was good to know that he still remembered what he was supposed to look like - even if he didn't look like it anywhere except inside his own head. His own head would suit him, for the moment. It might even suit him for ever; it was certainly better than what awaited him in the real world. That body wasn't his, and was very nearly useless – blind, and weak, and doddering. He had no great attachment to such a shape; he could walk away from it and not come back. Let it fall to pieces; he did not care for it, nor care what happened to it. Even if that shape had been a gift of Alice's.

And what of Alice herself? Tarrant had made a habit of firmly remaining in the real world through these past few days primarily for her benefit, but Alice was - gone - now. (Gone, wasn't she? What other word had he been thinking just then?) She wouldn't be coming back; he need not linger in reality for fear of missing an appointment. That appeared to decide the matter very definitively. He wouldn't go back. He would stay here, quite happily, for as long as he possibly could. Which would probably be until the body out there was worn down enough that it stopped being a body anymore. It was bound to happen sooner or later, regardless of whether Tarrant was actually conscious of the process or not.

"Well," said Tarrant, and plucked the hat from his lap, settling it carefully onto his head. He tilted his head, testing whether the hat was likely to fall off, and found himself staring up through the leaves of the hawthorn tree, at the red stars overhead.

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes, the hatter thought suddenly - an odd thing to think of. There weren't any princes, and no one had died. Surely he could think of a better one.

Do not go gentle into that good night. But somehow, the hatter did not think this last one was true anymore.

Feeling that he had come to some decision, the hatter got to his feet, brushed a bit of grass from his waistcoat, and started down to the word paddock. He could see the gate, hanging ajar as he had last left it. Tarrant was heartened to see that there was already a substantial group of words milling together on the far side of the fence. They were standing close to one another; in the darkness he could hardly tell one shape from another. Their ears were pricked and held high on their heads; they showed no indication that they were in any way ready to bed down for the evening. That was unusual, but Tarrant was pleased they were still awake; he very much wished for their company. Perhaps one or two could be prevailed upon to stay up with him tonight. Good creatures, they were; he was pleased to see so many of them had found their way back.

Tarrant reached the gate, and allowed himself a moment to simply lean against the wood, savoring the feeling of the weathered grain against his hands. It was only a memory, as everything here was, but that did not mean he couldn't enjoy the sensation. There weren't many other things left for him to enjoy, after all. Eventually, Tarrant pulled away from the fence, and stepped into the paddock's small clearing. As he looked across the field, the cause of the words' agitation became clear.

A word pony was lying in the middle of the paddock with its throat torn out.

The ground was trembling; there was no other explanation for why Tarrant could barely walk to short distance to the stricken word, why he tumbled to the ground in a heap the moment he reached its side. The other words scattered as he passed; Tarrant hardly noticed them. They didn't matter; the only word that mattered was on the ground before him, dark-eyed and pale-haired, and Tarrant did not understand why it was lying so still.

Very gently, the hatter touched its flank, feeling its fur stiff and matted against his fingers, flinching away from the cool skin as though he'd been burned. Water was pooling under its neck, flaking and sticky all at once, looking black as ink in the dim light.

"Get up!" Tarrant shouted, and he was shaking it, pale hair sliding limply across the word's neck. Tarrant knew his paddock; he knew how his own mind worked, and this wasn't true. It couldn't be true. "You are only dead here if I believe you are dead there. And you aren't. Get up."

The word's blank blue eyes merely stared fixedly back at him. "Please," said the hatter. The word didn't move. "You're lying," shouted Tarrant, and if he couldn't cajole the word back to him, he would just have to force it onto its feet. "This can't have happened - I did everything I could! Everything!" Tarrant locked his fingers in the yellow mane and pulled. The word's head came up limply, the neck bent back on itself as though it were broken.

"Don't do this!" the hatter shouted, curling his fingers tightly in the word's yellow hair. "Don't leave me alone!" The word's head flopped limply, a parody of a nod, its blue eyes focused on something impossibly far away. "Look at me!" the hatter ordered it, shaking its head sharply, but the word didn't even blink. Its empty gaze washed over the hatter like ice; Tarrant was terrified that if he were to meet its eyes, those eyes would tell him something he could not bear to hear. Tarrant let go of the word; its head dropped limply to the dirt.

