Wonderland End

Chapter 3

Beatrix went through one of the back doors, so as not to disturb any of the sleeping family. She crept through the garden, embellished with shapely cut, symmetrically placed hedges, flowers, trees, and a couple of murmuring fountains. They were all little more than ominous silhouettes in the still sapphire night. They seemed to watch Beatrix, to whisper. She couldn't hear them, but she could very much feel them. But the moon called. She couldn't betray it, not now.

The edge of the garden was lined with an elegant silver fence that separated it from the forest stretching into the distance. The entrance to the forest was a curtain of leaves that leisurely swayed around. They made way for a dark maze which, on an ordinary night, nobody in their right mind would even consider going through. However this was all but an ordinary night. Though perhaps it may as well have been, because it had never been established that Beatrix was in her right mind at all. Whatever the case, it didn't alter the rather evident fact that Beatrix didn't hesitate for an instant to plant her foot on the railing of the fence and swing herself over. It was the moon. It shone into the forest, into the trees, into the night.

Beatrix halted for a moment and turned her head to look back at the estate. Slumbering under the moonlight, its edges breathing an antique Victorian scent. She felt doubts creeping in. She turned her head away and quickly accelerated into the woods.

Beatrix had always been a rather orderly individual, on many occasions she saw she might be too orderly even. She found comfort in the tidy uniformity of London's houses and streets, in the harmonious monotony of the letters in books. She had a certain fondness for clocks, their repetitiveness, their predictability. A clock will always remain true to its routine. It will only ever move in its predetermined direction. A clock makes a promise — to keep ticking and tocking and never break the rules. To remain unchanged, oblivious to the chaos of the world. Unlike people, clocks keep their promises, no matter the circumstances. That's why Beatrix liked them.

Nature was chaotic. Strange, fickle. One could never be quite certain about how the wind would blow, where thunder would strike, when a branch would snap, what a creature would think. A forest to Beatrix was a dizzying kaleidoscope of countless colours and shapes, all weaving into each other, swirling, whispering, hiding something. It made Beatrix's skin crawl and a nauseating qualm pierced her in the stomach.

The moon continued to shine in a consistent silver path. Its grip on Beatrix didn't loosen a smidge. Despite her uneasy headache, Beatrix couldn't seem to turn back. She pushed through the forest. She followed the moon.

Damp grass squelched under Beatrix's feet, branches snapped by her arms. Each movement, each step sent a chilling shockwave run down her spine. She flinched, jumped out of her skin at nearly every instant she spent under the trees. Her heart battered her ribcage like a hammer, her lungs throbbed, her head spun. Yet Beatrix didn't stop, she didn't turn back. She couldn't bring herself to do so. Something had taken over her body. It moved her feet forward, held her chin up, oblivious to the feeling that she would simply collapse into herself right there and then. The moon didn't waver. Its path remained bright and precise.

Beatrix grew weary, however weariness fell in an instant on the battlefield with yearning. Her feet were numb from the cold and bruised from the thick, mossy roots that intertwined themselves with the mud below. Her gown was torn and dotted with leaves and thin branches. Her legs scraped and bleeding. Nothing lesser than death itself could make Beatrix waver. The moon fought its way through the dense cloak of the trees. Its silver ray twinkled over the grass, the moss, the roots. It whispered and called. It was the only source of light in the burgeoning darkness of the forest.

Beatrix's dizzying nausea fled from her body when her face hit a cold, wet, blunt ground. The pain crawled all the way to the back of her brain and settled in her skull. As she tried to draw a breath, icy water assaulted her throat. Her head shot itself upwards, leaving her panting and wheezing. Her face and hands stung. They felt like heavy, stubborn ice. Colourful dots danced in Beatrix's eyes and her skull seemed to utter a strained scream. A ruthless shockwave hammered her head, over and over again. The rigid cold creeped into her lungs, which began to cough in desperation. She hacked and choked and blood splattered itself into the murmuring creek that whisked it away and into the distance.

The dots in Beatrix's eyes dispersed, leaving her vision clear though her head still pulsating dully. She found herself laying down in front of a creek, the water caressing her frosty fingers. She pulled them out, brought herself to her knees, and wiped her nose with her sleeve. The moment she did so Beatrix gasped in a dreadful panic, for her nose did not bear the thin, straight form she was accustomed to. Instead, she sensed it painfully crooked slightly to the right in a way that barely even resembled a human nose at all. She suddenly realised that her chin and neck were covered in a thick, hot fluid that was certainly not the water from the creek, and felt the sickening saltiness of blood creep into her mouth and throat. She was left there, gasping, panting, eyes watering and head pounding. Sat in the heart of the forest, deep in the night, with nobody around to help or even hear her cries and frantic sobs.

Entirely alone.

Or not.

The moon tickled the soft hairs on the back of Beatrix's neck once again. She carefully pressed her palms against her eyes and wiped the tears that blurred her sight. On the other side of the creek the trees were thinner, allowing the moon's sparkle to illuminate the area brightly and clearly. What Beatrix saw in the silver light was not the nauseating, perplexing labyrinth of trees that had spent the night barbarously beating and tearing Beatrix down to her bones. It was something strange. Something unlike she had ever seen, even in storybooks. And this was where the moonlight had settled. This was where it wanted to bring Beatrix.

Beatrix shakily made her way to her knees and crawled over the stones beneath the shallow water of the creek. Her head continued pulsing, and her nose continued snorting blood. As Beatrix had settled down on the moss on the other side, her body was trembling and the ends of her gown were soaked and dripping with blood and water. She looked up in an attempt to comprehend, or at least absorb that which was before her eyes.

It was not a tree, but it had branches and leaves. Many branches and many leaves that weaved into each other and intertwined themselves in tight knots. They had thorns. What was most peculiar was that they formed a long, perpetual tunnel. They didn't seem to stop anywhere, at least anywhere the light could reach. It was eerie and bizarre. The way it meandered casually into the boundless darkness appalled Beatrix, it made her want to run away as far as she possibly could. But she did not, for she had nowhere to run to at this point. And her thoughts shifted completely when her hand landed on a piece of paper.

It was aged. Fragile, wrinkled and matted with the rain and mud from the past decades or possibly even centuries. It had been waiting for Beatrix for longer than it could bear, but it was just a piece of paper. Waiting was all it was good at. And still, it held on tight to the words written on it long ago. There Beatrix saw them — in sleek, black writing — clear and distinguished.

"You are here at last"