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Dreams to Dream

Alice.

She stared at the reflection of herself in the full length mirror. As she gazed into the mirror, she idly – instinctively – thought her four-day-old sixteen-year-old self pretty enough, but she was no super model or fairytale princess. She noted that her freshly washed blonde hair had a shine to it, but it didn't shine like the sun, the way she thought it did once upon a time. Her eyes, pale blue, were nothing in comparison to the summer sky on a cloudless day. And though she was slim and her body was developing well, she could never be a Lady Godiva.

She was growing up. She was too old to play pretend and believe in make-believe now. Yet, here she stood with her heart pounding, staring passed her reflection as her name on his voice wafted through her mind still, the echo only growing louder until she was sure her Prince Charming was hidden in her shadow, whispering in her ear.

Alice.

She loved the way he said her name, but at the same time she loathed it. The quiet voice floating between fantasy and reality, chanting her name over and over again, made her think back to the day her curiosity once again got the better of her a little more than a year ago. Back to the moment her hand passed through the cool glass until she was touching a warm spring breeze. Until she was pulled from her world into a Kingdom she later learned was the fourth of ten. She had been met by the King later that day, after wandering dazedly onto the royal grounds.

"You're not from around here, are you?" The King asked.

"I could be," she replied, a coy and dreamy smile on her lips. This place was no Wonderland and there were no grins without cats and no mad men, but she could be from this place if she wanted, if she dreamed.

"Could be," he repeated under his breath, regarding her with familiar gaze Alice was certain he didn't give many strangers. Perhaps ones stranger than her. He then cleared his throat. "But you're not. Where are you from?"

Alice looked to the ceiling of his throne room and locked her hands behind her back. "Somewhere out there."

For some reason, he was smiling at her, and there was a hint of fascination in his stare. "Tell me your name?"

"It's Alice," she said and curtsied. "And you are?" she asked as she stood up straight once more, head canted to the side like a curious dog – an action the king was sadly familiar with.

"Alice," he repeated quietly, "Alice."

She smiled at him. "I know who I am, but I asked who you are. Unless, of course, you think you are me."

His smile grew and he chuckled. "Wendell. My name is Wendell, dear Alice."

And that was how it started. How she found herself going back and forth from one world to another to be with this bored King because she loved to dream and he longed for something more.

And over time, that was how she fell in love with a man too good to be true.

Alice.

The glass rippled this time and she clenched her fist tight until her painted pink nails dug into her palm. He was getting to her, making himself known in her mirror using his own magical looking-glass. But she didn't want to see him, not now, not ever again, because to love Snow White's grandson was insane.

She wanted to take her fist and pound it against the glass before it liquefied completely and shatter the world behind it. The dream had to stop at some point, she had to wake up sooner or later, and she thought now was as a good time as any. And it would have been so easy to break the mirror and end it all.

But she didn't really want to watch the best dream she had ever dreamed fall apart. She would only end up cutting herself on the razor sharp shards as she tried to pick up the pieces and put their impossible love story back together.

Like any dreamer though, Alice lived for romance and tragedy.

So, instead of slamming her fist into the mirror and breaking his heart, she reached out and let her hand pass through the looking-glass, breaking her own.

"It is so good to see you," Wendell said as he eased her into his arms, hugging her small body to his bigger one gently.

"Is it?" Alice questioned, her head nestled under his chin, her hand clutching his jacket. "I don't know if it's good to see you."

She heard his heart skip a beat. "And why do you say that?"

"I don't know if I'm dreaming or not anymore. And if I am, isn't it about time I woke up?"

"You don't have to wake up," Wendell said and she almost cut into his sentence to tell him she was not the fair Briar Rose, but what he said struck her speechless instead. "Because you aren't dreaming, my dear Alice. I am as real as you are."

And the pounding of his heart in her ear should have been assuring, but it wasn't. "And if I'm not real?"

Wendell chuckled and ran a gloved hand through her golden locks. "You spout such nonsense sometimes. Of course you're real."

Of course she was.

Of course he was.

But it all felt so surreal, the way Wonderland had.

But, she reminded herself as she closed her eyes and gave all of her attention to his heartbeat, the Fourth Kingdom wasn't Wonderland.

This wasn't a dream she was meant to wake up from.

-End