Here is chapter one of a brand new story featuring Alice…
Alice and the White House of Backwards Decisions
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Chapter One
The Letter That Was Already Waiting
On a morning in Ballykillduff that could not quite decide whether it wished to be winter or spring, Alice discovered a letter waiting for her.
This was not unusual in itself — letters occasionally appeared in Ballykillduff without anyone remembering the postman delivering them — but this letter possessed three particularly suspicious qualities.
First, it was addressed in handwriting Alice recognized as her own.
Second, it was already open.
Third, it was warm.
Alice found it resting upon the small table beside the window of the cottage where she had been staying ever since Ballykillduff had politely refused to let her leave permanently.
Outside, the hedges were still wet from the previous night’s rain. Somewhere in the village square, a dog barked with the confidence of a creature that had never once doubted its understanding of the world.
Alice picked up the letter.
It felt as though it had been held only moments before.
“Curious,” she said, which in Alice’s experience usually meant something extremely peculiar was about to happen.
Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper. The paper was perfectly blank.
Alice examined it carefully, turning it upside down and sideways in case the words were shy.
Nothing.
“Perhaps it is an invisible message,” she suggested.
The paper grew slightly warmer.
Then, very slowly, words appeared, as though remembering how to exist.
They read:
Miss Alice, Occasional Visitor to Impossible Places,
You are cordially invited to attend a matter of considerable confusion.
Washington, Immediately.
You are cordially invited to attend a matter of considerable confusion.
Washington, Immediately.
Below this was a line for a signature.
The signature wrote itself.
The White House
Alice nodded thoughtfully.
“Yes,” she said. “That sounds exactly the sort of invitation one should accept without understanding.”
She folded the letter.
The moment the paper creased, it refused to remain a letter at all. Instead, it rearranged itself with cheerful determination into a paper aeroplane.
Alice watched this transformation with calm interest.
“I suspected as much,” she said.
The aeroplane lifted gently from her hands and hovered in the air like a hummingbird made of stationery.
It waited.
Alice did what any sensible traveller between worlds would do — she opened the cottage door and followed it.
The paper aeroplane drifted down Ballykillduff’s main lane, passing the cream-and-green telephone box that never rang unless someone was already speaking, and gliding across the quiet village square where puddles reflected a sky that looked slightly unfinished.
No one in Ballykillduff found this remarkable.
Mrs O’Daly, sweeping her step, merely said:
“Morning, Alice.”
“Morning, Alice.”
“Morning,” Alice replied, walking past a floating invitation as though this were ordinary.
At the edge of the village, the aeroplane stopped beside a gate that had not been there yesterday.
It was a small white gate set into a hedge that Alice was quite certain had always been continuous.
A brass plaque hung from the latch.
It read:
TRANSATLANTIC SHORTCUT
“Well,” Alice said, “that saves time.”
She opened the gate.
On the other side was not a field, nor a road, nor even another hedge.
There was a long, polished corridor.
The paper aeroplane sailed inside.
Alice followed.
The gate closed behind her with the polite click of something that did not intend to reopen immediately.
The corridor smelled faintly of paper, polished wood, and decisions that had not yet been made.
Portraits lined the walls.
They were not portraits Alice recognized, but they behaved in the familiar manner of Wonderland portraits — pretending not to move when observed.
The carpet stretched ahead in a straight line that suggested great seriousness, though it occasionally wrinkled itself when Alice wasn’t looking directly at it.
The aeroplane continued forward until it reached a tall white door.
On the door was a brass plate.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Alice paused.
“I wonder,” she said, “whether this is the real one, or the sensible version.”
The paper aeroplane flattened itself back into a letter and slid beneath the door.
After a moment, the door opened inward of its own accord.
Alice stepped through.
The room beyond was circular.
Very circular.
So circular, in fact, that Alice briefly suspected the room might be quietly spinning.
A large desk stood in the center. Behind it sat a perfectly polite gentleman with an expression suggesting he had been waiting since yesterday afternoon.
He smiled.
“Welcome,” he said.
“We have been expecting you before you arrived.”
“We have been expecting you before you arrived.”
Alice curtsied politely.
“I hope I am not early.”
“You are exactly confusing,” the gentleman replied.
Alice felt immediately at home.
Behind the gentleman, the walls of the circular room seemed to stretch further than the outside of the building should reasonably allow.
There were doors everywhere.
Dozens of them.
Perhaps hundreds.
Some were tiny. Some were enormous. One appeared to be made of folded newspapers. Another looked like a playing card pretending to be architecture.
One door opened briefly, and Alice thought she heard teacups arguing.
It closed again.
Alice smiled.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“This is definitely Wonderland.”
The gentleman behind the desk shook his head gently.
“No,” he said.
“This is Washington.”
“This is Washington.”
The floor shifted slightly, as though reconsidering.
Alice suspected they were both correct.
And with that, the building began to rearrange itself.
To be continued.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 