Curious

Those in need will always be welcome. But be warned, sometimes what you need will not be what you want. Now come, step inside the shop.

Curious.

That was the name of the shop and it struck him as odd only because it really didn't seem like a shop at all. The front was all peeling purple plaint and a door that seemed so out of place with its brass handle, tiny letterbox and heart shaped knocker. And where was the window display? Where were the skinny mannequins dressed in rags of silk, chiffon, lace? Why was there a little desk in the window? Because there was. A desk sat where the front display should have been and on the desk sat at a typewriter. Perhaps the strangest thing of all though was the little girl- or so she seemed- sat upon the chair in front of the desk. She was all wayward blonde curls and lacy blue frills and she had a cat. A peculiar cat. A cat that grinned. He certainly hadn't ever come across one of those before. All the same, it was the rather 'curious' window display that had him twisting the handle on the out of place door and stepping foot into the shop.

Moss. That was what the floor was made of. Not green carpet made to look like moss or a plastic replica, but rather actual moss and he could see, even from such a height, that there were tiny little creatures inside of it. Miniature fish diving out of finger sized lakes. Butterfly's flying gracefully over the top of their green forest. Strange coloured frogs, emitting noises too quite for him to hear, hopping steadily closer to his shoe. God, what must he be standing on? He'd have stepped back but that surely wouldn't have helped when the whole floor seemed to be made up of the same bizarre ecosystem.

“You can't hurt them. They quite accustomed to visitors by now.” A disembodied voice ran out through the shop. The little girl. It must have been her and he was reminded immediately of the reason he'd stepped in to begin with. The window display, the grinning cat. He was sure his girlfriend would appreciate something like for her birthday. He turned around, ready to step onto the wooden platform of the display only to find that it wasn't here, the only thing he could see was another wall with shelves from floor to ceiling. In fact the whole wall was like that. Where was the door?

It must have been a dream. Doors didn't just disappear, walls weren't made of tree's and cats didn't grin. That was it. A dream. He'd wake up with his a mouthful of brown hair, a familiar warmth next to him and of memory blonde curls and mossy floors. But how was he going to wake himself up...? Eyes closed. Count to five. Open. Nope. Damn.

“Oh Ches! It looks like we've got another dreamer. How exciting!” It was that voice again, only this time it came from the floor where the little girl was rolling out from beneath a bottom shelf. Only, she wasn't really a little girl but rather a young woman who looked exactly like the little girl. Her older sister probably because she had the same wayward blonde curls and lacy blue frills.

“You aren't dreaming. Or at least if you are it's a very bad dream. You ought not steal other peoples shops into your own dreams you know. It's really quite rude. I was waiting for a customer, and now they will never come.” What an odd woman she was. It was in the way she spoke and the way she looked. Everything about her was bizarre. And then there was the grinning cat that hopped rather suddenly onto her shoulder like a parrot.

“There you are Ches. It was awfully rude of you to hide away from our newest customer like that. What do you have to say for yourself?” Surely nothing. Cat's don't talk.

“Dreadfully sorry, I'm sure. Only we have bigger problems than men with wondering eyes Alice. The door is on the ceiling again and it's letting in a draft.”

Wondering eyes? He didn't have wondering eyes. So what if 'Alice' had endless legs and a waist like he'd never seen before... The cat spoke. The cat grinned and spoke.

“Oh Little Door! Little Door! Do come down. You can't stay up there forever. Eventually this young man is going to have to leave and he'll not be able to if you're up there!” Was she honestly trying to persuade a door- one that had seemingly moved from the wall to the ceiling- to return to it's post? She was, wasn't she?

“Oh yes, do stop your flapping. You're creating a draft. Not to mention the hassle you'd cause if you let someone else in through the ceiling. Someone who doesn't need something.” 'Ches' drawled whilst he grinned and stared disapprovingly at the flapping door on the ceiling. But the door didn't listen. It continued it's flapping and through the door he caught flashes of different places, snatches of conversations and the occasional aroma of freshly baked confectionery and perfume.

“Where are we?” He asked, because surely they weren't still in Oxford.

“We're Nowhere special. Or we're Everywhere special. Or maybe we're just Somewhere special. It's hard to be sure sometimes when everything is so curious.” Grinning, talking cat. He really couldn't move past that fact.

“Ches, I do wish you wouldn't confuse people like that. It is very rude of you.” And then she looked at him once she'd finished berating the cat. “What he means is that we are wherever we are needed but nowhere we are wanted and often we just float around in the distinct borders of Somewhere until we reach the Anywhere of which we can be of some use. Does that make sense?”

Completely. Not at all. Perhaps a little. Well no, not really, but he wasn't going to tell her that because the explanations seemed to get more confusing each time. God forbid something normal actually happen in this place.

“So what is it you need?” She asked him before he could even answer her first question. He wasn't aware he 'needed' anything. Except maybe to wake up. But she continued, “Everyone who finds our little shop needs something. For themselves, for someone else, for no one at all. But they all need something and you are here, so you must need something too. Take a look around, perhaps you'll find what you're looking for. Do excuse me while I try to get the door down from the ceiling again.”

And then she was gone, rolling once again underneath the bottom shelf.

He looked around, figured he might as well being that it didn't seem likely he'd be waking up soon and he sure wasn't going to be able to leave until the door was back on the wall. The first thing he came across was a hookah, blue and comically large.

