“...and they lived happily ever after.”
It was the kind of lie that parents told their kids, as they tucked some bonding time between bedtime stories and kisses on the forehead—meant to soothe them into a deep and peaceful slumber. But no one warns them of the fact that they’d spend the rest of their lives chasing it.
But no one tells you the cost of that promise.
No one warns you of how you'll grow up chasing it like it's something tangible—almost as if you’re telling yourself that if you love hard enough or hope long enough, you can earn it.
And maybe that’s what breaks your heart the most – the way you keep trying to mold real, chaotic, unfiltered life into a fairytale ending no one ever guaranteed you.
Because “happily ever after” still ends with the word ‘after.’
And all ‘after’ really promises… is the hope that you’ll get to ‘happy.’
And perhaps, Alice Liddel shouldn’t have read all of the stories that chased this ‘after’ as an ‘ending.’
For she had left wonderland, after giving them the beginning of their happily ever after, in hopes that the real world would treat her as a hero too.
Unfortunately, nobody truly believed that an eight year old girl had been a part of a ‘revolution’ in a place called “wonderland.”
But little Alice knew.
She knew that everything that had happened in Wonderland had been true, and the adults were not ‘mad’ or ‘wondrous’ or a dreamer enough to believe it. They had long forgotten about the existence of magic.
Fifteen years later, little Alice Liddel was not-so-little anymore. She was now a Lady. But her unwavering faith in that ‘happily ever after’ found her a man – a Sir Reginald Thomas, who made her heart flutter like the first time she saw the Snap-Dragonflies in Wonderland.
Ten months in, Lady Alice Liddel was Lady Alice Liddel-Thomas, a housewife who was deemed infertile.
“She’ll never carry children, Mr. Thomas. I suggest you find yourself another woman to birth and nurse your heir,” the doctor had whispered to her husband.
The doctor hadn’t even bothered to tell her about her own body. He had just dropped the sentence like a blade between her ribs, to her husband, as
she sat there—bare down below, bruised by all that hope that she had carried, and blinking back fifteen years of tears she hadn’t earned the right to cry.
Because no one had ever warned her about what it feels like to be reduced to a womb that won’t work. To lie still and stare at the ceiling while the man you love is told he might be better off with someone else.
There is when it had begun dawning on her.
Fairy tales only begin with “once upon a time.” They end in true love’s kiss.
But the in-between? It’s shattered mirrors, poisoned apples, forced servitude and imprisonment.
What she had thought was her happily ever after had only been a sequel to the in-between, because the moment the doctor had whispered the words “fertile” and “another woman,” she had
She had watched his eyes—once so full of reverence—turn hollow. Where once he touched her like a fragile and antique porcelain doll, now he looked through her like glass.
That’s how she knew it was over – her marriage. Now, they were two people in a loveless house, only legally bound together by a certificate.
That night, Alice cried. For the first time in fifteen years, she had cried and cried until she had no tears left. But she still cried.
The next day, she was empty and couldn’t cry.
She didn’t when Reginald left the room without touching her, or when the maid walked in with curious eyes to put away her freshly folded gown. She didn’t cry even when the door clicked shut behind the maid, sealing her in that room with its sterile air and the scent of lavender that now made her nauseous.
She sat still all day and all night; for seven suns and moons straight with a deafening silence that sat by her side like an old friend - ironically staring her down and whispering “you chose this.”
And she had.
She had chosen this, the day she said “I do” under the eyes of the church and god, because this is how all the fairy tales she read had taught her.
But it had been her fault for mistaking his kindness and morals for love, and a desire for children as a desire for her.
She had thought—naively, foolishly, dangerously—that love meant safety.
In the days that followed, Reginald had begun to grow more distant. His words had begun becoming more brittle. His glances were now more calculating. She could see it—feel it—that he had started searching. Just not within his own home, but elsewhere. Quietly, discreetly and as politely as his morals, for the kind of woman who would give him a legacy.
And Alice? She had become the forgotten lullaby for a child she could never have.
A quiet figure gliding through corridors, smiling when spoken to, nodding when required. Always pleasant. Always ladylike.
And always… just in pain.
She found herself waking in the middle of the night from dreams that constantly showed her what her life could’ve been.
She found herself remembering Wonderland.
She remembered the Hatter’s riddles and his sly, sly smug.
She remembered the Queen’s fury over her white roses, and the Jabberwocky that threatened their lives.
She was remembering who she used to be before she started measuring her worth by bloodlines, bridal vows and a womb.
One evening, as the sky burned purple and gold, Alice sat in the garden, her fingers buried in the soil like they were searching for something she'd buried years ago.
But just as the reality of her situation had truly begun dawning on her, she heard it.
Tick… tick… tick
Her head snapped towards the rose bushes as she heard a familiar ticking sound, along with more rustling.
Tick… tick… tick
And just like that… for the first time in weeks, her eyes lit with a light flicker of hope.
“Please… say it,” she whispered. “Say it.” Her eyes followed the rustling and the ticking through the bushes.
