Malice in Wonderland Prequel Read Online Free PDF Page B

I might someday break his heart because I cheated on him.”
    Another chuckle from the Queen of Hearts. “ Someday? You mean it hasn’t happened yet?”
    “No, because he is currently sleeping, but I felt that if I ran fast enough, perhaps it all might not catch up with him, and me.”
    The Queen of Hearts laughed. “All of that drama over a silly little pawn! My dear, they are your playthings! You shouldn’t be ashamed to use them however you desire.”
    The Red Queen shook her head. “No. They don’t deserve that sort of treatment. You forget, I was a pawn once, before the Red King came to love me.”
    Another laugh. “That’s pathetic! You should be ashamed of the fact you were once a pawn, yes, but embrace your future, where you use the pawns! That’s what I’d do! Even better now that he’s asleep! When the cat sleeps, the mice play!”
    The Red Queen sighed. “You just don’t understand love. Perhaps no one has ever loved you.”
    The Queen of Hearts scowled. “Watch yourself. I have been nice by allowing you this cell. I could have you beheaded.”
    “Well I have known love, by the most honourable, respectful man in Wonderland. But I threw it all away for a meaningless tryst. The shock of it threw him into a sleep from which he has not awakened all these years. In fact, I am afraid of what would happen if he does. Perhaps I am merely his own dream, and I shall disappear entirely, or perhaps the past shall finally catch up with me…” She sighed forlornly.
    “Well, forget the past then, I say. What’s wrong with the future?”
    “I don’t want a future that doesn’t include him.”
    “Crikey, you’re pathetic! I tell you what, I shall rouse him…”
    “No! I just want to run here, in my own private purgatory. Perhaps, in this way, he still loves me.”
    “You never seem to get anywhere. Why is that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    The Queen of Hearts scowled. “You shall tell me, or I shan’t leave.”
    The Red Queen sighed. “Very well. Much as I hate to admit it to myself, the future frightens me, just as the past does, so I run just enough to stay in the same place. Oh, but I try to not even admit that to myself. Much better to fool myself into thinking I want to go somewhere.”
    “I see,” said the Queen of Hearts, considering her, rubbing her chin as if the Red Queen were an intriguing specimen.
    “Are you happy now?! Can I be left alone to run in peace?”
    The Queen of Hearts held up her finger. “Well, I shall certainly leave you alone in this dungeon.”
    She sighed in relief. “Thanks.”
    “But there is just one last thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s just that the guards have informed me that they have overheard you reciting a poem to yourself from time to time. Do you know of what I speak?”
    The Red Queen swallowed. “Yes.”
    “Could you recite it to me? Then I promise that I shall leave you to your…running.”
    “Promise?”
    “Yes. After all, I’ve grown quite bored with you actually. Just this one more thing…”
    “Very well.
    And the Red Queen recited her poem that she would normally only recite to herself, when she was alone:

    Sometimes, you wish out loud to scream,
    To awaken yourself from someone else’s dream,
    Where the way that you are isn’t the way that you seem.

    But then, the man who loved you might no longer care,
    So you keep your past behind you, to keep him unaware,
    And run and run away from it, while going to nowhere.

    To let his dream of you go unharassed,
    You mustn’t reach a future, and you cannot face the past,
    For if right now’s forever, his love will always last.

    After the Queen of Hearts heard the poem, her face turned pale. She nodded, then turned and exited the room.
    The door slammed shut behind her.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
    Black Rose
     
    When Alice was 7

    The encounter with the Black Butterfly had inspired Alice. She’d inquired discreetly about the Black Rose, then waited until the right opportunity