A/N: For Nite, the Graceful Turnip, who is resoundingly and constantly awesome. Also, despite my recent adventures in fanficcing, I managed to successfully avoid making the Cheshire Cat say, "Why— so— serioussss?" Yay me.

Alice's Adventures in a Demi-Hell

She opened the door in response to a not-quite-timid knock and found no one, but mushrooms flowered in brilliant and unexpected splendor on her front lawn. She gave them a narrow glance, suspicious at once but vaguely so, and looked around a moment more for the invisible knocker who was, as the term implied, nowhere to be seen; then she went back inside, closing the door with care and precision.

She returned to the kitchen and resumed cracking eggs into a large bowl. The canister of flour was next, large and cold tin handed down from wartime and nutrient pinching and food stamps; she grappled with it gamely for a moment, her small hand on the large lid scrabbling for purchase.

"May I help you with that?" asked a pleasant voice.

She handed it over willingly, frowning still at the recipe on the counter before her. "I wish you would," she said a bit petulantly. "It is so hard to do when one's hands are too small."

"Perhaps you should make them grow," opined the voice.

"Perhaps I should," she agreed, "though it would take some convincing."

"Persuade them."

"I may try," she murmured, distracted by the vagaries of the print, and the voice was stricter this time.

"Don't mutter so, child. The only person who can hear you is you, and no one ever got any good from talking to themselves. You only ever tell yourself what you want to hear, and that is nothing but tickling your own ears." Alice realized suddenly that there was something strange about this voice— it was quite muffled-sounding, for one, and for another, it should not have been in her kitchen, as she lived alone. She whirled about to find a knight standing there, bent slightly forward in a solicitous manner.

"Why are you here?" pleaded Alice, quite alarmed. The knight took a step back and cocked his head to one side.

"To be sure, I am not sure," he declared. "But that, like me, is neither here nor there."

Alice squinted at him. "You look quite familiar. May I see your face?"

"May you? Can you? Most certainly you may, though I do not know if you can." The knight lifted his vizor, revealing a wizened, kindly face with decorative whiskers. "Best to ask both questions, and be thorough," he advised her. "Then there is little room for confusion."

There came a chorus of mismatched voices from Alice's living room. "No room! No room!"

"And when there is a little," said the knight obliviously, "you can always make more."

Alice gave him a narrow-eyed, suspicious look, which he promptly and with enthusiasm responded to by sticking his tongue out; a move which he no doubt regretted as the cover of his helmet, responding to the inexorable law of gravity, slammed down onto it. He gave a yelp and was sheepishly silent.

"Let that teach you to be rude," said Alice severely, shaking a flour-covered finger at him.

"But suppose he already knows how?" piped an inquisitive voice from the living room. Turning about, she beheld a furry, snub-nosed face peering in at the corner of the door. As she watched, the nose twitched. "Suppose he's already learnt," the Hare repeated thoughtfully. "What then?"

"Are you implying," came another voice, equally as familiar and equally as strange, "that a thing, once learnt, can never be unlearnt and, perhaps, relearnt? Or that this arguably unknowledgeable man—" the Hatter sidled through the doorway and approached the knight, gesturing towards him airily, "this man who may or may not have learnt— that remains to be seen— and tell me true, does this man look to be learnt at all, or does he not, rather, look like an impressive idiot?" He stopped speaking, leaving half-completed sentences littered around him on the floor like gumdrops, and stared rather hard at Alice; clearly despite, the other questions that had come before, this was the one meant to be answered.

"I would never say anything so rude," said Alice, with dignity, folding her arms and looking aloof. The Hatter stared twice as hard and released a crooked smile, at which Alice blushed. "Well, have I ever? I would expect you to know, having said rude things quite often."

"Have not!" cried the Hatter, upset.

"Have so," retorted Alice.

"Did not, do not, can not, will not," recited the Hatter rapidly, and folded his arms with a flounce.

"That's beside the point," said Alice. "I would never do it. Or— say it, rather."

"Perhaps you need to learn," said the Hare with a certain desultory weariness, and shook his head.

"What are you all doing in my house?" enquired Alice, following the group as they turned and went back into the living room.

"You opened the door," said the Hatter severely. "We had only to knock."

"But I saw no one out there!"

"That's hardly my fault, is it?" the Hatter point out crisply, and seated himself rather proprietorially on the sofa.

"Perhaps you weren't looking hard enough," suggested the Hare.

"I looked quite as hard as I could," objected Alice, exchanging another glare with the Hatter, who looked affronted at her temerity.

"Perhaps," said the Hare again, "you should learn to look harder. It may take some effort, and building up the muscles. Carrots, I believe, are supposed to be good for your eyes."

