Death of the Mad Hatter Read online

  Warning:

  Wonderland is a

  Magical world

  where the most

  far-fetched dreams

  come true.

  Alas, it is also where intoxicating nightmares

  run rampant.

  Death of the Mad Hatter

  Sarah J. Pepper

  Published by Neximus Publishing

  ISBN-13: 9781492823919

  Copyright © Sarah J. Pepper 2013

  Editors: Deb Lebakken, Heather Banta, Emily DeHaan, Sandra Long

  Proof Reader: Mercedes Roth

  Photography: Josh Wilcoxon of Wilcoxon Photography

  Cover Design: Sarah Storm of Design Monkey

  Hair/Makeup: Angelique Verver of Platinum Imagination

  Model: Amanda Boer of Amanda's Imagery

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved.

  Young Adult/New Adult Novels by

  Sarah J. Pepper

  Of Course the World is Flat

  Devil’s Lullaby – Ringer’s Masquerade Series #1

  Death’s Melody – Ringer’s Masquerade Series #2

  Angel’s Requiem – Ringer’s Masquerade Series #3

  Forgotten – The Fate Trilogy #1

  Twisted Games – The Fate Trilogy #2

  Fallen Tears

  Death of the Mad Hatter

  I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I have a story to tell if you have time. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. It’s a juicy story! I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. *Cross my heart and hope to die* You will want to hear it. So listen up and pay attention. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. Listen good! I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. For what you don’t know will hurt you. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. Rabbit holes are fun, even if they are a little dangerous. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even me! I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. Just remember to take your dirty shoes off so you don’t track mud around the house because that’s how you get caught. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will not follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. I will follow rumperbabbits down dirty holes. Yours Truly, AL.

  A Wondrous Prologue

  The Queen of Hearts kissed the King one last time before the Joker ripped his head from her hands and tossed it alongside his body. The queen’s guards picked up the royal pieces and clumsily carried the dead king away. No one spoke. Only the sound of a ticking clock interrupted the stunned silence of the night.

  Standing next to a bloody guillotine, Hearts let a love-letter the king had written slip through her fingers. Appearing out of nowhere, a Cheshire kitten, affectionately named Chez, distinguished by his purple and blue stripes, playfully pawed the letter until it was a shredded mess of paper. The queen simply watched. When the Joker reached for the remaining pieces of the letter, the kitten bit him, drawing blood.

  “If you want to play dirty, may I suggest a play date, Chez?” the Joker asked, inspecting the bite mark. His voice was as innocent as a child’s, but the look in his beady eyes was that of a psychopath’s. “I have all sorts of modified toys collecting dust in the dungeon.”

  “Don’t antagonize the Joker, Chez. He is a bit of a schizoid,” Hearts said, picking up the kitten. She stared at the pieces of the love-letter for so long that her eye twitched. “Burn it so that no one finds out the king had loved a seamstress.”

  The Joker picked up the pieces and fisted them. The recipient of the letter showed through his fingers: Dearest Genevine— He held his hand up to his mouth and blew. Pieces of the letter flew into the air and burst into flames. They flickered until they reached the floor; where they turned into ash.

  “I’m required to scold you for leaving your sharp toys scattered around, Joker. It’s a pity the king had to pay for your untidiness,” Hearts said, glancing at the guillotine that was drenched in royal blood.

  “Then I shall only take out my biggest toys when you order me to do so… again,” the Joker said with a wink. “Since this is a hush-hush operation, I assume you want me to kill Genevine? Oh! Perhaps, she could have a misfortunate accident as well?”

  “No, that would be far too coincidental,” Hearts stated. “Keep Genevine alive. It’s fitting that she must live, knowing her lover is dead. Oh, and see to it that she never leaves Wonderland. All things considered, she is still the most talented seamstress in the court, and I’ll need someone to sew me a black dress to wear at the king’s funeral.”

  The Jack had prophesied: If the king loses his head, then the Queen with a Bleeding Heart would rule the Red Court until Time ceased to move forward. When a second carried on for infinity, every creature in Wonderland would tip their Hat to the misfit girl with a Boy’s name (or was it a boy with a Girl’s name?) who’d end the Reign of Terror. However, it all hinged on the One-Eyed Hare being able to convince an uninspirable Heir that the impossible was indeed possible—like stopping time—and that Love was worth a Beheading.

  Heads would Roll…

  Hearts would Break…

  In the end, would it matter who Reigned?

  “Reign of Terror—everyone acts like it’s a bad thing,” the Queen of Hearts said, reading the script that Jack of Diamonds, a.k.a the prophesier, had scribbled on an ingredients page of a violet book entitled, Sweets for the Rabbit Hole Voyager. The Mad Hatter’s crest, M.H. and a top hat, was printed on the bottom of every odd numbered page inside the book.