The tears were blurring his vision; for a horrible instant it was like being blind. Tarrant clawed at his eyes - no reason to be crying. No reason at all. Of course the word wasn't getting up, the way he was shouting at the poor creature. Probably he was frightening it. That wouldn't do. Wouldn't do at all.

Tarrant knelt at the word's head and tentatively stroked its nose. When the word did not object, Tarrant moved closer, lying down on the blood-soaked dirt by the word's head, cradling it carefully in his arms.

"I did everything I could. Wasn't it enough?" he asked it quietly. "Tell me what you need. Anything you need, I'll do it. Anything at all. But you have to get up."

Tarrant reached out to stroke the word's cheek, and saw that his hand was covered in blood. Soaked with it, up to the elbow, from where he had been cradling the word. A memory pounced; he remembered when he had last seen his hands like this.

He'd been holding the knife; and he'd been sobbing in relief that he was finished; he'd done it, and every hurt afflicting him would very soon cease. He remembered looking at his hands and they were dripping with blood. Just as they were now. It was the last thing he'd seen before he'd... Before he'd d-

Then, something was dying. Now, something had d-

"Not your fault," whispered Tarrant, slowly pulling his hands away, and wrapping them about his own shoulders. The hatter rolled away from the word, feeling the wet dirt of the paddock smearing across his forehead. "It isn't your fault," he said again. Tarrant did not know who he was talking to. The word couldn't hear him anymore. And if Tarrant was talking to himself, he knew he was probably lying.

Tarrant lay beside the word for several minutes, not talking, one hand resting lightly on the word's foreleg. He would still remember her; he had to - even if he could only remember her like this. No one else would remember at all- no one else would ever know what had happened. They were still trapped, even after all they had done, somewhere in the distant reality of the locked room. They were still there – she was still there, a girl alone in a stone chamber, slowly becoming her own bones. Someone might find her, and wonder at them. Wonder who she was, or how she had died. Someone might wonder at the strange creature lying beside it – wooden, and metal, and looking almost human.

But the room, and the dark miracles it contained, had been sealed off a long time ago; Tarrant did not think anyone would come. No one would wonder. No one would know.

The hatter became aware by degrees that something was pushing at his shoulder. Tarrant did not want to see it, did not want to see anything at all, and he curled himself more tightly into a ball. The something was persistent, nuzzling at his neck and head; Tarrant slapped at it blindly, hoping it would take the hint and leave him alone. The something gave an offended snort, and nipped him sharply on the shoulder.

Tarrant yelped, more out of surprise than anything else, and rolled onto his back, kicking blindly in the direction of the bite. A word was standing over him, dancing easily out of range of Tarrant's foot. It dropped awkwardly onto its knees and licked the hatter hard across the face.

Tarrant knew this word; he had seen it many times in the long years since the Jabberwock had come. The word had first come to him when the embers of his village were still burning; it had followed him, nipping at his heels as he staggered through the Tugley Wood, in the weeks immediately following. It had forced him to hold his tongue in the dungeons of Salazen Grum. It had been with him every day that he had been waiting for their Champion to return.

Hope, it was called, and Tarrant thought the creature a perpetual nuisance. Nevertheless, the word was company, if only of a troublesome sort.

Tarrant let himself go limp, leaning against the creature's flank, emptily submitting himself to the word's slobbery comfort. It nuzzled at his face; he reached up and slapped it gently on the neck.

"Good word," he told it hoarsely; the word whickered in reply. Tarrant was hardly surprised that the word was here; the creature seemed to make a habit of pestering him at the worst possible times. The word snuffled about his head and face, then pulled back for a moment, as though it were inspecting him. Tarrant imagined he looked a right mess, wrinkled and covered in mud, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care. The word, on the other hand, looked despicably well-groomed; its gray coat smooth and shiny, its white mane falling across its shoulders like a cape. Hope blinked once, then turned towards the fallen word and blinked again, a slow flick of its long, curling lashes. It gave no other indication that it was troubled in the least by what it saw.

"It was kind of you to come," whispered the hatter. "But I think you ought to go now. This hasn't anything to do with you."

The word Hope looked sadly down its long nose, and sighed, its flanks moving in and out like bellows. The creature pulled itself easily to its feet, shaking out its long mane, and gave the hatter an irritated look. The hatter knew that expression, and he folded his arms stubbornly across his chest.

