“It would have been nice,” Brett continued as she made her way down the endless dirt path, “if I had the chance to ask Marcia about the boys, or if she told me where this Queen's croquet game is taking place. I have no idea where I'm going or how I'm going to get there.”
As she gazed up into the endless masses of evergreens, the misty pale afternoon light became a vibrant purple haze. When the haze vanished, she was more than a little shocked to see a long, lean leg in a fur-trimmed high-heeled boot dangling off a branch. The Cheshire Cat still grinned at her...but this time, it was the familiar wide Miss America smile of a slender young woman in a tight black leather pantsuit trimmed with sleek fur. Fuzzy cat ears perched in her shiny velvet brown curls.
“Oh, good grief.” Brett pushed the leg out of her face. “Lee Merriweather, what are you doing up there?”
She purred and licked her gloved hand. “It's as good a place as any for a nap.”
“Oh no, you don't!” Tugging at her furry tail produced a hiss and a glare from her heavily lashed velvet orbs. “You can't take a cat nap now! I need to help me find my boys and figure out how to hightail it out of here, before that Red King sends us all to that Limbo place. Have you seen them around? Two teen boys, one taller and his voice is cracking, one shorter. I've been looking all over for them!”
“They're around,” Lee purred sleepily, “if they're anywhere. I don't think they've gone anywhere else. They can't go to Limbo. You can only be sent there.”
She made a face. “That's a big help. You wouldn't know where 'around' is, would you?”
“I believe,” she chuckled, “they were heading off to the Mad Tea Party. They thought you might be there, and it would be a way to get something to eat and find where their father has gotten to.”
“Considering their father is consorting with the enemy, at least in this world,” Brett grumbled, “I think we're all better off not knowing where he is.” She made a face. “Do you know where the Mad Tea Party is, and how I can avoid going crazy when I'm there? I've read the book, you know!”
“Oh, but you can't help being mad!” Lee exclaimed gleefully, her pearly white grin widening. “We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. After all, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore, I'm mad.”
Brett smirked. “I've known for a while you're not exactly the full deck of cards, dear.” She frowned as a horn playing the theme from Hogan's Heroes came from somewhere off her right. “Lee...”
The cat-woman vanished in a puff of purple light before she could finish. “Damn it,” she grumbled, “she still didn't tell me exactly where to find that Mad Tea Party!”
A slender pale hand with sharp crimson fingernails pointed to the right. “It's at the March Hare's house, though they're more likely to be with the Mad Hatter and his protege the Doormouse.”
“I'll remember that.” Brett sighed and started down the path again, only for all of Lee to reappear in front of her.
“By the way,” her tall feline friend mewed, “what happened to the baby? I'm assuming you two got out of there before the flying crockery did any major damage.”
“Yes, we did, thank heavens!” She rolled her eyes. “Darn thing turned into a pig. I let it go. If Marcia wants her child, it’s rooting around the wildflowers looking for lunch.”
Lee gave her that throaty chuckle again. “I rather thought it would.” She vanished in a purple puff, and Brett started towards the increasingly loud horns again. “Did you say pig,” Lee, or at least her head appearing in a purple light, asked, “or fig?”
“Pig, dear. Turn up your hearing aid, and stop reappearing and disappearing like that. You'll give me a heart attack with all that in and out!”
“Very well,” sighed Lee. This time, she vanished slowly. Her head went first, then her hair and ears, and finally, her wide, light-up grin.
“You know,” Brett added thoughtfully, “most cats don't have grins, but I've never seen a grin without a cat!”
Even as the last of the Cat's purple mist vanished into the afternoon haze, Dickie Dawson and his playing card entourage clip-clopped down the path. Dickie stopped before her and pulled up his visor, giving her that smirky grin most women found irresistible. “We meet again, fair elder maiden! You appear to be lost. Where are you bound that vexes you so?”
“Dickie,” Brett said patiently, “have you been reading Shakespeare again? I'm trying to get to the Mad Tea Party, but the Cat...wherever she went...didn't give me the world's best directions.”
“Milady, the Mad Hatter and March Hare are the very people we seek!” Dickie frowned. “It's said they're quite close to the King and Queen of Hearts and often bring messages to them. My liege, the White King Gene, is hoping we'll be able to convince them to join our cause. The Red King ravaged Looking Glass Land with his tyrannical rule, and we fear he may do the same to Wonderland.”
“We were the Queen of Hearts' men,” the little blonde fellow with a sweet mischievous smile and gentle southwestern accent admitted, “but we planted white roses instead of red roses. The Queen only likes red roses. She sent us into exile, and now we work for Sir Dawson.” He tugged at his Three of Clubs card front.
