Warnings: Currently rated T for language, though liable to change in future chapters for dark imagery and mature content.

Disclaimer: I claim no copyright ownership to Rise of the Guardians or any recognizable characters depicted by DreamWorks, William Joyce, or other miscellaneous fairy tale creatures. However, the plot and original characters are my own.


Chapter Four


"Home-cooked food," Alice moaned gratefully, propping herself up with her hands cupped below her chin as she watched Aunt Liza dice tomatoes for her spaghetti sauce.

It was halfway through the week and Alice was bored out of her mind. Aside from still unpacking boxes and going back and forth between the house and the park with Max, she had nothing else to do. She didn't start work until the following Monday and the monotony was wearing her sanity thin. She spent a good portion of that morning kicking empty cardboard boxes around in rage. It was a momentary loss of control she was glad no one had been around to see. But honestly, how many boxes did she have?

She decided she was never moving again. To hell with moving. They had everything they needed right there, inside that house, in Burgess, Pennsylvania. Clearly. It felt like she was unpacking a damn Walmart Supercenter.

Back in the present, Aunt Liza smirked knowingly at the redhead. "When's the last time you cooked a meal? Two weeks? A month?"

Alice whined.

"It's been so hectic with buying the house and dealing with the realtors and then actually moving here," she threw herself onto the counter, sighing at the coolness. She chose not to mention the last time she tried cooking a meal from scratch she burned both the food and the pot. And set off the fire alarm.

"Poor Max," Aunt Liza droned, stirring the sauce. "He's succumbed to fast food every night. He probably doesn't remember what it tastes like to have a meal made with love."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Oh please, it hasn't been fast food…" she paused. "Not every night."

Her aunt laughed and Alice's shoulders slumped, her stomach gurgling impatiently at the scent of basil and cooking tomatoes. She couldn't wait to eat something she didn't have to pay for.

"I hope you don't mind that we're having people over," her aunt continued over the steam of the boiling water at the stove. She began breaking uncooked spaghetti noodles before layering them in the water delicately.

Apparently they'd invited another family over for dinner. The Bennetts, if Alice remembered correctly. According to her aunt they had a young daughter who liked getting snippy with scissors and giving herself pretty haircuts. They'd given her aunt the daunting task of attempting to fix her hair, but there was only so much her aunt could do before the girl would just have to be shaved bald and start over. Her parents tried hiding every pair of scissors they owned, yet she always managed to find them. It was like she had a sixth sense. Supposedly they were bribing her aunt with sweets to fix her latest rebellious hairstyle tonight.

Pippa was good friends with their son, Jamie. The name rang a bell – he was mentioned a few times in her story. Alice couldn't remember ever personally meeting him. The only friend of Pippa's she'd ever run into was Monty. She had a soft spot for him because he was a fellow four-eyes like her, sporting half-moon red-rimmed glasses nearly too big for his face.

"Not at all," Alice finally responded, waving the woman off. "I'm sure Max will eat all the attention up."

At that moment the doorbell rang. Speak of the devil.

Max and Pippa fought over who was going to answer it, racing down the hall and skidding into walls, sounding like a herd of elephants and probably waking China.

"I got it!"

"No, I got it!"

"Hey, it's my house!"

"Fine, we'll open it together."

"You're standing in front of me, they'll see you first!"

"Probably for the best."

A low chatter echoed in through the kitchen as the door was eventually opened, followed by multiple footsteps. Max and Pippa were shouting their greetings and two loud voices joined them, followed by a much calmer one. Aunt Liza quickly wiped her hands on the nearest dish towel before marching out of the room to welcome her guests. Alice snuck a quick bite of the pasta sauce with the first clean spoon she could find and swooned a little at the taste before trailing swiftly in her aunt's wake.

She found a brunette woman sharing a hug with Aunt Liza in the entry room. Her aunt was quick to introduce the two of them after exchanging pleasantries with the woman. The woman held out her hand kindly to Alice.

"Caroline Bennett, I don't think we've met," the woman greeted politely. Alice graciously returned the handshake, finding the look in the woman's eyes warm and comforting. She had come on her own with her two children and Alice was able to draw her own conclusion that she didn't have a husband.

As expected, the little girl Sophie's hair looked like a train wreck. It was completely uneven, some spots cut so short that there was no way they could be covered up. Alice tried biting back a smile, not wanting to offend her mother, though Caroline Bennett seemed to find quite a bit of humor in her daughter's misshapen haircut despite her exasperation.

Jamie Bennett, little Sophie's older brother, was sporting a unique looking sled and waving it around as Max stared wide-eyed as if it were the greatest thing he'd ever seen. Alice could've sworn she heard the boy mention he made it himself and if that were the case, she could understand his awe. The kid built a sled and she could hardly close a resealable bag.

