I'm back! I'm here! I swear I'm not dead! Just had a lot on my plate, and hadn't had time to post recently.

So yeah, well, let's get to it ladies and gentlemen! :)

Chapter 11: The start of something

It didn't take long for Alice to realize she was dreaming. If you could even call it that.

Dreams had color and movement, strange environments, fantasy creatures, sometimes scary creatures; mountain ranges, valleys full of purple grass, small schools of fish flying overhead. Something, anything! But this, this was nothing, quite literally nothing.

Alice sat in, what she guessed was the middle of, a large room. No it was a void. There was nothing there, nothing to tell her where things began or where they ceased, nothing to give an indication of how high or low the ceiling maybe, if there even was a ceiling; the only reason she was remotely certain there was a floor was because she was sitting on it. Stretching out her feet in front of her she found them bare, though she remembered just before fading to sleep that she had socks on, the thought had even occurred that she had forgotten to take them off. She had fallen asleep so fast though, the second her head hit the pillow she was gone.

"Must have kicked them off…" she sighed, absentmindedly rubbing her feet together, muttering to no one in particular. Her hands found the hem of the oversized shirt she was wearing as a night gown, her fingers fiddling, flipping it back and forth, running the pads of her fingers across the stitching. All this she did while glancing about, there was nothing else to do, because, frankly, there was nothing.

Nothing.

Just Alice.

"Just… me…" Alice looked around again, standing. Why? She didn't know, searching for something, perhaps.

"You are not alone young one." Upon turning around Alice found a young woman standing behind her. Her appearance ethereal, hair and robes floating about her, she stood just out of arms reach. Her eyes were locked with Alice's, a soft smile played at her lips. "You've never been alone."

"Who are you?" Alice asked, surprising herself with how calm she sounded, felt.

"Elma."

"Elma?"

"Yes," she chuckled to herself, her smile becoming broader. "It's been sometime since I have heard that name. My name. A long time indeed."

"May I ask why?"

"At another time, perhaps."

"Another time? You mean I'll be here again?"

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps? Where is 'here' anyway?"

"Quite the curious one aren't we?"

"Can you blame me?" The woman named Elma shook her head slowly, every movement she made seemed as if she were performing it under water. "I'm here in a place, I don't know, speaking with a woman I've never met." Alice eyed the woman for a moment.

"I haven't met you, but you know me."

"Yes, young one, I do. I've known of you for quite some time."

"You're dead aren't you?" blunt though it was, Alice wanted to know, needed to know. There was something odd about this woman, about this dream, if that's even what this was anymore.

"Yes I am. My time came some time ago." A sad mood came over her smile as the woman named Elma answered.

"I'm sorry…" Why? Why do people always apologize when they find out someone has died?

"Do not be, I am not. Otherwise you would not be here now."

Alice stood for a moment in disbelief. She knew what the woman meant, deep down, somehow she knew, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to know more.

"You were young, such a young thing," the woman named Elma began as she started to advance. "To have someone wish to harm one so young seemed so unfair. I willingly, without hesitation gave what was mine so I could protect you. Not a day has passed that I have not looked back on that night, and wonder what more I could do, hoping that what I had done was enough. Seeing you here, like this, I am beginning to find it was."

"Then why are you here now? And what do you mean by someone harming me? My parents died in a car accident, I almost died in that accident. No one caused it, that's why it's called an accident." Alice began to feel the calm she had originally had slowly bleeding out of her, as the possible truth of the situation began to try and seep its way in. Elma opened her mouth to respond when suddenly she froze; her smile was gone, all of the warmth in her face had drained away, with what appeared to be panic slowly taking its place. Spinning she looked off into the black, searching for something, and much to her distaste, finding it.

"I'm sorry but there isn't time." She said turning back to Alice. "It won't be safe here much longer, if she finds you here- if she discovers she can get to you this way I fear what she may do."

"Who? Who are you talking about?"

