Alois in Wonderland, Chapter I Down the Spider-Hole, Part I
It was on a hot and rather dreamy summer’s afternoon that the young master Alois Trancy, officially declared to himself (as he lay sprawled on his stomach, dipping one long finger into his reflection in the lake of his pavilion), that he was thoroughly bored.
This was nothing so very out of the ordinary, as he was quite frequently bored - too bored for his lessons, too bored for parties, and too bored to last even another minute with any of the insufferable grinning fools who came to talk of the late Earl, or the ongoing issue of “the will”, or grovel at his feet, hoping to win his heart; the heart that held the key to all of those musty and utterly worthless pounds - the fortune of the Trancy Estate, but it was his, not theirs’, and didn’t they know that? No…
But to-day, Alois thought, as he shifted uncomfortably over the cool stone to reach into the lake a little further, if things didn’t suddenly become very interesting, there would be hell to pay…
It was at this moment that Alois’ fantasies of life outside the Estate (dull as they were, for imagination was the one thing he could not demand), was interrupted by a butler neatly dressed all in black, as he stooped low, as if in a deep bow, to place a single glass cup and saucer by his side.
“Master, your tea is ready,” His butler murmured.
It was always a dangerous thing to interrupt Alois from whatever he was doing, but nonetheless he withdrew his icy hand from the water and took to shifting the cup precariously around the saucer. “Black-cherry and licorice spice?” He asked, sniffing the cup.
“I believe that’s what you desired…”
Alois sipped, savoring the unexpectedly fiery, yet sweet taste on the tip of his tongue. “You’ve out done yourself this time, Claude,” He said happily. At this, the mark on Alois’ tongue glowed and he licked his lips. His butler shifted a little, uncomfortable at the electric shock that suddenly pulsed through his hand.
“Well then, if you are satisfied I shall-”
Alois snapped his head up, shockingly blue eyes piercing into his butler’s, “No. I’m not satisfied.”
Claude sighed and stiffly ran a hand through his black hair as Alois plunged both of his hands back into the water, humming something nonsensical; careful enough to splash as much of the lake as possible onto his polished shoes. Claude gazed at Alois as his master swirled around his own reflection, stroking it now and then; the angelic face of a boy hardly old enough to be an Earl. The reflection smirked, full lips pulled in a knowing smile as half-lidded blue eyes watched his butler’s impassive face in the water.
“You’re like Narcissus, master,” Claude remarked thoughtfully.
His master made a noise of annoyance and rolled onto his back, long legs wrapping around Claude’s. He flicked water onto Claude’s pants but the butler made no move to break Alois’ hold.
“I’m bored.” Alois whined, rubbing his bare stockings against Claude.
“Then may I suggest we retire indoors? I could heat you a bath since you have already most assuredly ruined your clothes. You must be soaking…”
Alois aimed a precise kick at Claude’s shins. “No! I will bathe later, once indoors there will be nothing to do because there is nothing ever to do!”
Sensing an oncoming temper tantrum, Claude bowed an ever so humbly - “Forgive me master; but how shall I entertain you?” while taking care to look deeply into his Master’s eyes.
Alois’ breath caught, momentarily lost in the eyes of his butler’s - he shook his head, and then skipped over to the pavilion’s table all the while tugging at his butler’s sleeve for him to follow. “Read to me from this.”Alois snatched an old and battered looking book up from the table and then motioned for Claude to sit so that he could clamber into his lap.
Claude took it carefully in his gloved fingers - the pages were already fraying at the slightest touch. He flipped to a page containing a woodcut picture of a little girl in a dress holding a bottle that read, “DRINK ME”, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?” He asked.
“Yes, it’s my favorite!”
“I see…I believe I met Lewis Carroll once, he stuttered quite a bit - his books are full of nonsense.”
“Nonsense, nonsense, what is nonsense anyway? Something better than this, I’m sure.” Replied Alois loftily.
The corners of Claude’s mouth twitched, as if was going to smile (as if he would smile - had Claude ever smiled? Not because of his Master, of that he was sure), “Are you sure, Master?”
