"Bella," Alice called running into the Hatter's workshop. I didn't know that she and Hatter were back yet, so she had taken me by surprise.
"Alice," I said running up and hugging her. "You'll never believe what's happened today!"
"Did six impossible things happen already?"
The two of us laughed, "no, seven impossible things have happened."
"Seven," she asked looking at me in disbelief. "How could seven impossible things have happened in one day?"
"They did," I said with a growing smile. "They are roaming around the castle right now."
"They?"
"Yes, Alice, they! Do you remember my friends from other land?" She nodded and I pulled her to the storage room off of the workshop, but somehow I couldn't see Esme. "Esme," I asked pushing aside some fabric that had fallen and I found that there was even more fabrics that had fallen. After a while I found that Esme was buried underneath a pile of like four hundred bolts of fabric. Alice and I started to throw some of them off of the pile and after a lot of them Esme was able to lift them off of herself.
"What are you two doing anyway," Alice asked while we were putting the fabrics back. "All of these fabrics shouldn't have fallen."
"Well, the Cullens are staying around for a little while and they need cloths, so I was going to make some and Esme was helping me. You two remember each other right?" We exchanged more introductions while we were putting the fabrics away, but we weren't done before hatter came to see where we were. He was so angry that his eyes were orange, and he started to scream in Outlandish. Alice and I screamed at him, and eventually he was okay, but until then Esme was just sitting wide eyed until I pulled her away so that she wouldn't get hit with Hatter throwing the fabric around.
"That was a very good way to greet my friend, Tarrent," I said when he was done.
"Yes, your mother told me about your friends falling down the rabbit hole," he said. "So why are you up here? I thought that you would be with your friends."
"They need cloths," I said with a smile, "No one I know falls down a rabbit whole with a bag of stuff in hand."
"That's true. Well than, let's see where you are." He started to walk off, forgetting to say hello to Esme. I cleared my thought, and seeing my friend he walked back and extended his hand, "You're Esme, right?" Esme nodded her head and shook Tarrent's hand before we set to work again.
I showed Tarrent the dresses that I had made for Rosalie and Alice, showing him how alike they were to some of the dresses that were in Otherland, so that they would all feel at home more. Tarrent throught that this was a great idea and within an hour Esme's dress was done, and within an hour Tarrent had Jasper, Emmet, and Carlisle's suit pants and shirts, and he was just stopping to see how I was doing on Edward's suit. Let's just say that I had just finished sewing the pants and hadn't even started on the shirt yet. Let's just say that I was very unhappy by dinner time. Everything worked out though, at dinner everyone had something to wear that fit them. Alice's dress was black and purple, with a pocket watch necklace and black boots. Rosalie's dress was green and black with a necklace that said 'drink me' that I had taken out of my closet and given to her, and her boots were black and a dirty white. Esme's dress was red, yellow, and green on the top, with a red skirt, that she had with black boots, and a pendant that she had been wearing when she had fallen down the rabbit hole. The guys didn't seem to like their suits though; they said that it was a little out of the ordinary. Carlisle's suit was a darker blue with a white shirt and his normal shoes. Jasper's suit was black with a purple shirt that matched Alice's dress. Emmet had on a green suit that matched Rosalie's dress and a black shirt. Edward's outfit though, seemed o be okay, I though, it was black pants, and a white shirt because Hatter wouldn't let me finish the jacket. So, since I had dinner on my own last night with my friends I had to have dinner with my mother to night, knowing that the Cullens would pry be a big topic of our conversation.
"So how did you meet the Cullens," she asked.
"We went to the same school when I moved to Forks," I said taking a bite of my food. "Edward and I fell in love, so when we started to date and I met his family I couldn't stop but love him."
"Why would you date him if you knew that he was dangerous?"
"Because at the time I thought that vampires were just a myth that you told me to get me to behave. When I found out what they were I had the choice to walk away, but for some reason I didn't…" I trailed off in thought.
"So what are you going to do about them now?"
"Well, I'm not going to kick them out," I said looking her straight in the eye. "If they want to stay I'll find them a place, and if they want to go home, I'll find a way for them to do that."
