Alice and the Dreamtime Portal

Alice had been living in Sydney for three months now, staying with her aunt while her parents traveled through Europe. The bustling city was exciting, but today she had convinced her aunt to take her on a camping trip to the Blue Mountains, hoping to see the “real” Australia she’d read so much about.

As her aunt dozed in the afternoon shade, Alice wandered away from their campsite, drawn by the haunting call of a lyrebird echoing through the eucalyptus forest. The ancient trees seemed to whisper secrets as she picked her way carefully along a barely visible track, following the mysterious bird song deeper into the wilderness.

She had been walking for perhaps twenty minutes when she noticed something extraordinary: the trees ahead seemed to shimmer and dance, as if she were looking at them through water. The air itself appeared to ripple with colors that had no names – deeper than purple, brighter than gold, more alive than any rainbow she had ever seen.

“Well, this is certainly curious,” Alice murmured to herself, approaching the strange phenomenon cautiously.

As she drew closer, an Aboriginal elder stepped out from behind a massive angophora tree. His skin was weathered like ancient bark, and his eyes held depths that seemed to contain entire universes. He wore traditional paint markings that seemed to move and shift in patterns that hurt to look at directly.

“You can see the Dreaming Portal, young one,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of countless stories. “That is… unusual for one not of our people.”

“Dreaming Portal?” Alice asked, fascinated despite her initial surprise at encountering someone in what she had thought was empty wilderness.

“A doorway between worlds, between times. Between what is and what might be.” The elder studied her with those ancient eyes. “My name is Tjandrawati, keeper of this sacred place. And you, I think, are someone who has walked between worlds before.”

Alice felt a strange recognition wash over her, as if she had indeed been in places that existed between reality and dream. “How did you know?”

“The portal only reveals itself to those who carry the spark of wonder, who have seen impossible things and believed them anyway.” Tjandrawati gestured toward the shimmering air. “Would you like to see what lies beyond?”

Without waiting for her answer – perhaps he already knew what it would be – the elder began to sing in a language older than English, older than words themselves. The colors in the air swirled faster, forming a doorway that seemed to lead not just to another place, but to another way of being entirely.

Alice felt the familiar tingle of adventure calling to her. “Will I be able to come back?”

“All journeys end where they begin,” Tjandrawati replied cryptically, “but the traveler is never quite the same.”

Taking a deep breath, Alice stepped through the portal.

She found herself standing in a landscape that was unmistakably Australian, yet transformed beyond anything she had ever imagined. The sky above was a deep ochre red, painted with swirling patterns of stars that moved like living things. Ancient rock formations rose from the earth like sleeping giants, their surfaces covered in dot paintings that told stories as she watched.

The trees here were eucalyptus, but their leaves were silver and seemed to chime gently in the breeze like tiny bells. Flowers bloomed in impossible colors – blue wattles, purple kangaroo paws, and golden flannel flowers that glowed with their own inner light.

“G’day, Alice,” called a familiar voice.

She turned to see the Cheshire Cat, but this version was unlike any she had met before. This Cat appeared to be part dingo, with golden fur marked by traditional Aboriginal dot patterns that shifted and changed across his body. When he grinned, his teeth sparkled like stars.

“You’re different,” Alice observed.

“We’re all different here in the Dreamtime, mate,” the Cat replied, his accent distinctly Australian now. “This is where all stories come from, where every tale that was ever told or ever will be told lives and breathes. Welcome to Country, Alice.”

As they spoke, other familiar figures began to emerge from the landscape itself. The Mad Hatter appeared as a swagman, his coat covered with patches from a dozen different journeys, carrying a billy can that steamed with perpetual tea. His hat was now a battered slouch hat decorated not with cork but with brilliant feathers from birds that existed only in dreams.

“Alice!” he called out cheerfully. “Perfect timing! We’re having a yarn by the campfire. Got some damper cooking and stories that’ll make your head spin like a willy-willy!”

