Disclaimer: Sadly, Alice in Wonderland belongs to Lewis Carroll, Disney, and whoever else owns the rights. Only original characters and ideas belong to me.

AN: Okay, I'm giving in to the phenomenon and writing an Alice story. This is going to be sort of a "test chapter," and if everyone likes it, I'll continue. Oh, and it's movie-based, just so you know. Please be kind by leaving a review to let me know what you think, and if I should go on. Thanks.

Chapter 1: A Family Legacy:

The White Rabbit looked at the envelope in his paws. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Majesty?" he asked, twitching his pink nose.

Perched daintily on her throne, the White Queen nodded. "After all she has done for us, it is the least we can do. Besides, it would be good for her to visit when there is nothing for her to fear or fight, and there are many who wish to thank her."

'Not to mention there are many who both wish to see her, and yet never see her again,' the Rabbit thought, though he dared not voice it.

"And under no circumstances are you to open the envelope," the Queen ordered, her soft voice gentle, but firm. "It is for Alice's eyes only."

The Rabbit nodded. "Will we need more of the potions, Majesty, as we did before?"

Queen Mirana shook her head, white locks swaying beautifully and gently with her movements. "No, that will not be necessary this time. In this instance, I've taken certain precautions. Now, go and deliver the message to Alice, my dear Rabbit, and we shall prepare for her return."

Finding Alice this time was proving far more difficult than before. At least he knew what she looked like now, but still, trailing the young girl wasn't easy. It had taken days of listening in at open doors to find out that the mansion he had found Alice at before had merely been a place she'd been visiting. Lucky for him, a messenger from that house had been dispatched with a note for Alice's mother, and the White Rabbit was quick to follow the man to the home of Mrs. Kingsley.

Looking up at Alice's home, the Rabbit shook his head. It was a large house made of grey stone, and was remarkably dreary. How such a place could shelter a colorful spirit like Alice was a puzzle. It did not help at all that the servants all looked as bleak and inapproachable as the stone walls, either.

Of course, Rabbit couldn't simply hand the White Queen's message to one of these servants; the animals in the Above World could not speak, and a talking White Rabbit would alarm the humans here. So he settled down in a nice hovel to wait for when he could see Alice and speak to her alone.

Days went by, and still there was no sign of Alice. Many times the Rabbit saw an older woman who had to be her mother, as well as another who was likely her sister, but not once did he see Alice anywhere near the house. Perhaps she was ill, or maybe away for a short while, but he had to wait and be sure.

Finally, after two weeks of shivering in the cold and wet, the Rabbit had had enough. If he slipped the Queen's message under the front door, it would surely be put into Alice's hands…wouldn't it? And the Queen would understand; she could not have wanted her messenger to stay and watch the house for who-knows-how-long.

'Besides, it's not urgent, or the Queen would have said so,' he reasoned.

He waited until late afternoon, when everyone was busy with their tea. Unseen and unheard, the Rabbit approached the front door and slipped the White Queen's envelope underneath. His mission completed, he raced back to his rabbit hole, knowing that the Queen would want a report about this.

"Sir, it's a message for Miss Alice," the quivering maid informed the butler. "Someone slipped it under the front door this afternoon. Should I take it to the Missus?"

The butler sniffed in distain. "No indeed," he said. "It cannot be important for someone to leave it under the door. Just toss it away."

"It'd serve her right for not getting that letter," the head housekeeper replied, glaring at the maid as though it were her fault. "Running off to China like that instead of marrying a lord! I've never heard of such a thing! Take that paper away this instant, there's no use in disturbing the mistress with that!"

Running off, the maid decided to go against their orders. Miss Alice had always been kind to her, and the least she could do is make sure that the note was kept safe for her until she returned. There were a few trunks laying about her old bedroom; surely the envelope would be safe in one of them?

Modern Day England:

"Laura, come on!" Ali whined. "We don't have to do this today. We've got all summer!"

Rolling my eyes, I pulled the dust sheet until it landed in a heap on the floor. "Hey, this was your brilliant idea," I retorted. "Your parents let us stay here, rent-free, for the summer, and all we have to do is clean the attic. They even have someone coming out here to restock the fridge on a weekly basis, so the least we can do is get this over with."

Sighing, Ali sat on the floor by the large dust sheet and glared at the old trunk. "Fine. But I don't see why we have to do this. I mean, they can just hire someone to toss all of this old junk out."

