Chapter 1
Alice wriggled her toes against the stone, her skin pale and prickled as though the chill sunk into her very bones.
The room was a dull, greenish-gray box, its corners softened by damp fog that clung to the cold floor.
The air had the unmistakable smell of a root cellar, mingled with something sharp, like salts or astringents, though it didn’t seem to erase whatever stale odor lingered.
In the corner, a lone gas lamp flickered, casting shadows on the mildewed walls, shadows that twisted like caterpillars.
She shook off the thought. No. None of that here. Dr. Lewis had been very clear.
“Let us begin, Alice. You’re almost out of time,” he said from behind her, his voice soft yet strangely needling.
“This is a place of order, a place to quiet your mind. No more nonsense. No more… rabbits.” He slowed his speech, but the effect, meant to calm her, was entirely unnerving.
Though not nearly as unnerving as the fact that he was speaking from behind her, and she could feel his eyes, half-trancelike, fixed on her dull blonde braid—always watching.
“Do as the doctor says, Alice,” Miss Marker, who stood rigidly at the back of the room, commanded.
Alice glanced to her but hardly recognized the woman, whose eyes were wide, the whites above her irises gleaming – as was the case only in horrid, angry people.
Since this morning, it was as if the kind, affectionate Miss Marker Alice knew had been replaced by a wicked twin.
Even on the carriage ride over, Marker had been abrupt and cold, and had outright refused a stop at Kensington Gardens, which had been a pleasure that Alice and she had shared since they had first begun going to these sessions together.
“Please,” the doctor urged. Alice turned to face him.
He stood tall and narrow, his face fixed in a pillowy expression as soft as his antagonizing tone.
Both softnesses were clearly false, as the truth was poorly disguised by the lenses of his spectacles, which reflected the lamplight like twin orange moons.
He tapped the clipboard in his hand, then gestured toward the waiting tub.
The page on the clipboard was thick with writing.
Alice could see the rows of it from where she stood, line upon line.
She could not read one word. The letters, if they were letters, appeared to lean the wrong way.
When he saw her observing, he tilted the board to his chest, pleasantly, the way one closes a door.
His voice curled. “Shall we start?” It wasn’t a request. Marker’s nostrils whistled impatiently.
The tub sat in the center of the room like an open grave, its iron edges worn smooth by years of use. How many hands? How many bodies? The water within shimmered darkly, a mirror broken only by the faint ripples of something moving below. Alice stared at it, her stomach twisting.
“Miss Liddell.” Dr. Lewis’s voice cut through her thoughts like a knife through butter. “You promised to try.”
“I am trying,” Alice muttered, her fingers clutching the thin cotton of her chemise. “It’s just… well, it looks so cold.”
“It is cold,” he said matter-of-factly. “That’s the point. The water will shock your mind back into a proper rhythm. No more fantastical diversions. No more Wonderland.”
The word made her flinch, sent a jolt through her chest, a bittersweet melody at dissonance with her shame.
She wasn’t supposed to think of it anymore.
Not the tea parties, nor the rabbit, and certainly not the ‘associated deliriums’—specifically, the delirium that mirrors could lead to another place, or time, even.
Nonsensical! The dreams, the memories, weren’t real. They were delusions, or so Dr. Lewis said. And yet…
“Alice!” Marker snapped. “The water won’t wait for you forever.” Her tone shifted an octave lower. “And neither will I.”
With a glance to Marker—the woman truly was acting so oddly—Alice realized there was no point pretending she could stall this any further.
She stepped closer to the tub, her bare feet slapping the wet floor softly.
The water was so dark, so still. She half imagined she might see her own reflection if she leaned in far enough.
But when she peered into its depths, she saw nothing—only blackness.
“Take it slowly,” Dr. Lewis instructed. “Dip your feet in first. Let your body adjust. And remember, the water is your friend.”
Alice resisted the urge to scoff. She’d had enough so-called friends to last a lifetime. Friends who vanished when she needed them most and taunted her in dreams.
Still, she couldn’t put this off any longer. She dipped a toe into the water. Immediately, every nerve in her body screamed, and she yanked her foot away. It was freezing! Dr. Lewis was the mad one here!
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but not once in my life has a dip, plunge, or fall into cold water done anything other than leave me chilled. And I am certain I’ve been in cold water since my dreams all those years ago.
So, as you can see, this is unnecessary.
” Alice tilted her chin and planted her feet together resolutely—and very convincingly, if she did say so herself.
Still, she felt Marker’s eyes burning behind her.
“Tick-tock, Alice,” the doctor said. “The mind is like a clock. And yours needs to be reset. This is how we wind you back to where you belong.” The lilt of his nursery-rhyme speech made her want to scream. Maybe she should scream.
