Wonderland Shadows: Exploring the Dark Fairy Tale Retelling of DeAnna Knippling’s Alternate Alices Series

(1856; Age Four)

“Alice! Hold still this instant!”

Mother pinched the top of Alice’s ear with sharp fingernails. The small side parlor hadn’t been dusted properly. Alice and her sister Ina had tried to do the dusting themselves, without much success. That is, Ina had done her dusting in half a moment, then refused to help with the rest even though she didn’t have as much to do, in addition to which Alice had been told to stay off the chairs, which meant that she had only dusted what she could reach from the floor and of course Mother always looked at things from such an incredible height that she only saw what had been missed, and now Ina was staring daggers at her because Mother was annoyed, despite Alice having done her best. Edith, the baby, looked ready to break into tears.

“Ow!” Alice cried. “Stop pinching me.”

“And shush.” Mother picked up the brush and began to apply it vigorously, too vigorously. “We’ll just have to hope that the dust on your pinafore won’t show in the photograph when Mr. Dodgson comes to take your picture. What were you thinking, doing maids’ work?”

“Ow-wow-wow!” The harder her mother brushed her hair, the louder she shouted, until Ina and Edith had their hands over their ears.

“She won’t let you go until all the knots are out of your hair, Alice,” Ina said. “It’s your punishment for not brushing it yourself.” She sat in one of the pretty chairs with the flowers on the cushions with her legs crossed at the ankles and a book in her lap.

Alice rather thought that Ina needed a handful of mud put down her pockets, because she seemed so very older-sisterish and tidy, which must have been uncomfortable.

“What about Edith? She always has knots in her hair.”

“She’s only a baby,” Ina said, then turned the page in the heavy book. Alice wasn’t allowed to read books by herself any longer, after an accident with a pressed frog two years ago, when she was quite younger than she was now. At any rate, none of them wanted to tell Father if anything should happen to one of the books, which meant that keeping Alice (and Edith) away from them was rather safer.

“Don’t worry about Edith’s hair, Alice,” her mother yanked the brush again. “Worry about your own.”

“Why can’t Miss Prickett brush my hair?” Alice asked, speaking before she thought, as usual. “She brushes better than you do.”

Ina’s eye flicked towards Alice while she turned another page. Edith banged a wooden spoon on the leg of the chair, trying to crush the dust-motes that sparkled in the air. In a second, Mother had taken the spoon from her, dumped Alice over her lap, and beat her several times with the spoon.

“Don’t…talk…to me…about…Miss Prickett!” her mother exclaimed.

Alice bit her lip. Crying out now would only make things worse, because then she would be sent to explain herself to Father.

“Oh!” her mother cried. “Even your underthings are brown with dust. Alice! What kind of manners is Miss Prickett teaching you?” And then her mother hit her again.

Ina glanced at Alice again, and Alice understood that now was the time to submit to Mother without another word or whimper: Miss Prickett was something precious, and not to be dragged into Mother’s attention more than necessary, especially not today.

“It’s all my fault, Mother. I’m rather wild, you know.”

Mother released her, brushing her skirts down for her. “If you can’t behave, then I shall tell Miss Prickett that it is time that she was replaced with someone sterner.”

“Yes, Mother. I shall be quite good.”

Mother nodded. “Indeed you shall, one way or another.”

If Alice’s contriteness wasn’t entirely genuine, it wasn’t entirely false, either. The children were all fond of Miss Prickett, even though Alice’s fondness tended to show itself as pranks and teasing.

Mother was not one to cross.

—

Eventually, Mother left them in the hot parlor with strict instructions not to move a muscle. Alice couldn’t help pointing out that they would soon suffocate if they weren’t allowed to breathe, but her mother had ignored her and swept out of the room, her skirts brushing against the carpets and the furniture with a heavy swish that scattered Edith’s toys and the chess game that Ina had been trying to teach Alice when they had first been deposited in the room earlier that morning.

Alice paced around the parlor, looking into corners and behind chairs.

“What are you doing?” Ina asked.

“Looking.”

“Looking at what?”

“Everything.” Alice was never allowed into the small parlor, which was rarely used. Alice peered at the silhouettes and the paintings on the walls. Dozens of stern faces looked down at her, intermixed with castles and churches.

Ina said primly, “Mother said we are all related to the people in this room, and we should always remember that our actions reflect upon them. Their greatness reflects on us, so we should do our duty and reflect it back to them—oh, Edith. Don’t put that in your mouth.”

Alice sighed, stomped over to Edith, and took the pawn away from her. Edith burst into tears.

“Now see what you made me do,” she told Ina.

“I did no such thing.”

“You did too.”

“Give her a sweet,” Ina said.

Alice sat in one of the fancy chairs and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t mind the sound of her crying.” She looked at the ceiling, trying to see if there were any spiders she could capture and drop onto the back of Ina’s fancy chair.

Ina closed the book with a thump and picked up Edith. “Don’t cry, little mouse.” She pulled a tin of pastilles out of her pocket and gave one to Edith. “Only one, now, or you’ll spoil your luncheon.” Edith, well-trained, popped open her mouth, accepted the sweet, and sucked contentedly.

Alice jumped out of her chair and stood next to Ina as she put Edith back on the floor in the middle of her overturned toys. Alice opened her mouth like a small bird.

“Oh, Alice,” Ina said.

Alice sniffed and whimpered like a baby about to burst into tears and rubbed one fat finger under her eye, just like Edith would insist on doing. Ina laughed and gave her a pastille. “You are such a naughty little kitten.”

Alice purred and rubbed her head against Ina’s arm, then set the chess pieces to right again, this time on the sideboard. “Will you play with me?”

“I’m reading,” Ina said.

“You’re always reading. It’s dull.”

“It is not.”

