Author: Woohoo, thanks for showing an interest guys! It cheers me. Next upload I'm thinking of thanking reviewers individually so get those reviews in with suggestions, questions, incontinuities, you name it and we can get a discussion going! Now, onward to the rabbit hole!

"I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole- and yet- and yet- it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me!" ~ Alice in Wonderland

Chapter Three: Down the Rabbit Hole!

"You're late! Maggie, wake up!"

Margaret's eyes burst open. She'd fallen asleep over her sewing again. Every time some new terror wracked her brain, making her head ache and her heart race. Alice. Always Alice. Alice crying, bleeding, dying, dead. And her friends- like patchwork dolls with wind-up backs. She could see something- something indistinct in the distance, winding them up and sending them on a path of ruin into a gaping hole- a void.

She couldn't take much more of this.

"Margaret, it's almost tea time." Her mother pointed out uselessly in the doorway. "There is a young gentleman here to see you, specifically. I have suggested the two of you take tea in the garden with Hill as chaperone. I shall be upstairs in my rooms- I have a bit of a headache."

"Who is it, Mama?" She inquired, frowning. As far as she knew, no one had any desire to court her as of late. Indeed, she was deemed to plain and boring to be of any interest. Too old.

"Lord Bumbling something or other." Her mother waved it away dismissively. "I trust you will head to the garden directly. Hill and our guest are waiting."

Margaret sighed but set her needlework aside and stood, smoothing her skirts. She didn't recognize the name her mother had said. No matter. She knew her mother would jump at any opportunity to marry her eldest daughter off; even in the face of the younger one's disappearance.

Out in the Garden stood a squat man with a bulbous red nose and sad, droopy eyes much like a basset hound. He had red hair which he'd slicked back with considerable amounts of grease and continuously ran his hand over it in an insecure fashion. All in all, a despicable fellow. Still, Margaret knew she really had no room to judge anyone by appearances and so she walked to him with an open smile and hand held out. He took it expertly, bowed and then they were seated.

"So sorry to hear about the loss of your sister- tragic, really. If there's anything I can do." He began with, mopping his face with a silk handkerchief. His appearance stank of money and that seemed to be the only thing he had going for him. He certainly lacked tact in conversation.

"She's not lost for good, sir. I trust Alice will be home in good time." Margaret said shortly. He gave her what he must have meant to be a trusting smile of condolence but it looked more leering than anything. Margaret focused on her tea. "If you please, sir, I'm quite certain I'm forgetting your face from somewhere? You act so familiar, yet-"

"Oh, we've never met." He cut across smoothly.

"Then what-"

"I have a proposition for you." He said sharply, suddenly all business. "I want you to forget about Alice."

"How could you-" He stopped her again, putting a hand firmly over her own fingers, squeezing. His grasp was like a vice, her fingers felt brittle, about to snap. She cried out in terror, her eyes flying to his face, wide and pleading. He glared back, his eyes red like fire, something black, the consistency of smoke seemed to ooze out his ears, nostrils, mouth- any orifice, really.

"Alice is mine now, you can not reach her. Forget her and I will ensure your life passes peacefully. I can find you riches, love, whatever you desire. Just abandon this foolish notion that you can get Alice back." It rasped in many voices at once. Margaret felt her shoulders set in determination. Clearly, whatever this was didn't know not to challenge a Kingsley.

"I will get Alice back!" She hissed dangerously. It's vice-like grip snapped shut and she cried out in pain as the bones in her hand shattered. One poked through the skin, a haunting sight and she screamed and screamed and screamed.

"Maggie!"

"Alice!" Margaret opened her eyes, finding herself alone in the garden. Behind her there were raised, frantic voices in the house, growing louder.

"- I just don't understand, she just punched the tree and… never saw such violence in a young woman…no, no, I think it best I just leave… please, she's not right… perhaps this business with her sister… well, good day!"

The front door slamming, hurried footsteps, Hill with bandages, her mother with a red face in anger. Margaret, still in a state of shock, watched as Hill took her broken hand and tried resetting the bones in somewhat proper place. It was enough to bring the girl out of her stupor. She cried out in pain.

"What is wrong with your head?" Her mother said softly from the open door.

Margaret couldn't meet her eyes. "He was lying to you, mother. He attacked me."