“Where I belong?” she snapped, turning to glare at him. “I am away, where a madwoman belongs. Why is anything further required of me?”
His expression didn’t change. “Don’t you wish to return? To the real world?”
Her shoulders slumped. Her parents were gone. Her dear sister Emily had been sent to live in America. There was nowhere left to which she could return. So, no. She didn’t wish to return. Alice wished for real answers—what it all truly meant and why—but no doctor had ever had them.
There was no point arguing anymore. She turned back to the tub, took a deep breath, and forced both feet into the water. The cold clamped down on her ankles like a vise, spreading upward with ruthless efficiency. She clutched the tub’s edge, her fingers slipping on the wet iron.
“Good,” Dr. Lewis said softly. “Now lower yourself the rest of the way in. Slowly. Let the water embrace you.”
She hated the way he said it, as though the water had arms, as though it would cradle her like a mother instead of swallowing her whole.
But she obeyed, inching her way down. The cold seeped into her legs, her hips, her chest. By the time she was submerged up to her neck, her teeth were chattering so hard she thought they might shatter –
No, she thought and began to climb out.
“Miss Marker, please assist,” the doctor said, and swiftly he and Marker gripped Alice’s arms and shoulders, shoving her down into the ice water.
If the water wasn’t shocking enough, Marker, who had always been someone Alice considered a friend, was assisting in this act!
“Stay there,” the doctor said, feigning calm through clenched teeth. “Close your eyes. Breathe deeply.”
Alice’s panic rose. “I don’t wish to do this!” She struggled against the pushing hands, grabbing the sides of the tub to try to pull herself out.
“Enough, girl!” Marker’s shout rang out harshly in the empty stone room as the woman pushed harder still.
Alice’s hands slipped and, under the weight of the doctor’s force and Marker’s nonsensical anger, she plunged all the way below.
Fighting and splashing, her muscles tensed and pulsed in the cold, as her vision was obstructed by the churning water.
Then, a jolt like lightning struck at the front of her skull, and with the water plugging and draining from her ears, she saw a flash of white—it was the small white rabbit, tangled in the pocket watch chain, hopping toward the bank of Kensington Gardens!
Alice clenched her eyes harder.
“Very good, Alice,” Dr. Lewis said from somewhere above her.
“You’re doing wonderfully. Soon, you’ll feel as though you’ve woken from a long, strange dream.
” More dreams! Weren’t dreams the problem?
Alice’s chest was pounding. How long would she need to stay under?
Calm yourself, it will all be over soon –
“Up, Alice!” she heard through the water as the doctor attempted to lift her, but her other shoulder remained pinned as Marker’s pressure intensified.
Alice gritted her teeth and braced her arms and feet tightly to the sides of the tank.
Another striking bolt in her forehead and she could almost see it—the gold pocket watch with an etched wreath of clovers sinking into the depths, its ticking growing fainter and fainter until it stopped…
“Alice, up,” Dr. Lewis said, now standing above her, motioning sternly for her to rise.
Alice’s cold lungs began to pulse. “Alice.” His tone was only slightly less soft.
“Alice!” He tried again to pull her arm.
This time, she resisted. If the strange new Miss Marker intended to scare Alice by holding her under the water longer, Alice would scare her back by staying even longer.
“Miss Marker, pull!” Dr. Lewis shouted as Alice began to thrash against his pulling. Alice’s eyes opened. Marker’s angry, tight grimace glared down at her beyond the splashing water – she was but a shell of someone Alice once knew.
Finally, Marker released her grip.
Alice was out of breath, out of time. She sat up abruptly—too abruptly—and Dr. Lewis, still gripping her arm, splashed into the freezing cold water directly behind her. The gasp that escaped his body was so lofty that it startled Alice as it echoed in her ear.
“Alice, this act of defiance…” The doctor began, his teeth chattering through his ready scolding as he climbed out of the tub. Alice took sharp breaths as she climbed out opposite him. There was blood in her mouth. Somewhere in the shivering, her teeth had gone through the inside of her lip.
“Unacceptable,” Marker snapped, with her chin tilted upward and eyes cast down at Alice, who shivered as icy water puddled on the stone at her feet.
Dr. Lewis removed a blanket from his cabinet and wrapped it around himself, followed by another, and none were given to Alice.
“I trust that she will be given the appropriate discipline by your facility,” the doctor said sternly to Marker. Their new alliance was terrifying, poised to break her.
“You can be sure of it,” Marker said, nearly smirking.
A drop of sweat ran from Marker’s temple, grey as dishwater. She let it fall. It left a track behind it, like a slug crawling up wet glass.