Luna either fell very quickly or very slowly, she wasn't sure which. She watched the floating items all around her as she twisted and tumbled through the air. She was sure that if she had not been raised with magic she would have been shocked and surprised, but she had been able to make things float since she was only three years old.

A panic ripped though her heart as she realised that she had lost her paints and sketchbook on the way down. She clawed at the air, desperate to get herself the right way round and find her lost objects. They paints had been the last present her mother had given to her. She couldn't lose them. They were irreplaceable. Maybe the paints themselves were, but the emotional attachment was not. She had to find them. They were the last attachment she had to her mother.

Her mother's sweet voice echoed though her mind, the words woven together in the musical way of her speech. The things we lose always have a way of coming back to us in the end.

Luna managed to get herself to what she thought must be the right way up. She had long since forgotten which way was up and which way she was falling. No light was visible in any direction and yet an eerie glow filled the space around her.

Luna's mind began to wander as it often did. She was yanked out of her thought when she landed in a pile of leaves with a loud thump. Leaves flew up and over her head, landing in her hair and all around her with a gentle scuttling whisper.

Luna gingerly got to her feet, stretching out her arms and legs and curling her fingers and toes. She didn't seem to be hurt, only badly shaken in the most literal sense of the word. She mentally thanked her magic for saving her from certain death.

Above there was only darkness. She wondered how far up the surface world was. Straight ahead was a low passage. A flash of white caught her eye. The hare.

"Oh my ears and whiskers!" came a surprisingly loud and deep voice. "It's getting so very very late." The hare disappeared around a corner, his voice carrying around the twists and turns.

Luna pulled the thorns out of her tattered dress. She sighed, looking the mess the bush had made before looking up once more. No paints or sketchbook fell out of the sky, or rather the lack thereof. She imagined that they must have joined the ret of the objects floating between the world above and the bottom of the hole.

Lanterns lined the bottom of the whole. They were black iron and head clearly withstood many years of wear and tear. Luna found herself wondering who came to change the candles within them. A few had nearly burnt out. She wondered if the lamp lighter would be able to help her find her way out again.

She stumbled down the uneven floor. It continued to slope downwards and Luna couldn't help but wonder just how far down she was and where she was going. She could go on other way than forward so she had no choice but to keep going.

She found herself in a low ceilinged hall, bits of dirt occasionally crumbling down from above. She ducked when she knocked her head, closing her eyes against the shower of dirt. The dirt seemed to start falling harder and Luna slid forward, rolling across the floor to safety. When she peered up again the ceiling was a lot further away than she had imagined.

A little door lay before her. She blinked hard, rubbing a large piece of dirt out of her eye and crawled towards the door.

She pushed gently and it opened. She stuck her hand though and felt soft grass below and warm sun above. "Curiouser and curiouser," she said to herself, unsure of how she would fit more than just her hand through the small hole.

Luna started to panic. She had paced around the room. It had seemed to grow as she walked around and around, but there was no other way out. She had returned to the little door and smiled against it and started to cry.

A grey rat scurried across the floor. He spoke in a high-pitched, trembling voice. "What- what's wrong little girl?"

"I-" Luna sniffed, "I'm stuck here between the world above and what seems to be the world below. I don't know what to do. Father will be so worried about me. He already lost my mother. He can't lose another on this day." A tear dropped down Luna's nose and landed on the rat's disfigured paw. "I don't know what to do," she whispered, her voice hoarse with grief. "I just want to go home."

"I can't help you with that," the rat said, some of his stutter gone, "but I do believe you can get into the world below as you called it. Look behind you, dearie. You look like you'll fit right through that door." He paused, wriggling his whiskers. "But if you don't wish to go through, I'd appreciate it is you'd nice aside. I have placed to be."

Luna looked up and the rat and nearly screamed. She tried to scramble backwards but went nowhere. She shuffled to the side, twisting her slender body and shuffled away from the large rat. His crooked yellow teeth seemed far more threatening when he was the same size as her.

"Thank you very much." The rat stole though the green doorway, into the world beyond.

Luna sat where she was, shivering, her heart racing as she tried to catch her breath. Slowly she crept forward once more. She looked both ways and in the absence of the rat she slipped through the door and shut it quietly behind her.