Disclaimer: I do NOT own Alice in Wonderland or the characters in it, though if I could I would.
It was a curious thing, the way dreams worked. Someone, she didn't remember who, had told her that dreams reflected reality in certain ways. Omens for things that would happen, and explanations for things that had already happened. The reason she found them so interesting at that particular moment was because of the dream that came to her every night, the same one. It wasn't of murder or of death, not that she could tell. It was of her doing something that seemed so very familiar, but at the same time she had no recollection of doing it at all. That didn't mean much, for her memories of childhood were so sketchy that what she did get from them meant little to her.
"Alice!" Her Mother's voice called, interrupting her thoughts. "Time for tea." The phrase made her jerk. Tea time… there was something about those words that pulled at her subconscious, a malicious tug, one that made her head ache.
"Coming Mother." She yelled down the stairs as she slowly stood, brushing the wrinkles from her skirt and her hair from her eyes. Blond hair sat atop her head, and blue eyes portrayed her feelings to the world, and her feelings right now where easy to read. Alice Pleasance Liddell was not in the mood for tea, or the presence of her mother. It was much like suffocating, the smothering attitude her mother bestowed upon the young girl. Before she began to move towards the stairs the girl let her gaze drift to the window built into the wall of the room. Light slowly filtered through the grime that had accumulated on the outside surface. So much grime that the good things had to slowly seep their way through. No one would clean that window, because it was the hardest to reach, hardest to get to. Alice wished greatly that someone would take the effort to reach up and clean the window. Erase the grime that covered it, make it shine like new. When she realized that she was comparing the window to herself Alice sighed, and turned just as her mother's voice called, "Alice hurry!" In all of her nineteen years Alice had never hated the window more.
"Mother, I am coming." She replied, knowing her mother would scold her for speaking to her that way. Sometimes though, she just got so frustrated. So angry at herself for the way she let her mother treat her, for letting herself be treated as such. It didn't matter that she had thoughts of a life besides marrying. Oh, but her mother thought she knew what was best for her child. A child she really didn't even understand.
The sound of her heels hitting the wood of the stairs grated her fragile nerves. Alice hoped she would be able to make it through tea, then she could escape to her room. Her room, in which she dreamed, wondered and cried, was the only place she was ever allowed to be herself.
When she made it into the parlor it wasn't set for tea, which made her wonder at why her mother had called her down if they were not to have tea. "Mother?" She called moving out of the room, and into the kitchen.
"They set tea in the garden miss." She put her hand to her heart, gasping at the start the servant had given
her.
"Thank you." She said breathlessly as she walked from the kitchen. The garden, her second favorite place next to her room, was beautiful. Flowers bloomed, the grass grew quickly, and the air was clear, or it usually was. Though, when she knew her mother and whoever she and invited to tea today had invaded her scared place, the air felt heavy. Heavy with her own despair.
"Oh, there you are Alice." Her mother said with a hint of disdain.
"Yes, sorry I did not know we were to have tea on the garden today." She said and took her seat next to her mother's. These people she did not recognize, the ones seated around her. An older couple looked at her with contempt, and the boy, around her age maybe, looked at her like she was a property to be bought. Oh, no, she thought, Mother has found yet another suitor to parade me in front of. Panic surged through her at the thought.
"Alice, this is Charles and Maria Droughs, and their son Marion." Droughs? What kind of name was that? Marion Droughs? Alice mentally shuddered while in reality she smiled pleasantly.
"Hello." She said politely, placing a napkin in her hand as she prepared her tea. Half a cup with sugar.
"Alice, Marion is in the reporting business." Her mother had begun her pitch. "He's a police reporter."
"Oh, how exciting." She said following along as her mother wanted. As she did so she slipped, letting her thoughts wander to her dreams, again trying to figure them out. Her mother's prattle was second right now, like the sound of a bee buzzing unwanted in one's ear. Maybe her dreams wanted her to remember, well not her dreams but her subconscious. Remember what? Her childhood? How she wished she could, it was a blight on her life, the fact that she could not remember. Maybe she had been happier when she was a child. When she hadn't had the need to worry over what to wear and who she had to impress. No need to worry over suitors with horrid last names and awkward stares. Alice might have only had to think of where she was going to play, who she would play with…
"Alice!" She her mother's angry voice pulled her from her thoughts. "Alice have been listening to me?" Her eyes snapped up from where they had drifted into her lap.
