Disclaimer:
'I really only mean to borrow,'
Says Quarta, eyes downcast in sorrow.
CHAPTER FOUR – FALLING AND FLOATING
Edith had made many a night-time expedition out of an unmapped house; her searches through Grandmother's garden for the rabbit hole had nearly always taken place at night – so creeping out of her bedroom, down the stairs, and to the front door was exceedingly simple. It was a bolt lock, and though she had to fetch a chair from the dining room to reach it, it was soon open. Edith peered out into the mist, so thick she was unable to see anything five feet past the door; her cold little hands lingering on the doorframe. She breathed deeply, her mouth set in determination, and started off down the wide driveway; walking quickly before she was seen from one of the windows, paranoid that any minute now she might hear the sounds of pursuit.
When she reached the road she found it too was enveloped in an even deeper fog which surrounded her like a stifling blanket, strangling the usual night sounds she was accustomed to – the only noise now the soft swishing of her nightgown and coat as she walked; the scrape of her boots on the ground.
And as the thirteen year old girl set off on her journey to the old Kingsleigh residence, she bargained to herself.
If I can find Wonderland, I can find Aunt Alice.
If I can find Aunt Alice, I can bring her back home.
If I can bring her back home, she can fix Mother.
If I can find the rabbit hole, Mother will get better.
Three days of travel and Edith saw a house. They were spread far apart here in the country, on large blocks of land, and this was the first she had seen since leaving Havershim Place. Starvation and sickness from eating only berries drove her into the grounds, lurking around the stables and creeping into the back garden.
The house belonged to a family of seven; a couple and their five children, and Edith soon discovered how difficult it was to sneak into a house containing so many people, all of whom were running about constantly. She hid in their stables all day, crouched in a dark corner trying to think of a way to distract them. At night the house would be locked up, but perhaps she could sneak in at dusk somehow and hide in a cupboard.
'Wasted time,' she muttered to herself, 'I have to move ...'
One of the horses, a brown mare, nosed her curiously, receiving a bad-tempered shove in response. The mare neighed in surprise, jumping away from her, and slowly Edith's scowl turned into a rather wicked grin.
Arthur Pellam prided himself on his well-trained horses, and so was quite shocked to see his favourite brown mare exploding from her stable in a panic, galloping straight past where he stood in the front yard with two of his children and down to the road. As any good horse owner would, he immediately dropped his cricket bat and gave chase, shouting and being trailed by his laughing children, whose ruckus raised the rest of the family's attention. Later, none of them ever could work out what had made the horse bolt so, or exactly which naughty child of the family had guzzled down Mrs Pellam's fresh loaf of bread, which had mysteriously gone missing from the cooling rack.
Three weeks of travel later, and Edith was doing everything she could to keep herself alive, and hidden. She had refrained from walking alongside the road she knew led to the Kingsleigh residence, instead delving into the forest beside it, keeping close enough to remain within hearing distance and far away enough to remain out of sight. The forest wove around behind the gardens of properties, and Edith travelled mostly by night, afraid that some home owner might spot a glimpse of red coat and white nightgown moving through the trees. She stole whatever food she could from the houses she passed, creating a distraction at one end of the house before infiltrating the kitchens; living on a diet of bread, cheese, cakes and the few berries she managed to scrounge from the bushes around her.
By now she was quite a mess; her usually tangled hair was matted and dirty, with twigs poking out of it at odd angles, her coat was splattered with mud, and her nightgown was stained and ripped in places – once deliberately to make a bandage for her bleeding hand when she fell. Her boots were the only things that were still as firm and as sturdy as they had started off, albeit a little mud-caked.
She slept curled up in ditches or tree hollows, pulling her coat and dead leaves around her in a vain attempt to keep warm, and would wake with the day when the cold morning sun filtered through the canopy, or shivering in the middle of the night at some unknown noise amongst the trees.
Still, with every tumble to the ground and every grazed knee and every sour berry Edith remained stubbornly fixed on her destination. The Kingsleigh residence still hadn't managed to be sold, associated with too much tragedy already – a reputation which Mother's apparent insanity no doubt did nothing to help. Edith could search for weeks for the rabbit hole if she had to, and she knew in her gut that this time out of so many she would find it.
