Alice, Alive

Alice, Alive

Alice looked at her hands folded in her lap, picking nervously at her nails. The French manicure was chipping away, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She couldn’t bring herself to care about anything at the moment, not even the moving blaring loudly on Tawny’s flat-screen TV.

Not while Tawny had her face smashed against Seth’s.

It wasn’t her fault, really. Alice had known exactly what she was getting herself into when she agreed to a movie night with the two of them. She wasn’t sure why she had come, really, except for the fact that she had known she would be able to see Seth.

Even now, with his soft blonde hair mussed and his perfect mouth occupied with slobbering directly into Tawny’s thin one, he was beautiful.

A horror movie was playing out onscreen, dark shapes and flashes of red meshing together at high speed. A zombie with blood smeared up to its elbows and a half-concaved face sank its teeth into the calf of a busty blonde while she shrieked repeatedly, an ear-splitting high pitched sound that pinged around inside Alice’s skull, making her feel nauseous.

Beside her on the couch, Tawny giggled and mumbled something inaudible against Seth’s lips as his hand wandered clumsily up under the edge of her t-shirt.

Suddenly there was a rabbit on the TV.

Alice blinked, startled, but it was definitely a rabbit. He was dressed up funny, the tails of his coat flapping behind him as he darted between members of the undead army. He hopped closer and closer to the camera, his eyes looking straight out of the TV screen and into Alice’s face.

Odd, she thought.

The rabbit drew so close to the camera that you could no longer see the clash of the living and the dead that still raged on behind it. Alice glanced sideways at Tawny and Seth to see if either of them had noticed the unusual twist, but they were both still far too absorbed in each other to notice anything else.

The rabbit’s nose snuffled against what must have been the camera lens, pausing for a moment before gathering itself and taking a decisive leap forward.

It landed on the hardwood floor of Tawny’s living room with a muffled thump.

Alice jerked back in her seat, grabbing for Tawny without looking before she remembered what was happening over there. She got a handful of Seth’s butt, instead, and he looked back at her, annoyed.

“… the fuck, Alice? You wanna join or something?” He snapped. Alice’s face flushed a hot red.

“No,” she said shortly, and after a pointed pause he turned back to his girlfriend, his sturdy football-player body pressing her small slender one into the ratty couch cushions. It was a miracle he hadn’t broken her yet.

The rabbit cleared its throat.

From the pocket of its perfectly tailored waistcoat it pulled an old-fashioned pocket watch and checked the time. “We’re late,” it informed Alice, quite clearly.

She thought back to what they had been smoking earlier, wondering if it had been something weird. Or maybe Seth or Tawny had slipped her a little something, as a joke.

God, she needed new friends.

“We’re late!” The rabbit said again, more forcefully. It took off, and maybe because of how desperate it seemed, or maybe because the lovebirds were starting to get graphic on the couch beside her, Alice found herself on her feet following it.

The door shut softly behind her, closing out the sight of her best friends’ tangled bodies and the flickering light from the TV. Alice chased after the rabbit down the dark, shadowy hall, into the dimly-lit kitchen where it darted through the cat door into the basement and disappeared from sight.

Alice paused for a moment, then got on her knees to peer through the cat door. She had never been into Tawny’s basement, and looking now, she could see the rabbit waiting for her a ways down the shaky, stripped wooden staircase. She couldn’t see the ground; the light from the kitchen didn’t illuminate that far. The staircase stretched down into blackness.

Alice hesitated a moment, torn. Before she could make up her mind to open the door or not, she lost balance and her entire body tumbled forward, through the open cat door. She wasn’t sure how, but suddenly she was rolling, spider webs clinging to her face and hands. A terrified scream fought its way out of her, but the darkness swallowed up the sound like the greedy monster it was. Her body slammed against the staircase over and over again until it gave way from under her entirely, and then she was just falling, falling, falling. Alice fell forever into empty space.

…

The stars in the sky above her were the first thing she became aware of.

Alice’s consciousness came back to her gradually. She lifted her head slowly, causing her neck to crack in protest. Her whole body ached, like she’d taken a tumble in a washing machine.

Where was she?

How did she get there?

What happened?

Alice tried to think back to the last thing she could remember, before pain, and blackness. There wasn’t much. Tawny’s living room. A staircase that went on forever. A rabbit in a waistcoat. Zombies. Tawny and Seth about to start making babies, right beside her.

She could no longer tell which fragments were real and which weren’t.

Shakily, she made her way to her feet.

