Alice into Darkness

Sparks and Light

Alice was sure that this would be the very best birthday that she had ever enjoyed.

It was true that there would be no party and no guests to shower her with gifts, but she carried the presents from her sister Loraine and she was free to do whatever that she wanted... There would be nobody to tell her either what to do or how to behave, and perhaps the best present of all was that she was able to see those fantastic colors all around her.

The Autumn leaves were flying with the wind as Alice and Eileen walked side by side between the trees, the glassy purple lakes reflected those snowy mountains in the distance and the dazzling sun was glowing very high up in the sky...

"You look really happy today, Alice!" Eileen said, looking up at her friend for a moment while she played with her toy wooden sword- "Your eyes are full of sparks and light..."

"Thanks Eileen! Indeed, I feel pretty good today" Alice replied, having a look at the various abandoned houses that they would find along the journey- "Why do you carry that sword, by the way?"

Alice and her little friend carried violet backpacks filled with all of the supplies that they could gather, from jelly and a variety of wildberries to water, wine and the last edible biscuits that they could find at the house. According to the map the travel to Sparks Hollow would not take more than twelve hours, and they hoped to get there before it would get dark.

Alice was really curious to meet other people and explore the famous town, even though the idea that now she would have to start a new life from scratch was a little worrisome for her...

"My brother Logan got a real sword for his birthday" Eileen replied, holding her toy with great pride- "That was very expensive! It's a good blade, though not as good as yours, and I was envious so Dad decided to make this other sword for me... I know it's wooden and not a real sword, but hey... I love it!"

"What a coincidence! My sword and dagger were birthday presents as well, from my sister..."

"That's sweet!"

Alice remained in alert as she scanned the forest all the time, looking at every detail and listening to every tiny sound that could indicate the presence of any danger around them... After all she knew that they could get attacked any moment, but fortunately it seemed that traveling thugs were rare and the wolves had decided to hunt at some other part of the Haunted Forest that day.

It was around twelve o'clock when they passed through the same Cricket Field that Alice had visited twelve years ago, which was barely recognizable to her now that its gardens were ruined, the houses were decrepit and the beautiful rose bushes that she recalled had been replaced by thorny plants growing wild everywhere...

They entered the forest again, and Alice discovered with great surprise and delight that the graceful orange birds were replaced with violet ravens flying happily from one tree to another-

"Eileen, there is something that I wanted to ask you" Alice said as they passed beside a vast purple lake, drawing out some of the beautiful glass triangles from a pocket of her violet cloak- "I know that this is going to be weird, but... Could you please tell me... What color is this?"

Alice looked a little embarrassed when she showed the orange triangle to her friend (Eileen quickly replied That's orange, Alice!) and after that Miss Layttel did the same with the green, yellow and purple triangles, getting every time the answer that she needed to finally learn the proper names for these wild and unbelievable things.

She finally understood why everybody liked orange so much, and why green would always be associated to happiness and life...

"Are you sure that this is orange, Eileen?" Alice repeated, playing with the triangles in her hands- "And this is green? Wait! And this is violet, right? Please, please tell me that this is violet!"

"Yeah, those are orange, green and violet... Wait! Are you trying to tell if I am colorblind, or what?"

"No, it's just that..."

Alice was trying to find a way to explain her life with color blindness, how difficult everything had been and her encounter with that mysterious wolfish creature, but at that moment they could hear a variety of voices that were calling and screaming somewhere between the trees not far ahead of them:

"Eileen! Eileen! Where are you!? Eileen... Eileen!"

"Mother!" Eileen cried out in answer, her sparkly blue eyes glowed with happiness and she dashed towards the voices followed by Alice.