A/N: Wow sorry for not updating in so long guys, you'd never believe the czay stuff I had to do just to get back on this darn account. Ah well. I'll be switching between characters in almost every chapter so I left a P.O.V marker at the top of each chapter. Enjoy.
Alice
"Wow its really blowing out there," I yelled to my mom from my room upstairs.
"I know. Would you come down and help me with getting these darned shutters closed up? They keep coming open and at this rate I won't have to take a shower tonight because I'll be soaked anyways."
I jumped off my window sill and bolted to the kitchen where my mom was bravely doing battle with the shutters. I ran over and hopped up on the counter and attempted to grab the latch so as to pull them shut. However instead it snapped out of my hand and both of them caught my fingers between them. I let out a hiss of pain and the house creaked and swayed in the wind. I'm not sure why but I could swear it was laughing.
"Yea keep laughing you son of a bi-"
"Al!" my mother cut me off sharply.
I muttered darkly under my breath and was finally able to pull them shut and latch them closed with a spare nail that was sitting on the counter. The pin that closed the shutters wasn't the only thing missing from this house. It rather looked like the other owners hadn't been much for cleaning or keeping things from being broken. When the movers had come and put everything in that morning mother and I had opened the door and found the floor strewn with dust dirt and fragments of broken crockery. So she and I spent the morning sweeping the floor, opening the shutters to light in, and getting rid of the cobwebs. We spent three days after that organizing and unpacking. It had been almost a week and we were almost done, however tomorrow was Thursday and my first day of school unless I could come up with an adequate reason why I shouldn't go, and lets be reasonable who doesn't want to put off starting a new school for as long as possible?
I went over my argument as I set the table. When we sat down there was silence, sort of awkward silence as if my mother wanted to say something as well.
Might as well catch her by surprise and maybe she won't even know what she's agreeing to. I was about to open my mouth but she beat me to the punch.
"Alice? Do you know why I chose to move out here?"
Actually that matter had been bugging me a bit; we had lived in a cozy apartment beforehand. Why did she suddenly move all the way out to the middle of nowhere?
"No idea."
She took a deep breath and started playing with her food like a kid. That's when I knew whatever was coming was heavy stuff. She always played with her food when it was something serious.
"What is it mom?"
"Have you ever wondered why all the youngest females in our line have been named Alice?"
"Well yea but when I asked you just said it was tradition."
"And it's true," she said quickly, "but not the whole truth really." She kept playing with her food.
"What is it!" I asked rather loudly. I am not a patient kind of person.
"You know what this can wait until another day," she said picking up her plate and bringing it to the counter although she hadn't taken a single bite.
"Mom!" I groaned. "Spit it out!"
"No honey I don't want you to be distracted at all on your first day tomorrow."
"But-"
"I said no!" Her tone of finality was, well, final. I let the matter drop. She seemed angry all of a sudden and I wasn't about to argue with my mother when she was angry because that was like poking an irritated grizzly bear with hot branding iron after shaving its fur off.
I retreated to my room which I rather liked. It was a round room, slightly Victorian looking it even had its own fire place.
When I had gotten in there was an old radio sitting on the mantel piece along with an old doll in the form of a queen dressed mostly in red, a sword with a blue ribbon wrapped around it's hilt, an envelope with some seriously stale crackers and mushrooms in it, and a fragment of broken mirror. So the old occupant had been a druggie weirdo; great. I tried the radio earlier and it hadn't worked; figures, it was probably a hundred years old.
I splayed on my bed wishing for my laptop so I could email some of my old friends. A flash of lightning startled me. Suddenly the radio sparked to life, it was crackly but still understandable and I got up quickly and listened.
"and waves of mysterious weather patterns continue to batter the world. We have reports of snow in Rwanda and the blazing heat continues to melt age old glaciers in the heart of Greenland."
I tried to adjust the channel to get a better signal when suddenly I lost the signal altogether but instead of silence I heard something else on the crackle.
