Well, this is my first story for Alice In Wonderland, and it all began a few weeks ago during my schools production of Alice In Wonderland (with yours truly playing the infamous Hatter ;)), and I was up far too late as I'm want to do and couldn't get a story out of my head. So I wrote it down, put it out to people and apparently it is fantastic!
This story is my property, but the back story of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass belong to Lewis Carroll.
I'd like to thank Bri-Chan for her web-series When Curiosity Met Insanity for inspiring me with my ideas for The Hatter, also thanks to Adelaide, Kathleen, Hayden, Tania and the rest of the cast of Alice In Wonderland, as well as Lynden, Emily and Courtney for helping me concoct all of this =) I hope you enjoy!

Alice drew back the shutters of her window and squinted in to the morning sunshine that warmed her face. She stretched up on her tip toes and smiled at the light, the cheery songs of the birds wafting through the glass and filling the room with music.
On the bed her cat purred contentedly, its tail swishing and leaving streaks of hair along the white linen sheets.
"Now, now, Mrs. Shire!" Scolded Alice as she picked up the feline and held her to her face. "You know that we aren't to dirty the beds. Run along and behave yourself."
The cat mewed and twisted out of her grip, landing silently on the wooden floor and making for the closed door where it sat.
"And I suppose now that you want me to let you out, too?"
The cat stared at Alice, and then back at the door.
Alice heaved a sigh and drew herself away from the window to open the door for the pampered pet. As she did, she heard her parents voices drift from the floor below her.
Curious, she thought Mother and Father aren't normally up this early. I wonder what could be the matter?
Quietly, she followed Mrs. Shire out of her room and stood on the landing to hear her parents begin to bellow at each other. Alice covered her mouth in shock when she heard her mothers voice raised to her father. Never in her eighteen years had she heard them quarrel so.
Well, at least not since her… disappearance.
She chastised herself for thinking of the incident. Its thoughts always drew back waves of memories and feelings, images of the world she visited. No! Not memories! It never happened!
Straightening her golden hair and patting down her night gown, Alice stepped down the stairs with the cat at her feet to confront her parents.

The living room was immaculate and spotless, the white walls and ceiling gleaming orange in the sunrise. As Alice passed them, her eye was drawn to the chair that her father always smoked his pipe in. Her body stopped of its own accord and her eyes bore in to the chairs upholstery. The colours and patterns – normally static as a statue – began to dance and form at her gaze, shifting and re-arranging themselves. Thoughts and ideas, words and numbers all struggling for a position in her vision. So many vibrant images that she had lost…
"Alice! What in heaven's name are you doing up at this hour!"
She jumped as her father directed his voice at her from the kitchen. Both he and her mother were standing there, framed by the door and staring at her. Her father with a mask of rage and her mother with shock and sorrow.
Alice froze like a rabbit caught in the light, her eyes wide and ashamed at being caught eaves-dropping before she had a mind to introduce herself. "I was… Mrs. Cheshire woke me and wanted to come downstairs, so when I opened the door I heard voices and was wondering the same of you."
Her father continued to glare at her, weighing her words against her as the verdict was considered. "Very well then, child. Go back to your room and prepare for the day, your mother and I have matters do discuss."
Alice bowed and smartly turned to leave, colours still dancing in the corners of her vision.
She waited on the landing, stroking Mrs. Shire as her parents began to converse once more in hushed voices.
"Arthur, she's a lady now. If she doesn't get married soon I fear she never will." Her mothers voice wavered with concern.
"Nonsense Bernadette, she is a prize for any suitor no matter her age. Marionettes College for Ladies will be the perfect place for her." Her father scoffed; always the man of sensibility.
Alice pondered their meaning. Surely they weren't planning on sending her away? But as their conversation drew on, their intentions became clearer.
"Then it's settled." Sighed her father. "I'll fetch the girl and inform her."
Alice bit her lip and dropped Mrs. Shire. She quickly ran up the stairs and to her room, shutting the door behind her and diving back in to her bed.

