Hatter's Heart - Erin Bedford Page 0,1

this side of the portal. Her other half, Chess, worked the Underground side. How they handled being separated so often was a miracle to me. I couldn't imagine being separated from my Hatter.

I smiled slightly at the thought of my serious but sweet man. He had taken living in the human world in stride. Supporting me and my work while he worked on...well, I wasn't quite sure what my paramour worked on while I was away. Hatter was always home when I arrived, but he had to do something while I was gone, didn't he? I would hate to think he was just sitting there all day bored out of his mind.

Though, compared to the Underground, the human world had many vices to keep one’s interest. One of them being reality television. Hatter and I enjoyed watching those talk shows where the mother doesn’t know who the father of her child is. Even better the hoarder shows, where they have to practically dig the human out of their own garbage.

We tried to get into some of those fantasy movies, but nothing quite settled right with having lived the very worlds they were pretending to be in. A lot of the time Hatter and I would be complaining about how unrealistic their fairies were. Really, fairies had other things to do than to go around helping children to fly.

Ridiculous.

Still, I'd have to ask Hatter when I got home. Before I did that, I had to go check in with Kat.

Walking down the road, I wished for the hundredth time that the modern vehicle wasn't sixty-five percent iron. Not that many humans knew this but Fae were highly allergic to iron. We played off our aversion to cars as wanting the exercise.

However, some days I almost would subject myself to the pain just to not have to walk home. We Fae have been in this world for a good year and still we haven’t found an alternative source of transportation.

To my aching feet's delight, the walk to Kat's home was only a half an hour walk at best. It was much better than it used to be. I groaned as I remembered the hour long walk it took to get to Kat's old house. Thank the reaper, Kat had moved closer to town when her grandmother came back from vacation. Unfortunately, we couldn't move the portal closer to her new home. We still had to traipse out into the woods to go home to visit.

"Alice?" Kat's voice called out as I stalked up the front porch, my heels making a loud thumping sound. "Is that you?"

I grunted.

"Grunt once for yes and twice for no," Kat continued with a smile in her voice.

"I already grunted. If I grunt again that counts as no." I pursed my lips, I waited on the porch for her. I didn't have long to wait.

Kat threw open the front door, juggling two glasses of white wine and a wide grin on her face. "You are always so literal, Al. Can't you take a joke?"

I lifted my eyes to the roof. "Not when I'm in dire need of alcohol." Graciously, Kat handed over my glass of wine and we sat down on the porch swing.

Drinking at least half the glass, I sighed and leaned my head back on the swing.

"Bad day?"

I grunted once.

"Another well-to-do I'm not speciest but blah blah blah?" Kat smirked and sipped from her own glass, her pale blue eyes staring off into the distance.

I snorted, flipping my blonde hair over my shoulder. "Is there any other kind?"

One could almost say we were related, both of us blonde haired and blue eyed. Except any ninny with half a brain could tell my eyes were a darker blue and Kat's hair was more white than blonde. It was still better than that garish red hair she used to have before her Fae heritage came out.

"What were they complaining about this time?" Kat pushed the swing with her foot, curling the other one up and under her. She didn't bother wearing a pant suit or anything close to respectable. Her ripped jeans which she had paid for that way and white V-neck shirt with the words 'If you can read this, back the fuck up' in small black letters.

It still bothered me that she used such crude language as if it were a natural thing. Then again, the twenty-first century was far different than nineteenth century Cheshire, England, my home town and century of birth.

I was just lucky