The March Hare had become something altogether more mystical – part rabbit, part rock wallaby, with fur that seemed to contain the entire night sky, complete with slowly moving constellations. When he spoke, his words carried the sound of wind through stone arches.

“The fire’s just getting good,” the March Hare said, his voice echoing strangely. “Old Platypus is telling the story of how the world began, and she’s just gotten to the part where the Rainbow Serpent taught the first people to dream.”

They gathered around a campfire that burned with flames of every color imaginable, while the most extraordinary platypus Alice had ever seen – ancient beyond measure, with a bill that seemed to be carved from opal – continued her tale in a voice like flowing water.

“And so,” the Platypus was saying, “the Rainbow Serpent carved the rivers and raised the mountains, but most importantly, she gave every creature the ability to dream. For without dreams, there can be no stories, and without stories, there can be no magic.”

“But what happens when someone stops believing in stories?” asked Alice, settling cross-legged on the warm earth beside the fire.

The Platypus fixed her with eyes that held the wisdom of millennia. “Ah, young Alice, that is why portals like the one you came through exist. They remind us that magic is always there, waiting just beyond the edge of what we think we know.”

As the night deepened (though it never became truly dark in this place), Alice found herself on a walkabout with creatures she had never imagined. There was a Numbat who collected lost words and kept them in a pouch woven from spider silk and moonbeams. A Quoll who painted the clouds each sunset, explaining that every evening sky was a new masterpiece that would never be repeated. A family of Sugar Gliders who were actually the guardians of children’s dreams, ensuring that nightmares never lasted too long and that good dreams were always remembered upon waking.

They traveled across a landscape that changed with each step – from red desert to rainforest to coastal cliffs to alpine meadows – as if the very ground beneath their feet responded to their collective imagination. Alice realized that this was a place where the act of dreaming shaped reality itself.

“This is how our ancestors understood the world,” explained a Wedge-tailed Eagle who soared alongside them, speaking in a voice like wind through canyons. “Every rock, every tree, every creature has a story, and every story shapes the world a little bit. You white fellas forgot that stories have power, but here in the Dreamtime, we never forget.”

They came at last to a great gathering place, a natural amphitheater formed by ancient rock walls covered in the most beautiful Aboriginal art Alice had ever seen. But unlike the static paintings she had seen in museums, these images moved and danced, telling stories that changed depending on who was watching them.

Hundreds of creatures had gathered here – not just the familiar animals of Australia, but beings that existed only in the Dreamtime: creatures made of starlight and shadow, spirits that embodied the essence of particular places, ancestral beings whose very presence seemed to make the air hum with power.

At the center of the gathering sat a figure that Alice somehow knew immediately, though she had never seen anything like him before. He was Aboriginal, but seemed to be made of the land itself – his skin contained the red earth, his hair flowed like rivers, his eyes held the deep blue of hidden springs. When he spoke, his voice was the sound of all of Australia speaking at once.

“Welcome, Alice of the Questioning Heart,” he said, and somehow she could hear him clearly despite the vast space. “I am the Rainbow Serpent, the one who dreams the world into being with every breath. You have traveled far from your own dreaming to be here.”

“Why am I here?” Alice asked, though she had to shout to be heard across the amphitheater.

The Rainbow Serpent smiled, and when he did, colors rippled across the sky like aurora. “Because the world needs dreamers, Alice. In your time, in your world, people are forgetting how to wonder, how to believe in impossible things. But you… you carry wonder like a flame. Every time you choose to believe in magic, that flame grows brighter.”

He gestured to the gathering around them. “All these spirits, all these stories, they exist because someone, somewhere, chose to believe. But if no one believes, if no one dreams, if no one wonders… then the magic fades.”

Alice looked around at the incredible gathering – at beings made of lightning and shadow, at animals that spoke wisdom, at colors that had no names, at a sky that painted itself anew with every moment.

