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Once upon a time, a young girl had bright eyes behind fluttering lashes, bouncing curls tamed with a bow, and a nonsensical song in her heart. More importantly she had grass stained tights, tree bark torn skirts and dreams that drove her governess mad. Alice insisted it wasn't a dream. It really happened. She told stories of the white rabbit with a watch and a waistcoat that she had followed down a hole. After falling upside down and right side up, she landed in a place all her own. A place where nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t, she'd told her wide eyed kitten Dinah, who listened intently to her girl. What it is, it wouldn’t be and what it wouldn’t be, it would. Nonsense, her father had told her, utter nonsense. ‘That is exactically the point daddy’, she’d said with a wide smile. Wonderland, they said she'd called it, but it was called that long before Alice ever listened to the doorknob. There were stranger inhabitants than Mr. Rabbit. There was the smiling, striped cat who sang her prophecy over and over, because she was the Alice, as he disappeared and reappeared at his leisure or perhaps at her inconvenience. The hare, the hatter, the dormouse; a very merry unbirthday party with a song that never ended and a riddle that could not be answered, for it could not be asked at all. Sometimes she told stories within her stories. The walrus and the carpenter, or the story of the curious oysters, was a tale told by Tweedle twins. Stranger still, Alice dwindled smaller than a flower after she took instructions from a bottle, then a cake made her grow to tower above the treetops. Over and over she had grown and shrunk to end up three inches tall, AND IT IS A VERY GOOD HEIGHT INDEED, the caterpillar had informed her through a cloud of smoke and color.Though her favorite was a story that had yet to happen, but had already been decided. A battle that pitted cards against chessmen. Sword against scales. Red against white. A war between queens that had been brewing since the eldest was not declared the heir. She of short temper sent the famed jabberwocky to defeat her gentler sister’s champion with a stabbing finger. The white queen’s champion was a knight wielding the legendary Vorpal Sword. Alice herself was the white knight, her victory already written in the Oraculum. Even still, Alice practiced. With crooked sticks or lacy parasols, she made herself ready. Prepared to face a monster under Dinah’s watchful eyes that occasionally turned yellow when Alice wasn’t watching. ‘It’s impossible’, her father had said as he grabbed her shoulders. ‘No such thing exists.’ But stubborn, stupid Alice had insisted. Year after year she had maintained that Wonderland was very real, as were all the fantastical people and outlandish creatures she had met. The Jabberwocky was real and she was going to be the one to stop it because she had to. That insistence was precisely the reason Alice found herself here. Bethlem Royal Hospital. Arms wrapped in a straitjacket, ankles chained to the floor of a padded room with now faded blonde curls tightly braided against her scalp. Years of drug concoctions and lightning to her temple had dulled her baby blue eyes to the color of the cloudy London sky outside her window. A sky that may as well have been a world away.Well, she wasn’t exactly found here. She was, in fact, gagged, shackled, and dragged into a carriage by men in pristine white coats as her father stood in the doorway and watched. She saw the hurt in his eyes, but it hadn’t been enough to make him stop them. She hasn’t seen him since that day. Nearly ten years she’d guessed based on the way her body had changed, but who could keep track of such silly things like time when she was so busy trying to stay sitting upright. Lately, she hasn’t seen much aside from the same peeling walls and floors that would drive even the most sane people completely bonkers. Alice hadn’t been let out of this jacket since they found her carving into her own arms with shards of a broken mirror. But she wasn’t trying to kill herself, like they’d assumed. She was ensuring she would remember. With every new round of the new ‘therapy’, more and more began to slip away. Memories were stolen by fingers of wire and electricity; locked where she could no longer reach them. So she secured the future of her beloved Wonderland. On one arm, everyone she could remember. The rabbit, the mouse, the hatter, the hare, the caterpillar. We’re all mad here, sliced around her wrist. The dodo, the flowers, the tweedles, the cat, and the queens. On the other, she'd cut the prophecy, every excruciating word in a spiral, all the pieces of the fractured sword, and the moment of her confrontation with the Jabberwocky atop the ruins of a city whose name had been stolen by Time. Quite a thief, Time was. Not that he'd ever admit it. They’d found her in the morning. Delirious, blood pooling around her, but with a satisfied smile because there was nothing more they could take with their “cures” for her hysterics. That morning was days ago. Or maybe weeks. Alice could barely tell day from night let alone fantasy from reality. The injections made the edges of the world dark and blurry. So when the paw prints appeared in the dust, she didn’t notice. Then the song came from everywhere, and nowhere, and inside her own head all at the same time.