"You must go now-"

"Go? I don't even know how I got here! And what about you? When will I-"

"Worry not about me. As for when we'll see each other again, as soon as it's safe is all I can tell you. Now, you must go." Elma lifted her arm, leveling it until her hand was centered at Alice's chest. Suddenly a torrent of wind came from nowhere, slamming into Alice's chest like a freight train, knocking her backwards off her feet.

And she fell.

As if a ten ton weight had been strapped to her waist she was dragged backwards, down, down into the darkness, Elma quickly fading from view, the only thing left of her was her voice chasing after Alice as she tumbled down.

"Beware!" It warned, above the wind rushing passed her ears. "Beware the Beldam!" Alice's decent continued faster now, spiraling out of control, twisting and turning as she plummeted farther and faster, until she slammed into something and everything went completely black.

Alice bolted up right, back in her bed, in her room. She didn't even notice that she had been screaming, was still screaming until Gigi and Conall came into her room. She didn't notice Gigi checking the window, and barely noticed Conall holding her hands, looking her dead in the face trying to get her to focus and calm down. It was as if everything she was hearing was under water, muddled and far away, Conall's voice came to her ears long after it had left his mouth.

"A…l…i…c…e… …Al…ic…e… Alice!" her eyes finally focused, finding his, her voice now raw from screaming, barely able to come out as more than anything other than a rasp.

"Alice, sweetie, what is it? What's wrong?" Gigi now, at her side, hand on her shoulder, face twisted with concern.

"…B-bel…"

"Bell?"

"… Bel…dam… Beldam…" she finally managed, whispering it in a strange sort of shock. Gigi and Conall shared a strained look before Gigi pulled Alice into her arms, crushing her to her chest, rubbing her hair, rocking and soothing her like a small child.

"It's okay honey, it's okay." She soothed trying to convince herself of the same. But Alice's behavior was troubling, and she couldn't ignore the claw marks she'd seen on the other side of the window. Faint though they were, they were still there.

"It's okay baby, it's okay. Nothing's going to harm you, not while I'm here. Not while we're here. It's okay, it's okay."

Morning came far sooner for Alice than she would have liked.

Gigi had stayed in the room the rest of the night, hoping it would calm Alice down enough to get her back to sleep; unfortunately it hadn't worked. The rest of the night had been rather fitful one for Alice, catching small snatches of sleep here and there, anything longer than a few moments was immediately haunted by strange creatures, strange people, all cloaked in shadow their faces hidden away.

Gigi watched as Alice sat staring at her plate, pushing her food around. It was plain as day on her face that she wasn't in a good mood, and everyone in the house knew it. Both boys had been awoken by the episode last night, Conall had ended up spending quite some time calming Georgie down until he was able to go back to sleep himself. This morning he sat at the table watching Alice timidly as he ate.

"Come on Alice let's not drag, you're going to be late if you do." The only respond she got was a barely audible grunt. And this was how the rest of the morning went. Gigi was right in Alice's falling behind, she ended up sending Willis ahead and took over dropping Alice off this morning herself. As Alice slid out of the front passenger seat of the van in front of the school, Gigi mentally marked that her mood hadn't improved at all, deep down she hoped that everyone would take heed of the warning signs clearly marked by Alice's demeanor and just leave well enough alone today. As she pulled away from the curb a small voice reminded her in the back of head that this, this was high school, no one ever knew when to leave well enough alone.

"God have mercy on the soul who crosses her today," Gigi muttered. "God only knows they'll need it."

As he had the day before, Jareth resumed his post near the girl named Alice. He had watched from the tree line as she'd been deposited at the school and had dragged into the building, barely making it to her first class before the final bell rang. It didn't take the Goblin King long to notice that his grey eyed girl was not the same as she'd been; as he followed her from class to class he watched as she sourly slammed her locker and barely saluted her companions with her usual gusto. Most of the day went on like this, much to the disdain of the young king, he did not much care for this foul mood that had come over his Alice and was curious to find the source. He was not the only one, it would seem, that wished to know.

"Hey, are you okay?" the boy named Willis had caught up to Alice as she transferred things from her locker to her bag, reaching back in for her lunch before slamming the door shut.