“Why would she do that?” Brett made a face. “Just because you planted the wrong thing?”
“Let's say,” added the dark-skinned Six of Diamonds, a broad-shouldered fellow with thick black curls under his cowl and an easy smile, “the Queen has a bit of a temper, and leave it at that.”
Dickie climbed off his elegant white steed with the plume taller than him. “I would be honored if milady would ride with us.”
“Thanks, Dickie,” Brett added, “but it's not 'milady.' My name is Brett Somers, but Brett's fine.”
“Very well, Miss Brett.” Dickie led the horse while his sons and the cards followed behind. “Why do you seek the Mad Hatter and March Hare?”
“I'm not looking for them,” Brett admitted. “I'm looking for my sons, Adam and David. The Cat...I was told they went to the Mad Tea Party. We got separated when we...fell down here...and I've been trying to find them since.”
“I'm terribly sorry, Miss Brett.” Dickie put an arm on one of the boys on a smaller steed. “I love my own sons dearly.”
“We talked to two boys,” Mark threw in. “One about my age, one older. They were looking for their mum and dad.”
“They said they're really worried,” little Gary added. “Their mom got lost, and something bad happened to their dad, and he's not himself anymore.”
Brett stiffened at the mention of Jack. “I am not speaking to their father right now. Not after what he did at the Caucus Race. Those poor animals were just trying to dry off, and he and that Red King had to break in and ruin everything.”
“I'm sorry about that, Miss.” Dickie's tanned face turned down in genuine sorrow. “By the time my men and sons and I arrived at the Race ground, they had already taken prisoners. We were detained by the Red King's knights on the road. We thrashed them,” now that cocky smirk looked a lot more familiar, “of course, but it prevented us from coming to your rescue in time.”
“Couldn't you have gotten past them faster?” Brett glared at him. “Dickie, he turned those animals into toys! They'll never move or laugh or take care of their children or do anything ever again! They were just enjoying themselves. What's wrong with that?”
“To you and me, nothing.” Dickie easily swept onto his horse, holding her a little too close for comfort as he tugged on the reins. “The Red King ordered everyone to play the game his way. Those who play a different game, or play by their own rules, must be punished.” He gave Brett another smirk. “The Mad Hatter and March Hare are said to follow no one's rules but their own, not even the Queen and King of Hearts. They are among the most creatively insane people to live in this land.”
Brett made a face. “Dickie, watch where you put your hands. You're not my type.”
“You're scarcely my type either, Miss Brett.” Dickie wrinkled his nose. “I prefer buxom golden English roses with brains and beauty to elder maidens with smart mouths and no figure to speak of.”
“I'm not that old!”
“Oh come on, you two,” the younger boy protested, “don't fight!”
“Yeah,” the older one added. “Dad says we should save fighting for when we have to rescue people from the Red Knight, right?”
“Right, Mark. We'll show that slob of a warrior who's the real head knight around here!”
Brett rolled her eyes. “Good grief,” she muttered, “that man can't take care of himself, even down here.” She went on out loud. “Who is the Red Knight, and what's he doing with the Red King?”
“The Knight was one of the strongest warriors in the kingdom,” Dickie puffed as the horses bumped along the hard dirt path. “Until the Red King got his hands on him. Threw him into his dungeon and performed unspeakable tortures on his mind...and now he's the King's most obedient servant.”
“How?” Brett tried to keep the shock from creeping into her voice. “He seems like a pretty tough guy. I doubt he really...meant...any harm...”
“Miss, he's terrible!” Gary squeaked as he and his brother rode by them. “There used to be a lot more White Knights. He captured them all, locked them up in the King's torture chamber, and either let the king turn them into chess pieces and cards, or chained them up and put them on the rack and twisted their minds until they couldn't think about anything but old socks and stinky cheese, and...”
“Gary!” His older brother Mark elbowed him. “She gets the idea. Dad, tell him not to be gross.”
“Gary, enough.” Richard shook his head, but he was smiling. “Forgive my sons' exuberance. They don't exaggerate that much, though. That's what the Red King does to those in his power. He twists their minds until they only play the game the way he wants.”
Brett frowned. “I'm wondering if this is a good idea. I don't think the Red King knows the boys and I are here, but...”
“We're going to find out!” Bert the Card Guard pointed his sharp spade lance at two small cottages in a clearing and a long table set with mismatched chairs and lots of tea cups. “We're there!”
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