Alice and the Golden Egg

Chapter One

The Promise

     The lighter clicked twice before it sparked a flame. What Alice was about to do was risky and stupid, but she was going to do it anyway. She scanned the forest around her again to make sure it was empty and all she saw were trees and more trees, bare twigs against the gray March sky, the twilight too weak to pierce the clouds.

Dad worked from home today, not far from where she sat. If he came blundering through the forest on one of his walks and spotted her, well, she didn’t know how to explain what she was doing.

The cold bench was starting to numb her legs. Best get a move on. Next to her on the bench was a bottle of perfume and a single cigarette. The bottle was almost empty, but it had a few more puffs in it.

Alice put the cigarette between her lips and put the flame to the end. The paper started to turn black, but the thing didn’t light up.  How had Mom done it? Alice pictured her lighting a cigarette. She’d sucked on it. Was that it? Clamping her lips around the cigarette, Alice drew a deep breath.

Hot, harsh smoke filled her nose and lungs. Alice covered her mouth as she coughed and coughed, eyes burning.

When she finally recovered, Alice held the cigarette with the glowing tip pointed up like a candle and blew on the end to keep it smoldering. With her other hand, she squirted out a cloud of perfume.

Smell was the fastest way to remember. Just a whiff was enough to send her back in time. For a long while, she sat enjoying her memories, then the feeling crept over her again. Someone was here. Someone watched her.

The feeling had come and gone for days now and was starting to freak her out.  Her gaze darted across the landscape. Shadows crowded among the trees, but there was no one there. No one that she could see.

Maybe it was … but no. That would be ridiculous.

The bench was by a pond edged with dead reeds, sharp and yellow, that stood guard around the black water. Trees grew right up to the pond, leaning over it as if to peer into its depths. Not a whisper of wind creased the surface, turning it into a mirror.

The lack of wind was odd in itself. The weeks she’d lived in Fiskelycka, on the southeastern coast of Sweden, it seemed as if the wind had never stopped blowing. Not only was her new hometown right by the sea, but the surrounding landscape was mostly farmland and apple orchards. Nothing to stop the wind for miles and miles except this little patch of forest with the bench by the water. But the forest was no more than a grove of trees with naked branches. Surely the wind would find its way in here?

Alice ground out the half-finished cigarette. With the heel of her shoe, she scraped up some dirt, dropped the butt in, and buried it. Then she walked down to the water’s edge where a little patch of the bank was free from reeds. The steely sky was perfectly reflected in the surface. As was her face, once she leaned out far enough.

Although, was it her face? It seemed paler. And her hair, a color she’d never liked: mousy—not blond and shiny, not dark and mysterious … just there. Nondescript. Now, it looked almost green in the reflection.

Alice had seen other things in the water before today. A large, pale shape. She was sure of it, had even told Dad about it. The size of a human, it seemed, just below the surface. There one second and gone the next.

A sun-bleached log. That was what Dad had said. Perhaps a pike, turning its pale belly up for a moment before diving to hunt. Pike grew inexplicably large in ponds like this, according to Dad. Larger than you’d think. Sure, but as big as a human?

It was all too easy to imagine some beast breaking the placid surface of the pond—something that came out of the murky depths at night to feed.

Alice looked down into the water again and saw that her other face had a slight smile. A little smile that was too knowing, too hungry, to be her own.

Alice stopped breathing.

She wasn’t smiling – hadn’t had reason to smile for months. Besides, she didn’t think she’d ever smiled like that. Tentatively, she reached out her hand, and the smiling Alice in the water reached out her hand, too.

A loud crash came from the forest behind her.

Alice was already coiled like a spring, and the sound catapulted her up on her feet. She grabbed the perfume bottle and ran.

The forest was quiet after she’d gone. Then the slightest of rustles sounded as the creature that had been watching her slipped from the undergrowth and followed her on silent feet.

* * *

Branches slapped at Alice and then she was out of the forest and onto a path leading back into the village of Fiskelycka. But she didn’t slow down. The village rushed past Alice as she ran toward home. The cobbled streets and picturesque houses looked lovely in the summer but seemed sinister in the cold March dusk. Crooked houses that lined crooked streets. Glistening ivy and dead hollyhock. In the alleys between the houses, Alice caught glimpses of the ocean. In the summer, the ocean was her friend. A place to play and get away from the heat. In stormy March, the cold water that crashed against the beach was deadly.

This was Alice’s first winter, now turning to spring, that she’d spent in Fiskelycka. She and her parents had vacationed on this stretch of the Swedish coast nearly every summer when she was younger. Their favorite spot was a place nearby where a pine forest grew along the coast. The path through it became increasingly sandier, the trees smaller, until it spilled onto the beach. On a warm day, when the sun baked the pines, the smell was heaven. With soft sand underfoot, it was like being hugged by summer.

Now, the wet chill that pressed in on Alice was like being hugged by a moist ghost. Alice turned past the café, lights out and door locked for the season, and came onto her street. The puddles of light from the streetlamps counted down her rush home. Five lights. Four. Three.

