January 1878. It has been just over 3 years since Alice's release from Rutledge Asylum and the barbed chains of a twisted Wonderland. She is now 25 years old, and her life feels… well, more real, more focused, more enlightened now. She remembers a time before when she felt the same way for 12 years – but that feeling turned to nothing but flames, ashes and the constant image of the grey, stone asylum ceiling above her head.
Every morning since her release, for almost a year, the first opening of her eyes triggered a thankfulness that felt like warm syrup in her stomach – instead of the monotonous blur that had taken up the previous 10 years, she awoke to the pink plaster of her Aunt's second bedroom.
"What a beautiful morning," Auntie Liddell would sigh as she entered Alice's room, equipped with a tray holding a large porcelain teapot, a cup and a small plate of Rich Tea Biscuits. Sometimes the teapot had to be replaced with a glass of juice when Alice was feeling twitches of Wonderland-anxiety. Auntie Liddell understood this, though, and she was always on time to greet Alice in the mornings.
She wouldn't just comment on the morning sunshine like so, though – she'd be even sweeter than that. She'd place the tray in front of her niece and tell her that she made the morning all the more beautiful, before planting a quick kiss on her forehead.
Alice didn't mind being treated like a child – she'd lost quite a few years of her pre-adult youth anyway. She tried not to think about how they could have been spent outside a lunatic asylum instead of in one: having a first sleepover to celebrate her 13th birthday (if her parents had let her) – starting menstruation at home (and not in front of psychiatrists) – having a handsome boy around to admire – even having her first kiss?
And the later restraints of wonderland had stopped these normal adolescent experiences happening all the more. By the time she was ordered to go to Wonderland, she was almost 18, and her mind lusted to know what was going on in the real world. She had spent most of her adolescent years in isolation, and then she had to deal with the messed-up non-human creatures of a place that had become almost alien to her. No wonder she so warmly welcomed Auntie Liddell's hospitality after the ordeal she'd been through!
But these months of being cared for like her parents would've continued to began to grate slightly on 22-year-old Alice – in the early summer of 1875, Auntie Liddell began taking Alice out for walks to the town, as she now felt ready to face the outside. Her green eyes widened at the sights in the same way she had reacted to the reversed Wonderland – so many people, all going about their daily business. She'd not seen such a normal sight in so long. The women wore tea gowns, and the men wore frock coats. All Alice's eyes had been used to for a while were the white of Doctor's robes and hearts and clubs splattered with blood. She acknowledged the cobbled grounds beneath her feet, with carriages led by horses rattling upon them. The sound was like a beautiful melody compared to the years of silence at the asylum, and the static atmosphere of evil the Red Queen had blanketed over Wonderland.
It had been a perfect day to come out – not a cloud in the sky, very much a reflection of the Wonderland Alice adored – although she didn't feel like this wonderland was any less significant than the one she visited in her mind. It might've been missing the rolling hills carpeted with emerald grass, patchworked with rainbows of flowers, the evergreen trees, the sparkling waters and the many delightful inhabitants of Alice's Wonderland, but this was real, and that world wasn't. It was the world she'd been born into, and she'd found Wonderland in her childhood at a very young age. It was a child's dream, and with every step she took through the town Alice felt like she was growing out of it. These were people surrounding her, her own species, and they weren't doctors or White Rabbits. This was an experience she'd hardly had before in her life, being exposed to so much human civilization, and she was breathing in every inch of it.
"Why look, Alice, a confectionery shop!" Auntie Liddell suddenly exclaimed, shaking her niece from her bedazzled state. Alice glanced to the left, trying to see what a confectionery shop looked like. She'd completely missed her Aunt's pointing finger to the right.
"Over here, my sweet!"
And the shop did look very sweet indeed. Through the glass windows candies of all varieties glistened invitingly, stacked to the very brims of their jars. Alice couldn't name many of them – liquorice comfits, lemon sours and dolly mixture were the only ones that stood out. She'd never been a huge fan of sweets, as she once told Cheshire Cat – her parents had taught her not to follow in her older sister's steps and develop black, crumbling teeth like she once had.
But still she followed her candy-toothed Aunt into the little shop, and gazed at the shelves lined with many more jars, big and small, filled with thousands of multi-coloured pebbles, cubes, spheres and so on. She wondered what would happen if she were to run around in circles until eventually she'd get dizzy and collapse into the shelves – the jars would spill over and a tide of sugary rainbow would pour over her face, into her mouth, and the stickier pieces would get stuck in her hair and all in the lace of her dress and on the bottom of her shoes and then Mummy would get very cross indeed..
"You looking for some peppermint humbugs, my love?"
The voice had come from the wooden counter just behind Alice. She turned around, and felt a sensation she'd never felt before.
As soon as she caught sight of the person sitting in front of her, they made her feel once again what she'd felt earlier – the mature reality she was meant to be in. How someone her age was meant to act. However, the person standing next to the counter, beaming, the one who'd taken her into the sweetshop, was making her feel like she was 9 years old again. It felt like the earth had literally cracked open between the two people.
The subject who was sitting behind the counter, well, he was the first male she'd ever seen in her life that was anywhere near her age. And why he made her feel so strongly like a 22-year-old, well, she just couldn't put her finger on it.
"Do you want me to help you find them, dear?" Auntie Liddell offered, still beaming.
It was the question that posed the moment of truth. Was Alice still a child, stuck in the age prior to her trauma forever? Or was she a woman now, and she could very much make her own decisions?
"No, thankyou… After all, I think that's this gentleman's job."
"Oh, alright then, sweetheart." Auntie Liddell's smile faded a little, although she still looked pleased for Alice. The crack in the earth between her and the gentleman behind the counter grew much wider as Alice continued to keep eye contact with him.