Amnesia clouded most of Alice’s life in shadows and mysteries. However, in a downward spiral of events, her past comes back with a vengeance. In just one night, Alice catapults into a battle of good and evil to save a world, Wonderland, that might have the answers to her past. Her only key to success is a riddle and her ability to be quick on her feet. Will she be able to save Wonderland in time from the forces of evil and reclaim her past, or will she falter and become a puppet in someone else’s grand master plan?
Amnesia clouded most of Alice’s life in shadows and mysteries. However, in a downward spiral of events, her past comes back with a vengeance. In just one night, Alice catapults into a battle of good and evil to save a world, Wonderland, that might have the answers to her past. Her only key to success is a riddle and her ability to be quick on her feet. Will she be able to save Wonderland in time from the forces of evil and reclaim her past, or will she falter and become a puppet in someone else’s grand master plan?
The sound of my heart thrummed with the force of a thousand hooves. Its tremendous pounding put quite the beating on my inner ear. Along with my heavy breathing, sirens—loud wailing horns—screamed out into the night air. “Luke!” I yelled; my throat scratched raw from overuse. “Where in the hell are you!?” I turned into a dark alley where I hid from a horde of police units heading my way. It was after scrambling behind a trash bin that I found him. My eyes landed on an unsettling scene unfolding down in the alley’s shadowy enclave. Light from a window above coated the wet strands of Luke’s curled brown hair with a flickering blue light. His curls soaked by rain plastered firmly to his face. Another man, who was much taller and had an enormous frame, held Luke by the neck of his charcoal gray sweatshirt. The faded rabbit silhouette printed on the sleeve of his dingy red hoody gave the towering man away. There was only one person in the world I knew who wore a custom hoody like that. It was memorable, primarily, when the other sleeve’s cuff reveals the rabbit’s body.
“Severed head,” I remembered him explaining. A coy grin exposed this twisted darkness that made his odd-colored eyes shimmer; he continued, “Down with the Monarchy.”
“Let him go, Rodrick,” I pleaded with a voice that may not have been loud enough for a mouse to hear. I felt the world turn as his name lurched like vomit straight from the pit of my stomach. I had trouble getting to my feet as they wobbled with each move. Perhaps it was because I had stopped moving after running for so long. It took everything I had to break free from the fog weighing me down. In the mix of breaking free, my hands clawed at Rodrick’s shoulder. He jerked away from my multiple attempts to pull Luke from his grasp. Eventually, frustrated and fueled with anger, Rodrick turned to me briefly and shoved me into the pile of scattered trash metal bins. “Stay out of this, Alice!” he barked. The man held me hostage with a wild, almost deranged stare. His Scottish accent curled thick around his words as he continued, “Just stay the fuck out of this.” My breath hitched as all my senses zeroed in on the unspoken threat his tone imposed. There were no sirens, and even the rain around us went dead to the ear. Rodrick turned back to Luke. The muscles of his back noticeably coiled and tensed.
He was already shaking and threatening the man in a low growl before I had found my barrings. “Rodrick?” I whispered. His name fell limp in the distance between us, broken. “Rodrick…,” I tried again, my voice adopted a stuttering tremble, “It’s not his fault…,” My eyes shivered up the man’s body. Tears were overflowing by the time they had settled at the back of his inclined hooded head. “He’s not the reason we’re in this God-forsaken mess…,” my words formed a bit stronger this time. I worked my way to my feet again. My hands were already reaching for both of them. The tips of my fingers grazed the worn fibers of Rodrick’s hoody. Perhaps triggered by anti-nostalgic links, memories flashed over one another, causing a wave of raging anger to build inside me. “Rodrick,” both heat and volume bore a sense of authority in my voice, “you damn bastard! Look at me!” I yanked and shoved the man; my shaking fist gathered clumps of his hoody.
