by A. G. Stone
I stepped inside the house, looking around. Every surface was layered with dust so thick I was shocked I wasn't sneezing. The colors of the furniture inside were dulled with age and diluted by the amount of dust covering it. I didn't pay attention to my surroundings, too enraptured by the message written in the dust high above what any normal human would be able to reach: "You've reached this far, Bryony, so why not go a little farther? Follow the footprints, and they will lead you to the rabbit hole. Do not be afraid; you will be home soon enough. -S"
I wondered, for what felt like the millionth time, who this "S" character was, and what he wanted with me. Why did I have to fall down the rabbit hole? Why not someone else. But I did as I was told, for a strange yearning pulled at my heart, demanding that I be by the side of that "S" character once more. So I walked forward, guided by the quiet voices that I had always heard and the footsteps imprinted into the dust covering the floor.
I pushed through a curtain of silver and white cobwebs that covered the back of the house in a mystical illusion that made the sun shimmer as it shone through the cracked, dusty windows, shaking myself free of the sticky and dry webs, and I pushed on the door that led to the backyard. Surprisingly, unlike the front door, this door opened easily, and I stepped outside. I gaped at my surroundings, so beautiful and mystical.
It was as if I had stepped through a portal taking me back in time - in months as well as years, since it was the middle of winter last time I checked. The colors around me were so rich and colorful, and the garden in the backyard was in the same shape that it would be if someone were taking care of it. The grass - so vividly green - was trimmed and grew well all across the yard. Flowers in every color of the rainbow seemed to be everywhere I looked, and I saw one that was a dark purple and shimmered like a jewel. I blinked, but that was not the strangest thing there.
Beneath a gnarled, old oak tree, in between the twisting roots, was a hole. It was about the right size for a person to fall down, and no grass grew near it. It was as if the grass had simply . . . been prevented from growing around the hole. The hole looked as though it would belong to a rabbit, though it was far too big to be a rabbit hole. If I weren't careful, I could fall down the hole and . . .
My eyes widened as realization dawned on me. This was the hole they had wanted me to fall down; this was the hole they kept talking about. I took a step forward and looked back. Behind me, there was the house, and the door revealed the dusty inside. I almost wanted to run back inside, back to my new car; I almost wanted to go home where things made sense and weren't always mysteries, but I knew that I couldn't. I had already come so far, fallen into the depths of my hidden madness so deep, I couldn't go back now. I had to see this to the end. Maybe then I would be able to discover why madness had run in the family since my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Alice.
Yes, I was related to Alice Liddell, the girl who had inspired Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. After Alice returned from Wonderland, she became mad, absolutely bonkers. She wouldn't consume anything if it wasn't on a tea tray if it was food or in a tea cup if it was something that could be drunk. She was strange, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on inside her head. So they stuck her in an asylum and gave her electric shocks to tray and help her regain her senses. But it didn't work, and it killed her; the shock treatments meant to help killed her.
I would not have been born if it weren't for the fact that this madness occurred once she was an old woman and had kids and grandkids. It was as if she suddenly was affected by Wonderland and hadn't been in the human realm at all. Whatever it was, it baffled the doctors to no end. My family didn't speak of Alice, too afraid that all of the females in the family would go mad at the mention of her name. My grandmother, Alys, was just another in a long line of women in the family to go mad and start raving about rabbits in waistcoats and men who could transform into butterflies. Well, one man with dark blue eyes that she said she had fallen in love with, but the man didn't feel the same about her; he was already in love with someone.
I reached into the bag I had carried with me since it had been inside the car that Blayke and Damien had left for me. It was a messenger bag that was red with a zebra-print inside. My fingers found something that was hard yet gave way when I pushed at it, and I grasped it, withdrawing it from the bag. I was surprised to find, within my hand, was a copy of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". I flipped the copy open and was surprised to find that it appeared to be the first copy of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" there ever was, the one that Lewis Carroll gave to Alice Liddell when she was young. There were phrases written in the margins, phrases like "Not really" and "Really, Carroll?" I blinked and began to flip through the pages. There were sections underlined of the book, like the section with the bottle and the cake and the section with the ocean of tears. I closed the book and slipped it back into the bag.