"Oh, sorry mother, I imagining the life of a police reporter." She spun the lie easily, having grown accustomed to lying to save herself from her mother's wrath and her own embarrassment.
"Well, that's all well and good but Marion asked you if you would like to walk with him in the garden while the adults chatted." Stay under the disapproving eyes of her mother or walk around the garden with a the boy that stared at her oddly.
"Of course I would like to." Alice answered knowing that she could escape, sort of, and appease her mother at the same time.
"Wonderful." This was the first time she had heard him speak, and she flinched slightly at his words. His voice was deep, reminding her of a voice she'd heard before. An image teased her from the back of her mind. "Shall we?" He was beside her seat now, arm outstretched to take her own.
"Of course." She repeated and let him take her arm in his as she stood.
She began to notice things about him, the dirt brown hair that grew from his scalp, and the dirt brown eyes that matched it. Alice wasn't calling him ugly, she just noticed that his eyes and hair looked a lot like dirt. She mentally giggled as he led her slowly through the garden. As much as the garden was her sanctuary there was a part of it she strayed from, Alice had no idea why this was, but she did. She cringed away from it like a little scared child. Thankfully he was nowhere near that part of the garden, in fact he was leading her away from the garden entirely. "May I ask where you are taking me?" Alice asked in a whisper as they walked.
He jerked as if shocked and then said, "Oh sorry, I wasn't thinking." She decided then that she didn't entirely hate him, because she didn't know him and two he seemed much different from his stony eyed parents. That did not mean she liked him. No, not at all.
"That's fine…" Alice replied and asked him what he was thinking of if he wasn't thinking of walking. They talked uselessly, which would have made her mother furious to know. She didn't flirt with him, nor did she put him off. She wasn't going to encourage him in anyway. After awhile of meaningless talk Alice said, "My, it's getting late, shouldn't we be heading back?"
"You're right." He said and frowned at the sky as if he hated it for getting dark. She loved it for just that reason, not that she overly wished to be home, but because she wanted out of his company. He could prattle better than her mother, and Alice knew her mother could prattle endlessly. He led her back slowly, as if trying to prolong the short walk through the garden. The adults were not in the garden when they returned, so they entered the house just as his parents were leaving.
"Oh., dear Marion you scared the sense right out of me." His mother said and he smiled, not replying to that statement. His father chuckled and took his wife's hand.
"Well we must be going." He boomed, his voice was rather loud. They made their goodbyes, which Alice and her mother returned. Alice did not watch them leave, instead she made her way up the stairs to her room.
"Alice, are you not going to wash and come to dinner?" Her mother yelled up to her. "Your father is coming home early tonight." Alice clenched her eyes shut and her teeth together.
"No mother, I'm positively exhausted from today's exploits, I should think just to take a change and go right to sleep." Her mother's reply was slow in coming.
"All right Alice." Her mother sounded exasperated at the girls sudden retreat, though it was a wonder because she did it every day. She wished instead of escaping to her room she could escape from the house, leave forever and never look back at the life she hated. Alice's eyes flashed to the window, the grime taunting her as a simile for her pitiful life. She moved closer, peering past the grime to the garden beneath her. That part of the garden that called to her and scared her at the same time. That… that would be a good place to start changing herself.
It would be good if she confronted her mindless fear of the place. There was nothing even there. Her father had boarded that section up years ago. It was one thing she could remember. Weeds grew through the boards , making holes she could step through. She knew these things because that was as close as she could get to the place, the wall.
She needed over it, all of a sudden she needed it more than she needed to breath. Alice looked to her clothing. Yes, she would change, but going to bed was something she wouldn't do.
----
Alice looked at herself, her eyes alight with the sense of danger. Her hair was tied back with a black ribbon, blonde strands falling easily from the loose bow. She had changed from her dress to pants, a blouse and her old, black riding boots.
