Fic: Dark Mirror [Historical RPF, PG-13]
Oct. 24th, 2010 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trillianastraTitle: Dark Mirror
Fandom: Historical RPF, really. Sort of Alice in Wonderland, though.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Alice Liddell, very briefly Peter Llewelyn-Davies. Mention of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).
Prompt: This at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sharp_teeth's 2nd commentfic meme.
Summary: People kept asking Alice about Professor Dodgson, but she wouldn't talk about him, and spends her life trying to forget it.... which turns out to be harder than she thought.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll and probably belongs to Disney now. The characters portrayed here are fictional versions of real people.
~~
When Alice was a little girl, Professor Dodgson would visit the family a lot. He liked to spend time with Alice and her sisters, and would make up stories to entertain them.
He wrote down some of the stories, in a book called Alice's Adventures Under Ground.
They were about a little girl named Alice. He said that the Alice in the books wasn't her, but she never quite believed him.
The book got published, and suddenly the make-believe stories that Professor Dodgson told her were being read by people all over the country. People Alice didn't even know. When she found out, she had felt betrayed at first, but she had been young.
Alice grew up, and somehow, someone found out who she was. Since then many, many people have asked her about the stories, and about Professor Dodgson. Alice never tells them anything. She tries not to think about her childhood any more, and tells herself that the Alice Liddell she used to be is a different girl, like the pretend Alice. She is Alice Hargreaves now, a married woman, and she has more important things to worry about than a silly book.
Except, that isn't true.
Alice cannot abide mirrors. Her husband (dear Reginald, who gets so puzzled by the attention she receives) does not understand it. But he knows that they disturb her, and so he says nothing when she turns all the mirrors to face the wall, or drapes heavy curtains over them, and he does not mind when she refuses to allow the boys to read her copy of the book, which she keeps under lock and key in her dressing-room.
(She ought to get rid of it, sell the damn thing, but somehow she can't bring herself to do so.)
The boys beg her to let them see it, to read it to them. They've heard that their mother was the little girl in the book, and they want to know if it's true. Alice scolds them for bothering her, and forbids them from asking any more questions.
Alice would like to forget that the book ever existed, if only people would let her. But they continue to bother her, so she instead she must try to carry on with her life and ignore the questions.
One evening, when Reginald was away on business and the boys safely tucked up in bed, Alice sat down in her parlour to read a little. She started to read and soon became engrossed in the novel, so much so that when she looked up it was night outside.
She got up from her seat to draw the curtains, taking the candle from the side table, and crossed to to the window.
She had the heavy cloth of the curtain in her hand, about to pull it shut, when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass. It was so dark outside that the clear glass and the flickering candle in her hand conspired to turn the window into an almost perfect looking-glass.
Shaking, she started to draw the curtain shut, but stopped when she saw something move outside the window, and looked away.
(No, not outside the window. It was something in the reflection that was moving.)
Frozen in place, she steeled herself and looked again at the spot where she had seen movement. This time she didn't look away, but forced herself to look.
The shapes were hard to make out. She saw a stylised heart, a diamond, a rabbit, chess pieces that smiled eeriely at her and beckoned to her through the glass. She could have handled that, had it not been for the sounds.
For a moment she was transported back to her childhood, thinking that it was her sister calling her, or Mama perhaps, or Professor Dodgson. Then she remembered that she wasn't ten years old any more, and her childhood home was far away. And she realised that it was not one voice calling her, but many, and they were coming from the images in the reflection.
Alice...
Alice...
come back, Alice...
Alice shut her eyes, and refused to listen to the voices. She started to hum a song the boys had liked when they were little, to block out the voices calling her name, and yanked the curtain quickly across the window.
The voices stopped, and she took a deep breath. She found that she was shaking, and sat down quickly. The curtain stayed closed for a week before she could bring herself to allow it to be opened.
**
Many years later, Alice – now an old woman – travelled to America, for a display of Professor Dodgson's book that was organised for the centennial of his birth. While she was in America she was introduced to a young man named Peter, who had been the inspiration behind Mr Barrie's story, Peter Pan.
In a quiet moment, Alice said to him, “You know what it's like... having your childhood paraded around and examined. Tell me, do you blame him?”
Peter did not understand, she knew that as soon as she asked the question. He merely shrugged and said, “Why should I?”
~~
A/N: Alice Hargreaves, nee Liddell, actually did meet Peter Llewelyn-Davies in America (she was eighty, he was thirty-five), but I have no idea what, if anything, they said to each other.