"How are they going to survive down here, though? They need blood, Isabella, and I don't want them harming anyone here."
I sat quietly stirring my tea, "Blood Berries," I said happily looking up. "I can make them into a tea for them to drink, and they wouldn't have to harm anyone!"
"We don't grow Blood Berries here," mother reminded me.
"So, they don't grow too far away from here, and I can plant some bushes if they decide to stay here."
"So you have this all planned out?" She looked at me, as if making sure that I was okay with all this.
"Yeah, sure," I said nodding my head, "I won't make them do what they don't want to, but I'll strongly suggest that they go back to Otherworld." We started to eat again, but after a while mother broke the silence.
"Are you going to be okay if they leave?"
"I don't really know, mother," I said after taking my last bite of food. After that I got up and went to my room to look through the things in my closet so that no one would find them anytime soon. I was still too late, though, because when I opened the door I found Jasper, Emmet, Alice, Rose, and Edward all looking through my papers. "What are you doing?"
"Looking through your closet," Alice said with the largest smile I'd ever seen. "You're a very good artist." I saw that she was looking at the picture of her in a ball gown that I really wanted to make for her. She didn't really have an expression on, "what am I thinking in this picture," she asked handing it to me.
"I don't know," I said letting my hair cover my face, "I didn't know what you would think of the dress."
"The dress is cute," she said with a smile, "you're going to make it for me, right? I saw myself in it at the ball." She looked happy, and excited, "I don't know what's in style here, but the fact that you designed a dress and that it might be made for me, that would be so cool!"
I smiled to myself, "Alice, there's no real such thing as fashion here, it's just sort of whatever you want to wear."
"Really," she looked confused, "than this'll be interesting!" I just nodded, unsure about what to say next. "You'll make me the dress though, right?"
"Sure," I said with a smile handing the picture back to her. "Alice K. can help me out and we can get it done soon."
"What about this picture," Rosalie asked taking the picture out of Emmet's hand and handing it to me. It was a picture of Emmet on a Bandersnatch, looking really confused and slightly afraid.
I smiled and shook my head, "That's a Bandersnatch," I laughed, "I thought that Emmet may be a little afraid of an animal that's both bigger and scarier than him. Actually I was going to take you all to go and see it tomorrow."
"You can ride this thing," Emmet asked taking the picture back. "I want to see this thing."
"Tomorrow Emmet," I said with a smile and starting to pick up all the other pictures that were on the bed. "I promise. Right after I get back from going to go find some berries."
"Who's this," Jasper asked showing me a picture of the Red Queen. "I haven't seen her around."
"That's good," I said quietly. "She's my aunt, the Red Queen, she's trying to take over Underland again. She's also the one trying to kill me, but right now that isn't my main concern," I said brightly, "and as Tarrant says, 'down with the bloody big head'."
"Someone's trying to kill you," Edward asked disbelieving.
I smiled, "yeah, but as the heir to the thrown ya get used to that. Any other questions?"
"Plenty," Emmet said with a smile. "Let's start with how did we get here?"
Jasper laughed, "We pushed you down that rabbit hole Emmet. Don't you remember screaming?"
I giggled to myself, "you pushed him down the rabbit hole?"
"No one wanted to go first, so we elected Emmet because we knew that he was so big we could find him."
I laughed a little bit more, "We don't know exactly how the rabbit hole works, but somehow it just sends you all here." I started to put the drawings back where they were supposed to be.
"How did we shrink," Rosalie asked holing up a bottle that said 'drink me' on it.
"It's a shrinking potion," I said simply. "I believe that making things shrink is its job. Same with the carrot cake, but that actually is baked into the cake, instead of straight out of the bottle."
"Why didn't you tell us about any of this," Alice asked with a smile. "I mean, what we've done here has been a lot of fun! Why would you hide this from us and tell us that Charlie was your father when he was a knight, that you're a princess?"
I smiled, "because you wouldn't believe me. Edward's heard me when I talk in my sleep, about Chess, the talking cat, a blue caterpillar, a jaberwalky, all the things here? Seriously if you've never been here you would think that I would have dreamed it all up."
"Yeah, we pry would have," Alice said off in a daze.
