Alice's plan to overthrow the Queen of Hearts is thwarted by a dashing pirate with a hook. Years later, after the curse is broken, they reunite once again.
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The carriage bumps once again on the dusty road, causing my mother to close her eyes and sigh in annoyance. I raise a brow at how tense she is. It's only a soiree, after all. Me and my mother have been to plenty of them, much to my displeasure. These days, these types of parties only fill me with one emotion: dread.
When I was younger I enjoyed them greatly. My father would go and talk business with the adults and I would always attempt to join him. My father's colleague's found my input on things I knew little about quite entertaining. It wouldn't take long for my mother to whisk me away to go bother Andy, the son of my father's closest friend.
Andy and I have been best friends since we were children. He used to pick on me for being strange like all the other kids of my father's colleague's until one day we hung out one on one after his father came over alone for dinner. He didn't want to admit it at the time, but that was the most fun he'd ever had. We had gone through the manor, pretending to be pirates raiding a castle for its gold. Ever since then, we've been inseparable.
I snap back to reality when my mother opens her eyes. I smile a soft, reassuring smile at her which she gratefully returns, her expression softening just a touch.
"You're not wearing your corset." My mother's calm expression breaks back into one of annoyance again as she chastises me. I furrow my eyebrows, trying to not look as though I'm pouting. (Though I definitely am.)
"Why should I have to wear a corset?" I ask, knowing I'm acting a little like a petulant child. I can't help it though. The last time I'd worn a corset, my ribs felt bruised for a whole week. My father used to laugh when I would call them silk cages.
"Because corsets are proper." My mother explains, despite knowing that it'll do no good. I shoot her an indignant look.
"Who's to say what is proper? If proper was to wear a pigeon in your hair, would you do it?" I ask rhetorically. My mother looks exasperated and I sigh, feeling slightly bad. "I'm sorry." I say, dropping the argumentative tone I'd been using. "I'm just tired."
Tired is a bit of an understatement. Delirious is more like it. I've never been someone who gets a lot of sleep, not even as a child. Plagued by dreams of a place that I can never seem to remember in detail when I awake. Recently they've been even more frequent, causing me to pace back and forth in my room for most of the night. The maid, Josephine, even made a joke about me burning a hole in the carpet. Which led me holding her hostage having a conversation about how fast someone would have to move to do such a thing. I should talk to my mother about paying her more.
"Are you having those dreams again?" The concern is evident in not just her voice, but the crinkles between her eyebrows. I simply nod, not wanting to go into detail, so as to not worry her further. Just as she's about to say something else the carriage comes to a sudden stop. I look out the window to see the neatly cut grass and stone pillars that decorate the lands. They remind me of candles on a birthday cake and I can't help but picture them being made of wax and dripping all over the grass. Mildred, Andy's mother, would pop a blood vessel.
