Author's Note: I will openly admit that my created character's name is highly unoriginal and mainstream in the realm of the fandom. However, I do this with good reason in regards to the plot – seldom do I entertain stereotypes and clichés without the appropriate counter. ;)

Please remember: all questions, comments, constructive criticisms, and/or suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thank you! ^_^

I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in me — not in the external world. I asked, was it a mere nervous impression — a delusion?
– Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Chapter 1: Nowhere Near Home

She descended from the hill and looked around hesitantly. The land was dying, if not already dead. The orange- and red-tinged sky hung ominously overhead like an omen, and the blackened foliage surrounding her only strengthened her unease.

'What happened to this place?' she wondered, casting her wary gaze about the land. 'Has it always been this desolate?'

She pushed back the decaying leaves and stepped out from her hiding place. Just ahead was a long table (or perhaps a series of tables? It seemed too ungainly and crooked to be only one) draped in what used to be a white cloth, now more yellowed and brown from stains. Piles of cup and dishes, many of them broken, lay scattered about as if left in frenzy. Beyond and to the left was a battered old windmill, its arms broken and unmoving.

There was not a soul to be found; not a sound to be heard.

No good could have come from this kind of desolation. Never had she seen anything like this, save the gritty photographs of battlegrounds she'd come across in her history textbooks. It was as if time itself had frozen and she was the lone observer.

No… she had seen something like this before… things burned and black beyond recognition…

She took a step back, not certain that she was willing to stay one moment longer in this barren graveyard of the unknown. Yet she remained curious all the same; she hadn't the faintest idea how she'd wound up in this morbid place, but something about the table and chairs before her rang a kind of warm familiarity despite the chill that washed over her.

And then she caught sight of it: a flash of electric orange.

Blinking fiercely, she stumbled forward. In the seat at the head of the table, which had been empty only a moment before, sat a man. A large top hat covered over his features, and his hands were folded over his chest, as if sulking or sleeping.

'Or dead.' The thought struck a chord somewhere in the back of her mind, and without even thinking she bolted towards him, praying that there was at least one other living soul than herself in this strange location.

"Sir?" she tried, slowing her pace and creeping cautiously up to the slouched figure. If he were merely asleep, she would have felt guilty for awakening him in her momentary panic. "Excuse me, sir?"

There was a low mumble from his lips, one that she couldn't quite make out. Hesitantly, she laid a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently.

"Sir?"

And then she heard him mumble again, only this time she could just make out his words:

"Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?"

She abruptly removed her hand and sputtered, but then she felt herself trip and begin to fall backwards…

…

Allyson Bennett awoke with a start, and let out a sharp gasp as the side of her head collided with the window as the car went over a pothole.

"Ally, sweetie? Is everything all right?" a lightly accented voice two seats ahead asked. Shaking off the feeling of disorientation, she looked up to find a set of large brown eyes staring at her worriedly in the rearview mirror.

The car jolted once again on the uneven roads, but this time she was able to prevent another encounter with the glass. Ally blinked several times, and noticed that three other pairs of eyes were upon her as well. The third pair she felt more than saw; Zachary always had that kind of presence.

"I-I'm okay, Aunt Becky," she said, wincing inwardly at how weak her voice sounded. "I just dozed off, that's all."

"You sure?" Rebecca Shelton-Crawford turned to look at the girl, not at all convinced.

"Oi, Mum, watch the road or you'll get us creamed!" Gunther yelped, and pointed. His mother spun round and snapped the steering wheel just in time to avoid an oncoming bus from the other side.

"Honestly, Mum, you were about to get us all killed," Valerie moaned, slouching in the passenger seat and clutching her head in relief. The sixteen-year-old looked over her shoulder again and glared at older girl in the third row, every inch of her face saying, 'And it would've been all your fault.'

Ally returned the glare with a cold, blank stare; her mismatched blue and brown eyes focused entirely on the blonde. After a moment, Valerie shuddered involuntarily and returned to her cell phone, likely into the realms of social networking if her most recent cell phone bills were any indication.

