by Lotus Rose
She hooked her hands onto the edge, then kicked up and hooked her foot and pulled herself up and over.
She peered at what was inside.
It was a cozy little abode indeed. The inside reminded Alice of a cave. She saw the Black Butterfly standing in the nook, asleep. Behind her were two most-peculiar objects—they were two human-sized Mary Jane shoes that looked quite enormous compared to the Butterfly. The two shoes glowed with that same “goody” energy Alice had seen before, but the glow was very strong emanating from the shoes, and she deduced that that is perhaps where the “goody” energy had originated from.
She paused for a moment, steeling herself for what she would have to do next, because she wasn’t normally a very mean person, but this butterfly had been bullying the Caterpillar. So the Butterfly had to be taught a lesson, and unfortunately that might mean being a little cruel, but it was for a good cause against a mean insect, she told herself, which justified it somewhat.
Her black dress contained many secret pockets capable of holding much more than seemed possible.
She reached into her pocket and crept silently as a cat up to the sleeping Black Butterfly.
She pulled out the little baggy of spice that she had secretly stolen when the Caterpillar wasn’t looking. She didn’t feel all that bad about stealing it, since the Caterpillar had judged the spice to be inferior and had essentially thrown it away.
It was the Spice of Paralyzing Terror and Nightmares.
Alice knew firsthand its effects, because the Caterpillar had tested it on her.
Alice stepped up to the dozing Butterfly. She reared back and smacked the insect across the face, hard!
The Black Butterfly startled awake! “What?” her wild, bug eyes, struggled to focus on Alice as she poured the powdered spice into her hand, then she leaned forward and blew a cloud of spice into the bug’s face.
The paralysis it caused was instant. It caused all body movements and functions to freeze except for things like blinking, breathing, and curiously, talking.
If the same thing happened as happened to Alice herself, the waking nightmares would soon be coming on. That was what had happened to Alice the three times the Caterpillar had tested it on her. It had been torturous, but informative.
The Black Butterfly was twerking her mouth, testing her ability to move it. “You! You were standing behind the Caterpillar! His guinea pig,” she said with a sneer.
Alice clucked. “Maybe I am, but the thing is, the Caterpillar may be a bit mean at times, but he is my Caterpillar, and I don’t appreciate insects who mistreat him.” She glared.
The Black Butterfly eerily screamed in terror—it was eery because only her mouth moved.
Alice assumed that the Butterfly had begun hallucinating.
It was Alice’s plan to terrorize her into never bullying the Caterpillar again.
But first, she was curious. By her estimation, the drug would last ten minutes, so she still had some time. She nudged with her chin behind the Butterfly.
“What are those shoes?” Alice asked.
“Bug off.” She sneered.
Alice stuck her fingers to the edges of her mouth and pulled her mouth wide while making glicky noises with her flapping tongue and rolling her eyes about.
The Butterfly shrieked. “You’re a demon!”
Alice could only imagine what she was hallucinating, but it must’ve been horrific.
“Grrr,” Alice said through her stretched mouth. “I am the demon spawn from hell, here to avenge the girl you stole the shoes from.”
The Butterfly was blubbering. “I didn’t steal them. Her stepsisters did.”
“Whose stepsisters?”
“You don’t know?”
“Tell me, or I’ll make the face again!”
“Ack! Okay, they’re Cinderella’s shoes. Before she got the slippers, she wore the goody two-shoes, but she left them behind. Her stepsisters hid them away in this tree, because they hated her. I would’ve done the same.”
Alice peered at those shoes, wondering why they seemed to glow with a magical aura that had apparently transferred to the Butterfly.
Alice said, “And what magic do these goody-shoes possess?”
“What are you, dense? Everybody knows what goody two-shoes do. They make the one wearing them follow the rules and perform good deeds and always do the right thing, and bleh, they’re quite disgusting, really.”
“Then what do you want with them?” She sneered. “Are you guarding them?”
“I wish I could quit them, but ever since I discovered them here in this tree, it’s like I’m addicted to them. I long to wear them, even though they are quite oversized and I don’t really want to be a goody-goody girl. I guess I’m lucky I can’t actually wear them, but I…I like to rub up against them.”
“Ah, so that would explain why you wear those ridiculous little insect shoes that you do.”
“Don’t mock me. I think they’re cute.”
“But you know what’s not cute?!” She got up in the Black Butterfly’s face. “Bullying my friend!” Alice performed a trick she had learned wherein she rolled her eyeballs upwards so that her eyes seemed to have turned completely white.
The Butterfly shrieked, but then she protested, “But he’s a loser. He’s afraid to grow up.”
“That is not your concern!” She thumped the Butterfly hard in the forehead with a flick of her finger.
“Ow! That hurt!”
Alice wanted to use the hallucinations to bring up terror in the Butterfly’s mind whenever she even thought of bullying the Caterpillar. “Listen up, you wench! From now on, you’re gonna leave the Caterpillar alone, got it? For I am a demon, I am Satan incarnate, I shall hunt you down and defile you!” Alice didn’t actually understand what any of those words meant, but she’d read a story once where they were used to great effect.