I stared at her friend, horrified. I loved antiques, and was secretly hoping that Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham would let me keep some of the things we found in the attic.

'Really, the two of us couldn't be more different,' I thought, shaking my head as Ali began fumbling with the old lock on the trunk.

Ali was tall and thin, with long, wavy blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. She came from a very rich English family that could be traced far beyond the Victorian Era, and had been my friend and roommate in college back in America. Her only problems: Ali craved attention (think unaffectionate childhood), and a slight quick temper that tended to get her into trouble.

I was her polar opposite: middle-class American, short, curvy, and with chocolate-colored hair and eyes. I was the mild-mannered force that put down Ali's temper tantrums (which could be pretty explosive). An "old soul" at heart, I loved books, antiques, and had always dreamed of staying in an English mansion in the countryside. Like me, Ali liked books, but she was English-born, so she was used to houses full of stuff that was older than America's original thirteen colonies.

Today was going to be a dream for me; for her, it'd be a nightmare.

A loud noise pulled my attention back to my friend, who looked embarrassed as she held up the lock from the trunk. "It fell off," she said, setting it aside. "Come on; let's see if there are any weird family secrets to be had in here!"

The two of us lifted the trunk's lid and began rummaging around the valuables we found there. We found a few books, several dresses that probably belonged to a young lady, two marvelous wooden hair brushes, and a number of personal keepsakes, all appearing to be from the Victorian Era. I couldn't help but admire a pale blue gown with black designs embroidered around the hems.

"Hey, there's a name on the trunk," Ali said, wiping a bit of dust away. "Oh, gosh, no way."

I looked. "Alice Kingsley," I read aloud. "Isn't that your ancestor? The one who went to China and the one you're named after?"

Ali rolled her eyes. "Yes," she said, unenthusiastically.

Really, I couldn't understand why Ali (born Alice Elizabeth Cunningham) would be embarrassed by her family history. Apparently the whole Alice in Wonderland book was about Ali's ancestor, whom Lewis Carroll had met and written about over a century-and-a-half ago. Alice had told the whole made-up story to Mr. Carroll, but in order to hide the identity of who Alice really was, Carroll had been asked to lie to the press and claim it was about an Alice Liddell, whom he'd been friends with at that time. Meanwhile, Alice Kingsley had sailed off for China, leaving behind a rather scandalized family, all of whom thought it mad that a woman would travel the world and do whatever she wanted. That Alice had founded an extremely profitable trading post that still existed in Hong Kong, and which had been passed down to Ali's father, Mr. Cunningham.

'I wish my family history was that exciting,' I wistfully thought.

"I can't believe they kept her old stuff," Ali muttered, pulling out a book. "I mean, the woman died over a hundred years ago!"

"Family pride," I said. "If she'd been my ancestor, I know I'd love to keep her things around."

"Yeah, well, if they want to keep it, they could at least take it out of the trunk," Ali retorted, tossing the book to me. "I know the stuff she took with her now resides in a museum in London. This might just join them there."

Quickly bored with the contents, Ali headed over to the next trunk, also marked with Alice Kingsley's name. As she searched through that one, I shut the lid on the trunk before me and examined the outside of it.

"That's strange," I muttered, running my hands over the old wood and rusting metal.

"What?" Ali called back.

"I said it's strange," I replied louder, eyes not leaving the trunk. "There's nothing on the outside of this trunk indicating that it was sent to China, or shipped back to England after Alice Kingsley died. No travel stickers, shipping tags or anything. I don't think this trunk left the house when she traveled for China."

That caught Ali's attention. "Are you serious? Why wouldn't her family send her clothes and stuff with her, especially since they couldn't know if she'd come back to England? Her grandkids came back to English soil, but not her, so she must have told her mom she was staying in the Far East. Why didn't her family care enough to ship her belongings with her, or even after she left?"

I opened the trunk again. "Good question," I muttered. "Maybe her family was ashamed of her? After all, she was a woman who traveled halfway around the world, looking for adventure. Women just didn't do that back then. Maybe they thought by keeping her belongings, she'd have to come back for them? They might have hoped Alice would return after a while, possibly when she realized what a 'mistake' she'd made?"

Ali shook her head and went back to digging in the second trunk. I, however, couldn't seem to get away from this one, and so began rummaging through it again, flipping through the books and shuffling through the other miscellaneous items, hoping to find something special.

