The Other Girl in Wonderland
Once upon a time, in a quiet house in the outskirts of London, where the city ended and the fields and glen began, lived a little girl called Alice, with her lovely mother, her noble father and her older sister named Margaret.
Every golden afternoon, Alice and Margaret would go to the fields to pass away the time. While Alice would run across the grass and pick flowers, chasing dragonflies and butterflies of many hues, Margaret would read under a tree quietly.
“…politics and literature, there aren’t even any pictures in it!” Little Alice would retort.
Margaret would just roll her eyes and keep reading while Alice runs off again.
One golden afternoon after another, it would always be the same lovely scene in that flower field. Alice’s’ golden head bobbing up and down the tall stalks of grass, chasing after some rabbit, and composed Margaret would flip across page after page in her “picture-less” book, the broken light of the sun streaked across her auburn hair, her mind so far away, delved in the ink-black letters of the marble-paged book.
Then one golden afternoon, this one quite different form the rest, Alice ran quite exhilarated to Margaret, yanking her by the arm, “Margaret! A white rabbit! Let’s go after it!”
The older gently batted Alice away, “Please, Alice, I’m reading.”
Alice pouted and ran off, chasing something snow-white in the distance. She didn’t come back.
As Margaret put their picnic blanket into the straw basket their mother always told them to bring, and her book on top of that, she called out to her little sister to find her nowhere to be seen.
“Alice?” she called out again, “Alice!”
The young girl’s heart thumped in fear, where could the little one have gone? She couldn’t bear have to go to her parents yet; they would fuss and worry more than she and would scour the countryside only to find Alice asleep among stalks of grass.
“Yes, that’s what she’s probably doing,” she reassured herself and ran to where Alice would usually play around, the flower field beyond the hill with the old oak tree.
But when she got there, lo, no little golden-haired child was in sight.
“Alice!” she called out, dropping her basket and swatting aside the tall stalks of grass. The sun was setting and set the western sky ablaze with golden-reds and purple threads of clouds.
Then, as all hope was lost, when Margaret was about to turn and run home to their parents---something white caught the corner of her eye.
A white rabbit, just there, at the foot of the hill with the oak tree; staring at her with its ruby red eyes. Not just a rabbit, though…it was a white rabbit in a waist-coat, holding a pocket watch on its paw.
“A rabbit?” Margaret thought to herself as the rabbit scampered up the hill and stopped just under the tree and look back at her, and then disappear.
Something about the rabbit beyond its odd appearance caught Margaret’s interest. Perhaps the way it stared at her like a person. Margaret grabbed her skirts and ran up the hill. Where could the rabbit have gone? Gone so quickly like Alice?
A rabbit hole. A rabbit hole lay under the shade of the tree, just there, dark and ominous like the sound of church bells after a funeral. It was wide enough for someone to fall in, which made Margaret wonder if it was a rabbit hole. Alice could’ve thought so, but Margaret was sensible in more ways that she knew this was no mere hole in the ground. And Alice could have fallen.
“Alice?” she asked, getting on her knees and looking down. No light penetrated the dark depths. Margaret seems to hear something.
A bit of music can be heard if you lean low enough.
And lean Margaret did, lean in to hear that beautiful waft of music. It sounded more beautiful than any sonata, any piece she’s ever heard. And she was urged to lean in lower and lower, just to hear that silk-like flow of notes.
But Margaret was not sensible enough to remember that the edges of the hole she was holding on to were softened by the summer drizzles. It gave way, and with Margaret leaning down so low, that when the handfuls of dirt collapsed under her hands, she fell with them to the shadows of the rabbit hole.
Her terrified scream was swallowed up by that hole in the earth, and her mother’s basket lay forgotten among the grass, and the faint music suddenly stopped.
She seemed to be falling, she was, indeed, with wind in her hair and her stomach lurching, but she didn’t seem to hit the bottom of the tunnel. And after a few moments, Margaret stopped screaming. There was awe in falling, for it felt like flying to her, but still, she was terrified because there was no light. But then, a golden twinkle gleamed in the distance.