"Don't be a nuisance," Tarrant told the word, trying to sound stern. "Go off and bother someone else. I shall have nothing to do with you from now on, do you understand? It's all gone to pieces, and you can't help at all."

The word snorted, and calmly lowered its nose to Tarrant's face, licking him soundly across the cheeks.

"And I'm not crying," the hatter added, incorrectly. "Now, let me alone."

Tarrant did not harbor any great faith that the word would do so; Hope had never been a particularly obliging creature. The word looked away, as though it meant to do as it was bidden, turned suddenly, and lunged for Tarrant's hat. Tarrant tried to grab it, but the word was quicker; it pranced backwards with the brim clamped firmly between its teeth.

"Drop it," said the hatter hoarsely. The word merely lowered its ears, sliding its jaws back and forth as though ruminating on the merits of velveteen as an edible commodity. "You are a very wicked creature, do you know that? Let go this instant!"

Tarrant lunged at the word, not sure if he were hoping to snatch at the trailing ribbon, or perhaps clobber the disobedient creature across the nose. He missed on both counts, only barely catching himself before he fell face-first onto the ground. As Tarrant pulled himself to his feet, the word shook itself, setting its grey mane dancing, and the pale ribbon of the hat dancing with it.

"All right, I'm on my feet! Is this what you wanted?" Tarrant shouted. "I ought to muzzle you, do you hear me? I'll drive you out of the paddock and bar the gate! You're far more trouble than you're worth, and you always have been!"

Very calmly, the word dropped its head, lowering the hat carefully to the ground. Tarrant came forward and snatched it up immediately, noting that the brim was the slightest bit soggy where the word had been mouthing it. He settled the hat firmly onto his head, tossing the ribbon over his shoulder, but before he could say anything else to the irksome word, it turned away, purposefully, glancing once through the curtain of its mane as it left him, the briefest glitter of dark, liquid eyes.

Had the word remained, he would have scolded it; had it merely left him, he would have turned his back and ignored its departure. But that halfway glance seemed to hold him where he stood; besides which, he knew what lay on the ground behind him, and had no great desire to turn around. So he watched as the word padded away, its head held so low that the creature seemed to be at some pains to keep from treading upon its own mane. The word shook its head, sending the mane flowing over its shoulders like a mantle, but it did not look back again.

The paddock gate was still open, the hatter recalled, and something prickled at the back of Tarrant's neck. It would be just like the word to wander off; the creature seemed to have no conception that there were things beyond the paddock that might wish it harm.

If it gets itself into trouble, Tarrant thought, it shall just have to sort itself out. Stupid thing, acts like nothing in the world could ever hurt it. If it ever finds out differently, that's hardly a concern of mine. Might even teach it a lesson, because it certainly doesn't ever listen to me. Let it run off. I won't be troubled in the slightest. No, I shan't be troubled at all.

But Tarrant was still watching the word, and the word was still walking towards the fence. The darker grey of the word's body was beginning to meld with the dark of the sky, leaving only a sort of silhouette of mane, tail, and hocks. The light was too dim, and the meadow too large; soon the word would be out of sight completely.

"Little fiend," Tarrant muttered, and putting his fingers to his lips, he whistled sharply. His fingers were still covered with mud and god-knows-what else; they tasted miserably of copper and of earth, and he wiped his hand fiercely against his trouser leg. The word had turned round, almost prancing for a moment, and flicked its tail. Tarrant walked towards it, half-thinking that the word might decide to scamper off again before he reached it. But the word waited patiently, ears pricked at an irritatingly cheerful angle, as though the creature had always expected that Tarrant would call it back. As Tarrant came up to it, the word shoved its snout against the hatter's chest in a highly familiar manner; he could feel the damp warmth of its breath through the fabric. A moment later, the word was leaning against him in the attitude of a particularly ingratiating dog, as though it wished to be scratched about the ears.

He wouldn't apologize, Tarrant told himself; he needn't tell the creature anything that might encourage future disobedience. He needn't apologize, even if he had shouted at the creature. Tarrant doubted that any amount of harsh words would ever make an impression on the word; it had always seemed entirely immune to any number of disagreeable circumstances.

