“Under the circumstances, that doesn’t sound like a bad option.” Robert walked to the door and shouted for the Troll to let him out. He could hear the creature slapping along the stone floor somewhere down the hallway.
“Am comin! Am comin!”
Robert turned back to the cell and came face to face with the Hatter, who had moved silently from his sitting position. He smelled like the bottom of a hamster cage, and Robert had a slight gag reflex. The Hatter’s eyes were wide and unblinking.
“Don’t you want to know the answer to the ultimate question?”
“Would you mind backing up a little?” said Robert.
“Why did I send you a message through the Dwarf?”
“Anytime now would be good, Troll,” said Robert, over his shoulder.
Another inmate seemed to be screaming, and Robert could hear the Troll trying to calm him/her/it down.
The Hatter leaned in and spoke quickly. “It’s all about the blood, you see. Everything here runs on blood. Your blood, my blood, the blood of the White Rabbit. Everyone’s blood!”
“It’s a commodity,” said Robert remembering the White Rabbit’s words.
“Yes!” shouted the Hatter. “Priceless! And like any commodity, it can be traded. Working with the Dwarf was easy. He was such a twisted little soul that he just wanted the chance to get out, but it would have been impossible without Jack’s help. He acted his part well, but then, he always did enjoy hitting me. That muscle-bound moron served as the perfect catalyst. So old and so bored, he jumped at the chance to cause some chaos and in doing so, he made the ultimate mistake. He entered into my world! My beautiful, pretty world of chaos.”
“You’re not making sense.”
The Hatter gripped Robert’s sweater. “I knew you’d come. All this, the Dwarf, Jack, the plan to ruin the doors! It was all for this moment, right now!”
Robert heard the Troll scratch his nail down the cell door and the locks slid away. The door cracked open.
“You wanted me to come here,” said Robert as realization gripped him.
The door opened and the world fell to chaos. The Hatter smashed his forehead into Robert’s nose, snatched the silver vial from around his neck, and bodily threw his son back into the cell.
“Whatz th―” began the Troll but was quickly silenced as the Hatter kicked him hard in the throat, throwing the creature back into the hallway. The Hatter leaped out of his cell and slammed the door behind him.
Robert threw himself at the door and pushed his face up the bars as the Hatter laughed uncontrollably. Blood trickled from Robert’s nose and his head felt like it was splitting in two.
“What are you doing?” said Robert.
The Hatter kicked the Troll again. “It’s a commodity, my son, a commodity. It all comes down to a simple trade. You for me and me for you. Enjoy your stay in the Tower, I’m sure we’ll meet again one day. Hopefully, you’ll have edged more toward madness by then. Ta ta!”
The realization flooded into Robert’s mind. This was why Rumpelstiltskin escaped. He thought he was supposed to finish his plan and open the doors for everyone, but that wasn’t it at all. The Hatter just needed someone to deliver a message to me. Everything else from then on just led him one step closer to the cell he was now occupying. His father had tricked everyone to get what he wanted. He’d moved people around like pawns and now he was free.
Robert wished he hadn’t come here. He wished that Lily was here with him. He wished that his father was not the Mad Hatter; portrayed in the stories of Othaside as a fun, tea-party-throwing, crazy person but in reality, a sadistic, murderous psychopath.
The inmates were shouting and screaming, no doubt riled up by the Hatter’s escape and the injury of the Troll. Robert couldn’t take it anymore. He’d been tricked by a master trickster, he’d been offered a new life and now it was all at risk, along with his relationship with Lily. He banged on the door as his own blood dripped to the filthy floor, and as desperation overtook him, he began to cry.
The Hatter had dragged the Troll down the hallway, waving to inmates as he went, causing screams and shouts and pleas of freedom, all of which he happily acknowledged with a grin on his face and a hop in his step. His gaunt figure was almost stick-like and his face, cracked by his massive grin, looked ghastly and unnatural.
It took only a few minutes for the Troll to tell the Hatter what he wanted to know and where in the Tower he could find it.
Twenty minutes later, the Mad Hatter stepped out into the courtyard dressed in a dark blue suit complete with ruffles and lace. In one hand, he held a cane, and in the other, a black top hat, which he placed precariously atop his narrow head. Robert’s silver chain with the Rabbit’s blood dangled around his scrawny neck. He’d left the Troll spluttering for breath and choking on his own blood after the Hatter had slit the little creature’s throat back in the hallway.
His plan had worked. The very essence of chaos began with the tiniest of actions. The slightest of movements. He’d only had to make a suggestion to Jack and the events were set in motion to bring Robert to the Tower. His son had not disappointed him.
The Hatter strode across the courtyard and emerged from the gateway at the foot of the long cobblestone bridge.
“The moment of truth,” said the Hatter to no one in particular. Blood was the most powerful commodity in Thiside and if he was right, his son had just taken his place as a permanent resident of the Tower. The Hatter closed his eyes and took one long step onto the bridge.
Nothing happened. Lightning flashed overhead and thunder rolled.
He opened one eye to find that the moat creatures had not moved. He took another step, and could see one of the enormous monsters roll itself over just beneath the surface of the water. He stepped again, and again, and again. He then jumped up and down on the bridge. He skipped from one side of the bridge to the other.
He burst into the sort of laughter that only a mad man can make.
Over the sound of rolling thunder, over the Hatter’s laughter, over the screeching of the witch in the Tower, over the shrieking of the various inmates, only one thing rang out louder than any other: the desperate screams of Robert Darkly.
The Mad Hatter; prisoner, father, trickster, murderer, and now one of the most dangerous people in Thiside, tipped his hat to one side and danced his way across the bridge away from the Tower.
…and no one lived happily ever after…
THE END (sort of)
Dessert:
A Taste of Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish
Prologue
The gentleman stepped up to the podium and straightened his tie. He looked out at the several hundred students whose eyes all rested upon the gentleman’s athletic build. An athletic build he was quite proud of, at that. He was a renowned gentleman, scholar, professional assumptionist and part-time religious expert. His theories and social experiments were famous the world over, and as a result, he was invited to the best parties and most prestigious events. He was happy. New theories were getting harder to come up with, and it had been at least a year and a half since his last lecture at Oxford University, but here he stood, once again on the brink of high expectations, with not one but three new theories to present.