Alice is a girl who goes to my school.
One time, in the hallway, her silver and moonstone bracelet broke into what seemed like a million little tiny pieces, all over the floor. Her eyes started welling up with tears. The 2 minute bell had rung about a minute and a half before; no one was really there to help her pick it up.
I helped her pick it all up. She said, “Oh my goodness, thank you so much!” She gave me a big hug that lasted 7.3108 seconds. I timed it on my watch. She smelled really nice, almost like she washed her hair with vanilla extract and dreams.
Then she walked away.
. . .
Alice Stewart walks home from school everyday. One afternoon, her father was going to be home late from work like her mother, who always was. Alice expected to arrive home, open the garage door with her PIN number, open the retired armoire beside her father’s workbench, and find the house key for the front door wedged in the fake siding of the 6th drawer. A home break in years prior made the Stewart family paranoid and elaborate in their placement of the spare house key. They thought they lived in a reasonably safe neighborhood.
However, Alice got approximately 3 houses down the street when she saw that the door was ajar, and her bedroom window, which faced the street, was also slightly opened. How strange, she must have thought, I thought I left that window closed, and I thought I locked the front door when I left this morning. Her neighbors across the street, Patty and Maureen, were out on the front porch for their afternoon heckling. They went out into their little creaky rocking chairs with a tall glass of iced tea ready to yell at any passersby and guffaw at each other’s taunts every single day at roughly 4:15 for nearly 34 years straight, only missing on certain Sundays and holidays like Christmas or Easter when they would instead bring their witch-like cackles and harassments to the front porch of the church, which was located in the most populated part of town.
“Hey sweet cheeks!” Patty called. Patty and Maureen’s southern drawls were always loud enough for several surrounding blocks to hear them loud and clear, and they only got louder as the years went on.
Then Alice said something indiscernible and mumbled, which prompted Maureen to shout at her, “What was that?! You know I got one bum ear kid, say it again a little louder this time!”
“Yeah! She lost her hearin’ to the plague as a child!”
“No I di’nt, you sissy! It was a swimmin’ accident down at the water hole!”
“Sorry, Maureen!” shouted Alice, loud enough to please the good ear of the mean old southern lady across the street, “I said ‘Why is my door open!’ I thought I left it locked this morning!” Alice over-enunciated her words so they could read her lips.
“Ohh, well child, let’s not hope it’s another break-in like that one from a few years ago!”
“Well, ain’t seen anythin’,” hollered Patty, after having taken a moment to think and recall the events of the past 10 minutes she’s been sat on her porch.
Alice spoke a “thank you” and proceeded with caution through her front door. In the last break-in, she lost her favorite sweater (a hand knit pullover sweater in a light lavender purple that included a design on the front of 4 daisies of contrasting heights growing up from the bottom) that was a gift for her 12th birthday, the $67.24 she was saving up to adopt a puppy (a dark gray mastiff mix named Charlie with a white stripe across his lower abdomen and a white spot on the top of his head who was available for adoption 3 hours away, the adoption fee being $75), her collection of first-edition autographed hardcover books including, but not limited to, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and To Kill a Mockingbird that she had read through 4 times and kept in a box underneath her bed (to prevent wear and tear) beside her box of old stuffed animals, and a diamond necklace that was a gift from her late grandmother, a 0.07 carat 7-point diamond on an 18 karat gold chain that was worth well over $1,000.
That break in was 3 years ago, when Alice was 13. She went to school the next day and people flocked around her like paparazzi, asking all the questions they could think of to get as many details as possible for no reason other than being 13 year old kids who want to know everything. She told everyone the same thing, “I can understand them taking the books, the necklace and the cash, but why the sweater, y’know? I just don’t get burglars.”
Alice was in her living room after having closed the door, and she was staying perfectly still and silent to try and identify any noises that stood out. Being a girl who was raised on detective media like Nancy Drew, clearly her first instinct would be to investigate herself before calling the police.
No floorboards creaking, no door hinges squeaking, no heart beating audibly except her own, which appeared to be getting louder and louder in her ears.
“Is anyone in here?…” She whispered, probably unsure of herself.
“IS ANYONE THERE?” She then suddenly shouted, likely in an attempt to frighten a gasp out of the supposed perpetrator and then know of their whereabouts. There was only silence in response. Alice walked to her room and opened the door to find things astonishingly more tidy than when she left. So tidy it was practically completely sterilized. A note was left on the bedspread. It read thus:
Hello Alice.
My name is irrelevant. You don’t know me, you never made an effort to, no one has. No one in this measly, pathetic, washed up town has ever made any attempt to get to know me. No one looks at me, no one asks me how my day is going, no one to smile at in the halls, no one to pair with on group projects, no one there. There is no one here for me.
Except for you, Alice Rose Jean Stewart.
You are the only person who has ever shown any kindness to me. The only person who has ever given me even the smallest scrap of attention. You showed me what it feels like to be wanted and loved and appreciated.
So I’m taking you with me.
We are busting out of this rat-infested, poor excuse of a town and leaving nothing but the ashes of it behind. Together. Together we don’t need to think about Grace Norbury and her new prom date, or Tommy Christin and the touchdown he scored last week, or Mrs. Johnson’s new baby step-nephew or any of that crap that we’ve been tied to by having to pretend to care. We don’t need to care about any of that nonsense. It’s all worthless.
We can break free.
Whether you’re going to go with me willingly or not is your choice.
But you will go with me.
Love,
Your Secret Admirer
P.S. Your purple sweater has always been so cute. Just like you. And, just like you, I want to keep it with me forever. So thanks for making it so easy to take. Hopefully you’ll be the same way. XOXO
“Where are you?!?!” Alice shouted after a minute. She inhaled a shaky breath, one that sounded like she’d been crying. Presumably of shock, or possibly fear. Who’s to say?
“WHERE ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET IN MY HOUSE?!?” She screeched, almost banshee-like.
Then she went silent. Slowly, she made her way over to grab something she could defend herself with.
“Who even are you?” She spoke, at a normal volume, if not softer. “Who is really this…twisted?” She was walking around the room at this point, carefully checking anywhere and everywhere to make sure there was nobody hiding in the spots she was looking. Her breaths were more heaving and labored with every passing moment.
“Is this a joke?! It’s really not funny!” She spoke loudly, then shouted moderately, as if someone was watching her on a monitor and there was a camera somewhere in her room, being broadcasted worldwide on the comedy channel.
She then stopped in the center of the bedroom with a baseball bat held out in front of her, looking around and slowly rotating, scanning the room for any possible sign of intruder. She stopped, her eyes locked on the crack in the doors of her closet. She looked as if she was trying to keep her composure, but the fear and terror of what was perspiring was showing through it. Alice couldn’t see anything at first, but then she saw, in the crack of the door, a light lavender purple sweater with a daisy design just being shone on by the light through the window. Her eyes traced up to the top of the sweater and then up to the face of the person wearing it. Up to the eyes. Locked in with eye contact.
Looks like I’ve been found out.