He might feel grateful, that the word had stayed. Yes, Tarrant supposed that he might do that. After all, it wasn't entirely the word's fault that it was so intractable. If he had used a firmer hand with it at the start, perhaps it wouldn't have grown so willful. Not the word's fault if he could never bring himself to discipline it properly.

"I'm pleased you've decided to behave yourself," the hatter said, placing a hand on the word's shaggy forelock. Tarrant had wished to see some sign of contrition in the word's manner, but the word merely flicked its ears once, as though it had expected that Tarrant would forgive it, sooner or later. Insufferable creature, Tarrant thought. Perhaps he would be better off if he simply turned the word out of the paddock altogether. But he couldn't quite bring himself to do that, not when there were so few words here that mattered anymore. At the thought, the hatter looked about him suddenly, as if he feared to discover that he and Hope were entirely alone in the field.

Such words as remained were scattered across the meadow, barely visible as silhouettes in the twilight, silent and nearly motionless. Only an occasional flick of a head, or stamp of a foot, betrayed that there was any life to them at all.

A graveyard, Tarrant suddenly thought, is a place where people carve the words for things they will never see again. It felt as though at any moment, the words might bow their heads, and become such stones. Though there was no breeze, the hatter felt a sudden chill in the air.

"Walk with me," he said, and slapped the word Hope on the flank. Slowly, the word and its master walked through the field, the long grass parting before them as they went.

The word was the first to notice that something had changed. It jerked its head up sharply; Tarrant grabbed onto its mane, certain that the disobedient word was going to kick, or bite, or do something equally unpleasant. It took him a moment to realize that the word was actually looking at something, staring fixedly towards the middle of the paddock. The word whickered softly, stretching its head as far forward as it could, its ears alert and listening. Curiously, the hatter looked through the darkness to see what it was the word had spotted.

A young girl was standing barefoot in the middle of the paddock, with a fistful of flowers clutched to her chest. The hair and the flowers were pale; the dress, in better light, might have been green. She was staring wide-eyed at the words as though she had never seen them before. No, not all of the words - one particular word, the one lying still in the trampled earth. The girl was walking towards it, flowers clenched tightly in both hands. Tarrant nearly called out to her; the cry stuck in his throat, as though the very sound might cause the girl, ghost-like, to vanish. The hatter did not know how she had come here, or what she was doing. He very well knew who she was; how she had gotten here hardly mattered, that she was here seemed tremendously important. He desperately hoped that she did not realize what particular word it was, laying so still on the ground. She was standing before it, the bouquet of flowers held limply at her side. He couldn't see her face; she didn't seem to be crying, merely standing close by it, and holding very still.

Tarrant crept closer, trying to ignore the sensation that to startle her would be to make her disappear, vaguely aware of the word Hope at his shoulder like a gray shadow. The girl still hadn't moved, but her fingers were crushing the stems of the flowers with the tightness of her grip. She held her head high; the hatter could see the tight lines of her shoulders even through the ruffles of her dress. Tarrant wished he knew what her name was.

"Darling," he said, and apparently that was all that was needed. The girl turned towards him, scuffing at the dirt with a muddled look on her face, as though she had not made up her mind whether she should cry or not. "Darling," Tarrant said again, softer, and held out his hands. He had no idea what he was going to tell her.

It seemed he did not need to tell her anything at all; she slid into his arms as though she belonged there, burying her face into his waistcoat. Tarrant stroked her hair, her skin surprisingly warm, and gently steered the girl away from the stricken word. She hiccupped once; Tarrant was mortally afraid that she was going to start crying. There were many things that the hatter might say to comfort her; unfortunately, Tarrant didn't think any of them were actually true. The girl hiccupped again, louder. Alice had never done this when she was a small girl, had she? Not that Tarrant could remember, at any rate.

However, Alice as a small girl had been remarkably easy to distract...

"Would you like to meet one of them?" he asked, dropping to his knees beside her. "One of the words, I mean?"

The girl nodded, very solemnly; her green eyes large in her pale face. The tears were hanging in her eyes; she brushed at them with the back of her hand.

"All right," said the hatter, settling an arm across her shoulder and looking critically at the words in the immediate vicinity. No few of them had drifted closer to the hatter and the girl, sniffing curiously at the unexpected arrival. In the darkness, they were little more than looming silhouettes. They were perhaps, the hatter thought, not the most comforting thing be introducing to a child, and he had to find a word that was even-tempered enough to behave itself. Usually the words were quite trustworthy, but it had been a trying few days for them; they were not in the best of sorts. He peered at the words standing closest, trying to make out which was which.

