THE ANTIPATHIES AND THE WELL OF DREAMS — PART ONE

THE ANTIPATHIES AND THE WELL OF DREAMS — PART ONE Spoilers for Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Wonderland #33–35. This first part covers #33–35; #36 follows in Part Two. I wanted to put together the Antipathies and the Well of Dreams, because there's a lot going on in these issues. Calie goes looking for a powerful artifact, and what she finds gets into where Wonderland's life comes from, where her own power comes from, and what happens to this place now that the Dreamer is gone. The Antipathies are three figures who look like different ages of the same person. One is a child in yellow, and the other two wear green and blue. They have the same dark hair and a very similar appearance. Zenescope describes them as a tri-entity, and you can see that in the way they answer Calie. When she asks whether they're the Antipathies, each of them answers for herself. They speak separately, but their conversation fits together. They also talk about things being past, things still to come, and things already done in a way that makes it difficult for Calie to get a straight answer. They're old, they're strange, and there's very little information about them available before she finds them. The White Rabbit has turned up a few lines in a book saying they guard, or once guarded, a powerful artifact. That's what sends Calie and Dark Cheshire into the Mountains of Rime and Ruin. And the Antipathies have been affected by the madness too. Before Calie can learn anything from them, she has to deal with what they've become. There are enormous remains frozen into the mountain, meat being eaten, and one of the Antipathies attacking Cheshire with a fork. The sight of these three sitting down to eat, with all of that around them, is a nasty introduction to the beings guarding something so important. Calie cleanses all three. Cheshire helps her get through the attack, and after that their appearance and behavior settle down. They acknowledge that they were unwell. They recognize her as Alice's daughter, as Calie Liddle, and as the White Queen, and they lead her to the Well. That detail about who she is keeps coming back. They address her through her family, her own name, and the position she's taken in Wonderland. All three matter to what happens when she gets into the water. The Well itself looks like a round stone well inside the mountain, with this swirling blue, white, and red water. The Antipathies call it the Well of Dreams. They explain that it's where dreams manifest, the source of life in Wonderland, and the source of Calie's power. They describe it as Wonderland's womb. That's a hell of a thing to find after climbing up there on the strength of a few lines in an old book. But there's an important limit in what they're saying. The Well is finite. They repeat that. They also say that they themselves are finite. Whatever else we learn about this place, these issues aren't presenting it as an endless supply that can keep giving forever without anything changing. They describe a pool of dreams, old and new, that was replenished as the Dreamer's story unfolded. That relationship has changed. Their paths no longer belong to the Dreamer, and they say that they are all the source now. The people living in this realm are involved in what sustains it. Later, they connect that to births and rebirths. Without the Dreamer directing the story, they choose their own, and some beings emerge looking for someone to guide them. Calie could be that person. There is another possibility too, the ominous “his” they leave hanging over the conversation. That gives Calie's job as White Queen a lot more weight. She's trying to cleanse the madness and help the people already living here while learning that Wonderland's continued life has limits she doesn't fully understand yet. The Antipathies know more than she does, but they give it to her in pieces. Then she enters the Well, and the whole thing becomes very personal. Calie sees a normal life with Brandon. Violet is eighteen, out of the house, and safe. There are bills, work, little arguments, and all the ordinary problems that would come with that life. It isn't some flawless fantasy where everyone spends the day smiling. Even in the dream, she and Violet aren't getting along. For someone whose family has been through what the Liddles have, that ordinary life means something. Calie has wanted to get away from the horror for so long. Now she's looking at a version of that escape, and she has to decide whether it still belongs to her. She realizes that this version of Violet isn't the daughter she knows. She recognizes that she has changed too. Wonderland has become part of who she is, and she has people depending on her. She can't reach backward and make herself into the girl who only wanted to run away. So she rejects the dream and comes back out. Cheshire is there to help her from the water. Calie describes what she saw as an old dream she hadn't been sure she could let go of. She also notices that parts of it were missing. That sits right alongside the Antipathies warning her about the Well being finite. The story gives her an experience of the dream, with something absent from it, before sending her back out with that warning. The mountain starts shaking while they're still talking. The Antipathies remain behind to contain the Well, and Calie and Cheshire leave to find the fighting outside. That's where the remains they found earlier get an explanation. Rime is a dragon, and the remains the Antipathies were eating belonged to her mate, Ruin. Rime calls them the guardians of the guardians. She says Ruin will return with the thaw. That's her explanation of their cycle, and it adds another layer to the births and rebirths the Antipathies were talking about. Rime has been fighting the Squire. Calie intervenes, recognizes that Rime allowed her through because she wanted the Antipathies cleansed, and leaves her alive to keep protecting the place. There are guardians around the guardians, an ancient Well inside the mountain, and a White Queen who is only now finding out how much she's responsible for. The Squire brings the next problem: the Terror, a creature who attacks through nightmares and can't be stopped by simply putting a sword through him. She needs Calie's help finding an En Passant, a separate artifact that can force him to remain physical so they can deal with him. It's worth keeping those two things separate. The Well belongs to the Antipathies' part of the story. The En Passant is the relic they're going after to contain the Terror. It isn't another name for the Well. By #35, Calie and Cheshire have gone to the Valley of the Kings and come away with the En Passant after facing the Lion. Meanwhile, the Squire has followed the Terror into a different kind of trap. The little winged creatures called half-wits have subdued the human body he's possessing. Their bites cause sleep and paralysis, and they leave people to die and become part of their overgrown surroundings. Calie refuses to just wait for the man to die. She wants the Terror out while his victim is still alive. She takes on the half-wits while Cheshire tries to wake him, and the issue ends with Cheshire suddenly seeing a bloody scene with the Mad Hatter beside him. That's where this first part leaves off. #36 follows in Part Two. The Antipathies are still up there with the Well. Calie has learned where her power connects to the realm, faced an old life she can no longer choose, and come back to a Wonderland that needs her. There are still questions about exactly how the Well's limits work and what those missing pieces mean. But the warning is already there: the source of all this life can run short, and even its guardians aren't beyond that limit.