• Soon, the light of a gas lamp bobbed a yard away from her bed, lighting up the hand holding it, along with the bright red robe sleeve draped across the arm. The rest of the figure was a tall, dark silhouette. Without falling on her, the light floated past the ‘room’ and around a corner of a huge stack of boxes. After a moment, the sound of someone loudly rummaging through things and opening and slamming shut drawers came from that side of the large attic. Dormaline, curious, leaned a little in her bed to see past the furniture and the crates. This caused the mattress to give under her and cry an indignant squeak.
    She instantly freezed. Had he heard that?!
    It seemed not likely, since the grumbling and rummaging did not pause, and only seemed to get louder. Dormaline mentally sighed with relief, and pondered. Perhaps it was just her cousin, looking for something he had left here. Or maybe it was the twins. Either way, she should just go back to sleep and leave them alone.
    “For the love of tea!!” shouted a familiar, growling voice. “Where the hell is it?!”
    Or it could be that temperamental hatter. Now Dormaline DEFINETLY felt like going back to sleep. She silently flipped her pillow over to the cleaner side, and tried to do so. Yet nothing she tried with her blanket or her pillow could muffle that man’s mad search for some item he desperately needed. She sat up once more, an irritated frown on her face, and decided she would end this.
    The orphan, as soundless as she could, got out of her bed and stepped onto the creaking wood floor. She put on a lacey housecoat from her suitcase just as the hatter swore, ““Oh, for Christ’s sake- come on, I know you’re here!!”
    She peeked around the boxes and saw him in the gaslight- red hair frazzled on his head (obviously hat hair) and in the same clothes he was in before, except for the jacket and the vest, which had been replaced with a scarlet housecoat. He had pushed the sleeves up to his shoulders, and was rummaging through the drawers of a very old desk, which the lamp was placed on. The liquid in it trembled and shake as the mad man tore open the drawers and dumped their contents onto the ground. Then he bent over and dashed random objects in every direction, until he had finished rifling through them, spat a foul curse, then snatched up another drawer and dumped its contents to do the process over again.
    A beam of moonlight sliced through the attic’s inky dark and fell on Miss Little like a spotlight through the skylight. The hatter didn’t notice the still figure of the young woman standing there; still, she felt sooner or later he would, and now was as good as any time to swallow her meekness and speak.
    “Ex..Excuse me,” she whispered, fidgeting with her sleeve again. Understandably, a whisper was not enough to grab his attention. As he went for his third drawer, a determined frown spread across her face, and she gripped her hands into fists. “Hey, excuse me!”
    “WHAT THE…!!” The tall man leaped a foot from where he had been, and hit his back to the wall. The figure in front of him, in a long white gown and lit by the pale moon above, looked like a spirit who’d come from the crypt. He gritted his teeth and brandished the close skeleton of an old umbrella like a sword, his body in the en garde position. “The Devil take you, spirit- you’ll have no business with me!!”
    Dormaline quickly held up her hands. “Wait, Mr. Carter! It’s me…Miss Little.”
    As she said this, the moon vanished, resigning itself to once again sit behind its celestial black curtain. Now the only light in the attic was held by the gas lamp’s, which let it fall on the floor between the orphan and the hatter.
    Richard Carter paused. Finally, he let down his guard and dropped his weapon to the ground. “So it seems,” he sighed. “What a shame- I thought for a second you were the ghost of that old fool who used to live here. Pity you weren’t…it would’ve been nice to have another one of our long chats, for old time’s sake…” A sudden thought occurred to his aching, sober head. His eyes narrowed back accusingly at the short-haired girl. “What the devil do you think you’re doing up here?” he snarled a bit.
    Without her realizing it, Dormaline’s shy mask briefly faded in front of this black tempered man. “This has become my sleeping quarters, by my cousin’s will.” She said this with a flat voice, dripping with a contempt that equaled his.
