Disclaimer – I hold no proprietary or artistic rights over Twilight or any of the characters or scenarios created by Stephanie Meyer.
Previously…
After a stressful but pleasant conversation with a Dr. Blake, the files for patients 721036 and 721086 were being sent to me from the hospital.
Chapter eight: Alice Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Edward's POV
When we entered the house, I was greeted by Alice's thoughts. They were much clearer now and were no longer solely of darkness and remembered pain. She was getting better, recovering. Alice's improvement pushed all thoughts of the meeting with the wolves from our minds.
'Sorry Edward,' she thought to me.
I sighed and gave a shake of my head as Alice apologised to me. Witnessing the nightmarish memories that she became trapped in, I couldn't fathom why she was apologising. I should be the one seeking forgiveness. I had heard James' thoughts; I should never have let her open that box.
"Because you had to see them too," she explained as she skipped down the stairs.
"You were terrified for her, Edward," Jasper clarified, also adding his thanks.
"Alice, it was just so…" I started, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.
"I know, Edward, I was there," Alice soothed, placing one of her small hands on my arm and giving a gentle squeeze.
"Now what's in those medical files?" Emmett boomed with enthusiasm. Nothing got Emmett down for long.
Carlisle shook his head infinitesimally as he took his seat at the head of the dining room table. The rest of the family followed suit; this was the most use one of our dining room tables had ever gotten. As Carlisle opened the first file that had been forwarded from the hospital, everyone craned their necks trying to see its contents. While the family could have easily scanned through both of the medical files at the same time, we read through them individually.
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Patient 721036
No photo
Name: Mabel C. Jackson
D.O.B.: 15 November 1892
Gender: Female
Admission: 27 March 1905
Doctor: Bernard Daley
Patient was admitted exhibiting strange behaviour. Common manifestations included torture of small animals and extreme outbursts. After confinement, self mutilation became an outlet for her destructive tendencies.
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Carlisle stopped reading there. The file included many more pages of doctor's notes and treatment schedules, but they weren't likely to be any more help than the admission information. It was going to be difficult to tell if this was Alice without a photo, but torturing small animals didn't sound like our Alice.
"I hope that's not me," said Alice in a small voice as she curled into Jasper's side.
Rosalie stood from the table and flitted over to a computer. She returned a few minutes later with a printout. It was a photo of a young woman taken from the obituary section of the Biloxi Sun Herald. The woman looked to be in her late teens to early twenties and had long golden hair; not unlike Rosalie's.
"I think we can rule Mabel out," Rosalie stated matter-of-factly.
Everyone nodded in agreement and Carlisle picked up the second file and began to read it aloud as he had the first.
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Patient 721086
Name: Mary Alice Brandon
D.O.B.: 3 June 1902
Gender: Female
Admission: 26 February 1907
Doctor: Richard Harris
Patient was admitted suffering from delusions of the mind. The patient was often found in possession of information for which there was no logical explanation for her having. Episodes of psychosis or catatonia were commonly experienced by the patient, sometimes numerous times per day.
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I didn't need much more information to convince me that this file pertained to Alice. The thoughts of the rest of the family agreed with me. Alice's thoughts however, were elsewhere. Looking over at her, I noticed that she was transfixed on a small photograph. It must have fallen from the file when Carlisle picked it up; it was definitely of Alice. In the picture, she had the same short spiky black hair. Apart from the vampiric ones, the only difference between the Alice in the picture and our Alice was a year, three at the most.
The information garnered from Alice's patient file told us that she was committed when she was around five years old as a direct result of her visions. No doubt as a child, she never had the notion to try and hide them. That she had visions even as a human fascinated Carlisle, but he managed to keep it to himself, sensing that precious few others in the family would find this intriguing at present. While at the asylum, Alice was on an assortment of medications and subjected to shock treatments. Towards the end of the file, there was also a less clinical notation from her doctor. He practically admitted to being scared of Alice when he justified separating her from the other patients. The last page in the file was a visitor's log. It was blank. All of this information was deeply disturbing and explained the nightmarish prison Alice's mind had become when her memories were triggered.
