Other Alice

by Michelle Harrison

  ‘Fine. It was only a suggestion,’ said Tabitha, curling into a ball. Her voice was muffled. ‘Sit here being gloomy, if you prefer. See if I care.’

  I could already see she didn’t.

  I pursed my lips and stared out of the window. The street lights were on. Daylight was fading. Mum would be calling me for dinner soon. This was my chance to read what little I had of Alice’s story before the Summoning. And then, I promised myself, I was going to find that boy.

  I picked up the loose pages and sat on the bed.

  Chapter Three, I read. The Curator.

  The museum had, like many collections, started out as a single item: one unfinished story and a fierce yearning to know how it would have ended. As Sheridan Ramblebrook surveyed the now huge collection, his eyes rested on the brown exercise book that contained this story, the story where it had all begun. It was dog-eared and the pages were yellowed with age. On the cover there were just a few words: Georgie Squitch, Class 5C, Maths.

  He had not opened it and looked inside for a great many years now, for it was held in a glass cabinet. He had no need to look; he knew the unfinished story word for word. He had felt it was his duty, seeing as it was he who had prevented it from ever being finished. He had tried to finish it himself a few times, but had never got further than a couple of pages. Ramblebrook knew he would never do it justice and besides he was no writer.

  His guilt became his obsession. He started to wonder about what other unfinished stories there might be out there in the world, and what their reasons for being incomplete were. Whether there might be a person as terrible as he was for preventing a tale from being told. So he started to look for them and his collection grew.

  It was surprisingly easy. All he had to do was think about the places he might find them. He befriended writers. He took on a job doing house moves, and even house clearances when people died. There were stories everywhere. Under beds, in drawers, boxed-up in attics. Those he could not take with permission he copied, word for word, photographed, or even stole if he could get away with it. Stories by children, stories by adults, even stories by famous authors. He collected whatever he could lay his hands on, by hook or by crook, not even sure of why he was doing it until one day he looked around his collection and saw how many there were. He realised then that it was time to share them, for what purpose has a story if it’s never told?

  Ramblebrook liked purpose. He liked having one, and he liked the idea that he was helping all the unfinished stories find theirs as best they could. While it could never right the wrong he had done, it eased his conscience a little. It would be a museum, he decided. The Museum of Unfinished Stories, the only one of its kind. Somewhere all the ideas and magic could be collected and celebrated.

  Swept up in his excitement, Ramblebrook never stopped to consider the danger in what he was doing: that stories are a form of magic and some are more powerful than others. Powerful enough to come alive perhaps. And that, for every ten, twenty or fifty stories that deserved to be told, there was perhaps one that should never have been started in the first place. One written by a damaged and wicked mind, invented only as an outlet for evil.

  One of these stories had made it into the museum.

  Ramblebrook knew he shouldn’t have it. He’d betrayed an old friend to get this particular tale. Sweet-talked and lied, and broken promises that he would simply look at it, make a copy and then return it. But, when the story was in his possession, something changed. It became more like the story was possessing him.

  His mother had always said that evil breeds evil. She wasn’t wrong.

  He’d read about the case in the newspapers. Who hadn’t? It was everywhere. Murders were always shocking, but when committed by someone who was little more than a child it took things to a whole new level. Especially when the killings had been carefully documented, planned even, in the form of grisly stories. Every detail recorded; every slicing of flesh and description of screaming. Writers, he mused, were often told to ‘write what they knew’. This writer had certainly done that.

  And when he’d learned that an old friend, now working in an institution for the criminally insane, had access to these stories? Well, he wasn’t able to rest. He had to see them. Had to. And, when the friend had agreed, it still wasn’t enough. Those crumpled pages, stained with the guilty, inky fingerprints . . . there was something addictive about them. About the malice seeping off the paper; the sheer horror that the person who had imagined these things was actually capable of carrying them out.

  He’d given all of these stories back except one. The unfinished one. He couldn’t give it back. It was too important; too wonderfully hideous. He knew as well as anyone that museums needed the macabre. It was what people flocked to see, what they fed off. Museums weren’t about ‘nice’; they were about truth. This story had truth in spades.

  Best of all, there was nothing that could be done to make him give it back. It had cost him his friendship, but that was a small price to pay for such a prize. He could never be accused of anything, never be forced to admit what he had done. One word from him and his former friend would be facing criminal charges.

  Ramblebrook allowed himself a small smile. No, the story was quite safe.

  No one else wanted it; no one else knew about it. For a time at least.

  Except one other person, whom Ramblebrook hadn’t stopped to consider. Someone who should have remained locked away from society . . . but didn’t.

  That someone was the story’s writer: the only person in the world who desired it more fiercely than Ramblebrook.

  She wanted to finish it, you see.

  Here Alice had drawn a line of tiny stars to show a change of scene, then the chapter continued . . .

  Dorothy Grimes had been in hospital three times in her life. The first was to visit her dying grandfather. The second was to have her left arm put in plaster after she had broken it jumping from a second-storey window to escape a burning building. And the third was when she was committed to a secure unit for the criminally insane after it was discovered that she had lit the fire that had snuffed out her entire family.

