Madness Becomes Her

Chapter 1 The Earth Swallows

CHAPTER ONE

THE EARTH SWALLOWS

Pulling my rolling bag behind me, I catch the toe of my shoe on a crack in the asphalt. Rage burns through my chest as I sniffle and try to hail a car.

My phone pings with yet another text from Jonathan, no doubt begging me to come back and work things out. But after finding him with his secretary’s cunt in his mouth while he sat behind his desk like he owned London and could do as he pleased at noon on random Thursday, I’m through.

“Alright, miss?” the doorman asks, studying me.

“I’m fine. I just need a car. I have to get out of here.”

“I’m afraid you won’t find one right now. Weather’s too nasty.”

Rain pelts the ground, the chill of a London spring curling around me as the wind blows.

“I could call for a car, miss. Come in out of the weather, and I’ll have you out of here in a jiff.”

“No. I can’t stay here. I’ll just… I’ll walk.”

“In this? Madam, you won’t make it far. Come on, I’ll put on some tea for ya.”

Anxiety has my heart beating wildly. Jonathan’s upstairs, most likely making his way down here as we speak.

While I’m no sucker, he knows I have nowhere to go. He’ll use that fact to get me to come home.

My family can barely take care of themselves, let alone take me back at thirty.

“No. I can’t,” I whisper, allowing my anxious nature to overtake my good sense as I bolt, tugging my bag behind me as rain pours over me in droves.

Making it down to Dulwich Wood takes me hours, and there I find shelter. Though the rain has slackened off a bit now.

Even so, I find an old ruin and perch against it. There, I let my tears fall.

I also check my eighty-five missed calls and texts from Jonathan before tossing my phone across the floor.

Thinking better of it as the patter of rain picks up again, I sniffle and crawl over to it.

Fuck Jonathan, and fuck this predicament I got myself into.

Hand on my phone, I freeze as the earth shifts beneath me.

“What the—?”

Scrambling backward, I squeal when the ground continues to roar at me as if I’ve disturbed its peace by bringing my problems into its midst.

My phone vibrates, forgotten in my hand. I grip the ruins behind me with the other, trying to steady my heart.

I close my eyes, praying to a god I don’t know if I believe in any longer until the shaking stops.

Sighing, I open my eyes when the woods go silent around me.

Odd.

A handful of feet before me, a hole has opened up.

Cocking my head, I eye it questioningly before pocketing my phone and standing to inspect it.

Dark is clawing its way through the woods, making it hard to see just how deep the hole is.

“You there!” a man shouts, and I startle, flicking my gaze up to a police officer who’s got a light in one hand and a radio in the other. “Stay where you are! It’s after hours. You’re not allowed in here!”

I swallow as I look for an escape route. My bag is too far to grab and get away, but he sees me eyeing my options and picks up his pace.

“You’re not in any trouble. You just can’t stay here, Miss. Come on, don’t make this hard on me.”

I open my mouth to reply when a hand comes from the hole before my feet and wraps around my ankle.

“What the fu—”

“Miss!”

My feet pull out from beneath me, and then I’m dragged backward down the hole.

“No! Please! Let me go!”

My screams echo as the hole opens, and then I’m free-falling through nothingness.

Somewhere, a clock is ticking. Time passes as the world falls away from me.

I stop screaming, still falling, but too tired to keep my fear at such an intense level.

Looking around me, I realize objects are floating in the air, flying past me.

I see playing cards, teapots with tea spilling from their spouts, teacups, and pocket watches. The scent of cinnamon and earth invades my nose, with hints of orange and florals.

A blue light becomes visible below. At first, it’s just a pinprick, but then it grows larger and larger still.

Fear spirals through me like water circles a drain, and I flail my arms and legs to slow my momentum.

It doesn’t help.

Closer and closer to the light, I drop before I halt two inches before a checkered floor.

Relieved, I fall to the floor in a huff.

I take a moment to take stock of my body. I’m alright.

Pulling my phone out, I nearly sob when I find it shattered from the fall. Even so, there’s no signal whatsoever.

I fell for what felt like ages, and it took a solid minute before I realized I was in a room.

The walls are dark, and vines crawl up them like spiders. The checkered floor is covered in dirt.

There’s a table in the middle of the room with all kinds of beakers and bottles, each with tags and writing.

Curious.

Standing, I dust myself off. There’s no use. I’m covered in muck. At least my endless fall had dried my clothes, though my hair has seen better styling.

Walking over to the table, I stop and read each tag.

Some are written in a language I don’t understand.

A card on the table says: Take what you need.

“What do I need?” I ask myself, feeling foolish for uttering it aloud.

Thinking of all the shit that happened the last few days, I focus on how much I need to just find the right person—the person who’s going to treat me like a princess.

A bottle glows on the table as if it’s heard my thoughts. The tag suddenly changes, transforming into English before my very eyes.

Drink me.

