Alice pulled open her chest of drawers and looked at the small bottle containing the rainbow colored liquid for the five thousandth time, the elegantly simple tag "Drink Me" calling out to her. It had become an obsession for her. In the years since returning from Wonderland, she checked on the small vial at least once, sometimes two or three times per day. Part of the obsession was her curiosity as to what the rainbow drink would do. The other, more urgent drive to see and usually touch, the vial was a confirmation of her sanity. When she had returned from her journey ant told her sister and parents about everything that had happened, they'd laughed at her story and made dismissive comments on how imaginative she was. Their disbelief had hurt her so much that she initially forgot about the small bottle in the pocket of her apron. The rainbow drink, once remembered, became her secret confirmation that it wasn't all a dream. Dinah believed her, but the beloved feline could tell no one the truth.

She had returned to the riverbank dozens of times since that day so long before. Always looking for the tardy white rabbit, but she had never seen him again. The cone shaped bottle sat in an ornately carved jewelry box that she received on her thirteenth birthday. With no jewelry to speak of, she thought the box a perfect hiding place for the rainbow drink. Now, eleven years after receiving the bottle from the King of Hearts, she knew the time had come. -

With the sun setting on her eighteenth birthday, she lifted the bottle from the pretty box and the words that the Cheshire cat had sung when the king had slipped the bottle in her pocket echoed in her ear.

Exotic travel can be yours,

How great, the things you will learn.

But be forewarned, if you should go,

Once gone, you may Never Return.

The final warning was what made her hesitate to drink the concoction. "Never Return"? She worried. She would never again see her mom and dad, her sister or nanny? The idea brought tears to her eyes.

On the other hand, she also wouldn't have to marry that weasel, Preston Dunklemire. She cringed at the thought, her mind made up.

On her bed sat a basket with some biscuits and a bottle of wine. Alice remembered how the food changed her the last time and she didn't want to constantly grown and shrink. She considered the biscuits and decided to steal a few more from the kitchen as she left. After all, forever was quite a long time.

As Alice slipped the conical shaped bottle into the basket of food, Dinah leaped up on the bed and mewed demurely at her owner. Alice absently reached down and scratched the cat's ears. "Don't worry little Dinah," she murmured in assurance. You're coming with me this time. And you're going to love it. Wonderland is just full of mice and birds, you can chase them to your heart's delight. Oh, and you will love the Cheshire cat!"

Dinah looked at Alice with a baleful glance. The very idea! Dinah thought. Suggesting I mingle with that filthy, disappearing maniac she talks about. Why, I wouldn't sully my feet to walk on the same ground as that mongrel. To punctuate the thought, Dinah climbed into the basket, next to the neatly wrapped biscuits, and began cleaning her paws. You can carry me.

Alice smiled at Dinah, oblivious to the cat's decidedly menacing thoughts, and looked down at her pink party dress. She considered changing her dress because a party dress was not well suited for travel. Then she remembered the tea party at the March Hare's and how fancy they dressed playing croquet with the queen. A pretty frock such as she wore for her party would do nicely in those situations.

At last, Alice stopped dawdling and picked up the basket, Dinah and all. On her dresser she set a crisp, white envelope simply addressed "Mother and Father". Over the past weeks, as she had warred within herself as to whether or not she would drink the bottle, she had written and re-written a goodbye letter to her parents. She was not particularly close to her parents, her formative years having been spent primarily in the care of Agnes, her Nanny. The letter she wrote to Agnes took much longer to do than the one to her parents. She wished Agnes could come to wonderland with her, but even if the drink were enough for two people, which she wasn't sure it would be, Agnes was much older and Alice knew she didn't care for travel and would hate all the talking animals, often referring to Dinah as "that loathsome beast".

Alice tiptoed down the hallway, careful to avoid the creaking floorboard just outside her room. She stopped at Agnes's room and slipped the thoughtfully written letter under the old nanny's bedroom door. Then she hurried down the stairs, knowing that none of the steps creaked and they were far enough away from the bedrooms that the muted sound of her black kitten heels softly thumping on the carpeted stairs wouldn't wake anyone.

Two more stolen biscuits and a spur of the moment jar of jam as she passed through the kitchen and she was on her way to the riverbank where she first saw the white rabbit with the smart pocket watch and vest.

Moonlight glistened on the river and Alice stood at the base of the same tree where her sister had slumbered that lazy summer day eleven years before. It was early winter now, and the tree had long since shed the lush green leaves that had provided them cool shade that summer. Naked and frozen, lit only by the moon and stars, the tree now appeared as a witch to Alice. The idea was disturbing and Alice shuddered.

A rather annoyed meow called to her from the basked and Alice looked down at Dinah, who had wrapped a paw around the cone shaped bottle as was glaring at her as if to say "Are we going, or have you lost your nerve?" if Alice could hear the cat's thoughts, she'd know that the cat was thinking something similar, though much more cruel.

Alice took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and took the bottle from the old cat's paw. She let loose the breath, pulled the cork and drank the potion all in a smooth motion. The sweet drink tasted of strawberries, plums and watermelon.

A gust of wind blew by as she swallowed the last drop and she brushed her now wind-blown hair from her face and looked to see what effect the drink had. To her surprise, she neither grew, nor shrank. She didn't turn into a mouse or a rabbit. Nothing spectacular at all happened.

"Have I actually gone mad?" She asked Dinah, her voice heavy with disappointment. The cat meowed a snarky reply, but Alice could not hear it over the sound of the wind that again blew fiercely around them. Alice gathered the basket to her chest and worry crept over her that a blizzard was about to catch them. "Let's go home Dinah." she took a single step, but the wind was so strong it knocked her back three steps. The worry instantly changed into fear as she realized that she was no longer touching the ground at all, as the wind had sucked her up into the sky. As she floated through the air over the field, she realized she was in the center of a cyclone.

Of course! She thought, remembering the long rabbit hole she had fallen down before. Since I'm not following the rabbit, the King of Hearts cleverly devised a different way for me to return to Wonderland. This may take a while, she reasoned, since the rabbit hole had taken several hours and she now hat to take and indirect path to Wonderland. "Come Dinah, we should sleep while we're safely in the cyclone." Clutching the basket close so she didn't accidentally let go, Alive fell asleep easily, happy to be on her way back to the beautiful garden of Wonderland. She dreamed of the caterpillar, now a beautiful butterfly, of the poor lizard, Bill, who never seemed to catch a break, the sleep door mouse in the teapot. Yes, she thought she would be very happy to be back in Wonderland.