    “Has it…?” The hatter stroked his chin. He still looked angry, but a smirk appeared on his face. “Yes, well I guess I don’t have a say on you staying up in the attic…very clever, Pat.” He looked back at her. “You haven’t been touching anything of mine, have you? I’ll know if you’re lying.”
    Dormaline’s cheeks flared up at such insolence. “No,” she said with some bite. “I haven’t.”
    The Hatter nodded, as if he knew she’d say this. He returned to the desk and, with a flash of movement, tore the bottom drawer and dumped its contents on the floor. He then ignored her and returned to his previous business. “Go back to sleep, little mouse. If I’m making too much of a racket, you’ll just have to deal with it until I’ve found what I’m looking for.”
    Miss Little glared furiously at this arrogant, aggravating man. Still, she decided to try to get on good terms with him, at least to get a proper bed. She piped up with fake innocence, “I could help you …in finding what you’re looking for, I mean.”
    The hatter had finished pushing around all the random objects that had been the contents of the drawer- he looked up at the girl before he turned to a crate, his face obviously painted with the expression of, ‘You’re still here?’ “I’ve got it. And besides, you’d just mess up my filing system.”
    Dormaline looked at the mess on the floor, looked at the crates and furniture pieces crammed with junk and piled on top of each other, looked at the biggest disaster considered ‘organization’ in her life, and looked back at him, though his back was to her. ‘Filing system?’ her mind shouted at him. ‘Are you kidding me?!’
    She stared at him for a while, watching him pilfer through the crate and curse blatantly in front of a lady. She wondered at what she should say next, whether she should give him a piece of her mind or just go back to bed. Stumped, she reserved herself to try a strategy at getting herself better living quarters. “If you’re so worried about me touching your things,” she said softly, trying to be alluring and agreeable. “Then why don’t you put me in one of the empty rooms over your shop? You have so many…”
    The hatter scoff. “Oh no, I’m not going out of my way for that. Definitely not for a pitiful girl like you...”
    The ‘pitiful’ girl instantly lost her straight face and flared up at him. “What do you mean?!”
    “Ah!” A happy shout came out of Richard’s mouth cut off Miss Little’s anger. He stopped rummaging and held up an oil can, of all things. “Found it!” he practically sang, a bratty grin on his face.
    Dormaline looked at the oil can then back at the man’s face, astonished. Did such a thing really cause his mood to flip-flop so drastically? He had been practically snarling at her…and now, in the dark, he was doing some sort of victorious jig, as if he was a child who had found his long lost friend. Dormaline frowned, though the surprised look in her eyes didn’t immediately leave. Ridiculous- perfectly ridiculous.
    His grin turned to her, and she nearly shuddered. The black temper was gone from his face, and now, with that expression on his face, he looked…just odd. It was a little mad, and a little mischievous. He murdered it to only a thin smile in front of the object of his mischief, Dormaline, and grabbed his lamp. Richard Carter brushed past the girl, who didn’t squeak this time but made instead an annoyed scoff as she stepped out of the way. He stopped three steps away from her, and then looked over his shoulder at the girl.
    “Get some sleep, alright? And stop crying.”
    She blinked her red eyes, and felt her face. It still felt sticky from her tears- had he seen it this whole time? Before she could reply anything to this shocking comment, the man had already left the attic, slamming the door behind him, like it was his trademark way of exiting a room.
    Dormaline was once again alone, in the dark, creepy attic…but now she didn’t feel as she had before. From the grief and numb pain from hours ago, her mind now pondered on the confusing antics of Mr. Carter. There had been no pity in his voice; he had said the last thing to her with obvious gruffness, like he was ordering around a servant. So why had he even cared to say something about her crying? ‘Such an annoying man…’ she growled in her head as she stepped back into her bed and buried herself under the thick, oversized quilt. What gave him the gall to order her about like that? If he refused to employ her, then he really had no right to be so arrogant and dictatorial to her.
    She began to ponder on her cousin’s odd partner, and didn't realize she had fallen asleep thinking about him until the next morning.