I only own orphan Alice and the plot, as it is set after Tim Burton's work. Reviews, though unnecessary, are appreciated, as is constructive criticism.
The idea of a reincarnated Alice is borrowed from JessicaDwyer, author of Waking up from Reality: The Curse of the Red Queen, which I suggest reading.
If you've never read my work before, I warning you now that I can be cruel to my characters...
Chapter One
She was running after something. Someone. She couldn't tell what exactly possessed her to do so, but she wasn't going to complain. Even as her asthma burned at her chest and her legs were giving out, she wasn't going to stop. Whatever she was running towards was her salvation, she knew that. A salvation from the monochromatic world in which she was living. The only thing she knew for sure was the overwhelming smell of green tea and cream.
"Alice!" a voice screamed in her ear, making her bolt upright, her head hitting the bunk above her. Groaning, she grabbed her head of black hair and fell sideways onto her bed once again. Opening her brown eyes, she saw none other than the head of the orphanage Miss Havisham. "Get out of bed, you stupid girl! You have chores to do!"
The brunette couldn't glare at the woman, for that would lead to something worse than a slap to the face. She only nodded and started to get out of bed as the woman disappeared. Rubbing her head, Alice looked around her to see that a majority of the others were still asleep, many of them older than her.
A thought suddenly struck her and she jumped up, slamming her head on the top bunk once again. "God damn it!" she hissed and then looked at the suitcase next to her bed. It was packed with all of her things. She knew this day was coming. "Happy birthday, Alice."
Ten minutes later, Alice was walking down the steps from the room occupied by the orphans. She could hear Miss Havisham and a man speaking in deep tones, obviously anxious for the tea she was to be making them. When she entered the kitchen, she saw the plump blonde talking with a lanky man that looked like a rat. His pencil mustache irked Alice and made a chill run down her back.
"Alice, say hello to Lord Duvall. He will be the one adopting you, not that you deserve his treatment," Miss Havisham said in what could be guessed as a sultry tone, but failing terribly. Alice stopped in her tracks at the statement and stared.
"Excuse me, Miss Havisham-"
"Shut your trap, girl, and make our tea!" Lord Duvall admonished, making her jump. Miss Havisham seemed to be cooing over his order.
She'd do this final thing. That was it. She would make them tea, but she would not be going with this man. Not when she was finally old enough to be released on her own. As the water boiled, Alice sang a little song that a she'd heard in a dream once. Quietly, of course.
"Twinkle twinkle little bat… how I wonder where you're at…"
"What was that?" Miss Havisham asked between her kissy faces at the man beside her. Alice glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. The older woman merely shrugged and continued her ministrations.
"Up above the world you fly… like a tea tray in the sky…"
Her song was cut off by two things. One, the tea pot was squealing, indicating the water was hot enough. Two, long fingers were wrapping around her waist. "Hasn't Miss Havisham ever told you that women should remain silent?" a greasy voice asked, stale breath on her neck. Alice tensed immediately and gripped the counter in front of her. "Is it not rude to disregard your teachings in front of company?"
"Unhand me, sir," she ground out, the teapot wailing away beside them. Duvall's fingers released her and she immediately rushed for the pot. She was not going to come within an arms length of him while he was here. With the teapot in hand, she turned to see that the man was rejoining Havisham.
"She's quite the little fireball, I'll give you that," he said, a few fingers smoothing the part in his hair, which matched the greasiness of his voice. Alice cringed at the thought of those same fingers being on her. "I'm just glad that she's still of age for adoption."
Slamming the teapot on the table with force on the brink of breaking it, Alice glared. "I am no longer of age. As of today." The look on the pair's faces was priceless and she wished that she had had one of those cameras everyone had nowadays. But she knew it would take forever for the picture to come out and frankly, she didn't have the time.
Duvall turned his head, his fiendish eyes gliding from Alice to the headmistress. His face was turning more red by the second. "You promised me a girl, Roseabeth. You said I could have this one. That she wasn't going to be turning eighteen for a few years, yet!"
Miss Havisham was at a loss for words. Her mouth kept opening and closing like a guppy, her lips flapping around in an attempt to form her thoughts into sentences. "I-I-"
Alice smirked. The woman would get what she deserved and thankfully, she had had enough sense to bring her suitcase down with her. She was inching towards the doorway when Duvall turned to look at her. The look on his face made the blood from her face drain in seconds.
"Where do you think you are going? I already paid for you. I have rights to you, girl," he said, his voice thick with anger. She didn't think for another second before she ran out of the room and towards the front door.
Hands grabbed her for a moment, but when she found her suitcase, she swung it behind her, catching the side of Duvall's face. She didn't have time to celebrate the hit, however, and ran towards the back door, the front being blocked by Miss Havisham in her moment of heroics.
"Don't just stand there, you fools! Grab her!" a booming voice yelled and Alice took that moment to realize that she was running past many of the other orphans. The elder ones, ones that didn't have a place to go other than to help watch over the younger ones, followed her to the backyard, but she was faster. In a moment, she had jumped the iron wrought fence to the Havisham yard and made for the treeline.
'I'm not going to be caught by them. I'll die fighting if it comes to it,' she thought as her feet began to run faster, the yelling voices fading into the distance. She was glad that she used her outside time to exercise, else she wouldn't have made it as far as she did. She wasn't a toothpick, a trait so many women she'd seen seemed to possess. She had curves and muscle, born of genetics, running and a love for food. At this moment, she wasn't even ashamed of it.
Entering the trees, Alice stopped to look for her pursuers. She didn't see anyone following her, but a few figures were looming in the Havisham yard. She watched the sun glint off the pond for a second longer before moving once again.