I walked over to the hole and crouched down at its lip, not caring if my favorite jeans were stained by the dirt. The hole was dark, and there was no end in sight. But I trusted in the voice inside of me that had guided me so far. "Fall down the rabbit hole and discover what is inside," is what the writing on my wall had said. I knew that I had no choice if I wanted to end this. I sighed deeply, taking a leap of faith, and I jumped.
Chapter 8:
Falling
I fell down the rabbit hole slowly, suspended in the air. The air around me tasted stale, and I licked my lips to remove the taste from my tongue, instead tasting the strawberry shake I had bought earlier to feed myself since I had skipped breakfast in my mad dash out of the house. On the sides of the hole, lining the dirt walls and wrapped up in ivy and vines, was a smattering of random objects; things like chairs or drawers from a desk or a nightstand were pinned up against the wall. I grabbed a jar from one of the desks and twisted the lid off. Inside, half filling the jar, was what looked like strawberry jelly. I stuck my finger inside and twisted it around for a bit to collect as much of the jelly I could on my index finger before pulling it out and sticking it in my mouth.
Flavors exploded on my tongue. I tasted blueberry and raspberry and strawberry and grape, and banana - which I gagged at - and oranges. Curious about the strange mix of fruity flavors, I went to stick my finger back in the jar, but the jar was high above my head, resting inside the drawer of a dresser. There was the sound of fluttering behind me, and I turned around in mid-air, somehow accepting this as reality.
"That's enough of that," a masculine, sexy drawl said in my ear, and I whipped around again. But there wasn't anything there.
"What the Hell?" I muttered, and there was the sound of dark chuckling.
"What did I tell you about cursing?" the voice asked, and I smirked.
"'Hell' isn't a curse word, just like 'bloody' isn't," I said, and the voice chuckled again.
"Whatever you say, luv," the voice drawled in my ear in a thick and seductive Cockney accent, and my eyes narrowed in irritation as I blushed at the nickname; I didn't want a stranger to be able to get to me like that.
"Who are you?" I asked, suspicious of the voice suddenly as I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about the owner of the thick, syrup-like Cockney accent that enveloped me in a warm blanket as I continued to fall down the rabbit hole.
"You don't remember me? Oh, I'm hurt, luv," he said. "We did grow up together."
"I don't know you," I said, shaking my head. "We never had a childhood together."
"Well, I suppose it has been years," he said thoughtfully, ignoring my interruption as if I was naught but a bee buzzing around his head. "I guess I should tell you my name."
"I'd appreciate it," I said dryly, and he laughed gaily, his captivating and enticing laughter somehow melting me until I felt like I was just a puddle of Bryony - all dark brown and black and white - falling down the rabbit hole.
"Oh, luv," he said, and my cheeks flushed at the fond nickname he'd given me in his thick Cockney accent. "I suppose I will, si
nce you so kindly requested it. My name is Seth, though the name everyone calls me by is different."
"What is the name everyone calls you by?" I asked, and Seth chuckled.
"Ah-ah, not yet. It isn't time for you to know that yet. You will know when you find me. Don't forget to use the key; it is the only thing that will open the lock. Good luck," he drawled, and then his voice disappeared so quick I was left blinking in shock.
"Seth? Seth, where are you? Seth!?" I shouted, my voice echoing in the apparently reverberating rabbit hole.
But there was no reply.
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, watching the sides of the rabbit hole change, the objects pinned to the dirt walls changing as I fell father. I fell down for what felt like forever until I landed in a heap at the bottom, on a hard floor. I stood up and brushed myself off, surprised to find that, suddenly, I was dressed in a Victorian style dress. I looked down at it. It was light blue with short sleeves that were bunched up together with a bow made of the same light blue silk sewn on to my right shoulder. At the bottom of the dress, it lifted up to reveal white silk underneath. On the left side, the blue silk bunched up to reveal more of the white silk than there was on the right side.