Alois rested comfortably against Claude’s chest, fingering his waistcoat affectionately. “Yes, I’m sure. This weather is lovely, so let us read by here, a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents.” He gently pushed Claude’s spectacles up his long nose. “Beneath such dreamy weather…” In response, catlike tawny eyes blinked back at him.
“Very well,” Claude began, his voice was deep and heavy with an almost melodic lilt to it, and it vibrated nicely against Alois’ face, so he closed his drowsy eyes...
“Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”
“So she was considering,” Claude continued, wrapping his arms a little around Alois so as to adjust the page. “In her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her…”
Alois waited in anticipation, for it was always his favorite part when Alice actually paid the White Rabbit any attention and followed it down the rabbit-hole; but when the silence continued, and Alois could only hear the sound of his own beating heart and not Claude’s (but was that the sound of a ticking watch?), he opened his eyes and looked around.
There was no Claude. There was no tea or book for that matter either. Alois rubbed his eyes to clear his dizzy sleep filled vision and swiveled in his seat to look around, now panic stricken. If Claude had left him…But that was silly, Claude never left him (at least, not without a command). This didn’t stop Alois from turning frantically around and around (but he daren’t actually move to find his butler, for he felt as if his legs had turned to jelly and there was still that odd ticking and dizziness in his head).
“Claude?” Alois called out weakly. No answer. A gust of pleasant wind came with a whoosh from the thicket of pine trees surrounding the pavilion, causing his short blond locks to tumble about his round face.
“Claude?”
“CLAUDE?!”
“Clau - Oh!” Alois’ chair finally gave way and he tumbled head over heels, and came to stare into the face of a hairy thing with a great many tawny eyes.
“A - Spider?” Alois exclaimed, his vision coming back into focus. The Black Spider blinked once, behind a pair of a hundred tiny spectacles, before turning around and scuttling into the forest, with a flash of its silver pocket-watch.
“Wait, please!” Alois jumped to his feet, heart racing, as he followed after the Black Spider. “If this is like Alice’s Wonderland, then surely there will be-”
“Aha!” Soon he came to a large spider-hole, and after the spider vanished within the hole, Alois followed, without a moment’s hesitation.
The spider-hole plunged Alois into a thick darkness which was full of the smell of an odd combination of earth and spice, before he suddenly fell, straight down. It was either that like Alice’s rabbit-hole, the tunnel was very long and he was falling very slowly; or it was that Alois had already hit the ground below, had already smashed to a hundred pieces and died, and still felt like he was falling, because well, because - “It must be the after-effects of dying,” Alois said knowledgably (which seemed like a proper explanation of a boy who hardly attended lessons), “because, I’ve never died before, so how would I know?” (Indeed)…
Presently, a dull light came about Alois as he fell, and he could see that there were all sorts of curious objects tangled within the intricate weaves of the spider webs coating the walls of the tunnel. Objects such as glass tea pots, tea cups and saucers (which Alois was careful not to touch, for their contents were still steaming), and portraits of what appeared to be a burning village and blackened dead people, that Alois could have sworn felt like fire at his touch (and why did they look so familiar? Alois could not remember). There were also crumbling, household-looking books: how to make the perfect soups, preparing tea, and recipes of fancy custards like Crème Brûlées and such; when Alois reached out to touch a page of the desserts recipes, he drew back his hand with a cry of disgust, for the contents of the page had begun to ooze a sticky jelly substance, and secreted a smell of sickly sweet rotten fruit.
Then there were the cupboards, and they were all packed with black tea. Alois didn’t particularly like bitter tea, especially the ones here - “NEW MOON DROP” (it always made him feel rather empty), but upon discovering that the tin was bare, he let it fall below him to hear how far away he was from landing, or perhaps to connect with the head of some passerby - he didn’t care which.