Over the next few weeks, we continued attending school to keep up appearances. And everyday, we kept a vigilant watch over Alice lest James and Victoria reappeared; yet they never did. As the weeks passed, we became just as anxious as the human students for the holidays so that we could travel to Mississippi and learn more about Alice's past. The meeting with the wolves had finally been discussed, but it had faded to the background, seemingly unimportant next to all our other happenings.
Some more internet research had uncovered a photograph of Alice's headstone at an online gravestone archive. The dates on her headstone matched her birth and admission dates from her patient file and included the inscription 'Lost to us at a young age.' A trip to the Biloxi City Cemetery was added to our itinerary. All of the information thus far uncovered had constricted the area in which the Brandon House could be located such that we were certain we would find it right away.
Eventually, the end of the school term arrived and we were finally on a plane headed from Sea-Tac International to Dallas-Fort Worth International. Then after a four hour layover, we would catch another flight to Gulfport International. When we touched down in Dallas, a typical Cullen family argument broke out. Rosalie wanted to drive the rest of the way to Biloxi, but I thought that it would be faster to fly. It would take only six hours via aeroplane including the layover, but nine hours by car; for a human at least. Rosalie was convinced we could shave more than three hours off that journey. For once, Rosalie didn't get her way and we continued as planned. She was somewhat assuaged when I turned the thirty minute drive from the airport to our hotel into a fifteen minute one.
Due to constraints placed upon us by the weather, once we checked in at the Grand Biloxi Casino, we had to stay indoors. Emmett and I passed the time gambling. Or rather Emmett did while I made sure that he wasn't drawing too much attention to himself and passed the time by refusing to help him cheat, no matter how much he begged. In the meantime, the girls booked themselves into the spa for some much needed downtime while Carlisle and Jasper holed up in the business lounge for the afternoon and continued to research Alice's past.
Once the sun had almost totally disappeared, we set out in search of the house. We found it very quickly. It was a little rundown, I hadn't noticed that in the photograph, and had a 'for sale sign' out the front. After a quick scout of the area, Emmett and I couldn't detect James' presence and deemed it safe. During all of this, Alice stood frozen in place in front of the house, clearly willing herself to remember a more pleasant memory from her human life.
"You were only five when you last saw this house," Esme whispered to Alice, trying to soothe her.
"I know, but I just wish that I could remember it," sighed Alice.
'We'll have to buy this for Alice,' thought Jasper.
The double storey wooden home appeared to be vacant so a quick sale should be easy to arrange, especially with an extra monetary incentive for both the realtor and vendor. No sooner had the thought graced Jasper's mind when Alice started bouncing up and down, clapping her hands as she squealed.
"Ooh! That's a great idea, Jazz; it has the perfect number of bedrooms. It's much smaller than we're used to but it'll be great for a short stay!"
"We're going to live in that?" Rosalie asked incredulously as Esme shot her a warning look.
"Yes."
"Well, I'm not," Rosalie pouted.
"Actually you are. I can see what colour you're going to paint your bedroom and I think you should choose a shade darker."
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In record time, all of the paperwork was settled and we were the proud owners of an 1870s wooden house in Biloxi, Mississippi. Luckily for us, we were blessed with some overcast weather and were able to quickly complete our renovations without drawing too much attention from the neighbours. The hunting wasn't as good as Forks (the local forest only offered us deer) and the house was much smaller than our Forks home but we were still comfortable.
During the hours that Jasper and Carlisle had spent glued to computer screens over the past week, they hadn't uncovered much new information. Their prize discovery was Alice's obituary, which included another photo of her. She was a tiny child with elfin features and long straight black hair that fell below her waist. After some wrangling with the newspaper's archivist, Jasper was able to procure a copy of the photograph. It, along with the photograph from her patient file, went into a small box where Alice was accumulating everything from her human life. The obituary notice itself wasn't overly illuminating, but it did reveal that Alice had a younger sister named Cynthia. Jasper quickly learned that some of Cynthia's descendants still lived in Biloxi.
The next day, Jasper and Alice gathered up all the information that we had discovered about her human past and went to visit Alice's human family. It was an impressive offering including many newspaper articles and photos as well as an extensive family tree. Posing as a distant relative researching her heritage, Alice was able to persuade the Brandon's and Whitfield's to let her scan the photos they had. Vivian Brandon, by a stroke of magnificent luck, had held off throwing out Cynthia Brandon's diaries in the previous year's spring cleaning and willingly gave them to Alice; especially when she saw the family resemblance. These tomes chronicled over fifty years of Cynthia's life. Alice's visit to the Whitfield's was just as fruitful because they were planning a large garage sale. They were more than happy to give Alice free reign to select whatever items she wanted from those they were planning to sell and tried in vain to cut her and Jasper a generous deal.
