It is a burden and a blessing all at once to have a heart.
A heart may grow strong and fierce.
It can wither and rot.
But no matter how far the separation it is always felt.
Always.
Even I have a heart, though you may not suspect it.
Things bring me joy just as they bring you joy
-though I am far less inclined to spew my secrets to strangers with soft smiles and listening ears.
You could change those around and still understand what I say. Listening smiles and soft ears. Ears are a divine trait to have. Not everyone has them you'll find. But I do. I am the best listener of them all. I hear your pleas at night to spare your dying pets and your loved ones. I hear you beg for more time, but Time is cruel. He is always advancing. Always moving.
Coming for your corpse.
But Fate is the worst of us three. She is clever, always leaving little loopholes nobody ever finds.
I, on the other hand, come for your soul. You are all playing in the playground of my palm, ignoring Time and blaming me when you don't get your way. That's not quite true. Time and I work together. We are the best of friends, even if we don't always agree. We never see Fate. We avoid her.
Sorry. I've told you a lie, we've been friends for barely five minutes and something has slipped my mind. Travel. Travelling has become a passion of mine. Its an art. A passtime. Though I've been cursed with an eternal duty to never pause and enjoy a macaron. I cannot marvel at the wonders of your world and the Wonderlands you can't see. The stories of places and landmarks don't hold much value to me.
The stories of the people I carry hold value to me. It is your stories that make ghastly collections well worth it.
There was once a man who taught me to appreciate colors.
It took some time, perfecting an eye for color as I don't quite have eyes like you or your friends. My eye for color came through years of practice. The color you surround yourself with influences your fate.
Please do not tell Time.
Do not tell Fate.
Fate will put me aside to rot in boredom for eternity.
He'd be very upset to find that out.
Upset enough that he would have my head. Not unlike a certain queen with an affinity for crimson liquid.
It's a shame to know that I have a heart and so many of you mortals would gladly give it up because it hurts too much. To hurt is to feel. To feel is to be alive. To be alive is to be-
To be alive is to be-
It's to be-
Words are not my strength. I am alone in what I do. Always listening, never speaking. I suppose one day when I've learned more about myself I shall finish that statement. You must promise me you'll be there, I do not take a shine to people like you often. I do not like to speak, but yet, here I am. Thank you, thank you for listening to me. I can't take more of your time. More of your seconds and minutes and hours, weeks, months, years. That is not my duty.
My duty is to listen-
You must swear to never tell Time of my meddlings. Swear you will never tell Fate. Swear it, do it. Do it right now.
Have you sworn? Sworn through your little glowing screen? Do not betray my trust. I am not the kind of being you wish to have on your tail. Especially now that I've told you how I love to listen. That I've got my own heart, that there are worlds you can't see, and how much I appreciate colors. Peek over your shoulder, or at the top of your little glowing screen. Time is watching you now for a split moment, but he will leave soon. He doesn't care much for lives and souls and stories.
Time is cruel. Blame him for the things I have done if you will, but promise me as you've swore to never tell Time of us. Promise me that no matter how much it hurts, no matter how numb it feels, you'll keep your heart beating. I don't know what you like. Perhaps you can tell me.
Not directly of course, there are only a select few who have escaped my clutches while I was conveniently not looking. Do not risk seeing my face. Most people only ever see me once.
I've agreed to tell you of one such person I see very often.
Black and yellow and red and white and orange and hate.
She always wears red. A melting black heart is always painted below her left eye like a false teardrop. But I know the truth. I've seen her enough to know that those eyes will never shed another tear. Stop it. Stop asking me for more. I will tell you as things come.
You humans always seem to haunt me in one way or another.
It was Time's fault for Wonderland's slow spiral into complete chaos. But he blames me. Everyone blames me. Nobody ever thinks to ask me for favors. They think me cruel and heartless. But that is not so. I lingered that very first day because I thought she would ask me a favor. I love favors, but only if you ask, and only if the soul isn't ripe. You blame me when you ask for miracles for ripe souls.
Fate had already seen it happening, she never told us. She's always thirsting for emotion.
That's one thing Time and I agree on every so often. Some people aren't ripe. They deserve more moment. Do not come seeking my face asking for favors.
I lingered on that first day those words rang through the castle. But nobody thought to ask me anything. I do not blame them.
After that day, the heads began to roll quite literally. Fish footmen bowed before a Raven for the last time simply because they had to taste a legendary tart. They babbled to me about how terrified they were, but now they were at peace.
How strange it was to go about taking lives because I'd been told to.
Even after her many losses, the Queen of Hearts poured over how to get back what had been stolen. I was there the day all executions stopped for a week on her decree.
Which was good because she was running out of people and pet servants.
Not that they died, the King simply had them relocated.
He'd grown weary of bloodshed six months into Catherine's reign. But she never realized it, though, as she often shut herself up in her room full with regret.