Fandom: Historical RPF, really. Sort of Alice in Wonderland, though.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Alice Liddell, very briefly Peter Llewelyn-Davies. Mention of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).
Prompt: This at
sharp_teeth's 2nd commentfic meme.Summary: People kept asking Alice about Professor Dodgson, but she wouldn't talk about him, and spends her life trying to forget it.... which turns out to be harder than she thought.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll and probably belongs to Disney now. The characters portrayed here are fictional versions of real people.
~~
When Alice was a little girl, Professor Dodgson would visit the family a lot. He liked to spend time with Alice and her sisters, and would make up stories to entertain them.
He wrote down some of the stories, in a book called Alice's Adventures Under Ground.
They were about a little girl named Alice. He said that the Alice in the books wasn't her, but she never quite believed him.
The book got published, and suddenly the make-believe stories that Professor Dodgson told her were being read by people all over the country. People Alice didn't even know. When she found out, she had felt betrayed at first, but she had been young.
Alice grew up, and somehow, someone found out who she was. Since then many, many people have asked her about the stories, and about Professor Dodgson. Alice never tells them anything. She tries not to think about her childhood any more, and tells herself that the Alice Liddell she used to be is a different girl, like the pretend Alice. She is Alice Hargreaves now, a married woman, and she has more important things to worry about than a silly book.
Except, that isn't true.
Alice cannot abide mirrors. Her husband (dear Reginald, who gets so puzzled by the attention she receives) does not understand it. But he knows that they disturb her, and so he says nothing when she turns all the mirrors to face the wall, or drapes heavy curtains over them, and he does not mind when she refuses to allow the boys to read her copy of the book, which she keeps under lock and key in her dressing-room.
(She ought to get rid of it, sell the damn thing, but somehow she can't bring herself to do so.)
The boys beg her to let them see it, to read it to them. They've heard that their mother was the little girl in the book, and they want to know if it's true. Alice scolds them for bothering her, and forbids them from asking any more questions.
Alice would like to forget that the book ever existed, if only people would let her. But they continue to bother her, so she instead she must try to carry on with her life and ignore the questions.
One evening, when Reginald was away on business and the boys safely tucked up in bed, Alice sat down in her parlour to read a little. She started to read and soon became engrossed in the novel, so much so that when she looked up it was night outside.
She got up from her seat to draw the curtains, taking the candle from the side table, and crossed to to the window.
She had the heavy cloth of the curtain in her hand, about to pull it shut, when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass. It was so dark outside that the clear glass and the flickering candle in her hand conspired to turn the window into an almost perfect looking-glass.
Shaking, she started to draw the curtain shut, but stopped when she saw something move outside the window, and looked away.
(No, not outside the window. It was something in the reflection that was moving.)
Frozen in place, she steeled herself and looked again at the spot where she had seen movement. This time she didn't look away, but forced herself to look.
The shapes were hard to make out. She saw a stylised heart, a diamond, a rabbit, chess pieces that smiled eeriely at her and beckoned to her through the glass. She could have handled that, had it not been for the sounds.
For a moment she was transported back to her childhood, thinking that it was her sister calling her, or Mama perhaps, or Professor Dodgson. Then she remembered that she wasn't ten years old any more, and her childhood home was far away. And she realised that it was not one voice calling her, but many, and they were coming from the images in the reflection.
Alice...
Alice...
come back, Alice...
Alice shut her eyes, and refused to listen to the voices. She started to hum a song the boys had liked when they were little, to block out the voices calling her name, and yanked the curtain quickly across the window.
The voices stopped, and she took a deep breath. She found that she was shaking, and sat down quickly. The curtain stayed closed for a week before she could bring herself to allow it to be opened.
**
Many years later, Alice – now an old woman – travelled to America, for a display of Professor Dodgson's book that was organised for the centennial of his birth. While she was in America she was introduced to a young man named Peter, who had been the inspiration behind Mr Barrie's story, Peter Pan.
In a quiet moment, Alice said to him, “You know what it's like... having your childhood paraded around and examined. Tell me, do you blame him?”
Peter did not understand, she knew that as soon as she asked the question. He merely shrugged and said, “Why should I?”
~~
A/N: Alice Hargreaves, nee Liddell, actually did meet Peter Llewelyn-Davies in America (she was eighty, he was thirty-five), but I have no idea what, if anything, they said to each other.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 12:07 pm (UTC)::applauds::
no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 12:10 pm (UTC)Anyway, I'm glad you like it.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 06:18 am (UTC)Yeah, I was so surprised when I read that, I had to use it somehow, :D