A/N: Wow that took long enough. Thanks for the reviews guys. It shouldn't take me too long to put up another chapter but I have a bunch of projects that are getting close to due so it may abe a week or so. Thanks again.

Alice

Caine was right, there was something out there. Whatever it was it wasn’t very big and it wasn’t moving in a straight line either.

I realized what it was before Caine, “Oh my god! It’s a kid!” I yelled and bolted to the door and out into the rain.

She saw me coming and her eyes widened in surprise. “Alice!” She fell to the ground. I had never seen this kid before in my life and she was pretty weird. She had straight black hair and had on a weird red dress and no shoes. She looked pretty messed up and her arm was in bad shape. There was no way she could be any more than twelve or thirteen.

Caine had followed me and scooped her up and we took her back in the house.

Caine laid her on the couch. Her eyes fluttered and she reached for her head with her less hurt arm. I sat beside her and put my hand to her head. She was so very cold.

“I’ll call the hospital, keep her calm.” Caine went to my kitchen where the phone was.

“It’s okay sweetie your safe now,” I said gently stroking her head.

She groaned, “For now we are.”

Caine came back into the room with a sour expression on his face, “The phones are down, we’ll have to take her to the hospital, come on my truck is out front.”

“No time, no time! We are already so very late!” The girl started freaking out. She pushed me away and kept trying to sit up. She grabbed my hand, “Alice I came all this way, I need your help, CC is gone and people are gone!”

“Woh slow down sweetie, now can you tell me where you come from? What’s your name? What’s your phone number so I can call your mom.”

“Fat chance; what do you mean call her? I’m not sure she would hear you from here, but I’ve never been here so I don’t know.”

She was making no sense, “Do you have a name?”

“Libra. I’m the princess of hearts and I’ve come all the way here to get you. I need your help in a bad way.”

“How do you know me? I’ve never seen you in my life! Where did you come from?”

She looked at me a little stunned. “Wonderland of course, I’d think you of all people would know a Wonderlander when you saw one.”

“Wonderland? Uh sweetie your very cold right now, you’re a little sick why don’t you lie back.”

“We don’t have time! Don’t you understand? CC has gone missing, no one has seen him for months! I came because I thought you could help me!” She was angry. “Gee fat lot of good you’re going to do me! Do you even remember Wonderland? You were maybe my age when you were there last?”

“Alice? What is she talking about?” Caine was looking over my shoulder holding Trouble. Libra’s eyes widened and she got up fast and snatched Trouble from Caine.

“CC is that you?!” She yelled. “My chaos, you’re a cat! An earth cat no less! Can you still disappear? Oh that doesn’t matter at all! CC Wonderland is going to pieces without you! What happened! Why are you here! Wait, how are you here? If you were gone for that long you would have faded by now!”

She continued babbling away at Trouble.

Caine leaned over to me, “She is nuts.”

“You’re not kidding.” Libra said. “We’re all mad here.”

My mind was in turmoil, this girl was claiming that Wonderland existed. I had read Lewis Carol’s diary. My mind refused to even examine the possibility that I wasn’t the one who had been to Wonderland and that maybe she had confused me with my ancestor.

“Libra,” I started cautiously, “Can you sit down for a moment? Before we talk anymore I want to get that arm bound up if you please.”

“Sure,” she sat down and stroked Trouble.

I hurried and got some gauze and antiseptic from the bathroom cupboard.

“How do you feel?” I asked her and I set out the stuff on the table.

“Really sick to my stomach but I think it’s all to do with my being here in the first place. See we’re not supposed to leave Wonderland and if we do somehow manage to get out we start to fade, we die; but only if you’re here for a while. Same thing happens in Wonderland, those who aren’t like us get sick and die. Well that’s what happens unless you can find a rare human with a chaotic aura to bond with.” She paused a moment and smacked herself in the head, “Of Course! CC bonded with this kid!” She pointed at Caine, “That’s why he hasn’t faded!” She turned her attention back to Trouble, “Good thinking!”

I wetted a cloth with antiseptic and pressed it to her cut, “YEOUCH!” She jumped. “What the logic was that for?”

“To clean your cut.” I said. I looked at the cut itself now that it was clean. It was a set of three claw marks pretty deep and strange. The skin around the edges of them was transparent. I wrapped it up and put the metal bone on it to hold it in place.

I straightened up. “Caine, I think you had better take Trouble and go home.”

“And leave you here with the crazy girl? Not on your life!”

“You can’t take CC! I have to bring him home!” She protested.

“Wonderland isn’t real!” I finally snapped at her, “You are crazy!”

She looked a little shocked but said carefully, “I know I’m mad, I came from Wonderland, we’re all mad.” She seemed a little angry at having to reiterate what she’d said earlier.

“You can’t have come from Wonderland, if doesn’t exist!” I yelled.

“Yes it does! You were there! How can you not remember?”

“I’ve never been to Wonderland I just look like the girl who has! I have the same name! She died a long time ago! I’M NOT HER!” The roof was shaking when I finished.

“She’s dead? How could she be? It’s only been a few years.” Libra seemed to be pondering this to herself. I went to my mother’s box and pulled the lid open roughly. I grabbed the weathered copy of Alice in Wonderland and shoved it under her nose. She took it with much curiosity.

“Wow she must have not liked Madison much; he looks like a complete weirdo here.” Libra flipped through the book to the pictures.