“But how can I help?” she asked. “I’m just one girl.”

“Ah,” said the Rainbow Serpent, his eyes twinkling, “but you’re a girl who followed a White Rabbit down a hole because she was curious. You’re a girl who ate cakes and drank potions without knowing what they would do, just to see what would happen. You’re a girl who walked through a portal in the Blue Mountains because an old Aboriginal man told you stories might be waiting on the other side.”

The Cheshire Cat materialized beside her, still grinning his star-spangled grin. “Every person who chooses wonder over worry, magic over mundane, stories over statistics… they keep places like this alive.”

“And every time someone tells a story,” added the Mad Hatter, tipping his slouch hat, “they create a little bit of Dreamtime in the ordinary world.”

The March Hare nodded sagely, his constellation fur twinkling. “Dreamtime isn’t just a place, Alice. It’s a way of seeing. It’s knowing that every sunset is painted by hand, that every rock has a story, that magic is always just one ‘what if’ away.”

Alice felt a warm glow spreading through her chest – not unlike the feeling she’d had when she first tumbled down the rabbit hole, or when she’d stepped through the looking glass. It was the feeling of possibility, of worlds within worlds, of stories waiting to be discovered.

“So what do I do when I go back?” she asked.

“You remember,” said Tjandrawati, appearing beside the Rainbow Serpent as if he had always been there. “You remember that magic exists for those who choose to see it. You remember that every place has its own dreaming, waiting for someone curious enough to discover it. And most importantly, you remember that stories – all stories – are sacred, because they keep the world’s sense of wonder alive.”

The Rainbow Serpent rose, and as he did, he seemed to grow until he filled the sky itself, his serpentine form made of clouds and starlight. “It is time for you to return, Alice. But carry this with you: whenever you meet someone who has forgotten how to wonder, tell them a story. Whenever you see someone who thinks magic is impossible, show them something beautiful. Whenever you find someone who believes the world is ordinary, remind them that ordinary is just another word for magic we’ve stopped noticing.”

Alice felt herself beginning to fade, but it was a gentle fading, like waking from the most wonderful dream. The last thing she saw was the gathering of impossible creatures, all waving goodbye, and the last thing she heard was their voices joined together, singing a song in languages older than human memory.

She opened her eyes to find herself back in the Blue Mountains, lying beneath the angophora tree where she had first met Tjandrawati. The old man was gone, but on the ground beside her was a small piece of bark with traditional dot paintings that seemed to move when she wasn’t looking directly at them.

Her aunt was calling her name from back at the campsite, sounding worried.

“Coming, Aunt Margaret!” Alice called, carefully tucking the painted bark into her pocket. As she walked back through the eucalyptus forest, she noticed things she hadn’t seen before – the way the light danced between the leaves like liquid gold, the intricate patterns in the bark that looked almost like ancient writing, the calls of hidden birds that sounded almost like conversations in an unknown language.

That night, sitting by their campfire under a canopy of Southern Hemisphere stars, Alice told her aunt about her walk in the woods – though she carefully edited out the more impossible parts. But as she spoke, she watched her aunt’s eyes begin to shine with the same wonder Alice had felt in the Dreamtime.

“You know,” her aunt said thoughtfully, “I’ve lived in Australia my whole life, but I think I’ve forgotten to really see it. Tomorrow, let’s explore together. I have a feeling there are stories everywhere, just waiting for someone to notice them.”

Alice smiled, touching the painted bark in her pocket. The Rainbow Serpent had been right – magic wasn’t something that existed in special places or extraordinary moments. It was a way of seeing, a choice to believe that the world was full of wonders waiting to be discovered.

And as she lay in her sleeping bag that night, watching the stars wheel overhead in patterns that seemed almost familiar, Alice began planning all the stories she would tell and all the magic she would help others remember when she returned home to England.

After all, every place had its own Dreamtime, didn’t it? You just had to know how to look for the portal.