As her father opened the door, Alice closed her eyes pretended to sleep. Without a word, he stepped towards her and stood over her bed. "Alice… Alice darling, wake up."
She didn't stir and focused on keeping her eyes firmly closed and her breathing even. To add to the act she kicked her leg slightly and gave a little "Humm…" as one would expect a sleeping mouse to produce.
The floorboards groaned under his weight as her father left the room and shut the door.
Immediately Alice sprung out of bed and rushed to her wardrobe. She wouldn't allow her parents to send her off to a school that would teach her to be little more than a puppet. If they are so eager to be rid of me then I shall run away. She pulled out her blue petticoat and white smock and laid them carefully on the bed. Mrs. Shire leapt fluidly on to the bed and stood just to the side of her clothes, eyeing them with curiosity. Alice ignored her and closed the shutter to change.
When she caught her eye in the mirror, she turned and curtsied to herself. "Hello there Alice, how do you do?"
"Very well thank you, and yourself?" Replied her reflection.
Alice giggled. Talking to yourself, the first sign of madness. Although, we're all mad here. At that thought she stood stiff as a board. Those words were familiar, like a nightmare that gnawed at the edge of the mind but never made its self known. A shiver crept down Alice's spine.

The rose bushes stood guard beneath Alice's window, planted four summers ago by her father when to celebrate her safe return home when she was lost in the woods.
Her white bed linen swung down from the window with Alice clinging to it for dear life. It wasn't until she was halfway down that she realized how much of a bad idea this actually was, yet she was too terrified to go back. With her legs swinging wildly and her elbows scraping along the bricks, Alice finally came to the conclusion that she would have to let go.
"Three… two… two and a quarter… two and a half… two and three quarters…"
The linen tore and she fell square in to the garden bed, missing the two largest bushes by inches. Alice sat where she had landed in a daze. She shrieked as something soft brushed past her leg. Her leg kicked out at it and Mrs. Shire hissed at her. "Oh! It was only the cat… Dear me."
Alice stood and brushed herself off, annoyed that she was so early in her adventure but already her nice clothes had been dirtied.
Around her the roses rustled in the breeze and the smaller flowers at their bases seemed to sing as the wind whispered through them. Out of the sea of red, Alice spied a single white rose out of the bunch, its petals drooping and dying. Clucking her tongue, Alice smiled at the poor flower. "Perhaps if you were as ruby as the rest then you wouldn't lose your head…" She mused.

As Alice ventured further from her house she couldn't hide the happiness inside her. The emerald fields of her parents estate stretched from the creek to the south, to the woods in the west. When she was fourteen, she wandered in to the woods and was lost for three days and four nights until she was found sitting underneath a tree and petting the cat which became Mrs. Shire. Alice could remember nothing of while she was gone, yet some nights when the air was still and warm, she was sure she could hear mad laughter ringing in her ears…
With a wave of her hand she dismissed the thoughts, knowing that they would bring back memories that she no longer wanted.
Though, the woods weren't too far from where she was now. What harm could come from taking a peek? After all, she wasn't a cat so curiosity wasn't that dangerous.

She skipped over to where the grass gave way to pine needles and stood at the entrance to the forest, trees bent over in reminisce of a gaping maw.
Alice peered through the gap in the trees, expecting to see something, anything, but there was darkness and more trees. Nothing more.
"There." She told herself. "You've satisfied your silly curiosity, and now we should go back to the trail and run away. Isn't that right, Mrs. Shire?"
The cat ignore Alice and darted quickly in to the forest.
"Oh you silly cat!" Alice called after it. Hesitantly, she crossed the border between the forest and the meadow and felt the pine needles crunch beneath her feet. Instead of the fear she was expecting, Alice felt a strange sense of peace flow through her. She caught the sight of Mrs. Shires tail weaving and bobbing between trees so Alice hitched up her dress and followed after it, stepping daintily over sticks and logs as she did so.
The warmth and light of the sun couldn't penetrate the thick canopy of the forest so the gloom was new to Alice's eyes and it took her a few moments to adjust to them, so in her state of semi-blindness she failed the see the rabbit hole in front of her, nor notice that the forest floor she was about to step on had been so weakened by the rabbits digging that as soon as she placed her weight on it, it would give way and swallow her up.
Which is exactly what it did.