“Fuck!” Rodrick cursed. He threw Luke to the side and whirl around to deal with me. “Damn it to hell,” he growled. The man gathered me up in a death grip. His thick fingers dug into my shoulders like a predator’s claws into its prey. As my feet dangled and I leveled at eye height with him, the rain’s chill and the wind’s wintery presence quenched the already shrinking fire that had been my anger.
In a small voice, I begged, “Please. . .” More tears cascade down my cheeks. Rodrick’s features softened, but there was nothing tender about it. A wolfish grin replaced his angry scowl. He settled me on my feet, and with a calloused thumb, the man wiped away an escaped tear.
“I like this,” his reddish-purple eyes roamed my face, “You should be malleable like this more often.” Rodrick licked his lips and leaned forward. The stench of burnt toast and cold cigarette butts rotted away in his breath. My hands were slow in protecting me from his approaching lips; however, Luke gasping in pain saved me in the end. Rodrick sucked his teeth. He let me go with an unintended shove and then pivots on the balls of his feet as he turned back to Luke.
“N-No,” I stammered. Rodrick had pulled a gun from his waistband. A battle between a need to protect my friend and the instinct to protect oneself from bodily harm induced a physical struggle. It left my hands to jerk back and forths between reaching for the weapon and swaddling myself in a tight self-embrace. “You…you c-can’t,” I cried, tears swallowed each word more than the last, “…Please, don’t…,”
Rodrick scoffed. The gun fell limp to his side as laughter rippled through his bulbous frame. “I don’t want to have to kill yah, too, Alice,” he said. He turned to look at me. The red in his eyes grew in dominance and seemed to warm his gaze. He smirked then chuckled a little. “I love yah too much, ya know,” he clutched his chest as if he had been shot in the heart, “Understand? So much, I love you. To death and beyond.”
“He’s…he’s our f-friend,” I glossed over his confession, “It was just…just a job. There,” I had to pause and let go of a pocket of air that had built in my chest; I swallowed and then continued, “ There will always be others.” A hysterical chortle turned the corners of his mouth.
“Luke, this! Luke that! Fuck Luke! Look only at me, Alice,” he pleaded, the side of his gun pressed to his chest. He continued in a soft voice, his Scottish accent thickened in his frustration, “Just look at me, Alice. Just look only at me, lass.”
“…Only a job,” that was the reply I could muster. Eyes turned down; I focused on controlling a tremor that race from head to toe. “Others…,” I went on.
Rodrick’s frustrated growl drowned out my following words. He kicked a metal trash can. A black cat hidden nearby hissed and dashed away. A resident from one of the windows above cursed and threatened for us to be quiet. “Alright,” he said somber, “fuck my love? Fine. But the job? No. That was THEE job, Alice. And Luke here,” Rodrick aimed the gun down at my friend, “Luke here, royally fucked up.”
“We can find o-others,” I repeated. My eyes had stopped taking in information and blurred in and out. The man stepped closer. His shoulder dipped into his gate. I closed my eyes as Rodrick touched foreheads with me. My lungs squeezed as they struggled to inhale that stale and progressively rotting breath of his.
“We had the book in our hands,” Rodrick said, swallowing his anger, “Right here,” he gestured as if he held the thick leather-bound still. “But just one look at it, and he gets all noble about it,” Rodrick laughed. The man rocked back on his heels. “This isn’t right!” Rodrick mocked in a feigned high voice, “Not right? His job is to hack and steal, not make a moral judgment.”
“H-he was just trying to do the right thing,” I championed to Luke’s defense. All the jobs Rodrick ever brought us were sketchy. Each had increasingly become a moral dilemma that disbanded our group little by little. The only reason I hadn’t left before now was because of Luke. He held Rodrick in such high esteem, and I couldn’t just leave him and abandon him to June’s psychotic care. However, with it ending with the three of us—June, Luke, and I—this last job took the cake. Something about it felt unnerving, almost like we had just desecrated sacred ground beyond anyone could perceive. I sensed it, and so did Luke. Looking down into his paling face and apparent signs of deep bruising and broken bones, Luke ended up paying a hefty price for finally seeing the truth of things.
