Chapter 1 - Alice

freely received, freely given - my first book, my gift to you

Thoughts that Alice considered immature and stupid played over and over in her head.

'We were supposed to have tea and go for more walks along the forest edge.'

'You were going to tell me about Alderland; you said I was old enough to understand.'

'But I don't understand this.'

The coastal wind filled the sails of the burial ship.  The clanging of the departing bell rang out. And the burial bosuns with their deep resonant voices began to sing.

Alice's father sang with them, his voice low and soft compared to the strong chorus coming from the ship and the mourners who stood with them on the docks. 

To Alice, the words of the song felt as deep as the Western Ocean and as old as Irim itself. 

She didn't sing though; she cried. 

And she watched the casket.

It was an ornate black ark of the deep, and it swayed on thick chains over the starboard side of the ship. Her lip quivered and the tears streamed down her cheeks, but she forced herself to watch the vessel leave the small yet deep harbor of Barberton.

Her father handed her one of his plain white handkerchiefs.

Somewhere out in that ocean, her grandmother's weighted casket would be released to travel the deepest parts of Irim. It would drift down to death's gate or as close as the black ark could ferry her.

Alice shivered.  

She didn't want to think about that.

A horn sounded from the ship as it passed the harbor mouth and she felt her father put his arm around her shoulders; tucked away against him, she wished she could become even smaller and disappear into his shadow entirely. If she weren’t there at all, she wouldn’t have to feel so…

She didn’t have a word for it and felt another wave of tears welling up.

At last, the song ended. In its wake came only the footsteps on the docks, the gentle lapping of water underneath and the rolling breeze up the coast. The men and women who had attended Ella's funeral walked past Amrin and his daughter. Each expressed their condolences as they left.

 The last man to leave stopped to talk to her father.

"Anna?"

 Amrin shook his head. "Not feeling well, Charley."

Charley started to say something else but nodded instead. He looked down at Alice. "Growing like a weed and beautiful. The boys will be after her soon."

Alice felt her face scrunch up at the suggestion, but her eyes didn't leave the ship as it tacked to the northwest, leaving the rocky, low-lying coast behind.

Her father hugged her tight to his side. "She has a few more years before the lizard-rats begin to swarm."

"Uegghh," Alice heard herself say.

Charley laughed and took Amrin’s hand in both of his. “Amrin, if you need anything—and I mean anything—you just ask. You have friends in Barberton, myself most of all."

Alice felt her father's emotion through the flexed grip around her shoulders. She tucked the handkerchief back into his hand.

"...I know, Charley." He took a deep breath and wiped at the corners of his eyes with the handkerchief.

More words passed between the two men, but she didn't hear them. The waning form of the ship made her think about Alderland's story that would be forever untold. Maybe her father would tell her, but it wouldn't be the same. She didn't care about the story. She cared about her gram.

"I'm tired," she said.

"Me too, darlin'. Let's go home."

She looked around and saw that Charley was gone. It was just them now.

Her father held her hand on the short walk from the dock and up the wooden steps of the steep, grassy bluff overlooking the harbor. He could have carried her up the steps but she was too old for that now. 

She regretted telling him that. 

She wouldn't have protested if he had picked her up, but he didn't.  Holding hands was good enough, mostly.

"Why didn't she come?"

"She didn't feel well."

Alice squeezed his hand.

"She's not sick. She didn't catch the fever. Gram did."

At the top of the bluff, they approached Old Henry, dozing at his hitching post. 

"Your mother has her own way of things."

"You always say that. I hate it." 

She was about to add more, but her father let go of her hand. 

"Not now, Alice."

She began to sob. 

"I miss Gram."

Amrin unlashed the reins from the hitching post. He lifted himself into Henry's saddle, and through her halting sobs and breaths, raised Alice onto Henry's back, just behind himself.

Old Henry snuffed as Amrin clicked his mouth, and Alice hugged her father from behind, putting her hands in his waistcoat pockets.

"Everything’s going to be okay," he said.

"No, it's not."

"You'll feel better tomorrow."

"No, I won't."

“Ella left you something."

"No, she didn't."

"You won't have to do your chores or lessons for the rest of the week."

"No, I..."

She didn’t want to smile and buried her face against his back, trying to wipe it off. It wasn’t wholly gone until she laid her head against his back, facing the ocean.

 "It's going to be okay, darlin'," Amrin said again.

But Alice said nothing.

