"Alicina,"

Alice Adams felt a hand brush against her cheek, and heard a voice calling her.

"Alice- Nina, Alice girl, wake up baby."

Realizing the voice was unknown, Alice opened her eyes.

Outlined by the bars of her crib in the afternoon light, and the shadow cast by the crib's mobile, Alice saw a woman with blonde curls and dark brown eyes leaning over her.

She smiled at her. "Hi sweetheart," she smiled in a way that was somewhat conspiritorial. "You can see me, can't you?"

Alice kept staring at her. For a minute she'd thought it was Mama, but that wasn't so. She didn't look like Mama and didn't talk like Mama. Young Alice concentrated, trying to figure it out. This person knew her, so she should know this person as well.

The woman ran a hand over her hair. "You have my curls, your mother's temper already, and coloring like Nina. All your family, the important ones anyway, are all reflected in your own little face."

Finally after staring a long long time, Alice grinned. "Gamma!"

White teeth gleamed and her eyes crinkled with a smile.

"I knew you'd know me!"

The nursery door creaked on its hinges.

"Mom?"

Alice perked up at the sound of her mother's voice, and saw her staring in shock at the woman standing over Alice's crib.

"Mom!"

Alice had pushed herself up to sitting, grabbing the bars of the crib, and saw her mother run to Gamma, but the other woman held up a hand.

"If you try to hug me, you'll end up on the floor, dear."

Alice watched her mother freeze in place.

"So you are dead." Natalie sighed. "I had a feeling."

"Yes, it appears that way."

"What are you doing here?"

"I can't believe it took my own death to allow me to see my own grandchild. What possessed you to go half way around the world to-"

"I got married, Mom."

"Yes, and left your poor sister to fend for herself."

"Sorry," she sighed. "It was for her own good, trust me. It would've hurt too much if I stayed."

"I understand how difficult my leaving was for you two, and what happened to me and to Nina scares you. But I cannot forgive you for leaving Nina, you don't have my excuse."

"She was twenty-two years old!"

"A baby!" Alice watched her Gamma's face darken as she objected. "You're hardly more than one yourself," she added, "though you won't realize that till your nearer my age. "

A silence fell then, that neither bothered to break. Natalie's mother ran a hand over Alice's head.

"You see it in her already, don't you?" Mrs. Adams was looking at Alice.

Reaching into the crib, Mama picked her up and nodded.

Bringing the conversation back, Mrs. Adams asked, "And have you spoken with your sister since coming back to the states?"

She shrugged. "I called to make sure she was okay. She said she was going away for a while-not back into treatment- she found a new place and wouldn't be able to call me for a while."

Mrs. Adams shook her head. "Wouldn't you know but she's paired up with a man who acts exactly like you. Some form of rebellion, I'm sure." She shook her head again. "But at least you've got some sense about you." She shook her head ruefully announcing with a cryptic tone, "That one's gonna end up in prison."

"I can't do anything about who she dates, Mom."

Alice wriggled out of her mother's arms and put her hands on the rail of her crib. "Bore. Down now."

The older woman laughed. "Barely knows English, but still a willful little thing."

"You have no idea," Natalie answered as she placed Alice back in her crib.

"I raised you, didn't I?"

Natalie's face reddened, but glad to have someone to vent to, she spoke up.

"She says she wants cookies, I tell her she can't have any. Five seconds later she's chomping away on the cookies I said she couldn't have, because she made them float down from their spot in the cupboard."

"She doesn't like it when you say no to her."

"Little kids shouldn't be allowed to have super powers," Natalie grumbled with firm conviction.

Mrs. Adams laughed aloud. "Now you know what it felt like raising you. It's every parents' revenge to have a grandchild to plaugue their children to death."

"But I didn't have such strong powers."

"No, but your stubborn will more than made up for it, you'd climb up on anything to get to something you wanted."

"And speaking of powers, my goodness Natalie, this place you've gotten yourself to is like a prison!"

"No it isn't."

"Although," she continued speaking as if her daughter hadn't spoken, "I suppose I should be grateful. Maybe Alice and Bo won't have to go through what I did. They say gifts like this skip a generation."

"Bo? Who's Bo? That Nina's boyfriend?"

smiled at her daughter. "You'll find out soon enough, I suspect. Can't be more than a few months, I think."

"Mom, what are you talking about?"

Mrs. Adams sighed again. "I'm sorry love, but I have to leave you now. Don't worry," she assured her, "when Alice is older she'll be able to explain a lot of this to you."

Natalie laughed. "What could she possibly tell me that I don't already know?"

Mrs. Adams just smiled, then looked down and addressed her granddaughter. "You be a good girl, Alice Nina."

Alice simply gave what could only be described as an evil grin and waved happily at the departing image of her grandmother.

With Mrs. Adams gone, Natalie turned to her daughter with suspicion. "You know what she's talking about, don't you?"

Alice grinned and gave an evil laugh, happy to have a secret from her mother.