Synopsis:
After accidentally killing everyone in her class, Alice Wonder is now a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll's paintings, photographs, and find Wonderland's real whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an asylum by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack Diamonds, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual science.
The writing on the
wall says it's January 14th. I am not sure what year. I haven't been
sure of many things lately, but I’m wondering if it’s my handwriting I’m
looking at.
There is an strange
key drawn underneath the date. It's carved with a sharp object, probably a
broken mirror. I couldn’t have written this. I'm terrified of mirrors. They
love to call it Catoptrophobia around here.
Unlike regular
patients in the asylum, my room is windowless, stripped down to a single
mattress in the middle, a sink, and bucket for peeing--or puking--when
necessary. The tiles on the floor are black-and-white squares, like a
chessboard. I never step on black. Always white. Again, I'm not sure why.
The walls are
smeared with a greasy pale green everywhere. I wonder if it's the previous
patient's brains spattered all over from shock therapy. In the Radcliffe
Lunatic Asylum, politely known as the Warneford hospital, the doctors have a
sweet spot for shock therapy. They love watching patients with bulging eyes and
shivering limbs begging for relief from the electricity. It makes me question
who is really mad in here.
It's been a while
since I was sent to shock therapy myself. Dr. Tom Truckle, my supervising physician,
said I don't need it anymore, particularly after I stopped mentioning
Wonderland. He told me that I used to talk about it all the time; a dangerous
place I claim I have been whisked away to when my elder sister lost me at the
age of seven.
Truth is, I don't
remember this Wonderland they are talking about. I don't even know why I am
here. My oldest vivid memory is from a week ago. Before that, it's all a purple
haze.
I have only one
friend in this asylum. It's not a doctor or a nurse. And it's not a human. It
doesn't hate, envy, or point a finger at you. My friend is an orange flower I
keep in a pot; a Tiger Lily I can't live without. I keep it safe next to a
small crack in the wall where a single sun ray sneaks through for only ten
minutes a day. It might not be enough light to grow a flower, but my Tiger Lily
is a tough girl.
Each day, I save
half of the water they give me for my flower. As for me, better thirsty than
mad.
My orange flower is
also my personal rain check for my sanity. If I talk to her and she doesn't
reply, I know I am not hallucinating. If it talks back to me, all kinds of
nonsense starts to happen. Insanity prevails. There must be a reason why I am
here. It doesn’t mean I will easily give in to such a fate.
"Alice Pleasance
Wonder. Are you ready?" the nurse knocks with her electric prod on my
steel door. Her name is Waltraud Wagner. She is German. Everything she says
sounds like a threat and smells like smoke. My fellow mad people say she is a
Nazi; that she used to kill her own patients back in Germany. "Get
avay vrom za dor. I an coming in," she demands.
Listening to the
rattling of her large keychain, my heart pounds in my chest. The turn of the
key makes me want to swallow. When the door opens, all I can think of is
choking her before she begins to hurt me. Sadly, her neck is too thick for my
nimble hands. I stare at her almost-square figure for a moment. Everything
about her is four sizes too big, all except her feet, which are as small as
mine. My sympathies, little feet.
"Time for your
daily ten-minute break," she approaches me with a straitjacket, a devilish
grin on her face. I never get out. My ward is underground, and I take my break
in another empty ward upstairs, where patients love to play soccer with a
hedgehog’s head.
A big muscled
warden stands behind Watlraud. Thomas Ogier. He is bald, has an angry-red face
and a silver tooth he likes to flash whenever he sees me. His biceps are the
size of my head. I have a hard time believing he has ever been a 4-pound baby.
"Slide your
arms into the jacket," Waltraud demands in her German accent, a cigarette
puckered between her lips. "Slow and easy, Alice," she nods at
warden Ogier, in case I misbehave.
I comply obediently
and stretch out my arms for her to do whatever she wants. Waltraud twists my
right arm slightly and checks the tattoo on my arm. It’s the only tattoo I
have. It’s a handwritten sentence that looks like a thin arm band from afar.
Waltraud feels the need to read it allowed, “’I can't go back to yesterday because
I was a different person then.’” I was told I have written it myself while
still believing in Wonderland. “That Alice in Wonderland has really
messed with your head.” She puffs smoke into my face as she mocks me.
The tattoo and
Waltraud’s mocking is the least of my concerns right now. I let her tie me, and
while she does, I close my eyes. I imagine I am a sixteenth century princess,
some kind of a lucky Cinderella, being squeezed into a corset by my chain
smoking servant in a fairy tale castle above ground, just about to go meet my
Prince Charming. Such imagery always helps me breathe. I once heard that it was
hope that saves the day, not sanity. I need to cool down before I begin my
grand escape.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Wonderlander, Neverlander, Unicorn-chaser, enchanter, musician, survived a coma, & totally awesome. Sometimes I tell stories. Always luv the little monsters I write young adult paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and science fiction mostly. The Grimm Diaries series is a seven book saga that deals with retellings of fairy tales from a young adult POV - it connects most of the fairy tales together and claims to be the truth about fairy tales. I live in San Fransisco and seriously think circles are way cooler than triangles.
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