Looking up, I realize there’s no way I’m getting out of here. But the logical side of my brain is screaming at me to find a way.

“I can’t drink the contents of some magical bottle that’s been rotting underground for who knows how long, right?” I say aloud again, feeling madder by the second.

Licking my parched lips, I grab the bottle.

It cools in my hand, only making my mouth water.

“Oh, fuck it. What more could honestly happen to me today?”

Pulling the wood topper out, I give the contents an appreciative whiff.

It smells like caramel, but it’s fizzy…

Shrugging, I toss it back, moaning at the delicate flavors on my tongue.

A latent buzzing worms through my body as the fermented drink lulls me into a complacent state.

“Yum!” I eye the empty bottle longingly, wishing there’d been more.

The world around me rumbles, and I drop the glass.

Its shattering makes me jump back.

There’s nothing to hold on to this time. Nowhere to go.

If the ceiling collapses…

Turning, I find a door.

That wasn’t there before.

I flick my eyes between the broken bottle and the door, wondering if it had been some kind of elixir.

No. Things like that don’t exist, Eleanor. Stop being insane.

But… people also don’t fall through the earth and land in random rooms with magical bottles, either.

In another moment of fuck it, I grab the door handle, open it, and walk through.

On the other side stands a rabbit.

I say stands because he’s on his back two feet.

There’s a monocle in one of his eyes. He’s thumping one of his feet rather quickly, and he’s eyeing a gold pocket watch, shaking his head.

“Ahh, there you are. Right on time. Good. I don’t like a dilly-dally.”

“Excuse me? On time for what?”

“Why, tea time, of course?”

“Tea?”

“Come, come. We must make haste. Hatter doesn’t like late arrivals. They make him positively furious!”

It takes a moment before I realize I’m speaking to a fucking rabbit. The rabbit is in an overcoat with no pants on.

Do rabbits need pants?

Shit, now I sound insane.

“Sir, how could I be on time for something I wasn’t invited to?”

“Pish posh. Of course you were invited, Eleanor. Now, come, follow me. We don’t have time for idle chat.”

My feet move one in front of the other, and I follow behind him before I know what the hell I’m doing.

“Sir! Wait up!” I shout as we enter thick, ominous-looking woods, and I lose track of him before me.

“Keep up! Keep up!” I hear, but I slow as eyes track me from all around. “Hatter won’t be kind if you’re not on time!”

The interior of the wood is confusing, almost as if its design was meant to befuddle the mind.

Signs on the trees read directions that directly conflict with one another.

One says to go this way, the other says to go that.

Roundabouts in the path remind me of home, but I don’t know how to get through them without clear directions.

“Sir,” I whimper, wrapping my arms around myself as I keep to the path, hoping it’ll lead me back to him.

Glowing eyes from every branch watch my ascent through the woods.

Just when the first trickle of fear slides down my throat, the rabbit comes from nowhere and grabs my wrist. “We mustn’t dally in the Cheshire Wood; the trees like flesh.”

Tugging me along, my world speeds up as I struggle to keep up with the massive rabbit.

All the while, he’s muttering to himself. “We’re late. Fuddlywack, we’re late. I haven’t been late in fifty-two Fridays! He’s going to box my ears. He’s going to cut off my foot.”

“He’ll do no such thing,” I reply, shocking the rabbit. I don’t know who he is, but I won’t allow someone to harm him when I caused his tardiness.

“You’re new here. You don’t know him yet.”

“But I will. And I won’t let him box your ears or cut off your foot.”

“You’re a true friend, Eleanor,” the rabbit replies as we finally step out of the wood and into the warmth of sunshine.

Sunshine?

We’re miles below the Earth. How in the world could there be…

Hands slam down on a table, and cups go flying. Creatures around the table are shaking, some anxiously chewing their nails as a surly man stands at the table’s head. “You are late, Lewis!”

“I know. I am so very sorry. I’m always on time. Always on time, you know that. It was only that Eleanor had a fright, and the trees were hungry…”

“Shut up!” the man shouts, covering his ears. “You know I hate chatter. Can’t handle chatter. Have enough of my own!”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

I clear my throat, standing my ground as I let go of Lewis’s hand. “Excuse me, sir. It was my fault. I was afraid and…”

He lifts his hand, his neck craning as if to clear it of tension. “It’s no matter now. You’re here. You are right on time.”

“I am?” I squeak.

Lewis heaves a breath beside me. “Oh, thank heaven. We’re on time!”

A jovial roar of hooray goes around the table as my confusion deepens.

The man pulls out a chair beside him, his smirk off-putting and strange on his painted face. “Sit. Sit. It’s time for tea!”

“Right on time,” Lewis says as he sits across from me, tucking into a chair like nothing happened in the last few moments.

“Thank you,” I tell the man when he opens a napkin and places it on my lap.

I don’t know where I am, how I got here, or who these people are. But I know one thing: I’m glad I was on time.