'Which is stupid, of course,' I realized, putting down a faded seashell. 'Anything special would have gone to China with Alice. The rest of this is probably her castoff stuff, or whatever she didn't want to take.'

Well, you never know what you'll find when it comes to antiquing, so I decided to be optimistic and continue rummaging. It was a good thing I did, because it was while I was shifting through the trunk that I discovered the brilliant white square of paper in the back corner.

'That's weird. Why isn't it all aged and yellow like the books?' I wondered, reaching for it.

The paper was actually an envelope, perfectly square and a fairly decent size. It was of fine quality stuff, which might explain why it hadn't aged, but I wasn't convinced. Turning it over, I saw the name 'Alice' elegantly written on the front in gold ink; on the back was a white wax seal in the shape of a rose, and hovering over the rose was a white crown. How very interesting.

Chewing my lip, I wondered if the envelope was some sort of gift for this Alice, the friend sitting six feet away from me. Maybe it had been put here as a game, like a treasure hunt to motivate Ali into finishing the cleaning she'd promised to do? Could there be other envelopes hidden throughout the attic, and when we found them all, we would get a prize?

I shrugged. It made sense, and it'd get Ali to be more cooperative, so why not ask her? "Hey, Ali, come here. I found something."

"Don't say it's another book," she groaned, still rummaging through the second trunk. "I promise, you can have all the books we find in this attic, but don't make me come over there and look at it."

I rolled my eyes. "No, you moron, it's not a book, it's an envelope. And it's got your name on it."

Ali dropped what she was doing and was at my side in an instant. "No, I don't think it's for me," she said in disappointment, after reading the front. "I haven't been called Alice since I was five; that was when I'd been told the family history and insisted on being nicknamed 'Ali.' My parents know better than to write my full first name on the front of an envelope."

"Well, it can't have been for your ancestor. Look, the paper isn't faded or turning yellow with age, and the wax looks like it was sealed yesterday. Who else could it be for?" I asked, impatiently.

"I don't know, but it's not from my parents. The family crest looks nothing like that, and it's not one that I recognize, so it's not from any of Mum or Dad's friends. It has to be for Alice Kingsley."

But that was impossible, wasn't it? I twirled the envelope over and over in my hands. "Should we open it, just to see inside? I mean, it's not even open, so she never got it. It was probably sent after she went to China."

Ali began to look interested again. "I've got to admit, I love a good mystery. I mean, I know that Alice went to China, helped found a trading post for her father's company, married one of the clerks who worked there, then had a brood of children and grandchildren, who came back to England when the family bloodline ran out. That's how the house stayed in our family, you know. But for her family to hide something like this from her –it might have been from someone incredibly important, and they let the thing lie around for ages. That doesn't seem right."

I nodded. "So, do you want to open it? I mean, it's got your ancestor's name on it, and yours."

Ali shook her head. "I was never really an 'Alice.' The name's been passed down to at least one girl in every generation since her time, and I hate it. You open it and see what it says."

Shrugging, I carefully slid my fingers under the seal and broke it. For a second, I could swear I heard a gasp-like noise, the sound almost otherworldly in the small attic space. Ali didn't seem to hear it, because she was busy urging me to hurry up. Shrugging off the strange moment, I pulled out the pristine white card and read it aloud.

"You are cordially invited to the castle of Her Royal Majesty, the White Queen, Mirana of Marmoreal, in celebration of the anniversary of the defeat of the Red Queen," I read aloud. "You may bring one guest of your choosing to share in the honor of attending the celebration."

Ali stared at her. "You're serious? This has to be a joke. Someone's playing with us. The Red and White Queens? That's from the Alice in Wonderland book! It's not fact, it's fiction."

I looked at the elegant writing in gold ink. "Well, that's what the note says, and since no one's messed with that trunk for at least fifty to a hundred years, I'd say it's genuine."

"This is bull," Ali retorted. "You have to be making this up. Here, give it to me."

Sighing, I tucked the invitation under the envelope's flap and offered it to her.

The second the invitation touched her hand, a bright white light filled the attic, so intensely it was blinding. When the white light was gone, I felt and saw a swirling vortex of rainbow colors pull us towards a place I couldn't see, and the thing that came next was a blow to the head.

Then, everything went black.

AN: Well, that's the first chapter. I'll post the second once I'm sure that people want me to continue. There's an influx of new stories now that the film's out, and I want to be sure that mine isn't lost in the mix. Thanks so much for reading, and please review!