AnaBeth's Next Adventure In Underland

Chapter 2: My Sister Returns

Alice is sitting on her knees while she is wearing brightly colored Chinese dress. She smiles widely at us, and I instantly run to her side. Hugging her from where she is sitting, I hold onto her for dear life, because my hope is slowly building up again from her appearance.

"Welcome back, sister," I tell her, while everyone is getting excited too. The twins start clapping their hands, while the March Hare hops once or twice, but Mallymkun doesn't seem too pleased with the return of my twin foster sister. Once I am done hugging her, the white rabbit hugs her too, while the white queen is sitting in her seat with a smile.

"Alice! You're back!" the twins say, while the Bandersnatch roars and wags its tail. Unfortunately, the Bandersnatch's roar blows the white rabbit out of the flower bed and unto the ground. The twins of course laugh at that until Mallymkun looks like she has had enough and yells at everyone.

"Don't be nice to her! She is late!" the dormouse says, but that only seems to dampen Alice's mood slightly.

"Did I come at a bad time?" Alice says with a worry smile towards Mirana, and the white queen looks somewhat upset when she replies to her.

"On the contrary, we thought you were never going to show up," she says with a sigh, which makes my mood go from happy to sad again. Trying to hold back tears, I take a few deep breaths in and breath in the smell of enriching flowers. Shaking my head, I give Alice a hand to get her out of the flower bed.

"What is the matter?" my sister says with worry in her voice, but instead of Mirana answering, Nivens decides to answer it instead.

"The Hatter is the matter," he says gloomily, while he holds up a paper with one of the ideas drawn on it. The idea that is on that paper is the idea of the Hatter becoming a one-man band, which I still believe is very stupid. Of course, the twins have to put their own opinion on the situation at hand.

"Or the matter of the Hatter," says one twin, while the other says it the opposite way. It wouldn't be the twins if they didn't start arguing about the sentence. At this point I inwardly roll my eyes, and I look over at the white queen, who seems to be doing the same. She starts to speak again, but the twins don't notice and continue to bicker until Mirana looks like she has had enough.

"Twiddles," she says and gives them a stern look, which shuts them up immediately, or at least for ten seconds. They lean close to Alice and whisper what is wrong with the Hatter.

"He is mad," they whisper at the same time. Alice gives them a look like 'I-know-he-is-mad' and looks at me. I simply nod my head, and she smiles slightly as she replies to what they said.

"The Hatter?" she asks them, and we all nod at that point. My sister smiles some more and says, "I know that. That is what makes the Hatter, so...him." I smile slightly when I hear that, because it is true. My Tarrant is mad, which is what makes him so wonderful, but this is the ordinary madness that I am used to.

"He is darker, and he denies himself laughter," the twins say, and this time I agree with them aloud. I walk over to my sister and put my hand on her shoulder.

"No matter what we do, we cannot get anything out of him," I say with sadness in my voice, as I think back to all my attempts on making my husband smile or laugh, but none of them worked. Cheshire reappears on the tree and continues what I was saying earlier before I drifted off into my memories.

"We were hoping that you could do something," he purrs, and Alice looks up at him before looking at all of us. She looks at us questioningly, and I sigh before taking a seat, because this is going to take some explanation before she can help us. I turn towards the talking hound and ask him if he can tell my sister what happened, because I wasn't there that day when everything changed for the worse.

"It was a stormy day, and we were out in the woods investigating. During this time, the Hatter was completely Hatterish and was skipping around. The twins were running around, and I was talking to Mallymkun. Suddenly, Hatter calls my name and holds up a medium size stick. He tells me to fetch, but I jumped on him saying it was his turn. I grab the stick from his hand and threw it away. Hatter chases after it, but when he grabbed the stick in his mouth, he stopped and kept staring at the ground. He found a blue paper hat that for some reason put him in the mind set of his family tragedy on Horevendush Day," the hound replays what happened, and I look over to Alice with tear filled eyes as I finish what the hound started.

"Ever since then he has been changing, Alice, and not for the better," I whisper to her, and I feel Mirana squeeze my shoulder in a comfort way. Sighing, I stand up and walk over to my sister, who instantly pulls me into a hug. I lean my head on her shoulder and speak my one wish.

"I just want my husband back, Alice. I want my Hatter back," I whisper to her, so only she can hear. She pats my back, and shushes me in a sisterly tone, while she looks at everyone else, who has pity in their eyes.

"If anything can make the Hatter happy again, it would be seeing you, Alice," the white queen says with hope in her voice, and everyone agrees. I pull away from my sister, when she asks where he is. I take her hand and start to lead her towards my house.

"Why isn't he happy when you are with him, AnaBeth?" Alice asks after a few moments of walking. I sigh, and I look at her before I tell her my story.

"After that day, he started distancing himself from me, and I tried to ask him what is wrong. Tarrant kept saying how I wouldn't believe him, so I dropped the subject thinking that if he was going to tell me, I would allow him to tell me in his own time. One day, I found out some very exciting news, but no matter how many times I either tried or did tell him, he didn't seem like he was listening. Truthfully, I think he still doesn't know the great news," before I can go on with my story, Alice interrupts me with her own question.

"What was the exciting news, if I may ask?" she asks, and I smile a little bit before stopping completely. By this time, we are halfway up the hill to the house, and I gently take my sister's hand. Gingerly placing it on my stomach, we wait a few seconds before a kick hits my sister's hand. With wide eyes, she looks up at me and smiles, "You're pregnant!"

"Yes," I nod my head, and she engulfs me with a hug, "I am in fact having twins, but I am going to leave the genders as a surprise. Oh, Alice! You are going to be an aunt!"

She pulls away from the hug with that huge smile still on her face, which makes me smile too. If only Tarrant can share this overwhelming feeling of happiness about becoming parents, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon. Snap out of that! Don't just give up on your husband of only a few months! Shaking my head mentally, I focus back on my sister and decide to continue my story, but I don't walk anymore. I just can't walk any further in fear of seeing this new Hatter that did what he did.

"Finally, a month ago, he kicked me out of our house. I don't know why he kicked me out, but he simply just pushed me out the front door and will not let me in. Therefore, I am not walking any further toward the house in fear that he might yell at me or worse. I am not saying he would ever hurt me, but right now I going into momma bear mode and make sure my belly is safe," I tell her, and I notice that her happy expression is gone. Trying to lighten the mood, I talk about what where I have been living now, "Don't worry, Alice, Mirana has allowed me to stay in her castle until my husband gets better."

"I'll try to talk to him, AnaBeth," she whispers as she holds my hands, and I smile at her as she starts walking to my house. A worry pops into my head that makes me shout for her to wait. My younger sister looks at me expectantly and I sigh before asking her one thing.

"Can you not tell him about the twins?" I ask her and she looks at me like I am crazy, "I want to be the one who tells him about my pregnancy." She nods her head then continues to walk to the hat shaped house on the hill slash cliff.

Carefully walking down, the pathway, I get back to the area of the meeting and flop onto my chair. Everyone is silent as we all stare up at the house and silently hope that Alice gets through to him. Sighing, I lean back against the chair and we all wait to see what happens.