"Jamie, I thought I told you to leave that thing at home," Caroline scolded, depositing her pea coat on the rack by the door.

"Sorry mom," Jamie apologized, though he didn't sound very sorry at all.

"It's so cool!" Max exclaimed. "Can we ride it after dinner?"

Pippa nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah mom, can we?"

Aunt Liza and Caroline were hit with three pairs of puppy eyes.

"Maybe about an hour or so after dinner if it's not too late," Aunt Liza answered and received a chorus of pouts. "No playing right after you eat. You need to wait a bit."

"But that's for swimming," Pippa stressed as if she didn't know anything.

"Okay fine, then rough house and get motion sickness and throw up your dinner if you want. I won't tell you no. It's not like that's ever happened before, I don't know what came over me."

Pippa grimaced and exchanged wary glances with Jamie and Max. Alice laughed.

Alice was then introduced to Jamie, who she could have sworn muttered something about 'nerdy glasses' to Max who nodded enthusiastically.

She scowled.


It was later the following day when things started to get interesting. Though, the turn of events probably didn't exactly come out in Alice's favor.

Alice was on her way home from a flea market downtown. She thought absently that it'd been weird to have one going on while it was so cold outside, but Burgess clearly didn't play by the rules. She was carrying two brown paper bags filled to the brim with fruits and vegetables, determined to cook her and Max a nice dinner that night and to have some good food in the house they could snack on. She'd purchased a fire extinguisher at a hardware store nearby so it's not like she was going to burn the house down.

She was donned in a fuzzy hat and cozy winter coat so the chilly air nipping at her cheeks didn't affect her too much. She apparently wasn't the only inhabitant of Burgess to fancy a stroll – there were plenty of people milling about the area, walking to and from the little corner stores and even some sipping on coffee or hot tea outside a cozy café called The Coffee Bean.

Despite the temperature, it was a nice day. The sun was shining brightly overhead, not providing much physical heat but as it cast glowing beams on the snow and lit up the world beneath it, it provided a warming effect. If it had been about an hour later, kids would have been congregating at the park she was just beginning to approach from the far south side. The roads were a bit icy, as were the sidewalks. She had been mindful of the precarious terrain beneath her feet all morning, sometimes grunting as her feet nearly slipped out from under her without any warning. The main street was oddly crowded with grocery and stock trucks. It must have been a delivery day. Most were driving slowly to make up for the lack of traction on the pavement, causing quite the back-up at each intersection.

Alice checked the time on the clock tower near the courthouse. She needed to hurry home before Max's school bus beat her to it. Quickly glancing down the road, she began her trek across it. Once she reached the park, she just needed to circle around its perimeter and from there her house was only about a five-minute walk.

She was so caught up in her impatience to get to the other side of the road (which was ultimately making her go slower because the faster she tried to walk, the more slippery the road seemed to get) that her mind hadn't registered all the commotion a few paces down the road. There were people shouting off into the distance and the unmistakable squeal of tires roared hauntingly from around the corner.

As fate would have it, the moment she reached the center of the road her house keys fell from her coat pocket. After the familiar clang rang in her ears she closed her eyes, sarcastically thanking whatever God decided today would be a good day to make her life extra difficult. With a huff, she bent down and sat one of her bags on the wet ground to grab the keys with her free hand.

It was then that a peculiar sound reached her ears. It was high-pitched, curdling like nails on a chalkboard and drawing a wince out of her. She stood upright, momentarily forgetting her bag and keys and furrowing her eyebrows, turning in the direction it came from.

She wished she hadn't.

It was another delivery truck, some indiscernible brand name plastered on its sides in mockingly bright colors. It was barreling down the road at a speed she didn't think was possible, swaying from left to right as if it were trying to avoid all lamp posts and electrical lines but at the same time not wanting to stay on the street.

It was coming right for her, and she didn't even have a moment to think about how much that sucked.

There was a pang of fear in her gut and a ringing in her ears. Muffled voices were screaming, panicked. Probably some futile attempt at telling her to get out of the way. Above all that, she could hear the pounding of her heart echoing inside her head. Could almost feel her brain pulsating with it.

For a split second she saw the driver's face, appearing terrified and lost as they thrashed the wheel from side to side in a desperate attempt to steer it back on course. It should have concerned her that they were so close she could clearly make out the color of their hair, the shape of their nose, the collar of their shirt. Smoke emitted from somewhere behind the truck and the painful squealing returned, though was quickly swallowed by white noise flooding in through her ears.

All of this happened in the span of about four seconds. Her life didn't flash before her eyes. It didn't have time to.

One minute she was rooted to the icy ground, feeling as though she were part of the road, staring death in the face with a shadow bordering her vision. And then the next, she was air bound.