The sky that arched over her head was a stormy gray, with stars hanging beneath the clouds shining as brightly as if it were the middle of the night. To her left, the land faded straight into ocean with no beach between. The water crashed ferociously, waves slamming the banks, even though there was no wind. A sea of tears, Alice thought, not really sure what put the thought in her mind. She felt distinctly light-headed. All around her, coming all the way up to the edge of the furious waves, a forest was growing, or perhaps dying. Twisted tree trunks that looked thousands of years old reached to ridiculous heights above her head, their leaves withering. Flowers the size of people bobbed gently, chattering softly among themselves in whispers that were almost human, and fungi the size of minivans loomed ominously, casting shadows on purple grass.

“Heyyy, pretty lady!”

Alice jumped, looking frantically all around herself, trying to pick out a figure among the monstrous plants and the stretching shadows that reached for her with slender fingers. She could find nothing but smoke rings, drifting lazily past.   

“Hello?”

A wild, echoing laugh filled the space around her, glancing off tree trunks and darting back and forth endlessly, with no apparent source or end.

“Bit skittish, are we?”

This time, Alice was able to pinpoint the sound of his voice. She looked up just in time to see a boy slide off the edge of one particularly massive mushroom, landing squarely on his feet with a loud cracking of twigs and leaves. He paused a moment, as if to consider his options, then collapsed in a pathetic heap.

Alice was frozen for a moment in shock before her instincts overtook her better judgment. She rushed to kneel over his prone form.

“Are you ok?” The question came haltingly, less concerned than she’d meant for it to sound, as she got her first good look at him and drew back slightly.

Slightly red-rimmed, wide blue eyes blinked innocently up at her.

“Ok?” He asked, confused. “No, I’m Coal.”

 He had silky black hair streaked with an electric shade of blue, the tips of which fell into his wide, liquid-brown eyes. His skin looked soft, lightly tanned with a smattering of freckles across his nose and dark tattoos curling over his collarbone, peeking out from under the loose collar of his t-shirt.

Alice, paused, thrown off by his appearance, but his harmless expression set her at ease again.

“I meant, are you hurt?” She asked, softer.

Coal thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” he decided. Alice wavered, wondering if he was being serious or not. Would it be rude to laugh?

Why did she even care if she was rude at all?

Coal spared her the trouble of deciding how to answer by rising easily to his feet, offering her a hand. Alice considered it.

“It won’t bite you,” he promised, but Alice shook the help away anyways. Even when she stood, he remained a whole head taller than she was.

“So watchu doin’ here?” His eyes were playful.

“I’m dreaming,” Alice told him. She immediately regretted her words, wondering if she had broken some law of the dream world by acknowledging it.

Coal’s lips twitched, but those playful eyes looked deep into hers, like she was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.

“Cute,” was all he said.

“You, too,” Alice shot back. He raised his eyebrows.

Well. It was only a dream.

After a moment he smiled, a real smile this time. “I like you,” he decided, the soberest he’d sounded so far. Suddenly, he was touching her, his arm sliding around her waist and tucking her securely into his side. Alice flinched away, shocked at the sudden contact, but he wouldn’t let her budge.

How did he move so fast?

“Can’t let a little thing like you wander around a big, bad place like this on your own,” he said, as if by way of explanation. “Something’s bound to snap you up, might as well be me.”

Alice wasn’t so sure how she felt about that.

He led her away.

“Where are we going?” Alice asked, tripping a little to keep up with Coal’s leisurely long-legged pace.

“So what’s your name, beautiful?” He replied, disregarding her completely.

Alice considered not answering. He hadn’t answered her, after all. “My name is Alice.”

“Wow. Stupid name,” he snorted.

Alice blinked, taken aback. Coal laughed his wild laugh, sending chills down her spine and confusing her even more.

“Where are we going?!” she repeated, angrily this time. She stopped walking, ducking out from under his arm.

Coal looked back at her, surprised and annoyed. Alice took a step back , then another.

“Hey, whoa.” He reached for her, then thought better of it. “Tea. We’re going to tea.”

Alice hesitated, letting that sink in. “Tea.” She watched him, waiting for him to laugh, or smile, or show some other giveaway. “People don’t ‘go to tea,’ I don’t even drink tea. I haven’t had tea parties since I was a little kid.”

“Just come with me,” he insisted, his voice soft now. Reassuring.

“Don’t do that,” Alice told him, but she accepted his arm around her waist again.

…

Far above Alice’s head, a house towered on a hill.

Perhaps not so much of a house, but more of a mansion. It was huge and gloomy, and appeared even more so in the odd gray light of the dream. Alice glanced at it nervously from time to time, set on edge by its’ presence.

