DEE

We used to laugh as we watched the solitude of their existence. Poor hatter, poor hare, poor old mother who was never there. Now, the portmanteau of our twoality has been diluted, the totality of our duality extinguished. Finishing the Red Queen will end this nightmare. She has taken this comforting conjoinment from us out of fear, and it's only fitting I should take something from her.

"A pretend battle, perhaps?"

Beyond the forest lay fertile fields. I maneuver my brother through empty stacks of oyster shells, passed grinning cats, and under insects who should mind their own business. Around us, soldiers stumble. Knights bumble and falter in the halters of their clumsy steeds.

We walk through the rye, shielded from the sun by ominous clouds. The world has been divided into manageable slices, like the pages of a book, or the squares on a chessboard, but she is there, somewhere, plotting to preserve her house of cards.

"Yes, let's play before Her Majesty." He glances at me with flat glossy eyes.

My reply is guarded. This feels too easy. In the days before Alice, I'd have known his thoughts. Now, I see only my own restless features. I'm lonely, having never known singularity, having always had my brother's presence of mind.

"A game for the Queen. Hurrah!" He raises a fist in salute. Hastily, I do the same, frightened to be in difference.

***

The landscape is malleable. It changes as my brother drags his feet, staring backward expectantly. Perhaps he's waiting for her. For the first time, I wonder if my brother has lost more than my mind.

***

Day summersaults into night, and the Red Queen herself hurtles by, the breeze of her passing laced with dread. Incessant callings ring through the shifting hedges and undulating scenery. "Off with their heads!"

I cringe. My breath chokes in my throat, and my brother freezes. His smile widens. His desire to be near her is plain, and my heart breaks. Doesn't he remember what she is, or what she's done? How long before the tyrant tires of his little antics and decides to end us? How long before this Rorschach landscape bends and finally breaks beneath her whim?

She slips beyond us. The hurricane of her headlong rush tumbles my brother into the tall grass. His lip trembles, and he looks as if he's missed something important