Down below, one by one, lights seemed to be lit along the sides of the hole. Lamps and candles, lanterns and night lights, along the walls with all the furnishings of a home cluttered in every way; there were couches stuck in the walls, with chairs and writing tables, a tea set on a tea table, cushions on a sofa, curtains on their hanging rods. The oddest place Margaret’s ever seen.
As she fell, literally, in awe at the furnished walls of dirt, with tree roots bursting out among chairs and tables, Margaret hit a canopied bed at the bottom of the hole, suddenly screaming again as the silk canopy ripped away from their posts under her weight and she hit the too-soft down feather bed, and found herself bouncing unexpectedly off it.
Margaret hit a wall, strangely thin, and broke through, finally landing on a cold hard floor. She struggled to sit up to discover her hair had gone loose from her braid, and now fell in messy curls over her shoulders. And even stranger than the too-soft bed and the too-thin wall was that the floor was painted daintily like some ceiling. The dim yellow light came from somewhere, and Margaret turned to see a chandelier behind her. A chandelier on the floor? But the crystal beads hung correctly, like they would from a ceiling.
Margaret’s eyes widened when she saw that her hair, once falling messily over her shoulders, were now standing upright. Or were they hanging…?
She screamed again as she was yanked up, no, down, to the real floor. Margaret looked up, it was the ceiling, and after all, the chandelier was quite correct.
“What is all this oddity?” she panted, falling repeatedly was quite a tedious business.
She stood up. It was a dimly lit round room, with a large broken tile on the floor. She must have fallen through there and to the ceiling and down to the floor.
“But if I fell through there, that would mean this room is upside down,” Margaret thought, “if that is correct, I couldn’t be standing on this upside down floor, could I?”
But she didn’t linger on the thought, she couldn’t get out, and something told her that Alice fell here, too. And if she didn’t, well, Margaret should find a way out for herself.
There was a tea table in the middle of the room with nothing on it. And there were doors all around, only, they would not opened however hard she yanked at them. But in the dim light of the room, Margaret saw something by a door.
A key! Great gladness cam over her, but then dissipated as quickly when she picked it up. It was a rather tiny key, no larger than what would fit on a dollhouse door.
“What use is this?” she sighed. Margaret was disappointed as she paced around, until she stepped on something and her foot slipped. She quickly caught herself before falling to the floor as a bottle rolled across the floor.
She had almost slipped on a bottle. It had a tag that said, “DRINK ME”.
Margaret walked after it and let it hit the wall; a small clinked echoed as it did. Wait, it was not a wall---it was a door. A small one; no larger than one found on a dollhouse.
“A dollhouse!” Margaret exclaimed and stooped down to fit the key to the tiny keyhole. It did open, but what now? It’s not like she could walk into it like a doll. But she did lay flat on the ground and peeped through it.
It looked like a beautiful overgrown garden under a cloudy sky. The iron gates stood broken, hanging loosely by their hinges, the walls crumbled; beautiful cabbage roses of every imaginable hue climbing over them with their dark thorny vines. Irises and peonies were everywhere, as did multi-coloured overgrown mushrooms.
“Mushrooms…?” Margaret gasped, what odd place is this?
Suddenly, a foot steps in the garden was heard. Two tall men walked alongside each other across the overgrown garden, each holing a lance as tall as himself, and all over, they wore armour white as a page on a book, made of steel plates as if they were knights. Margaret hasn’t seen gear like those in her life; and on their heads they wore helms, their faces unseen and red spots were marked on their armour.
From afar, Margaret thought they looked like, “…cards.” She whispered.
Indeed, the red spots were spades. And the two soldiers turned and walked towards Margaret’s direction, making her closed the dollhouse door. But their voices can be heard through the walls.
“…stepped right in and embarrassed the Queen, did she? No wonder she was kept in the dungeon.” came one gruff voice.
“Right, and said painting the roses red were foolish.”