"And I'm expected to believe a gentleman such as that could do something such as that to your hand with ease?" She pointed out with a shake of her head.

"He wasn't a gentleman, at all! He was… he was something else. Something wicked… something unreal." Margaret confessed grudgingly. "He told me to stop looking for Alice."

"Oh, is that what you've been doing? Falling asleep over your stitching to find your sister, eh?" Hill remarked snidely. Margaret glanced at her, horrified. The old housekeeper had always taken her and her sister's sides in things, often helping them avoid more strict punishments. Hill would never say something so cruel. She noted something different, something wrong in Hill's eyes as they met hers briefly over the now tied bandage. "Breaking your hand, mutilating it for life most likely, is not going to bring Alice back."

Mrs. Kingsley had vanished into the house. Hill's eyes lowered at the girl before her, her voice became low as she added, "nothing will."

"That's what you think." Margaret met her tone flawlessly. Then, the housekeeper vanished into the house and Margaret was left studying the surrounding trees, cradling her hand in a sling close to her chest. Whatever this thing was that had come in with that gentleman and now lived in Hill- whatever it was that had Alice- had just made it's first action in battle. Margaret wasn't going to let it win without a fight. "Come on, white rabbit. Where are you?"

"When you least expect it…" the cat's voice echoed around and she glanced for it momentarily, the rabbit already flying from her thoughts to be replaced by this new entity.

Just then, there was a glimmer of white. It moved swiftly between the trees, not in the languid movements Alice's apron had but rather in jerky, shaky ones. This was her ticket to Wonderland. Margaret got up without another thought and jogged once more to the trees. She peered through frantically. There! She ran towards it, listening to see if it would speak as the cat had.

It seemed like just an ordinary rabbit. It hopped madly to and fro, glancing back in horror at the human thundering after it. Still, it's diagonal tread wasn't lost or wasted on the girl. It stopped short in a little clearing and turned to face her, it's nose twitching. She began to slow as she neared it.

"Are you the right rabbit?" She asked breathlessly, wincing at the throb in her arm. The rabbit didn't reply, simply twitched at her, studying her with one red eye. She shivered at the color, but it wasn't glowing and she knew for a fact most white-furred animals seemed to have red eyes. Albino, she thought it was called. She stepped more hesitantly. "Can you take me to Alice?"

It turned away to look for something it seemed to hear in the distance. Margaret caught sight of a wind-up key in its back and she shook her head in dismay.

"Should have known it wasn't real…" She murmured to herself. There was a crackling of twigs and suddenly the ground seemed to vanish beneath her feet. Margaret felt her stomach jump up into her throat even as a scream rose unbidden to her lungs. She was falling! She was falling down a rabbit hole!

"I'll surely be dashed to bits at the bottom- this hole seems so deep!" She thought to herself as she fell. Yet contrarily, her descent seemed to be slowing some and she was free to browse the things on all sides of her as she went along. 'This must be a hallucination of sorts, logically a person can't slow down falling. Yes, I must have cracked finally under all the stress.'

She pulled a tea cup off of a table and sniffed gingerly at its contents before letting it go. Too peppery smelling to be tea. The tea cup floated upwards, as if too light to be affected by gravity. Margaret's eyes strayed to a bookcase. 'I suppose I could read something as I fall, but I'm far too anxious to read. And what if I miss the ground coming up to meet me with my nose in a book? I'm liable to hurt myself.'

Instead she glanced about some more. There were the most peculiar things. A couch, an hourglass, she could even have sworn to pass a skull at one point. She shuddered at the notion and decided instead to glance downwards. The floor was only about six feet away.

Immediately she quickened and landed on her stomach with an "Oof!" She wanted to just lay there, with her eyes firmly shut and her cheek pressed to the cool tile floor. Just pretend none of it felt real at all and that she was simply dreaming out in the garden back home. Then she thought of Alice. She opened her eyes and sat up to gaze about the small, dimly lit, circular room.

All around her were doors. Big, imposing doors with ornate knobs and strange, misshapen ones she'd have to bend over to get through. White painted, red painted, natural wood, black, brass, copper, silver… the list seemed endless. She made her way to the nearest one and tried the knob. It wouldn't even turn. She tried another and another.