An icy claw tugged at something within her, closing down on her insides and pulling hard, making her feel nauseous. An intangible force plunged her street side, just barely missing the truck as it blasted past a frighteningly close distance away, and suddenly her body slammed into the hard ground, wet and cold.

Her head bounced off the cement with a sickly crack and she saw a flicker of a white figure hooded in blue and flashing eyes to match. It was gone as quickly as it came, like it existed one second and the next it didn't, before her vision surrendered to darkness.


Alice couldn't remember the transport to the hospital. It was hazy and vague, as if she were looking through a sheet of old film. She recalled being jostled back into consciousness at one point with searing pain shooting across her forehead from one temple to the other. She reeled from it and everything went black again, but she felt movement – the lull of the road beneath her, the thick object clasped around her neck to keep her head from moving. And then she lost all consciousness.

Next thing she was aware of was a white curtain and a bustling of life on the other side of it. She had a massive headache and a spot on her forehead to match, but she still knew her name, what year it was, and what had happened before her memory went blank. Flea market, icy roads, truck.

She was resting on a tiny cot inside the emergency room, cloaked by a thin curtain that had been pulled shut. A nurse eventually flung the curtain open and came to her bedside with Q-tips, some medicine, and gauze. She informed Alice that she hadn't sustained any permanent brain damage as she removed the neck brace, just a minor concussion, a bad bump on the head and a busted lip. She said she was lucky.

Alice pursed her lips after hearing this and felt a bruise on her lower lip. She tasted something tangy and metallic on her tongue and realized she'd reopened a cut on the inside of her lip from the movement.

Once the nurse finished cleaning the lump on her forehead, Alice wincing as she did so, she wrapped it carefully with the gauze. She had some paperwork to fill out but she'd be good to go home once she was finished. The nurse suggested she have someone pick her up and she refrained from saying something smart. As if she'd actually consider trying to walk home on her own.

When the nurse excused herself, she sat up and immediately felt faint. She paused until the dizziness subsided and then took her phone from the plastic bag they'd placed near her cot and dialed her aunt's number. Damn, her head really hurt.

The moment her aunt picked up Alice did not give her a chance to say anything.

"Please tell me Max is with you."

Aunt Liza breathed a sigh of relief on the other line. "He is. He came by and said he couldn't get into the house. Where are you?"

Alice groaned and raised a hand to her head, careful of the gauze, and squeezed her eyes shut. The pain was threatening to make her nauseous as it shot down her brainstem.

"I got into an accident," she finally said, breathing heavily. Before she was able to say any more, her aunt went into panic mode.

"What happened? Are you okay? Where are you? Are you hurt?"

She groaned again and pulled the phone away from her ear, wincing. She was still hypersensitive to everything around her and her aunt's frantic tone only managed to make it worse.

"I'm fine," she said, masking the pain in her voice. "There was a truck that lost control and I don't know," she paused. "I guess it missed me, but I fell and hit my head."

She had a feeling her poor aunt was about to burst a blood vessel. "Do you have a concussion? Is it anything serious?"

"No," she gritted her teeth. The nurse reappeared with an IV. "Just a minor one and some bruises. No big deal."

"To ease the pain," the nurse whispered and Alice nodded gratefully, uncaring as she wiped the top of her free hand clean before inserting the needle. A clear liquid passed through the IV.

"Thank God for that," Aunt Liza breathed. "I guess you're at the small clinic in town?" Alice made a noise in the back of her throat, unsure if that's actually where she was or not. She was too immersed in the fact that the pain in her head was subsiding already. "Okay, I'm putting my shoes on now. I'll be there in ten minutes."

Heaving a sigh, Alice threw her phone next to her on the bed, earning a knowing smile from the nurse. The woman excused herself again for about a minute before returning with some papers and a clipboard.

"If you could just fill these out for me and sign and date them, you can be on your way. Here," she rolled a wooden tray forward so Alice could rest the papers on it while she wrote. "You can use this. I'll take the IV out soon, but for now let's leave it in until the medicine's absorbed."

Alice thanked her and she left. She filled out all the necessary information and signed what she needed to, relieved that there was only a dull ache in her forehead now where the gauze was pressing into the wound. She rested her head in her free hand, idly thinking back to the incident.

She was right in the truck's path and then suddenly she wasn't. She thought maybe she hit her head so hard she wasn't remembering the details right, or maybe what she thought happened didn't actually happen at all. Her memories were a bit jumbled from the fall so maybe someone did end up pushing her out of the way. The only reason that didn't make sense though was because the truck had passed her by just a fraction of an inch. There was a dirt stain on her coat in the shape of a headlight that proved it. Had someone actually managed to shove her out of the way in time, they would have certainly been hit in her place which was a horrifying thought. Someone would have told her if that had happened, right?