“Well, if the Queen demanded red roses instead of white, what can we do but paint them red?” the first soldier laughed, “Did that one tyke of a little girl have a name?”
“I did hear the Clubs and Diamonds say her name was---what was it, I forgot…”
Whoever the two soldiers were talking about, Margaret knew that she was not in London at the moment. But she could not stop eavesdropping on the two queer “card” soldiers.
“Ah, I remember now the name!”
“What?”
“Alice, that’s what they call the lass.”
Alice!
Margaret’s heart skipped a beat. Alice, kept in a dungeon? Insulted a queen, did she? What trouble has she gotten herself? And where was she? Where did Margaret fall into?
“The Queen’s gone stark raving mad at the girl, she’s going to get beheaded after the King’s Execution, so they say…” said one of the card soldiers as their footsteps and voices trailed off and Margaret could hear nothing more.
“Alice…beheaded?” she shivered. But she’s only a little girl!
Margaret lay there in disbelief until she heaved herself up stiffly. What the heavens is happening here? Was this a dream? Most likely, but, not in a thousand years would someone as sensible as her would dream something up as…crazy.
One of the proper sized doors creaked open, which one, she had not the slightest idea. But Margaret suddenly bolted upright, if the people here would not hesitate to persecute a little girl like Alice, what chance did she have? But unlike Alice, Margaret would not want to insult a Queen.
She finally found the door that open ever so slightly, and a white rabbit in a waist coat hop out and stare at her with those ruby eyes. Margaret stood frozen. It was the one that brought her here.
The rabbit hopped towards the table until it disappeared behind it. Margaret waited anxiously, but no rabbit came out. Instead, the soft thumps of its hops were replaced by soft footsteps. And someone stood upright from behind the table and faced her.
A boy, no older than Alice, stood there with silvery-grey hair, wearing a blue waistcoat and black pinstriped trousers, his hands covered with neat white gloves and his leather shoes polished to a shine like a bank clerk would. He looked at Margaret with ruby red eyes, and even odder to him, were two long rabbit ears just there, atop his silver head.
Margaret found herself in too much bewilderment in one day.
“Are you her nurse?” he asked, walking over to Margaret.
“N-Nurse? I’m not a nurse.” Margaret stuttered, still quite in disbelief at being in a conversation with a little boy that was once a rabbit.
“But you were watching over her, weren’t you?” he continued to ask, the boy’s face seemed to be filled with worry, and even his red eyes that quite terrified Margaret were shrouded in anxiety.
“Who?” Margaret said.
“Alice,” he replied, “that girl in the blue dress?”
“Alice!” Margaret exclaimed, “She’s my sister! Where is she!?”
The boy stopped and gulped, as if his worst fears were confirmed. He blinked and bowed, “My name is Rillion, and I was the white rabbit that led you here,” he said, his head low, “and unfortunately, your sister, too.” He straightened himself rather timidly.
“I’m Margaret,” she replied, still taken aback, “I heard they were going to behead Alice.”
One of Rillion’s rabbit ears twitched and he looked around. He ran towards Margaret and grabbed her wrist, “This isn’t the place to speak of it, follow me!”
Before Margaret could protest, Rillion dragged her to the door he had come in and it shut itself loudly behind them. Margaret had the sudden feeling Alice and herself wouldn’t be back up the rabbit-hole so soon.
The way was dark, and Margaret tripped many time, it felt like they were going down a set of stairs, only Rillion’s small hand on her wrist guided her here and there, tugging this way, pulling that way. Margaret could not get over her bewilderment. All this can’t be real.
“Where am I!?” Margaret managed to screech after nearly falling over a step.
“We don’t have a name for our side of the world, just like you don’t for yours,” Rillion replied, “But you could say we are in the underside of yours.”
“What do you mean? There’s nothing under the ground but dirt,” Margaret reasoned.
“Yes, like there’s nothing above our sky but air,” Rillion replied sarcastically, “If it were like that, missing; you wouldn’t even be here, would you?”
