Fright Night! #Wattys2016

Blood Bank

A Shimmering gauze of mist beckoned her through the mirror, the woods dark and haunting at night under the shadows of the trees were so unlike the daisy chain making summer days she remembered as a child. She looked down into the candle-lit cavern. Alice should have known better than to go into the hole again, but bloody-minded and contrary as always, she would never have been able to persuade herself otherwise.

Long ice-white coloured hair trailed behind, her porcelain coloured skin contrasting with the unusual dark shadowed eyes as she grasped the small horse-shaped looking glass, the hand mirror that she carried with her on all her journeys. As she clutched it to her breast she felt the words came back to her, her grammar had been poor then, 'curiouser and curiouser' she heard herself repeat those words that she had not spoken for a very long time. She felt the tingle of excitement at the thought of another mystery. The fall felt further this time, maybe it really was 4,000 miles down, long enough to remember about her cat Dinah, she had had other cats but Dinah had been her first and the most affectionate. During the fall she became disorientated and in order to keep herself moderately sane she repeated to herself her favourite children's poem.

"How does the little Crocodile

Improve his shining tale,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every Golden Scale".

As she fell she slowly withdrew the note book and the photographs, taking care not to let go of them in the slipstream. She looked over the photographs carefully, noting that they were of young girls the same age she would have been at the beginning of her adventures. She examined the pictures of the girls the in the notebook, she discovered what she assumed to be the names of the missing girls.

She almost hoped that he would not be there, but there he was. As much like a detective as a white rabbit can look. She and Rabbit had a history, he hated her mainly because she was female and that she was from Wonderland, as far as he was concerned that made her lower than the lowest of the low in his beady rabbit eyes. Intolerance did exist, some people didn't believe in the Wonderland people this was fine with her as she didn't always believe in herself. Some people that knew of their existence feared and despised them. Her first case had been to track down the murderers of her parents, the murderers had escaped from the real world to Wonderland she had tracked them with the help of Hatter and her own skills and competence. This competence was the main element that had annoyed Rabbit, she had made him look stupid and he didn't like that.

"You're late, and when you're late it means I'm late, and I don't like being late." he said looking at his elaborate and rather ostentatious wrist watch "The boss wants to see you," barked Rabbit. "Charmed to see again to I'm sure Rabbit" she said not making the slightest effort to disguise the sarcasm in her voice. "No time for niceties" he said as he tried to bundle her into the waiting horse drawn carriage. She stamped on Rabbit's foot and stroked the horse's mane. She felt the mirror in her pocket vibrate as she patted it gently. "Soon," she whispered "soon."

Alice's long strides easily kept up with Rabbit's hops as they made their way into the building Rabbit still muttering under his breath about being late and actually wanting to get home to his burrow tonight. Climbing into the air lift she placed the palm of her hands together, she let the blast of freezing air send her shooting up to the Hatter's office on the fifth floor. She followed Rabbit into Hatter's Office which as usual was chaos. Hatter loved tea but never seemed to finish one so there were an array of cup and saucers scattered all around the office with the brightly coloured tea pot taking pride of place in the centre of his desk. Hatter's top hat sat at a jaunty angle and his out-sized bow tie flapping as he fidgeted around. She knew that the nickname for Hatter was Mad; she knew this annoyed her more than it annoyed him and in turn this made her even angrier. The most gifted, though admittedly the most 'off the wall', detective in the force deserved more respect. On the notice board were pinned pictures of the three missing girls that Alice had been summoned to help trace. Hatter absentmindedly kissed Alice on the cheek. "Ah Alice so glad you could come, we really need your help this time." Alice ignored the grumbling that emitted from Rabbit behind them.