Chapter Text
The wind blew gently across the moor, and the river babbled at her feet. The whispering willows dipped their arms into the water, and the clouds moved peacefully through the sunny sky. It was such a perfect day, the most perfect in weeks. It allowed her to still her mind for just a moment, and pretend that she was truly happy. Just pretend. Just for a moment. She spread her hands on the cotton picnic rug beneath her, breathing in the sent of daisies on the breeze, feeling the soft ripples of fabric beneath her fingers. Her pink hair swayed in the wind, much to her brothers' delight.
"You look like a princess!" cried the younger of the pair, thirteen-year-old Jimmy, his blonde hair and blue eyes making him the angel of the group
"It's beautiful! You look like you're from a fantasy novel!" remarked fifteen-year-old Scar, his face creased in a smile as he brushed his chocolate-brown fringe out of his green eyes.
She laughed, her eyes twinkling faintly.
"It's my main character moment!" she chuckled, and Scar rolled his eyes lightly.
"Seriously though Lizzie, you do look wonderful!" added Jimmy solemnly, and Lizzie smiled brighter, tilting her head to watch the whispering willows.
"Thank you," she replied softly.
They sat there for awhile, eating their sandwiches and watching the clouds go by. There was no rush - Lizzie had taken the entire day off work for this trip. She was trying to keep the boys together, and through doing that, she hoped that she wouldn't break either.
After a while longer, the boys began to get restless. Jimmy had made three daisy crowns already and had run out of heads to put them on. Scar was picking blades of grass and tying them into knots, before throwing them away into the breeze. But Lizzie had planned for this. She handed the boys an old-fashioned basket and pointed them in the direction of the woods.
"Go pick some berries. It's the perfect time, they'll be ripe. Text me if you need me, and have fun, alright?" Jimmy nodded eagerly, and Scar smiled, tapping the pocket with his phone as a reassurance.
Twenty-year-old Lizzie waved as they walked off over the moor, the basket swinging from Jimmy's arm. She sighed deeply, laying on her back on the picnic rug, her hair fanned out behind her head. Watching as the clouds drifted on by, she bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears that came anyways. They trickled down her cheeks gently, before growing into a waterfall onto her neck. She was sobbing, her blue-green eyes rimmed with red. Everything was broken. Everything. And she couldn't fix it.
After her sobs subsided, she pushed herself into a sitting position, drawing her sleeve across her face. Her breaths were shaky as she tried to calm herself down. The boys couldn't see her like this. She wouldn't let them. The willow tree seemed to wave at her in the wind, and she closed her eyes, trying to relax, trying to fool herself.
"Everything is fine," she whispered. "Everything is fine."
As soon as she said those words, a sudden wave of dizziness over came her, and she leant forward, grasping at the sides of her head as if to ground herself. The world seemed to spin, nothing would stay still. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, waiting for it to pass. When it finally did, she raised her head and opened her eyes, incredibly confused. That had never happened before.
Suddenly, a blur of white dashed through the grass in front of her, before stopping in the grass. It was about the hight of her knee, it's fur pearly white with a hint of black and... gold? Lizzie squinted her eyes at the thing, and smiled as she saw long, stuck up ears. A rabbit. Of course. And a brave one too, to have come bounding out in broad daylight with humans around. But as she looked closer, the weirder it got.
I'm hallucinating, she thought, her frown deepening as she stared at the creature. First the dizziness and now this.
For the rabbit she saw did not have bands of colour around it's chest, it wore a waistcoat, black trimmed in gold. It held a pocket watch in its hand, staring at it with utter dismay. And over it's eye was a monocle... yes, a monocle.
Lizzie blinked furiously, trying to make sense of what she saw. But no matter how much she rubbed her eyes and shook her head, the 'hallucination' remained. Just as she was about to approach the rabbit, it sighed in dismay. Actually sighed, before exclaiming:
"I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late!"
and running off towards the base of the nearest willow tree. Lizzie was on her feet suddenly, walking cautiously towards the willow tree. As she got closer, she called out at it.
"Excuse me, but where are you going?"
The strange rabbit didn't seem to notice her; it just continued to rush towards the willow tree, mumbling distastefully as it went, before jumping into a rather large rabbit hole at the base of the tree.
Lizzie stood before the hole for a moment, wondering if she was going mad. But then, upon impulse, she lifted up her skirt slightly and placed a foot in the rabbit hole. When satisfied that it was nothing more than a rabbit hole, she gently placed her other foot into the earth.
Her vision blurred suddenly, and the world collapsed beneath her.
She was falling.
Down...
down...
down...
down.
Until she landed in a heap on a grassy floor, blinking the blur from her eyes. A young man dressed in a pastel suit and hat looked up from his tea with a frown, and came to help her up, but Lizzie was already on her feet.
"Where..?" she said to herself, before her eyes landed on the man infront of her. "Who..?"
He just smiled and waved, before looking at her closely, taking express interest in her hair. Lizzie brushed her hair over her shoulders self-consciously, before turned to the man who held his hand out for her to shake.
"I'm the Hatter," he said with a wink. "The Mad Hatter. I'm not really mad. Well, I guess you can decide that for yourself."
Lizzie nodded slowly.
"I'm..." she started, but the Hatter cut her off.
"Alice," he filled in. "You look like an Alice." Lizzie frowned.
"No, I..."
The Hatter just laughed.
"Names don't matter in Wonderland anyways!"
"Excuse me, where?"
"Wonderland, Alice. You're in Wonderland. And everything is fine."