Well I've decided to continue anyway, I really do like the plot and i'm having fun with the Characters. Messages and comments are still very well appreceiated though. Thanks guys!
The gardens were as temperate and calming as always and once inside Alice began to let her guards down and relax. For the first time all day Alice had time to think, when surrounded by all the high tensions and expectations her Grandmother put on her, it was hardly ever possible to have any thoughts besides "How's my posture? Is my dress wrinkled? I hope Nana doesn't find out…".
But in the gardens she was free to drag her feet, spit, slouch her back but most of all, relax. And when she was relaxed her mind was free to wander. At this very moment she began to think of her parents.
"Poor father, so alone in his study every day"
She often felt sympathetic with her father's loneliness.
"I do wish he'd get a dog for company"
She thought of him, staring out a window all day or filling out tax papers and how absolutely drone and bland that must be compared to her mothers life spent on ships and expensive restaurants. She recalled her mother often in this manner.
She imagined her calling for the waiter in some fine French eatery.
"Garcon, Pardon? Foie gras, si'l vous plait"
Alice thought now how she wanted to be like her mother,
"Ah! living the wild life of a business woman, traveling the world, seeing great things… All… Alone…"
Her mother had always been so busy and lively that Alice Anne never really realized that she'd not once seen her mother with a man.
"This may be as a courtesy to me… Not bringing a man around when I'm about" Alice Anne doubtedly thought.
"No… I can tell she been by herself for sometime… She's considered an old maid now, and besides I can tell the way she looks at married women or young couples courting, envious and bereaved… She is loveless"
All of a sudden a great, heavy sadness overcame Alice, she stopped walking and stared at the ground in a sorrow for her mothers loveless life.
"Its an awful shame about my mother… I wonder if she ever love a man?" The pang in her heart struck heavier.
"Oh poor, poor, mother. I do wish she could find love in her life"
Alice thought then of herself.
"And what about a husband for me? I would hate it awfully so to be afflicted such as my parents"
She began walking nervously ahead, a thousands concerns of love and marriage shrouded her mind.
"What is I never find my madly passionate Frenchman? Suppose I grow old and lonely like my mother… Oh tragedy becomes me!"
In her dramatic spiel she hardly noticed a sold ticking sound.
"I don't want to be alone, nor do I want a hapless marriage. Oh! Life is tirelessly impossible"
The ticking became a little bit louder.
"Is it so much a crime to want… Wait."
She paused, finally hearing the ticking.
"Odd…. Sounds like... A ticking clock… like a pocket watch."
Being the curios and adventurous girl she was she began following it. The sound led her around turn after turn, growing louder and louder and it felt almost as it were her own heart beating. It began ticking faster and louder until she turned the last corner. It stopped.
In front of her was a simple London Plane tree.
"Even stranger, I've never noticed a tree in the garden.
She walked towards it and upon discovering a rabbit hole did the ticking faintly return.
She knelt down closer to the rabbit hole looking for the culprit and for s split second saw a metallic glint of lightthat looked much like a watch.
"Aha!" She pronounced thrusting her hand into the hole only to find no watch at all, but an endless cavern.
Loosing her grip she fell through and within the time of a gasp and a yelp there was not even a ray of light trickling through the hole in which she fell from her garden, instead was a whirling endless hole into witch she fell further. The ticking again returned but this time as loud and penetrating as the ever.
Impossible things flew past her as she fell, a piano suspended in this air, pots, pans, music books, and a bed among other things.
She let out one last yelp as she crashed through a ceiling onto a hard, hard floor.
She sat up slowly, struggling to get her breath back when she suddenly fell again. Once she was plopped on the floor a second time she looked up, realizing that the ground she laid on just seconds ago, was now above her.
"Curiouser and couriouser" She muttered quietly.
She stood up, finally, dusting of her dress, which was covered in dust. She scanned the room to see many dust covered doors, in rotation she visited each one discovering they were locked. Getting quite dirty and frustrated she turned around and noticed a glass table covered in a blanket of dust, with one dust old key and one dusty old bottle, a cobweb connected them.
She walked to it, picked up the key and studied it, she then focused herself on the bottle. After wiping it off she noticed an inscription;
DRINK ME
A thought dawned on her.
"Drink Me? Like the bottle from mothers story?... Impossible…"
She uncorked the bottle. Inside there was hardly a drop left. And after a second of debating whether or not she'd gone mad, she decided to drink it.
"I don't know what else of a choice I have"
She tilted the bottle back and waited for the last few drops to leak onto her tongue, and upon doing so, it stung terribly, Alice began a coughing fit.
The taste and the burn bothered her so much that she hardly noticed herself shrinking down in size until her dress was like a tent.
