"Alice."

"What?

"He's staring at you."

"OK."

Esther stared at me. "You aren't going to look?"

With an exasperated sigh, I turned around. A kid with a peculiar head of flaming spikes and impenetrable eyes mismatched by complete heterochromia stood across the street from us, his lips drawn in a lazy ghost of a smirk. Underneath a simple, plaid flannel shirt he wore a black shirt that hugged his torso and matching pajama bottoms. A pair of Moccasins covered his feet. He was lucky he wasn't standing in a puddle, otherwise his feet would've frozen. And, as my nosy sister pointed out, he was indeed staring at us.

She was so insistent that I turn around and look that now that I was paying attention, I couldn't stop staring myself. I was so infatuated with watching him watching us that I completely forgot what I was doing - until Esther chided me, that is. "Stop staring, Alice. Don't you know that it's impolite?"

She had already forgotten that hardly moments before, she herself was lost in the act as well. I punched her as she turned around and grabbed a box off the truck, rubbing my ribs. Hypocrite. "Yes, Mother."

Esther tossed me a devilish look, and in return the phantom of a smile tugged at the corners of my lips. Though her eyes glared daggers, I wasn't fazed in the least. After all, when you receive withering looks like that all your life, your soft edges begin to harden and you eventually learn, subconsciously, to put on a mask that obscures your true emotions. Particularly your pain.

With a huff, I stuck my tongue out at her back and followed her into our new "home" with my belongings. Together we marched up the stairs and stopped at the top. Two doors stood on either side of the hallway: one on the left and one on the right, and another slightly smaller room stood at the end of the narrow corridor. Another, much shorter staircase protruding from the wall led to another room upstairs.

I could just barely make out the view from where I stood. The bedroom at the end of the hallway overlooked the beach and the array of similarly pastel colored houses before it. Mama would claim it as her own, I was sure of it.

My eyes flickered to the staircase through my blond fringe, then to where Esther stood. I decided to stake my claim on the room upstairs before she had the chance to move and quickly began my ascent. Once at the top, I set my small box of prized possessions on the dusty hardwood floor in the middle of my room. It was sad to think that I could carry virtually everything I owned in my arms, but I didn't have time to reflect further upon the thought. If Esther didn't chastise me for lingering in my new haven, Mama would.

"There you are." She handed me another plain cardboard box, this one labeled in big, bold letters: Kitchen. "If you can be a doll and bring this into the kitchen for me, that'd be lovely."

Patting the top, she forced a smile. It seemed genuine, but I knew what lay behind her fragile, sugarcoated mannerisms - and it wasn't gratitude. It was grief. Dammed grief, at that, that was only relieved through long, sleepless nights and early afternoon showers spent crying when she thought no one could hear her.

I wrinkled my nose at the nickname, but nodded and turned to face the gloomy mint green house. The sagging front porch steps creaked and groaned under my weight. I ignored its moans of protest and set the box down on the island, as promised, before stepping back out onto the porch. Leaning against the doorframe, I watched Mama, Esther and Ashton unload the truck with a hint of amusement. Then, deciding that they could handle offloading the rest of the boxes without my help, I peeled away from the doorframe and started for the beach.

None of them noticed my wandering off across the street, to the boardwalk. I tucked a loose lock of my hair behind my ear and shoved my hands in my pockets while I walked. The sand constantly shifted underneath my feet and seeped into my sneakers with my movements. The breeze was chilly and it nibbled at my exposed skin, but I didn't mind its cold bite nor its repugnant odor. I imagined it wouldn't be too difficult to fall asleep to the roar of the waves every night.

The thought of sleep, or the lack of it that I had gotten the previous night, reminded me of an exhaustion I wasn't consciously aware of. My footsteps slowed to a halt, and I rubbed my eyes in an attempt to chase the sudden drowsiness away. Then I started forward again with a yawn. More sand poured into my Converse, and the sharp breeze tangled its fingers in my hair, tossing my strawberry blond locks into my eyes. I made it about another foot or two before my knees gave out and I flopped face first into the dunes.

They felt damp against my cheek and fingertips, and I lingered where I had fallen. I didn't want to get up. Getting up meant going home, and going home meant returning to the somber environment that had crept up on us after...

No. It didn't do to dwell in the past and evade living. Father was gone, and there was nothing I could do. Besides, I was perfectly content with where I was anyway.

With a slight shake of my head, I closed my eyes and rested my cheek against the cool sand.

"Alice!"

I awakened sometime later to Esther's voice carrying on the wind and a pair of brilliant, curious - and amused - baby blue and earthen brown eyes peering down at me. If they hadn't moved back as quickly as they did, I would've been seeing stars well into the next day.

"I think your sister's calling for you." The redhead from earlier pointed in the direction of the boardwalk.

Reluctantly lifting my head from the ground, I twisted so that I could see the boardwalk and sprung to my feet, kicking up a spray of sand in my wake. As he had guessed, Esther was indeed leaning against the railing on the porch with her hands cupped around her mouth, hollering for me. "Dinner's ready!"

