Alice into Darkness

Crystalline

What had been a relatively warm and pleasant day once again transformed into a freezing night with unbelievable speed, the house was getting even colder than the night before and Alice, safe behind a closed window of the library, admired how the trees outside were swaying thanks to the powerful wind...

The vast and frozen sky displayed countless white stars, but all of that beauty just concealed the fact that the forest was full of monsters howling and crying in the night.

"Where are you?" Alice whispered, trying hard to see into the shadows of the trees- "What is it that cries like that?"

The eerie and unnerving cries were rare during the day, but the night was filled with them and they would come from both nearby and distant parts of the forest. Alice was not sure whether it would be a good idea for her to actually see the creatures responsible for this, but she was really curious and she wanted to see at least one of them that night...

There were entire packs of gray wolves howling and running around, enormous ravens would look down at the ground from the safety of their favorite trees and the bright orange birds had disappeared completely... everything was quiet for some time, and then yet another of those eerie cries came from somewhere not far from the house and Alice could see it at last.

It was a huge and skeleton-like creature that walked on two legs between the trees, looking around with its crystalline blue eyes while its terrible claws reflected the light from the Moon and the stars...

Alice closed the curtains, once again she made sure that every door was locked and then she went to the kitchen in order to prepare some more tea. Miss Layttel poured the delicious hot liquid into a pair of elegant white mugs, and just a few minutes later she joined Eileen at the living room and just beside the warm and happy fireplace.

"Hello, Alice!" Eileen said, accepting a mug with a great smile- "Thank you!"

"It's really cold tonight" Alice replied as she sat down on the blue rug, happy to feel the comforting heat coming from the flames- "It was not like this the first time that I came to Ayngland! I am sure that the nights were just a little cold back then... Eileen, is this cold normal for this time of the year?"

"Oh, yes... This is just alright for November! December gets really cold, and wait for January..."

Alice remained in silence for some time, just staring at the beautiful glass triangles that Eileen was playing with. There were seven of them, each was about the size of a hand and they displayed a variety of crystalline colors: Violet, blue, red, green, yellow, orange and purple...

The light coming from the fire made them look even more fascinating to Alice, to the point that she could hardly believe that they were real-

She knew which colors were violet, red and blue, but Alice still could not associate the right names to all the others...

"They are beautiful, are they not?"

"Yeah, very beautiful indeed" Alice replied, shaking her head in order to break the trance a little- "Eileen, what are those... Those things that cry out there in the forest? I just saw one, and they are... Well, not a pleasant thing to see!"

"Night Criers" Eileen explained, right after drinking more tea- "You should not be living in the Haunted Forest, Alice! This used to be a nice and safe place, until one day a little girl somehow appeared here wearing strange clothing and talking about a different world... Then she vanished, the Night Criers showed up a few weeks later and all of the Hares that lived here were forced to evacuate in a single day."

"Really?" Alice said, hoping that Eileen would not realize that actually she was the grown up version of that mysterious little girl- "All because of those skeletal things?"

"Yes, Alice! The Night Criers are bad, but there are also more wolves than usual, and Ghosts... The Hares were terrified so they returned to Ayreland, and even the Cricket Field and the Hats Factory had to be closed as well... That was... Thirty seven years ago."

"Too bad, I am sorry..."

Alice was a little sad to hear that her friends Edward and Marsh had lost their homes that way, but at least this opened the possibility that they were still alive somewhere at Ayreland. Thirty seven years was a really long time and surely both of them would be very old by now, but it would be great to see them again anyway.

"Alice, are you a Mage?"

"Yes, I am... or at least, I think so" Alice explained, finally drinking the last drops of her tea- "You saw my sparks trick! You witnessed as I materialized out of nowhere... Anyway, it has only happened to me twice, so... I am not sure, Eileen."

"Please do not worry, I am not going to tell anybody!"

"Thanks... Now, I need to ask yet another favor from you, Eileen: When we arrive at Sparks Hollow, and I get to meet other people... I saved you from a wolf, alright? It was a wolf, just a huge and terrifying gray wolf... I did not kill a man! We never met any forest thug out there, it was... It was just a wolf."

"Sure, you can count on me! I know you feel remorse, Alice... but you did it to save my life! Thank you..."

"Thanks! Sleep well, Eileen... And good night."

"Good night, Alice..."

Eileen cuddled between her warm orange blankets, she fell asleep almost instantly and Alice was left alone to play with the glass triangles and to consider whether she could trust Eileen or not... After all it would be easy to stab her to death right there beside the fireplace, and she was very curious to know what it would feel like to kill a child.

A clean and shiny Layttel dagger laid on the rug beside Alice as it glowed by reflecting the fiery light, but in the end Alice decided to let Eileen continue with her life.

"Oh yeah, I am feeling so much remorse for having killed that stupid thug, Eileen!" Alice whispered, displaying a macabre smile- "Sure, remorse... Like I even knew what that is..."

The eerie cries continued coming from outside, the trees howled in the wind, Alice cuddled beside Eileen and she slowly fell asleep.