Read Malice in Wonderland Prequel for Free Online Page B

spikes burst from the holes in the ceiling, then a creaking sound issued forth as the ceiling began lowering!
    Panic came over Alice. Frantically, her mind searched for a way out of this predicament.
    The mushroom!
    She carried a piece of the Caterpillar’s mushroom, so that she would be able to shrink down to his size whenever she needed to visit him. She reached into one of the inner pockets of her sopping dress, and pulled out the piece of mushroom. It was regrettably soggy, but now was not the time to be finicky, was it?
    She nibbled and began shrinking, with the descending spikes following closely behind. She hoped she would be able to shrink fast enough. The ceiling was crushing the throne, the black rose’s dome safely slipped into a hole in the ceiling, and Alice kept shrinking.
    She reassured herself that there were no holes in the ground that would allow the spikes to slide in, so there would be space next to the spikes…
    That was her only hope—to stand in one of the spaces between the spikes to avoid being skewered.
    She looked up to the ceiling. The spikes had completely crushed the throne and the tips had almost reached the ground. She took a step to the side as the spikes clanked into the ground all around her.
    She breathed a sigh of relief.
    Then a dreadful, long moment passed.
    Then a clanking sound as of chains being retracted, and creaking noises as the ceiling rose back up to its original position. The spikes retracted.
    “Crikey, but that was close!” she yelled. She nibbled some mushroom to grow again.
    She walked up to the pedestal. It was a bit tall for her, so she nibbled a little extra mushroom.
    “Finally! Now I know from fairy tales that these things go in threes. Since I survived the three challenges, there shan’t be any more.” And with that proclamation, she lifted the glass dome off the Black Rose. “Black Rose, can you speak?”
    Not all flowers could speak, and not all flowers that could speak spoke alike, and the words came from the flower as a whispery hiss. “Smelll meeeee.”
    Alice shrugged. “As you wish. You are a most beautiful flower. I’m sure your scent is just as much so.”
    She leaned over and inhaled.
    And was transported—into a world unknown to her. Darkness and naughtiness and adult secrets swirled about. She experienced the delicious desert of revenge served unexpected, and the malicious candy of destroying what others cherished. She felt and smelled the allure of seduction employed solely to betray. The corruption of innocence was this flower’s scent. These were the shadows of unadmitted desires and sensations. She shuddered with the delicious chill.
    She could feel the power of her goody two-shoes negating the corrupting influence, and debated whether to take them off.
    But then she swooned and fell to the floor, lost in an unblinking daze. She was conscious, but unable to move.
    She was unaware of how much time passed—it could have been seconds, it could have been centuries, when she felt someone or something grab a hold of her arms and drag her out of the room to the forest outside.
    She was unable to blink and her eyes stung as they stared into the clouds above.
    She saw a cloaked arm pass over, holding a glass tube, then something was held beneath her nose. She smelled the aroma of a pungent chemical. She instantly jolted and was able to move again.
    She shifted her eyes to see a mysterious hooded cloaked figure holding the Black Rose in its pot.
    Alice said, “Who are you? What happened?”
    Alice could only see the glowing twinkle of two red eyes beneath the hood. “Shhh.” The mysterious being lifted a bony gray finger to its mouth. “Your kind is not yet ready for the beauty of the Black Rose.”
    “You mean humans?”
    “No, I mean little girls.”
    “I’m not so little. I’m almost 8.”
    “Yes…little girl. You went too far from home, young one.”
    Alice got the sense that it was speaking figuratively. “I just wanted to help.