Page 80 of Madness

I can feel his tiny heart racing, the beat pumping furiously against his chest, but his trembling starts to ease.

“I’ll talk to Jameson. Make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Red says, glancing around the chaotic greenhouse, “Bander also seriously needs to organise this mess.”

“He leaves?!” Al exclaims, his hand mere inches away from a particularly toxic plant.

Red slaps his hand, “Don’t touch his plants! They can kill you, and yes, he does but don’t fucking say a word about it. The guards don’t know.”

I keep Thatcher in my arms as we leave the greenhouse, not daring to let him go just yet as we meet up with the twins.

“Does the greenhouse not remind you of something?” Red asks.

“Alice.”

“What?” Al responds.

“Nut you, yi idiot. Thee Alice.”

“Thee Alice was rumoured to have had a greenhouse, a place where she found solitude,” Red explains to Al.

“Sounds as if it’s just a rumour,” Al says, picking at a scab on his arm, “It was not the start of a legacy!” he shouts, startling us all.

“Whit?” I ask, soothing Thatcher’s fur as he begins to tremble.

“Tell that nitwit to shut up! The bloody fox took a year off my life,” Thatcher’s nose twitches aggressively, “I’d like some rest before you leave me alone out here again.”

I chuckle at him, “A will see whit a can dae.”

Al seems to ignore us all, getting lost in conversation with the voices in his head. We’ve learned to ignore it, something that makes Al… well, Al, but when the outbursts grow more aggressive, I begin to grow more concerned.

“Mad… I’m just mad, mad, mad… Alice was in Wonderland… lost down the rabbit hole… escaped, escaped, escaped. Legacy, not a legacy…” Al’s ramblings become more erratic, his eyes blown wide as he once again loses his mind.

Red takes his arm, leading him away as tweedle Dum and Dee wave to us from the tree, and I follow them with my eyes until Red’s safely inside the building with him.

“What happened?” Dusty asks, his voice laced with concern.

“He lost it… again,” I sigh, “We mentioned thee, Alice, and he went bonkers.”

Desmond shakes his head, “I think White’s been messing with his meds.”

The twins exchange a look, “She liked to experiment down in the rabbit hole, drugging us with different drugs to see what would get a reaction and what wouldn’t,” Dusty explains, his eyes taking on an almost haunted

“She’s sick. Twisted, a vile woman. How she and Red are related, I’ll never know.”

Thatcher twitches in my arms, wriggling to be let down. “That woman gives me the heebie jeebies. Let me go so I can go check on Duke.”

“A will come check on yi tomorrow. Stay safe tonight, and a will get Wocky to fix the fence,” I say to him, giving him one last stroke before he hops away past the bushes.

“In now!” one of the guards by the door shouts, indicating our time outside is done.

Dusty nods, dusting off his trousers, “You know, it’s not just the meds. It’s this whole place. Wonderland… it does things to people.”

“Wi need to find a way to help Al, really help him. Maybe wi can figure out whit White’s been giving him and see if Bander kens a way to counteract it.”

“We need to be careful, though. White’s always watching, and if she finds out that we are onto her…” Desmond trails off the closer we get to the doors, not wanting the guards to hear us.

I shiver at the thought, “Then wi dae it quietly.”

Once inside, Hare runs past us towards a waiting Jameson, “Red’s our best bet, but maybe talking to our warden is another option. Maybe ask him to call us all to his office so it’s not suspicious?”

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