  Hearts tore the last stanza from the Bleeding Hearts Prophecy, crumpled it into a ball, and smashed it between the pages of The Lazy Killer’s Poisons, another of the Mad Hatter’s works.

  What a silly notion—dying for love. Ugh! (Cue eye-roll)

  Nevertheless, the faux love of her life did “misplace” his head, and he was king, unt
il today. These two happenstances made Hearts believe that the Bleeding Heart Prophecy was about her and that her head would roll. And furthermore, it always mattered who reigned!

  She pushed both of the Mad Hatter’s editions back onto the shelf, but made sure the one about poison was flipped upside-down, just to see if any of her feline servants would notice the disarray of her library. With her hands behind her back, Hearts stepped down from her golden step stool and paced around the library, which was filled with more books than anyone could read in a single lifetime.

  “I have no heirs,” Hearts said, thinking out loud. “And I’ve never been fond of hares. Hence, it would behoove me to damage the reputation of all the rabbits in my court, just in case this Bleeding Hearts Prophecy holds some weight.”

  Wandering aimlessly around her library, she spotted a speck of dust on the third shelf. She walked over to the fainting couch and rang a silver-plated bell. Quickly, a glaring of cats raced through the door. They stood at attention on a glittering line that Hearts drew years prior, when she still loved the king.

  But, that was a long time ago.

  All of the cats toed the line, except for the Cheshire kitten, Chez. His butt was high in the air as he got ready to pounce on a hopping bug that was hiding in the shadows next to the king’s personal chambers.

  “It’s filthy in here,” Hearts said as she walked past each cat, giving them a look of severe disapproval. She stopped in front of a black cat whose tail fluttered whenever she passed. “You have forty-eight seconds to remove the dust I located in this room, or you’ll spend a week in solitary confinement with the Joker.”

  In a panic, the cats raced around the polished library, frantic to locate the speck of dust that the queen had spotted. The smaller cats flipped onto their backs and let the bigger cats use their furry bodies as dust rags. In the meantime, the queen collapsed onto a scarlet colored couch. The Cheshire kitten, who missed the formation on the glitter line, pounced on the cushion beside her. A feisty grasshopper wiggled in his mouth.

  “What did you bring me, Chez?”

  Chez dropped the grasshopper on the queen’s lap. The bug wore a tiny dress coat with a broken heart and the King’s initials on them: E.E. The bug wheezed, which made the kitty’s incisive purr grow louder.

  Chez pawed at the grasshopper and said, “I found this hoppy creature snooping around the king’s chamber.”

  “Spare me from this vile kitten, my Queen! I did nothing wrong,” the grasshopper begged. He held up a miniature violin and a mangled rod. “I was only near the king’s chambers tonight because he enjoys my music before resting. I barely cracked his bedroom door when this feline attacked me! The king would never allow such behavior; so unbecoming!”

  Hearts petted Chez behind his ears and talked in a baby voice. “Haven’t you heard? The king had a misfortunate accident earlier this evening.”

  Every single cat in the library skidded to a halt. Their eyes glowed in the darkness of the night. The grasshopper swallowed noticeably hard.

  “The Joker’s guillotine broke his fall,” Chez said.

  “Accidental beheading,” Hearts recited. “I was beside myself with horror as it happened. I’ve already spoken to the Joker about leaving his toys around. It shall never happen again.”

  “Eddie, the King of Hearts, is not clumsy,” the grasshopper said and cleared his throat. He glanced at the other cats. One shook his head ‘no’ to caution the bug not to disagree with the queen, but the grasshopper wouldn’t listen. “Eddie would never have accidentally tripped on the weapon. He had to have been pushed!”

  “Are you calling me a liar, grasshopper?” Hearts spat.

  “Eddie was not a klutz,” the grasshopper said, nervously.

  “The king’s proper name is Edward, not Eddie,” Chez corrected, “And he wasn’t pushed! He tripped over me and fell onto the Joker’s big boy toy.”

  “That’s right,” the queen said, giving Chez a quick pat on his head.

  “That’s not what I saw when I was on my way to play for the king,” the grasshopper said, then slapped his hand over his mouth.

  “Did you see something to contradict my claim?” Hearts lowered her face so that she and the grasshopper were eye-level.

  The grasshopper shook his head. The more visibly his legs trembled, the wider the queen’s smile grew.

  “Leave us, my glaring,” Hearts demanded. “The grasshopper and I have much to discuss regarding this unfortunate accident involving my dear, late husband.”

  The cats scampered out of the library, leaving Chez behind. The grasshopper’s eyes darted to the exit as the last cat closed the door.

