1874 4 April 1874

Months pass and again nothing.

I've increased the prussic acid by two drops per day. I wonder if I'm wasting my efforts. Perhaps another patient would be a better choice for this treatment.

Months pass and still nothing. Nurse D-, having lost patience with my treatments, insists on trying a "cure" of her own. She stitched the rabbit together and tucked it into bed with Alice.

Interesting development! Alice has returned the gift, presenting Nurse D- with a drawing of a rabbit, though it's quite different from her toy.

"My watch?" -10/5/74

Out of nowhere, and as shocking as a bolt of lightning across a sky of purest azure, Alice greeted me with a strange grin.

And then, lightning bolt upon lightning bolt, she began to converse quite freely as if we'd been speaking to each other like this for decades. I'll include just a smattering of remarks as evidence, not that the burden of proof is with me in this foul courtroom.

"Beware the Snark's poisonous spit... roll the Demon Dice wisely or the game turns on you... note the Centipedehas a tender underbelly... I enjoy the taste of mushrooms, but not the ones that bite back..."

Regrettably, I cannot regard this as an improvement in her condition.

It's a world of sheer, chaotic terror and unmitigated bloodshed - that's the world she inhabits. So severe are her delusions, so fantastical and absurd, that at times it's difficult for me to listen. She speaks of a nightmare realm where everything seems bent on her destruction. Gigantic bayonet-toting ants and flesh-rending flowers. Carnivorous fish and fire-spewing abominations. The range of hellish creatures populating her world is dizzying. They are, on balance, more deranged than the most demonic Bosch painting. It's as if I have been waiting and waiting for water to pour from a spigot. Now, the water has finally started pouring, and I cannot staunch the flow, nor discover its poisoned source.

More and more, she confides in me. She drones on and on. I think the elixir is at the proper dosage now. At times, she seems to fear and loathe my presence, yet she speaks as if she can't help herself.

She spent the afternoon telling of a grisly siege between life-size chess pieces. Having been hounded by a cyclopic pawn, it seems she dispatched the one-eyed monster only to be chased mercilessly over the living chessboard by a pair of renegade rooks. As usual, her description was vivid beyond comprehension, a chronicle decidedly more compelling than anything in Froissart.

Dozing off for a few minutes only, I woke to the sight of Alice's freed hands tugging at my watch fob. Shackles might be required for future sessions — at least until she behaves. I'm taking her pencils as well. Let's see if this punishment provokes a response.

I should have predicted this. Without pencil, she turns to poetry.

"Mange-ridden to the core, he leads me through the fray

With the toss of a Jackbomb, I clear abominations from our way."

I asked her to describe a "Jackbomb." Cunning and clever girl, she asked me to return her pencil.

Her conversation contains flashes of lucidity. Certain powerful words, however, cause her to dip back into her fantasy world. And a word like "fire" can, for obvious reasons, set her tumbling into an abyss of sadness.

"Her conversations can be clear, but her drawings show no such progress." -20/7/74

Alice hurled the teapot across the room.

"How many times must I tell you? I only take tea with friends!"

At times, she can be quite civil, and sometimes disgustingly vile. As an experiment, I've decided to suspend all medication, except for a heavy dose of laudanum when she's in the foulest of tempers.

Perhaps more cold saltwater treatments will cleanse some of the chaotic thinking from her mind. She has been ranting. In particular, she's been spouting violently against someone she refers to as the Red Queen.

From day to day, her moods run the gamut from despondent gloom to vicious anger. The ancients believe that a strong wind blows through the minds of the chronically unstable. If a student of Hippocrates examined Alice, he might diagnose there was a tempest with the force of a thousand mistrals raging through her head.

"Though the Queen dominates much conversation, Alice refuses to describe or draw the monarch. Her anger, though, knows no limit when she talks about what she'd like to do to the Queen." -20/7/74

In her most disturbing outburst in quite some time, Alice attacked one of the nurses while being bathed. Called her "Duchess."

From a recent conversation with Alice:

"What have you been doing, Alice?"

"Attending the tea party of course."

"Was it a grand party?"

"Oh most grand, dear doctor. I fear nothing and soon the Keep will be in reach."

Her sleep is very restless one night, and then calm as an infant's the next. She's become consistently unpredictable.

Alice delivered another verse to her puzzling rhyme.

"They taunt me about the burning as if I were to blame, I clear them from my conscious with the eloquence of myblade."

She spoke at length of a place called the Fungiferous Forest. It's a place filled with mushrooms the size of large trees; fungus and foliage that grabs those who trample it; cavernous wastes filled with creatures who are as disturbed as any I've ever heard of.

"She's drawn a picture of a place like this, I seem to recall." -2/8/74

It's difficult for me to connect the massively passive Alice to the aggressively assertive, powerful person she describes in her dreams. Her exploits with the knife conjure images of a musketeer's swashbuckling panache; her acts of courage those of a selfless hero. These are not "delusions of grandeur." This is no simple madness. But what?

"How does she really see herself then?" -24/8/74

"Off with her head!"

Those were her only words today. She wouldn't explain what this meant, though her face betrayed the violent anger that is usually associated with her tales of the Queen of Hearts.

"What does it say about me that I've grown accustomed to such outbursts?" -11/9/74

Everything I can think of, I have done. Treatments, remedies, disciplines and pleasures — nothing makes a difference. Alice speaks when and about what she wants, recites poetry on a seeming whim, draws pictures at her own pleasure. She does nothing at my command, instruction, entreaty or request. She's become very willful, and nothing I do or say makes a difference.

I truly do, however, become immersed in her fantastic tales of Wonderland. I wait for the day when she claims victory over the Red Queen and her minions, when Wonderland will be restored. Perhaps by this Alice will cure herself, regain her balance and leave this place of her own volition.

Sometimes she appears to be so close, but at other times I'm certain it'll never happen and she'll spend the rest of her life housed behind Rutledge's gaunt brown walls... with me.

If it's my keen invention you'd like to destroy I'll withstand your best shot; I've got the right toy.

This is the final chapter for this story, hope you enjoyed Alice's time in the asylum :D