I looked around and found myself in a room lit with the flickers of orange and red flames. The floor was black and blue checkered, and the walls were plain and made of light wood that looked to be oak or pine. There were several doors lining the walls, and I looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling was striped like a zebra, except instead of the typical white and black, it was cream and dark brown striped. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling with several - about ten around the dark, twisting metal center - dishes with red candles basically glued inside with wax. There was a glass table to the side of the room, pressed against an open part of the wall.
I walked around the room, wandering through the room. I tried each door, but all of them were locked. Then, with great joy, I remembered the key around my neck. I took off the key and tried each door, but alas! None of them would open to the key fitted into their locks; sometimes the key was too large, other times it was too small, and other times still it was just the wrong shape. I took a step back from the latest door I had tried and thought back to the original story. Oh, yes! I remembered; there was a tiny door hidden behind a small curtain in the story that the key unlocked.
I looked around the room until I found the curtain, except it was not a curtain in great shape; it was dark crimson and moth-eaten until it was threadbare and holey. It was soft to the touch, though, and I pushed it aside with my index finger, getting down on my knees to examine the door behind the curtain. The door was tiny, about the same size that it said in the book, and it was made of a material, of a metal, that looked to be gold. I traced my finger tip over the door's carved surface, exploring the carved designs; it felt like gold, cool to the touch and sort of soft.
I brought the key to the lock and twisted it in the lock. It opened to reveal a garden with rich colors and brightly shimmering jeweled flowers. I wished to get into the beautiful garden, but I was too large.
I closed the door and locked it again - knowing that either way it would end up locked, standing up. I quickly tied the key necklace around my wrist and went to the three-legged, glass table that stood in the middle of the room. I found on top a silver bottle labeled 'DRINK ME' in a curling script upon a piece of parchment attached to the neck of the bottle. I tucked the bottle into my messenger bag and bent down, searching the floor for the cake. I found it at last, tucked into a silver box that was somehow see-through. The cake itself was tiny, but it was so lovely; it was a red-velvet cupcake with white frosting on it with a pecan resting in the middle. The paper around the cupcake said in the same curling script 'EAT ME'. I also tucked that into my bag and stood.
I searched through the bag for all that it contained and found white lace gloves that carried a trace scent of black pepper. Guided by the same mysterious voice inside my head, I slipped the gloves on and took the fan out also, tucking it into a secret pocket in the dress I somehow knew of. I then grabbed the bottle and walked over to the tiny door. I sloshed a bit of the golden liquid inside of the bottle into my mouth, swallowing. I popped the cork back into place and stuffed the bottle back into the messenger bag, coughing as the bitter liquid burnt all the way down my throat and into my stomach.
Then I began to shrink. Shrinking is a rather curious feeling; it felt as though I was tumbling in a clothes dryer, my skin warming. My stomach began to turn, and I gagged, feeling as though I would have to throw up. My stomach began to turn faster and faster, nausea rising faster and faster. It felt as though I was spinning. At least, mercifully, the spinning came to a stop, and I landed on the tiled floor, gasping for breath. I was terribly dizzy, but I forced myself to stand, stumbling over to the door as if I was drunk.
I struggled with the key that was now about as tall as I was, lifting it to the lock and turning it. Then I raced out into the garden of Wonderland, not forgetting to grab the key from the door's lock as I closed the door behind me.
Chapter 9:
The White Rabbit and the Flowers
"Welcome home, luv. Be careful now; don't let the Flowers eat you. They're always rather hungry, and they enjoy our kind the best for their meals. Be careful, luv. We need you, so don't let the Flowers get to you. And beware the White Rabbit; he's been on the other side since the Queen saved him from the Flowers," the husky Cockney accent warned me, and I blushed a little at his constant use of his fond nickname for me. "I'm in the Heart of Wonderland. Find me in the Castle, unlock the coffin with your key, set me free."
