I was never minded to have a family of my own, but I have always enjoyed the company of children. They say what they feel, and ask what they want. Children are a purer form of humanity; our very best selves. But then they grow up. Innocence fades as experience breeds cynicism.

There is an undefined marker between childhood and adolescence that limits curiosity. As children grow, their minds harden and the spirits stop soaring. I've often considered pursuing this as an academic line of inquiry, and if I had to do my training all over again perhaps I would choose the undiscovered country of the human mind instead of exploring the boundaries of mathematics. But we make our choices; and we flourish or perish by them. Children at or about the age of thirteen simply stop wondering, and start knowing.

For whatever reason, I have not suffered from that affliction. At the old age of thirty-one, I, Charles Dodgson, find myself just as curious as the day on my seventh birthday when I caught a caterpillar in a jar and watched it transform into a butterfly. My chosen field of pursuit, mathematics, may be more complex (though what could be more complex than full metamorphosis?), but the visceral desire to know more today than I knew yesterday has never left me.

It's been said that I'm not particularly good with conversation, but that's only half true. I'm just not interested in stilted conversations at high table or garden parties with adults who limit their own imaginations. With children, however, I find I can converse for hours. And I often do. My slight stammer, which impedes my socialising with contemporaries, simply melts away with anyone who has not yet passed through puberty. Children, it should seem, bring out the best in me.

Having none of my own – for reasons I shall discuss later if I'm not yet executed – I was most fortunate when Henry Liddell became Dean of Christ Church college in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and fifty-six.

He brought with him not just an uninhibited mind – for all things literary and mathematical, a rare combination in my view – but four lovely, intelligent, and curious children. I was to know later that there should have been five, but their son, James, did not live long enough to blow out four candles. Knowing tragedy, but blessed with abundance, Henry became not only my superior (in every way), but also a dear friend. Consumed with the both the academic ambition and the practical operations of the college, Henry had little time for his brood, and was pleased that I could strike up such a familiar friendship with his offspring. He thought it right for them to have exposure to academics from a young age, and I thought it fitting that I should encourage their minds and keep their coming cynicism at bay for as long as possible.

Of the four youngsters, Edward, Lottie, Alice, and little Edith, it was Alice that I grew most fond of. She arrived at age five, full of curiosity for the natural world. I would often take her on long walks in the fields of Oxforshire, tramps in the woods, and punting on the Thames. In a manner that was considered unbecoming for little girls, Alice would pluck flowers from the grass and catch bugs and spiders with her bare hands. She was fond of her cat, Dinah, but more enthralled by the wilder animals that made the Oxford countryside their undomesticated home. It was these squirrels, foxes, and badgers that consumed her imagination.

"They all have names, and mothers and papas," she told me on one bucolic rowboat ride, clearly placing the animals into the frame of reference that she understood.

I would row the oars as Alice regaled me with stories animals competing in the most ridiculous running races, which I gleamed was her observation of elder brother Edward's equally ridiculous sporting events at school.

"And what about swimming?" I asked.

"Well," she said, composing her thoughts and channeling her imagination, "I don't think they've ever been taught how."

"Then they'd find it quite distressing to be dumped into the water," I said, tilting the boat in jest.

Alice held on, a look of fear crossing her otherwise sunny face. Of course, she didn't know how to swim either and my joke startled her.

She tensed and started to cry.

"Oh my dear," I said, attempting to calm the child. "It was a just a gag, and I would never let any harm come to you. If you fell in the river, I'd jump in and save you."

She shuffled closer to me and wrapped her little arms around my torso. She was clearly afraid, but my words seemed to offer some comfort.

"Even if the river was filled with snarks?" she asked.

I was about to explain that in Oxfordshire, the river Thames was fresh water and not salt water (the same was not true for the Thames estuary on the east side of London), and that sharks – pronounced with a 'sh' and not a 'sn' – could not survive; thus she had little to fear. But I stopped myself because I realised that my explanation, however correct, would kill off a small part of her imagination. It was at that moment I understood how children could cross the threshold from curiosity to certainty. It was us, us supposed grown ups that wring the imagination out of children, leaving only facts and figures. I was horrified that I could be complicit in the premature ending of childhood.

"Even if it was filled with snarks," I said.

I decided right there that I should never quash the imagination of a child. In fact, I pledged to myself, with Alice as un unknowing witness, that outside of maths I should seek to find a way to inspire youngsters to hold onto the most ridiculous fractals of imagination. Of course, beyond staying silly with the Liddell brood, I had no idea how. I certainly never entertained the notion of writing a book.

"You wouldn't let anything bad happen to me, would you?" Alice asked.

It was a strange thing to ask, and I certainly had no idea what bad thing a five year old might worry about, but I made a promise that day on the river that I didn't know I was to break.

"Alice my dear," I said, placing my hands around her, stroking her hair. "I won't ever let anything bad happen to you."

She gave my body a squeeze, which I took to mean gratitude, and then she backed away with the most cheeky grin I'd ever seen and promptly rocked the boat. I was so taken aback that I nearly fell in.

"Then I won't be afraid of the snarks," she said.

We continued downstream (we always began our journeys paddling up river, to then enjoy a more gentle excursion on the way home) and spoke of many things; animals, vegetables, minerals and even the peculiar habit of her mother to play bridge with the other wives of college members while the children were cared for by a nurse.

"Adults forget how to play with children," I said. "And sometimes only know how to play games with other grown ups."

"Not you," she said, correctly. "You don't play with the grown ups."

She was right. The only times I willing consorted with grown ups was in college, when the conversation was restricted to mathematics, or in London where I chased the dragon. The latter was a vice that consumed many a weekend and much of my income.

"That's because I've never really grown up," I admitted. "I've grown old, but not up."
"I wish I were bigger," she said, changing the subject in a way that makes perfect sense to the connected mind of a child, but often leaves adults perplex.

"Perhaps you'd rather be smaller," I suggested. "That way you could play with the animals you love so much. Imagine running with squirrels or paddling with birds."

"Or hopping with rabbits!" she squealed.

Rabbits, it turned out, were Alice's favourite animal.

It was that unfortunate coincidence that lured Alice from her home, though the garden, and into a nightmare no child should ever endure in sleep let alone in waking life.

Two years later, when the traveller offered to let Alice stroke his snow white rabbit so that he could snatch her, I judged this action to be so callous that I took not a moment of hesitation in taking his life.

He was to be my first kill.

Blood, it turned out, was a more potent addiction than opium ever was.

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This is dedicated to @AshleighGardner, who was the first person to encourage me to join wattpad.

This book is a complete departure from my young adult writing. This isn't just my first historical piece, it's also much darker than anything I've mounted before.

But be warned, it's going to get gruesome...