The Hatter leapt up, as if stung. "Carrots!" he cried plaintively. "Are they? Are they, you inconsiderate beast? Going on about carrots— all the time he's yammering on and on about carrots and their medicinal properties. Well, I ask you—" He turned to Alice with ferocious extravagance of motion. "What would you say to someone who's obsessed with vegetables?" As soon as she opened her mouth, he lifted both hands in a cease-and-desist gesture and bellowed, "Not yet! I'll be right back!" He dashed out of the room. Alice blinked once, twice, and turned back to the remaining creatures.

"I was only going to say, you being a Hare after all, perhaps it wasn't too strange—"

"Oh, certainly," said the Hare, flopping its ears over its head with irritation, "typecasting. Typical."

"I didn't intend any offense, I'm sure." Alice seated herself on the sofa and smoothed her apron over her knees.

"Perhaps you'll think about it before you open your mouth next time," said the Hare sharply, as the Hatter rushed back in and began jabbing at the Hare's eyes with two carrots appropriated from Alice's icebox.

"Good for the eyes, are they? ARE THEY?"

The Hare yelped and fended the infuriated little man off. "Steady on!"

Alice crossed her arms and directed a withering glare at the frantic Hatter, which did no good whatsoever as he did not turn to receive it. So she uncrossed them at once, and stood and strode to them, and took the carrots decisively from the Hatter's hands. He collapsed at once, subdued and sheepish.

"That's quite enough," Alice told him severely. "How would you like it if someone did that to you? I daresay you'd have a thing or two to say about it!"

"I would," said the Hatter airily, losing his sheepishness and straightening up at once. "I'd say,

'Excuse me, would you kindly remove your vegetable from my eye? It's markedly uncomfortable.' And then I'd say, 'Nice weather for it, isn't it—'"

"Nice weather for what?" demanded the Hare. The Hatter shrugged expansively.

"Whatever you like," he allowed, with generosity of spirit. "What would you say?"

"Nice weather for sticking carrots in people's eyes?" snapped the Hare, with as much cunning as he could manage, and the Hatter brightened considerably.

"Yes, I thought so myself," he said, pleased, and attempted to resume said activity; but Alice held the carrots behind her back. In the ensuing undignified struggle, the Hatter's hat got knocked off; it fell to the floor and the Dormouse rolled out, gasping for breath.

"Thought I was going to die!" it voiced at the top of its squeak. The Hatter looked down at it disdainfully.

"Well, you're not."

"Ah," said the Dormouse, relieved, "that's alright then," and it closed its eyes and began to snore. The Hatter rolled it back into the hat with his foot, then clapped it back on his head grimly.

Alice had taken advantage of this distraction to sneak back into the kitchen and replace the carrots in the crisper; the knight looked up from paring potatoes with his fingernails and gave her a sympathetic look.

"What are you doing?" she asked, though she was almost afraid to. The knight looked back down at his task and frowned thoughtfully.

"I am either freeing the unfortunate souls of these tubers from their mortal jackets, thus enabling them to live in everlasting whiteness, or I am making stew."

"Perhaps I'd better go back out to the living room," said Alice, wisely. She suited action to plan at once, returning just in time see the Hare struggling to pull the Hatter's topper down over his eyes. The Hare was seething, the Hatter yelping and putting up a fight, and from inside the maltreated article of haberdashery came a kind of terrified snore. Alice rushed over, pushed the Hare out of the way, removed the Hatter's hat and the dormouse from it, and placed the small sleeping creature on top of the piano where it was out of harm's way. Then, ignoring the look of triumphant vindication the Hatter was giving her, as though she owed him something and had finally paid up, she handed the topper back to the Hare.

"As you were," she said.

She left the room to the sounds of battle, and sought sanctuary down the hall. She opened the bedroom door to discover a terrified maid with a baby in her arms, frantically kicking at the walls.

"What?" cried Alice, rushing in. "What's wrong?"

"Can't get out!" cried the maid. "Can't get out!"

"Let me help you," said Alice, soothingly, calling on her two years experience teaching children in the first form to lend the right tone to her voice. The maid turned a rather quizzical look on her.

"Thank you," she said, politely, "but I'm doing just fine." And she redoubled her efforts, kicking at the walls so hard that even her soft-soled shoes left marks and dents. Alice hesitated, unsure of what to do; but the maid was determined, and the baby was squalling, so Alice chose the better part of valor and withdrew, leaving the door open behind her. The maid was working her way round towards it, at any rate, and would undoubtedly discover the opening eventually; though not, it seemed, before Alice's walls were stoved in beyond easy repair. That was part of the trouble with houses, Alice thought— if she didn't have the cottage, she wouldn't have to worry about the state of its walls. Then again, if she didn't have the cottage, she would have to be concerned with keeping herself dry, especially now, in the rainy season. Perhaps that was why the mushrooms popped up so suddenly, she reasoned. All the dew-wet ground.