On the eve of the fourth week, Edith could tell from the increased noise and bustle from the road that she was nearing her target. She let herself sleep, anticipation growing inside her. The next morning she woke to find the sky overhead darkened with ominous clouds, heralding a storm and sending her good mood crashing to the ground. She knew how much more difficult her already trying path would be if wet and slippery; how much colder she would be if she couldn't find shelter.
That night she crawled into a space between two high tree roots to sleep; and no sooner had she closed her eyes than the gentle, infuriating drip-drip of rain covered her. She leapt from her hovel, screaming obscenities at the sky.
The clouds responded with absolute downpour, drenching Edith in a matter of minutes as she shouted, stomped around, yelled and kicked the dirt as it fast turned to mud; kicked a tree and was showered with drops of water; slipped and tripped over moss. After some moments she realised that she was making a terrible racket, and, like a frightened animal, dove into the nearest hollow tree trunk; pulling her knees up to her chest and shrinking into herself.
It was only after her rage had settled into sulky displeasure that Edith realised she couldn't hear anything. Not a single thing but the rain pattering on every dark surface. In her tantrum she had stormed too far from the road. She was lost in a night-time forest with no means of finding her way out, she hadn't eaten in two days, her body ached all over from constant travel, and it was raining.
Edith screamed and beat the walls of the tree trunk, frustration nearly driving her insane. Again she quietened after some minutes of fury, and fell silent once more. She was glaring out at the rain when she saw a flash of brightest blue.
The butterfly landed lightly on the inside of the tree trunk beside her, flexing its sky-blue wings gently.
'Stupid thing,' frowned Edith, 'why would you fly about in this?' She gestured at the rain, falling like a shimmering curtain in the dark, 'You'll get your wings wet, and you'll never be able to fly again.' She let this sink for a moment then added, 'You wouldn't like that, would you?'
The butterfly remained silent, surveying her with a cool curiosity.
'No,' said Edith, answering her own question with a decisive nod of the head, 'you wouldn't. Now, if I was a butterfly, I would never fly about in the rain. I would fly to far off places, like ... China,' she said, smiling for the first time in weeks. 'Have you ever been to China, Miss Butterfly?'
The butterfly seemed to take offence at this, taking flight with an insulted flick of its wings, and fluttering right out into the rain.
Edith cried out in alarm, perhaps having begrudgingly taken a liking to its bright colour, or just glad of the company after so many weeks travelling alone.
'Wait! Your wings!' She scrambled out of the trunk and promptly slipped and fell on her rear end. The butterfly landed gracefully upon the tip of her nose, peering at her with a strangely judging air, as if trying to make its mind up; long enough for Edith to see how the rain drops simply rolled off its wings.
'But – but that's ... imposs...' the word died on her lips as the butterfly suddenly darted away, luminous in the darkness.
Edith got to her feet unsteadily, grabbing a branch to stable herself before chasing the butterfly as it flitted through the trees. She stumbled and fell many times, bruising and scratching herself further in the night, palms and knees stinging, nightgown tearing audibly; her chest aching with the freezing air, legs screaming in protest; branches grabbing at her as if the forest itself was trying to hold her back. Somewhere up ahead she could hear a faint noise, growing louder and louder as she ran.
The road, she thought excitedly, it's leading me back to the road.
'WAIT!' she panted, barely able to keep up with the blue butterfly.
Pushing herself onwards she ran; filthy hair flinging itself into her face and red coat flapping behind her like a flag of distress; when all at once she burst out of the trees, the distant sound rose to a roaring crescendo, and she fell as the ground disappeared beneath her.
There was one heartbeat left to realise it was not the road she had been led to, but water – overflowing and perilously fast – and to see the butterfly hovering over her as she crashed into the stream and sunk.
Edith thrashed and choked; the water was like a blade of ice cutting into her, and all the breath had been knocked out of her when she tripped. She was hurtling and tumbling through the water, knocking against rocks and fallen branches and held underneath the surface. Frantically she kicked off her boots, letting them disappear into the murky depths, and rose like a cork, gulping down a lungful of cold air.
'HELP!' she yelled as loud as she could muster, not caring who heard her now.
