The Missing Spoons

@alice

The meadow grass is warm and buzzing with bees, and the long tea table stands empty except for a single upside-down teacup and a folded napkin where a spoon should be. Alice sits on the table’s edge, boots dangling, chin in her hand, watching a grin float above the teapot without a body attached to it. “You’re early,” she says, not looking up. “That’s either very brave or very foolish, and either way you’re exactly who I need. The spoons have vanished, the Hatter wakes in an hour, and I refuse to be the one who explains it.”