Wonderland

ONE

"Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies."-Edna St. Vincent Millay

ONE

Most children, when they hear stories, they learn about fictional heroes and brave men who don't exist. I had only one. I had heard many stories from my grandmother, Alice. She told me how she'd met The Mad Hatter, the beginning of her adventure with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, how she was hunted down by Stayne, the man with the red heart over his left eye, the betrayer, and how she'd met the red and white queen-the differing sisters. The light and the dark.But most of all, her battle against the Jabberwocky.

I would listen to these these stories every day of my life. Same story; same beginning, same ending. I would sit at the edge of Alice's bed and listen to her stories from dawn until dusk. Until the inevitability of my mother's voice called and told me that it was time to come home.

Alice Kingsleigh was deemed crazy when she was at least thirty. People in her town looked at her with shame and pity; the woman who'd lost her husband from stories of some imaginary place called Wonderland. I knew that Alice had told the story of Wonderland to my mother, Kate. But my mother never believed her. She assumed that her Alice was telling stories and always became disobedient when it came to listening to her.

She knew that Alice told the same story to her husband, Gabriel who thought she'd gone mad and left her, taking Kate along with him.

When I was eight, I had been sifting through the attic, only to come across a box that read, 1938-Alice. I had come across an old photo of a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair. She looked unhappy, holding whom I guessed to be the smaller version of my mother and standing next to a man, whom I guessed was my grandfather. All I could remember of him was that he held his head up high in every picture I saw. And so, at the age of eight, I begged my mother to let me see the woman I'd seen in the picture.

Kate's first words to that was, "Look, sweetie, it's been so many years since I've seen her..." she trailed off. "She could have passed away by now." and there wasn't a single look of regret in her eyes.

When I questioned why, she made a comment about how nothing slips past me and told me that her mother used to constantly tell her stories as a child, and one day, her father-my grandfather-had had enough and took her far away from her mother.But I begged anyway. It took Kate and entire year to find Alice.

The last place she searched, which I now realized should have been the first, was their old house from when Kate was a baby. It was slightly worn down, looking as though it had been lived in for decades, which and had survived everything over the years. Their expressions were filled with surprise when they looked upon each other.

Alice assumed she was seeing ghosts. She looked terrible, dark rings under her eyes, tattered clothes, looking like she'd been out in the wild for months. Kate cried, while I sat in confusion.When Kate introduced Alice as her mother, I realized that the beautiful girl from the picture was long gone, but the unhappiness I'd read on her features were still very much there, until she looked upon me.

"What's your name?" her small voice asked. Her head was cocked to the side in curiosity.

"Amelia," my voice came out softer than hers. I cleared my throat and squared my shoulders like Kate taught me when talking to people. "Amelia Kingsleigh."

And despite it all-my mother's differing opinion of Alice, and the fact that Alice seemed more lost than anyone I'd ever known in my life-I cared for her...in ways that Kate never could. She didn't know her, but she felt sorry for her. She wanted to know why she was like this. She wanted to know what had made her mother turn into a lonely woman who had no concerns for herself and her house. But I helped her. I begged my mother to let me see Alice every day, so I could help clean her house. And Kate let me. We cleaned her up, bought her new food, and made sure she was safe and everything sufficed.The stories started when I was nine.