Pixie Dust & Premonitions
Part 1/10
Different
The first time it happens, she's seven years old. Her little sister, Cynthia, is playing in the garden while she sits on the porch with a half-finished doodle in her lap. One minute she's watching the girl chase a lemon-yellow butterfly, and the next she's standing in on the side of a dark street, rain pouring all around her.
Only she isn't wet.
The edges of her vision are fuzzy, and it seems to her that she's looking through smudged glass. She sees herself in a bland blue dress – the only thing they can afford – between her mother and her father. Her cousin and her sister skip merrily in front of them.
She sees the fancy black car, and it's tires squealing and spinning out of control. She sees her cousin lying on the concrete.
When she's back in the garden again, with the sun beaming down on her, she races inside the house. When she tells her mother, she gets laughed at and called silly.
Her cousin dies three days later. The man simply couldn't control the car.
When she's eight, and her sister is six, they move to a bigger house that her father, Jack, buys with the advance he gets at work. She has her own room now. Their first few weeks in this new house are uneventful.
One Sunday morning before church, breakfast time changes everything. Her mother is running around the kitchen gathering food items, and talking to her father about the morning's news and the neighbor's gossip.
"Mrs. Brown down the street thinks her daughter, Natalie, is pregnant."
Her father shakes his head. He isn't interested, but he let's his wife talk on.
"Now she has to get married, as if they can even afford a wedding. The child's father isn't worth a—"
"Mommy, you're going to burn the bacon."
"Hush, Mary Alice. I'm talking. Anyway, that girl needs to change her ways. If any of my children –"
"Mommy, you're going to burn the bacon."
Her mother plops a piece of toast down on each of the four plates at the table. "The bacon's not even on the stove yet. Like I was saying, if any of your girls ever even think of pulling of a stunt like that, I'll… well, I don't know what I'll do."
Alice sighs and rubs at her forehead as she hears the sizzle of the bacon in the grease. Why does no one ever listen to her?
"Mommy—"
"I really do love this house, Jack. I'm glad you bought it."
"Of course, dear. …Cynthia, don't eat the napkin."
"Mommy!"
"I don't know why she does that, she's old enough to – oh!" Her mother swears and covers her mouth. "Sorry."
"What did you do, Mary?"
"…I burned the bacon."
Alice shifts uncomfortably under the eyes of her parents. "…I told you."
* * *
Two days before her fifteenth birthday, she's walking through a field with her best friend, Lily. She pretends to listen while Lily talks about "the boy down the street" and how she "thinks he smiled at her," but she isn't. Not really.
"Alice, you're awfully quiet."
She pushes a strand of her long, dark hair off her forehead. "I'm sorry, Lily. You like him, right? You should say something."
Lily stops walking. "What's with you? You've started daydreaming more often and… it wasn't so bad before, when we were younger. But people are talking now, you know."
She frowns. "What do they say?"
"It doesn't matter, really. They've got nothing better to do. But tell me why you're so quiet."
"I had a dream last night." Lily waits, so she rolls her eyes and adds on, "About a man."
"A man? Who is he, do I know him? Tell me everything!"
"Be quiet… don't tell anyone, Lily. My parents don't like it when I talk about my dreams."
"I promise. Tell me."
Alice kneels to pull at a few blades of grass. "There isn't much to tell. I only saw him from behind, as though he were walking through a large crowd and I was following him. He's tall, blonde – a soldier, I think."
"Ooh."
She smiles lightly at Lily's interest, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Alice rarely dreams, and when she does, it means something.
That night, she dreams of war and death. When she wakes, she's grasping the sheets with her hands in tight fists. Tears stream down the sides of her face, and she closes her eyes.
The image of a tormented and scarred man with empty, red eyes is burned into her mind.