Page 35 of Madness
“But she lost her head because of you, Alice. You should suffer.”
Queenie giggles manically inside of my head,“She is dead, dead, dead!”
Ignoring the two voices in my head, I focus my attention on the warden as I desperately try to ignore how they both scream into my mind.
“You’re right. I guess I felt like I shouldn’t be allowed to grieve for her because of what I have done.”
“Grief is funny, Al. There is no correct way to cope with it.”
“But I killed her…” I say for the first time out loud, shocking myself.
The warden nods again, his onyx hair falling over his face, “You did, but I’ve read the files. I know…”
He doesn’t say anything more, but he doesn’t have to.
I forcefully place the cup down on his desk and stand. “Thank you for telling me, but I have therapy,” I excuse myself, making a hasty retreat from the room and having to physically restrain myself from running from his office.
I’m too focused on my escape that I narrowly avoid bumping into an excited Hare who rushes past me into the warden’s office.
“Wocky!” he shouts, slamming the door behind him.
“Al?” Red appears before me, and I startle. I'm too lost in my mind as it tumbles and spirals into the madness that got me sent here, “Come on,” she coaxes, her warm hand wrapping around my much colder one, leading me down the hallways back to her room.
Harry leaves his room as we arrive, and he takes in my ashen parlour, “Wits happened?”
“I do not know,” Red explains how she found me, and Harry follows us into Red’s space, not waiting for an invitation.
“Sit,” Red gestures to her bed with her head, and I hesitate.
It is an intimate thing to sit where she lays at night.
“Just sit doon,” Harry sighs, his hand gripping my shoulder and pulling me down to sit with him on the plush mattress.
It’s silent for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say, and I take comfort in the fact that they are both here with me, even if only for a moment.
They didn’t need to comfort me. Everyone in Wonderland has issues, and they are normally best left to deal with alone.
Some became violent when I tried to approach them to see if they were okay, and I learned that Wonderland is nothing like I thought it would be.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Red asks me.
Her eyes are sincere as she sits on the floor, her back resting against the bloody mural on her wall.
She says nothing else, and neither does Harry, who is waiting for me to talk.
“Go on, tell them what you did, Alice. Tell them that you killed thee, Alice. Tell them howyou took her life, and you watched her eyelids blink once, then twice until her muchness left her.”
“Shut up,” I hiss, “I did not mean to kill her.”
“Kill who?” Harry asks. He leans forward, his beanie falling over his eyes briefly. He corrects it, resting his elbows on his knees, and stares at me expectantly, “Are yi a killer, not Alice? Will yi kill us?”
“Harry!” Red gasps.
“No…”
“Naw?” Harry says, “Naw, wit? Naw, yi areni a killer? Naw, yi willnae kill us? What naw are yi referring to?”
“Harry, stop!” Red shouts, growing angry, “We promised never to judge in here. Wonderland is so fucking messed up that we sometimes do not know the true reality we are in.”