Last summer, they’d visited this village and after fika—coffee and cake at the now closed café—Dad had led them to a nearby house. It looked like a tiny brick castle. A crow’s castle, Dad called it. Its small size hadn’t stopped the architect from sticking on everything he could. It even had a small tower, and, by chance, it was for sale. Imagine, Dad had said, living in a place like this. Mom had smiled and nodded in that way she had which meant never in a million years.

Mom loved their life in Stockholm and Alice knew Dad did too. There was takeout on the corner, and the city was full of interesting museums, and restaurants, not to mention all their friends. Simple life on the countryside was just a daydream.

Now, Alice skidded to a halt in front of the garden path leading up to that crow’s castle and flung the gate open. Gravel flew as she rushed to the steps that led to the front door. She pulled in ragged lungful’s of cold air, heart racing. That had been so stupid. As if she needed to give the neighbors more things to gossip about. If she went in now, she’d just worry Dad, so she sat down on the steps and tried to catch her breath.

When she was just about ready to head inside, the feeling crept over her again. Someone was watching her.

Alice looked around desperately but didn’t see anyone. Maybe it was just a snooty neighbor. Alice often saw the curtains twitch as she walked down the street. She’d quickly gotten a bad reputation at her new school. See her? Alice Andersson, in eighth grade with my Jonas. Exactly, yes, the violent girl from Stockholm. Gave him a bloody nose for no reason at all.

Alice did have a temper. An anger that was just below the surface. It would boil over at any moment, surprising Alice as much as it had Jonas and a handful of others. There one moment and gone the next. A flash of rage that Alice couldn’t control.

But Alice didn’t see any curious neighbor peeking from their window. Then, so close to her that she started, Alice saw who was watching her.

Green, intelligent eyes. Scarred face with half an ear missing. Orange, patchy fur.

A huge tomcat sat by the side of the steps, looking at Alice over the top of them. When he noticed her looking, he sidled up to her, arching his back against her legs.

“You scared me half to death.” She scratched him behind the ears. He was a battle-scarred beast, but Alice loved cats. It had always seemed to her that they knew hidden truths about the world. “Have you been following me?”

The cat meowed in response, and Alice felt as if he had actually answered her question. Not that she had any idea what his answer had been.

“You hungry?”

Another meow. One that Alice felt certain meant yes. It was almost dinner time, after all.

* * *

“There’s a cat in here,” Dad said when Alice walked into the kitchen.

Rag rugs lay haphazardly on the wood floor, which the cat seemed to approve of because he stopped to claw most of them. Dad sat on the kitchen bench by the dinner table. He had his laptop open and was in his working-from-home clothes, a bathrobe over shorts and an old t-shirt. He often worked from home nowadays. Alice suspected that it was so he could keep an eye on her.

“Did it, by any chance, follow you home?” Dad asked.

“He did, actually, and I’m going to feed him.”

She knew Dad wouldn’t say no. Knew he felt too sorry for her to deny her anything right now. It was a lousy thing to use against him, but it wasn’t like she had any friends here. Not after all the trouble she’d caused at school. Alice knew the principal’s office in detail.

Dad put down his cup of green tea and looked at her for a moment. She could almost see the gears turning in his head. “Well, it’s violating the refrigerator with its eyes. I would hurry before it decides to eat someone.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s peaceful, Dad.”

“Oh, it has come in peace? That’s alright, then, honeyfly.”

“Stop calling me silly names!”

He had a habit of changing his pet names for her often, sometimes between sentences. She’d let slip that it bugged her, so, naturally, he wouldn’t stop.

“I’m heading out before lunch tomorrow, butterrump. Need to be on site in Stockholm on Monday and I’m not getting up at the crack of dawn to fly up  there again.”

“Right.” Alice opened the fridge and had a look inside.

“What are you going to feed it?”

“Milk?” Alice held up the carton.

“Let’s see what the internet says.” Dad tapped a few keys. His dark eyes, magnified by his glasses, flicked over the screen. “Most cats are lactose intolerant and can vomit or get diarrhea if they drink milk.”

Alice made a face and put the milk back.

“I think we might have some canned mackerel in tomato sauce from pre-vegetarian times.” He pointed towards a cupboard, and a quick rummage produced a can.

The cat had been watching with rapt attention and was now rubbing up against Alice’s legs.

“Are you hungry, little guy?”

“Little?” Dad scoffed from behind the laptop.

Alice ignored him, got a bowl, and emptied the mackerel into it, tomato sauce and all. The cat buried his face in the food. When she tried to pet him, he hissed at her.

“Grateful fellow.”

“He just wants some privacy when he’s eating.”

“Speaking of.” Dad got up. “Time to get human dinner started.”

After dinner, Alice went up to her room. She’d claimed the tower as soon as the moving truck pulled into the driveway. The room had a high ceiling with wood beams going across it. It was circular, which made it really hard to furnish, but it made up for it by having windows in every direction. From one side she could see the ocean, and from the other, farmland. Well, right now everything was just darkness.

Her own tower room. Bliss. Or it would’ve been, under different circumstances.