"And I swear, Maggie, I was in this room full of doors and all were locked. Then I turned and there was a table with a bottle and…"

"… and I shrunk." Maggie finished, turning with little to no surprise to find the glass table there. There was a bottle of pink liquid sitting there, the only clue to it's purpose was a tag which simply read 'Drink me.' She picked it up and unstoppered it, gingerly sniffing. Well, what if it was poison? An elaborate trick? She glanced at the table again, noticing a key for the first time. It was a tiny, silver thing, barely big enough to belong to a diary.

"What door could this possibly fit?" Maggie wondered aloud. No one was here to hear her talking to herself so she saw no reason to avoid the inevitable any longer. After all, don't most mad people talk to themselves. It seemed like it would be one of the sure signs…

A curtain in the corner caught her eye and she remembered Alice telling her such a curtain had hidden a small door from her sight. Only there was something she'd forgotten to do. What is it Alice had forgotten to do? She frowned, trying to remember.

"Well, if I take this and shrink, I'm liable to lose the key. Or worse yet, if I hold it, what if it shrinks with me? We can't have that…" She casually took off the silver chain around her neck, tucking it's small charm of a horseshoe into her pocket before slipping the small key onto it instead. "There, that ought to do the trick."

She set the key down before taking a small sip of the potion. Her greatest fear was drinking too much and finding herself vanishing altogether from the world. It would be unwise and helpful to no one. She began to feel queasy, aching all over as if there was a pressure in her skull as well as her muscles. Then the table began to grow larger than her- and so did the doors!

There weren't growing larger, she was in fact shrinking. This potion of Alice's was real. There was a potion that could make you shrink! Instead of reassuring her of her sister's sanity, it only worked to make her uneasy. Maybe the dangers were real too- and that cat…

"You made the same mistake your sister did- I thought you were supposed to be the rational one." The cat in question said. Margaret immediately scanned about for any sign of a towering feline but it must have remained invisible.

"What mistake would that be?" She asked the air in general. She then fell to inspecting her appearance as she waited for a reply. Her clothes were now far too big for her and she found herself instead in a calf-length sage green gown with loose short sleeves that she constantly tugged up over her shoulders. Her hair, she noted, had fallen out of it's ribbons after the fall and hung in loose dark curls around her face. For some, inexplicable reason, she still wore her boots. All in all, her appearance was scandalous! She merely hoped no one from town would she her in such a manner. There'd no doubt be talk.

"You left the key on the table." The cat chuckled calmly, seemingly having waited for her to finish inspecting herself. She turned and looked, letting out a small sigh. The small thing did indeed continue to sit on the table. Only-

"Aha!" She cried, hurrying towards the towering glass table and jumping lightly into the air. She snatched at the chain dangling off the very edge and the entire thing came tumbling down along with her onto the floor. At least she'd had a way to get the key back off of the table.

She sat up, studying it curiously. It was now the size of a battle axe in her hand. She'd still managed to shrink too much. Still, at least she didn't have to mess around with the suspicious cakes she'd noticed under the table. She began to drag the heavy key and chain across to the tiles. She shrugged the curtain aside and sure enough, a small door stood there, still somewhat towering over her new height. She struggled to hoist the key over her head and fit it into the lock. Turning it was fairly easier; she simply grabbed on to the higher end of the loop and used her weight to bring it to turn. The door snapped open with a blinding light that seemed to tug both her and the key into it's jaws.

Author: So, I thought changing the color of Margaret's gown was important, cause Alice is all known for cornflower blue-ness. And I thought sage-green fitting, I mean it's neutral, it's not so vibrant and bubbly as Alice's blue. It sort of describes current Maggie, don't you think?

*Syfy Channel Alice movie Hatter appears*

Author: Um, hello? Nice eyeliner.

Mad Hatter (Tim Burton Alice movie): Don't talk to him, he's an outsider! Hurry up and finish the story! When do I appear? *clapping*

Author: Listen, I've been thinking... in all your vibrancy you might be a bit of a shock.. maybe we should tone it down?

Hatter (Syfy): Um, what is this place, here?

Author: Wonderland! Well, my Wonderland... no casinos for you.

Mad Hatter: Scurvy dog! Degenerate bag-head mockery of myself! Look at him, he's wearing brown! *manic laughter*

Hatter: He's mad as a box of frogs.

Author: Oh, dear... well, at least it's just you two.

*In drops Cartoon Hatter*

Author: eep.