A long table stretched across the empty space at the bottom of the hill where she stood, piled high with teacups and kettles and stranger things, too. The stones of the courtyard were scuffed and gray, and the dark form of the mansion towered ominously over their small party at all times. Gaping windows stared down like horribly empty eyes, curtains drifting in a phantom breeze.

“Lovely,” said the Hare.

“Charming,” agreed the dormouse.

The odd pair sat side by side at the table, commenting on everything. Coal warned her not to talk to them.

“Mad as a hatter,” he’d told her.

“Hey!” The Hatter had objected.

In spite of the unwelcoming surroundings, the tables were lavish. Teacups with chipped handles and gold rims were set at every place, and even more peeked out from and around the small vases set at random, colorful flowers erupting from their thin necks. The flowers were not fancy bouquets or roses, or anything else one might expect to find at a tea party. They were wildflowers, weeds. The flowers Alice remembered picking from the field by the house where she’d grown up.

Coal’s arm led to her seat, and when he pulled it out for her she noticed a tiny daisy chain hung over the back of it, exactly the kind she had used to make with her father. Before.

Alice took her seat uneasily, unhappy with leaving the relative safety of Coal’s side. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat, eyes on her, gauging her reaction to this place.

“And we’re all ready!” The Hatter exclaimed, in his terribly familiar voice. “Take what you want, my dear.” Something that he would never really say.

Alice couldn’t take her eyes off him. She knew he wasn’t her father, she really did. But every time he looked at her, memories surged up, washing through her mind like an inescapable tidal wave.

She remembered the feeling of hands on her, the dark bruises on her pale skin.

Alice shuddered.

Her father’s face was looking across the table at her from atop the Hatter’s body.

There was a “sixth birthday!” cake at the center of the table, which struck Alice as strange. She declined a piece, nervously pouring herself a cup of tea, taking a tiny sip and spitting it back out. Milk and sugar. Her mother had used to make it that way for her when she was young and sick. She had called it “baby tea.”

But then, that was Before.

The chair across from her was pulled out, although no one sat in it. Instead, a teddy bear was resting on its cushion. Its glassy black eyes had watched her the entire time, but then very suddenly Alice realized she recognized it.

“Sammy,” she said aloud, surprised.

The Hare looked at her scathingly. “Quite off her rocker, that one,” it commented.

The dormouse opened its mouth as if to say something in return. Alice quite liked that mouse; it was gentle.

The words choked up on the way out of its throat.

“Can’t breathe!” It coughed once, then again. Got up. Sat back down again. Its face was panicked. It brought to Alice’s mind a horrible vision of her mother’s face, as she had lain in her hospital bed. The moment when she, too, had known she was going to die.

The dormouse fell over sideways out of its seat.

There was a stunned silence.

The Hatter let out a furious, wordless roar, leaping to his feet. His eyes found Alice and pierced her through, filled with an irrational hatred.

“How could you?!” He grabbed for the birthday cake on the table, chucking the entire thing at her. It flew wide, splattering on the cobblestone courtyard. The Hatter seized the edge of the tablecloth, yanking hard. Vases crashed, toppling teakettles. Flowers and piping hot tea spilled out over the top of the tablecloth. The flowers, her childhood favorites, sizzled slightly as the tea scorched their petals.

Alice jumped to her feet, turning to Coal in desperation. His face was strangely calm, lost in another world.

High, Alice thought. When had he been smoking?

“Horrible child!” The Hatter screamed, that face so like her father’s face twisted in rage just as his had been that day her mother had died. “How can you live when she’s gone?!”

He picked up Sammy the teddy bear and viciously ripped its head from its body, letting stuffing fall like rain around his feet. He seized the edge of the table, and Alice knew he was about to flip it.

“I’M GOING TO PUNISH YOU.”

The table flipped.

A dark room.

Ripping flesh.

Scalding tea.

Coal’s hands caught her.

Once-loving hands had held her down.

Coal’s fingers interlocked with hers, dragging her away. Running faster, faster. They were gone. She was safe.

She was alone in the dark, with no one to help her. The neighbors didn’t hear her screams. She was violated.

…

“It’ll be safe here,” Coal promised. “Trust me. Come on, baby.”

“Why did you take me there?” Alice gasped, memories pulsing through her veins.

“Just trust me,” he repeated. Alice wanted to pull away, but emotionally she knew that she could not handle being alone. Not here, and not now. She let him pull her along, all the way to the edge of the forest. They emerged from the trees.

A small palace squatted right on the tree line. It was nothing magnificent, not even the size of the Hatter’s house, but it lacked the threatening quality that so much in this world seemed to possess.