She nodded stoically to her reflection and quietly started down the stairs, careful to remember where they creaked. It was a long and painfully dull process, and by the time she reached the bottom she wondered if her adventure was really an adventure rather than a chore. When she reached the door she smiled, knowing she would have to open it ever so slowly as to avoid creaking and the waking of her sleeping parents. Maybe after she passed the door her adventure would become exciting.
Again, the process of doing what she was without making anything creak or moan was boring, it grated on her fragile nerves. Finally, the door clicked into place and she was free. Alice was tempted to just run, run away and never look back like she had dreamed of doing for so long…
Across the garden she ran, not caring in the least about being seen. The servants were asleep, as were her parents, so there was no one to see her. Alice felt free, felt like all the strings connecting her to the wretched life she had were cut. She ran, as fast as her legs would take her, wanting to never stop, but she did when she reached the wooden wall meant to keep her out.
That's what it had been for, to keep her out of that part of the garden, but why?
She questioned this as she looked for a place to put her hands, a place to put her feet as she climbed up the wall. Thorns scratched her without mercy, causing rivets of blood to appear on her pale flesh. Alice ignored the stinging pain that attacked her senses as she climbed up. Up and up. The wall was higher than she imagined, or maybe it just seemed that way because she was comparing it to her escape.
Once she was beyond the wall… she really was free, there was nothing holding her to that place. Not her mother, not her father or sister, and certainly not Marion Droughs.
It was beautifully overgrown. Grass that hadn't been tended to in years, plants that grew wildly. The small pond drew her and she moved to look into it's depths. She was surprised by the image staring back at her. Her hair was a mess from running and the climb up the wall, he clothes and skin were ravaged by thorns, her shirt almost unbearable and her skin red and angry. Her eyes… her eyes were wild looking. Maybe from the thrill of the escape, or because she had really finally snapped and lost her sanity completely.
Alice moved away from the pond, afraid for a moment of her own expression, the wildness in her eyes that she did not recognize. Then it began to intrigue her, the sudden change in her character.
It was an exciting thing, exploring the hidden part of the garden. It was all so natural so free and unhindered. Unlike herself, of her old self. Even if she went back she would not be the same, and her mother would tire of her easily, pawning her off on the first man to offer for her. Whether that be a handsome rich man or an ugly one, she wouldn't care. I will not go back, she thought adamantly, I will not live there anymore. I will not live like a doll anymore, one who can played with by anyone.
As Alice thought these thoughts she came across a hole in the ground. A hole that looked as if it was made for a rabbit, but it called to her like it was meant for her. Made for her to find, to crawl in. It pulled on her, firmly, and she sat down, dangling her feet inside of it as she tested it's depth. What did it conceal? What lived in the hole she hung her feet in.
Was it a rabbit? Or something different. This seemed so familiar, this sense of… something more, something different beneath her feet. Alice laid next to the hole, her legs still hanging inside of it, and she let her thoughts carry her to sleep.
Alice woke with the rising of the sun, when the moon still harbored itself in the sky as if reluctant to leave, and she yawned away her fatigue. The sky was still quiet dark and she smiled faintly. She sat up quickly, realizing where she was and what she had done. Alice laughed, as loud as she possibly could. She jumped up and danced around the rabbit hole she slept beside. "I did it." She said to herself and then jumped into the hole. Alice expected to meet the ground, as unforgiving as it was she would have preferred it to the chilling sense of falling that she instead felt. Everything around he flashed by too fast for her to make out exactly what it was, though she decided even she had seen it she would have had a hard time believing it.
What exactly was happening? Where did this seemingly simple hole lead? Why had she thought her life could get better?
Why?
These questions raced through her head as she fell, as the ribbon fell from her hair but stayed right beside her. Cautiously she reached out, grasping the soft material in her shaking hands. "Oh!" She yelped as her hair whipped around her head. It hit her so hard she swore it added cuts to her already ravaged face. It stung, and her eyes watered as she clenched them shut. She willed it to be over, and then everything went black, but even as the world disappeared a thought hit her. This was just the beginning and when she stopped falling Alice was going to have to deal with whatever was around her. Whatever evil she had fallen into, or whatever world she had entered.
AN: I like this, I hope you do too. Please review so I know. I would love that! I'll be updating very soon!