Lithium
Andianna sighted as she stared out her window, her chin resting listlessly on her hands as she watched a couple of blue birds darting playfully in the trees outside her window. She longed to be out there with them. She longed for freedom. The freedom to do any thing she wanted with no one, nothing, holding her back.
She heard the village children laughing and playing in the little lane next to the house and sighed again. She did not feel the same need to be with them.
Not any more. She just wanted to be free, like the birds were…
Andi knew that she was different than any of the other children in her quiet village from a rather early age. Not in the way that every parent views their child, but truly unique. She also knew that this difference meant that she was to be her own best friend.
Learn these truths:
Your imagination will betray you
Madness is all that you can trust
Your emotions are your strongest weapons
As are they your weaknesses
Your friends will become your foes
All this and more you will find beyond the broken looking glass
The strange rhyme from her mystery birthday card kept relaying in her head like a broken record. She had no clue as to who sent her the card attached to a small white rabbit, she had no clue as to what the rhyme meant either but she took it as an omen. She knew that deep down that is was all connected to him… to them… to Wonderland…
"Andianna?" her Aunt Katherine said as she walked into Andianna's room holding a tea tray and bottle off pills. Andi turned and looked at her aunt and gave her a faint smile. "Aunt Katherine" she said dully.
"Andianna," Aunt Katherine said placing the try down on the breakfast table in the center of the huge bedroom. "It's time for your medication dear." She said opening the bottle of pills and removing two chalky white pills. She picked up the tea pot and poured some of the tea and handed them to her niece.
Andi reached out and took the cup. She hesitated however, before she took the pills as well.
Lithium
Andianna hated the pills. She hated their chalky white color and she hated smell. Most of all she hated them because they made her feel strange and sleepy and for Andianna, sleep was the last thing that she ever wanted to do.
This was because when she slept she dreamt. And when Andianna Dodgson dreamt, her dreams did not take her to the wonderful places that other children's dreams took them.
She dreamt of Wonderland.
She popped the pills into her mouth and stored them in her cheek. She took two large gulps of the tea and swallowed hard so that her aunt would think that she had taken the dreaded pills.
"Such a good girl." Her aunt said patting her on the head lightly and walking out of the room with the tray.
She waited until her aunt had left the room and she heard the key click twice in the lock before returning to her window seat. She rummaged through the throw pillows and found a bottle half full of the pills. She removed the ones from her moth and placed them in the bottle with the rest. She sighed and replaced the bottle.
Why did everyone think that she needed those stupid pills? It made absolutely no sense to her. She was fine, really she was. Ever since her sister Alice had died, Suicide, every one kept referring her to doctor after doctor, medication after medication, while hoping and praying that she did not axe her self just as her sister did.
She did not need them.
She did not need any of them.
She was fine…excepting her dreams…
Learn these truths:
Your imagination will betray you
Madness is all that you can trust
Your emotions are your strongest weapons
As are they your weaknesses
Your friends will become your foes
All this and more you will find beyond the broken looking glass
The rhyme had come back to her again. What could it mean? Could it be? Had he come back? Had he returned after all those years to finish what he had started?
She was just a child then, maybe only just three, when her adored big sister had begun telling her stories about an enchanted place called Wonderland. About the strange creatures that inhabited its environs. She was just a child but her fragile was able to latch on and store all the things her sister had been telling her about Wonderland… about him…
"Don't worry Andianna. He can never separate us. They can never hurt us as long as we have each other… as long as we know the truth… I will never leave you alone…"
Oh Alice, she thought to her self, they had been separated and Andi no longer knew if she knew what the truth was any more.
It was the eve of her birthday when Alice had pulled her aside and told her this. The same day Alice had strung her self up by the cross beams in her room, killing her self.
Or so they say…
Andi thought otherwise. She knew that Alice would not willingly kill herself. Alice was a devout catholic and that meant that she knew committing suicide sent your soul straight to the underworld.
No, Alice had not killed herself, Andi was sure of this. She knew in her heart that Alice had been murdered and that Wonderland and is creations, especially Him, were the culprits.
However, she could not prove it and thus, every one thought that she was mad.
But how could she prove that they were real? When they existed in a world that was not her own?
She shut her eyes against the memories of that long ago night and against the images of Wonderland that seemed to be burned into her mind by her sister.
She was fine, she reassured herself. She did not need the bloody pills. Of course she wasn't sleeping well, who would if every time they shut their eyes they found their self reliving every horrifying moment of the stories her sister told her about Wonderland.
And of course there were the dreams of him…
The one she dreamt about more than the others…
She had never seen him for her self but the vivid images that her mind created using the words of her sister was just as good as if she had seen him for herself- or just as bad depending on how you viewed it.
She dreamt of his clothes…
The black well tailored suit that he always seemed to wear with its red silk lining that seemed to cling to his chest when he removed his enchanted time piece. The top he wore perched atop his head of shiny black hair that fell stylishly around his handsome face.
A face that could not be truly be called a face as It held no expression…
Nothing at all…
No eyes…
No nose…
No mouth…
Just a blank face that seemed to stare at her in an eerie way. As if he could see right through her… as if he could see all her secrets…
Andi sighed and sat down on her large four poster bed, she felt weary and well worn around the edges. Everything had changed since Alice had died… since she started dreaming about Wonderland…
She had tried to tell people about it, thinking that the more she talked about it the less threatened. She was wrong… no one had believed her; they all thought that she was barking mad.
All save one man, and even then he had turned her tale in to a silly children's story…
Andianna had never been so outraged in her entire life when she found out what Lewis Carroll had done by publishing his book. He had made her sister Alice into a stupid girl that didn't have the common sense to mind her own business.
That was not true… that was not the case…
Andi lay back on the bed and pulled her legs up to her chest. She felt as if a leaden weight had settled upon her. A small shudder escaped her as she lay there weakened. She felt cold and strangely at ease, even as her eyes began to drift close…
Aunt Katherine opened the door and sighed with relief when she saw that Andianna was curled up in a ball asleep on her bed. She had broken up a few of the pills into the cup of tea that she had given to Andianna to ensure that her niece at least got some sleep.
She stepped back out into the hallway and pulled the door closed. She then slipped the key into the lock and waited for the catch to click in place. She felt a slight pang of guilt over doping her young charge but there was nothing that could be done about that now.