Unexpected Faith - Alice's Human Story.
Hi people! I am Wafflies, your crazy and awesome Tour Guide for this story! It is still in the making, and I have about half written already, but I want to see if I can get some reviews up on here! So yeah, I have been interested in Alice ever since I read Twilight, and especially when we found out more about her in New Moon. Limited as it was, it was still information. Alice has a past, and her being my favourite character, deserves one. So here it is, Alice's story!
Also thanks to my Beta Reader Abbie-Loise, who is at the moment reading over my edited chapters for me!
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, nor any other funny disclaimer's other people have on their stories.
Chapter 1: Mary's (Alice's) POV
"Cynthia, please do hurry up! Mother will be home soon, and we need to make a good impression!"
I was tidying the house meticulously, arranging a bunch of small daisies in a pile, to make the house seem less drab. It was 1918; it felt like a depression, because the war was on. Even though the consequences were not as bad where we were, we still suffered heavily from it. My mother was trying any way to get money, because we needed it desperately. She volunteered to sew clothes for people in the hospitals, because there was pay, though limited. My mother's health was already declining from stress, and lack of food. I knew if anything happened, I could survive on my own. Part of the stress was that my father hadn't been seen or heard of in over two years, but it was mainly Cynthia she was worried for. Cynthia had just turned seven, the age of pure innocence, and when you started to learn how to look after others. Women did not go to school as men did. We stayed at home and learned to cook, clean and darn. When I was seven, I was learning to make beds neatly and to hang washing on the thin strip of metal we called a clothes-dryer.
"Bother," I thought to myself. I needed to make the bed we all shared. Like many other families, we shared the same bed. I rushed to make it. As I went into the room, I looked around. This room was smaller than the first. It was brick walls, which had a few badly drawn granite pictures on it to brighten it up. There was a small window at the top, with no glass. It got very cold in winter. We would all huddle up trying to keep warm. We didn't, nor couldn't sleep on those nights. I looked at our bed. It was made up of plain floor, with a large rag to cover us. Tidying it was a distraction, but there was nothing else to do. We all tried to keep hope, but it was, I knew, almost a lost cause. I had 'seen' an image of it not working. Unusual, I know, but I had had them before. I had read in the newspaper we saved up for monthly, something about 'déjà vu's' a word that I think meant to see things I was seeing and stuff. That was not the scary part though. The scary thing was that they were always correct. I knew the weather, what people would do the future. Mother knew I think, and she was frightened by it, but I knew that if I told someone, I would be put in a mental-house like one of my only friends, Susan. She had been thought to have Claustrophobia, or some long medically sounding word. I did not know what it meant, but I knew it was bad. I started straightening the long rag. When I was done, I went into the bigger room. The other room was small, dark, and was almost empty besides a small basin to place our stuff, and a small set of four chairs and a table. We had a small hole outside where we could do our business. A large shard of looking glass was on one of the chairs. Cynthia was there waiting for me in one of the other chairs. That meant she wanted something. I sighed. It was most likely something we didn't have.
"Mary?" Her voice rang out, almost in a whine. She had long brown hair that was knotted in clumps. She was absentmindedly chewing on a piece of hair.
"Yes Cynthia, what do you want?" I spoke with patience in my voice. I knew if it was something we couldn't give her, telling her calmly would distract her for a while.
"I'm hungry," she declared. She knew there wasn't anything we could do. But she hoped, just like us.
"I know. I'm sorry Cynthia, but you know that we don't have much. How about some potato?" As soon as I said it, she wrinkled her face. She was sick of it, like I was, but I ate it without a fuss.
"Don't make that face; it doesn't look lady-like."
"But 'tato is icky!" she cried. She put on a tortured look that almost broke my heart. The expression she put on was pitiful. I wished so desperately I could give her a change, something to make her smile the cute smile that had been missing for weeks.
"I know, but don't worry. Mother will get this job and we'll get better food, I promise." I knew it wouldn't work, but I needed her to believe that. She looked satisfied for the moment. I got half the potato left from last night, and chopped it in half again, one half for Cynthia and one for myself. I knew mother would be close by so I tried to tidy up Cynthia, by running my hand in her hair, getting the knots out.
"Ouch, Mary, you hurt meee!" she stretched out the 'me' to emphasize her pain. The knots were too clumped together now to help, so I stared at myself in the looking glass.
I was roughly around fifteen and a half, sickly pale and thin. Very thin. My eyes were a pale gray color, like my mothers, and I had very short, cropped black hair. Mother thought if I could pretend to be a boy, then I could get a job and earn money. I wanted to help my family, so I willingly cut my hair my long, black, hair short. It didn't help though. I was too small and looked weak. The men at the docks had laughed at my size and sent me on the long walk home again, saying I was too weak. They were probably right. I couldn't even lift up Cynthia. I could never be called pretty, even when my hair was longer.
The small door opened at the front of the shack and my mother walked in with a strange man, who watched us with suspicion. I wondered who he was. He did not look poor like us, he was better off. This man would change our lives. An image stretched over the one I was seeing previously. Mother was crying, but her face had an odd determination in it, whilst Cynthia was howling by Mother's side, being held by force. What had happened? Then I saw myself.
I was in a stretcher. I was just lying there, looking weak, with my eyes half opened. My lips were moving but I could not hear anything I was saying. Was I delirious, had I been involved in an accident? A motor car was there, and I saw myself being lugged in the back. I didn't rattle around, at all. Then I noticed my arms were strapped together, as were my legs.
I came back to reality with a gasp, my eyes taking in the new picture. Mother was looking away from me, still talking, and Cynthia's hand was clutched on mine. I had no idea how long I had been in my vision, as I called it, but the man had his eyes narrowed in my direction, as if he were studying me. He must suspect something, but I could not draw attention to myself. I took a breath as Mother introduced the stranger to us.
"Girls, here is someone I would like you to meet. His name is Mr. Bentham. He will help us." She took a sharp breath, me not missing the catch in her voice. "Mr. Bentham, these are my two daughters, Mary and Cynthia," she nodded to us as she called our names. I stepped forward and curtsied for the man. Manners had been drilled into me since I was Cynthia's age.
"How do you do?" I murmured quietly. The man looked sharply at me, nodding slightly in my direction, as well as Cynthia's, before turning back to my mother.
"Sit down John. Girls, go to the bedroom, and wait in there for me; we will not be too long. Cynthia clambered off her seat, and we walked hand in hand quickly into the room. It was the afternoon now, so we had a small amount of sun peeking through the window. I decided to take advantage of the fact that the sun was on the drawing wall, and distract Cynthia from worrying. She was too young to worry.
"Let's draw on the wall Cynthia!" I faked as much enthusiasm into it as I could, and smiled brightly. I could feel it's fakeness radiating around my mouth, the feeling of a smile foreign.
"Okay." There it was. I had found a way to bring back her precious smile back. I felt happy for the first time in months. My smile lifted slightly upon seeing her cheerful face, and I could a real smile shifting my face. This moment was perfect. Almost. I did not know when my déjà vu would happen exactly, but I knew it would be soon. And why I was in a stretcher, I did not even want to think about it. I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind, and smiled again, passing Cynthia the piece of granite. Though I felt happy and it was the first time I had smiled in months, it was the first time in a while that I didn't know what to expect later on.
Okay, so do people like?! Please review! ( I know I am a crappy reviewer myself, but please, reviews give me a tingly feeling that makes me feel loved, and it means people like the randomness spewing out of my head!)
Okay, so about 10 reviews shall we aim for before I post the next chapter?
Tour Guide Wafflies