Alice woke up, screaming. Again.
Her nightmare had woken her up in the middle of a cold summer night. The entire house, empty now that her parents had moved back to the Council’s Castle, remained silent after she pushed the bedding away from her and got up. Silence followed every step to her robe, to the lamp on top of the dresser, and to the mirror on the wall. Thanks to the glow of the flame, she could take a long and tired look at herself in the reflection.
Golden hair, now on relaxed curls, fell up to her shoulders. Her eyes, while still the same bright sea-blue colour, had dark circles around them, as she hadn’t had a good night sleep, in what seemed weeks. She wondered about makeup for covering them, but knew her parents probably would disapprove of its usage. No bother trying telling them her mother used it in the 2000s, since it hasn’t happened yet. That kind of argument could only lead to losing a lot of the good will she had managed to recover since the museum incident.
Looked at the clock in the corner of the room. Too late to go back to sleep, too early to ask Hannah, her lady’s maid, for breakfast.
Alice moved to her large wardrobe. Her large, heavy, wooden, unmovable, and -most important of all- hollowed wardrobe. She had managed to grab a couple of copies of the floorplan of Featherhill from the library, and noticed the ladder to the attic was just behind a false wall in her bedroom. To go up, the only thing she had to do was go into the wardrobe, through the wall, and up the ladder.
Up there, she had turned the crawlspace into a study, research facility, and laboratory. The remains of what she now called “Wonderland Mycelium”, rested, pickled, in large jars on a shelf. Copies of different editions of Carroll’s books on tables. Technical drawings of what she remembered of Wonderland and the Looking Glass regions. A couple of models of the cup she had lost there. And a couple of armchairs next to a small fireplace which joined through the chimney with the enormous one on the dining room.
Her plans hadn’t changed. Recover the cup, an incident of which her father still knows nothing. Search for the other artefacts. And manage to enter Sophia again.
Both things, the latter ones, she managed to keep secret. Sir Murad hadn’t reported the theft, and Alice had kept her ambitions hidden after the failure of the museum heist.
To recap some things that happened afterwards. Her father threw a fit and immediately went into damage control mode. This meant he took over as Council President during the crisis. Joan, her sister-in-law, stepped down due to the issue, but kept her position as councilwoman. Apparently, the position is impossible to renounce, and it's life-long, and in an immortal family means it’s eternal.
The stones, the ones Alice enchanted to shatter the glass exhibits, had caused minor damages to some of the artefacts. Still, nothing as terrible as Victorie scorching part of the upper side of the tapestry while trying to remove it from the frame. Restoration of the tapestry calculated at around 1.400 pounds. Easily around the same cost of sustaining both, Athenida House and the one in Soho Square for a year. Daedalus weathered the costs -took some money out of his company’s account- but was not happy about it.
This meant at least one of the London houses had to close for time being. Since money suddenly became an issue. Daedalus has a lot of money, no doubt of it, but most is tied to his company and properties. He doesn’t have a money bin laying around to swim in gold coins. Decided, since he couldn’t make up his mind about it, to close both and use a small house in South London as a temporary embassy for the Council. Victorie went to live there with her wife, but Marcus chose to go live with his theatre friends close to the Alhambra Theatre.
Alice walked around and checked some of the books about ancient artefact she had ordered over the last couple years. Most of them, though useless for her current objective, had interesting facts about the current craze of Egyptology which had swept through the Empire. It seemed each week or so someone found another tomb or pyramid, and new objects became commonplace in the museums in Britain.
She looked at her desk. A modern typewriter stood next to the empty pile of papers. One of the firsts made in Europe, and a gift from her father, for her upcoming birthday. Just a couple weeks away, and then back to London for her presentation to Queen Victoria at the debutante’s ball. A daft celebration, according to her father, but part of keeping up appearances and helping with preserving tradition.
Sat in front of it, and began typing. Still her fingers hurt when pressing the keys. Thought about buying gloves to type in them, but they could be cumbersome.
“I can’t sleep”, she typed.
Waited for a couple minutes, and then the keys pressed by themselves. Since her forced exile in Wales, she had managed to cultivate a friendship with her “cousin” Edgar. Both had typewriters, and decided to enchant them so they could communicate at a distance.
“Have you tried going off coffee this time?”, Edgar’s answer dripped a condescending tone.
“Yes. Worried about something.”
“Something I can help?”
Alice thought to herself for a couple seconds before typing again.
“Maybe. Have you read Mr. Carroll’s books?”
“Mathematical or the fiction ones?”
“Not really fiction. I’ve been there in Wonderland.”
“I know."
"You know? How?"
"Your father told my mother and she told me about it. I read them a while ago, while at Eton. What about it?”
“I need to retrieve something from there, but I can’t predict when I can go back again.”
Now Edgar took his time to answer, and Alice took the opportunity to organise some of the papers on the desk. Most of them, notes regarding some other missing artefacts she managed to notice before she got banned from Sophia.
“I may be able to help. I think I can be on the noon train and get there around five.”
“Fine, I’ll let the staff know, and you’ll stay for as long as you like. I don’t think my father would mind.”
The typing stopped. Alice waited for a while, but then she moved on. Opened one of the small white windows of the attic, and stayed there, looking at the dark outline of the forest. Watched the sunrise and then waited for the clock downstairs to chime. Featherhill’s grandfather’s clock chimed only twice during the day. One around seven thirty, to begin the day for the family, and one at eleven in the night, to end it. The chime also made known to her that her maid was halfway upstairs to “wake her up”, to which Alice went down the ladder, through the wardrobe, and inside her bedroom.