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
The voice grumbled for a moment, then laughed. A laugh that was never the same, but she'd always recognized it. Alice raised her eyes from the cracks near her toes, not quite believing her ears yet. Hope bloomed somewhere in the bottom of her heart, like the shy little violets, but she didn’t dare believe it. Not yet. Not when everyone said she'd made him up. Maybe she was insane, but she wasn't nearly mad enough to invent a creature like him.
“Second chorus.”
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Invisible claws climbed her back and dug into her shoulder. Then the voice was suddenly in her ear, very close and very real while fur as fleeting as the morning fog slithered across her neck.
“Don’t tell me you forgot it, lovey.”
She chuckled, dropping her head back as the smoke evaporated in a halo around her. “First verse.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, strangled from disuse, but she could never forget the poem that declared her a fabled hero. No one had asked her about it in such a long time. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son. The jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.”He appeared one winding pink stripe at a time, bright yellow eyes dropped in from above, followed by his infamous, face splitting smile of musical teeth. He sat down in front of her as if he were any normal cat. Those little blush pink feet together, flickering ears, and a disproportionately large, fluffy tail swishing the dust in a circle around him.“The Cheshire Cat.” Her head lolled to the side, her own smile just barely able to make it across her face. “Doth mine eyes deceive me?”
“Not today they don’t. I knew that stupid rabbit was wrong. He thought they would break you in here.”
“You should know by now he has no faith. Too practical that one. Entirely too nervous.” “Hmm,” he mused, rolling into his back in the air, “maybe that's why sometimes I'd like to just…eat him,” he said with a flex of claw and a flash of teeth. “Must be.” Alice uncrossed her legs, chains rattling as she did. While trapped in this suffocating self hug it was the most she could move. Her joints protested every second of movement, sending waves of pain through her limbs until they resettled on the floor. “You are quite a long way from the Tulgey Wood, Chess.” Now he was upside down, rotating. Gravity was optional to those with evaporating skills, even this far from the magic. “Frabjous Day is approaching. Someone had to free you from this atrocious place and it is my great honor,” he gave her a dramatic, sweeping bow, “oh noblest of knights.” After a breathy, broken giggle, Alice asked, “Mallymkun volunteered first, didn't she?” “Of course she did. Tarrant nearly stormed London with the whole of the Queen's army. Complete madness. Rescuing you myself was much simpler.” From his claws, he dropped a single white unicorn chess piece in front of her, the knight. “Now, this won't work for long here, so we best be on our way.” “First things first.” Alice squirmed inside her canvas cage. “This is the most horrible thing ever invented. I've tried everything to get out of it. It's impossible.” He rolled his eyes so hard, his body righted itself. “Come now. That word is for the boring and unimaginative. You're Alice. You believe in six impossible things before breakfast.” “Well Cheshire, you’re here aren’t you? Now I just may believe seven.”With a swish of his tail and another reverberating laugh, his body began rippling beneath his fur. The teeth sharpened themselves and grew to the size of daggers, stretching his face out even more until it started to split, gushing the acid green smoke that passed for blood in evaporating creatures. The snapping bones reverberated around the room, muscles stretched like taffy, and the pink and purple stripes darkened as the Cheshire Cat grew to the size of a bear. Claws as long as swords and black as night sliced through the straps on her back and pulled the chain from the floor.As soon as the restraints came loose, Alice fell forward, just barely catching herself on her elbows. Elbows that had turned dark purple and swollen to twice their normal size. Her hands had turned blue but they reached for the knight anyway. In her palm, the warm marble turned to the cold steel of the Vorpal Sword. Though she was happy to see it and it hummed at her touch, just a few inches from the hilt it ended with an unnatural, jagged edge. “Still broken I see,” she said to it as the familiar power surged through her, giving her the strength to push to her feet. The sword responded with a melancholy drone. “That’s alright. I’ll find all your pieces. I promise.” The sword’s last battle against the Jabberwocky, according to the Oraculum, had ended in a draw on Horunvendush Day. With a sky rattling wail, the wounded creature retreated deep into the Tulgey Wood. The sword had shattered