“But he’s a loser,” she muttered, her voice trembling with fright.
“I don’t care! He’s my friend! And from now on, you stay far away from him! You don’t speak to him, you don’t look at him, you got it?!”
“Okay, okay,” she whimpered.
“And if you do, I’ll cut you…and…I’ll tear your soul apart!” She made guttural demonic noises while sticking two fingers up behind her head like devil’s horns. “Blehhhahaha I am a demon from hell… Leave him alone! Got it?!”
“Ye-yes… I shall never even talk to him again! Please don’t tear my soul apart,” she whimpered.
Alice knew the spice would be wearing off soon. She looked longingly at the Mary Janes behind the Black Butterfly. “Do you mind if I take the goody two-shoes? They don’t fit you anyway.”
“Mind? Heck no! Please take them! They have a hold on me, a magical hold, that causes me to obsess over them! Oh, it shall be a good day if you take them away. Let their goody goody power infest you.”
Alice arched a brow. “You don’t like goody goodiness?”
“Absolutely not. So if you want them, please take them.”
“Thank you. I shall.”
It was a bit tricky getting the shoes out of the tree nook. She had to nibble just a tiny bit of mushroom to grow a little bit so she could pick the shoes up and toss them out to the ground below. She scurried out of the nook, then nibbled some more to grow even larger, then climbed down the tree.
The shoes were adult-sized, whereas she was only 7, so she used a little trick to make the shoes fit—she nibbled enough mushroom to make herself slightly large than usual, so the shoes would fit, then she put them on and shrunk herself to normal sized again. The shoes shrunk along with her.
Voila! Now she had two goody two-shoes to wear.
She looked forward to following rules and being a right and proper little girl who always did the appropriate thing. The shoes glowed bright for a while then their glow disappeared, but she could still feel their magical goody energy going up her through her toesies.
She caught the Black Butterfly cautiously peeking out
the nook. Alice scowled and used two fingers to point at her own eyes, then the Butterfly’s.
She left her old shoes behind, then in order to break in her new goody two-shoes, she skipped all the way to the Caterpillar’s mushroom.
“You’re late!” boomed the Caterpillar after she had shrunk down to his size.
She couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m sorry. I had a matter to attend to.”
“What are you grinning about?”
Alice began climbing up the mushroom.
The Caterpillar said, “I’ve got a bunch of new spices I’d like to try on you.”
Alice was next to him now. She admired the scowl on his face. This was her Caterpillar, and he wouldn’t be bullied anymore.
“Why are you looking at me like that, silly girl?”
“I’m just glad that you’re you!” She wrapped her arms around him and planted a big kiss on his cheek.
He squirmed. “Ugh! Get off of me! We’ve got to test these spices.”
So Alice let go of him and stared at him with a big dopey grin until he asked her to stop.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Red Queen
When Alice was 10
The Red Queen hovered in the air inside the small dungeon room. As usual, her legs were racing back and forth as she ran, but she remained in the same place. She’d supposedly been “captured” by the Tweedle twins, but the fact of the matter was that she herself had called out to them, asking them to take her to the Queen of Heart’s dungeons.
The Queen of Hearts was about to visit, she’d been told. There was a knock upon the iron door, then the Queen of Hearts voice announcing her own presence: “Her Highness is coming in.” The door opened and there was the Queen of Hearts, with an unreadable expression upon her face.
The Red Queen called, “Welcome, Your Highness, to my humble abode. I’m afraid I can’t speak long, as I’ve got to go somewhere.” Then suddenly remembering, the Red Queen said, “Sorry, force of habit.”
“Yes,” said the Queen of Hearts as she stepped into the room. She left the door open. There were guard cards stationed outside. But the Red Queen had little to fear, because after all, she had chosen to be imprisoned.
The Queen of Hearts looked pointedly at the stone walls of the small cell. “I daresay, if you get to going where your legs seem to want, you shall run right smack into that wall.”
“True. Even so, I quite enjoy focusing upon my running, despite what folly it might seem to you.”
The Queen of Hearts said, “Well I thought it would be remiss of me not to at least welcome you to my dungeon. I know we have not always been on the best of terms.”
“Yes. We were mortal enemies, but those days are no longer. Now I wish solely to focus upon my running. You may go about the business of your running, running the kingdom that is.”
A wicked grin formed on the Queen of Heart’s face. “So you relinquish your crown?”
“I concede to your authority. You may go ahead and be the Queen of all of Wonderland. It’s all quite a bother, anyway.”
The Queen of Hearts scowled. “That’s it? How anticlimactic.”
“Well I don’t wish to fight you, if that’s what you mean. No, I’m perfectly content to stay here in your dungeon. In fact, it will be good for me. I daresay I much prefer it.”
The Queen of Hearts huffed in frustration. “We have a long rivalry, you and I, so I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed that I won’t get to behead you. You know, I know it’s not your fault, but I’ve grown quite irritated over the years over the fact that some citizens of Wonderland have come to think of you and I as the same person!”
