At first, Alice's time at the company had been great and lord Ascot had been very nice to her even though she hadn't agreed to marry his son Hamish. She wished she could say the same about his wife, lady Ascot, but sadly enough, lady Ascot had all but banned Alice from their mansion. She was only allowed there when she was to attend buisness meetings or to discuss the company and the only times she ever saw Hamish was if they happened to meet in the hallways and if that was the case, they didn't say a word to one another. Not that Alice minded that, she had never cared much for Hamish, he was far too strict and uptight and just... no fun. Just like his mother.
Alice's mother on the other hand was overjoyed at the moment. Alice's older sister Margaret and her husband Lowell had just had their first child, a son called Peter. Alice liked him very much, although she was happy that Margaret and Lowell had their own house so she didn't have to listen to Peters' screaming all nights. Unfortunately, Alice still lived with her mother, not that she didn't love her mother, it was just that she would like to be a bit more independent. But rules are rules, she couldn't get a house of her own unless she married and that was not likely to happen anytime soon, because Alice never liked any of the men who would come to court her. It had been two years now and the line of suiters finally seemed to be shrinking. Finally according to Alice, not to her mother who would get upset just by thinking of Alice's refusal of marriage.
Today, there was no reason for Alice to think about her mother, her nephew, her sister and absolutely not about getting married because today she was out riding through the woods. All by herself, not even a chaperon. Now that felt independent. With no risk of meeting anyone this far out in the forrest, Alice hadn't bothered to put on a corset or her stockings for that matter. She didn't like to wear them and the horse certainly didn't care if she was wearing stockings or not. After a while she came across a pond and she decided to stop to let the horse drink, and as it did she looked around. She couldn't shake the strange feeling of her having been there before. Slowly she slided out of the saddle and down on the ground. In front of her feet she could see a thin path, one that she hadn't noticed before. Out of curiosity, she began to follow it, after all, what ever lied on the other end of it could hardly be worse than a Jabberwocky and she had faced one of those.
The path led on a path of stones across the pond and continued inside a peculiar hole in the ground. Being who she was, Alice couldn't resist but to crawl on all four inside the tunnle, even if that meant getting her dress muddy. As she came further and further in she wondered where it would lead her and then, like someone turning on a light, she remebered exactly where she was. When she realized this, she had her hand in the air, ready to got further and so she quickly put it down so she could back out. Only, there was no ground. 'Oh no...' Alice thought to herself in the moment where her entire body slipped down the hole along with her hand.
She landed roughly on the checkerd floor in the hall with all the doors. With a sigh and some effort she stood up and brushed the worst of the dirt from her dress.
"There better be a key and some Pishalver on that table or I don't know what I'll do."
Alice turned out to be right too. There was a key on the table, along with a small bottle of what she thought was Pishalver, although she couldn't be sure because there was no 'drink me' sign or anything like that. But since there was nothing else to do, Alice picked up the key and drank the liquid just to find that she within a few seconds were of perfect size to go through the door. She was just about to do that, walk through the door, when she remembered that even as she got out there, she would be smaller than everybody else so she'd better take the Upelkuchen cake as well. Alice ran back for the cake lying beneth the tabel and then hurried through the door.
When she came out on the other side, everything seemed the same, but still something had changed. The gate wasn't rusty anymore, all the weed was gone and the flowers seemed to be singing again, just like they did when she was little. With a smile she couldn't help, Alice took a small bite of the Upelkuchen and got right back to normal size before she walked in to Wonderland. She stopped by the flowers and listened for a while before she bent down to them.
"I love your singing ladies."
"Thank you girl, I can't tell you how long it's been since... Well bless my petals! It's Alice!"
All the flowers turned around to look at Alice, but she had already continued her walk and although she could her the upset flowers calling her name and demanding her to return she didn't. There were more people she needed to see.
Absolem wasn't sitting on his mushroom, but she knew why. He had become a butterfly and was no longer a part of Wonderland. So she continued down the road until she came to the tree bearing the signs 'snud' and 'queast'. It was no longer dead, but filled with tiny green leaves and even smaller pink flowers. She really liked it, somehow it felt like home, at least to Alice.