There were times when Ally wanted cringe – even at a young age she'd unnerved people with those eyes of hers. The only times her heterochromia worked in her favor were when she was deliberately being intimidating. Or at least trying.

"Well, now that we've had the scare of our lives…" Rebecca laughed nervously. "We should be getting there in another fifteen to twenty minutes, so let's all just relax. Zach, honey, are you doing all right?"

"Yes, Aunt Becky…" Ally cast a sideways glance at her twelve-year-old brother, who looked to be absorbed in some science fiction novel he'd picked up at a convenience store before they'd left the city. He hadn't so much as budged from the seventeenth page since before she'd fallen asleep. The only indication that he was aware of his surroundings was the sickening pallor his face had taken just as the car had swerved. She could only imagine what her face looked like…

"Well…" the woman hesitate for a moment. "Ally, how's your head?"

"It's okay," she replied, looking back out the window at the passing scenery. She pulled the bill of the baseball cap further down to cover her face.

"Are you two sure you're all right?" their caretaker cast another glance to the third row of seats in the old station wagon. "Because if you want to, we can –"

"They said they're okay, Mum!" Gunther snapped from his place in the second row, venting out his frustration on his handheld game.

Silence befell the vehicle; the only sound coming from the radio, what she could make out of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da battling static for dominance of the airwaves. Try as they might, it sounded as if The Beatles were fighting a losing battle.

Everything faded into the background as Ally continued to focus on the rapidly passing scenery. As bad as she'd felt about it, she knew that lying to the overprotective woman was the best way not to worry her. She simply did what she normally did these days and slipped on the headphones that had fallen round her neck during her slumber – a nice dose of crackle-free music would at least relieve some of the tension creeping up the back of her skull until she could down a pill without everyone watching.

The thought of the medication made her want to cringe even more than her eyes – it seemed like everything these days was solved by a pill: pills for pleasure, pills for pain, pills to alter the chemical balances of a person's brain…

She smirked a little at the impromptu rhyme. Her mother would have found it amusing.

A quick press of the play button on her digital audio player issued forth an upbeat drum rhythm, followed not long after by a guitar and synthesizer, and soon a set of lyrics that Ally could hardly understand. It was one of several songs her friend Bethany Howell had given her before the school year ended. She didn't quite remember what the title, and she wasn't very adept understanding the lyrics – after all, they were in a foreign language – but it was a welcome distraction. Beth, ever the foreign music fanatic, hadn't kidded her when she said the music would do the girl some good when she was stressed out and the migraines came round. Ally had the translations stored somewhere in the USB Beth gave her as a goodbye present, but for the moment she preferred not to know what the band was singing about; she didn't want to ruin the effect it was having on her.

Tree passed after seemingly lifeless tree, car after dull car. Everything going in and out of London seemed to have been blanched out by the grey of the early morning sky and dulled by the rain that was certain to follow. The world seemed to have lost much of its color in the past three months: when the flowers bloomed and scattered in London's parks, its vibrancy seemed to have been killed at some point before the spring thaw.

At least that was how it felt to her.

A small vibration in the pocket of her jeans jolted her out of her downward spiral of thoughts and back into reality. Shaking herself mentally, she pulled her cell phone out and flipped top up, the incoming text message alert still causing the phone to shake. Seeing that it was from her brother, she quickly opened it.

U OK?

She allowed her gaze to shift in Zachary's direction; careful not to attract attention of Rebecca, who was still giving her intermittent glances in the rearview mirror. Zach's hazel green eyes met hers before retreating back to page seventeen of his book.

Ally's own gaze reverted to the window while she subconsciously counted the number of times to hit each button to spell out her message.

Guess so. Didn't get n e sleep last nite. She sent the message after viewing it briefly and soon heard the faint buzz of Zach's phone over the fading of her current song. To the average person, sending a text message to the person sitting right next to you would be considered a waste of minutes; but for Ally and Zach, it was their own special way of communication. Aside from the usual facial expressions and slight gestures that they used around others, text messaging was the next best thing. It became the most convenient for them to talk and not be heard when it came to really important matters that they didn't want anyone else to know about.