“I have to fix this,” Rodrick went on, “And to do that, I have to tie up loose ends.” I raise my gaze in just enough time to watch as Rodrick unloads his gun into Luke’s chest. The man tilts his head raises the gun higher. “For good measures,” he stated and then shot between Luke’s bulging eyes.
“What the hell is wrong with you!” I cried. My body lurched toward Luke. My hands hovered over the wounds as if they could heal the fatal infliction. “Luke,” I cried.
“Well, that takes care of that,” Rodrick clicked his tongue. Despite my protest, he yanked Luke from my hold. “Enough of that,” he ordered; his words were sour.
“No! No! No!” I cried. I grabbed and yanked on Luke, but nothing I did would bring him back to me.
“Dammit, Alice,” Rodrick exclaimed. He shoved me into a puddle of stagnant water. A minor scrape drew blood from my palms. I gathered myself up and once again fought to wrestle Luke from Rodrick. My efforts were only met with being shoved again and again into the piles of bagged trash. Rodrick mumbled agitatedly under his breath. In my head, I could hear a small voice scream, demanding me to run. But not an ounce of its urgency formed into a command my body could follow. I continued to fight for Luke until finally forced to lay there frozen; Rodrick stood over me with the gun drawn. Luke had been hastily shoved into a lidless trash bin. “Now listen here, Alice,” he said, “It’s over. Now, it’s just you and me.” His gaze wavered between caring and a sense of privileged expectation as he lowered his gun and then stretched out one hand in offering. My eyes narrowed down to the callouses on his hand.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from his hand. In a low even voice, I said, “I’d rather turn myself in. Leave myself to the mercy of the law, then go anywhere else with a monster like you.” I smacked his hand away; my feet were already beneath me and on the move. I ran for the alley’s mouth. I turned over trash cans and grabbed a crowbar as I went. Behind me, I heard him stumble and then curse. I turned in the harbor’s direction, where we had a boat, a small dingy, to use as a getaway when the job was done. Now racing down the dock, I nearly slipped on fish guts someone left to rot.
“Alice!” Rodrick yelled. He fired what was meant to be a warning shot; however, the bullet almost hits me in the shoulder. I dodged behind one of the short stubby wooden pillars used to tether the boats to the Brighton Marina. “I see ya, Alice. Why don’t ya come on out and play with me? We can have a bit of fun, ya ken, like old times.” His footsteps were getting closer to where I was hiding. My mind began to race as it tried to think of a solution to get out of this mess. When my eyes glanced over the dark, murky seawater of the Channel, I thought I saw a dark hooded figure emerged from the rippled surface. Its cloaked face watched while an extended hand reached out to. Before a decision could be made on my part, it disappeared. A big glob of something was making it a bit hard to swallow right now. Torn between that thing and Rodrick, the wheels in my head began to turn at hyper speed.
“Rodrick or creepy thing? Rodrick or creepy thing? Rodrick or creepy thing?” I asked myself repeatedly, the question asked faster each time. It took Rodrick’s ever-growing near voice to settle my internal debate. “Thank God I’m not a rock,” I whispered to myself.
“Alice?” he called again, “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt ya.” He stopped by a boat not too far from where I was. At that moment, my mind was made up, and if I didn’t get moving now, little old me would be done in by Rodrick. Maybe worse than Luke had been. With that resolution, I swung my legs over the edge, and at a gradual pace, I made sure that I didn’t make a sound as my feet dipped into the water. My breath caught in my throat as the cold paralyzed me. I took in a few breaths before ducking my head underwater into total darkness. Because there was no light, my hands reached out for the dock’s pillars to propel myself forward and pray that I make it to my desired destination. The plan was to stay submerged down there for seconds at a time and get far enough away as humanly possible. I managed a good five boats down from my previous location before taking a moment to listen in on Rodrick’s current position. I broke through the surface a few times along the way.
