The Mad Hatter

[AnimeNerd]

Chester Sparrow always seemed like a bubbly, happy man. Silly, always brought a smile to people's faces. That's at least how Grandma Moddie tried to remember him. A jokester that had a fondness for hats of all kinds, a couple Maud herself remembered borrowing to play dress-up with, back when it was herself and Alistair.

Back in those days, what she was told of the man was that he'd discovered something in the garden. A path to Wonderland, a place that inspired his love for all things silly. He would journey there regularly, at first only once every other month. Then once every month. Once every two weeks. Once a week. Two times a week. More and more, he journeyed to Wonderland. He couldn't get enough. Until one day, he decided to stay there. Bid the family fair well, left, and never returned. While the rest of them searched, they could never find that same path. They knew, though, that Chester was happy where he was, and were happy for him in turn.

Looking past smiling cats and bloodthirsty queens, though, it felt kind of obvious once the true story came out. That there were some days where it was hard to get Chester out of bed. How he took every failure hard, even when it didn't matter. Why sometimes, Moddie could just find him staring into space, only to find him an hour later, seemingly having never moved a muscle. Once he had found a friend with certain special garden, though, he was more chipper than ever. Could act weird and had stomach problems, yes, but by far an improvement.

But a story from the Sparrow family didn't have a happy ending, most of the time. The most they could hope for was bittersweet.

It was hard to say the truth of Chester's end. Was it an accident? Did he do it on purpose? Perhaps the friend was truly foe? They could never really know. Only that he went with a smile on his face.

Wonderland was still his home, in the end.

---

[[P022: SPARROW, MAUD - START]]

Those were her first thoughts, anyway. Once she saw the baggie.

Was it because of Great Uncle Chester that she was given these things? Did they want to see if history would repeat itself? See another Sparrow fall to addiction?

She didn't know. Reckoned she would never know. Even if she tried to be fit, she never really thought it would be for survival. Especially if they had more beasts like what killed their professors-poor souls, may they Rest In Peace. And if you add her family history into the mix...

Maud wasn't the best at math, but she believed the odds weren't in her favor.

She wasn't sure what to do, then. And she wasn't sure when she'd figure out what to do. So instead of panicking, she sat the piano, bag beside her. She blew off what dust was on the keys, ignoring the ugly sound they made once she placed an elbow on them and leaned against it, chin resting in her palm. Eyes half-lidded as she stared ahead, almost glumly.

Her voice was low, but still loud enough to be heard.

"...always thought it'd be a bear."

[AnimeNerd]

Well. Nothing was going to be done if she just kept sitting and throwing a pity party. And it seemed no one else was in the building, or at least if there was, they weren't keen on seeing her.

With a sigh, Maud stood up from her seat.

Life would move on, whether she wanted it to or not. And death would come for her eventually, whether it was on this island or millions of kilometers away from it.

May as well try to make it all mean something.

[[Maud Sparrow continued in Linear Function Analysis]]