She grabbed at branches by the waterside; a willow whose sleepy peacefulness contrasted bizarrely with the chaos she had found herself immersed in, but was whipped past before it could do more than graze her fingertips. The pull of the water was far too strong; the idea of swimming was laughable. Suddenly she shrieked, seeing a large rock ahead moments before she was painfully slammed into it, winded and pinned in place by the rushing stream. Before she could gasp for air she slipped fractionally and was pulled down again, pushed beneath the surface. She struggled desperately, her chest screaming for oxygen, her limbs heavy with exhaustion; and realised that it wasn't just the violent flow of the stream – something was sucking her down below; a ditch of some kind that had turned into a deathtrap with the heavy rain, and she panicked.
Edith kicked against it, tore off her coat; using up every last ounce of energy that remained from her last meagre supper and the month of walking, her lungs now fit to burst. Still the suction pulled her down, down, down into the impossibly deep pitch black darkness, fighting and clawing at the last glimmer of light, of air, and of the flash of blue above her, watching her – all of which disappeared, leaving her with the claustrophobic illusion of blindness.
Her lungs were going to kill her, she had to breathe, she had to breathe –
She gasped convulsively and choked, water rushing into her chest and making her cough and breathe even more. She recoiled into herself as the water burned inside her, still sinking down further. She was going to die.
I am not going to die.
Blackout.
When Edith woke she was drifting through clear, black water, her hair and nightgown floating around her, corpse-like, and for a moment she thought she was a corpse, until she told herself very firmly that she most definitely was not.
It took her some moments to notice that she was breathing quite normally, despite being underwater. She was unnerved by this, as it didn't much help the theory that she was still alive, and tried not to think about it.
She seemed to be drifting vaguely in one direction, exactly which one she couldn't say, and soon grew bored waiting for something to happen when nothing did. She couldn't see anything but the blackness around and her own body, and had no clue where she might be.
I'm in a place where you can breathe underwater, she wondered to herself.
'Perhaps ...' she began slowly, when an eye blinked at her.
Edith blinked back, rather surprised to see an eye all the way down here.
'Hello,' she said.
More eyes opened around her, green and blue and brown and grey; all blinking lazily like an offbeat sequence, ranging in sizes smaller than her own eyes to those bigger than her body.
'Who are you?' she said questioningly, 'Where are your mouths?'
They made no reply, watching her silently from all around.
'If you have eyes you should have mouths,' complained Edith, crossing her arms.
After a few seconds of floating amongst them, she asked, 'Are we in Wonderland?'
Immediately some eyes shut at this, disappearing from sight. The ones that remained didn't answer, blinking slowly.
'Well?' she said irritably, tired of being unsure of her own continued existence and starting to feel uncomfortable from their constant gaze. Still they blinked, and Edith found herself blinking back on reflex, mesmerised.
Blink …
Blink …
Blink …
She yawned; the struggle in the water above had tired her so, and her body was still throbbing from being thrown about in the stream.
As she revolved slowly in the water, her lids drooping, through the halo of her mousey hair her eyes caught sight of the door. It was about a yard away from her, made of stone or dark grey wood it was impossible to tell, and it registered in her mind as vaguely significant. Doors were important ... a whole room of doors were important; a room with a twisted-patterned floor and a glass table that definitely wasn't there before...
Edith jolted out of her trance, and so did the eyes around her – no longer blinking, watching her warily. She tried to swim towards the door, but found her limbs even heavier than before, her movements drugged and sluggish. She managed to start moving forwards slowly, gaining alertness as she went, when an eye suddenly opened right in front of her, blocking her path. She cried out and brushed it aside like a bug, pushing ahead more urgently. More eyes appeared closer to her, staring at her unblinkingly from every angle; beating down on the back of her neck and peering up her skirt. She swam through them, finally nearing the door, stretching one arm out and grasping the handle, using it to pull herself the rest of the way.
The moment her fingertips touched the doorknob the eyes descended upon her in a frenzied swarm, trying to wriggle up her nose and squashing her against the door. She lashed out wildly, shoving and pushing them off her body. Once momentarily free, in one swift movement she opened the door and pushed herself through, slamming it behind her, shaking and relieved.
The eyes were gone, but now she found herself with bigger problems.