Down, down, and down again. Would this fall, this dream, never end? Alois was beginning to get very sleepy with nothing to do but fall, and just as he thought to himself, “I wonder if I shall fall right through the -” When all of a sudden, boing! He bounced from a springy spider-web and landed on a pile of dry leaves and sticks. Alois groaned, massaging his backside. “Really,” He thought. “I am in no condition for these sorts of falls…” Yet he got up and looked about and realized…That he was back in the Earl’s manor…But no, that was impossible! Alois’ had seen to it that everything, everything was destroyed! Yet so it was - it was the Earl Trancy’s manor.
Granted, it was dustier; thick layers of dirt and grime coated the wine-red halls and most of the candle lights were now gone, and in the place of what should have been a great chandelier, there hung a glittering spider web, stuck full of dripping candles; their wax falling steadily in hot pools on the floor. This was of little relief and Alois shivered, backing away to search for a door, any door, when he noticed the Black Spider hurrying down another dark passage of the manor.
“Wait!” Alois sped after it, slipping as he did so, on the hot wax, down the narrow hall, but alas for poor Alois! He was blocked by a spider web barricading his way. Tearing it apart impatiently, Alois tried to catch up with the Black Spider but it was out of sight once more, and Alois found himself in another low corridor. This hall was thankfully lit by more candles, which floated eerily alongside Alois’ as he walked about the many rows of doors lining his way.
“Why, they’re all locked!” Alois cried, baking away in horror, but just then he bumped into a three-legged table made entirely of glass on which lay a miniature golden key. Alois held up the key and ran a finger along its oddly intricate woven teeth. “Perhaps this shall do the trick.”
Alois tried all of the doors again, but to his mounting frustration, none of them fit. Just then, Alois came upon a beautifully woven curtain made of red spider silk, that when pulled apart like gauze, he discovered behind it a little door fifteen inches in height. “There was the Door to which I found no Key; there was the veil through which I might see...” Alois recited, remembering the poem. “Ah there we go.”
No sooner had he turned the lock, did the little door vanish in a puff of dust at his feet, revealing what appeared to be a magnificent garden straight ahead. Oh, how Alois longed to walk about the garden of those tall flowers, for although his garden was grand, this one appeared to be much lovelier. But as his head could only barely fit through, and Alois remembered in his cloudy mind, that if he walked back to the table as Alice had done, something good was sure to happen.
So he did. And to his astonishment (though why should he be astonished?) he found a little red colored bottle with a paper label round its neck, marked “DRINK ME” in large letters. Alois thought for a moment about the consequence of drinking from unknown medicine bottles (for this one looked nothing like the ones Claude usually forced upon him), but decided to finish off the whole bottle anyway.
Alois licked his lips, “It tastes like, cheery-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey? Toffy, and, mmm, buttered toast!”
“I simply must make Claude find me something like this! But what a curious feeling,” said Alois, “I can’t reach the table!” And so he couldn’t, though he tried to put the now enormously difficult bottle back on the table. He caught a glance of himself on one of the table’s legs, and discovered with great surprise that he was now just ten inches high - perfect for the garden! He shivered violently for his clothes had not shrunk with him. Though he was just the right size, he couldn’t help wondering if the flowers would bother him for not being properly clothed…Suddenly he spotted a glass box that he had not noticed before, and found that inside was quite a small cake etched with the words “EAT ME”, in frosting, and underneath was a simply gorgeous lacey blue dress with a little white pinafore and stockings.
As Alois held up the dress, he found to his shock, that he was still not small enough, and could still not reach the key! So he took to finishing off the cake as well.
“Curiouser and curiouser!”Cried Alois (he couldn’t understand either what made him say such a thing). He was now growing at an alarming rate, and crouched in fear of crushing himself against the low ceiling and spider webs, and still he wouldn’t stop! And was that him who was making that thumping noise against the walls? And why was it growing steadily louder, louder, and louder…
“Alois,” And now someone was calling his name! Was it the Black Spider?
“N-now I’ll never leave this wretched place!” Alois sobbed. And soon he began to cry…
“Alois,”
“A-and that Spider is still calling me!” Alois pounded against the walls that seemed to be slowly pressing in around him, though they felt like thick pillows…
“Alois,”
“Yes! I’m here! Please, please, HELP ME!”