Possible Side Effects, Ch. 8

[wanderamaranth]

Possible Side Effects, Ch. 8: Discussing Underland

AiW WiP.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

When Alice had returned from Underland, she had been prepared to think it all a fancy dream. After all, it wasn't as though London teemed with sardonically grinning cats, wise smoking caterpillars and waistcoat wearing rabbits--how wonderful it would be if it did, but it did not.

The evening of Hamish's proposal, Alice and her mother had retired to their respective rooms within Ascot Manor (as Alice had stayed quite late discussing business propositions, and despite what he knew his wife would say on the manner, Ascot had offered them a place to stay for the night. He was a gentleman, even when his wife refused to act like a lady.) and she'd dismissed her maid, not wanting the fuss of dealing with the woman's shock at her dirty attire. She was too exhausted from the day's events to assuage yet another's disappropriation on her state.

In fact, Alice felt bone-jarringly sore, almost as if she had…but that was to be expected, she told herself firmly. Falling the way she had down into that hole would be enough to make any body ache.

It was when she was removing her skirts that her state of Denial began to be stripped away. Her dress was missing a large strip of fabric from its underskirt…the very item she'd taken to clothe herself in her new size in the Room of Doors. (Alice scoffed a bit at herself for the niggling doubt, as well as for using seemingly Random Capitalization, even in her thoughts--but that Room seemed to deserve said Capitalization, for the sheer scope of its Oddity.)

She began picking over the rest of her attire. The strip seemed to be the only bit of her dress that was missing, but where were her gloves? Whenever had she misplaced those? Unless she had really used them to wrap her feet…

"Stuff and nonsense." she'd whispered, but without any real heat behind it. (She did love chastising herself, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so.) Checking her pockets one last time (as her dress had some rather cleverly hidden within the skirt's folds) she found not her gloves, but a small glass bottle. The tag was ragged and faded, as though it were decades old, instead of just days, as she knew it to be. 'Drink Me' it read. At this, her purposeful denial of Underland as banished. She had proof-actual, physical proof-that it existed. She'd tucked the bottle away in the safest place she knew (a hollow book in her father's library) and left it there when she went to China. It was a safe place, as with her father gone, no one in her family save herself read the books that were in there.

So Alice understood why her mother refused to believe her, when she finally told her of Underland. (If she didn't even believe it at first, and she having lived it, what did she expect of her mother?) It did not mean that she appreciated the level of her vehemence of her denial of the land.

She sat in the chair opposite Helen, the table between them laden with untouched breakfast foods. Eyeing a scone even as her mother almost shouted at her (her voice was raised, hysterically, but not quite at that decibel at which one can accurately say is a shout), Alice wondered if she would be able to eat one as her mother talked, or if that would just increase her ire.

"Open your eyes, child! This--this fantasy, this pretty little adventure story you've spun me, is impossible!"

There was nothing Alice liked less than being told something was an impossibility. (It was even worse than being told one was unimaginative.)

"Why can it not? You never having heard of such a place or such things does not make them any less real." she said, before continuing, in a conspiratorial tone, "You know the thing no one tells you, of adventure stories? While they're terribly exciting on paper, read while safe in bed, or while told to you, as I have today, inside a rational room with a comforting fire…when they're actually experienced, they are much more terrifying than exhilarating." She sighed. "And I was terrified, mother. But I need to go back."

"Go back?" her mother's voice was aghast.

"Yes." Deciding that, scone or no scone, her mother was going to be upset, Alice plucked up one riddled with cranberries and began munching it. "It's why I've told you of it now, you see." she said, after swallowing. (Rebellious she may be, but she was not going to talk to her mother with her mouth full!) "Something occurred there that has made me ill here. The only way to make things right is by going back."

"There is nothing to go back to!" her mother cried. "I knew I shouldn't have allowed Charles to encourage your flights of fancy! You've gone mad!"

Shrugging, Alice said, "Yes, probably. Father never seemed to take issue with it, though." She took another bite. "In fact, he considered it one of my best qualities."