against its armored scales; the pieces scattered across Wonderland. Only the hilt had been found, but it was written Alice was destined to find the blade’s remaining five pieces and master the legendary sword for its rematch against the lightning-spitting dragon.The heavy iron door groaned as Cheshire opened it, “how much destruction would you like to leave in our wake?” The cat asked, a devious twinkle lurking like a crocodile in his golden eyes. With the sword in one hand and the keys in the other, Alice rolled her newly loosened shoulders. The sword’s power raced through her, unraveling knots and easing aches she'd lived with for so long. “A hundred years from now, I want screams and laughter to echo down a dark hall. I want objects to move in an empty room and candles to flicker when the air is still as death.” “Haunted it is.” He cracked the stone floor and fractured the doorway as he pulled himself into the hallway. “Where are these….doctors Alice?” he growled. With a new, cruel, matching grin, she used the sword to point down the long, moonlit hall. Without another word, the cat vanished. His only trail was the cracks that appeared in the floor as he stepped. Inaudible steps until the first scream. It pierced the silence like a needle, but it wasn't alone for very long. More echoed off the stone walls and tall windows. Alice began opening doors, regardless of what lay behind them, each releasing the same groan of protest. She cut through restraints and soon enough the halls were filled with dying screams, maniacal laughter, and deranged wails.For the first time since she had been wheeled down this sickeningly gray hall, Alice could breathe. She handed the keys to a woman clawing at her own arms then began to laugh at the chaos she had unleashed within these walls she’d hated for so long. Really, truly, loudly laugh. Patients started smashing any furniture not bolted to the floor, shattering the grime covered windows, and most wonderful of all, attacked the staff they had been victims of for so long. Soon, these fractured, forgotten souls would pour out of this prison and into London. But the doctors, the orderlies, the nurses, Alice decided they wouldn’t get the luxury of escaping. As soon as the thought fluttered across her mind, an orderly narrowed his eyes at her. But he should have kept running because Alice sliced upward with her blade. Scarlett bloomed across his white shirt and painted the walls before he fell to his knees before her. Another rushed at her with a club. With an instinctual flex of her hand, the shield appeared on her arm to block it, then she drove the sword up between his ribs. Behind her someone had a large metal syringe going for a woman who Alice knew was completely sane. She'd simply been disregarded by her husband. With a clumsy turn, she removed his hand in a clash of steel against flesh and handed the sedative off to Delilah. She felt the stranger’s blood drip down her face, but didn’t bother wiping it away. “I found your warden,” the candy colored smoke whispered around her, so she began to follow the bloody claw marks emerging on the floor. When they reached an ornately carved wooden door, a still invisible Chess pulled it from the hinges. She emerged from the dust and smoke and there sat Dr. Addison Bennett. Perhaps the maddest person across the complex. There was a building-wide riot happening just outside his door, and here he was, scrambling with his papers. “Ms. Dodgeson, what-.” The cat appeared around her, taking up nearly half the room. She watched as Dr. Bennett's eyes widened to the size of saucers and the color drained from his face.“Seeing things, Doctor?” Chess stalked around the desk, bearing blood stained teeth and chasing Dr. Bennett toward her. “There's a procedure for that. You may experience some...discomfort.” She spun the sword once before swinging it at the man who told her so many of his cruel plans when she couldn't fight back. Who tried to make her believe her most exciting day, her epic adventure, and all her best friends had only ever existed in her imagination. He had tried to erase them and he wouldn't live long enough to regret it. The blade sliced through bone and muscle, cleaving his neck from his shoulders. “Off with his head,” she muttered as his head rolled and left a trail of red droplets on the scattered parchment. “Cheshire,” she said as the body fell at her feet, “How did you get here? Did you crawl up through the rabbit hole?” “There is more than one way to Wonderland love. You just had to go and complicate things,” he purred as he dragged his long tail under her chin, leading her from the room.She smiled, following him as he began clawing his way to the entrance, tearing through stone pillars and crushing steel doors. Thick, black clouds began wafting from every direction, bubbling against the rafters, seeking a way out. It seemed Alice was not alone in her loathing of this