The Arms of a Woman

He had said that he would be but a moment, a quick trip home to collect a few remaining things. But when a day had passed Alice had begun to worry that something had happened, and brashly she had gone through The Looking Glass and fallen right into the middle of a war. They had found, The Dormouse and March Hare, cowering inside of a bombed out building and had brought her to the tea shop; and there she had stayed without sight or word of him for weeks. Now there was seldom a moment that passed that was not spent thinking of him, aching for him. He often visited her in her dreams, which made it all the more difficult for her to sleep because, on those nights, she always awoke abruptly to find herself drenched in a cold sweat with tears dried on her cheeks. Every knock on the door sent her into a dizzy spell that always ended in her collapsing on the sofa, laden heavily with disappointment. She had never known heartbreak until she had to watch him leave and, in the lonely days that followed, her only companion was the consistent worry that accompanied the memory of him. She daren’t mention her misery, though, and never voiced it out loud. The others thought she had only fallen victim to the somberness of war after having witnessed the sheer brutality of it all and she never tried to contest their beliefs.
‘She’s just a girl,’ she often heard her The Dormouse say to March Hare (who worried endlessly about Alice), ‘it is only the war taking its toll on a young girl’s heart.’ All along, it was a different toll taxing on her heart.

She vividly remembered him, there were very few things that Alice forgot, and she had been made to remember by the simple fact of his abrupt absence. There was a day that she remembered quite well for its shock value. A day that came not long after he left and she arrived, a day that started just like any other. Their little group had been woken early by gunfire and remained tucked safely away in the cellar. They hardly spoke or maybe it had only been Alice who had been especially quiet, that was a detail that remained unclear because it was the one detail she wasted no time dwelling on. It had been nearly midday when the commotion above started - the sound of their front door crashing open and the hurried rustle of feet against hardwood floors. Instinctively, Alice had fled from her perch in the corner to the protective circle of March’s arms. There was indistinct shouting, though the voices were dim, hushed. It felt like hours before the door to the cellar was flung open and, though she tried to stay the animal sound in her throat, she screamed. It was a natural reaction, though, and she promptly buried her face in the scratchy, starchy fabric of March’s shirt. The shouting immediately ceased, though, and the soldier at the head of the stairs spoke evenly to them. All she could think about was him, though in an entirely separate way. The soldier at the head of the stairs spoke of injured men and a desperate need for clean washrags and water and, without thinking, as was Alice’s nature, she hurried up the stairs to help the injured men in the only way she knew how. Though, in actuality, the only reason she had ascended the stairs that day was in the hope that she would find him there in the foyer. He had not been there, but the entire time she applied clean rags to bleeding wounds she prayed he’d walk through the door. But he never came and the injured men eventually left and, with them, her hope of him ever returning to her.

She woke early, as she often did, only to creep upstairs and watch the sun rising over the broken streets of Wonderland. The enemy fire had slowed by now - so much so, in fact, that when it came it startled her. Faintly, she pressed her trembling fingers against the autumn-chilled windowpane and wondered, if this war would ever come to an end. It was only moments later that she returned to the cellar to fold herself safely into the corner without ever disturbing her slumbering counterparts. Not until there was a knock at the door did either of the other two stir - March Hare always sat up rather abruptly, as The Dormouse was slower to rouse. Alice’s heart leaped into her throat and kept her from breathing as a dim shaft of hope ignited in her chest and she rose abruptly to follow The Dormouse’s path up the stairs as soon as he disappeared from view. She reached the head of the stairs just as he pulled the door open and every last ounce of breath that she had managed to catch between clenched teeth left her in one fell swoop.

Every morsel of strength drained from her limbs and tears stung and well rapidly in her bright blue eyes as she reached out to brace herself against the doorframe, all the while her heart slamming out a staccato beat in the hollow of her breast. If The Dormouse spoke at all, she couldn’t hear him; all she was aware of was his face floating just out of reach and the amount of space separating them. She was entirely unaware of her body or how she managed to make it to the door, ”Hatter” she whispered, though she never put any conscious thought into it. It was only due to her dancer-like grace that she managed to make it to him without ever stumbling. She did not trust herself to believe that he was actually standing there until she could reach out and touch him and she hesitated on the threshold while The Dormouse dissolved into the background. Mindlessly, she raised a fluttering hand to her mouth and held it there while she tried to catch her breath, where there’s was seemingly no oxygen to be had. This was the one moment she had been waiting for her entire life and she did not even notice the stale stench of blood and earth and oil. None of it registered as she finally crossed the threshold to collapse in his arms, clinging to him like life support. “Hatter,” she says again, though this time it’s strangled by the sob that rose in her throat and exploded across her tongue while tears streak down her porcelain cheeks. She wanted to tell him how much she had missed him but she could not find the words - they were as elusive as oxygen now.