Like most stories, mine begins in the world of the mundane.

It begins with a simple wedding. The wedding of my cousin, Margaret. My cousin and I were not close. We never have been. I am, fortunately enough for me, an introvert. I do not play well with others. I do not like others. I tend to sit quietly and wait for someone to tell me it's time to go home where I can read. I like reading. It's different. No two books, well no two well written books, are the same. Each one brings me somewhere new. Somewhere exciting. It brings me…home. Home is an odd word that has been misconstrued through the years as have many words. Many people think home is a house. Home is where your family is, where you grow and learn. Home, in fact, is where you feel alive. Home is where even in the darkest of hours, even in the worst, most terrible situations, we can feel safe. Home is a sanctuary. My home is in books. My house, however, was very real, very firm, and very solid. My parents, much like the rest of my family, were very wealthy. We had a large estate and we housed many people. For those people, my prison was their home.

My parents left the well-being of our estate and my books in the hands of our maid, Lota, while our butler, Hamish, travelled with us to Washington where my cousin's wedding would take place. If you've never been to Washington, I do not suggest it. Yes, it is lovely, but I assure you, it is a Nursery. Tall trees, short trees, Cedar, Hemlock, Pine, Adler and the list goes on and on. As beautiful as the scenery was, I am sorry to tell you that all this state was really made of was trees. Never the less, the attractive green of summer had lost terribly to the early colors of fall. The ground was covered in the orange and red foliage. A thick and creeping fog rolled through the trees and underbrush like an unwanted rat on that November the fourteenth. My family was not a small one. There were quite a few of us. My grandparents had my father, aunt and uncle and from there, it became uncontrollable. My Aunt Jillian, for example had eight children. My parents fortunately only had me.

While the majority of my cousins still roamed the courtyard in diapers or strollers, there were still nine children over the age of eleven who were not willing to be attached to their parent's sides, myself included. Parents roamed and made small talk. I had never understood small talk. It was tedious and boring. Weather and sports. Who in their right minds would talk about something like that? They made polite conversation with strangers they didn't know, made horribly stupid jokes with the people they did know and extended over-due greetings to their family members. Had things gone my way, I would have spent the evening in the library like I had spent the majority of family galas, but I was forced to spend time with my dim-witted, narrow minded cousins. If I had my way, I would have been immersed in a different world, I would have been free. I would have been alive.

"Well hello there Alice." Laura was one year my junior, placing her as one of the eldest in the group. Her voice grated my ear drums. It was a horrid sound. Almost as if she had something in her nose and she couldn't quite get it out.

"Hello," I replied quietly. Many times, they believed my reserved personality was a result of my shy demeanor. They were mistaken of course.

"No books to shove up your nose?" pondered Franklin, three years my junior at fourteen. His hair was floppy and a rusty shade of red. His face and arms and legs were littered with freckles. A quality acquired from his mother. Laura and Daniel had the same unfortunate set of pale skin and wide, light blue eyes that were always lit with curiosity.

"I do not shove them up my nose," I reply steadily. The imbecile wouldn't respond to anger well so logic would be the next best option.

"Then what do you do with them?" responded Owen, one of the youngest at twelve. His hair was blond, like his father's.

"Do you eat them?" asked Jennifer at thirteen. Jennifer had her mother's dark hair and large green eyes while she was granted her father's strong chin and cheek bones.

"I read them."

"You do not," accused Jeffrey. "Those are grown up books." He was my equal. Not on an intellectual level by any means or in any matter really but he was the same age as me. Jeffrey was an attractive young man and often would court young women. None of them lasted very long for when they found Jeffrey to be as boring as I did, they would do the sensible thing and leave him. I cannot pick my family and likewise, I cannot unpick them.

"I'm sorry your small brain does not comprehend those books, Jeffrey, but I can read them quite clearly."

"You think you're so posh because you get to live in England?" snapped Kathy, Laura's equal at sixteen. She was blessed with long golden hair like her father and matched with the elegant green eyes like her brother. We were all from England, really, but Jillian and Stephen decided England was not the place to be. They packed up their spouses and their offspring and brought them across the pond to the states.

"My intellectual superiority has nothing to do with my geographical location. It merely is a product of long, tedious hours of studying and reading and broadening the horizon on which I learn. You, however, are engrossed in things such as playing games and getting dirty." They frowned at once, almost as if they were a collective machine, and looked at each other.

"Were you ever a child?" asked Daniel, Franklin's equal at fourteen.

"Being a child does not mean getting dirty. I have always been like this."