building. The scent of blood hung in the air, thick enough to taste the metal on her tongue. She reached for the iron bars, the locked one that kept patients from wandering too far from their cells during the day. Right now those bars and the fire beyond it were the only things between Alice and the worlds she’d been robbed of. She drove the sword through the top of the lock and ripped it from the gate completely, sending it clattering on the floor. The metal burned her hands as she pushed it opened, but Alice didn’t care. She hadn’t had feeling in her hands for days. Weeks? Only Time knew such things and she doubted he would come down from his castle to tell her. Smoke and people flooded the world when Alice shoved the front door open, both finding their freedoms. Then she took a breath of fresh air, the real night air she had only smelled as it mixed with the staleness of her room. Alice looked at her feet, elated to see the blades of grass sticking up between her toes. Feeling like a child again, Alice jumped in a circle as she giggled. She was outside; in the garden. She’d never been allowed out here before. They would open her windows during the day, but she wasn’t permitted outside. When she looked around, her excitement faded and she came to a stop. It wasn't what a garden was supposed to be; even in this world it was unusual. Clean, perfect hedges, uniform length grass only disturbed by square stepping stones. White flowers, all representing purity in one form or another. Tulips, carnations, lilies, and worst of all, the doctor's beloved roses. She hated it.Alice yanked a handful from the bush, filling her palm with blood and blister fluids. If this has been another world, the roses would have screamed and their friends would weep. But here wasn't there. Here was here and there was there, so the flowers made no noise. The building behind her cracked and crumbled. Heat rolled off her back in waves. Screams rose like embers and fading laughter rippled back towards her from down the road. But no matter how Alice watched, the flowers never watched back. “Flowers shouldn't be white anyway,” she said to herself as she squeezed bright blood onto the pristine petals. Once satisfied with the hue, Alice took one last look at the crumbling inferno that used to be her asylum. A nearly imperceptible weight landed across her shoulders and fur curled around her arm.
“Do you think Daddy will miss you if they tell him you died in the fire?”
“Probably not,” she answered the cat, before he walked off into the air, “he thought I was dead before and he moved on just fine. He just didn’t want a daughter that looked so much like her mother so he had a son to look like himself instead.”
“Why would anyone ever want one of those?”
“I don't know. A more fragile creature I have never had the displeasure of knowing.”
“But they also get the displeasure of knowing you.”
As she looked up at the cat floating in front of her, something flashed in those pools of blue that her father had been trying to crush since the moment a still six-year-old Alice ran home to find that years had passed instead of the hours it felt like. Call it curiosity and bravery or recklessness and utter madness. Whatever it was, it woke up after so many years of being shoved away. Dr. Bennett had tried for so long, but he just couldn't extinguish the spark Alice had tucked away deep inside herself. She kept it safe and hidden, waiting for the day she would need it again.“Indeed they do Cheshire. They do have to know me. Some have yet to recover.” As he began binding her burned and bleeding palms, the lack of adrenaline caused the sword to slip from numb hands that could no longer hold its weight. Before it landed in the grass, it flashed white and returned to being a chess piece. Her other arm lightened as the shield disappeared in the same instant. The small unicorn too was covered in yellow and red fluids as she picked it up, but Alice carefully cleaned it with a sleeve of her hospital gown and whispered a silent thank you to the woman on the other side.Cheshire appeared on her head, kneading against the braids. If it had been against her skin, the claws would have drawn blood, but on her hair, there was no sensation other than one of many same dull but persistent aches she’d grown numb to. She only realized where he had gone when his tail draped over her shoulder.
“How could they do this to you?”
“Because it got in the way. Now it may forever be ruined.”
“Nonsense. The queen has great power and there is nothing she wouldn’t do for her knight.”
Realizing they’d done all that could be done, Alice skipped down the cobblestone drive. The chess piece rolling between her fingertips, an absentminded smile on her lips, and an old song slipping between them.
“Painting the roses red and many a tear be shed, because we know they'll cease to grow.
In fact, they'll soon be dead. And yet we go ahead.
Painting the roses red.”