Instead of releasing a load of water and emerging dripping wet as she had expected, Edith found that she continued to float in mid air, her gown and hair around her. Worse, she seemed to be floating upwards uncontrollably, towards the high ceiling like a balloon; she tried to swim sideways and latch onto a wall or curtain but it was too late, and she only narrowly managed to avoid setting herself on fire when she floated into the chandelier; waving her arms wildly to go round it. The next moment she was bobbing against the domed ceiling, looking down at the room.
It was just as Aunt Alice had described; circular, with a black and white patterned floor. Doors like the one she had entered from were stationed all around the walls, except for one space where a dark curtain hung instead, and in the centre of the room was a glass table, upon which Edith could see the "drink me" bottle – pishsalver as Aunt Alice called it, what seemed to be a small dress, and the key to the tiny door, glinting at her enticingly.
She crawled over the ceiling, using the bumps in the elaborate roof-work to pull herself along. When she reached a wall she grabbed the curtain and lowered herself down, her feet hanging in the air, but the blood thankfully refusing to rush to her head and her gown staying upright. It was the most bizarre experience. Once below the level of the table, her gown brushing the marble floor, Edith pushed off from the wall, shooting across the room and barely grasping the bottle before she rose up again.
She uncorked it, and sipped at it carefully, knowing from her stories how strong it was. It tasted like bitter almonds and she grimaced as it slid down her throat and into her stomach, slippery and cold. It was only as she felt herself sinking slowly in the air, her bones contracting and tickling her spine, her skin tightening and her whole body compressing as she shrunk, that it finally sunk in.
'I'm in Wonderland,' she marvelled to herself, 'I can make Mother better and I can find Aunt Alice ... I'm going to see Aunt Alice!' Her old wide, toothy grin spread over her starved, pinched face, her heart warming with sudden exhilaration.
The smash of the glass bottle hitting the floor brought her back to the task at hand. Looking down over herself, she saw that she was only about six inches tall, (having drunk too much pishsalver), and her night gown was floating around her like a tent, but she was no longer rising upwards so fast; the pishsalver inside her seemed to have given her some weight. Edith swam out of it easily and it continued to rise up to the ceiling as she managed to land lightly on the glass tabletop to observe the tiny dress.
It was quite bigger than her current size, made of smooth blue material and by someone with quick fingers and an admirable eye for detail in clothing so small; little flowers had been carefully stitched along its hem. Edith pulled it on and tied the sash in place; it was baggy and too long but it covered her and added more weight, and for that she was grateful.
Just as she was skimming over the table to get the key, a door banged open and a white rabbit burst into the room, skidding across the floor and coming to halt in front of Edith, panting and wide-eyed. Edith froze halfway through tying the key to her sash, hovering half an inch off the tabletop.
'White Rabbit?' she said incredulously, her eyes roughly the size of saucepans.
He seemed just as shocked by her sudden appearance.
'You're not Alice,' he said confusedly. 'What are you doing here?'
Edith was for the first time in her life rendered incapable of speech, now that she was suddenly confronted by such an iconic character from her childhood stories.
'You're not Alice at all,' he said, more irritably now, 'the absolute cheek; sitting up there bold as brass, and wearing her dress too.'
'I – I shrunk out of my clothes,' stammered Edith, finding her voice.
'Well,' he sniffed, as if very much offended, 'you should at least have the decency not to set off false alarms.'
'I didn't know I was setting off any alarms,' she protested.
'And I ran all this way,' he continued, ignoring her, 'what a waste of time.'
'I'm not a waste of time,' scowled Edith, crossing her arms in annoyance and drifting towards the ceiling again.
The White Rabbit jumped as he noticed this, startled.
'Good heavens! What on earth have you done to yourself?'
'I don't know!' cried Edith crossly, throwing her hands in the air.
'Well, I don't know how you got down here, but you'll just have to go back up the hole,' he snapped, inspecting the gold fob watch hanging from his waistcoat. 'I've got no time for you, you silly creature; I spent it all coming here and now it's wasted – do you see what you've done?' he scolded, clicking the watch shut. He tutted as he watched her ascent to ceiling, frowning in disapproval.
'Not even Alice and you've gotten yourself in a right mess already,' he observed with the twitch of a furry white ear, 'Otherlanders are all the same.'
'So help me!'
'I won't help anybody who shouts at me,' said the White Rabbit, unimpressed.