"I will not accept that, Alice." her mother's voice shook, and Alice felt a pang for the woman. It was terribly difficult to believe. "What you are telling me is nothing more than a story that you believe due to an overwrought imagination. Traveling through the Orient no doubt did not help." Helen closed her eyes, as though gathering her strength. "I blame myself." she said. "I should have put a stop to all this nonsense long ago."

A sudden fury welled inside of Alice. "There was nothing for you to put a stop to! I do not know how or why I fell into the rabbit hole the first time, but there was nothing you could have done. Have you never believed there is more to the world than what you can easily see?"

Tears pricked the elder woman's eyes. At first, when her daughter had begun to speak of her 'adventures', she'd thought the girl was laughing into her sleeve at her. The more she spoke, though, the woman realized her daughter was perfectly serious. There were only two options, then, for what she described. Either her youngest had gone completely round the bend (which was horrible enough to contemplate) or, even worse…she was telling the complete truth.

Terrible as it was, she hoped Alice was simply mad.

Voice a whisper, she responded to the child's question by saying, "It is a very pretty adventure story, as you said, my darling. Yet it is still a story. Dear, you are still ill…perhaps if you laid down, rested…?"

"Mother, as marvelous as that sounds (for truth be told, Alice was still weak and shaky, and would have enjoyed a good nap, despite having just awakened), I have no time to rest. I didn't want to speak of Underland to you at all, but…I feel if I do not return there, something terrible will happen."

Her mother's face had frozen halfway through her statement. "What did you call this place, the place of your dreams?"

"Underland." Alice repeated, puzzled as to why that would be of more concern than anything else she'd previously said. The whites of her mother's eyes were very large, reminding Alice of a startled horse. Her father had owned one that would get just that expression right before it bucked it's rider.

"No." Helen breathed, and her daughter saw, for whatever reason, a glimmer of belief trace it's way across her face. " 'Twas a story, nothing more than a story, to frighten the village children into behaving."

She may have looked and acted as the proper English wife of a wealthy aristocrat, but Helen Kingsley had not always been so. She'd grown up as Helen McTavish, the third daughter of a well-intentioned but uninspiring Scotch gentleman of little means. The fact that her Charles had married her at all, with she being considered unsuitable for his rank and station, only added to his air of mystery and functional madness. Grateful that he'd looked past her inauspicious birth, she'd worked hard to mold herself into the wife she felt Charles deserved--prim, proper, and always polished.

In her youth, though, before Charles, before she'd carefully crafted her veneer of gentility, she'd sat with all the other children of her village, and listened to the washing women, or the maids, or whomever they could bribe into doing it, as they told them stories of the land Under the hills, where the Wee Folk lived.

How she loved those stories as a child! There were dashing heroes, distressed ladies, and sometimes courageous animals. In some the hero would get away from the Wee Folk, while in yet others they were forced to live Underground, as punishment for a simple mistake they'd made while adventuring there. A flower picked that should not have been, a kiss stolen from the daughter of the wrong creature…

Alice knew nothing of Helen's thoughts, but remembered the hollow book in her father's library. "I have proof."

Helen's watery eyes looked back up at her daughter. "Proof?" she echoed, weakly.

"Yes." Excitement shone in her eyes. "Allow me a moment to fetch it, mother." Dropping the scone, Alice bounded out of the chair, and was out of the room before she could form a reply.

When Alice returned, she clutched a small bottle in her fist. "I found this in my dress pockets after I returned from Underland, this last time." Her fist unclenched to reveal the bottle that had held the Pishsalver, it's aged 'Drink Me' tag clearly visible.

Helen began to shake, as her own thoughts echoed back through her skull. A simple mistake made while adventuring…

"You drank the wine?" she asked, amazed at how small her voice sounded, even to herself.

"Mother?" Alice didn't like the look on her mother's face at all. "Of course I did. It was the only way I could shrink to get through the Door."

"And then you ate their food."

Dread at her mother's broken tone filled Alice. "Yes, I had some Upelkuchen cake to make me grow…and then the White Queen gave me an elixir to fix my height properly…and then, well, I was hungry, and the March Hare had made this delicious soup…" she trailed off as she saw her mother sway in her seat.

A footman entered the room, tugging the points of his waistcoat down in a vaguely nervous gesture. "Madame Kingsley." he bowed to the matriarch. "Miss Kingsley." he respectfully inclined his head towards Alice, "there is a gentleman come to call for you."

