A Lease on Wonderland

Slip, Rise and Duck

Lise grew more receded as they reseated themselves and had more tea and sandwiches. Was it the condiments or was it that her mind really wasn't truly human, after all? It was the indecision which bothered Haddler most about her all around. Perhaps she was still filled with gears somehow, but Haddler felt more strongly it was something else. Was she an Alice or was she a lease? And what that even meant he had not sense to spend.

Nevertheless he remained as cordial and helpful as possible in such a way that one would hardly guess at any sort of conflict. No one could say that Matthias Haddler was a bad host.

At some point though, either while pouring tea or fetching cakes, he suddenly was offering something to an empty chair.

"Lise?"

He looked around even checking under the table again. If he had not heard the door shut, however quietly, he might have thought he had been visited by a ghost. He shuddered at the thought of that familiar tapping from Poe's poetry, but it was more disappointment than fear that got him as he stared at that empty chair for which a cake would do little good save to look pretty for some sort of aesthetic photograph if even that.

It did not last long. He quickly found a much better place for the cake between his teeth.

Then after setting the kitchen into motion picking up after him in a clockwork pushbutton manner, he prepared himself for the work ahead that evening. Gears, numbers, spinning wheels— all was better to crown his head than any hat, which was why he had never been able to get himself to buy one of his own. So off he went with pleasant gentlemanly posture up the elevator to the dome— the crown of his house.

Despite how he worked next morning and did some early errands in town with affable ease he was looking forward to Lise returning. He knew this for the simple fact that as soon as the heart of Heartland struck four, he found himself staring at his front door as though expecting a cuckoo to take its turn through it.

His ginger brows gingerly furrowed and his aquiline nose twitched. Within a tick he had his watch out. He did not consider himself an impatient man, but things had to be on time. Otherwise what was the point of ticking or tocking?

He already had a pack on his back, his green frock coat fresh for the occasion and walking shoes on ready for a hike with a walking stick in hand. It would be a long hike with long strides.

He put his pocket watch back into his waistcoat with an eye roll and a sigh. Although he was not bound to O'Hair's outdoor table, he had to admit as that his life had begun to feel shallow and redundant, and it had not started until Lise had showed up.

Or had it really?

It was a mystery that had to be unwound before it could stitch a place in time. He thought again how nice it would be to be able to simply take apart a mind with the ease taking apart a watch. He could examine it thoroughly and read it like a script then as easily as one pops on a hat. It was not the past he was interested in or the present. It was Time itself, but what is Time so much as what he was doing within his confines?

Matthias shook his head and closed his eyes to tut himself and to click the roof of his mouth.

Oh, Mattie. You'll find yourself in a worse predicament than living off oyster shells in prison.

Coming out of one's shell was one thing but a shell going into one was quite another.

If she wasn't coming, she wasn't coming. He had had a feeling from the beginning that she had not been exactly supposed to have been to his house. But did that mean he should go on the excursion without her?

Well, he could not exactly speak with Time. No matter what he said, Time sure would not come out of his shell once he saw Haddler coming. He was still the Hatter to him, and it was enough to make Haddler consider going back to hats and forget clockwork altogether in spite of such pettiness.