"But you are still a kid!" proclaimed Jeffrey, as if announcing it to himself as well. Unlike me, Jeffrey does not like to do much. He likes to squander away money his parents give him for things such as school. He likes to sleep long hours and spend days lazing out on the green or in town. "We're going to play a game right now."

"What should we play?"

"Red Rover?"

"Jacks?"

"Oh, how about cards?"

"Hide and Seek?"

They conversed without my approval or interjection. I know now that they were only trying to help. They were only trying to make me feel like one of them. Like I belonged. The truth is, though, I never did belong. I never would. They eventually agreed upon playing hide and seek. While all the adults were roaming around the well-tended lawn and moved from little hut to little hut so they wouldn't get lost in the fog, I was being led away by a parade of irresponsible young adults to frolic in the woods like nymphs. They explained to me the rules, which I knew already, and decided Daniel to be "it".

I do not know their logic behind the placing him in the "it" position but I was given no chance to think. They shoved me and told me to hide. If you have ever played a game with young children, you will understand that they are relentless. They never want to stop, they do not care if you're tired, and they only want to play. Kids, my good reader, are mysterious. We think we know them and then they go and do something none of us ever expects. They are smarter than we give them credit for and they are braver than we believe them to be.

The fog was growing thicker. It rolled and moved like the cloud it was. It ate my black shoes and started devouring my long black stockings. By the time I was hidden behind a rather large pine, it crawled up to my blue skirt and was slowly consuming me. I looked out in search of someone to confirm I was in fact playing correctly but there was no one. The fog was thick. A blanket of grey covered the forest and I barely saw the tree mere feet away from my own.

"Alice!" Jennifer whispered to me. I could not see her. Her voice was omnipresent. "I can see you." Her whisper seemed to move through the shadows like a ghost.

"Hide Alice! Hide!" Franklin added. The words chilled me but I complied; I ran further into the trees. Surely Daniel would never find me this far.

"Alice," said Laura. "What are you doing? He'll find you!" Again I looked around and saw no one.

"Laura," I whispered.

"Ten!" shouted Daniel. I frowned and continued to move from tree to tree.

"Am I far enough yet?" I called out softly.

"Fourteen!" His voice was closer to me than I thought. My heart pounded. I looked around in search of a new place to hide. "Fifteen!" I have to find a place to hide. I spun around and made my way as carefully as I could to the next tree and to the next. "Twenty! Ready or not here I come!" Daniel's voice was clear, as though he weren't miles away from me. I was going to lose a game of hide and seek. A simple game that children played. My pride would not let that happen. I pushed my way through a bush and stumbled, quickly picking myself up, snagging up the ends of my dress. I had to hide somewhere—anywhere would do. It was then did I find myself in front of a set of stairs over grown by wet grass and moss.

"How queer," I said to myself as I climbed them. They were slippery and dangerous but I managed. Beyond those stairs was a door. It was a plain door, no garnish or ornament. It was just simple wood with a dark and heavy metal handle and similar hinges. They were coming. They'd never find me in here, I thought to myself. I smirked to myself, so very proud I had bested my cousins, and pushed the door into the darkness, following after it quickly. Inside was black as night, if not darker. It was a terrifying black. A black that consumed me and swallowed me up, almost like the fog had. I closed the door and pressed my back against in. Now the darkness really had swallowed me up. A fear of the dark is rather unreasonable. It is not the darkness people fear but instead the fear of something in the darkness. Something that will cause them harm. Something that they do not know. I did not know a lot of things then, and I still don't, but I do not fear the unknown. I find it illogical. There are many things we do not know in life. Would you rather sit back in fear or experience and learn? I decided to learn.

"What is this place?" I asked the darkness, as if it would answer me. I took a step forward and reached out for the wall, expecting to touch a cool, damp surface, as was a reasonable conclusion from the state of the exterior. Instead, I found nothing. I found emptiness. My feet moved forward and they too found emptiness. I felt my stomach rise in my throat as I took a stead and terrifying trip downwards. I could not help the scream that bubbled out of me. The whole world rush around me. At first it was only darkness. Upwards, downwards, left, right back and front. Then, the whole darkness gave way to colors. They were bright ones that strained my eyes. There were swirls of pinks, bright yellows, greens, and blues combining together to form a rainbow of color. Shapes came next. Squares, triangles, circles and shapes I had never seen before. Then the noises.

Laughter, plates shattering, gun shots, even singing and finally, as the crescendo of the orchestra reached its peak, a caw of a bird broke the noise and left only silence. The floor then came up to meet me. I was lying on my back which I was sure was broken. It only made sense. I opened my eyes to inspect the damage done to my limbs. I was in a sort of house with very bad taste in wallpaper. The walls were covered in diamonds and clubs and hearts and spades from ceiling to floor colored black and white. I wiggled my fingers. They worked. I wiggled my toes. They worked as well. I took a deep breath and felt no pain. I tried to sit up. I sat up without a problem. That did not make any sense. I inspected myself and then the floor in search of an explanation.

