A Boy Named Alice

Chapter Ten

  My throat turned lumpy, and I tried to swallow it down. I wouldn't cry. Crying was for babies. Just because I wasn't a real Guardian didn't mean I couldn't think like one.  

The temperature fell. Shadows slithered across the cell. A soft giggle echoed. Goose bumps rose on my skin and my breath misted with each exhale.

"Alice is stuck in a rabbit hole."

"I wonder," Annabelle said, "would he drink from the bottle if he knew it would make him shrink?"

"Maybe Alice would rather grow big instead. That way he could smash and crash his way out of here."

"What do you want?" I asked, standing. Wall to my back, hands fisted at my side. Heat sparked in my chest, straightening my back.

Annabelle and Amelia crouched in front of me, darkness curling around them, the hems of their yellow dresses disappearing through the floor. Amelia's red bow, and Annabelle's pink barrettes, offered a false innocence, a trick to lure in prey. Their eyes were black, and their grins feral.

She reached out one transparent hand and tugged at the strings on my jacket. I flinched back.

"Don't touch me."

"We were going to have a tea party in the woods," Amelia said. "We could have celebrated your unbirthday."

"There would have been songs and cake," they said together.

Their countenance turned stony, madness lighting their black eyes. Shadows unfurled along the walls and rolled over the ceiling.

"But you didn't stay with us," Annabelle said. "You ran away."

"And that hurt our feelings," Amelia said.

Flickering like burned out images on an old television screen the sisters disappeared. The shadows stayed, inching along the walls and floor. They blocked out the light from the hallway and I crept back, keeping to the small pool of moonlight seeping through the window.

Cold, claw-like hands dug into me, and freezing my lungs. My heart stuttered in my chest, and I crashed to my knees. I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak through the ice filling my veins.

Annabelle appeared and leaned forward, one hand rest on my head. My vision swam, blurred gray creeping in along the edges, and her pale face wavered, a wide Cheshire cat grin wrinkled her cheeks.

"Amelia, do you think he can stand on his head?"

Amelia spun and clapped her hands. "Why don't we find out?"

Pain ripped into my body, but I had no breath to scream. The warmth flickered out, lost in the ice. Annabelle and Amelia giggled and began singing.

"Alice is stuck in a rabbit hole. I wonder if his bones crunch too?"

Faces wreathed in slithering shadows, filled up my vision, blurring in and out of focus.

I struggled to breathe, to fight their hold on me. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see mom and Sheryl again. I didn't want them to miss me the way I missed dad.

Grinding metal and clanging wood crashed through the ice. Tears blocked the world and I sucked in deep breaths as shivers shook my frame.

Annabelle and Amelia turned and crouched like feral dogs ready to pounce. They hissed and snarled at the now open cell door.

"None of that now, you Black-Eyed freaks," the guard said his broad form too big for the space. He ducked to step through the doorway, the frame scraping his mange covered head. "The Mayor wants this one for himself."