The distinct taste of Wonderland tea assaulted her taste buds as the herby essence washed across her tongue. An aftertaste of sweet bitterness lingered with a harsh, burning familiarity. The heat singed her throat shut, igniting her sinuses. She lurched forward, catching the drink slipping between her lips. She held it down and swallowed. Realization flashed, recognizing that the tea burned all too familiarly. The addictive, soothing taste of alcohol.

A small laugh was awkwardly pushed from her chest as Alice realized the group was looking at her. “Has the tea always been this strong?” she asked while dabbing away the spilled drink that lined her lips.

“No different than how Mad usually makes it.”  CC mentioned as they swirled their cup before taking another sip.

“Ah-ha,” Alice muttered, “I didn’t realize that Wonderland and mortal tea are so different. It just caught me by surprise.”

“Tea is tea, how can it be different?” Mad asked, perplexed.

“We do have different flavors, maybe that’s what she means?” March expressed interest. “Are there different flavors of tea in the mortal world?” March leaned in, elbows on the table as he moved in much more intimately within the space.

“Well, yes. But tea isn’t normally like this.” Alice took another sip from her cup, a much smaller amount than before. The taste, much more like booze, yet distinct and different in a way Alice couldn’t quite place. It had the painful sensation of burning alcohol but blended seamlessly with the herbal taste. The familiarity kick started her memory, reminding her how often they drank this spiked tea. Certain events began to make sense; everyone just always operated on a certain level of drunkenness. She couldn’t recall any fits of hangover, which made the discovery truly a miracle in itself. The realization had her chuckling as she took another sip enjoying its flavor. That must be the effects of imagination.

“So, tell me Alice,” March chimed in. He leaned as far forward across the table. “You got to live your life here in Wonderland, and then a second life in the mortal world. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind experience never written about; you must tell us. What are the differences? What has your experience been like? I want to know it all.” March glowed with enthusiasm, his face flushed from the thirst for hard tea and knowledge.

“Oh boy,” Alice started, embarrassment flashed against her cheeks with all their eyes locked onto her. “I mean, so much really, I don’t even know where to begin.” She paused to think. “It was a big shock when I got back to the mortal world. I was here longer than I was there. So many things didn’t make sense anymore, and things I thought were normal, weren’t even real there. So, getting back to what was ‘normal’ was really hard. You know, I struggled remembering English, it came back soon enough though. And then to fit in, I really convinced myself that this all had been a dream.” Alice got lost in her words as she stared at the tea in her cup, feeling the warmth of the drink flush her cheeks. The ostracization she faced resurfaced as she watched a small bounce of the cup make waves within it, sloshing around like her emotions. Memories of the other children, her own family, doctors, and counselors reflected themselves in her eyes swimming in the cup of tea.

She continued after she took a long sip, “I was really surprised by some of these really big things about life. There’s a logical explanation for everything, like gravity, and how finite the mortal world is. Oh, and physics! There are laws in the mortal world for just existing. I mean, I guess that’s not too much different from here,” Alice caught herself as she thought a bit more. Beginning to ramble as anxieties gripped her lungs. “It’s just that it’s not like imagination here. Its other stuff.” She trailed off. “I was just so used to things here. Just stretch your imagination and it’ll happen, but it’s not like that in the mortal world.”

She glanced over shyly at March, his head nestled in his hands as he listened to her with attention and wonder. In contrast, Mad and CC were much less invested. Their disinterest was loud and unspoken as they stared into their own cups. Their apathy flustered Alice further. Bringing her fingers to her teeth, she picked at the loose skin along the edge of her nails. “Oh, uh, this once—” Alice began in hopes to reconnect the conversation.

“That’s actually pretty interesting and everything, but I do wanna finish our conversation from before.” CC said with a masked smile, but the twitch of their lips exposed true feelings. “Especially in light of all this new information. It was so different and seemed like it was hard on you.” Alice looked away, she fidgeted with the handle and looked between Mad and March. CC lowered their cup onto the table with a notable snap! Controlled and deliberate the cup didn’t break, but it drew their attention back towards the angered feline. CC hardened their gaze and stared into Alice’s, waiting for her response. “So why did you leave in the first place? Why didn’t you just come back if it was so hard?”