"Who are you?" A stentorian voice demanded of me. After a moment of assuring myself I was fine, I rose to my. The room was empty save for a table. It wasn't a long dinner table or even a bed side table. It was a small, circular table that sat in its solidarity. Nothing sat upon the table. Nothing sat under it, nothing was even near it. Nothing was in the room. Just me. I looked away for a moment, trying to find a door of some sort where I might be able to leave through but to no avail.

"Hello?" I called out. "Is anyone here?" I looked at the ceiling. Well, I tried to. The room extended upwards without end. It was like staring at a large building expecting to see the top and finding it just goes on for miles.

"Answer my question first!" The voice snapped again, making me jump.

"Who's there?" I snapped hastily. "I want to know who is talking to me. Who are you?"

"There is no time for silly questions! Where do you come from, Alice?"

"I will not talk to a faceless, cowardly brute!" I announced, straightening my shoulders.

"I am not a coward, madam, and you will do well to remember that!" snapped the voice. I turned around and around, trying to find the source of the talking. The room began to spin. I reached out for the table to steady myself. The table shook under my weight and I steadied it. Upon the table suddenly was a rabbit. His long white ears reached upwards and his stubby army cushioned his fall. I helped him sit up before eventually picking him up. He had an eye patch.

"Are you the one talking to me, Mr. Bunny?" I asked it gently. Its little black eye stared out at me emptily and I sighed. "If you were, I'd tell you to be polite. There's no need to yell. I'm right here." I sighed, feeling overwhelmed and tired already. "Then I'd ask you to help me get out of here." I looked up and searched once more for a door. It is said that doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results is insanity. Then again, after falling through an endless black hole into a room with appearing tables seems to be bordering insanity. When I turned my eyes back to the bunny to ask him a question, he had grown eyebrows that were furrowed. His mouth was no longer stitched into his face but rather pressed in a firm, hard frown.

"Of course I was talking to you, you stupid girl!" I let out a scream as I dropped the bunny. The bunny picked itself up grumpily and brushed itself off with stubby little arms. I watched as he put his stubby arms on his hips. "Well, that is not a nice way to treat people even if they are small!" He made the gesture to his small frame.

"You are the one who spoke to me?" I asked, my heart still ready to beat out of my chest.

"Of course I was! Didn't you hear me?"

"You're a rabbit. A stuffed rabbit."

"And you're an Alice. What does that have to do with anything? Have you seen TW?"

"T what?"

"TW. Where is he? TW!" I was surprised that for such a small inanimate object, he had a very loud voice.

"What are you? Do you have a name?"

"Are you deaf girl? I just told you! The White Rabbit is my name!" He threw his arms in the air and dropped them by his side. He hadn't told me his name but then again, angry people tend to get angrier if you correct them. I nodded.

"Of course, my mistake."

"First right thing you've said all bloody day."

"I beg your pardon!" I shouted. "I say plenty of intelligent things!"

"Would you like a medal?" he chided. "Now where is that boy?"

"TR?" I looked around and it wasn't until I saw the wall start to crawl out did I scream again. I moved until my back was pressed against the other side of the room and my eyes bulged out of my head. "Why must you torment all the new guests? We don't get many these days." The wall-thing commented as it continued to pull away from the wall. The pattern slipped away from the creature and in its stead was a boy.

He wore a long sleeved white shirt that looked much too big for him, which was covered with a red vest and a bow tie that seemed to be made of string. His slacks were a deep black that seemed uniform. He had long rabbit-like ears that came from his head and drooped down to reach just below his pale white hair. He stood over the little bunny, his hands in his pockets.

"I was looking for you!" snapped the bunny.

"I was making a watch." He said shrugging. He turned to me and smiled. He had a pair of the bluest eyes I had ever seen. No, they weren't blue. They were turquoise. They were the color of the Caribbean Sea. He looked to be a few years my senior and I couldn't deny he was indeed very handsome. I had never really taken an interest in young men. Well I had but unfortunately for me, my inability to provide the correct mannerisms to catch their attention has left me with admiring them from afar. "Hello," he said pleasantly, holding out his hand. "I'm sorry TR scared you."

"TR? I thought your name was the White Rabbit." I managed out. The little bunny glared, if his beady eyes could do that, at the boy.

"I'm The Rabbit," the bunny said curtly. "TR is a nickname."

"And I'm The White." The boy contributed. "We are one." I bobbed a polite curtsy.