Seek the balance in chaos. Seek the chaos among the madness. Seek the one King and his cohort and restore them to the throne or madness will ensue.
I stared at it and reached for the dial but it changed on its own. It was flicking through the stations really fast and I tried to listen to each one but it was gone again in a moment. Finally my mind clicked into place and all the stations blurred together. Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice.
"Okay I'm going to have to faint now." With that I fell over onto the floor.
The radio stopped playing and shut off but not before another signal was put through.
"And so it begins."
For some reason the air seemed to be smiling and had Alice been awake she would have most surely been creeped out because there was no way in heck the air should be smiling that hugely.
I woke the next morning with a killer headache. I stumbled about in the dark for a moment before flicking on the light.
Instantly I laid eyes on the radio. I could almost hear it chanting still. I shook my head furiously. It had to have been just a dream, a crazy dream.
I shook my head once more slowly clearing it of the nights stupor and went to my window and flung it open. It was a bright and sunny morning with no trace of the storm left except for the damp ground. I took a deep breath. School, right; that was today.
Well hiding only delays the inevitable so I grabbed a pair of faded jeans with paint stains on the front of them and a dark blue t-shirt. One look in the mirror told me that anything other than a ponytail was entirely impossible today so I sighed and pulled my blond hair back into a messy ponytail. Hair, messy. Makeup, nonexistent. Clothes, borderline frumpy. Perfect. Please note the sarcasm.
I didn't think I could hold down much breakfast but I grabbed some toast because my mom would complain if she found out I skipped breakfast. I was out the door faster that a bare foot jack rabbit on a hot greasy pan being chased by- well you get the idea. I grabbed my bike and left in what I hopped was the general direction of the school.
Blue Moon High was where I was, hopefully, headed. I finally hit the main road into town and relaxed a little, the bumpiness of the country road was starting to make my butt go numb. I passed a whole bunch of middle schoolers and stopped and asked for directions. I thanked them and went on my way.
I found it with only one wrong turn and near death experience to my name. This was actually going better than I expected.
Then I found the school. Damn Karma. I'm not sure why I envisioned a school, like my old one absolutely crawling with people, by the way. This place was small-ish and looked a little old-fashioned but well kept up.
The problem with a small school in a small town is that everybody knows each other and that leaves a person like me very few places to hide from prying the eyes I would no doubt come across today.
I made my way hastily across the front lawn not making eye contact with anyone staring at mostly my shoes and the grass in front of my shoes.
You know when your parents tell you to keep your head up and to watch where your going when you were a kid? Head their warnings, it will keep you from running into people the first day at a new school. I however did not head this warning and ran smack into someone with black converse and pink and purple laces.
I went sprawling to the ground while letting loose with a string of profanities my mother would have normally grounded me for.
"Nice butchering of the English language there Shakespeare."
I pushed myself up and laid eyes on the face of the pink and purple laces. He was tall and lithe. Something about him made me instantly think cat. I'm not sure what it was but it could have been the slightly slanted eyes or the way I could just see him having fangs when he smiled like he meant it. His hair was brown and sort of unruly looking with a streak of pinkish purple in the front.
"Enjoying the view?" he asked sarcastically.
"Not necessarily enjoying. More like a train wreak, its horrible but you can't look away sort of thing." I fired back. I regretted it instantly because his demur changed instantly from mocking humor to death glare. Boy, if looks could kill.
"Sorry," I apologized immediately. "My mouth and my brain run on different frequencies."
He kind of sneered. "I assume you're new. Everyone else around here already knows to watch it."
"Hey, look dude as far as I'm concerned we're square, I apologized."
"Caine!" Some other kids called from across the court yard. I took advantage of the moment while he was distracted and walked rather fast up the steps and into the school.