“It was the Caterpillar’s, but the Hare gifted him with a new one- much larger and distinctly more red- and so this one ended up here, most things do.” The grinning cat was following him around the shop, watching as he trailed his fingers over dusty books he'd never heard of and little ornaments, trinkets that cluttered the shelves that spanned the widths and lengths of the walls. A tiny teapot, small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. Who had this belonged to?

“That was our dear Door Mouse's first teapot. He outgrew it and it ended up here. Not that it's much use. You're not likely to get much tea in it anyway. The Hatter would have smashed it had it been placed at his table I'm sure. I think we have something of the Hatter's here actually. Follow me.” The cat talked more than Alice did. It swished it's tale when it walked and stopped at the top of the aisle to look back at him, expect him to follow it through the veritable labyrinth that was Curious. A deerstalker cap. That's what the cat led him too.

“It was a passing fancy. Or so he says. I think Alice may have said something to him. His hat now... Well it's much taller than this. Much more 'Him' if I do say so myself. Well his old one ended up here and no one has needed it yet. I hardly think you will either.”

What could he possibly need from this place? It was other people's old and used junk. It was old records and painted china ornaments with eyes that followed you and glass bottles in every size and shape imaginable.

“The blue one was mine.” Alice had popped up behind him again, laid one hand on his shoulder and pointed at an oddly shaped blue bottle with the other. “When I first found it, there was liquid in it. It made me grow and I'm quite thankful otherwise I'm sure I'd still be a child... Although there was a few times when I was smaller than a child too...” She muttered to herself nonsensically. She drank from a strange bottle? Well that was just silly. So Alice was both strange and stupid. Could this dream get any worse?

“Oh I knew it wasn't poison! I checked the label and it specifically said 'Drink me' with no mention of poison at all and so I knew it must be safe.” The idiocy. The sheer idiocy of that statement was... brain melting. And yet it was naïve, innocent, childlike. She was very much a little girl in a woman's body. Where had she been that had seen her grow up physically but remain so very much like a child in her mind? Never mind he didn't want to know. He wanted to walk away from them, out of the shop and hope that he never happened upon it again; in his dreams or otherwise. But he couldn't. Because the door was still flapping away above his head and, without scaling the shelves and risking his life, there was no way he was going to be able to reach it.

“It'll come down you know. But only when you have found what it is you need.” Again with the needing. He didn't need anything except to leave and never come back! Couldn't they see that?

There was a strange noise. A chiming, a bit like bells but not like any bells he'd ever heard before. It sent shivers down to the tips of his toes. And then he saw them. The wind chimes. The string attached to the table by a hook and the actual chimes defying gravity and floating upwards as if being pulled by a string from the ceiling. It was so... peculiar. Strange. Odd. Bizarre. A number of other words of the same effect that he'd found himself using since he'd entered the shop.

“Scary aren't they. the Hare used to hang the on the table and water them with tea. That's why they make such a curious sound. But the Door Mouse always complained they interrupted his sleep. So they ended up here.” Figures they found the sound strange but not the defiance of gravity. What more could there possible be to see? He'd seen the ordinary and the extraordinary, the mundane and the magical. He'd seen a speaking cat, a moving door and a little girl who'd become a young woman in the time it took to step inside.

“There's still a few more things you might find interesting you know. The Tweedles old compass? They ought not have given it away really... They never know where it is they're going. Then again, I suppose any direction leads to somewhere if you don't know where you're going...” He wished they didn't have such a round about way of talking. He couldn't understand half of what they meant. But still, the compass did seem ordinary, a lovely surprise after the floating chimes and the bottle that wasn't marked 'poison'.

“- and the Queen's Jar. Would you like to see that. It's a sight to behold. I'm sure you'll agree when you see it. And if you don't then you ought not to be here after all. Wouldn't you agree Alice?” Why would he want to see the Queen's Jar. It was just a... Jar.

It wasn't. It was a heart in a small glass jar, blood smearing the sides as the muscle pressed against it, and was it still beating? 

“Of course it's still beating. It wouldn't be much use if it wasn't beating would it?”

Oh God. It was a beating heart pressed into a glass jar. Was it human? Who had it belonged to? And how could it possible still beat?

“It belongs to the Queen. She gave it to the King on the night they married, but since then she's cut off so many heads that he thought she ought not to have a heart at all. And so it ended up here. Perhaps this is what you need?” There was a tug, like something pulling towards the glass, urging him to reach out and touch it, feel the press of cold beneath his fingers. It was almost tangible, the link between him and the grisly glass jar. He needed it. He didn't know why. Didn't know how. Didn't even want it really. And yet, as he stood there reaching towards the gore, he couldn't imagine walking through the Little Door without it in his hands.

“Oh Alice. I think he's found what he needs. You should try to get the door down again, we'll need to leave soon.”

It was in his hands, cold glass and the smell of blood invaded his senses. It was so irrational to feel so connected to such a horrible thing, and yet he did.

The door was once again on the wall and he was exiting the shop before he even had time to thank Alice and her talking cat.

“Do you think we should have warned him Ches?” Alice asked as she stroked his ear.

“And why would you think that? You ought to know by now that each who passes is in need of something. It is not of us to warn them of the risks their needs pose.” Ches replied, the grin still firmly in place.

“Oh, I do wish The White Rabbit would stop being so late... He should know how much I hate giving away the Queen's Jar.” There was a line in her brow at the depth of her frown.

“And yet, we must give it all the same.”

“Ches?”

“Yes, my dear Alice?”

“Do you think he'll live through the night?”

“Oh I suppose not. More likely is the chance of us having the Jar back before morning hits.”