It took a little while for her to work up the courage, but eventually, Alice and Jasper went to visit her grave. This was something that I just couldn't fathom. No one else in the family had visited their grave; I was fairly certain that Carlisle didn't even have one! Everyone was expecting Alice to return from this trip sombre, but we weren't prepared for her reaction or for Jasper's. Jasper burst into the house with his body wrapped protectively around Alice's. His eyes were darting in every direction and his thoughts were a contorted and panicked mess. Alice was only slightly more composed as she clutched a piece of thick parchment to her chest.
"What happened?" asked Carlisle as he quickly took control of the situation.
"We found her grave," Jasper recounted. "It appeared to be well tended. There were fresh flowers and this sketch," he explained, gesturing to the parchment Alice was clutching.
"Sketch?" queried Esme.
Alice nodded and unfolded the thick parchment to show us the sketch. It was of a sleeping teenage girl. She appeared peaceful yet somehow troubled as her fingers curled slightly around the bed sheets. Short spiky black hair framed her delicate features, set in a petite pixie-like face. This was a sketch of Alice, a sketch of Alice sleeping, from when she was human.
"What does it say?" asked Rosalie.
The whole family turned to her in confusion.
"Underneath," she clarified.
Everyone turned back to the sketch held in Alice's trembling hands. Our attention had been so absorbed by the sketch itself that we'd failed to notice the inscription underneath.
Found your way home.
Jasper was furious. He already knew that James was behind the sketch and the flowers, his scent had been all over Alice's grave. Rosalie and Emmett immediately wanted to hunt James down and tear him to shreds. Jasper's thoughts were also headed in a similar direction, but less rash as the strategist within him won out. Carlisle and Esme were resigned, they were such gentle people, but even they recognised that James had to go. I was vacillating somewhere between Emmett's and Jasper's reactions. Nothing would please me more than destroying James, but I was sensible enough to realise that we needed a plan.
As the family felt threatened by James' presence in Biloxi, we all hunted regularly in the De Soto National Forest, gorging ourselves on the deer to keep at full strength. Each time we returned, we would discover a new sketch of Alice left on our doorstep. This was worrying and we agreed that no one should travel alone. With each new sketch that James left us, we discovered a little bit more about Alice's past. James clearly knew her from her time at the asylum; he was able to get very close to her, judging by some of the images.
Returning from gorging ourselves on yet another hunt, we were preparing to return to Forks. James was just toying with us and the new school term was due to start soon. We didn't want to break from our human charade, despite the danger. Attracting attention from the Volturi was the last thing we needed; we were especially mindful due to Alice's earlier vision of Demetri's visit. Just as we had come to expect, we were greeted by another thick piece of parchment sitting on the doorstep. Jasper wordlessly scooped it up and went into the living room.
This time, James hadn't left us a sketch. Today it was a poem, perhaps he knew that we were returning to Forks tomorrow. Jasper read the poem aloud to the family:
Asleep in darkness;
Alluring scent,
Divine;
Watching and waiting, finally,
Mine.
Hidden in the dark;
Abused and beaten,
Swollen;
Rescued and hidden,
Stolen.
Loving my desire;
Camouflaged as a lie,
Employed;
Revenge must be taken,
Destroyed.
Hunting by vocation;
Only one prey has ever gotten,
Away;
Remedied this shall be, and you shall have no,
Say.
This perverse poem gave clear indication of James' past acquaintance with Alice, and his intentions. James was drawn by her scent, finding her at the asylum. The third verse was less clear. But it appeared that someone loved Alice and James destroyed them for that love. The final verse was the most sinister. Alice was the only one to escape James' clutches and he planned on remedying that. As the final words were read aloud, every member of the family let escape a low yet still savage growl.
A/N: Reviewers are worshipped.
This story has been accepted on Twilighted. A big compliment... I will be submitting the chapters there as soon as they are beta'd.
16-July-2009
27-September-2009 -- beta'd