I got my schedule from the helpful secretary and she offered to call a student to help show mw around. I politely declined telling her I would be fine on my own. After all how hard could it be to read a map. I rather prided myself with my map reading skills. In fact if those middle schoolers on the way here had drawn a map I wouldn't have even taken that one wrong turn. In fact I was so wrapped up in my own thought that I didn't see the hands until it was too late.
I pushed her up against the lockers and asked "Did you honestly think you were going to get off that easily?"
"Yes." It was kind of funny I almost felt like smiling. Instead I laughed hoping she picked up the malice and would be afraid.
"Are you always this naïve?" I asked
"I prefer blindly optimistic," she replied.
Her quick answers annoyed me again. "You keep talking with disrespect and I'll make sure you never look at life the same way again."
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I could see her lips tightening with resolve.
She was actually kind of pretty now that I got a good look at her. Blond hair as messy as it was looked good on her. Her eyes opened. They were a perfect clear blue. She must have been popular with the boys where she came from.
She was waiting for me to say something, better not disappoint the lady. "Good, now keep it zipped and listen up good. I have never hit a girl before because that's low. Don't give me a good reason to lower myself. I'm going to let you off with a warning this time because your new and obviously you already have enough things to worry about. Give me one good reason to change my mind about letting you off and I promise you'll regret it until the day you die. Am I clear?"
She just nodded her head. Good little puppet.
"So wanna tell me your name?" I asked. It was more like an order than a question really.
"I'm Alice. Alice Carol"
"Well Alice you'd better not hope to see me around."
"Right-e-o Capitan am I dismissed?"
She was such a smart ass. I leaned right up close to her pretty little face. Her eyes widened like a dear in the headlights of an oncoming truck. I smiled a bit, she was scared, surprised or something in between. I placed my lips almost against her ear and whispered, "Dismissed." I leaned back and watched the effect. She blinked a couple of times and ducked out from under my arms and headed off quickly down the hall.
I leaned easily against the lockers and ran my hand through my hair. So she was an Alice. I let a smile come to my face as I walked out of the school to join my friends.
I hurried in the direction of my first class, Science. It was on the second floor. Once I was up a level I relaxed a bit. Wow that guy had been scary.
I certainly wasn't in any hurry to talk to him again. Still something about him was definitely familiar in an eerie dejavo-ey sort of way. I walked into the classroom, picked a desk, and went to sleep because lets face it I hadn't gotten much the night before what with all the crazy dreams I had.
I forgot to mention the crazy dreams with the smiling radio and the strange prophecy repeated over and over. Whoops.
In any case I still had a while before the bell rang so I laid my head on the desk fully intending to simply rest my eyes when the next thing I knew the bell had rung and the classroom was invaded by other students.
"Why hello there, you seem to be in my seat."
I stiffened. Crap.
I got up without a word, not even looking at him. I marched over to my teacher Ms. Laundman. "Excuse me but I'm new here my name is Alice Carol."
"Ah yes, so nice to meet you. Please have a seat in front of Mr. Arawan," she said indicating the seat in front of the one in which I had currently been sleeping.
I sat down and I could already feel his eyes boring holes in the back of my head.
I will not look back. I will not say anything. I will completely ignore him.
The lesson started shortly and I found out they had been doing optics. I wasn't particularly good at science but light was easy enough to understand. We copied a note and that she talked and that was just about it.
Near the end of the lesson she came over to my desk. "Alice I'm going to need you to get yesterdays note from some one, it has some very important subject matter you'll need to go over."
"Yes miss."
She walked away and he poked me at the back of the head. I didn't turn around, I didn't say anything. He did it again, "Hey girl."
Poke, "Alice!"
I finally turned around and glared at him. "Good I was beginning to think you were deaf or nerve dead." He pushed a piece of paper at me. It was yesterdays note judging by the date.
"You have creepy hand writing." I said, my mouth auto piloting again. It was all spidery and thin. He stared at me. "Sorry, just making an observation, meant no offence."
He just scoffed and got up and left.