When I turned to face the peculiar redhead, he was gone. My brows arched at his mysterious vanishing act, and I shook my head. Who was that kid, anyway? And, more importantly, why did he seem so familiar? My forehead creased in thought. But no matter how hard I racked my brain, trying to put a face to a name or a name to a face, I couldn't place him.

"Alice!"

"Coming!" I yelled.

I didn't look back as I booked it. As I neared the boardwalk, Esther started down the porch steps to greet me. Her tangle of dark hair had been scraped back into a compromised bun that now rebelled against its black ties, so loose locks of her hair framed her face and fell in her eyes. The coast's unforgiving breeze wasn't helping her case. "Where have you been? I called for you fifteen minutes ago to tell you dinner was ready."

I had just decided to respond when Esther noticed the sand clinging to my cheeks. "You fell asleep on the beach, didn't you?"

She sighed and gently brushed the sand from my skin. I wrinkled my nose, but held still. Grains of the tan material fell away from my skin and collided with stray strands of my platinum hair, my clothes and the tar below.

"I was only going to rest my eyes," I mumbled to myself. There was no use in explaining what had happened to her, especially if my story involved the bizarre redhead from earlier. Good Lord, I would never heard the end of it if I mentioned my run-in with him.

"Hmm?"

"Oh, nevermind." I blew a loose lock of hair out of my face and pushed past Esther.

While she lingered in the road, I made my way to the sidewalk and bounded up the porch steps, kicked off my sneakers - Mama would throw a fit if I tracked sand all over the house - and slipped through the paint flaking screen door inside.

"Oh, and Alice - before I forget, I've enrolled you at the local high school. You start on August twenty-eighth. Ashton, you start on the twenty-seventh."

As always, Mama sat at the head of the table; Esther and I sat on either side of her, Esther on the right and myself on the left, and Ashton sat at the other end of the table, opposite of Mama. I nodded in acknowledgement and continued to pick at my Shepherd's Pie. My fork easily stabbed through a layer of potatoes and meat, and the metallic tongs scraped against China. August twenty-eighth. Even the mere thought of going back to school sent my stomach scattering into a disarray of killer bees, tickling my insides with their nonexistent stingers while they buzzed about. I swallowed.

For what felt like an eternity, we ate in silence. The only sound there was was that of utensils scraping against China and the occasional slurp as someone sipped from their glass mug. Then Mama said, "How was your day?"

Esther and I exchanged glances. Dipping my head, I swallowed a mouthful of potatoes, corn and meat and cleared my throat. "Good."

"And yours, Esther?"

Esther quietly launched into a brief description of how cruddy her day was, starting with how her car broke down on her way to work. At last she trailed off, her fork lingering over the pile of peas that sat untouched on her plate. "I forgot to tell you. Earlier, there was a...boy...staring at Alice. He was watching us unload the truck from across the street. I'd say he's a local with the hots for new girls in town."

Just when I thought Esther had forgotten, she went and opened her mouth. I choked on my Shepherd's Pie and narrowly avoided dropping my fork while Ashton snickered. When I could breathe again, I carefully eased my utensil onto my plate and kicked Esther under the table, reaching for my mug of cream soda. My eyes glared daggers, but only for a moment. Mama quickly directed her attention to me. "Oh?"

My glower hardened as I stared Esther down. Unfortunately, she wasn't paying attention. The nosy son of a bitch had busied herself with finishing the last of her peas, deliberately ignoring my glare while she scraped the horrid vegetables onto her fork. Mama fixed her beady dark eyes on me. "It would be a shame to let your beauty go unnoticed, my dear. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to at least try to make some friends this year."

My glare melted into a blush, and I dipped my head again. "Yes, Mother."

Those were bold words coming from her, considering my daily attire. But I knew when to look past her hazy beliefs and accept her words as compliments.

After a long moment of lingering silence, I decided that I'd lost my appetite and quietly mumbled, "May I be excused?"

"Of course."

With slow, precise movements, I pushed back my chair, picked up my plate and carried it into the kitchen so I could rinse the fine China clean. Esther quickly followed. Neither one of us uttered a word to the other as I scrubbed my plate clean, and she scraped what little remained of her own dinner off her plate, into the trashcan before dumping her plate in the sink. I huffed under my breath at her laziness and finished washing my plate before getting to work on hers.

When my work in the kitchen was complete, I carefully placed the dishes in the drying rack and started for the stairs. Esther once again followed in hot pursuit, followed in quick succession by Ashton. Once at the top of the staircase, we branched off in the direction of our rooms: Esther went to the left, Ashton made a beeline for his room on the right and I continued forward towards the staircase.

Lucy greeted me at the top, purring as she nuzzled my shin with her ears. I smiled and bent down to scratch her head before straightening and crossing the room to the box of possessions that I had yet to unpack. Crouching down, I peeled back the flaps and ran my fingertips over the spines of the dozens of books nestled inside. I finally settled on rereading Alice In Wonderland and closed the box. Not one to be left behind, Lucy trailed after me and curled up on my belly while I flipped open to the first page and began reading.

I was completely oblivious to the pair of eyes watching me outside my window.