"Please give him our regrets, but we are unable to receive him at this time." Helen said, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing her face with it. The man nodded and went to leave the room, but stopped when Alice said, "Wait. What is the gentleman's name?"

"Theobald Masinson, miss."

Stayne had arrived, then. Promptly, too. Alice shoved aside the revulsion she still felt from the previous night's dream, and said, "Please, send him in."

"Very good, miss." The footman hurriedly bowed and left the room, before either woman could recall him with another change of directions.

Alice turned to her mother, concerned determination upon her brow. There was much more she had wished to tell her before Stayne called upon them, but now there was no time. Helen looked unwell, face drawn and eyes lost, much as she had when Alice's father had died.

The thudding of footsteps was heard, and Stayne entered the room without a further announcement. "You've summoned me and I have arrived, my Lady." he smarmily kneeled, only to stand up abruptly when he noticed Alice's mother was in the room as well. "Mrs. Kingsley!" he cried, and went to grasp her hands, when Alice's voice cut sharply, stopping him in his tracks. "Do not touch my mother, Knave." She spoke bravely, but seeing him again, as he truly was, (for she could see clearly past his disguise) Alice felt as frightened as she had when she had snuck into the Bandersnatch's kennel. (It was a what-have-I-done-I'm-so-foolish fear.)

She turned to Helen. "Mother, I would not like for you to meet Ilosovic Stayne, Knave to the Red Queen. However, he's here now, so there's no help for it, I'm afraid."

Bewildered, the woman replied, "Alice, this is Mr. Masinson. I made his acquaintance yesterday, after you were ill at the party."

"This man is no more Theodore Masinson than I myself." Alice snorted. Eyes slanted back at Stayne, she asked, "Why can my mother not see you for what you truly are? I can see you, clear as day. All seven feet of you."

"You can hardly see all seven feet of me, my dear, but if that is truly your desire, it can be arranged." At Helen's strangled gasp of outrage, Stayne quickly added (as sometimes it was best to just charge on, and act as if the words that had sprung from your mouth had not, in fact, done so), "She can not see me because I've changed the Perception around myself."

If looks could kill, Stayne would have been rotting in his chair. Alice let his crude statement slide, however, in the interest of getting more information out of him. That was the purpose of having him in her home, after all. "Then why am I able to…Perceive you?"

Surprisingly, it was Helen who answered, not Stayne. "You drank the wine, ate their food. You'll be able to See beyond their glamourie."

"You are an extraordinary creature, madam." Stayne said, a bit of awe in his voice. "I believe that is partly the cause of Alice's gained Perception. For one such as yourself to understand that is unusual indeed."

He turned back to Alice. "I have no definite answers for you, your Ladyship. It is as I said to your Mother, that partaking of our foodstuffs may have had an effect. I do believe, however, that the Jabber blood is partly the cause, as well."

"How do you know of that?"

The sharpness of her tone was not flattering to himself at all. Stayne rather liked it better when she was Umm, and at least a bit more respectful, if not as willing as he would have her be. "All of Underland knows you defeated the Jabberwocky and drank it's blood to return here. (Although why one would waste a Jabber gift on returning to this depressing spot of blight was anyone's guess. Alice may truly be mad, after all, he mused.) There are already bloody songs about it!"

The young woman's body relaxed as he said this, though, and it was only then that he noticed how tense he had become when he'd mentioned the Jabberwocky blood. Interesting. "Please allow my mother to see you as you truly are."

He should have been expecting the request, but he was not. Perhaps it was the 'please' she had tacked onto the beginning of the statement, or the way her now-green eyes had been flicking back and forth between the two with such obvious concern. Whatever it was, Stayne inclined his head, and said, "I will, if that is what you wish." Not waiting for her reply, the Knave closed his eye briefly. Once it was open again, he took in the older woman's surprise. Her eyes fluttered for a moment as though she would be faint, but she found her courage and visibly shored herself against the changes she was having to make of her worldview.

"I would have been much happier to have never known any of this." she said, taking in his longer hair, eye-patch, and (he thought, rather dashing) scar. "And while your true appearance is very…interesting, Mr. Stayne…None of this explains why you have to return to that place! It will not let you leave again, Alice, I can feel it!"