"Quilt!" he called, and whistled sharply. A few yards away, a patchy-looking word lifted its head and flicked its ears. The creature snorted, ambling towards its master with a shuffling, swaybacked gait. Stopping a few yards away, the word Quilt flicked its ears again, looking at the pair of them expectantly.

"Go on, then," he said to the girl. She met his eye for a moment; the beginnings of a smile creeping into her face. A moment later, she had slipped out of his arms and was walking up to the threadbare word. As little as she was, the girl barely came up to Quilt's shoulders, but she didn't appear to be afraid of it. The girl put out a hand; the word let out a wheezing sort of snort and looked at her dubiously. She laughed, the sound as thrilling and unexpected as a firecracker; Quilt lowered its head, and diffidently allowed her to pat it on the nose. The word sniffed at her fingers, apparently deciding that the girl required a full head-to-toe inspection. Quilt snuffled at her petticoats, then at her face, while the girl covered her head in her arms and giggled.

The word seemed intrigued by the flowers; it lowered its head, managing to nip off one of the buds before the girl pulled the bouquet away, holding it behind her back. Unperturbed, Quilt turned its attention to her skirt, catching one panel between its teeth and mouthing happily at the hem. Just at the moment that Tarrant decided he had better intervene, the girl grabbed her skirt, pulling the hem away from the inquisitive word, and hastily backing away from the creature. She tripped, dropping her bundle of flowers as she flung her arms out to catch herself, and jumped back to her feet almost immediately, glaring at an unrepentant Quilt.

"Is he hungry?" she asked.

"No it isn't," said Tarrant, with a significant look at the word. "It's just being troublesome."

Quilt rolled its shoulders at the reproof, looking abashedly at its hooves. The girl picked up her bouquet of flowers, carefully straightened a few of the broken stems, and walked back over to Quilt, though Tarrant noticed she had taken the precaution of bundling her skirts together in a fist.

Tarrant watched his daughter investigating the word with a feeling not unlike delight. The hatter was well aware that the inside of his head was not always a welcoming place. It could be cold, wet, and lonely; sometimes it could be frightening, even to Tarrant himself, who was nominally in charge of the place. But it did not frighten his daughter. She wasn't afraid of the words. One might infer, she wasn't afraid of him.

Tarrant would have loved her for that alone, if he weren't completely sure that he loved her already.

Tarrant heard a whicker from his shoulder, and turned to see the word Hope sniffing at his sleeve, with the air of a creature who expects to be scolded. The hatter pulled it close, burying his face in the feather-soft mane.

"You're a good word," he told it, kissing it lightly between the ears. "Though I don't know why you've stayed. You ought to have left a long time ago."

The word blinked slowly at him, as though it knew that the answer to that question, and a great many others, was actually quite obvious.

Hands resting lightly on the word's shoulders, Tarrant looked up to the sky over his paddock. A thin twilight lingered along the horizon, the sky glowing with a last illusion of daylight; the red stars were already as visible as if it were full dark. It was, Tarrant thought, probably the very last night of the world. Or at least, the very last night of his particular world. Some say the world will end in fire, and some in ice. Well, the world could do what it liked. As for Tarrant, he had the whole rest of his life to spend with his daughter. Not that the rest of his life was likely to be a long span of time, but he would have to make it suffice.

The long-suffering Quilt had lain down; the girl was now sitting between the word's shoulder blades, grabbing its mane as if she were holding a bridle. Quilt was resolutely ignoring the girl's attempts to get it to stand up and gallop, though this hardly appeared to dampen the girl's enthusiasm for trying. To the hatter's knowledge, the swaybacked word had never galloped in its life; upon catching Tarrant's eye, the word shot a beseeching look at its master. Walking towards the pair, Tarrant leaned down stiffly and patted the word's head; Quilt sniffed hopefully at the hatter's pockets. The hatter was sorry he hadn't anything to give the creature; it certainly deserved an apple or three for putting up with the indignities being inflicted on it.

