“March?” The hare looks up from her gold and red spools of thread, but stays silent as she runs her fingers along the sharp threads. Blood runs along the pin thin gossamer and alice’s dark brows knit in mild confusion at what March Hare is doing. “These are hatters things–” March promptly stops. The movement is so mechanical it frightens the teenage girl. Alice skirts the spinning wheel to touch it softly with fear and curiosity as to what the hare would need it.
The hare’s silence gives her no answer and like the insistent girl she is, she looks around for clues to what has happened while she was gone. Hatter’s things are as they have always been, disorganized and hard to make any evidence of. Alice touches a pile of paper with thr mad man’s writing and it slides to the side gracefully with a soft rustle. She reviews a few pages with a concentrated eye, but she doesn’t make sense of what any of it says. The mad girl straightens her back to listen to the noises around her. She hears the montomous pace of a clock which is always present in wonderland. The entirety of the world is planted on the opposite side of a clock. She liked to think of it as a terreria of sorts. It was only when the spinning wheel began to run that she remembered where she was. The factory was unsavory. The work was dirty, but it put food in her stomach. It was better than whoring, that much she knew. She turned away from the mechanical fixtures to look at her work. The day was done from the way the factory darkened without the rays of the sun and the fairy lights illuminated the dim setting. “Chop! Chop! Finish up your last charge I have no patience for your tardiness to leave!” Alice groaned to herself as she moved her limbs. They were stiff from sitting all day and she took off her smock as she approached the door. “Ah, good night Alice. Good work as always.” “Goodnight, wilhelmia. Be safe while closing. I know there’s something out there–” she looked over the machinery with distrusting eyes as she looked out at the factory floor below. Wilhelmia laughed briskly as she shooed the teenager through the door, “you and your imagination.” “It’s not my imagination wilhelmia,” Alice protested as she slid her arms through her coat to brave the snow and wind, “something killed Benjamin that night he was alone.” “Oh none of that. It was an awful industrial accident. Nothing more, luv. Now off ya go.” The factory door was closed to her and she sighed softly. Her breath clouded the air and she turned to look at London before looking at her fathers pocket watch. It was stuck at tea time, blasted thing never worked. She thought about throwing it away, but it held too much meaning to her lonely heart. Alice was an orphan, her family had been claimed by a great fire and her lawyer had laid to waste her family’s fortune leaving her in the poor house once she had outgrown fostering. She made her way down the street, following the smell of a mince meat pie to mrs lovett’s pie emporium. She was greeted immediately by a young boy, “hello, alice!” Toby was a sweet boy, about 12 or 13 and she knew him from their days in the factory. It wasn’t a good place to be when one was lonesome. Awful things happened in the dark. “Hello toby, have you a pie for me today?” “Yes, ma'am– I saved it fore we could solds out.” Toby had been lucky, he had gone from the abusive faux and outlandish italian to Mrs lovett and her less charming suitor. The barber was brisk and had cruel eyes she avoided at all costs. “Oh, alice–” the high voice of the generous woman greeted her and Mrs lovett opened her arms to welcome alice, “I haven’t seen yous in so long. I was half fraid an awful machine had eaten you.” “Oh– no ma'am. My ‘eads been a little fuzzy with all this cold, but I’m ere now.” Mrs lovett laughed and Alice was filled with the hugs softeness. “Toby saved you dinner. Go in the house, pour yourself some gin and stay the night it’s so cold and do worry bout a poor girl like you all alone out there.” The mad girl felt tobys warm hand in her own and he led her through the place To the common room. "I'll get your pie, you just warm up here by the fire." The brunette was quiet when the boy left. It was lonely without people and she took her coat off before sitting before the fire to watch it crackle and pop. The wood splintered and opened. "Tob--" her voice faltered when she looked back at hatters common room. The boards above her head parted and snow fell in through the open air and she felt it's cold wetness against her cheek. Alice chilled to the bone when she looked at the empty fire place. Her episodes were becoming more frequent much to the mad girls chagrin. She carefully moved to stand and her long skirts caught on one of the splintered boards. Yanking it free she looked around. The house looked charred and goosebumps raised over the mad girls skin before she remembered that March had been in the house. Alice ran to the workshop only to find it empty much like the rest of the house. There were no traces of personables or furniture. "Curiouser and curiouser--" Alice murmured to herself as her eyes fell shut. What was happening to her wonderland?