What was more unsettling was what happened right after she took the fall. What was it she had seen? Initially, she thought maybe it was a person. But that theory was proving to be more and more unlikely. There was no way someone had gotten to her in time, and she couldn't remember being pushed. Well, not in the sense she would expect. She did feel a strong gust of wind knock her off balance, but that could have just as well been the draft from the truck. There had been that uncomfortable tugging in the pit of her stomach right before it happened though, and that was something she couldn't explain. Maybe it was nerves?

"Guess I was just lucky," she mumbled, though she wasn't fully convinced.

She couldn't shake the feeling that what she saw before blacking out meant something. Maybe a hallucination? She did hit her head after all, and the figure seemingly appeared and disappeared out of thin air. She could only describe it as how a TV flickered in and out when it was losing satellite. Maybe the tests were wrong and she did have brain damage after all. She tried not thinking on it too hard for fear of making her headache return.

As her aunt promised, she was there within ten minutes and escorted her out by wheelchair. Mandatory hospital procedure when discharged, apparently. Max was waiting in the backseat of her aunt's car and he threw his arms around her the second she stepped out of her wheelchair, teary-eyed and suitably shaken. It jolted the tenderness in her head back to life but she pushed the uncomfortable feeling aside and returned the hug, reassuring him that she was (more or less) fine.

Aunt Liza drove the both of them home and helped Alice inside, despite her insistence that she could walk on her own. The woman fluttered around her for a while, making sure she was comfortable and not going to pass out or die or something equally ridiculous.

Truthfully, all Alice wanted was some peace and quiet before her head decided to explode.

When the woman finally left after leaving a gentle kiss on the top of her head and a small, if not slightly worried, smile, Alice was able to breathe. Max seemed to think the only way to recover from the incident was to pretend like nothing happened at all. He was chipper as ever, bouncing around her like he would on any ordinary day. She couldn't fix them dinner like she planned since all of her vegetables met an untimely death under the delivery truck, but Aunt Liza had thought of everything and left them some extra pasta in the fridge.

On the outside she attempted to normalize their evening the same as Max was, heating up their food while cracking jokes and smiling. They eventually settled on the couch to watch a movie – some animated film that Max chose – but she couldn't bring herself to focus on it. The nurse warned her before she was discharged that she may feel a little off balance the rest of the day and to not be too concerned. If the feeling persisted for more than three days, she recommended she come back for a check-up. Alice couldn't deny her equilibrium was a little out of whack, but that wasn't really what was bothering her.

As she watched the movie without really seeing it, she could feel the ghostly remains of that icy pull still gripping and pulling at her insides like something had literally reached inside her or somehow passed through her and left its fingerprints behind. She couldn't shake the feeling off. She figured maybe eating would settle her stomach but if anything, it made it worse. She rested her hand against her stomach, pursing her lips. It didn't necessarily hurt, it was just… uncomfortable.

Maybe it was some sort of post-traumatic stress.

Alice felt as though she were on autopilot the rest of the night, mind far away and disconnected from her body. Once the movie was over, Max yawned loudly. She took that as her cue to tuck him into bed and bid him goodnight. She flickered his green nightlight to life by the door, grinning a little at the fact that he was already out cold, before closing it to an inch behind her.

She plopped unceremoniously down on her bed, leaning forward to rest her head in her hands. All the thinking was bringing her headache back. The lump on her forehead had been doing surprisingly well and she wondered offhandedly when she should change the bandage. No doubt the nurse had told her when she was packing her a plastic bag full of hospital goodies.

Alice didn't know how long she sat there, head bowed, but before long a cramp grew in her neck and she had to lift her head away from her hands. She blinked a few times, recovering from the movement before gazing over at the clock. It was just after ten and the day's events were beginning to wear her down.

Deciding now would be a good time for her to try to get some sleep and clear her head, Alice went about her nightly routine of changing into her pajamas and throwing her hair up into a messy bun. She pulled the covers aside on her bed, feeling a near gravitational pull at how warm and inviting it looked.

Wiping a hand down her face, she dragged her feet across her bedroom floor. Reaching for her door, she pulled it open. The bathroom had been her destination in mind, but she was stopped quickly in her tracks and her plan was quickly derailed.

Where she expected to see the blackness of the hallway, she was met with a pair of familiar glittering blue eyes under a head of wild silvery hair, attached to a snow-white body and a blue crystalized hoodie. Her eyes widened comically and the eyes before her mirrored her expression of shock.

Her brain short circuited as the boy in front of her opened his mouth, pulling his hands up to quickly pacify her but her brain finally caught up to her voice and she did the first thing that came to mind.

She screamed.


Edited 12/21/20