Margaret did not reply. She dare not comprehend the common sense of this senseless world. A world on the underside of theirs is simply not possible.
“Stop,” Rillion suddenly hissed and let go of her hand. Margaret could not see anything in the complete black.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Shush…” he replied and a line of dim bluish light appeared a few feet ahead, like a door being opened.
And a door did open, with Rillion’s small shape at the doorway. The strangest landscape lay ahead. A garden at night; leaves and flowers basked in bluish moonlight, and also those large mushrooms she saw at the other garden. The crescent moon was oddly too thin and curved, like a smile.
“Well? Come on,” the rabbit said.
“To where?” Margaret asked.
“Wonderland.” He replied, “Or at least that’s what your sister called our land.”
Again, Margaret could not comprehend the senseless, but she nodded, “And will you help me get Alice back?”
“As much as I can.” The little boy replied.
“Very well.” She replied and followed him into the garden.
They crept among the plants silently, Rillion always telling her to keep silent or else get caught by the Cards. Margaret had to hold up her skirts to keep them from being soiled, the ground seemed soft under her, but she could do nothing against the wet leaves all around. It was the oddest place she had ever been in, and odder still the half-rabbit she was following.
But she had to get Alice back; she couldn’t help but feel it was partly her fault, though she did tell Alice not to go too far away. She comforted herself at the thought, but still, her sister’s going to be executed. She can’t let that happen, can she?
“…why is my little sister in such trouble?” Margaret breathed.
“She offended the Queen,” he replied silently, ducking under a large leaf.
“How did she do so?” she said.
“Well, the Red Queen is easily offended,” he replied with a grimace, “drop a cup in front of her and she’d have you beheaded. I think it’s the beheading she’s actually after, it’s like a sport to her.”
Margaret was disgusted at the barbaric pastime of their Queen. She just hoped Alice would be spared from it.
Rillion suddenly stood stiff, his rabbit ears twitching above his head, alert like a fox were hunting him.
“What is it?” Margaret asked.
“Cards,” blood from Rillion’s face drained, leaving it white as sheet, “they found me.”
“What?” she wondered, her heart began to thump audibly.
“I was hoping we’d at least get to the Caterpillar,” Rillion stammered, turning to Margaret and putting his silver pocket watch into her hands, “Here, hide, don’t come out ‘til it’s safe, find the Caterpillar and save Alice, before it’s too late!”
Margaret could hear clanks of metal and heavy footsteps in the dark, her hands went cold as he gave her the clock, and yells echoing in the garden, “…find the Rabbit!”
She did not know what was going on, but she did fear for Rillion. “What do they want with you? Come on, let’s hide together! They don’t have to find either of us!”
“No, they will find me,” he reasoned, pushing her into a clump of large mushrooms, “…they mustn’t know I got to you before they got to me, if I be lost for another moment, they’d know.”
He pushed her rather gruffly between the clumps, though he was half her size. Margaret fell into the middle, the giant fungus keeping her out of sight.
“Only blood born here can die here,” Rillion’s voice came from the other side of the mushroom wall, for a little boy, he sounded wiser than Margaret, herself, “If your sister dies here, the tunnel between our worlds will forever be closed.”
But was that a bad thing? Margaret could not decide, is their world not better off without another under it? But she did agree Alice mustn’t die.
“But wouldn’t she behead you if you get caught!?” Margaret suddenly said.
“Just save your sister!” he yelled back and the sound of clanking metal and heavy footfalls got louder and louder. Margaret could not see anything from inside the room of mushrooms except the thin smiling moon in the unsmiling dark sky above, framed by the mushroom caps.
Margaret heard the soft hops of a rabbit in between the harsh steps of the card soldiers. Her heart was hammering with an unknown fear.
“There he is!” came a loud commanding voice.
Margaret turned around to hear the commotion getting louder on the other side of the mushrooms. She climbed up a small toadstool and peeked over a large spotted blue mushroom head.