The Red Queen chuckled politely, while still running. Always running. “Yes, it is quite irritating.” She laughed at a thought in her head.
“What is it?” said the Queen of Hearts.
“It’s just that once I heard of someone asking, ‘have you ever seen them in the same room together’? And now here we are, finally, in the same room.”
“But no one can see.”
The Red Queen said, “So perhaps the rumors shall persist.”
“Perhaps,” agreed the Queen of Hearts. “But I don’t see how they could confuse us. After all, I am not the one who continually runs in place. I’ve always wondered why you do that. Don’t you know you’ll get places faster, if you actually move forward?”
“Of course I know that,” the Red Queen snapped. “You just don’t know where I’m coming from.”
“Where you’re coming from?! My dear, you’re always in the same place!”
“It hasn’t always been thus. You don’t know my situation.”
The Queen of Hearts smirked. “Should I run a mile in your shoes then?” She laughed a little at the pout that formed upon the Red Queen’s face. “Oh, don’t be such a priss. Why don’t you just tell me, then?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I shan’t leave until you tell me.”
The Red Queen sighed. “Very well! I have had much time to think about things, and the inner workings of my own mind and my reasons. I’ll tell you succinctly: I am running from the past.”
“The past? Is it so terrible?”
The Red Queen said, “Yes, for I betrayed the man I loved.”
The Queen of Hearts laughed. “The man you loved? You mean that little pawn you had a fling with?”
“No, that was a grave mistake on my part. The man I loved is my husband and I might someday break his heart because I cheated on him.”
Another chuckle from the Queen of Hearts. “Someday? You mean it hasn’t happened yet?”
“No, because he is currently sleeping, but I felt that if I ran fast enough, perhaps it all might not catch up with him, and me.”
The Queen of Hearts laughed. “All of that drama over a silly little pawn! My dear, they are your playthings! You shouldn’t be ashamed to use them however you desire.”
The Red Queen shook her head. “No. They don’t deserve that sort of treatment. You forget, I was a pawn once, before the Red King came to love me.”
Another laugh. “That’s pathetic! You should be ashamed of the fact you were once a pawn, yes, but embrace your future, where you use the pawns! That’s what I’d do! Even better now that he’s asleep! When the cat sleeps, the mice play!”
The Red Queen sighed. “You just don’t understand love. Perhaps no one has ever loved you.”
The Queen of Hearts scowled. “Watch yourself. I have been nice by allowing you this cell. I could have you beheaded.”
“Well I have known love, by the most honourable, respectful man in Wonderland. But I threw it all away for a meaningless tryst. The shock of it threw him into a sleep from which he has not awakened all these years. In fact, I am afraid of what would happen if he does. Perhaps I am merely his own dream, and I shall disappear entirely, or perhaps the past shall finally catch up with me…” She sighed forlornly.
“Well, forget the past then, I say. What’s wrong with the future?”
“I don’t want a future that doesn’t include him.”
“Crikey, you’re pathetic! I tell you what, I shall rouse him…”
“No! I just want to run here, in my own private purgatory. Perhaps, in this way, he still loves me.”
“You never seem to get anywhere. Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
The Queen of Hearts scowled. “You shall tell me, or I shan’t leave.”
The Red Queen sighed. “Very well. Much as I hate to admit it to myself, the future frightens me, just as the past does, so I run just enough to stay in the same place. Oh, but I try to not even admit that to myself. Much better to fool myself into thinking I want to go somewhere.”
“I see,” said the Queen of Hearts, considering her, rubbing her chin as if the Red Queen were an intriguing specimen.
“Are you happy now?! Can I be left alone to run in peace?”
The Queen of Hearts held up her finger. “Well, I shall certainly leave you
alone in this dungeon.”
She sighed in relief. “Thanks.”
“But there is just one last thing.”
“Yes?”
“It’s just that the guards have informed me that they have overheard you reciting a poem to yourself from time to time. Do you know of what I speak?”
The Red Queen swallowed. “Yes.”
“Could you recite it to me? Then I promise that I shall leave you to your…running.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. After all, I’ve grown quite bored with you actually. Just this one more thing…”
“Very well.
And the Red Queen recited her poem that she would normally only recite to herself, when she was alone:
Sometimes, you wish out loud to scream,
To awaken yourself from someone else’s dream,
Where the way that you are isn’t the way that you seem.
But then, the man who loved you might no longer care,
So you keep your past behind you, to keep him unaware,
And run and run away from it, while going to nowhere.
To let his dream of you go unharassed,
You mustn’t reach a future, and you cannot face the past,
For if right now’s forever, his love will always last.
After the Queen of Hearts heard the poem, her face turned pale. She nodded, then turned and exited the room.
The door slammed shut behind her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Black Rose
When Alice was 7
The encounter with the Black Butterfly had inspired Alice. She’d inquired discreetly about the Black Rose, then waited until the right opportunity presented itself. When it did, she marched in her magic goody two-shoes up to the Garden of Live Flowers.
It was a flower-bed of talking flowers who seemed to think that Alice herself was a flower. Alice had never corrected them of the notion, because she quite enjoyed the feeling of fitting in.