This gave her an idea, and she turned about and walked back towards the living room and the front door. Passing the kitchen, she poked her head through the doorway to see that the knight had not injured himself with his fingernails or, alternately, the potatoes; he appeared to be well and happy, however, working away now at peeling a stalk of celery, string by string. Alice reckoned that this was less dangerous than the other, and left him to his own devices.

The Hatter and the Hare were now staring at each other balefully over cups kidnapped from her kitchen; there was no tea in them, at present, but this didn't seem to stop them from sipping defiantly from them every so often. She walked quickly and quietly through the room and slipped outside the front door.

It was cool still out there, even as the morning wended along towards early afternoon, and she walked in the sunshine, discovering flour on her hands and arms and wiping it away with her apron. The mushrooms were brilliantly coloured, scattered haphazard around the lawn and encroaching on her garden; she spied a particularly large one and walked towards it, positive that she was at last headed in the right direction.

Indeed, the large mushroom led to a larger one, and the larger one to an even larger one, and so on and so forth until, with a distinct feeling of deja vu, Alice found herself circling around the tree-wide white trunk of an absolutely enormous one, looking up two feet over her head to the umbrella spreading of the dark red cap. She could not see anyone or anything up there: the cap mounded upwards a considerable height. She considered for a moment, then knocked politely on the smooth trunk. It was spongy and cool under her knuckles.

"Who's there?" came the voice that she was expecting. Alice smiled a little.

"I am," she said. "Who's there?"

"I am," said the voice irritably. "And if, as I take it to mean, this does indeed signify that once again I am conducting a conversation with myself, I object to my choice of time. I was in the midst of very deep meditation. Or," the voice added after a moment, "possibly mediation. Yes, in fact I was in very deep mediation."

"Between who, or what?" asked Alice, confused.

"Between Who and What," snapped the voice. "They're fighting again. They're always fighting. Who insists that What is incorrigibly rude, and What insists that Who gets all the respect among grammartarians. I was just after telling them that we're all capitalized here, and there need be no prejudice, but then Whom had to stick his nose in and inform Who that she was low-class and common. Who responded badly, I'm afraid, by telling her cousin that he was only in proper use part of the time, and reflected poorly on his sentences when his employers used him in misguided attempts to sound posh."

"Oh my," said Alice, smiling despite all this. "It sounds a dreadful row. Is it possible that I might beg a bit of your time, however, in between all this mediation?"

The voice paused. Then,

"Come on up here, child," it said.

Alice went back to the beginning of path of mushrooms, and climbed atop the first one. Then, working her way slowly and with care, she made it up the increasing fungus stair-steps, one by one, until she reached the highest point; whereon sat the caterpillar, resplendent in state, reclining languorously and doing needlepoint.

Alice stood and laughed a little, breathless from the climb.

"I thought you had turned into a butterfly!" she said.

"What a ridiculous suggestion," said the caterpillar imperturbably, making another pass with the needle and thread.

"It's not, you know," said Alice candidly. She got to her knees carefully, and sat there to speak with him a while. "It isn't at all ridiculous to expect a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time."

"Would it be ridiculous," inquired the caterpillar with frosty dignity, "to expect a spanner to turn into a corkscrew? Or a cake to become a full-course turkey dinner for two? Or a donkey to take the form of a human female and make rude remarks?"

"Well, yes," Alice admitted. "That would be most unusual."

"Hmm," said the caterpillar, squinting at her meaningfully. Alice sat very straight.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said.

"Hmm," said the caterpillar again. "I suppose if I told you I expected you to be taller, you'd insist I was being rude, would you?"

"I think you want me to say yes," said Alice, "but in all truthfulness I have to say no. Oh dear—"

The caterpillar jumped; he had stabbed himself in the finger with his needle. As he attempted to lift the square of cloth away, it was discovered that he'd sewn it to his sleeve and was therefore unable to successfully extricate himself. He glared at Alice and dropped the cloth to dangle like a handkerchief from his wrist.

"Now see what you've done," said the caterpillar.

"Me?" repeated Alice, trying not to laugh. "But I'm terrible at sewing!"

"Exactly," said the creature, with determination. Alice shook her head.

"I've only come to ask what you're all doing here. I don't wish to be rude, but the last thing I expected was abrupt houseguests. I was in the middle of baking. And after all this time, it's quite a surprise—" She turned as she was speaking, and caught sight of something that made her quieten. The view from the top of the mushroom, some ten feet off the ground, was more spectacular than she realized. Her lawn and garden laid out neatly, her small trim cottage on the other side of the greenery, and to the right, the grand slope of field that led into the town proper, for Alice had been determined to have a country house that was accessible to the city. The notion of having the best of both worlds was one that had always appealed to her. "Oh, how lovely!"