“Lady Alice, are you awake?” she heard the voice of the maid calling for her.
Hours later, Alice went back to her father’s office on the ground floor. Though she should begin calling it, “her office”. The place had nothing to remind her of Mr. Athenida, but his portrait on the mantelpiece. Though not the old-fashioned one he had moved to the house in South London, still irradiated respect and the slight hubris of the Athenida Family. Next to it, another portrait, this one of her, in the middle of blades of grass taller than her. Alice had fought against the making of the portrait…to no avail. Official portrait of the Athenida lineage, as his father called it. She was quite sure the one in front of her was not the real one, but a mere copy, and the true portrait -somehow- stood in the backroom of the antiques’ store in Charing Cross.
“I need to figure this out before he comes”, she thought to herself while sifting through the papers on her desk. Though the bulk of her research was kept inside the attic, she moved some of the later notes to the office for Edgar to see them.
Most records focused on testimonials of the other people who got lost -due to magical means- and ended up in Wonderland. Not many. A report every two or three years.
She suspected most of those who were sent there, never made it back. Funny and whimsical as it may be, Wonderland still had its share of dangers and perils. She would’ve died many times if not by sheer luck. A Bandersnatch going on a rampage. Trying to argue with the Queen of Hearts. If the Jabberwock somehow returned to the Looking Glass Territories. Many dangers. Surviving there, returning, and then having the mental fortitude of sharing your testimony with someone, were all things against the odds.
“If I could record someone’s memory in a device of sorts, then I could check what happened for as many times as I need”, she said to the air, while writing a note about it. “Maybe Lethe has a way of doing it.”
Most of the time she spent in the office, old books came in and out of the shelves. Now that Edgar had a lead, she could devote her mind to solving other of the issues her mind kept on the backburner. A book on the designs of William Winde gave her rough plans of the place. A couple of old testimonies, mostly from old servants and a letter from one John Brown. Notes of her father, which she found between the pages of forgotten books in the study. Everything helped to paint the picture of layout, customs, and the strange happenings at Buckingham Palace.
King William’s Sword, if kept under the resourceful gaze of Her Majesty, still used most of its energy as an artefact in keeping the Crown in one piece. With the Prince of Wales in-between scandals, and Her Majesty in self-imposed exile at Windsor and Osborne House, a wave of republican sentiment had swept through parliament. Still, even if her father believed the ideal place for it was in the heart of government, Alice knew something had to be done.
Among the papers she brought down was an invitation to the Queen’s debutante ball. Yes, Her Majesty became a recluse after the death of her husband, but protocol still dictated she presided over the ball. Even if the Prince and Princess of Wales were the ones to receive her, the opportunity wouldn’t present twice. One of very few times a young woman such as Alice could walk into the palace without a tight escort. Escort? yes, but not as tight as it should be.
Beyond the plan, she had to carry on as a proper lady. She had a meeting the following Sunday with Madeleine Isigny -really Marchioness Isigny- and her seamstress. Lady Isigny had the responsibility of presenting her to Her Majesty, and the dress needed the last fitting before the grand day. She didn’t do it out of the goodness of her heart, since she had a debt with the Athenidas. After all, Alice’s father had under his sleeve the title of Duke of Exeter before the Hollands did, and currently kept the dukedom of London, granted to him by Queen Elizabeth. He could pull his weight further and mightier than most of his peers. The Isigny family was less “noble” than them in more than just British titles, since they came from the same divine stock.
Five o’clock came and went, without Alice noticing it. Then six. Then seven, and she noticed, since the maids came to light the lamps and fireplace. Around seven thirty, the door opened and Edgar came through it.
“There you are!”, Alice greeted him without lifting her sight of her papers. “I thought you died, or worse, lost the train.”
“I did. I lost the one at noon, I had to take the one to Birmingham at one and then a mail carrier which left me a couple miles closer. I had the consideration of walking away from the station before using magic to appear here.”
“Surprised you managed to appear here. Father made the place invisible for the entire estate. Doesn’t even appear on maps.”
“Yes, but mother warned me about it.” Edgar sat across the desk. “Incidentally, that’s why I was late.”
“Oh?”
“Say. About the thing you lost in Wonderland, was it a cup?”
Alice lifted her sight and was met with the worried expression of her cousin.
“Yes, a small one.”
“Wooden, with designs?”
“How did you know?”
Edgar pulled a small paper from his pocket. On it, a sketch of the same small cup with engravings in old designs.
“That’s the one, where did you find it?” Alice noticed the worry on Edgar’s face only worsened.
“This morning my mother woke up half of London screaming. She found a grey hair. Not many, just one,” he sneezed. “Sorry, damp weather. Anyway, she sent for Ganimede, and when he didn’t come, went after Hebe. Found both of them, and neither of them had seen the cup.”
“You’re worrying me. What does the cup have to do with the price of apples?”
“That is Hebe’s cup. And if we don’t bring her back soon, we’ll be in trouble.”
Blue sparks began sprouting from Alice’s fingers. She lifted her hands, so won’t singe the papers by accident. Clear head, though she knew what the following words out of Edgar’s mouth would be.
“Without the cup, she can’t make ambrosia. Without ambrosia…the gods are ageing.”
“How long do we have?”
“Don’t know, could be a decade, could be a week.”
“Alright then, hands to work.” Alice snapped her fingers and sent both of them upstairs to the attic. “This is all I have, tell me what you got.”
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