  “Well, the king tripped over an unsuspecting kitten right before the Joker lost his grip on the guillotine rope, but Edward took the risk of death when he broke my heart!” The queen blinked away a nonexistent tear. “Edward wanted to leave me and our so-called loveless marriage, for a seamstress! Leave me? For a seamstress? Can you imagine my humiliation?”

  “Why are you telling me this?” the grasshopper asked.

  She affectionately petted her kitten. She smiled an appeasing smile, but it quickly turned into a sneer. “Because Chez will make sure that you never tell a soul.”

  The grasshopper took off hopping toward the room belonging to the Prince of Spades. “Robby! Robby! Help me!”

  “Sic him, Chez!” the queen ordered.

  Chez disappeared, only to reappear in front of the grasshopper. The kitten flicked out his claws. He fixated on him with blood thirsty eyes.

  The grasshopper gulped and with his last breath, he shouted, “Hearts killed the king, Robby! She pushed Eddie over Chez so he’d land on the guilloti—”

  CHAPTER ONE

  (Ryley: Present Time)

  I narrowly escaped the house before my mom attacked me with her pair of kitchen scissors—well, actually, it was my hair for which she was gunning. Any distinguishable young man shouldn’t have a mop of hair for the first day of school—her words, not mine.

  “What happened to the appointment I made for you at A Little off the Top?” shouted my mom, Lauren, as she followed me onto the rickety porch.

  An old ceramic frog just outside the front door shook with each of our steps. Etched on the suit was a spade and my dad’s initials: R.E. The frog was a novelty house key holder. Before the proverbial shit hit the fan, my dad had presented the frog to my mom. In its mouth was a silver ring that she still wore on her ring finger, regardless of everything that had happened.

  The vibrations from our steps caused the frog to fall onto its side. My mom stepped over it, not letting the frog steal her attention away from me, even though—for some unknown reason—she still cared about it.

  She said, in her perfected motherly tone, “You look like a girl, Ryley!”

  “Mom, it’s not like my hair is halfway down my back.” I slipped on my baseball cap.

  “It’s covering your ears and neck,” she said flatly, eyeing the hair.

  “That’s all part of my plot so when I get this massive neck tattoo I can hide it from you. I was leaning towards a spider tatt,” I teased and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

  “You hate spiders.”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. I still couldn’t get used to being taller than her. “I’m practically an adult now. I can make my own hair appointments.”

  “Clearly you can’t,” she said. “And I don’t care if you turn eighteen in a couple months. You will always and forever be my baby.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” I said, acting exasperated.

  She fought to keep a smile from spreading across her face, a sure sign that I’d won this battle. So, it was my most effective verbal ammunition. She was a sucker for the “L” word.

  “You know, you could drive to school if you fixed up the old beater in the garage,” she said. “It’s not like your father will notice.”

  “Someday, Mom.”

  I turned to leave, taking the steps two at a time. Slinging
my backpack over my shoulder, I walked the few blocks to Rockingham High, home of the mighty Ravens. One more academic year left before I could ditch this backwoods town and head off to a big-name college; hopefully, on a full-ride baseball scholarship. I kept my fingers crossed, but I’d settle for any university with a decent physics department. Even then, I wasn’t too picky in choosing a university to go to, as long as it was at least a hundred miles away from here. Of all the towns I’d lived in since my biological father checked out, I couldn’t believe my mom settled down here; in this dump of a town.

  I peeled open a cherry breakfast bar I’d snuck out of the kitchen when my mom was scraping off the burnt eggs and maple syrup from a frying pan—a breakfast experiment gone bad. The flavor of the bar reminded me of the sucker I’d commandeered from last year’s Miss Rockingham High, Courtney Frick, after a baseball game this summer. I hadn’t been able to land a date with the infamous redhead yet, but my chances were improving with each one of her giggles. Since my antics were lame—one notch above a knock-knock-joke—it had to mean that she was into me… or that I sounded so stupid she couldn’t help but to laugh.

  Before everything went to hell, my dad told me to keep a girl at the edge of her seat so that she wouldn’t be able to walk away when I finally made my move. It was the last “normal” advice I could remember my dad giving me—

  “Stop!” yelled a girl with an ear-piercing scream.

  Startled, I dropped my second attempt at breakfast and stopped in mid-step. Expecting to be hit by a car or blindsided by a football, I was stunned when a girl raced over and snatched up a stuffed bunny that was inches from being squashed by my Converse shoe. It was a dingy white rabbit with a Sharpie ‘X’ in place of its missing eye.

  “I almost peed myself! I thought I was going to eat the sidewalk after a car crashed into me, not trip over a stuffed animal!” I yelled at the eccentric girl.