Behind Sanity

Chapter Thirty-Four

                                                                      Behind Sanity

                                                                  Chapter Thirty-Four

                                                                                  1

Alice stepped through one of the Hatter’s hallways, holding the cards and the knife.  For a moment, she felt guilty about not lending the rabbit a weapon, but he was very quick.  She was sure he could manage.  She hoped he would find Morgan.  On a slightly more distant thought, she hoped that the Cheshire had made it out of the land of Red with his smile still attached, and that shortly he would return to her with a good report on the Pales.  But she had to disregard her worries over her friends, and concentrate now on her own well-being.

She could hear the clanking of the mechanisms wandering the halls on their squeaky wheels and rusty hinges.  She had seen them, but the sounds were confusing to her, echoing as they were, and it was twice as hard to tell exactly where the machines were than if she’d been in a regular building.  There had been no big disturbances yet to hinder her trek through this Keep, and for that she was grateful.  Other than a few yells from the insane children in the various cells, there were not too many strange sounds to draw her attention either.

Feeling that one of the steaming metal minions was approaching her hall – and felling even stronger the need to avoid any chance of attack – Alice slipped inside one of the nearby cells for a moment.  Inside, this cell was the same as the other she had gone into.  There were two old beds and a clock ticking above.  It was no surprise to see that this clock was set exactly to the second with the clock in the other cell.  Hatter kept his time exact.

Letting her eyes fall to the floor, she caught sight of this room’s prisoners.  The children were sitting on the floor in the center of the room.  Playing?  They had heard her enter and turned to gaze up, their strange eyes lighting.

“Yes?” she asked, not as though she expected words, but she was sure there was something going on in their minds.  What was it?  She disregarded the idea of the machination which she’d predicted to be rolling down the hall shortly.

One of the children gathered what was before them on the floor and rose, hands closed, over to Alice.  She knelt down to the floor and looked into the strange child’s face.  His eyelids were stitched open.

 “You have something for me?” she asked invitingly.

The child held out his hands and Alice opened hers, unsure of what she was receiving, but she felt good about taking it.  Into her hand fell several tiny metal objects of different colors.

“Jacks?” she asked, remembering her own games she used to play as a child.

The other child stepped forward and offered his hands.  Into her other hand dropped a large red ball.  She stared down at this gift.  What was she to do?  The children watched her anxiously.  Did they want her to play with their gift?  Alright.  Why not?

Crouched on the ground, she spilled the jacks out of her hand.  As she did, the jacks did not act as expected, instead bouncing off the floor and ricocheting off the walls violently, almost too fast for her to keep up with.  The children jerked their eyes around the room, watching with amusement, huge smiles on their faces, giggling madly.

Alice reached out her hand slightly as though she might try to catch one of the flying pieces, but it cut her hand as it darted past.  Well, if she couldn’t catch them, what was she to do?