'I am not shouting!' shouted Edith.
Unmoved by her midair hissy fit he turned to go, hopping away towards the door from whence he entered.
'WAIT!'
He winced slightly at her volume, but kept hopping away none the less.
'White Rabbit!'
'My name is McTwisp, thank you very much,' he said, half turning to face her.
'You have a name?' Edith couldn't remember him having one.
'Yes,' he answered crabbily, 'and I rather happen to like it.'
He saw Edith wrinkle her nose, and scoffed, turning away again, muttering to himself.
'Not all of us enjoyed ... Alice's little nicknames ... Hatter ... but of course, she's far too good for us now –'
'Alice?' cried Edith, struggling to swim after McTwisp.
He turned again, his nose twitching irritably, 'Lower your tone.'
'Hmph,' grunted Edith, and he hopped away again. 'WAIT!'
McTwisp stiffened, whipped about to face her, and opened his mouth, no doubt to give her another telling off, when she interrupted him before he had a chance.
'Get Aunt Alice and bring her here,' she demanded, six inches tall and ten feet in the air but as forceful as ever, 'I know how much she loves it down here but she's got to stop playing and come home; Mother's terribly sick and Aunt Alice is the only one who can make her better ...'
McTwisp didn't seem to be listening, busy fretfully polishing his fob watch and repeatedly glancing at the time.
'Did you say, "Aunt" Alice?' he said impatiently. 'You're a relative?'
'Yes,' she said, just as impatiently, 'just bring her here and tell her Edith –'
He ignored her, producing a monocle from the folds of his waistcoat and squinting through it at her.
'You don't look a thing like her!' he said triumphantly after a moment's study.
'I'm her sister Margaret's daughter. I've been told I take after my father,' she added in disgust. 'But that's not the point –'
'I do recall her mentioning a niece,' he frowned, 'but she sounded much younger than you.'
'Well, I've grown,' said Edith obviously, 'we haven't seen each other in nearly seven years.'
'Why not?'
'Because she's been down here!' she said, trying hard not to shout; the sentence coming out very high-pitched.
'Down here?' repeated the Rabbit, growing more bewildered by the second.
'Yes!' squealed Edith, growing more frustrated by the second, 'Down here! And now she simply has to come back because Mother – ouch!'
She bumped her elbow against the ceiling as she hit it, and glared down at him reproachfully.
He was frowning to himself in confusion, nose twitching. He looked up at her cry, and tutted again, beckoning to her.
'Come down here, child.'
Edith rolled her eyes and swam down to him, landing clumsily on the tabletop and clinging to the edge of it, just above eye level with him.
'Yes?'
'Do you mean to say ... Alice isn't in the Overland?' McTwisp started to fidget, twisting his paws worriedly.
'Well, of course not –'
'Oh dear ... oh dear, dear, dear ...' Slowly, the disjointed pieces of Edith's past sentences seemed to be clicking into place, and a terrible comprehension dawned in his eyes.
'What?' she said sharply.
'She's ... missing?' he said, his nose twitching again compulsively.
'That's what the policemen said,' sighed Edith, 'and Mother and Grandmother; I tried to tell them but they wouldn't believe me.'
'Tell them what?'
'That's she's down here.'
McTwisp edged away, his little eyes darting around the room, paws wringing each other.
'Because she is down here,' said Edith, looking down at him from above, 'isn't she? McTwisp?'
He hopped from foot to foot neurotically, getting more and more agitated.
'McTwisp?' repeated Edith uncertainly, a sense of sickening dread mounting inside of her. 'Where is Aunt Alice?'
'I – I don't ... she didn't ... she hasn't ...' he stuttered, 'it's been seven years?'
'Seven years she's been down here,' she replied, the hands gripping the tabletop tightening, 'and she's still down here, isn't she?'
He was close to hyperventilating now, so much that Edith was afraid he might faint, and he was refusing to look at her, twitching and wringing and fidgeting.
'McTwisp, Alice is here,' said Edith her voice shaking, 'isn't she?'
Finally he stopped twitching and met her eyes, his head beginning to slowly shake.
'No,' he said quietly, 'she isn't.'
A/N:
This chapter I'm not sure I like -
The in-between I had to write,
Some feedback, please, a word or two?
I beg a small review from you.