Until she heard it. Again, for the first time in fifteen years.
Tick… tick… tick
Followed by the words she prayed it would be.
“My, Oh My! I am late! I am late! I am late!”
Never had Alice’s eyes lit up so quickly since she had left Wonderland for just like she had hoped, out popped the white rabbit from the rose bushes, buttoning his vest with one paw, and holding a pocket watch in the other.
Alice jumped up from her seat, knocking her tea over in an attempt to run after the white rabbit. She pulled up her gown so as to not trip over, and
ran.
She ran– faster than she had run in years – all so that she could catch up with the white rabbit, and just like that, down the rabbit hole by the great oak tree she fell.
But this time, she had a smile on her face.
Down she fell, past old grandfather clocks and floating teacups.
Down past the flickering memories of her childhood screams and giggles as they echoed off the walls around her. She fell through layers of the ground and along with it, all the parts she’d locked away to become “Lady Liddel-Thomas.”
She thought of the parts that once believed in impossible things before breakfast because she had seen Bread-and-Butterflies, who spoke in riddles the moment she laid her eyes on a teapot and didn’t care that she didn’t make sense to the world.
When she hit the bottom, she didn’t land with a thud like last time.
She took the deepest breath she had in years.
And oh, how she had forgotten what it felt like to breathe freely.
Breathing without the weight of expectations of a lady sitting on her chest. The corset that she had begun having to wear was not helping the situation either.
Unlike last time when she was met with a room and potions, the air at the end of the rabbit hole smelled of peppermint, tea and peaches this time.
There was a sky, and above her did it glow with shades of lavender and gold, and the flowers? The flowers sang louder than gospels.
She slowly sat up straight, and looked up. Before her stood a familiar crowd, who seemed to instantly bring tears into her eyes.
Not the ones she had shed for Sir Reginald Thomas. But happy ones.
“Welcome back,” they cheered.
“Did I do it? Did I do it? Did I do it?” cried the little white rabbit.
“Yes, you did, rabbit,” boomed the giant blue butterfly that flew over them. Oh! Absolem the Caterpillar with the hookah had turned into a butterfly!
The dormouse jumped up and down as he saw Alice stand up, and the cheshire cat giggled.
And waiting by the mushroom ring stood the Hatter, as maddening and magnificent as she remembered. His hat sat crooked as ever over his bright orange hair and his eyes twinkled with mischief – something deeper—something that said he had waited, just like she had remembered.
“Oh Alice,” he grinned, “You’ve missed your un-birthday tea seven thousand times over. That’s quite a number of scones left uneaten.”
She stared at him for a moment, her heart was singing in pain and her knees nearly giving out. Because for the first time in so long, someone was looking at her and seeing her. Not a wife. Not a lady. Not a womb.
Just Alice.
“Oh Hatter, I have forgotten how to laugh,” she whispered with a faint smile, as she stumbled towards him and embraced him in the biggest hug she could give.
Alice let out a loud sob and the hatter looked at her confused.
“You’ve changed,” he says, tilting his hat.
“So have you.”
“No, no. I’ve just gotten madder. You’ve grown still. Well, lucky for you,” he said, pulling out a teapot out of his wonky hat, “we happen to sell second chances here! Come on Alice! You missed a lot of laughs too. You’re not wrinkling enough!”
So she took it.
She sipped her tea and sang with the flowers. She danced with the Dodo and let the March Hare braid daisies into her hair. She let the memories of pain wash over her—and then away—like river water that no longer wished to drown her.
But this Wonderland was different. It, too, had aged.
The Mad Hatter was not madder, but wiser. The rabbit had grown older and had a small little goatee. The Cheshire cat seemed to have gotten himself a Siamese girlfriend, but was cheeky as ever. The mushrooms were taller and brighter.
Everyone had grown older.
Even the magic had grown up.
But the best part of the magic is that it never forgets.
And neither did Alice.
This time, Wonderland wasn’t an escape. It was a reclamation. A homecoming. A reckoning with the girl she had buried beneath expectations and silk gowns and wedding rings.
The Cheshire cat popped up right beside Alice as she jumped. She had almost forgotten what he felt like with his disappearing acts. “Hey Alice, did you know that mirrors work two ways? The Hatter couldn’t bear to see you so sad! So much did he whine tha-”
The flushed embarrassed Hatter tossed a cookie right at the cat, which the feline dodged with another disappearing act.
She laughed. For the first time again, in 15 years, she had realized that no one warns you that ‘happily ever after’ is not a destination—it’s a decision.
And that every morning you rise, broken or bruised, and choose to try again…
That’s where the real fairytale lives.
Not in the ‘happily.’
Not in the ‘ever.’
But in the ‘after.’
And once again, Alice realized that perhaps ‘happily ever afters’ are self-written, and this was her chance to rewrite her own.
Perhaps, it was time to go back to her roots. Go back to being plain ‘ol Alice Liddel.
And this plain ‘ol Alice was her perfect after, to her "happily ever after".
This time, she didn’t chase a happily ever after.
This time, she chose her wonderland.
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