September 30th, 1906
I watched Alice running around in the yard with Embry from the living room window, making sure that she didn't leave the yard. Not that I had too, she knew not too and never had before, but still, it was nice to know she was still where she should be. It was late in the afternoon; she had already gotten home from school and had done her homework for the night. Alice liked school fine, but we would have to find somewhere else for her go to school at by the end of the fall. The teacher said she didn't the other girls were comfortable with her in the classroom, and had given us the deadline to have her enrolled someplace else. I wondered how long lice would be able to go to school there before she was also expelled.
Sometimes I wish she had never been born with this gift. Sometimes I wish she was a normal little girl like her classmates and her sister, maybe then life would be easier for her. Yet, every time I thought that way, I reminded myself that Alice didn't feel sorry for herself, Alice wasn't mad at the world. She like being able o sees what she saw, even if it had its drawbacks. She didn't look at what she didn't have, or who didn't like her, or who thought she was taken over by the devil, she looked at what she did have, and that was the gift to see the future. She had every reason in the world to be mad and bitter, yet she never turned her back on life.
In front of me I had a few drawings she had done just the night before, and I only now had a chance to look at them. Her drawing skills had taken off ever more lately, and was able to do the same quality sketch in ten minutes that would have taken her an hour when she was four and first started expressing interest in it. She drew what she saw, as well as everything around her. There were a few of her school, a heavily populated part of town, trees outside our house, and many more things. She also drew things like the moon. By now she had learned it wasn't really on fire, yet there was a beautiful drawing in here of the moon with flames popping up from it, brought on by the bright sun glowing in the background, closer than it was in real life. The wolves and people she drew when she was younger still sprang up from time to time, and the most common one was still of the man she said she would marry. The only difference was that now his eyes had changed from blue to amber, like Alice had made a mistake when she was little and now was correcting it in every way she could. She even went back on some of the ones she drew of him and ran the amber crayon on the paper until there wasn't a trace of blue left. Alice seemed mad at herself for letting herself mess up like that, and I wondered if she really had a vision about this, and it really was the man she would marry. It didn't add up to me though, she only ever drew him this one age, but said they wouldn't be married for many more years. Wouldn't she draw him as he would look on their wedding day? It didn't seem possible that he wasn't born yet, but he couldn't be any older than twenty in these pictures. I thought long and hard about what it meant before deciding not to argue with Alice about it, she was so strong willed about it, she would never back down, nor fully explain what it meant. I would just have to wait and see later.
Alice now sat on grass drawing yet more pictures. She had done hundreds so far, some she refused to show me, others she showed off proudly. She had to have perfection in her work, if one line was off balance, or the light she drew didn't hit what she just right, she crumpled up the paper and threw it away. I think she was given her artistic gifts to show the world what she saw, if only anyone would let her in, they would see most of the stuff she saw had nothing to do with evil, in fact, most of it was very good. Other than the vision she had of me fighting in the army, and the one that was really nothing but darkness, she had no trouble with any of them.
I watched as Embry ran across the paper, no doubt smearing dirt and grass on it, and turn to bark at Alice, asking to be played with some more. Alice was a little upset, the drawing must have been one of her visions and she feared she would forget the finer details if she didn't draw it. She quickly began a new one, drawing much faster than the one before. She finished before long, and hid the drawing under a blank sheet of paper. I'm not sure why she won't show these ones too me, it can't be that they were the result of bad visions, I always know when she has one of those. Maybe one day she would feel comfortable with showing me them, but for now, I let her keep them to herself.
I looked down at the drawing I held in my hands. It was one of the moon, but it was different from the ones she usually drew of it. She had just learned that people thought that the moon might have at one time been part of the earth, but for some reason had been ripped off. This showed the earth from space, or at least what she thought the Earth would look like, and a large chunk of it being slowly and gracefully pulling away. Little pieces of land floated around, not staying part of us, but not going with the moon either. It looked kind of like someone was tearing apart a colorful snowball.
Alice came inside and saw that I was still looking at this picture.
"What do you think of it, Daddy?" She asked, setting the new drawings on the table, but keeping her hand on top of them, a silent warning not to touch them.
"I love it, sweetheart." I told her. She smiled, her icy eyes lighting up, more beautiful than the moon ever would be.
Hey! What did you think? There might still be another one up tonight, I'm in a major writing mood and this story has been so neglected. You can e-mail me or review with anything you want to see, I'll be sure to get it in here if you ask for it, since this story won't be wrapping up any time soon!