The forest was silent, not a bird to be heard, nor the wind rustling the reddening leaves above her. If her heartbeat wasn't drowning out even her breathing, which had turned into wheezing from her asthma, she would have noticed. As it was, she didn't hear the cracking of branches behind her, either.
A hand covered her mouth and that greasy voice was against her again. "Now, now, little Alice. No need to run from me. I promise to take you home and make you a happy bride."
'B-bride?' she screamed in the back of her mind, her arms being forced behind her as a foot swept against her feet, bring her to her knees. She whimpered, knowing exactly what was next, as had happened many times before for punishment.
The hand holding her mouth moved away, only to be replaced by a sour tasting cloth going past her lips. Alice tried to scream, but it wouldn't let her, as Duvall pulled the skirts of her dress up and over her waist. Tears were rolling down her cheeks as the cool October air chilled the area between her thighs. She knew then that she was exposed to this seedy little lump of a man and he was going to use her, just as many of Havisham's male acquaintances had.
"You are in for a treat, my dear," he said to her, attempting to have some sort of gentile bedside manner. Alice pulled her wrists, but the hand holding them clenched like a vice, sure to create bruises later on. "If you fight it, it will only be worse."
A swift pain in her abdomen made Alice scream into the cloth at her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut, though it didn't keep the tears at bay. She heard a groan above her, but ignored it, trying to bury her face into the sticks and leaves littering the ground. The pain ebbed for a moment before the man thrust into her again, stabbing right into her very soul. She was seeing stars, and not the kind she had dreamed of seeing. These were stars that bled behind her eyelids and smiled cruelly at her, each one of them with a pencil mustache.
Duvall was picking up his pace and no matter how hard the girl beneath him struggled, he was always pushing her down harder. "Struggle more, girl… I like it…," he panted, but that only made Alice become limp. He groaned in annoyance, but continued.
Alice's voice came back to her when she felt his orgasm. Her sobs were loud as he let go of her and fixed himself. A trembling hand took the cloth from her mouth, which she realized was stained with a yellowish substance and slightly crusted over.
"Now, my dear," Duvall began, a slight pant in his voice. "You can either lie here and be lost in the wood, or you can come with me. I'm sure you'll make the correct choice." Alice could hear a smile in his voice, but she merely cried, her tears falling to the forest floor. "Well?"
"I… I'd rather die…," she whispered.
"Well, then I shall oblige," Duvall said and the glint of metal flashed beyond the tears in her eyes. She could feel the knife falling to her body, but she found herself welcoming it. She was very much aware that she'd rather die than allow this man to take her whenever he wished. Some things were not worth living for.
Things were quiet for a moment or two and Alice was sure the knife should have already been buried into her back. She turned her head a little and opened her eyes to see Duvall face to face with someone else.
"Ye will naught be touching 'er," a low, dark voice said, coming from the stranger above her. Looking, she realized that the newcomer had a foot on either side of her waist, towering next to Duvall and holding his wrist tightly.
"Who do you think you are? I am a Lord!" Duvall said, the greasy tone back in what Alice believed he thought was a sure voice. "Unhand me."
"Ye be no Lord. Ye have no pride nor power here. Ye shall pay for the crimes ye have done," the stranger said. Alice looked him over and saw that he wore brown trousers over dusty brown boots. Over his arms and back, he wore a deep maroon coat. And balancing precariously on a head of shocking, carrot orange hair was a top hat adorned with a salmon coloured sash. Alice looked at his back and made to move out from under him, but he only laughed. "Stay where ye be, lass. I can naught promise that his end will be clean."
She found her voice then, though her body fell limp to the stranger's command. "L-leave him… Please… He doesn't deserve your time," she said, her voice breaking more than once as she remembered the pain inside of her. She had to choke back sobs.
The men were quiet for a moment before she saw the stranger fling Lord Duvall away from him from behind her tears. Duvall fell to the ground, but the stranger never moved. "Ye be a lucky man. Ye be owin' yer life to this lass. I think she be mad to allow you to live, but I do not deny a woman, whatever her decision may be. Now run. Run before I find ye again." As if to bring his point home, the stranger brandished a long sword, seemingly out of nowhere. Alice gasped at the sight, but didn't linger, as Duvall was running out of the trees and down the hill in seconds.
The man above her stabbed his sword into the ground, causing Alice to whimper like a child. If this man had run Duvall off only to get a piece of her for himself, she'd gladly run herself through with that sword. She cowered when he began to move, but gasped when cold fingers ran over the backs of her legs. Tears began to well up again, though they were stopped by the feeling of her dress being pulled over her. He wasn't going to rape her as Duvall did.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," the man whispered, his voice still dark and as Alice had time to think about it, it sounded Scottish. "If I had known he was a man of little pride, I would have run him through to save ye from such a fate. Why did ye save him?"
Alice didn't answer, too busy trying to get up. Her arms were beneath her, pushing up with her elbows in an attempt to rise. She was shaking, and just as she was about to allow herself to fall, the cold fingers were around her arms, pulling her to her feet. The rush from getting up made her dizzy and to make matters worse, she could feel a liquid running down her legs.
She collapsed then, but her knees never made it to the ground. "I got ye… I got ye," the man whispered. She buried her face into his coat and sobbed, just as his arm was curling under her knees to hold her. "Sh… I have you, miss."
The change of voice made Alice gasp slightly, but her face was still buried into the man's chest. She was slightly aware that they were moving but her tears were starting to disappear as she breathed in the smell of green tea with cream.
"What is your name, miss?" he asked, a lisp over taking some of his words.
When she looked up, she saw bright, neon green eyes watching her and a pink smile. She was dazed. He was beautiful. "Um… Alice," she whispered.
The man stopped walking.