They didn't speak for the rest of the ride home from Barberton. Alice watched the sun setting over the water long after she could no longer see the ship. Then she turned her head to the parade of early fall trees lazily marching past her to the sound of Henry’s soothing clip-clop. Most of the trees still held on to their summer greens, but some were beginning to change. Her eyes passed over the trees and to the Jawline Mountains that rose sharply and snow-capped in the east. 

They weren’t so far away. Maybe she could run up and over them. Away from Cumberland. Away from the coast. Away from this pain. But then she wondered if that long range of jagged peaks wasn’t perhaps protecting her and everyone along the coast from dangers on the other side.

'You couldn't protect Gram though,' she thought and whimpered.

Somewhere along the fifteen-mile journey home, her father began humming the familiar lullaby that never failed any of his children. That and the swishing of Old Henry's gait along with the warmth of her father, it all proved too much a mystical power for Alice to resist. With her golden-haired head against his back, her thoughts ceased, and she fell asleep. 

Amrin continued the lullaby a long while after he heard his girl’s gentle snoring.

It was well after dark when he pulled Alice from Henry's back. Her long hair mopped in front of her face as he carried her.

"Was I dreaming?" she asked.

"Probably. We're home, darlin'."

Amrin looked across the road to a man standing by torchlight. Heavy white canvas tents were pitched behind him, their banners flapping gently in the cool night air, emblazoned with the stone and stars of Dalain. The man waved a simple greeting, and Amrin nodded in return.

With one arm under her, he carried his daughter up the foyer stairs of their old homestead. Each step creaked loudly while his free hand glided up the smooth-worn banister. 

At the top of the stairs, he turned left. The glow of a single oil lamp came from the end of the hallway, where it hung on the wall.  Amrin walked down to the lamp and opened the door to Alice's room.

He quickly tucked his daughter in and kissed her forehead, then left her to sleep and dream her dreams.

And dream she did.

Falling. Fading. Slowly sailing through mists of mind, Alice found herself seated at the kitchen table of her home. 

Her grandmother stood, stoking the coals in their cast-iron oven. Alice breathed in the comforting aroma of Ella’s baking.

"Where's Mom, Gram?"

"She's not here right now, buttle-kin." 

Alice giggled at the play name. She’d tried to give her grandmother play names too, but it never felt the same. So she’d learned to simply enjoy it whenever Gram called her by a new one, which fortunately, was often.

Ella stood up and opened the windows around the kitchen. "I have something special for you today, a recipe I've been working on. Didn't your father tell you?"

She thought for a minute. "No, I don't think he said anything." Alice watched her move about the kitchen, but something wasn't right.

Ella gave her an odd look. "What's the matter? Something got you sad?"

"You... We had your funeral today, I think."

Her Gram smiled and waved the thought away. "Oh, don't worry about that, Alice."

Alice raised her eyebrows as everything started to feel like the color blue and she became aware.

"I'm dreaming, Gram."

Her grandmother nodded and walked over to the cast-iron oven. She hummed to herself as she slipped on a pair of plain oven mitts and pulled something out; Alice couldn't tell if it was bread or cake. 

The aroma of the strange pastry wafted through the kitchen and out the open windows. Her grandmother set the pink loaf down onto the kitchen table. It was piping hot, steaming in the sunlight.

She sat down with Alice. "Of course you're dreaming, dipple-dot. Something's going to happen today, and for quite some time, I imagine. I thought it was going to happen in my day, that it was going to happen to me."  She sighed and gestured with an oven-mitted hand, "But catch a fever and—poof! Out the door. I guess that's just the way the boulder hobbles down the hill."  

Alice covered her mouth and laughed with Ella.

“Can we eat it?”

"We need to let it cool a minute, sugarsnap."

Alice's mouth started to water. 

"What is it, Gram?"

Ella smiled. “An old recipe that my grandmother told me about. I nearly forgot about it! She called it 'Pink Fluff'."

Alice heard flapping wings outside each of the three open windows of their kitchen. A large vulture landed on each windowsill and sniffed at the air.

Alice grew uneasy, but her grandmother took her hand and put her finger up to her lips.

Two of the vultures, one with a black beak and the other with a bright yellow face and many frilly white tufts about its neck, hopped down onto the countertop. They didn't appear to notice Alice or her grandmother as they knocked small pots and pans onto the hardwood floor, croak-squawking as they went. Then they fluttered down onto the kitchen floor and continued sniffing the air as they hobbled into the dining room.

The third buzzard had intense red-ringed eyes and reddish-white head feathers. It remained on its windowsill as it looked about the room.

Her grandmother leaned in, her lips so close to Alice's ear that it tickled.