'Our kind'? I thought, but I shrugged the thought off; he must have meant human.
I looked around carefully, but all I could see were tall flowers with jeweled petals in every color of the rainbow. I peered at the door behind me; it was all by itself, standing alone in the air. It was attached to the steps that I had raced down, stone steps that were cream-colored, like slabs of vanilla chocolate. The door on this end was the same as the one on the other side, but the carvings were a bit different; instead of carvings of phrases in Egyptian, they were carvings of roses and tulips and sunflowers.
"Look, Angelonia, a human."
I whipped around to only see flowers. I blinked; I must have been hearing things, because I've never known of a flower that could talk.
"What the Hell? Last I knew, flowers couldn't talk," I mumbled, looking around the garden.
"Azalea, this human girl doesn't think we talk," another flower said, one that was a rose with jeweled petals.
"Oh, Cabbage Rose, she's so foolish. Would you agree?" an azalea said, looking as though she was smirking. "Though she does look delicious, like one of the Royals all dressed in fancy dress like that."
"Delicious?" I asked, my eyes wide. "How can a human being be delicious?"
"I am rather hungry," a huge dandelion said, nudging a box open with its head. A ladybug crawled out, and the dandelion bent down at what would be a waist if it was a human. It opened its slobbering mouth and ate the ladybug whole, crunching down with sharp fangs.
"And these bugs aren't always satisfying," the cabbage rose added, catching the next bug - a bumblebee - that crawled out of the box in a mad dash for freedom and biting down upon it with its vicious fangs so that its guts splattered everywhere.
"So you're going to eat me," I finished, biting the inside of my cheek and gnawing on it as I watched the flowers carefully.
"Exactly!" the azalea said, nudging the lid to the box containing the bugs closed. "Look, Camellia, this human girl is wise. Wiser than that other one who came through, who deluded herself into thinking we were friendly."
"You mean Alice?" I ventured, and the azalea nodded.
"You know of her? Yes, Alice," it said.
"I am her great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter," I said, "Bryony Hollander of the Human World."
"It is her!" a shy, small, purple petunia said, popping up
into view as everyone turned to look at her. "I said so! You see? I'm always right!"
"Hush now, Petunia," the cabbage rose snapped before turning back to me. "Are you here to fix Alice's mistakes, Bryony Hollander of the Human World? Are you here to topple the Court of Spades, to turn back the clock? Are you here to save all?"
I nodded. "Yes, I am," I said confidently, though I had no idea of half of what the flower was talking about.
"Then we have no choice. It was rather nice to meet you, Bryony Hollander of the Human World. I'd have hoped that you could have saved Wonderland, but what happens now is inevitable." The cabbage rose nodded, and it was then that I realized it appeared to be the leader of all of the flowers. "Rabid Knight!"
I blinked. I thought that it was the White Rabbit. But I shrugged. Alice got a lot of things wrong; for one, she thought that the flowers were friendly and not at all bloodthirsty. Perhaps she got the name wrong; maybe its name really was Rabid Knight.
When the White Rabbit - or Rabid Knight as the flower had called it - hopped into the clearing, I squeaked in shock. The creature standing before me was the exact copy of my rendition of the White Rabbit. The creature's fur was tattered and pulled back in places to reveal the thin, stick-like bones of its skeleton. Its body was built like a rabbit so it looked rather similar to a rabbit, but its face was that of a rabid dog; its eyes were red and its lips were pulled up to reveal sharp fangs that looked to be permanently stained with blood. Upon sight of me, its mouth began to froth, spit dribbling down the corners of its mouth and splattering against the ground with hisses and steam. From what I could see, it was venomous, enough so that its spit was melting the ground away.
