A/N: Uh, yeah. This was written over the course of an hour or so, then immediately posted,so it probably won't be wonderful. Please read anyway- hope you like it!
Margaret had loved her first child, and only daughter, more than anything. She had married her husband because her parents had wished it, and found no joy in that union. George had agreed to let his young wife name their female children, however many there would be, when they both decided they were ready to raise the large family he wanted. She had chosen Alice for their firstborn- Alice, the name she had called her favorite dolls throughout her childhood, the name she wished had been given to her.
Alice was a strong name, she thought- the sort of name that a heroine in a fairy tale would have. Margaret hoped that day, when she held her child for the first time ever, that this girl would be everything she wasn't- or thought she wasn't. Tough, and pretty, and charming and brave, and just the sort of girl that would have all the boys falling head-over-heels in love with her. That way Alice could have a better life than her mother had, with a man who loved her- not that Margaret had a bad life.
At first, it seemed Margaret's dream was coming true. Certainly, she had been delighted when the girl's teachers all complemented her parents on raising such a bright child when Alice started school, or when she had helped make her own birthday dress and looked beautiful in it at age seven, they not having enough money to buy a fancy party dress of the type worn by the children of wealthy families. When she won the school-wide spelling bee at nine, Margaret had never been so proud. Alice outshined both her brothers by miles, definitely- neither had any major achievements to speak of, and Alice became Daddy's favorite as well as Mother's pride.
Then the visions started, when Alice was ten, almost eleven. First, her teacher called and told her Alice seemed to have had trouble concentrating in school that week, and was anything wrong at home? Margaret hung up in a hurry, and went to Alice's room- and that was the most frightening thing.
When she opened the door, her daughter appeared to be in a trance. Her head was lolling against the wall, and her eyes were glazed. But when Margaret called her name, Alice snapped her head up and looked at her. She asked the child if anything was wrong- and what was it she had said?
"No, Mother. The future wants to tell me what will happen- it's lonely, 'cause no one else can here it, and so it wants to talk to me. But it's fine- I like listening to the future. I find out things." That had been what she's said, in that high-pitched, childlike voice of hers. Margaret had been concerned, of course, and called the psychiatrist.
The man had asked to see Alice, to evaluate her mental health. To Margaret and George's horror, he had pronounced her a schizophrenic, and advised she be immediately admitted to an asylum, and that shock treatments be administered. Margaret and George had been concerned, but elected to go along with the plan- mostly because the psychiatrist had vaguely suggested Alice might get better quite quickly- she was very young when diagnosed, after all.
She had told Alice they were going to a new school when they took her. The girl had looked straight at her, and proclaimed that she was lying; that they thought she was crazy, and were taking her to a "mad house". When George asked why she thought that, the girl had turned her alice blue eyes at him, and informed her father in no short terms that the future had told her, and would they please visit her there? It would be lonely, in the dark. They'd told her it was just for a short time, until the doctors thought she was all right again. For a moment, Margaret had dared believe this was true, that her baby girl would be back again soon, that everything would be as it had been before.
But she'd known then it wasn't true, and wept for the deception later. And she did visit her daughter, every week, and they'd talk for a long time. The shock treatments didn't seem to be damaging her little girl, like she heard happened sometimes.
But then, when Alice had been there for a month, and still had her "visions", the doctor recommended upping the voltage- and Alice had glared at her mother and proclaimed, "You lied to me." After that, the little girl never spoke again, to anyone, just stared with blank, unseeing eyes. Gradually, Margaret stopped visiting.
She tried to forget about her daughter, her lost hopes and runaway dreams for that girl with alice blue eyes that fit her so well. She tried to forget about the spelling bee and the party dress, and all those A-plus projects. It didn't quite work- Margaret still cried at night for Alice, but she was managing.
Then, Alice was almost eighteen, and Margaret was considering going to the asylum to speak to-or at, more likely- her daughter on her eighteenth birthday. It would be a far cry from the celebration she had secretly planned for the marvelous child she'd dreamed of, but it would be... something.
They called her, the day before her child would turn eighteen. When she realized it was the asylum on the 'phone, Margaret dared dream, just for a second, that Alice had made some miraculous recovery, and would be able to come home for her birthday. But it was not so.
When they told her that Alice was missing, that she'd escaped from the hospital, or been kidnapped- or, dare say, murdered- she didn't believe at first. Margaret thought it was some cruel joke- it had to be. Her dream daughter, her lovely, bright child, could not be dead before she turned eighteen. For she would be dead soon, likely, no matter what scenario was true, the secretary told her with complete apathy in her voice.
Margaret never recovered. Depressed and thrown into insanity by the disappearance of her only daughter, she was soon locked up until her death in the very asylum her daughter had spent the last seven years of her existence.
Alice Cullen looked up from the short-story, detailing a story that had happened in the nineteen-twenties. Her story, but the author, whoever it had been, had not known that.