"I must have it all back," seethed the Queen. She'd taken to speaking out loud when she poured over ancient books that came from rabbit holes, much to my appreciation.
Her room of books and scrolls was familiar to me. I pushed my precious minutes and watched her on that day when she sat in her study long into the night. Catherine lit her own fire and dismissed those who tried to enter to help. The book she craved was one very familiar to me. I'd seen it often while I was busy at a town in a world Catherine never knew about. Many people died because of that book. 20 in all. Countless others history chose to forget.
Catherine had found a book dedicated to me. Each page was dressed in strings of letters curling off of their stems and off into each other. It lay face up to the ceiling, secrets out in the open. Papers spilled over Catherine's elegant desk given to her from her husband. All she needed to do was ask and she'd receive anything from parcels to ponies to palaces.
But she never hid her complaints about how it wasn't enough for her. The one thing everyone knew she wanted was attainable by only one thing. A bargain with the few of us still powerful to manipulate each other. Catherine should have thought to come to me. I was there that night when her heart began to shrivel to an ashen root.
The joker is much more intelligent than we give him credit for. The answer to her pain had been staring Catherine full in the face for an entire year. Though she had no idea about it.
She drew a creamy white paper near to her, eyes still on the book. A ruby studded pen itched its way across the paper. Upon further inspection, Catherine's regal handwriting was carving out a plan. A plan to meet me.
It would have been so much easier if she'd just turned around and used her eyes. I never stray far from her court. I never stray far from her.
You've sworn to me never to tell Time what I've done. Do not hate me for the magic in Wonderland that makes the impossible doable. It's not your fault your world crushed its magic eons ago. I do hope you are prepared for a tale.
It's been so long since anybody has listened to a story of mine.
People aren't nearly as fond of Death as they are of other things.
Catherine's book waited for her back on her desk amidst towers of papers. Life was quietly minding its own business in the hallways. The Queen of Hearts paused her reign of terror first for a day. Then a week. Then a month. The streets had never been quieter. The citizens of Hearts were afraid. On the edge of their seats. Waiting for the next unfortunate soul to tip the Queen back into her state of insane lust for revenge.
In the meantime, Catherine kept to herself. She usually did. The dull courtiers were nothing compared to a witty joker. They still spoke of him. But they never called him by name. Anyone caught with the name on their tongues risked Catherine's fearful temper. It wasn't a felony to speak one's name. It was simply dangerous. To fall from Catherine's grace was to step up to the chopping block.
Words were dangerous in Hearts.
But rumors couldn't stop themselves. They caught like wildfire and spread like a silent disease. Twisting themselves. Flattering themselves. Scaring themselves. Word on the street was that the Queen of Hearts had run out of room to display the heads of her victims. That- and I can attest to this- wasn't quite true.
There was an entirely different plan twirling its way through Catherine's head. She was clever. Cleverness has come to her as each day passed in the court. But cleverness was in short stock.
Which was why Catherine couldn't tell anybody of her plans and risk being caught.
The Looking Glass has separated Hearts from Chess for eons and eons. The White and Black Queens minded their own business, Catherine kept her wrath trapped within Hearts. She would, and everyone knew, be held accountable for every citizen killed one day (though you, me, and the king all know most of her victims lived in comfortable exile). The Looking Glass kept the Queendoms hidden from each other, but rumors had a way of spreading themselves.
Rumors of war.
A war unlike any other. A war between three queens and their people.
Catherine kept her mouth shut whenever somebody drifted too close to the subject. And yet her eyes on the other hand were expressively awaiting more rumors. They never truly came.
23 days into the execution-less month brought a quiet tea party Catherine threw for herself. The courtiers were there in their strange finery. Each one sported a red heart and some kind of oddity.
The Queen's Garden never stepped out of line. The blood red rose trees stood awaiting their duties. Not a single blade of grass grew out of time. Hedges stood completely still to the slight whispering of the breeze.
"Oh it's a lovely day, isn't it? My skin is warm," wheezed a courtier. Volta. She had two eyes. One was fogged over like a misty lake.
Catherine frowned, "I think it's dreadful."
"Have you tried a cake, dear Queen?" Asked a second courtier, Santhias. Santhias was the only one who might have known about the war rumors.
"I hate cake," Catherine wrinkled her nose. Anyone could argue that she was acting out of character. Everyone knew the queen loved her cakes. "I hate cake. I hate the sun. I hate this."
The courtiers shifted nervously. The White Rabbit was nowhere in sight.
"Then shall we talk of other things?" Pipped Volta, who'd found a beetle in the grass.
Crunch.
Little beetle legs stuck out from Volta's lips.
Santhias frowned, "If the Queen allows it."
"It better be good... Or perhaps we shall mar this death free streak we've had." Glaring. Catherine had become all too good at glaring. "Starting with you."
