Into A Dream

Gloves, Fans, and Aunt Lorna

"The gloves! I just had them!" It was a white rabbit, he was wandering around in a forest that I found myself in. "And the fan!" He was going through all the pockets on his small waist jacket, pulling out all kinds of random items. 

After a moment of watching, I stepped out from the shadows. "Rabbit? Do you-" 

His little eyes turned towards me with surprise, "Good, you're here butler, run back to my house and grab another pair of gloves and a fan. The Duchess will have my head!" The white rabbit pointed in a direction, down a path.

"Uh, I'm not the-" 

"Hurry! I'm late!" The rabbit jumped up and down, holding a regular size pocket watch in one of his paws.

I took a deep breath and headed down the path to a peculiar looking house that had 'W. Rabbit' on the door. It felt odd to walk into someone else's house, especially a house that had bowls of carrots on almost every table. Making my way upstairs, I found a small bedroom for my left. 

After glancing around the room, I opened the first draw of a cabinet and sitting on top was a fan and four pairs of gloves. 

"Lucky me," I mumbled and grabbed them, slightly hoping to not bump into the real butler, for fear that he would get angry with me about taking his job. 

I spoke too soon. 

"Sir," I turned to see a frogman in a black and white suit. "Care for a drink?" He held a silver tray out to me with a teacup on it. 

Feeling obliged to take the cup, I did and took a big sip. It was awful and dull, "Thank you," The frogman nodded and left the room. How curious. 

I went to follow him but suddenly I felt something in my stomach, and before I realized it I began growing. And panicking. One of my arms went out the window, one leg went out the bedroom door, the second arm found the second window in the room. The rest of me scrunched up, pushed the bed, table, and cabinet aside against the wall. 

Without a moment later I heard a putter patter, squirming around to see out the window, I saw the white rabbit. I'd never been happier. 

"Where did that butler-" He cut himself off when he saw me sticking out of his house, and screamed. Then ran off. 

"Please don't go!" I yelled after him as he disappeared into the distance, panic rooting in my stomach. What was I supposed to do now?  

After returning with a goose who held a basket of apples, they spoke for quite some time and then both ran off again. Only to return moments later with a lizard, who ran with a ladder held above his head. 

I sighed, "What are you going to do with that ladder? It won't be able to reach up here," They ignored me but stopped messing with the ladder. The three animals grabbed another ladder and began tying them together, making an unsteady, larger ladder that wobbled back and forth as they fought. 

The lizard began to climb the ladder towards me with a large knife, his teeth bared at me. "I bet the flesh is sweet."

"No!"

I sat up in my bed, "No!" My shirt clung to me with sweat, my heart thundered within my chest as I struggled to breath. My arm rippled with pain as though the creature had begun to butcher it. 

Glancing around the room I realized how glad I was to be my size and no longer overly-large.
There was a soft knock on the door, "Al?" The door creaked open. 

I looked towards it, worried it would be the frog butler with another teacup of growing tea or perhaps the pointed teeth of the lizard. But instead, it was my Aunt Lorna, her short hair was pulled into a ponytail. 

"What is wrong dear? I could hear you all the way down in my room?" She gracefully perched herself at the end of my bed. 

I shrugged, "Just a dream," Aunt Lorna looked at me and gave me a small smile, then pinched my big toe. Biting back a smile, I looked away, she always uses to do that when I was younger. 

"How's school going? I know teacher-parent conferences just passed but.. you know how it is." 

Shrugging again, "It's okay, can't complain." Our eyes meet, there was always something about my aunt, she always understood me. The only person that'll talk to me about my mom, her sister, after my grandparents passed away. Not that they were very willing though. 

Aunt Lorna stood, "Well, your report card was decent so, I guess there is not complaining."

She stood in the doorway now, "Hey, Aunt Lorna?" 

Turning towards me as she pushed some of her dark hair behind her ear that escaped from her ponytail, "Yes Nephew Alistair." 

My mind went to my encounter with those two oddballs last week. "Why'd we leave London?" I could see her tense as the words left my mouth, guilt-filled the emptiness they left behind. 

"Your grandparents and I didn't want you to grow up around people who knew your mother. We didn't want you to grow up in her shadow and everyone treats you differently because of it." She explained patiently. Just enough to answer my question with no details. 

I nodded and she sat back down, closer to me this time. "Then you fell in love with Austin and had kids?" 

She laughed. "Two beautiful, spoiled kids that will, hopefully, turn out decent." The air between us was stiff and cold, it's obvious that her husband wasn't a fan of me. Mostly because I was here before him, I was three when they meet and got married and he felt that I was always in the way. Especially when they had my cousins, Tilly and Gus. 

"I'd like to think I raised you well," She joked.

"The times you were here," I nodded in assurance, she smiled softly at me and ruffled my hair. 

"Your mom would be proud," Aunt Lorna said sadly, after standing and opening my bedroom door. She blamed herself for mom going insane. Aunt Lorna read to mom almost every day when they were little, and into their teen years even. Which, the doctors believe, is why mom often would wander around by herself, disappearing for hours at a time. Lost in her imagination that was encouraged with every book that her sister read to her. 

Without another word, Aunt Lorna left and I was alone in the darkness of my room. The shadows twisted and turned into images that plagued my dreams. I sunk into my bed, feeling lonely and sad, ready to stare into the void of my bedroom until the sun broke through and brought light. 

Ting

My phone lit up, light drifting across the ceiling. It was from Kitty.
'Are you up?'

How curious.