House Of Madness

Chapter 35 Through The Rabbit Hole

Everyone had never been happier.
With Chessler dead it was a perfect day in SkyWood.
A day that called for celebration.
Alice almost felt bad until she remembered that Chessler really was an arsehole to the highest extent.
"I'm so glad that fucker is dead!" Kit yelled to Alice as they left the colosseum.
"Me too", Alice called back.
"It is despicable to talk badly of the dead", Nivens was just as happy as the next person that Chessler was dead but he found it distasteful when people rubbed it in.
"Only you Nivens, would be unhappy that your killer is dead."
Nivens smiled, "who says I'm not happy?"

"Come on darling! This calls for celebration at our house!" Terrett called to Nivens and anyone who would listen.

Alice found herself in a blue dress with white accents and a black bow on her way with Nik to Nivens and Terrett's house.
"You look perfect."
Alice moved her eyes to Nik's, "I can't believe he's dead."
Alice couldn't put it into words.
She knew her feeling were irrational but that's what made them feelings.
Nik understood, not fully but he tried.
"He was a bad man, a very bad man."
He was.
Alice knew that, that wasn't the problem.
The problem was she had seen how callous fae could be.
Chessler had suffered greatly before his death and she couldn't help but be reminded of what she had done to the white queen.
She had killed someone.
It had been so rushed, and everyone had been so concerned about Nivens death Alice hadn't let herself think of what she had done.
She had killed someone.
A terrible, dictator, atrocious woman but nonetheless she had taken a life.
No one, not even Kit could understand how that weighed on her conscience.
To them murder wasn't bad as long as who you were killing deserved it.
Chessler and Priscilla definitely deserved their end.
Just like Victor and Morris Kelly but they were still dead.
Something no one seemed to care about or understand the weight of what that really meant.
At the end it boiled down to Alice being a human.
She couldn't handle it.
The grief.
The brutality.
The callous way of SkyWood.

She danced with Nik at the party, feeling all too  wrong that they were celebrating the death of someone.
"It will pass."
Alice had left Nik after only two dances saying she needed air.
She was now in the backyard thinking of when she first met Terrett and Nivens.
She outright ignored Nivens questions, people never do really change.
She still ignored anything that displeased her,
"I was just thinking-"
"Of when you met us as a child?" Nivens guessed correctly.
Alice smiled a nervous smile, "yes."
Nivens smiled, "you were a cute little thing."
Alice blushed, "why did you take me in?"
She had always wondered but never asked, "because the people who were supposed to be your family failed you.
But that's only the half of it.
If I'm being one hundred percent truthful I convinced Terrett to let me keep you because I was broken.
I still am but when Terrett first came back from the House Of Madness it was like he was a different man.
He looked like the man I fell in love with but he wasn't the same.
I needed hope.
Something to poor my love into while Terrett worked through his trauma.
It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but giving him space was necessary for him to heal."
Alice didn't think, "but he's not. He's still-"
She was at a lose for what word to use.
"Mad? Crazy? Insane?"
Nivens nodded, "aren't we all? In one way or another?"
Alice looked at Nivens for the first time, she really looked and she felt herself cry.
"I don't know who I am.
I don't think I ever have."
Nivens nodded and if he was shocked or taken back by her words he didn't show it.
"That's okay."
"I feel terrible for what I did to her, and watching his trial yesterday", Alice started to sob.
She didn't need to say their names, Nivens knew.
He always knew.
"Our world is a hard one.
An impossible one but not a day goes by when I don't thank the universe for giving me you."
"I never called you dad.
Did that bother you?" Another question Alice wanted to know.
He and Terrett both called her their daughter yet she nor Kit ever called either one of them dad.
"No. You have always guarded your heart.
It's one of the things I love most about you but also possibly your greatest downfall.
I know what I mean to you.
I know you love me, as does Terrett.
We never needed to hear the words because we just knew.
Just like we knew your favourite colour is charcoal grey or that you've never felt like you belonged."
"I don't belong here", Alice sobbed.
In a soft voice Nivens said, "I disagree but I understand why you feel that way."
Alice cried as Nivens held her, whispering soft words of parental love.
"I don't know what to do."
Nivens felt himself tear up, "I think you do."

Nik had looked everywhere for Alice, having no luck he checked outside again.
Nothing she wasn't there, Nik felt a uncontrollable wave of emotion.
He knew he was blowing it out of proportion but something felt different.
He tried his magic again, nothing.
He had now moved to looking for Terrett so he could do a locator spell.
Finding Terrett was easy, he was in the bedroom him and Nivens shared.
What wasn't easy was invading a private moment.
Nik should of heard but he was so busy thinking of Alice he missed the sobs from Nivens.
Only hearing them when he opened the door and saw a towering Terrett hugging a bawling
Nivens.
Nik knew, he didn't know who or why but he knew Nivens distress had something to do with Alice.
"Where is she?"
Nivens cried harder while Terrett shot a look of death at him.
"Where is she?" Nik didn't raise his voice, he didn't need to since it was cold as ice.
Terrett was about to speak but Nivens beat him to it, "gone."

Kit had wanted to strangle her uncle.
"What do you mean she's gone?!"
Unlike Nik who was radiating cold calm fury Kit had gone off like a bomb.
"She's different than before. He changed her."
Victor.
"She needs to heal, something she can't do without answers."
Kit couldn't keep her emotions at bay, "you should of told me! I didn't even get to say goodbye!" Her voice broke near the end of the sentence.
"Give me the rest of the potion!"
Déjà vu.
They had gone over this a thousand times.
Alice had taken the final drop of the shrinking potion from Chessler's trial.
She had taken it in order for her to fit through the rabbit hole.
A rabbit hole that lead to what was referred to by those who knew it existed as the, 'human realm.'
A present realm where humans lived with their own.

"There isn't any left", Terrett whispered.
"Than make more!" Grave hissed as he came into the bedroom.
"We can't! It was made by Nik's magic, the magic in the House Of Madness.
Only it can make more."
Terrett sounded calm but he was losing it just the same.
"What are we supposed to do than?" Kit hissed.
Very softly Nivens whispered, "we wait."