I took that moment to catch my breath. The air was still. Nothing, not even one sound except that of the water, and my breathing disturbed the silence. Moving by doggy paddle, I made my way around a small ski boat. On the other side of it was our dingy. I stopped, listened one more time, then, with all the willpower I could muster, I climbed into the boat. It rocked violently as my weight was added unevenly into its unsteady frame.
I sat there in the boat for a moment. My hands felt icy due to my late-night dip. Alert, I turned around to untether the vessel from the dock. I had almost had it free when the sound of a gun clicked. I froze. “Hello there, Alice,” he said, “Ain’t it fancy meet’n yah here.” I looked up to see Rodrick; he had a sly grin on his face. “Now come along, love,” he said. He puts the gun on safety, then tucked it in his waistband.
“Like hell!” I thought. With haste, I finished untying the boat.
“What the—!?” he said, a bit panicked. The fear of me succeeding at escaping was all over his face. He struggled to get the gun tucked in the back of his pants. He cursed under his breath the entire time. Using his fumbling to my advantage, I pushed the boat out into free water. I was two lucky pennies away from the clutches of this demon, but that was yanked away when his fingers fastened into the long black locks of my crown. “Well, I don’t think we’re gonna be doing that now, love.” The corners of his mouth inched up his face. “Come along wi’ me,” he cooed and then pulled me out of the boat. He dragged me through the brief span of water between us before tossing me into the air. “To make sure ya don’t run away,” he said and then threw me on the dock. I tried to scramble to my feet, he continued, “Oh no, no, not this time, my dear, ” he swung his leg over me and sat upon my stomach. The rough pads of his big calloused meaty hands abused the soft skin of my neck as his fingers closed around its circumference.
“Ack! Rodr—!” I struggled to say as breathing grew into an impossible task. He began to say something, but I couldn’t hear it. His words reported more like sounds that didn’t make sense. I reached out, trying to touch him, but then everything went black.
In the darkness, a voice cleared and said, “The sand has drained! There is little left. The bonds are broken, our agent of greed, unite the hearts of Wonderland, or there will be sorrow days forever tomorrow.”
Alice Keller is running for her very life from Rodrick, a psychopathic man whose control she's under. She just witnessed him murder her best friend and she knows that unless she can escape his clutches, she'll be next on his grim hit-list. As she mounts her daring escape from the ramshackle cabin he's bound her in, she injures her leg and discovers another victim of Rodrick's sadistic games. Steeling her nerve, she waits, hidden under the cabin, until she hears him leave, before she stumbles out and makes her slow way to the nearest town. She's almost at a safe place, surrounded by other people, when Roderick appears at the far end of the street - and with renewed panic, she runs blindly away. Only to run into something with so much force, she's knocked out.
When she comes too, she realises she's 'Not in England, anymore.' In fact, she's somehow under water, but able to breathe. Nor is she injured. As she makes her way to the lakes surface, it begins to dawn on her that she's somewhere else entirely; her suspicions confirmed by a man calling himself The Hatter, when he welcomes her to Wonderland.
This was an incredible take on the Lewis Carroll classic - and as someone who hales from Cheshire (as in the Cheshire Cat), I love pretty much anything Wonderland related, although I can be pretty skeptical when it comes to reimagined versions of the tale. Alice Keller and the Return to Wonderland did not, in anyway disappoint, though.
We're introduced to Alice in a prologue that could have come straight out of a thriller. The descriptions were vivid and bright, as well as being obscure enough to whet the interest of the reader; what happened to her? Why is she so vacant? Who is the hooded figure? It's almost chilling in it's approach. Then the opening chapters give vibes of violence, coercion and control, building the action quickly and fluently, providing a reason for Alice's determination to run away and her need for some form of sanctuary. Which Wonderland provides.
Brown has written a fantastic, thrilling reimagined Alice for young adults looking for a slightly frightening and intriguing version of a classic novel.
S. A.