"It's ready to eat, Alice. Then you'll return to normal, and harm's way."

“Now hurry, little-put, before they see you."

“But—,” Alice started.

Her grandmother shook her head.

Alice's heart beat in her chest. She reached across the table and tore off a small piece of the pink fluff pastry. In her mouth, it was like flaky clouds that poured out sweet water. It melted like cotton candy as she swallowed.  She felt like she was floating, though she hadn't moved.

"It's going to start now, Alice. Be strong."

Alice wanted to ask her what she meant, but heard the pit-pat of their dog in the kitchen before she could speak. He sat down at her side and looked up. His little tail swished against the floor expectantly.

"Gonna share, Alice?" he said.

Eyes wide and before she could respond, Old Henry stuck his big head through the open window nearest the oven and added, "Yeah, Alice, gonna share?"

The vulture with the red eyes looked around the kitchen, clearly hearing something. And from somewhere else in the house, the vulture with the black beak called out, "Something hides in the dark. Reaching, speaking—not a lark." He and the vulture with the frilly tufts came back into the kitchen and tilted their heads, searching.

Still standing on the windowsill, Red Eyes lowered his head and looked at the table where Alice and her Gram sat.

"I see."

He landed on top of the remainder of the pastry and squeezed it with his taloned feet. Alice pushed herself away from the table as the kitchen walls dissolved around her.

The faint sound of bells rang through the open windows and into her head. Little ones jingled. Larger ones clanged, and taken altogether with the sweet pastry now turning over in her stomach, the whole experience made her feel queasy and dizzy.

Then the ringing faded and her Gram spoke again, but Alice couldn't see anything anymore.

"Alice, you have to go now. Return to normal and harm's way, and help with the rest."

"What, Gram?!"

"Help me with the rest, Alice."

Alice's eyes opened and she found herself lying in bed. She felt sure that she'd heard her grandmother's voice aloud.

From downstairs, her mother clanged a bell and shouted, "Alice Lane! Get down here and help me with breakfast!"

She rolled over and stuffed her face in her pillow. "Uegghh!"

Alice sat at her mirror combing the knots out of her hair. Gram had never started her day without looking her best.

Alice's eyes glistened in the mirror, but she smiled.

"Gram," she said to herself, and started another run of the comb through her hair when there came a gentle knock at her door. Her comb hit a knot and she winced. "It's okay, come in."

In her mirror she watched the door open, and her father came in holding a long white box. It looked like a very long white cake box with a brown string tied around it.

"Got something for you, darlin'."

Alice popped up from her seat, dropping her comb and forgetting about the knot of hair. She padded across the small bedroom and twirled her hands together, fidgeting from foot to foot.

"What, what!"

Her father placed the box sideways at the foot of her bed. "It was going to be your birthday present from your Gram."

She looked at her father questioningly.

"Ella always got you kids your gifts right after your birthdays had passed. For the next year. I figured she wouldn’t want you to wait a whole year for this one."

He kissed her head. "You seem to be doing a lot better than yesterday, you okay?"

Alice nodded. "I dreamed about Gram, Dad."

"Good dream?"

She nodded again. "It was strange. She baked something for me. She called it Pink Fluff."

Amrin laughed. "Oook... Well, go on, open it."

Alice pulled on the brown twine of the box and tossed it to the floor followed by the lid. She squealed and clutched at her cheeks, then put her hands on the edge of the footboard and stared. Neatly laid in the box was an entire outfit of a style that bordered on the peculiar. She picked up the sapphire blue velvet riding hat and immediately put it on her head. Then she ran to her mirror and dragged her forefinger and thumb along the silky smooth, curled edge, tilting the hat so that one of the edges ran higher than the other.

Her father leaned against her dresser and folded his arms. “Huh. Well, that’s something. They call that a gambler hat. Ella had good taste, odd maybe, but it works. Looks quite the show on you darlin’. I’ve never seen anything like it."

"It's amazing, I love it!" She did a little twirl, her night dress fanning out, then skipped back to the box. Her eyes devoured the rich colors and textures inside. "Is all of this really for me?!"

"Of course!" He stepped next to her and placed a hand high on her back. "Come on, darlin', you'll have plenty of time to try out everything later."

Alice turned around and stretched to give her father a hug.

"I love you."

"I love you too. Now get dressed and help your mom. I've got to get Thomas and the twins ready. We're all getting a late start." Amrin pulled the hat off her head, set it down on the bed and quickly messed up her hair before making his escape.

"You!" She made for the door but her father had already closed it.