Alice looked from her mother to Stayne and back again. Then she lifted her leg upon the table, narrowly avoiding the coffee carafe. She pulled her skirt up, and her mother's initial cry of dismay became a sharp breath of disbelief. "What…is it?"

Stayne had been Anticipation itself when Alice had pulled her skirts upward. Any time he would be able to glimpse more of her smooth flesh was a good time, indeed, despite her snapping words. His salacious expectations faded at the sight that greeted him. "It is as I suspected. The Jabberwocky blood is attempting to leave you."

Where just the day before at the tea party Alice had been experiencing what she considered to be hives, she now had a spider-web like network of broken blood vessels just beneath her skin. They showed up violently purple against the fairness of her skin. "See here." the Knave pointed at one particularly nasty spot. "Your veins are actually collapsing under the strain of trying to contain the blood. What you are not able to expel orally is bursting through in this manner."

Calmly, as if she were discussing the weather and not a journey between worlds, Alice said, "This, mother, is why I need to leave. I was not sure what exactly was happening, but I knew it was caused by an Underlandian source. Therefore, the only cure I may have would lie in Underland itself." There were also other concerns, but Alice was not about to tell her mother that she suspected the Red Queen, the very woman she'd helped exile, was plotting against her sister, and that her involvement would once again be required to prevent disaster.

Nor yet was she going to breathe one word about what had been occurring between herself and the Hatter. She'd told her that she had dreams in which one of her friends from Underland spoke with her, yes, but had not told her which friend, nor yet what exactly occurred in those dream-realities.

Wishing to know what her mother was thinking, but afraid of the answer (what if she was just pretending to understand this was not all just a dream she'd had--or worse, was beginning to believe it was a dream she herself was having?) Alice returned her attention back to Stayne. Lifting her leg back off the table, she could almost feel the man's disappointment at her re-covering of the appendage as she smoothed her skirts.

"How did you travel to Underland? Did you use the rabbit hole?"

Incredulousness painted the Knave's features. "The rabbit hole? Why, for the love of Underland, would I use that?"

"Isn't that a primary means of getting from here to there?" Alice grumped.

"Certainly…if one is a rabbit."

Alice very nearly gave herself over to the urge to kick him in the shin, hard, but was able to refrain. (Barely.) "Well, then, how did you?"

"Just as you did during your second trip to Underland, Alice. I used a Looking Glass."

"Will any Looking Glass do, or was it one in particular?"

Helen made a small sound at this, and both Stayne and Alice looked at her. She appeared to be accepting it all very well, considering, Stayne thought. (Abovegroundians not being known for their accepting minds.)

"Any will do."

***

It was not long after, while Alice and Stayne were discussing the merits of using a larger or a smaller Looking Glass, that Helen had stood, declared that she needed to lie down in a quiet place, and abruptly left the table. Wishing she could go after her, Alice nevertheless stayed put. There was more she wanted to know from the Knave of Hearts.

"Let us speak frankly, now." she'd said, and his lips curled into an anticipatory snarl. He eyed her hungrily. "It would be my extreme pleasure," the word pleasure fairly dripped out of his mouth, "to engage in any activity you so desire."

"Right now, the only activity I wish to participate in is talking." Alice said. "Why are you here?"

He told her of the entirety of Iracebeth's plan: how she wanted her found, humiliated, and then killed. His own decision to not follow through he related next, although he omitted his reasoning as to why. Instead he said, "Following you will allow me to regain my proper place in Underland once more, Alice. I do not wish to be exiled--even Death, should that befall me, would be preferably to the life I lived those few horrible days."

And so Alice had agreed. A terrible burning sensation as she recalled the dream-warning rolled through her stomach at the idea, but still she agreed. Looking-Glass travel was not something she had ever consciously done; and she would need someone to possibly assist her to Marmoreal, should she suddenly become weaker from her illness. It was not an ideal situation, but it was the one that Alice had.

"Because I am Exiled," Stayne had warned, "We will not be able to arrive in Marmoreal itself, or even close to, through the glass. We will need to exit in the Outlands."


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