Between Roses ✓ | Wattpad Version

Chapter 3: "Alice" Is Back

She was dreaming. She had to be. There was a flower garden overhead and butterflies fluttered above like birds in the sky. There was throbbing pain between her eyes, and she blinked a couple times to rid of the feeling.

Hands touched her shoulder, and someone lifted her up. Or was it down? Her head flopped back like a doll, and she saw blue sky underneath. Or was it above? Panic surged through her body as she lost all sense of direction. Something wasn't right. But what was right in a dream anyway? Anything could happen in a dream.

Reasoning wasn't something she was always good at. Especially when her head was dangling upside down and all the blood rushed to the top. The person, or people, took her to a darkened space and plopped her down, practically dropping her on a ground of cotton balls. She couldn't see their faces but heard voices.

"Do you think—"

"—Alice is back? No, I'm not sure. She has her—"

"—her bracelet though."

It sounded as though there were two people. Both finishing each other's sentences and harmonizing when their voices collided. Who were these people? Had there still been people at Grandma's house? Why did they take her outside? And she'd been upstairs, not downstairs. Maybe her mom knew these people. Maybe they were friends of...

"The queen will want her and—"

"—kill her if she finds her."

Finally, her vision came into focus. In front of her were two dwarf men, completely alike except their different color vests. Her eyes opened wider, and all her senses came at whipping speed. They were in an alley of sorts and beneath her a night sky sparkled.

When she shifted her gaze toward the light, there was a city where the ground was a bright blue sunny sky with white fluffy clouds lined up like cobblestones. In the sky, flowers were blooming downward, and yellow and orange butterflies fluttered in formation like geese.

"Good morning, Ms. Alice," the red vest dwarf man said, "welcome—"

"—to Uppland. We're certain you will like it—"

"—like it here." "—here."

But Eryn just stared at them and didn't answer. It wasn't like she'd never seen someone with dwarfism before. And it wasn't like she'd never seen twins either. A freshman girl at school was a twin and they had some weird telepathic thing where they finished each other's sentences. But her brain struggled with the rest of her surroundings.

The wall behind them rippled like water and the ground beneath them was not ground, but sky.

Skyground? Where the frick am I? Eryn wondered if this was some kind of computer graphics thing. These days you could do pretty awesome things with CG. Especially at amusement parks. Maybe she had lost all memory of how she got here. Maybe her mom took her here. Maybe...

"How was—"

"—your travel through—"

"—through Middland? Did you stop by Underland?" the red vest one asked.

"—by Underland?" echoed the green vest one.

"Underland?" Eryn whispered, finally finding her voice.

The red one grinned. "Or like you call it, Wonderland—"

"You call it Wonderland."

Wonderland? She blinked at them. They didn't just mention a fantasy, did they? When Eryn remained silent, they turned to each other with puzzled looks on their faces. Then, taking her by the sleeve, they pulled her out into the light and pointed downwards.