The girl slipped down from the word's shoulders as quickly as she had scampered onto them, placing her hand in the hatter's own with an entirely unconscious familiarity. Not wishing to trouble their easy silence with conversation, Tarrant began to walk, picking a direction at random, ambling hand-in-hand through the twilight. After some minutes, the girl stopped short, dropped the hatter's hand, and began rummaging in the pockets of her skirt.

"He told me I needed to give you this," said the girl, and pulled something out of her pocket. "He said you had to have it, because of something my mother asked him to do."

She was holding a key - long, intricate, and silver, shining faintly in the permanent evening of the word paddock. The girl held it up happily; from her expression, she clearly expected Tarrant to be delighted with her gift. Numbly, he took the key from her outstretched hand, running his fingers along the smooth surface, feeling its weight with a detached sort of curiosity. It's very light, he thought. You would think it would weigh more. After all, it only cost someone their very life to get it.

The girl's smile was slipping from her face. Tarrant took stock of his own expression - blurred eyes, twisted mouth, shuddering shoulders - and abruptly turned away. He needed to compose himself, for her sake if nothing else, but he could not do it quickly. Very gently, the hatter put his hand on her shoulder, resolutely keeping his face turned away.

Tarrant knew what this key was, he knew who had sent it to him, and he knew what it meant. It meant Alice was dead. And the creature that had killed her had been speaking with his daughter.

"Why did he send you?" Tarrant asked in a rough voice.

"He can't come in here unless you let him in," the girl said, as though she were explaining something he ought to already know. "I'm yours already, so I can go wherever I want."

"If you're mine, how do you know him?" Tarrant asked. Several of the closest words pricked up their ears in alarm at his voice, slinking away with lowered heads and rounded shoulders.

"I'm a dream," said the girl faintly. "If I ever exist, he'll be the one who creates me."

Something fierce and volatile awoke in the hatter with all the suddenness of a lighted match. This was his family; the djinn had no right to touch it. The creature had no right to speak to his daughter; no right to imply that the girl was anything other than Tarrant's own. He didn't need wishes to make her real; he was perfectly capable of managing that part on his own, thank you very much. All he needed was Alice.

Alice. One of many things that he didn't have. One of many things he was never going to see again.

Tarrant let his hand fall from the girl's shoulder, managing to get a few paces away from her before walking became an impossibility, and he dropped heavily to his knees.

I could have waited, he thought viciously. Not even two weeks without her, and I couldn't manage. I could have sent her a goddamned letter. I could have left her alone entirely and visited the Alice-word here in the paddock every Sunday. But I couldn't leave well enough alone. I had to interfere, didn't I, and look what my interference has cost us. Everything. Everything's fallen to pieces, and I can't even get away from it inside my own head.

In stages, Tarrant became aware that the girl was tugging at the sleeve of his waistcoat, as she had done the first time he had met her, in the strange vision he had seen in the door. The hatter glanced at her quickly, but she did not seem to be frightened. Or at least, she was not crying, or running away, or curling into a ball or any of the other things that small children might do in unsettling circumstances. Encouraged by that, he put his arm around her shoulders, and gathered her close.

"I can take it back," the girl said, her words muffled by the hatter's shirt. "I'll tell him you don't want it. Or we can throw it away."

She meant the key, Tarrant realized hazily. Alice's key, that someone had taken from her. Someone had torn it away, and washed it clean, and presented it to him, all polished and shining as a button. It was a precious thing; it had been Alice's precious thing, and now this child was proposing to throw it away, as though it were worthless. Throw away something that Alice had given him? He wouldn't do it. If Alice had meant this key for him, then as terrible as it was, he would keep it. He would have to.

But why would the girl even ask?

Tarrant caught the girl by the shoulders, pulling her away until he could see her face.

"Did he tell you to say that?" Tarrant asked coldly. "Is that what he wants me to do? Hide inside my head until I'm too far gone for anything? Tend to my words while everything real that I care about dies?"

The hatter was conveniently forgetting that this was, more or less, what he had planned to do before the girl had ever appeared.

For her part, the child was shaking her head; her green eyes had gone as wide as a deer's. "I'm sorry!" she yelped. "He told me to give it to you, that's all! I didn't mean it!"