“I was—“Alice started, stalled, she reflexively looked to March for help. He provided no solace. He sat with his back straight, face masked and unphased, taking a sip of tea before glancing up towards Alice. His eyes were calm yet a torrential storm in his grey eyes screamed at her to keep her lips sealed. Alice glanced back at Mad, hoping to find support in him, only for his gaze to dart in the opposite direction when their eyes met. 

“It must have been pretty important for you to leave so suddenly like that. I thought we we’re the most important thing to you back then?” CC jabbed their cup in Alice’s direction. Droplets of tea swashed from its lip before they took it back and downed the last drop.

“Oh, that’s not important!” Mad joyfully called to attention, attempting to smooth away the wrinkles of their moment. He raised his hands, lifting them past his shoulders to express the weightlessness of his lie, shrugging off the hurt they all had felt. “I’m sure she was just homesick.”

“Uh, yeah,” Alice stuttered, catching on to Mad’s redirection. “I was just homesick, you know?” Did he know? Alice tried to piece together the puzzle. Had he been issued a decree of silence as well?

“What’s really exciting is what life was like for you.” March chimed in, not allowing a moment where CC could power their way back into the conversation. “I want to hear more about that whole thing. What an incredibly rare discovery!”

“Well, let me start over, maybe I can explain this better.” Alice paused to collect her thoughts and took another swig, allowing the sweet bitterness to run down her tongue and into her throat; the fire of inhibition burning away her nervousness and worries. Her shoulders relaxed; she could breathe. Taking another moment to compose herself, she needed to appease everyone around the table. Avoid the information CC wanted, stay away from the information Mad didn’t want to hear, and avoid at all costs what March didn’t want her to say. A tango of deceit brewed between the reunited friends. A dance Alice wasn’t too familiar with, yet one she found herself leading.

“It was all very strange, you know? You remember, I’m sure. We tested it when I first started coming here. Leaving in and out of the rabbit hole.” Alice caught sight of the small finger cake on the tray of snacks. Grabbing it, she took a bite and allowed herself to feel much more casual in the conversation as they all intensely listened, hanging onto every one of her words. “Whenever I returned home—in the mortal world, ‘time’—moments recorded, hardly passed. A few days here, not even a blink of a moment there. But it wasn’t consistent either really. When I went back, I was a kid again, just like I had been when I first entered, because ‘time’ had hardly passed.”

The three looked on and waited for her to continue.

“My whole life here in Wonderland, it had only been a ‘week’ there.” Alice paused, remembering they used different words for the passing of days. “Seven cycles, can you believe it? They finally realized I was missing though. They had a whole search party looking for a missing kid in the woods! They thought I was good and dead. But there I was!” She laughed. Slowly, it faded until it dropped, and she paused in silence. Memories flooded into her mind from that day.

There was much she didn’t want to say, so she skipped over the details. “But I was so different you know? Not the same kid they were looking for. My brain had matured, and I wasn’t like the other kids anymore. So, I didn’t get along with them, and the adults didn’t like me because I acted strangely and not at all like a kid should. All that I had grown up to learn no longer applied to the mortal world, so I didn’t do well in school.

“Oh, but you know, there are some really cool things there too that aren’t here. Like technology is different. Social media, entertainment, cities and schools, the vehicles are different too, and I guess. You have some of that here. It’s not really is the exact same, similar but different.” Alice struggled to get the last of her words out as a new emotion wracked her body. Regardless of where she grew up, where she was, who she was with. Here, or there, either place, she didn’t belong.

I don’t belong anywhere. Her thoughts whispered with melancholy to her anxieties.

“Which place was more fun?” CC asked unamused.

“Oh, Wonderland for sure!” her face lit up with a smile. “Nothing really beats the fun that we had here. That’s all its own completely unique experience.”

“That still doesn’t explain it though.” CC continued, their voice filled with frustration, their eyes screamed sadness. “You must have liked it more for you to have been gone for so long, right?”

Not wanting to explain, Alice held her tongue. “It had its ups and downs for sure.” Her temperature began to rise, her heart beat stronger as the anger built up in her chest; ready to explode. She looked to March who began reaching towards CC in an effort to calm them but retracted his hand. Alice glanced in Mad's direction, who merely continued to sip on his tea in silence.