“It’s dull for me.”

Ina sighed and closed the book, this time quietly, with her finger in between the pages to mark her place. “All right. I’ll tell you a story then. But only a short one, and then you have to play with Edith and keep her amused and not let her fuss.”

“All right,” Alice said. She sat on the floor next to Edith, puffing up twinkling clouds of dust, which would have made Mother unhappy, although Alice still thought it rather clever of herself, using her petticoats to dust the rugs. She picked up the scattered toys and set them within Edith’s reach in rows, as though they were her audience at a play or her soldiers in a war. Edith wiped out a row of them with one cruel gesture.

Ina announced, “The photographer, Mr. Dodgson, is a zombie.”

Alice squealed with delight. “Oh! Is he?”

Ina snorted. “Yes. And that’s the end of the story. Remember, you promised.”

Alice gaped at her. “That’s not a proper story.”

“It is, too.”

“No it isn’t!” Alice shouted.

Edith’s face screwed up in a way that reminded Alice of a blister ready to burst.

“All right, hush. Mother said that he was infected years and years ago, but nobody knew, because it was dormant and he was so careful about concealing his treatments.”

“What’s dormant?”

The corner of Ina’s mouth twitched. “Hidden under a rug. Door-mat.”

Alice leaned forward and slapped Ina on the leg. “That’s not true. Stop making up words.”

Ina pulled her stockinged leg out of Alice’s reach. “It’s a real word.”

“It is not.”

They sulked, with Ina reading and Alice setting up the toys for Edith, until the door opened and Mother swept back into the room, knocking all the toys over again. “Girls! Mr. Dodgson is here.”

Alice groaned and started to set the toys aright.

“Up, please. Off the floor,” Mother said.

Ina put her book on the little table beside her, and Alice jumped up and stood next to her. Ina poked her in the side and pointed, and Alice bent over and picked up Edith, who opened her mouth and started crying.

“Give…her…a sweet,” Ina hissed.

“I don’t have any,” Alice whispered back. “You have all the sweets, you selfish cow. You give her one.”

The gentleman who had followed Mother into the room coughed softly into his glove, and the two girls looked up at him, leaving Edith to cry as she would. Really, there was no stopping her for long, and the two of them had simply learned to ignore the noise unless adults were around.

Mr. Dodgson was very tall, taller even than Father, and quite thin. He had brown hair that was nearly as long as Alice’s (hers had been cut quite short after an incident with a hedge) and stopped near his chin.

“Are you a zombie?” she asked.

“Oh, Alice,” Ina moaned.

Mother reached towards Alice to get at her ear again, but Alice stepped behind Ina and switched Edith to her other side. Edith was as fat as anything, probably from all the sweets that Ina had given her, and made a good shield against being pinched or poked.

The man coughed into his glove again, this time a little more loudly. After a few seconds, he said, “I’m…afraid so.”

“You’re afraid of being a zombie?” Alice asked. Edith was wiggling to get down, so she let her slither down to the floor and pick up a toy, which she chewed between bouts of sobbing. As Mr. Dodgson was standing quite close to them, Alice noticed that his left leg was manacled to a heavy iron ball, which he apparently dragged behind him. “Have you been press-ganged?” She had heard all kinds of stories about people doing things they oughtn’t, then waking up the next morning to find themselves turned into zombies and press-ganged onto a ship with a heavy cannonball chained to their legs, so if they tried to escape they would sink over the side of the ship and be forced to walk along the bottom of the ocean for ever and ever, because zombies didn’t die, not unless they were spiked in the back of their heads with a horrific crunch! Alice had always wanted to see a zombie spiked, but she supposed that Mother wouldn’t allow her to try it out on Mr. Dodgson, or not until after their pictures had been taken, at any rate.

“Ah, ah, ah, yes. I mean, ah, um, no.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was laughing at her or not. “Which is it?” She took a deep breath to see if he smelled bad. At any rate, something smelled bad, but it might have been Edith.

He giggled into his hand.

“Don’t do that,” Alice said. “I don’t like it when people laugh at me instead of answering the question.”

He coughed, then lowered his hand.

“Oh, I’m a zombie,” he said. “A perfectly tame zombie. B-but I haven’t been press, ah, press-ganged. I’m a terrible sailor.”

“You were press-ganged into taking pictures of us,” Alice declared. “I’m sorry that your whole life has been ruined for nothing, because I won’t have my picture taken. It’s dull.”

The man laughed deep down in his throat, making a half-gargling sound as Mother got Alice by the ear again, Alice having quite literally lowered her defenses.

“Ow!”

Mr. Dodgson said something about going outside because of the light, and Ina leaned over and whispered, “You’re in for it now.”

Alice kicked at Ina, but as Mother was dragging Alice by one arm into the hall, she missed.

“Come with me, girls,” Mother said. “Let’s do finish this quickly, so Mr. Dodgson can get back to his…other tasks.”

Alice, stumbling along after her mother and twisting around to see behind her, said, “I thought you weren’t supposed to call zombies Mister any more. In all the stories, they’re called the former Mister or arghhhh a zombie run!”

“That was before the serum that allows us to retain our presence of mind was invented, my dear Miss Alice,” Mr. Dodgson said, clearing his throat. “Now, if one remains calm and refrains from eating anyone, one may retain the title of ‘Mister.’ However, if a zombie attempts to bite one, it’s quite proper to begin one’s address with a blood-curdling scream.”

Ina, with Edith on her hip, carefully closed the door behind them and stayed away from Mr. Dodgson’s iron ball, which he dragged behind him, making him walk with a lurch.

“Like this?” Alice let out an earsplitting shriek that made him cover his ears and open his mouth in mock-horror.

“Indeed,” Mr. Dodgson said, as Mother nipped her ear sharply again.