The piping fear in her voice punctured the hatter's momentary anger like a needle. She was babbling; it was obvious to the hatter that she had no clear idea of what she was apologizing for, only that she felt she needed to do so. He'd frightened her, and that was entirely unacceptable, no matter what she'd done, or whom she'd been fraternizing with. He shouldn't have shouted at her. The girl had no part in creating this murderous play; what did it matter if she played a small role in its closing scenes? She shouldn't be here at all, thought the hatter. But she is here, and it's my fault. Because she's the one thing I want above everything else.

That was before Alice died, whispered a slow voice in his head. A strange thought, which Tarrant forcefully dismissed as being both unsettling, and entirely irrelevant to the matters at hand.

Tarrant loosened his hands from the girl's shoulders, letting her squirm free of his grip, and wondering what he ought to do, should she run off in tears across the paddock. It did not seem an entirely unlikely supposition. But she wasn't running, merely gripping her own shoulders, fingers running up and down the stitching of the sleeves. He ought to say something to her, only he had no idea what he ought to say.

"You did well," he lisped, in the gentlest voice he could summon. The girl merely looked at him, her green eyes startlingly dark in her too-pale face. Tarrant fumbled for words that might be comforting, without being lies. "I didn't expect this, is all."

The girl's fingers were clawing her own arms so tightly that she was twisting the fabric of her dress, and Tarrant knew that gesture, knew it as intimately as he knew his own name. He remembered it; was well acquainted with such a gesture. He knew how such fingers could crumple the fabric of his sleeves, how such a grip could leave a bruise on the skin caught between thumb and forefinger, how such nails might leave crescent indentations in the skin below. For a moment Tarrant was certain that such desperate fingers were his, tearing at his own skin; he was certain someone was watching him - that he might at any moment turn to see a lamplit, leering face.

But there was only the paddock, grown strange to him in the darkness, and the girl, hugging herself because there was no one else whom she trusted to do it. Father to daughter, it seemed such a gesture did not change. Neither might the feelings that inspired it.

In that moment, Tarrant utterly abandoned any notion of clinging to the truth. "Everything's going to be fine," he lied, and held open his arms.

Strange, thought the hatter some minutes later. I can frighten the living daylights out of the girl, and she still comes back. She still wants to come back. Rather like Alice, actually. At the thought, Tarrant wrapped his arm more tightly around the girl, as though mentioning her in the same breath as her mother might predispose the girl towards vanishing as well. Silly, thought Tarrant. This one can't die. She can't die, because she doesn't really exist.

The girl in question was sprawled in Tarrant's lap, her small weight resting on his left leg, her yellow head pillowed against his shoulder. Not asleep, Tarrant thought, but close to it. At any rate, the girl hadn't moved since she'd gotten herself comfortably arranged; the weight against Tarrant's thigh was threatening pins and needles all the way down to his toes. The hatter might reasonably have tried to rearrange her, but he couldn't quite bring himself to disturb her, or give the girl even the slightest indication that she was not completely welcome exactly where she was.

One rather substantial weight was sitting in his lap; another, smaller weight lay across his palm. The little thing slid against his skin as he flexed his fingers; it felt metallic and feverishly warm. Slowly, Tarrant freed his arm from behind the girl's shoulder, stiffly uncurling his fingers. The hatter watched the tiny key rolling about in his palm like a marble. At any moment, the hatter expected that he would throw the wretched thing over the fence. To have anything to do with it would only mean trouble, the hatter thought. Regardless of whether Alice meant him to have it, Tarrant was not entirely sure that possessing such a key would actually do him any good. If Alice herself was unable to use his key to any productive end, Tarrant was hardly confident of his ability to fare any better. And Tarrant already had ample evidence that he could under no circumstances trust the creature that the key controlled. Supposedly controlled, the hatter corrected, thinking of stiff, mitten-like fingers.

And yet, he wasn't throwing it away.

The hatter found himself tracing the key's curlicued whorls with one finger, stroking it with a sort of unwilling curiosity, almost as though he expected it to suddenly grow fur and begin mewling like a kitten. Tarrant could not quite follow the design; every time he thought he had traced the pattern all the way through, the lines would double back on themselves, so that he couldn't tell where one line began and the next ended. It was mesmerizing; if he didn't already know what it was, he might almost be tempted to call it pretty. And powerful, best not to forget that. As powerful as Alice herself had been. All the lightning of her kisses, all of the hard assurance of her soul. It had to be in there somewhere; it was too terrible to think that it had all simply vanished when she'd died.