"Then I won't say," Volta quipped. Her one good eye searched for another beetle. "I dare not ruin the streak. I prefer to think that Your Majesty tolerates me more than Duchess Warthog."
Volta has a point. Catherine motioned for the one-eyed courtier to continue.
Crunch.
She'd found another beetle.
"Well," Volta began. "I heard that a magic book's been found. A book to grant anyone the ability to hex their wishes. Make them come true."
War was not to be gossiped about. Volta had piqued Catherine's interest, and mine as well. More big legs stuck between Volta's two front teeth. They squirmed as she talked, "And that the only way to do that is through something strange. Strangest of all. I can't speak of it. It's not right. Though, Your Majesty, I do hope I haven't offended you. The magic hex works only in a winding place."
Winding place.
Catherine's wits were being tested. I wondered if she was as clever as she thought she was.
"And where is this book? Where did it come from?" Santhias had a voice of a snake.
A snake with a knack for dark deeds.
"A winding place," Catherine mused. "Intelligent. Dear Volta, you've managed to stay within your law abiding boundaries."
Volta beamed a bug toothed smile, "They say the book came from down a rabbit hole. Nobody knows who got their hands on it."
"And you say it can grant wishes?"
"Aye, I did! Can you imagine the power? The abilities to do whatever you want?"
"Makes me wonder," mused Catherine.
She really was as clever as she thought herself. The smug smile on her lips proved that.
"Makes you wonder what?" Santhias cooed. He trailed a musician's finger up the length of Catherine's arm.
There were plenty of rumors between Santhias and the Queen.
The King did nothing to stop them.
Catherine paused. She paused long enough for Volta to lose interest. For the courtiers to whisper amongst themselves.
Power. Power and control. Catherine grinned, "Makes me wonder what my schedule will be like for the next few days."
"What makes you say that?" Santhias asked, his lips stretching into a snake smile. His skin was too tight across his face.
"I intend to find that a winding place, and grant myself something well deserved."
I didn't see it then, Catherine's witty little plan. I must admit that I thought she would summon me at the Winding Place and ask for a soul back, but that's not how things work. I can't give souls away, and her precious joker belonged to a different world with different rules.
No.
Catherine Pinkerton had a far different plan in mind.
Elsewhere, in a world not unlike your own, Fate struck with her pretty hand. I should warn you, there are no street signs to mark King's Wey. It lies between two dangerous parks filled with dangerous substances. If you pass the butcher's shop, you've gone too far and will have to restart at the beginning of the city.
The city is crawling with lower class folk. Most of whom turned to hard drugs in high school, and then never made the attempt to come clean. Most of these hardened people live in the slums, which are particularly dirty and nasty. Their children play together and fight together. They'll form gangs when they turn a certain age.
But Fate and Time had a different intention for one of these forgotten children.
We won't stay long at King's Wey. There's not much for us to see or do, except meet a little girl. But she's not much of anything either. She's 11, the daughter of a man with good intentions. Small for her age, too. Very small, but that's expected because of her father's preferred habits. Her name was Alice Liddell, with dirty blonde hair that was shoulder length and cut with a pair of kitchen scissors. Her bangs covered her eyes. Alice liked it that way because she hated her brown eyes. I heard her call them boring quite often when she stared in the mirror.
In order to see her, we will have to crouch down to the trash littered ground, and scrape through an opening in the vinyl apron that surrounds the bottom of her family's mobile home. It's very small, we'll have more trouble getting through than Alice did. She can slip through cracks like a weasel. Like all good thieves, Alice understands space. Space can be a friend or an enemy, you must know just how much you need. Alice, being very tiny, feels most comfortable trapped in small places.
Duck your head.
There she is.
Let's begin.
Alice sat with her knees pulled up to her chest. She could hear several men walking around her house. They always returned to the same spot. I would know because I was there in that house. Collecting her father and his girlfriend, murdered by a tweaker they'd crossed when dealing.
Her trinkets sat beneath the mobile home's apron. Brooches and necklace pendants. She'd even managed to steal marigold seeds, they grew in the corner beneath the house beside a tiny patch of sunshine. The spiders left her alone, most spiders will try to leave you alone. Imagine being a tiny bug staring up at a giant foot preparing to squish you. Not all spiders are terrible. Just misunderstood.
Like Alice Liddell and so many others.
The voices grew loud enough for her to hear. The policeman who'd lingered at the scene was talking to Alice's next door neighbor, Mrs. Billingsley, who'd been responsible for Alice for several years. Driving her to school and getting her new clothes. In return, Alice liked to snatch the trinkets Mrs. Billingsley often left out in the open.
"Any idea where the girl might've gone?" Asked the policeman in his high british voice. "She's been missing ever since it happened."
"Oh she'll turn up," Mrs. Billingsley swore. "She likes to hide, poor girl's like a little mouse., always spooked and always running around."