"I think it's horrible," said a voice, accompanied by a gentle snore. She turned to see that the caterpillar had sewn himself up in his own clothing and fallen asleep; and the speaker was, this time, the Cheshire Cat, who tipped its head to one side and grinned at her with sharp and feral jaws.

"How can you say that?" she asked it.

"Easy," said the Cat. "I just move my mouth, and words come out." The grin was triumphant. "See, I did it again. Ooh, and again— and again—"

"But the view." She gestured towards it. "It's beautiful, this world of ours— or of mine, rather."

"Selfish," said the Cat, and sniffed.

"Well, it certainly isn't yours. There aren't any Cats that can speak here, or Hares, and for that matter the Hatters are very rarely, if ever, actually mad."

"That's what you think," said the Cat.

"It is what I think! I quite realize that you've your own place to get to, and I can't help but wonder why you've all stopped here."

The Cat arose from its position, and stretched impossibly long legs. "Well you may wonder," it said, and yawned. "Well you may wander, as well. You may wonder to wander, and wander to Wonder, and if you wander in Wonder you're almost certain to get lost."

"Lost?" she repeated.

"Almost," admitted the Cat. It sat down beside her and commenced to purr. "As for me, I don't see what's so wonderful about this world of yours. It can't hold a candle to a—"

"To a what?"

"To a candle," said the Cat, leaned over and grinned in her face, eyes shut in sheer ecstacy. "To me, this place is misbegotten, lost on it's own terms; an anteroom, a demi-hell, a small landlocked bubble of brine."

"Well, if you don't like it," said Alice, stung, "then rest assured you are welcome to leave."

The Cat's eyes widened. "Am I?" it cried, delighted, and laughed a bit. "Now, that is something worth calling wonderful."

It disappeared, and Alice sat quietly on the mushroom top for a moment, thinking to herself and watching her world in front of her; then she walked down the stair-steps again, carefully and deliberately this time, and crossed the lawn to the front door.

The cottage was silent and empty, except for the Hatter, who'd been waiting for her in the kitchen. She joined him at the table, and smiled at him sadly.

"Tea," said the Hatter promptly, scrambling off his chair to make her some. "Tea is good for depression— or rather, bad for it. At least, that's what they told me at the Sanguinarium." He fumbled the cups athletically down onto the table in front of them, like someone who could do cup-fumbling for England and take home the gold. "It also cures mumps."

"I'm not depressed," said Alice. "I'm merely wondering."

The Hatter slid back into his chair with nonchalance, as though he'd never left it, and nodded deeply. "I can't say I'm surprised— or rather, I could, but I won't, because I am not. That reminds me of a riddle."

"Everything reminds you of a riddle," said Alice, sipping her tea.

"What is it that beats, hops, soars, and stops?" The Hatter wriggled in his chair, pleased with himself, and Alice fell to pondering for a bit.

"Your heart," she replied at last, quite happy that at last he had asked her a question that she could answer.

"Wrong!" cried the Hatter gleefully. "The answer is, a drum, a rabbit, a bird, and a watch. See if I ask you anything again." He took a deep swill of his tea and sighed happily. "A Hatter could get used to a thing like this."

Alice smiled at him gently. "Teatime in the kitchen with good companionship?"

"No, china cups," corrected the Hatter, smiling gently back and stirring his tea in dreamy circles with his finger. Alice sat up straight, and sighed.

"When the tea is gone, will you be gone as well?" she asked him softly.

"Quite naturally," said the Hatter, taking another sip. "I only stuck it out for the beverage, anyway."

"Ah, then you agree with the Cat that this is a horrible place?" Alice folded her arms in some displeasure. The Hatter took his time, considering his answer.

"Well, I don't think much of the location," he began at last, glancing out the window, and then he turned a beatific smile on Alice. "But the decor—"

She directed a flushed and flattered smile into her teacup.

"— is absolutely horrible," finished the Hatter, and drained his cup.

She expected him to say, "Well, I must be off—" or, perhaps, "No time like the present—" or at the very least, "Goodbye—" But he said nothing, absolutely nothing, only doffed his hat to her with a deep bow, and strode out the back door and into being gone. She was left alone in the kitchen, and her feet suddenly felt very cold.

It struck her quite abruptly that the scent she'd been inhaling since she returned to the house was the sweetcakes she'd been mixing when this whole escapade began; she opened the oven door to find them completed, done to perfection, in wonderful timing, and that the Hatter had arranged them in suits: hearts, clubs, spades, diamonds. In some delight she fell on a warm heart-shaped sweetcake, to help her finish off her tea, and just before she bit into it she took time to pause.

"I wonder," she asked herself, "if this will make me grow any smaller—?"

She thought about it.

She shook her head. "Now you're just being ridiculous, Alice," she told herself firmly. "You've been grown for years now— as if anything could ever make you smaller, ever again."

She fell to eating, happily.