“Who?” Caine went to look over her shoulder.

“Oh right, I guess you guys call him the mad hatter but his name is Madison. He doesn’t like people to know that though,” she giggled.

“Right.” Caine leaned over towards me as Libra went off on a tangent, “We should maybe get a rope or a sweater to tie her up with. I’ll give you my keys and you can get the truck started.”

I glared at him, “No, you will go home,” I marched over to Libra and yanked Trouble out of her lap and handed him to Caine, “You will take him, and you will forget all about this.”

“No, no, no, NO! You have to help me! I came all this way and it might already be too late!” Her red brown eyes were all watery while she was looking up at me.

“Look Libra I’m sorry I have no idea whether you’re crazy or I’m crazy or we’re both a little over the deep end but-”

“Your name, what is it?” She cut me off.

“Alice, I told you that already didn’t I?”

“Your last name.”

“Carol.”

“The guy who wrote the book.” It was a statement not a query.

“Look it’s probably just some sort of coincidence-”

“No such thing.” Her voice was final. “There is no such this as coincidence it’s all just Wonderland logic, you’ve only to look at it from an angle you can’t comprehend.”

“Well then how do I understand your logic if I can’t see how you’re going about finding it?”

“Logic doesn’t exist in Wonderland there is nothing to get it won’t make any sense no matter how you look at it, heck two plus two equals fish but only on Tuesdays in April. I haven’t even figured out how that one works yet, and I won’t because Wonderland isn’t sense, it’s non-sense. In this way it makes no sense to us in any case so all you can really do is hang the sense and embrace the fact you could be walking upside down.” She finished her rant and I was awestruck.

Something had clicked in my head and suddenly what she was saying made sense in a way that I still had no idea what she was talking about.

She saw that we were more or less on the same chaotic wavelength and she broke into an odd grin not unlike the one still affixed to Trouble’s face.

Caine seemed to sense the odd charge that had sparked between us at that moment and laid a firm hand on my shoulder.

“Alice, I’ll say it one last time, she is crazy.”

I smiled for some reason, “I know.”

Suddenly the wind began to howl outside. It battered at the windows and I heard the storm reach a whole new pitch. It seemed as if it was trying to rip the house open.

“Alice,” Caine’s voice was edgy, “I don’t like this, something feels very wrong.” Trouble was no longer smiling. His lip had curled over and he was emitting a low rumble from deep inside his chest.

Libra grabbed her arm all of a sudden and started screaming, “It Hurts! It Hurts! Alice Help!”

I grabbed her arm and tore the cloth off and saw her wound was boiling around the edges, becoming dark purple with a sickly undertone of green.

“Hang in there hun, I’m going to go get some more antibiotics.”

“Honestly Alice I don’t think we have time for that, this house is going to come down any minute!” Caine yelled. As if on cue the house swayed and I heard a snapping from upstairs, the roof was giving way.

“I’ll be right back!” I yelled and dashed upstairs to my room. I grabbed a backpack and stuffed in whatever my gut instinct told me to, this included the bit of mirror the red doll and the envelope.

I made it to the bathroom cupboard and took out the gauze and was reaching for the other bottles when I heard Caine shout from downstairs.

I abandoned my task and ran towards the stairs stopping short at my room. I dashed in and grabbed the sword off the mantle as well in an afterthought.

The backpack on my shoulders and sword in hand I bolted down the stairs and not a moment too soon. I heard the roof fall in behind me.

I reached them and saw Libra still clutching her arm sobbing with pain. Caine and Trouble were standing at the door. Caine had an umbrella in his hand and was beating at something on the floor occasionally. Trouble was hissing and spitting and digging his claws deep into whatever it was as well. I saw a shadow crawl underneath the door like a snake and Caine hit it with the umbrella. I stepped forward pressing the hilt into his hand.

“This might do a little better.” I said. Next I ran to my mother’s box and began ripping through it.

I grabbed Lewis Carol’s Diary and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Under that I found something else. A strange little ornate box. On a whim I grabbed it as well.

The whole house swayed at that moment and Caine retreated from the door with Trouble. It creaked and swayed and I could hear the walls coming apart and the timbers cracking.

Canie ran over grabbing Libra on the way and crushed us all together in his vice grip and pulled us under the door frame and pulled us down low.

“Everybody hang on!” He ordered. Then the most horrible sawing and breaking sound of all came. It drowned out Libra’s crying and the screaming of the storm.

I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face against Caine. Everything was coming down around us pieces of timber and pipe fell not two feet away from us.

Wood fell into our midst and buried us.

Then the screaming of the storm consumed our ears again and I opened my eyes.

We all got up but I had to help Libra stand. Caine stood protectively the sword held tight in his white knuckled hands.

Trouble was still spiting and in the dark torrents rain I could make out something behind us.

“Caine behind you!”

He whipped around and the shape became more solid. It looked like a teaming mass of filth and shadow. It oozed and I felt my stomach turn.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Libra announced. She turned away for a moment retching.

“What is that thing?” Caine asked.

The rain poured down but it was not enough to wash the monster away.

Libra grabbed my arm. “That’s the thing that got me in the hall of beginnings, or at least part of it. So Alice it’s now or never. Wonderland or death.”

I was convinced. I grabbed Caine’s arm and Libra scooped Trouble with her good arm and she pulled us all into the night.