The cat followed her up the stairs and curled up on her bed as Alice settled down in an armchair. She was rereading the Lies of Locke Lamora and counting the swearwords. There were a lot of them; some really inventive ones, too, that Alice jotted down for the right occasion.

Normally, she’d whittle away the hours online, going deeper and deeper into the weird underbelly of YouTube or by scrolling her phone. But since Mom left, well … Alice didn’t have a phone anymore. It had been weeks since she held it between the bars of a storm drain and let it go.

* * *

Alice woke in the middle of the night, suffocating. The cat sat on her chest. She pushed him away and turned on her bedside lamp, rubbing her eyes. The cat had jumped to the floor and then to the windowsill. Eyes intent on something in the backyard, the cat’s nose was so close to the window that his breath fogged the glass. He looked to Alice, then back into the yard again.

“What? Something out there?”

In response, the cat pawed at the glass. Alice yawned and dragged herself to the window. She half-expected to see a deer or something on the lawn. That had happened before, and it had been magical the first time. Alice and Dad had held their breaths as they looked, in awe of nature. The fifth time, Dad had chased out in his bathrobe to stop the deer from rubbing its horns against their plum tree.

There was nothing out there now.

“Go back to sleep.”

But the cat didn’t budge when she tried to scoot him away, so she picked up her bedside lamp and put it on the windowsill, shining a light into the backyard.

“See? Nothing.”

But just as she was about to go back to bed, there it was. A glimmer. Their yard ended in a low wall that was really just a pile of rocks plowed up from nearby fields, long ago. It was full of nooks and crannies that Alice was sure were filled with sleeping snakes.

In the furthest corner of the yard, right by the wall, there was something. A golden shine. Alice tried to blink the sleep from her eyes. Even when she angled the bedside lamp, the light wasn’t strong enough to reach that far. What was that thing?

The cat jumped down from the windowsill, walked over to the door, and scratched at it. Alice looked back out the window—it seemed that the golden light was moving ever so slowly.

“Alright.” She pulled on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. “But I’m coming with you.”

Alice started to have second thoughts as soon as she was outside. It was dark and cold and wet. The cat, however, had no doubts. He snuck around the edge of the house, towards the backyard.

The bedside lamp was still on in her window, giving some light. A large pot stood on a tree stump and old fruit trees cast mottled shadows towards the stone fence.

The cat had stopped, ears up, and Alice crouched behind him. At first, the only sound was her own breathing. Then she heard it, too. A low panting.

Alice froze, but the cat crept into the dark, towards the noise. After a moment, there was an urgent meow.

She could just make out the cat in the dark. His eyes flashed at her; he meowed again. A small tree and some bare bushes stood in that corner of the yard. The branches leaned towards each other, forming a small cave.

Alice swallowed and crouched down, head bent to avoid the branches, and moved forward towards the cave. On the ground under the bent branches, was something impossible. Something that didn’t exist. Couldn’t exist.

A tiny girl with dragonfly wings, no more than six inches tall. She was soaking wet, and a smear of blood covered her side from her ribs down. The red stood out against her deathly pale skin. Her hair was plastered to her face and a thin mist rose from her body into the cold air.

Alice didn’t know how to react. But one thing floated to the top of her mind: This girl was hurt. “I’ll—I’ll get the first-aid kit. Just hang on, Dad will know what to do.”

Alice started to get up, but the girl reached out a hand to stop her.

“Don’t, please … I’m dying.”

Alice knelt. All she wanted to do was run and get Dad, but how could she say no? Instead, Alice did the only thing she could think of and picked up the girl, cupping her hands around her. Maybe Alice’s body heat would give some comfort.

“Take it.” The voice was so weak that Alice had to hold her ear right next to the girl’s mouth. “And find the boars.”

“Take what? What boars?”

The little thing was in a world of her own and didn’t seem to hear the question. “He’ll come. He'll come to take it back.”

“Who?”

The tiny girl went rigid, her voice suddenly urgent. “Promise,” she said. Her eyes were clear, lucid. “Promise you’ll take it back to the tree. Get it to the tree. Time is running out.”

The tree? Alice had no idea what she was talking about, but she had to calm her down. “Okay. I … I promise.”

“Good.” The tiny girl relaxed. “Good.” A faint smile appeared on the little face. “He stole it, but I stole it back.”

She repeated this over and over, her voice growing fainter until there was no voice left. The little girl went limp in Alice’s hands.

It had happened too fast. She hadn’t had time to react, to help. Alice blinked back tears, feeling useless all over again.

Then the little girl started to glow. Her body dissolved into a million tiny dots of light, like fireflies, that drifted into the night. The dots glowed as an afterimage in the dark. But the glow of one dot didn’t go away. It wasn’t an afterimage, but something that glinted on the lawn.

The thing the girl must’ve meant for Alice to take to the boars. The thing Alice had seen from her window. She reached out a tentative hand and pulled it towards her, closer to the light. It was heavy, oval shaped, and seemed to glow with a light of its own.

A large, golden egg.