Her cell phone vibrated again.

U were dreaming just now. U were mumbling in ur sleep again. Was it the cat dream?

Ally hesitated before she hit the reply button. The dreams she'd had about a cat with a grin that stayed behind even after it vanished had been the most frequent lately. And it always asked the same question: "What do you call yourself?"

No, it wasn't that 1 this time, she responded after a moment. It was the 1 with the guy in the top hat. Tell u more l8r.

She sent the message and silently closed the phone before slipping her phone back into her pocket. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he read the message and gave her an ever-so-slight nod before returning to page seventeen.

For a twelve-year-old kid, Ally felt that he was a lot more mature than he ought to have been. He'd always been very perceptive, and had the uncanny ability to know just what was bothering a person. Their mom had always joked that he'd make an excellent psychoanalyst or counselor later on in life. As far as Ally was concerned, she was just glad he was there at all; the… incident had been horrific, and there'd been that one soul-shattering moment when she'd thought that he'd –

The song ended and she heard a sound just before the next one came. Another glance in Zach's direction revealed that he'd at long last turned the page of his book.

Just how long had he been on page seventeen, anyway?

…

"Well, guys, this is our new home!" Rebecca announced merrily, shutting the door and making her way to the trunk.

"Home…" Ally repeated hollowly, staring at the manor with a stony expression on her face.

The old Kingsleigh house stood impressively before them, its Victorian grace and sophistication hardly lost in the past century-and-a-half. It looked as if someone had kept up with it: the lawns were freshly cut, the trees and shrubs were trimmed; the house sported what looked suspiciously like new paint, and even the mailbox looked to be new. It was like some wonderfully wrapped package.

Ally couldn't help but frown at the edifice, failing to notice her brother exiting the station wagon just after her instead of getting out on his own side. The word "home" kept ringing hollowly as in her mind as when she'd spoken aloud.

As far as she was concerned, home was nowhere near here.

"Whoa… Hey, Ally, I think I'm gonna like this place!" She looked in her younger brother's direction and almost felt something inside her tear at the absolute wonder inscribed upon his face. In the past three months, he seldom spoke unless spoken to, and never said much even then. And always in the same lifeless, monotone voice. To hear even so much as that excited whisper that had just passed through his lips gave her some hope that maybe things would turn out for the better.

"Maybe…" she muttered, brow furrowed. The tension that she thought she'd beaten down on the trip was beginning to spread upward from the base of her skull again, and the pressure build-up was rapidly becoming unpleasant again. There was something about this house that made her feel odd, and it felt like it was going to trigger another migraine.

"Well, come on, everyone!" Rebecca called from the back. The sound of squealing brakes startled Ally out of her trance-like gaze up the manor, and snapped her back into reality. The moving van had at long last arrived, and Rebecca looked ready attack her new house with a vigor.

"This place is gonna suck," she heard Gunther mutter as he pocketed the game he'd been hooked on. All she could do was give him a withering glare that remained unseen from under the bill of her cap. Both he and Valerie had been dead-set against moving out into the countryside, more so than they'd been when Rebecca had announced that Ally and Zach would be joining their family.

But, like always, Ally remained silent. In truth, she really had no right to voice any opinions: she and her brother had been taken in by Rebecca's family, and for that she supposed she was grateful (though she could have done without the heated stares she so frequently received from the Shelton-Crawford teens). Even though she was over the legal age, she still had no means to support both Zachary and herself and keep a roof over their heads.

No, it wasn't their home… at least not yet – this was what she told herself as she went to help unload the suitcases and packages from the back of the station wagon. Home was nothing more than a burnt-out memory, but for the little blessings that she'd been granted these past three months, she was willing to make things work out for the best.

A/N: Out of curiosity, would anyone happen to know the general layout of Underland (i.e. which direction Witzend, Marmoreal, Salazem Grum and other locations are, et cetera), or if there is one to reference? All I know is East to Queast and South to Snud. LOL.

Until the next chapter - Fairfarren, all! And to everyone in the U.S.: Happy 4th of July! ^_^