"And what's your relation to her? Are you related to her father, Louis Liddell?"
"I'm just her neighbor, mind you, but that girlfriend of his treated Alice like trash. Like garbage. Only reason why that girl's still going to school is because I had to step in it was getting so bad."
"Do you believe Alice was abused in any way?"
"Absolutely not, Louis loved that girl, and the girlfriend- Joley- might've hated her, but nothing bad ever happened to Alice that I know of."
That was true, Joley never liked Alice. She always turned Alice out of the house, insisted that she needed to play outside even if it was bitterly cold. Alice found friends in her mind, but she'd never admit to it. Imaginary friends were always there at her beck and call. Some of them were animals, some were fairies. All had their own stories down to minute details.
Speaking of details, you should always remember the smallest details when listening to Death. Do you remember me mentioning that the White Rabbit wasn't at Queen Catherine's tea party?
"Did you talk to the girl much?" The policeman's boots could be seen from a crack in the mobile home's floor.
Mrs. Billingsley laughed, "Not exactly, but I left several trinkets for her to take. She'd never ask, prideful little thing. I do hope you find her, she needs a good new home."
A white rabbit dressed in a tiny waistcoat scurried under the apron, breathing fast and hard, as if he'd been running for a very long time. There was a single glimmer of light that caught the chain dangling from his waistcoat pocket. The top of his pocket watch peeked out from its minute hiding place.
Alice froze where she sat. The rabbit tilted his head up, listening to the conversation above him. He hadn't noticed Alice hiding in the shadows.
"We have a social worker already lined up to help," the policeman continued. "We only need to find her."
Alice inched her hand forwards. She'd never pickpocketed anybody before. The watch had to be hers. It had to sit with the rest of her supposedly stolen trinkets. Alice grabbed the watch, the White Rabbit looked at her in shock.
"Why-! I beg your pardon?" The White Rabbit burst, unsure of how to react to a little girl holding his pocket watch.
Panic arose in Alice's eyes. She jerked her hand back, bringing the watch to her, and then forced her way out from underneath the apron. The first thing she did was run for the dying woods beside the carcass of a park beside her home. She could hide there from the angry rabbit and the policeman and everything that happened at her mobile home.
The woods hid many secrets.
"Come back here!" The White Rabbit howled. He struggled to get out from underneath the mobile home. Several buttons on his waistcoat popped off, "That's not yours! That's- thief! There's a thief!"
But nobody could hear a rabbit's pleas. It sounded like bunny noises carrying through the wind. Alice ran through the the rusting park, her grip tightening around the watch. She ran and ran and ran some more. Forgotten toy trucks threatened to trip her. Sand wedged itself in the crevices of her rotting pair of Chuck Taylors. There was no concern pulsing through her bones, no worry about the policeman and Mrs. Billingsley. There was one goal on her mind: escape from the rabbit.
The White Rabbit dashed after Alice the second he'd gathered his senses. He was gaining on her, as he was a bunny after all, nearly nipping at Alice's heels. The woods beckoned to Alice, they called to her. The trees would hide her from what surely had to be a bad dream.
Her bad dream was reality, and it was only about to get worse. Almost to the treeline...
Pine trees enveloped Alice, hiding her within their dark boughs. The White Rabbit skidded to a stop. His little rabbit eyes couldn't pick out Alice's shoes from among the twigs and the mud scattered across the ground. He dropped to all fours and stuck his nose in the air. Eventually, he crept into the woods after Alice.
With a father who didn't bring home the best girlfriends, Alice was always prepared to run away. She leapt over roots to a tiny cranny nobody would ever notice. Stuffed between two entwined trees was a grubby black backpack. Alice had stolen it herself from a swap meet several years prior. All of her most prized possessions sat within the backpack: a pair of fuzzy socks, a bag of gummy bears Alice often kept in stock, a jacket, a miniature chess set she'd taken from a gas station, a copy of the Lorax. She stuffed the watch into her pocket.
"Never liked it here anyways," Alice mumbled as she gripped the backpack and pulled.
The backpack didn't budge.
"Stupid old thing," she grumbled, still trying to yank the backpack from the two trees.
I'd watched her stash the backpack. She'd stuffed it right into a little girl-sized hole beneath those two trees. It wasn't an ordinary hole. No animals lived inside it. There was no coziness to it, only uncertainty. Nobody knew what was down the hole.
And Alice Liddell was one push away from finding out.
"Thief!" Shrieked the White Rabbit who'd finally caught up to Alice.
"Come on!" Alice snapped at the backpack. She stopped pulling and gave the backpack a great shove.
The ground gave way, the backpack slid down into the darkness.
Alice had fallen down the rabbit hole.
And there you have it, an introduction to the most confossible story I can think of. Do leave a review, hope you enjoyed!
Thanks for reading!
-Nacho