A doorman answered when Coal pounded on the door. Oh, Alice thought, surprised. He looks like a frog.

A frog in a tailored suit. How funny. For a moment, the horror of the past scene slipped her mind.

“Welcome,” said the frog-man. “Come in.”

He led them through the door, down a long hallway into a small kitchen where a squat woman was slaving over a stove. She turned to face them, her face expressing no surprise.

“One moment,” she said, in a heavy accent that Alice could not place. She left through a small door, and Alice and Coal could hear her voice echoing through the entire palace as she hollered.

“DUCHESS!” She called. “DUCHESS, WE HAVE GUESTS! DUCHESS!” After several long minutes of her grating voice, she reentered the room, followed momentarily by a smaller, slimmer figure.

Oh, God.

It was Tawny.

Alice’s pulse picked up. Tawny’s hair was pulled up in an elegant bun, her clothes simple. In her arms she held a bundle of cloths concealing something from sight. A baby, probably, although it was silent.

Thump. Thump.

Alice looked around, confused. Where was the noise coming from?

Thump.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Duchess Tawny’s smile was toxic. Odd, usually her face was so sweet. You could never see the toxic side. “Looking a little chunky, there? Better not eat anything.”

Alice felt bile rising in her throat again. No, no, no, she thought. Not now.

Thump.

“Sit down.” Alice shook her head, her mouth dry.  Tawny reached out, offering the bundle in her arms. “Don’t you want to see?”

Alice had to throw up. She had to. She was suddenly aware of every pound on her body, just the way Tawny had always made her feel.
            “I don’t want to see it,” she said, irrationally panicked.

“Look,” Tawny cooed, tearing away the blankets.

It was a human heart.

Ohgodohgodohgod. Alice’s head was spinning, her stomach heaving. She needed to throw up immediately.

“No one wants you,” Tawny said, and her voice was her own, but in Alice’s head she heard Seth’s echoing it.

“I don’t want you,” said the Seth in Alice’s mind.

“He didn’t want you,” confirmed the Tawny in front of her.

The Seth in Alice’s memory offered her a needle. “Try it,” he said. “It’ll make you feel good.” Nothing else did.

The Tawny in front of her tossed the pulsing heart on the ground at her feet. It exploded, blood splattering across the floor.

Alice blacked out.

…

            Alice woke up in a lawn chair. She was looking out over the strangest party she had ever seen; animals and people mingled, laughing and screaming in equal parts.

“OFF WITH HIS HEAD!” The loudest scream of all pierced the rest.

Alice looked upon her own image.

Red Queen Alice was done up like a true queen, dripping diamonds and soft fabric. Cowering at the end of her incriminating finger was her sixth grade math teacher.

“You have so much potential! Just try!” Her old teacher called, the words ringing a bell in Alice’s memory.

“OFF WITH HIS HEAD!” The Red Queen screeched again, irrationally furious.

Card soldiers led him away.

Next her school guidance counselor stepped out from the crowd, tentatively.

“I know you think you can’t talk to me, but you can,” she said gently to the queen. “I understand you may feel out of control, but you’re not. You can take control of your own life. Whoever is influencing you, whatever is influencing you, you are strong enough to live above that influence. You don’t need it.”

The Red Queen whipped around, dress swinging behind her, spit flying from her mouth in rage. “OFF WITH HER HEAD!” She screamed, and once more the card soldiers came.

Alice stood up from her lawn chair.

“Stop,” she said.

The Red Queen turned, and Alice looked the all the worst sides of herself in the face.

“Stop! You’re only hurting yourself!”

Alice the Red Queen opened her mouth, eyes narrowing, and Alice could see the words beginning to form on her lips.

Off with her head.

 Alice couldn’t take it anymore; she broke eye contact, turning away from herself. Her other self. Her real self?

Her eyes burned. She covered her mouth, trying to choke back the sobs that were begging to be set free.

She ran until she couldn’t run anymore.

…

Alice opened her eyes on Tawny’s couch, her heart pounding, adrenaline racing through her veins. Her entire body was stiff and sore. The lights were out, the movie over. Tawny and Seth were asleep, curled together on the couch beside her. What clothing they wore was thrown on haphazardly, their hair a mess.

Oh, God. They had. Right next to her. While she was asleep.

Alice thought she was going to be sick. She lurched to her feet, stumbling a little on her way out of the room.

In the kitchen, she pulled out a pen from a drawer, scrambling to find a piece of paper.

It was childish, she knew. No one wrote letters.

But it was the only way to get everything she needed to say to Tawny and Seth off of her chest. And she had so much to say. It might not be a big step, but it was a first step.

I never want to see you again, she began.

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