"So what happens now," Jasper asked. We all looked at him for more clarification, "we're here now. What happens? Are you sending us back? Is there a way for us to get back? What happens now?"
I sighed taking down the pictures of the Cullens, thinking that they were thinking I was crazy or something. "That's all up to you. You're welcomed to stay here, you wouldn't stay in the castle, but we could build you a house not too far from here. Or we can get you back to Otherland if you want to go back there. My only terms is that whatever you do you do it as a family. Either all or none of you go. I'm not splitting you all up."
"What if we go back and we want to come back here," Rosalie asked.
"I don't know," I said with a smile. "I guess that you could never really come back, unless you get lucky."
"So how did you know when to come back?"
"I always check with Absolem before I leave. I take a little while to figure out what he's saying though. He never gives a straight answer."
"Then we could go talk to him and know when to come back," Alice said with a smile.
"He's gone right now," I said sorrowfully. "Beside's you wouldn't like him, he sort of like a stupid book of riddles about the meaning of life that you can't ever figure out."
"I hate those books," Emmet said knowing exactly what I meant.
"So what do we do now," Rosalie asked with a sigh.
"Are you all going to stay for the ball," I asked with a smile.
"Sure," Edward said, "we might as well."
"Then we could go learn some dances," I suggested.
"Let's go," Alice said pulling me to the door. I lead them to an open room, and pushing all of the furniture to the side I decided to start the lesson. I asked Edward to help me and he gladly did. The first dance that I showed them was sort of like the waltz, but instead of just doing it continuously every sixteen counts you would kick your right foot so that it was to the left of your partner's left knee. I was doing this in heels, so I was nervous about Edward being a step behind and me kicking him, but we seemed to do this dance well enough. Eventually everyone joined in, and when we had to change partners everyone seemed confused, but we quickly got back on track.
"What's this dance called," Emmet asked while he and I danced.
"It's called the Blundner," I said with a smile.
"The Blundered?"
"No," I said laughing, "the Blu-nd-ner."
"The Blundner?"
"Yep," I said with a giggle. "It's sort of like the Waltz."
"It is," I heard someone say.
Looking over my shoulder I saw Esme, Carlisle, and mother standing in the doorway watching us.
"Would you all like to dance," I asked making Emmet turn so that I was facing them, "I can take a break."
"I think that I'll pass dear," mother said. "Carlisle, Esme, why don't you join them, you may as well have some dancing practice."
Carlisle seemed really stumped, "what's the dance?"
"The Blundner," Emmet said with a smile when I nodded yes to his pronunciation.
The two joined in when we switched partners. Jasper taught Esme the dance while I taught Carlisle, and Alice danced with Emmet and Rosalie with Edward. I thought that it was the perfect ending to a perfect day, and tomorrow I was going to go and search for those blasted berries.
That night I was drawing another picture, this one was of Emmet and Alice dancing. The height defiance was so ridiculous that I just had to laugh. There was a knock on my door and I told them to come in. Edward came into the room and shut the door behind him.
"What are you doing," he asked sitting next to me on the bed.
"Drawing," I said with a smile as I showed him the picture of Emmet and Alice without faces and the detail of their cloths. "We can't take picots here, so I draw things instead."
"It's very good," he said handing it back to me. "Isn't it a little late though?"
"I'll go to sleep after I finish this picture," I said with a smile. "Besides, you can't lay with me while I'm asleep."
He looked at me confused and hurt. I had woken up crying every night since I came here, but it was law. "Why not?"
"Because here it's illegal for two unwed people to share a bed," I said turning my eyes back to the picture. "Especially when you're the princess," I said in a saddened tone.
""We won't get caught," he said wrapping his arm around my waist. "I'll hear someone coming and I can be the monster under the bed."
I continued to finish the picture, "True," I said with a smile, "and if someone were to just happen to vaporize out of thin air, I could always pay them to stay quiet."
"So are you saying that breaking the rule is okay?"
"Just this once," I said with a small smile, as I finished the faces and started to draw Emmet's suit details. "Just let me finish this picot."
That night was pry the best night I've had since I came back to Underland. I loved being back in Edward's arms, somehow it was just so comforting.