She tunneled her way out of her own dress. When she emerged she found herself naked and venerable in a giant coliseum, that was, just moments ago a dusty crowded room. After fashioning some sorry excuse for a dress with a piece of lace from her dress, She searched about the room looking for a small door, she figured if there were drinks described to her in a fairy tale in this room, the door her mother described might be there as well.
Lo and behold she found it! A small door just her size that was, like everything else in the room covered with a film of dust, unlike everything else in the room, the door was left slightly ajar.
As she pushed through it she thought;
"Strange, I thought it would have been locked."
On the other side of the door was a shocking view, enormous brown and grey mushrooms and trees sprouted up everywhere and above her was an appropriately matching, empty, grey sky. The whole place seemed to be suspended in time.
"Is this the 'wonder' land my mother so often told me of? It's hardly a wonder…"
She approached a tree, ran a finger down it and again,
"Dust… Dust! Dust! Dust! What is the matter with this place!"
Irritated and utterly confused Alice Anne treaded onward looking for something, or anything that could give her the slightest bit of clarity on the situation.
She found herself pushing through a grey, dusty flower garden, sneezing all way and didn't notice any of the faces on the flowers until one snorted upon being pushed out of Alices way.
Startled, Alice yelped, looking up at the waking face of the daffodil.
"Wha. What? Oh, my what a nice nap." The flower stretched her petals and yawned groggily, and began dusting herself of a bit.
"I say, who was it who awoke me" the flower looked down at Alice, rubbering her eyes trying to adjust them.
"Was it you girl? Who are you, anyway?"
Alice stuttered "Uh… Alice, M'lady…"
The Daffodils eye's widened at the name and she shouted out.
"Alice!"
Waking some of the other flowers.
The Daffodil looked closely at Alice Anne, and Alice began to hear the other flowers sleepily utter;
"What… Alice? Did I hear Alice?"
"Yes Ma'm… Alice"
The Daffodil speculated each of her features and fine announced.
"Not quite… You're not Alice.
"Oh! But I am." Alice retorted back.
"You may be an Alice, but your not the Alice, girl."
The flowers (Most of which were now awake and stretching themselves out) let out a dull moan if disappointment.
"The Alice?" Alice Anne muttered under her breath and then realized that they must be speaking of her mother.
"Oh! Yes, you must be talking about my mother. Alice Kingsley… She'd tell me stories of Wonderland before I went to sleep as a girl… I'm her Daughter."
The Daffodil, obviously distempered and stubborn snorted and replied.
"Excuse me, Wonderland?... What a stupid child... You're absolutely hideous! And besides Alice has no children… Especially not a horrid little girl"
To this Alice took great offence, all her life she'd thought of herself as a fair, beautiful girl.
"Well, It's true! And if you don't believe me… I'll give you proof! Before bed she'd tell me all of her adventures here! The short, large boys who always bicker! The large…. Band… Bandercatch and how she slay the Jackerwocky!"
The Daffodil snickered mockingly at Alice, and at that the other flowers joined in.
"Don't you mean The Bandersnatch and the Jabberwocky? And besides, that's harldy ay proof, anyone in all of Underland could tell you of The Frabjous Day. What real proof do you have?"
Alice's cheeks became a rosy red and she began to wish she were her normal size, so as to smash all the horrible flowers to the ground.
"Oh Enough!" A dust covered, hardly White Rabbit came in from the tall grass, being awoken from all the ruckus.
"Leave the girl alone you vultures!"
The flowers turned up snide faces, but ceased their teasing, seeming to have respect for the White Rabbit.
"Now what's all this about?" He said, his voice calmed and quiet.
"Sir… Mr. Rabbit, I don't know how I've gotten myself here and I'm quite confused… I wish you could help me."
"And with what would you need my services, dear girl?"
"Well… I'm not exactly sure… You see… well, I mean… I don't know really" She admitted exhaustingly confused.
"The girl claims to be the Child of Alice." The Daffodil blurted out, behind her the flowers started in chorus again, mocking Alice.
"And that I am!"
The White Rabbit stopped in disbelief.
"Oh but, how?... Could it really be" He hopped around her in a circle, examining her.
"It feels I've only been asleep for a moment, how could…" He scratched his head.
"It is the honest truth. My mother is Alice Kingsley, my father Hamish Ascot and I'm Alice Anne Ascot, to be 18 in three days. For my 18th birthday my mother promises me a special gift… and how is she to give me a gift if she isn't really my mother?"
"Alice has married?"
"Well, not exactly" Alice Anne admitted
The White Rabbit was thoroughly perplex and finally decided how to handle the situation.
"Come with me…" And began hopping away.
"Where are you taking her?" Asked a curious petunia.
"To see The Hatter!"