The key gleamed in Tarrant's fingers, sparkling silver in the twilight, like the yellow of the girl's hair. They're hers, the hatter thought; these two are the only things of Alice's that were still with him. In fact, they might be the only important things of Alice's that still existed, anywhere. There would be a suit of armor, gathering dust in some high tower room. There was a burnt foundation somewhere in China, with poppy-scented smoke rising from its ashes. There was a mother in London, re-reading months-old letters with foreign postmarks. There was a sister, hadn't she told him once, and an aged cat named Demeter. And now this girl.

Why wasn't he throwing the key away? Tarrant had the unsettling notion that one possible answer to that question was currently sleeping in his lap. The child and the key were Alice's; what Tarrant had done to be entrusted with such treasures, the hatter did not know. They had been Alice's; now, they were his - to use, to protect, or to set aside, should he choose to do so.

The girl roused only briefly when he lowered her to the grass. He hushed her back to sleep, humming snatches of nonsense for a few happy minutes until her eyes closed. She was sprawled bonelessly on the ground in her taffeta dress, wrinkled now, and covered in grass stains; she was still incalculably beautiful. The girl didn't look cold, but the hatter shrugged out of his waistcoat anyway and laid it across her shoulders. It wasn't as if the coat would do him any good where he was going.

The girl was apparently not as asleep as he had thought; she nestled under the coat and peered up at him, blinking.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I am going to speak to a friend -," he stumbled over the word. "A friend of your mother's." Tarrant thought he had managed that sentence without twitching. "I should like you to wait here - Quilt will be with you. So will many of the other words, I expect."

"I'll wait," said the girl, in a resigned, sleepy sort of mumble. "Come back soon?"

Tarrant could only nod; he had apparently used up all of his stock of comforting lies at some point earlier in the evening. The hatter knelt, and kissed her, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. Her eyelids were slipping closed; he waited beside her until they had shut entirely, and her breathing had taken on the soft, slow character of dreams.

"I love you," the hatter said, and scrambled to his feet, and turned away. If he stayed even a moment longer he would be promising her all manner of things, promises that might not ever come true. He did not know whether he could come back to her, if things went badly in the reality of the locked room. He didn't know what would happen to the girl if he wished for this dream. He didn't know what would happen if he wished for another.

Tarrant pulled the key from his pocket; for a moment his face twisted in thought, almost as though he were going to speak to it. Then his fingers closed around the key, and he dropped his hand to his side, as though whatever he might have said, the hatter had decided it didn't matter at all. Instead, he smoothed down the curls on his head, and adjusted his top hat to a jauntier angle.

"Well," the hatter said to himself, and stepped out from the paddock and into another place entirely.

Credit where credit is due:

It is ENTIRELY due to the efforts and badgering of my most critical reviewers that this excerpt exists at all. I especially want to thank ILoveYourCreativity, for questioning Foris' morals, and Red Room Flare, for sensing gothic elements in the story before I realized they were there myself. They (and others) kept badgering me for more of a resolution to the locked room puzzle, and a better ending; such things I am hopeful that I shall be able to provide. Eventually, 'cause it ain't done yet. Also, cheers to Anonymous Plume, for recently reviewing several chapters, and to darkbangle, for pointing out that there was a baby metaphor in the epilogue that I hadn't actually noticed. (Seriously – you guys are tons better at interpreting my story than I am, and I love it.)

And quotes - The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. A Dylan Thomas villanelle makes a reappearance; the fire and ice quote is from a poem by Robert Frost.

Jim Butcher's recent book Changes deserves a shout-out for influencing aspects of Tarrant's relationship with the dream. Butcher's Dresden series is fantastic for presenting Faustian bargains and moral dilemmas; I would recommend his works to anyone even remotely into dark fantasy.

Some sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that there is still nothing overt about how Tarrant is going to solve the locked room puzzle – although those of you who read the original epilogue do know that he eventually does. That aspect of the ending won't be changing, though a number of other things will. So, yes, there is at least one more chapter on the way, as well as a revised epilogue.

I have gone back to listing this as an in-progress story, as in its current form it doesn't have an ending. It will be finished, but I still have work to do before that happens.

Want to see the new material sooner, or have a burning idea for what ought to happen, or what I've gotten wrong? There's a review button at the bottom of the screen – you know what to do.