Alice: Inside the Looking Glass
Lady Moon-Chan
Chapter 2: In Which Alice Meets the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter
Alice whirled.
Sitting behind her on the path was a large, tawny cat with intelligent golden eyes. As she watched, it grinned toothily at her. "Yeah," it said, tail twitching in amusement, "I talk." Alice could only stare in shock, which made the cat frown. "It's rude to stare. And it's equally rude not to introduce yourself."
"I'm sorry." Alice said, curtsying politely. "My name is Alice Walker. And I didn't mean to be rude. Cats just don't talk where I come from."
"What a shame. We are a sensitive and intelligent race." the cat said with another grin.
"I'll take your word for it." Alice said. "Now what did you mean by 'there's no exit here'?"
The cat opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a trumpet blast. It looked alarmed. "Hide!" it ordered her. There's a hole in the back of the tree behind us that you should be able to squeeze through no problem." it pointed to clarify which tree behind them it was referring to.
Alice ducked behind it, peering around the trunk. The cat trotted around the tree to join her. As Alice watched, a troop of card-soldiers of all suits appeared, and at the heart of the procession, the four jacks carried a palanquin on which sat a pale woman whose black hair was braided and coiled on her head like a crown, liquid dark eyes, and spider-scrawl eyelashes wearing the dress of the queen of hearts, along with a golden tiara and scepter. Her lovely face was imperious and cold, but still..."Eleanor..." Alice whispered. She made to move from her hiding spot.
The cat urged her back. "Thar's not your sister!" it hissed. "That's the Queen of Hearts! She's wearing your sister's face to confuse you and make you trust her!"
After the procession passed, Alice turned to the cat. "How do you know these things-" she stopped. "I just realized I don't know your name."
"In this form I'm called the Cheshire Cat. As for the rest- well, I'll tell you someplace else. It's not safe to talk about here. Anything and anyone could be listening. But I know a safe place to talk. Follow me- and be quick. The queen's procession will probably double back soon."
The Cheshire Cat trotted off in the opposite direction the queen's procession had gone in, and Alice followed, trotting herself to keep up with the cat.
They stopped at a twisted, broken white picket fence. In the middle of the overgrown yard beyond the fence was a multi-level brick dwelling that looked as though it shouldn't be standing still, and on the gate was a crooked sign that read "Keep out. Property of the Mad Hatter".
"The Mad Hatter?" Alice asked. The cat grinned.
"The Hatter's harmless. You want to see mad? Go visit the March Hare sometime."
Alice's only response was to give him an odd look and push open the gate.
When they got to the door, the cat pawed it, and a haggard looking man with graying blonde hair and sky blue eyes in a ragged suit answered, looking relieved. "Oh, Cat, it's only-" he stopped at the sight of Alice. "Who are you?" he asked suspiciously.
"Someone we need to keep safe." The Cheshire Cat said mystically, tail twitching in nervousness. "Now let us in, Hatter."
"The crow caws at midnight." said the Mad Hatter.
"And the zombie flees the dawn." The Cat responded. "Can we come in now?"
The Hatter opened the door fully, letting them in.
"So let me get this straight," Alice said after the two men had finished explaining everything a short time later, "The Queen of Hearts called me here by means of her second-in-command, the White Rabbit, because there was a prophecy made when she came to the throne that a 'golden star of hope' would come here to Wonderland to overthrow her, and she called me here to eliminate me, even though she doesn't believe the prophecy?"
The Mad Hatter bowed his head. "Unfortunately for you, that is correct. She also performed a sweep when she first came to the throne many years ago."
A memory, dim as if it had been made in another lifetime, came back to Alice then. Sitting on the couch with Rosemary almost a year before the fire, watching an 'Unsolved Mysteries' special on a rash of disappearances in the 1950s. The victims were all blonde, blue-eyed women of Saxon descent between the ages of 18 and 30, the same as Alice. There had been no sightings, no plane, bus, or train tickets sold to them, no mysterious new bank accounts in their names, no use of their names on any kind of documents, no bones, no ransom demands, no notice that they were planning to go anywhere. It was as if the women had simply been wiped from the face of the planet.
Rosemary had stared at Alice in shock for a few moments after the show ended, before saying. "Jesus, Al. You could have been one of them in another lifetime." The most chilling part, though, was that one of the victims, Alice Winters, had been barely three years older than Alice herself, and they could have been twins if not for Alice Winters' freckles. Despite herself, Alice shivered.
"That's why, no matter the cost, we're going to find a way to protect you and send you back home." the Cheshire Cat assured her.
AN: dun dun dun dun! How will Alice react? Tune in next chapter to find out! (imitating Bali-lali from Bizenghast) And leave me some reviews!(disappears)