"Hurry up please, Alice," he said from the other side of the door. Then she heard his footsteps down the hall.

She turned back to the box and the hat beside it. Her eyes drank in everything. It was perfect. And if she got her way, she'd be wearing it all sooner rather than later. The plain white linen shirt in the center, along with the tan breeches were offset by the deep forest green of the vest and its gleaming brass buttons.

She placed her palms on the footboard of her bed again and kicked up her heels one after the other as she drank in the rich burgundy red of the riding coat with its intricate gold trim. She let out a gasp. Even the brown boots had been burnished to a reflective shine.

She heard another knock at the door and her father poked his head in. "And Alice, darlin', please just wear your regular clothes and don't make a fuss about the outfit to your mother."

She gave her father a wink.

Amrin laughed. "Come on, put it away and get ready. There’s chores to be done."

She turned to him and folded her arms. "Didn't you promise I wouldn't have to do any chores for a week?"

He scratched his head. "That I did. That I did. Tell you what, I'll do all the outside stuff, but... you know your mother. She’s still going to expect you to help her here and there, starting with breakfast, okay?" 

She nodded. More complaining wasn't going to get her out of helping her mother.

Amrin closed the door.

Amrin walked into the kitchen from the foyer, laughing. "Beth and Julia were stickin' to me like glue this mornin'. I barely got away with my life!"

Anna didn't turn to look at her husband and grabbed the pump handle at the kitchen sink, forcing great gushes of water into the basin full of dirty dishes.

"They haven't seen much of you lately."

A stampede of little elephants thundered back and forth upstairs. 

Amrin stood next to her wondering if she wanted his help. He looked out the window over the sink.

"When did they get here?"

"Yesterday. While you were in Barberton with Alice. Obviously."

'Obviously,' he thought.

"I think I saw Liam last night," he said. "His camp looks bigger than—"

"There's another man with them. An alchemist. I don't know his name." She forcefully scrubbed a dish, rinsed it, then held it out to her husband without looking at him.

Amrin took the dish and started wiping it dry.

"He demanded your reports. The Alchemist."

"And?"

"I gave them to him, of course." 

“Why? They already have the copies in Dalain.”

“How should I know?” She held out another dish and glanced sidelong at him. "It's a stupid outfit."

Amrin took it and looked down at his clean linen shirt, black suspenders, and dark blue work pants.

"Not yours, hers."

He slowly shook his head, then dried off the plate and set it with its fellows in the dark green cupboard. “It’s a gift from your mom, Anna." 

“Don’t.”

“You can’t be mad about that.” He cringed even as the words left his mouth.

‘Here we go,’ he thought.

She stopped washing and turned to him.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't be mad about. I need Alice helping me, not playing dress up, especially when you're away!"

"She won’t—"

"That's exactly what she's going to do as soon as you leave for Barberton! She's going to walk along that godforsaken fence pretending she's on some grand adventure when there are chores—when there's work—to be done."  She proceeded to scrub another dish so vigorously that it looked to Amrin like it might fly out of her hands.

He pointed to the dish and was about to tell her to be careful. 

"Stop! I'm sick to death of hearing about the money at the docks. Go justify yourself to Henry." 

"That's not what I was going...to say…,” he trailed off.

She turned back to the dishwater and scrubbed the dishes like they’d gotten themselves dirty on purpose. 

"What do you want me to do, Anna? We all have to work hard."

She grabbed a soapy plate and pumped clean water over it, then shoved it into his hands. As he dried it, she stepped back from the sink and looked at him directly. "I'm not going to suffer being a slave from cradle to grave."

He shook his head. "I don't know what that's supposed to mean."

She closed her eyes and yelled, "Alice Lane! For the last time, help me with breakfast!”

Finally a muffled reply came back, "Coming!"

She went back to the sink but Amrin saw some of the tension leave his wife's shoulders. He ventured to give her a hug from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder. She didn't make a move to pull away so he kissed her neck. 

He started to speak but she cut him off. "Just shut up and hold me Amrin."

He smiled while he rocked her gently in his arms. "You know, you're a hothead."

"And you're an ass who doesn't listen." She turned around to face him and gave him a pinch, her face on the verge of a smile that then vanished. "I need you here, with me, especially now that Mom's gone." She rested her head against his chest.

Amrin kissed her. "We'll figure something out." 

They stood there holding each other, but movement outside caught their attention.  Liam and his soldiers followed a man just ahead of them marching across the street toward their home.

"The alchemist," Anna said.

[Chapter 2... coming January 2026]