"You've been out of it all day. What's wrong?"

"I, I just didn't get a good night sleep last night." She sighed, avoiding eye contact. "That's it."

"Come on now, it's more than that. I'd have to be a complete dunce to not notice."

"… I … I had a really weird dream… long story short it freaked me out and I had a really hard time getting back to sleep afterwards."

"Weird dream?" Willis watched as she merely nodded. "How weird?"

"Weird enough to wake up the whole house." Alice heard the low, sharp intake of air from Willis at her response. "Want to know the weirdest thing? In the dream there was something about a Beldam."

"A Beldam?"

"What's a Beldam?" Tucker had joined up with the pair, a confused expression working across his face having caught the tail end of the conversation.

"It's an old word, means 'hag' or 'witch', mostly it's reserved for really ugly ones. Why are we talking about Beldams?" Ilex now standing beside Willis, interjected.

"Alice had a freaky dream." Willis sighed, trying to wave her off, wanting to get more out of Alice while she was still willing to share.

"About a beldam? What are you doing dreaming about a beldam?"

"I don't know!" Alice snipped a little louder than she'd meant. "It's not like I requested it before I went to sleep or anything. 'Hey, dream peoples, you got anything in the catalog about beldams? Just wondering, haven't dreamt about those in a while, you know? Just figured I'd spice things up a bit!'"

"Wait," the look on Ilex's face became more serious. "You've dreamt of this stuff before?"

"No…" Alice began, not really wanting to continue the direction of the conversation. Realizing she wasn't getting out of it she let out a short sigh before continuing. "Not this dream specifically. But it's not the first time I've heard beldam in my dreams before. It was when I was younger, not long after the accident, I don't remember too much about it but Gigi would tell me that I would wake up screaming about how the beldam was coming to get me or that the beldam was after me. She said it really worried her, and that if it went on too long she was going to take me to see a councilor. But the dreams began to fade and until last night, there hadn't been one for years."

To say Jareth's interest was piqued would have been an understatement. He was thoroughly engrossed in the direction of the conversation. Mulling over what he had learned, he couldn't help but notice he shared some of the same questions as her companions; his knowledge of dreams was not nearly as expansive and in depth as some of his kind, but he knew enough to know that dreams of this nature, pushing on the edge of nightmares had the possibility of being more than a simple night fright experienced by the dreamer. With the mention of a beldam and prior occurrences of this dream, in whatever form, his concerns heightened. But the one thing that had him the most curious was this mention of an accident; what did it have to do with anything, obviously it deep troubled his Alice.

My Alice? Now when did that happen? He smirked to himself. Jareth was snatched away from his thoughts and back to the present by a slightly familiar voice. Everyone's attention had turned from Alice towards a girl standing a few opposite of her in the center of the hallway. Feet set apart, arms akimbo, smirk painted across her face, it was clear the girl had said something with the purpose of irking Alice and it was even more clear by the look on her face that she was succeeding; her name, what was her name again?

"Take a hike Abigail." That's it.

"What's wrong? Little orphan Annie having a bad day? Are you missing your mommy?"

"Shove off Abigail," Ilex spoke up now, advancing slowly, squaring off with the girl. "Before someone makes you." The tension was lost however when a strange laugh came from behind Ilex, from Alice.

"Bravo Abigail, bravo. Did it take you all night to figure that one out? Did you practice in front of your mirror? 'Little orphan Annie'? Don't you think I've heard that before? Don't you think you should get some new material?" Alice shook her head. "I have more important things to deal with than you and your mental short comings today Abigail."

Jareth watched as, without waiting for any response, Alice began to walk away. The more time he spent around this girl, the more he found interesting, amusing, and likable about this girl.

Abigail however, was not done, the sting of the insult still fresh she advanced, taking hold of Alice's arm pulling her back.

"What did you say, you psychotic freak?"

Alice looked at the hand on her arm, and with a strange eerie sort of calm coming over her she looked in the eyes of the girl across from her. "Let go of my arm Abigail."