The Cards had gathered around, their captain quite the same to them in armour and colour except that his had hearts instead of clubs or spades or diamonds. Two were dragging something towards him, something struggling. Margaret heard a weak scream of pain and saw that one of the two was holding Rillion by his rabbit ears rather gruffly while the other dragged him by the feet, pain masked his young face. Margaret clamped her hands over her mouth to muffle her gasp.
“Shame on you, you were the Her Majesty’s favourite servant,” the captain said, “Now you’ll be beheaded the same way as any other scoundrel.”
Rillion, though tiny compared to the tall soldiers, glared up at their captain, undaunted.
“Knave.” he hissed.
The captain of the Cards kicked Rillion hard, and the boy crumpled up like a piece of paper. Margaret turned away and closed her eyes, her chest heavy when she saw blood when Rillion coughed.
She didn’t move, even long after the heavy footsteps were gone and the garden was silent as thought. Margaret got to her feet unsteadily, what had she and Alice gotten into?
“Well, if it isn’t another straggler….” came a cold drawling voice.
Margaret gasped and looked up. The smiling moon was replaced by a smiling cat. A Cheshire cat was smiling ear to ear as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Margaret shrunk back against the wall with a sharp scream. The cat’s teeth were as bright as the moon.
“Not so loud now, lassie, they might just hear you, you know.” The cat said.
“Why doesn’t the oddity stop?!” Margaret jumped off the small toadstool and could have ran out of the cover of mushrooms of it weren’t for the cat suddenly appearing in front of her. Like a wisp of smoke or vapour. In one instant, the jade green eyes and the moon white smile was suddenly in front of her and she staggered back.
“Oh, the oddity here, madam, is you…” the cat said, his voice was deep and mellifluous though something dark to it also, “Now, I presume the Rabbit brought you here…?”
“Yes,” Margaret managed to say, “And now I’m lost in this odd place without any clue to where my sister is!”
“Ah,” he smiled,”…your sister is being held by Her Highness, the Queen.”
“How did you know that?”
The cat hopped down from the mushroom cap and disappeared in a puff, reappearing smile and eyes first beside Margaret, “The question is how you have to save her.”
“Rillion told me to go to the Caterpillar, whoever that is,” she said, “Can you help me?”
Though she didn’t know whether the Cheshire cat could be trusted, she didn’t seem to have any choice. She would easily get lost without any idea where to go in this mad world she fell into.
“That is, if you aren’t with the…Queen.” Margaret added cautiously.
“Oh, I don’t meddle in politics,” the cat reasoned, the smile never disappearing from his whiskered face, “…though I’d say, if I were in any side, it would be by that little girl in the Queen’s prison, my dear.”
Margaret’s face brightened, “Then can you help me get to the Caterpillar?”
“I would, if I could, but---I can’t, unfortunately,” the Cheshire replied.
Before Margaret could slouch, however, the cat added, “---but I can help you get to someone who can.” He grinned and disappeared yet again with a flick of his bushy tail and reappeared on top of the tallest mushroom, against the moonlight.
“Truly? Thank you,” Margaret breathed.
“Seems like the Cards are gone,” said the cat, “…I’ll take you to Tea, but that’s the end of it.”
“Tea? But it’s not the time for tea---“
“Just follow,” the Cheshire cat cut in and disappeared.
Margaret lifted her skirt and climbed over the fungi. For the first time since she got there, she realized that her skirt was torn in places, but none of that mattered in the middle of the dark.
“Following?” asked the cat, appearing yards away, under a tree, his eyes and grin the only parts of him visible. Margaret nodded despite sliding off the mushroom roughly.
Often, Margaret would associate this sort of silly madness with Alice’s fancies. Now she was stuck in the middle of it all. Oh, how she wished she had only come with Alice when she chased the Rabbit, then she could’ve pulled her up from the rabbit-hole, if only she didn’t let Alice urge her to go to the fields that afternoon, of only she never let Alice out of her sight.
~to be continued~
