The Looking Glass Wars

Alyss and Hatter enter the Crystal Continuum and come out through a hidden looking glass in the Whispering Woods. From there, they go to the Pool of Tears, where it becomes clear to Alyss that Hatter intends for them to use the Pool to escape Wonderland. She protests that no one who has gone in has ever come back out, but Hatter insists, “But you will. You have to” (71). The Cat catches up with them just as they leap over the cliff into the Pool; he snags the sleeve of Alyss’s birthday dress but fails to capture Hatter and Alyss.

Once in the Pool, Alyss loses her grip on Hatter, and they become separated; she emerges from a puddle in the middle of a street where a parade appears to be taking place. Alyss, disoriented and confused, looks for a sign of Hatter or some other familiar fixture. She sees a carriage carrying an upper-class woman inside and mistakes the woman for Genevieve. Alyss attempts to catch up with the carriage, but eventually she can no longer follow it; she tries to learn about its destination from a pair of guards standing in the street where the carriage turned, but they mock her for not knowing that it’s going to Buckingham Palace, nor even where Buckingham Palace is. Confused, frightened, and frustrated, Alyss tries to use her imagination to sew their mouths shut after they laugh at her, but this causes their pants to split instead, and she finds that she is unable to use her imagination as she did in Wonderland.

Alyss attempts to find the portal to the Pool of Tears again by repeatedly jumping into puddles, becoming increasingly distraught after each failed attempt. A boy dressed in raggedy clothes appears and approaches her. He introduces himself as Quigly Gaffer and offers to take Alyss to get some dry clothes. Alyss accepts after some hesitation; although she is reluctant to abandon her search for Hatter, she acknowledges to herself that, alone in an unfamiliar world as she is, she cannot afford to waste any chance to make allies.

Hatter emerges from the Pool of Tears in Paris, France, in 1859, in the middle of the Champs-Elysees. He still has most of his weapons but is sans his iconic top hat. After realizing that Alyss must have gone through a different portal, Hatter tries to get his bearings and devise a strategy for finding her. He encounters a group of drunk people on the street, who are alarmed by Hatter’s appearance and want to fight him; although Hatter does not wish to fight, he employs all his weapons to protect himself and easily overpowers them. However, their scuffle has drawn the attention of others, and, frightened by Hatter, they fire a gun at him and then wrap him in a thick rug, leaving him unable to defend himself. As the men take the rolled-up Hatter to the Palais de Justice, Hatter worries for Alyss.

Back in Wonderland, The Cat, afraid of water, does not want to follow Hatter and Alyss into the Pool of Tears. Instead, the Cat takes the scrap he tore from Alyss’s dress and returns to the palace, insinuating to Redd that he has completely decimated Hatter and Alyss, with only the scrap as a remnant. Bibwit Harte, trapped in servitude to Redd, resolves to himself that he will appease Redd’s desires in order to gather the intel he needs to one day use her power against her. Redd gathers allies from the suits families, who have immediately tried to ingratiate themselves with her, and offers them the opportunity to have a child from their family chosen as her successor in exchange for a list of names of White Imagination sympathizers. Redd’s coronation takes place at the Heart Crystal, where Redd announces that she will pardon the rest of the Wonderlanders on the condition that they do not aid anyone who associates themselves with White Imagination; otherwise, Redd will have them tortured and executed. Redd crowns herself queen and takes the power of the Heart Crystal for herself.

The survivors of the palace massacre, including Generals Doppel and Gänger, some chessmen, and Dodge Anders, camp out in a secluded clearing in the Everlasting Forest to regroup and organize a formal resistance to Redd’s rule. A grieving and distraught Dodge decides to go back to the palace to bury his father’s body; at the request of Generals Doppel and Gänger, Dodge is accompanied by the white rook. Dodge and the rook return inconspicuously to the palace and find Wondertropolis deserted and looters raiding the palace remnants. Dodge and the rook retrieve Sir Justice’s body and bury it in the palace garden. As the rook speaks kindly of Sir Justice’s virtues, Dodge expresses bitterness at the fact that his father was a virtuous man whose only reward was death.

Quigly and Alyss get to know each other, and Alyss discovers that they have in common witnessing their parents’ murders. However, Quigly is disbelieving of Wonderland, and in order to convince him, Alyss manages to make a flower sing, albeit very weakly. Quigly is impressed by what he thinks is simply a trick of the voice, and he is excited by the idea of using that trick to make some money. Quigly takes Alyss to meet the rest of his orphan gang, which consists of Charlie Turnbull, Andrew MacLean, Otis Oglethorpe, Francine Forge, Esther Wilkes, and Margaret Blemin. Quigly gives Alyss dry clothes, a portion of the gang’s food, and a place to sleep in the alley.

The next day, Quigly puts to action his idea to use Alyss’s trick with the flower, having her perform for crowds on a street corner while he collects donations from the onlookers. This continues for several days, earning them a significant amount of money. However, each exercise of her imagination increasingly strains Alyss until she can no longer do it. This displeases Quigly, as the gang had gotten used to making a lot of money off Alyss’s performance; it is the first time in Alyss’s life that she has had to grapple with the feeling of disappointing others. To make up for it, Alyss comes up with a plan to steal meats from a butcher’s shop the following day; however, during the heist, Alyss is captured by the police, and although Quigly hesitates for a moment, he ultimately runs off, leaving Alyss behind. Alyss concludes that everyone will only abandon and betray her eventually. She is taken to foster care at Charing Cross Foundation and has difficulty accepting that her stay in this world might be more permanent than she expected.

Hatter, still rolled up in the rug, is taken to the Court of First Instance in the Palais de Justice. The magistrate does not believe the group of men when they bring the rug in, and he orders them to unroll it. Once they do, Hatter comes out with weapons ready and catapults himself out the window before anyone can react. Hatter grapples with the unfamiliar sensation of having let someone down, feeling inadequate because he has not been able to keep his promise to Queen Genevieve that he would protect Alyss.

At Charing Cross, Alyss spends her days absorbed in thoughts of Wonderland, disengaged from other children or activities. Alyss is adopted from Charing Cross by the Reverend Liddell, dean of the Christ Church College in Oxford, and she is harshly scolded by Mrs. Liddell when she talks about Wonderland. Her adoptive sisters, Lorina and Edith, also tease her. Alyss begins her schooling alongside her sisters with the governess Miss Prickett; on Alyss’s first day, Miss Prickett writes her name as “Alice” on the board, and when Alyss tries to correct her with the correct spelling, she is mocked by her sisters and Miss Prickett. Miss Prickett forces Alyss to write “Alice Liddell” 100 times on the blackboard, and when Alyss tries to sneak in “Alyss” on the 100th time, Miss Prickett makes her start all over again.

As Alyss endures more bullying from her sisters and other children, she begins to doubt herself and wonder if her experiences only exist in her mind after all. It is at this point that she meets Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematics professor at Christ Church College. He listens to her stories and appears to believe them; Alyss notices him writing down what she says, and she is encouraged when he tells her that he is going to write a book that will be “our book, Alice. Yours and mine” (130). This gives Alyss the hope she needs, and she resolves to hold onto her memories and sense of self as Alyss Heart of Wonderland.