"Oh and what are you going to do if I don't?" she challenged.

"Let go of my arm Abigail." The tension that was rising between the two was almost palatable.

"Oh you want me to let go? Okay. Fine." Abigail released her arm, to only a brief second later slam her hands into Alice's chest, sending her tumbling backwards, her books and lunch spilling everywhere.

From this moment, Jareth would recount later, everything seemed to slow down. Abigail turned, glancing around at her companions searching for affirmation and approval of her behavior. Ilex advanced, shouting, clearly upset, fists clenched, muscles tensed ready for a fight. Willis joined Ilex in his rebuke, glaring at the girl opposite of them. Teachers and other students began to peak around corners, entering the hallway drawn by the commotion. Abigail laughed, triumphant, cocky, expecting no reaction more than the other girl to pick up her things and move. Here was her folly.

In an instance Alice was on her knees and was launching herself forward, a growl of fury rushing past her lips as she sprang forward, connecting with Abigail, taking her to the floor. Pure fury radiated off her as she sat astride the girl, pinning her to the laminate flooring, fists swinging.

After recovering from the initial shock of the situation, Ilex jumped forward, wrapping her arms around Alice's waist, wrenching her backwards, still swinging, off of Abigail. Ilex struggled to maintain her course backwards, Alice's continuous lurches forward making it extremely difficult to maintain her grip as well as her balance. A teacher advanced now, taking hold of Abigail and as another took hold of Alice from Ilex, dragging them both down the hallway towards the front office.

And Jareth watched as the teachers took them away, a strange feeling stirring within him. He had made a vast miscalculation. This mortal girl was far more than he had imagined, she was intriguing, attractive, and cunning; but more than that, she had the spark of warrior in her, though it would need refining, it was still there nonetheless. But one thing was certain as he stood, unseen, amongst her companions watching her disappear around the corner, the Goblin King had made up his mind, this mortal girl was of a rare breed indeed. And he wanted her.

Conall Toomey was a quiet man, usually calm and levelheaded. Of course he hadn't always been that way. When he was younger he would have been better described as scrappy and quick tempered, rowdy even would come into play from time to time. When he'd first become friends with the young man who would soon be his best friend and eventually the father of his goddaughter he began to calm down and think more clearly. Calm clear thinking came in even more handy when his boys came along, and again when Alice joined the family, so as he found himself walking into the principal's office of Alice's high school he began reminding himself to keep calm.

As he entered into the office he found the principal behind his desk, a blank mask on his features. In chairs on the opposite side of the desk sat Abigail Connelly and her mother, Abigail bemoaning her current state, while her mother glared at Alice. Alice sat in the chair farthest from the Connelly's, arms crossed, her face steeled against showing any emotion, her eyes boring holes into the wall behind the principal's head.

"Mr. Whittaker." Conall nodded reaching over the desk extending his hand.

"Ah Mr. Toomey." The man behind the desk smiled, taking Conall's hand in a firm handshake. "I'm glad you're here, now we can get things underway."

"Yes," Conall began as he took his seat, unbuttoning his blazer for comfort. "I was wondering what this was about."

"What this is about?" Abigail's mother shrieked. "This is about how that little monster viciously attacked my little girl!"

"One, Alice is not a 'little monster', as you put it, that would be my youngest son Georgie. And two, with all due respect Mrs. Connelly Abigail hasn't been little for some time." Conall's sarcastic whit brought a smirk to Alice's face.

"And just what is that suppose to mean Mr. Tommy?"

"Toomey. And it means, that Abigail though still a child is not a baby, so I see no reason to treat her as such. You were saying Mr. Whittaker?" Conall cut Mrs. Connelly off before she could launch into one of her classic rants.

"Well I've called you both here on account of the fact of an incident that occurred this afternoon, at the beginning of the lunch hour. Both of your daughters were brought into my office for fighting in the hallway. Now our school has a zero tolerance policy, as you know, for this kind of behavior. Such behavior usually results in a suspension from school. The reason why I called you here however was because of how this scenario seems to have been played out and I would personally like to ask the girls their own opinion of the situation, before I proceed."

