It's gotten chilly. The sun has long crossed half the sky. Adra rubs at her arms; she's wearing her old white shirt with blue stripes and the frilly edge that makes it look like she's wearing a dress, which was fine earlier in the day, but a little thin now.

Maybe she should go back home?

She wobbles unsteadily to her feet, shakes out the pins and needles, and looks behind the tree back at their house.

She can see the white-painted panels of her house in the distance. The sun is in her way, a little, and she squints.

Cassie is lounging on the porch, tail wagging.

Oh! If Cassie's feeling better today, then she should definitely go back and play with her.

She dogears the page she's on, brushes the bits of grass off of her pants, and heads on over towards Cassie--

--there's a bit of fuzziness, a blurring around her vision, a sensation so minuscule it can hardly be noticed, and--

It's a warm summer day, and Adra is sprawled under the lone oak tree in the field behind their house, Alice in Wonderland open in her hands.

--huh?

She was just walking, wasn't she?

She sticks a finger in her book to save her place and gets up and brushes the grass off her jeans.

She looks up. The sun is all the way above her head and she has to crane her neck way back to catch sight of it.

She looks behind her, and her house is in the distance, Cassie-less.

Maybe she fell asleep? 

Didn't Alice fall asleep before seeing the Rabbit?

She looks at her place in the book, and finds that her finger is in the middle of the first chapter, right when Alice is falling down, down, down.

Hadn't she read that part already?

She closes the book again, feeling odd, like her head is swimming in an already-dreamt dream.

Maybe, maybe if she looks around, she'll see a Rabbit, just like Alice.

But there are no flashes of white fur, no muttered worryings, no rabbit-holes hidden in the grass, just her and her book and the great big oak with its leaves blocking out the sun.

Okay.

Okay, she must have been dreaming, then. 

She doesn't much feel like reading, now, and she wants to go back home and cuddle Cassie and ask Lis if she saw her fall asleep.

She walks back home, again, slower this time.

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine...

It's a bright summer day, and Adra is sprawled under the lone oak tree in the field behind their house, Alice in Wonderland open in her hands.

No.

No no no no no.

The book falls from her fingers as she gets up, legs wobbling in a bad way. 

She's dreaming. She's dreaming and she doesn't like it and she wants to wake up.

She pinches herself, hard. It hurts.

Nothing happens.

A light breeze ruffles the hem of her shirt. It's not strong enough to be chilly, even in the shade under the tree, and her shirt is sticking to her back in the heat.

She lets out a little whimper; her hands are sweaty and she can hear her heart in her ears.

It's so loud, and everything else is too quiet--

She sits down. Curls up. 

Maybe if she waits long enough she'll wake up.

Hours pass.

She sits facing her house and notices when Cassie is let out; Cassie lounges around on the porch as happy as can be and then curls up next to her dad's old armchair.

She wants run over and cuddle her. She wants to do it so badly. 

But the last time she did, it didn't work, and she curls up even tighter and waits.

She isn't sure how long Cassie is outside.

When she sees the front door open and her mother step out, she leaps to her feet. 

She yells.

She yells because she can't walk over but her mom doesn't hear.

She yells until her throat hurts but she's too far, or the dream-magic is keeping her from hearing, and when her mom pats Cassie and goes to head back in, Adra panics.

She leaps up and sprints, half-expecting whatever barrier there is keeping her out to break, and her mom is so close--

Sun.

Sunsunsunsunsun.

She pitches Alice in Wonderland and its stupid bunny and the stupid smiling cat away from her as hard as she can.

It flies, pages fluttering, spine-first into a mass of bushes-- 

--it's back in her hands.

--it's back in her hands and she's lying down on her stomach, again.

That was...

That wasn't even near her house.

She was standing under the tree and her house was behind her and she threw the book and it landed in the bushes and then everything reset.

What does that mean?

She goes to wipe away her tears but her eyes aren't wet.

And then she walks over to the bushes.

Her foot touches the edge of the bush.

Again.

She stops before the bush this time, rips up a piece of grass until she can see the dirt underneath. 

Then she moves over to the left and keeps walking.

She makes it a little further.

Again.

The patch of dirt is gone but she remembers where it was supposed to be. 

She marks the part to the left of it this time, and inches more to the left.

Again.

Again.

Again...

She doesn't know how long it takes for her to map out whatever it is.

It doesn't matter. The edge goes all the way around, with her and the book and the oak tree in the middle. It never gets any closer to her house.

When she is done--when she gets back to the bush with its little white and pink flowers, she stares at it for the longest time, and then sinks to the ground.

She curls up, exhausted even though her body doesn't feel like it, and doesn't look at her house; eventually, she nods off and sleeps.

Down, down, down, says the page underneath her fingers.

She gets up slowly, brushing the grass off her pants. She counts off her steps as she walks over towards her house and stops at twenty-six. Her book is in hand as she sits down cross-legged. She thinks she could read it, maybe. See if Alice has an answer to this bad dream. How did she get out of Wonderland, anyway?

It's a thin hope; it doesn't pan out.

Over the course of however long, after much panicking and slip-ups and tears, she learns that after Cassie and her mom go back in, her mom goes back out and looks at Adra.

She looks at her.

She looks at her and she doesn't see her, no matter what Adra does. She's too far away for Adra to make out her expression, and then she turns and shouts and Lis comes tumbling out. Her sister is wearing this blue shirt with white stripes with the little frilly skirt, the opposite of Adra's, which Adra supposes her mom thought was funny because of the twin thing. And Lis strides off the porch steps and towards her and Adra stands, heart in her throat, waiting.

(she remembers the very moment when her heart breaks.

she'd imagined that lis would come annoyed and pouty like she always does when adra stays out too late.

she'd imagined that lis would come and step right over the invisible line burned in her mind's eye. 

she'd imagined that lis would come and stop right in front of her, hands on hips, and say, adra, mom wants you to come and get ready for dinner, and she'd roll her eyes when adra tries to get up and fails because her legs are too needle-y, and she'd hold out her hand and haul adra to her feet, and then they would go back together to their house and Cassie and mom and dad and they would eat slightly burnt chicken because that's what her mom always tries to cook after her dad comes back from a trip and he'd tell a silly joke and they'd all groan and laugh anyway and then she'd go back to their room and snuggle under the covers with lis because she doesn't want to be alone anymore, and everything would be fine.

the sun is high above her head, and lis never comes.)

epilogue - and back again

One day, Adra sees something different.

One day, as she is curled up against the tree because moving got too hard to do, a woman and a man appear in thin air right before her eyes, halfway between the Line and her tree. They wave around small and boxy remotes and talk like they don't see her, until they do, and then they're looking at her and it's too much but she can't stop looking back, eyes wide, and they say Adra? Adrastea? but the words don't sound like her name anymore, just sounds, and somehow they are closer and murmuring something like it's alright, you're safe now, but she's still waiting for them to disappear; for some reason, they don't. 

The woman puts something on her shoulder and she lets her; the man lingers for a moment and then moves around her and the tree with his remote out. And then they are both in front of her and saying something about moving and when she doesn't respond they look at each other and the woman asks her if she could pick her up and Adra remembers how to nod.

And then everything is different and loud and indoors. 

Adra never ever sleeps alone ever again.