"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Alice. If it's not too much trouble, do you mind telling me where I am?"

"You are in the Null," said the two together. I nodded. Of course I was.

"The Null?"

"This is the place where…well I guess you could say our worlds meet." TW explained.

"You can't get into our world unless you come here."

"As a welcoming present," TW said as he picked up TR. "We give you this!" He held out TR. He held him too close to my face and I leaned back to get away from him. TR reluctantly reached out his hands. In between them was a small bottle.

"What is it?" I asked as I plucked it from his hands.

"It's something that might come in handy." TW said smiling. There was nothing special about the bottle. The liquid inside was clear, I think, but the bottle was a pale blue color. On a string was a tag. Neither side was written on. "What's this?" I asked the two as I looked up from the tag to them.

"Read it, silly," said TW. I looked back down at the tag and on the back of the card, black ink was scrawled over the cream colored paper.

"Just a sip will make you tall

But beware of the floors and walls

Or maybe it will make you small

Then you must beware of things that fall."

"What a silly little riddle." I turned over the card once more, hoping to find instructions that had magically appeared but there were none.

"That 'silly little riddle' you stupid girl," TR said, "helped many people through Wonderland."

"The bottle, though may seem full of just liquid, is more important than anything." TW added. "It is even more important than your life. However," he said with a small huff. "We have no knowledge of how to use it. Only the Queen of Hearts knows."

"Queen of Hearts? What do you think I am a fool? That's a card, not a person."

"If you want to make sure that there is no queen of hearts, then go through this door. Follow the road shown and you will be brought to the nonexistent Queen of Hearts." TR said with a grin in his voice. I looked at the door and sighed. Of course there would be a door. Why wouldn't there be? I hadn't found one before but now there was one. I stood up a little straighter to spite the rabbit. I would go. Just to prove him wrong. The door, however, was about the size of the rabbit.

"How do you expect me to get through this?" TW stood behind me with a small cookie.

"Only a bite," said the boy with a smile. "Or you'll get sick."

"No riddle for this?" I demanded as I took a small bite of the cookie. He grinned and shrugged.

"There is one if you'd like to hear it." I nodded a little and looked at the cookie. "Nibble, nibble, crunch, crunch, one bite will make your bones easy to munch." My eyes went wide and TW grinned. "I'm just kidding, Alice. Too much, too little, it's all chance. If you don't want to die, you should hang onto your pants. Take a bite and get either or. Just pray that you can return to how you were before." I frowned and shook my head.

"That was a stupid riddle too." I mumbled. I realized, suddenly, that TW and TR were huge. "How did you get so big?"

"You took a chance and now you're just right to go through the door."

"Don't get lost," TR said as he stared down at me. I sneered, turned on my heels and turned my nose high in the air.

"Be careful, Alice," the two warned. "Things beyond that door can be nice, but most are not. More often than not, you will find a face that will seem kind yet has a thousand lies behind it." A clock fell in front of me and I looked up at it. It was a normal sized watch but to me, it was very large. I could see in my shrunken state how delicately it had been made. There was so much detail on the watch it made me frown. The face of the watch was protected by a cover that exposed enough of the clock to show the time. That, too, was intimately designed with swirls and circles. The hands, a gleaming silver color, ticked by slowly.

"Keep the watch, Alice." TR said. "It will keep you in line. The longest anyone ever stays here is measured by that clock. If you do not make it out before the hand makes a full rotation…Well the consequences may be deadly." TW smiled at me and shrugged.

"Or it'd just be a bit of bad luck for you that you won't get back to your party." I frowned and watched as the two walked passed me and the clock and through a wall. TW's head poked back in, right about my level. His eyes were almost as big as I was and I felt I could swim in them.

"Until we meet again, Alice." He said with a wink before disappearing.

"Did you make this watch?" I shouted out. He came back in and smiled.

"I did."

"It's beautiful."

"I was hoping you'd say that," he said. "I made it to reflect its owner." I frowned and felt the heat rise to my cheeks. He meant me. "Keep it safe. I'd take it personally if you lost it." I nodded a little. He smiled more at me and dipped his head. "I'll see you soon." I nodded mindlessly. I looked up at the hanging watch defiantly. The moment I touched it, the watch shrunk and fell into my hand. I opened the watch and stared for a moment at the face. The pale white face stared back at me, a bright, blinding white that contrasted beautifully with the rest of the watch. Even the chain was black and sturdy. He had gone through so much trouble to make that watch. Does he make all the watches, I asked myself. I looked at the door, straightened my shoulders, took a deep breath, and started forward. If I was going to find the Queen of Hearts, I would have to take my first steps.

No journey can begin without the first two steps.