"She should be expelled not suspended! Look what she did to me! Look what she did to my face! I wasn't doing anything and she just attacked me! She's a horrible person, she always does stuff like this!"

"My daughter's right, just the other day she viciously attacked her on her way home."

"I did not." Alice bit out, not once moving her eyes from the spot she had chosen on the wall.

"You did so you little liar!"

"I agree with my daughter, I want her expelled! She's nothing more than a menace!"

"I understand that this situation is obviously a very stressful one. But the punishment will not be changed, the aggressor will be suspended, on top of being banned from any upcoming school events, in this particular case that would mean the upcoming dance. Alice," Mr. Whittaker turned toward the less vocal student. "How do you feel about this?"

She simply shrugged before answering. "Do what you have to do."

Mr. Whittaker nodded quietly, thinking for a moment, before turning in his chair bringing the group's attention to a small television sitting on the cabinet behind his desk.

"Not too long ago, after we had some issues with equipment missing from the back of the school, we had a newer security system installed. There are cameras on every hall of this school, they catch practically everything, except for obviously what takes place in the bathroom. There are no blind spots." He paused for a moment fiddling with a small remote in his hands. "Abigail you have expressed your telling of the incident as the truth, is there anything you would like to tell me before I proceed with the video footage?"

Abigail defiantly shook her head. Mr. Whittaker turned to his other student who simply continued to watch the wall across from her. Sighing he leaned back in his chair a pressed play. For the first time since he came into the office Conall watched as Alice's eyes slowly shifted from the wall to the screen, curiosity getting the best of her.

The video feed had no sound, but it didn't need any. It showed Alice at her locker speaking with her friends, Abigail's approach and exchange of words, Alice walking away, Abigail first taking hold of her arm then shoving her, Alice's advance forward, and the subsequent beating that then commenced. They watched as Ilex dragged Alice off of Abigail, and as the teachers intervened bringing both girls to the office. Mr. Whittaker stopped the tape, sat down the remote and turned back to those sitting across from him.

Abigail's face had drained of color, her mother sat mouth hanging open, jaw completely slack. Conall and Alice sat with a similar smirk playing out on their faces, Alice's far more mischievous than Conall's of course.

"Miss Connelly, as I said this school has a zero tolerance policy for aggressors in school fights. You will be suspended, as well as banned from attending the upcoming school dance, as a furthering of your punishment. Mr. Toomey, Alice, you're both free to go."

"You're letting them leave?" Abigail shrieked. "There wasn't any audio! For all you know she could have said something to me! I was the one hurt here! I'm the victim! She deserves to be suspended! Not me!"

"Miss Connelly, if you please! I find it hard to believe that a student that was clearly walking away from what was obviously a potentially volatile situation was the aggressor. As I said Mr. Toomey, Alice, you're free to go, I hope you have a nice afternoon."

"Same to you Mr. Whittaker." Conall grinned standing. "Good afternoon Mrs. Connelly, Abigail. Come Alice."

Once in the car Conall looked over at Alice, watching her stare out the window, lips still sealed.

"You know, we don't condone fighting in our house. Gigi's going to be rather upset with you, especially considering you were almost suspended over this who issue with Abigail. Now I'm not perfect, I used to do the same when I was your age, and got suspended my fair share of times. But fighting is not acceptable and I want to make that clear, is that understood?"

Alice nodded, silently, her gaze still turned out of the window.

"So now that that's taken care of," Conall began again as he brought the car to a stop at a red light. Looking over at Alice a mischievous grin crept across his face, tugging at his lips. "Did you at least give her hell?"

A grin bloomed over Alice's face as she turned to lock eyes with her godfather.

"You know it."

A deep throaty laugh bubbled up out of Conall's chest as the light turned green and pulled away from the school. "That's my girl!"

Whoo! We got through quite a bit!

Alright, you know the drill guys, feel free to review! It makes me happy :)

Working on the next chapter as we speak, fingers crossed I'll get it up soon. :)