“Just tell us what kept you. Was it us? Was it Mad? Why didn’t you come back?” CC finally snapped.

“CC, that’s enough, she was just homesick and I’m sure she didn’t realize how long it had been. You heard what she said. Moments aren’t the same between here and there.” March reasoned, trying to calm the tension.

A heavy sigh billowed out from the feline, trying to flush the anger and resentment from their body. “You just had us worried is all. I—all of us—wanted to know where you went. We hoped you were okay, and that you went back to the mortal world. But if you did, what kept you from us? Why did you leave us? I just need to know.”

Alice's eyes washed across her friends. Mad had his eye sheltered away, looking preoccupied with a treat that was on the table. March had his hand up wanting to reach out to comfort CC but was too afraid to initiate contact. Alice felt her gut twine and twirl. Of course, she understood the worry they felt. She up and left one day without a word, and never came back. Years to her, she couldn't even fathom how long that is for immortal beings whose world sat outside the reach of time, space, and all logic.

Guilt and shame pressed heavily on her soul. Pressure swelling her body as all these emotions bubbled up inside her like a cauldron. A toxic combination that was threatening to spill. Boiling and steaming, changing her emotions, and turning them into anger; the toxic brew transformed her.

She didn’t want to say anything. She didn’t know what to say. To avoid what she couldn’t say. She didn’t want to make anyone feel bad, but she couldn’t hold back her truth anymore.

“I couldn’t come back.” It started as a low whisper. One that only she could hear.

“What was that, my dear?” Mad asked, leaning into her. Great, the last person she wanted even knowing this, was the only one who heard her.

“I couldn’t come back.” She said much louder. A hush fell over the group as her words reached the others. “No matter how hard I tried. No matter what I did, I couldn’t come back. I wanted to come back; I really did. I tried different days; I tried on birthdays and holidays. I tried year after year. I was ridiculed and mocked. I was the girl who made up a whole world. Created a whole life of make-believe friends to escape the one I had. I was put in therapy. I saw counselors. My mother and grandmother resented me. And eventually, I was convinced, I must have made it up right? I had no proof I didn’t. I couldn’t go back…so I must have made it up.” The words spilled from her mouth, each word held the weight of her own depression, something that had been toughened by resentment through the years.

“People thought I was crazy, and I started to believe it. All these things I remembered; I was told it was just the imagination of a broken child. A form of escapism, a destroyed mind.” Alice looked over at Mad, his face slacked.

“I don’t know why I couldn’t come back.” Alice said with venom in her breath, words directed towards CC. “So no, I didn’t stay because I wanted to. I had to, and I had to move forward with my life because this,” Alice raised her arms up, as if she could take all of Wonderland and wrap them in her embrace. “I didn’t think I would ever come back to THIS. I wasn’t even sure if THIS was real. And I’m still not even sure I SHOULD be here.” 

She pulled her arms down and crossed them at her chest, slumping down into her chair, wanting to hide. To become invisible. “But I finally got through, I don’t even remember what I did. And I’m here now.” She paused to collect her feelings. “Look, I’m sorry I worried you. But it’s not my fault and I wish you would stop treating me like it is.”

A deafening silence crushed the group, maligned, and mangled itself intrusively amongst their merriment. The only solace from the awkwardness, emanated from the quiet singing insects of the knight. Their rhythmic chirping danced into Mad’s brain and gave him an idea to uplift the spirits of the party.

With quick ease, floating from his spot at the hostile tea table, he pulled his chair behind him. Its legs dug slightly into the damp grassy ground; his sudden graceful action caught the attention of the others. Their eyes traced his every movement as he plopped the chair down only a few strides away from the table.

He took two big steps up, his long legs agile and nimble, pulling himself onto the chair, towering over the party.

“Ahem,” he said, coughing into his fist. He straightened his back, locked his legs together and portrayed a character from a scene. The lights glistened off his body, shining reflectively off his tanned skin. His eyes glowed fluorescently against the night sky, shimmering and merging with the twinkling lights filled with imagination. Lights swarmed the group of friends like a crowd of fireflies ready to revel in the show with curtains raised.