  Although, Dorothy thought, as she looked up at the barred windows to her room, it didn’t feel like a hospital so much as a prison. She sighed, flexing her fingers slowly. She really should have taken more care when she’d jumped. If she’d broken her right arm, it would have been a far smaller price to pay, but to break her left was just cruel. She glanced over the paper on her desk in disgust. It was ugly and lined, and jagged at the edges from being ripped out of a notebook, and the writing on it – the product of her right hand – looked as if it had been produced by a five-year-old who was still learning.

  They’d refused to give her anything to type on. She wasn’t even allowed proper ink. All she had were pencils, which she must use carefully so as not to blunt them too much, for they were only sharpened by the nurse at the beginning of each day.

  In hindsight, she supposed the story she’d written about stabbing the warden in the neck with a sharp pencil probably hadn’t been a good idea, but the thought of a pencil as a murder weapon was too good to resist. She’d made many deaths happen with a pen or pencil, but never in the literal sense. Besides, she’d discovered that there was even a word to describe an ordinary object fashioned into a weapon: a shiv.

  Dorothy had always liked words, especially discovering new ones. And, at seventeen years old, she knew more than most girls of her age.

  The hatch in the door opened and a face appeared in the gap. She looked up. It was Mr Bates today – a podgy, grey-haired man with a kindly voice. It was wasted on her, though. She knew the kindness was false.

  ‘Morning, Dorothy,’ he said.

  ‘Good morning, Bates,’ she answered pleasantly.

  ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I howled at the moon until wolves came to the windows and howled back,’ she said. ‘Then they told me stories all night, to tr
y to get me to go with them. But I knew they just wanted to crunch my bones and rip out my throat.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Mr Bates.

  She smiled. They both knew very well that she’d slept right through until morning. The medicine they gave her every night made sure of that.

  ‘Pencils, please,’ Bates said crisply, stepping two paces back from the door.

  Dorothy picked them up and put them through the hatch, placing them in a small basket on the other side. She saw a slight grimace cross Bates’s face as he glimpsed her hands before he managed to look impassive again.

  ‘Now three steps back, please.’

  She did so.

  He collected the pencils, then sighed. ‘Where’s the other one?’

  ‘What do you mean? They’re all there, all three of them.’

  ‘No, there are two. This one and the two halves of the pencil you snapped.’

  She produced the third pencil from her sleeve and passed it through the hatch obediently.

  ‘Nice try.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He picked up the last pencil and took all three of them to a locker nearby, stashing them safely inside before returning to the door.

  ‘Hands, please.’

  Again she obeyed, allowing him to cuff her. Only then did he finally unlock the door and lead her away down a white corridor.

  ‘I hate the way everything is so white here,’ she said. ‘It’s annoying.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to be annoying, Dorothy,’ Mr Bates replied. ‘It’s white so it looks all fresh and clean, and to keep our guests calm.’

  ‘It doesn’t make me calm.’ Her fingers twitched. ‘It just makes me think of blank paper that’s waiting to be written on.’

  ‘What colour would you find calming, Dorothy?’ he asked, steering her round a corner. ‘A nice pale blue perhaps?’

  ‘Red,’ she said dreamily. ‘I’d like all the walls to be red.’

  He didn’t ask why. They walked the rest of the way in silence, soon arriving at a door. After knocking, Mr Bates escorted her inside and she was seated, her feet strapped to the chair legs.

  A red-headed lady smiled at her from across a desk. ‘Hello, Dorothy.’

  ‘Hello, Dr Rosemary.’

  ‘How are you?’

  She chewed her nail, wincing as she bit too hard and tore it, making it bleed. ‘I don’t like the walls. I want to paint them.’

  ‘How would you like them to look?’

  ‘Red. With words. Or red words.’

  Dr Rosemary looked at some papers in front of her. ‘I’d like to talk to you about your stories if I may.’

  Dorothy giggled, tried to look serious, then giggled again. ‘You may.’

  ‘The one called The Paper House. When did you write that?’

  ‘A while ago.’

  ‘Can you remember when?’

  She shrugged. ‘Last year. On my birthday, I think. But I rewrote it once or twice because it wasn’t right.’

  ‘What didn’t you like about it?’

  ‘It was just some small details. Like how to keep the fire burning, and how the girl who lit it would escape.’

  Dr Rosemary was quiet for a moment. ‘The story bears a lot of similarity to the fire that you started, Dorothy. The paper scrunched up around the rooms, the window in the bedroom being left unlocked. Was it something you’d been thinking about for a long time?’

  ‘Only since I wrote the story.’

  ‘And then you decided you liked the story so much you wanted it to be real?’

  Dorothy grinned. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I see. I’ve been looking through some of your other stories. They were very interesting, too. Especially after speaking to your teachers and classmates. There seem to be other coincidences in the stories that tie in with things that happened at your school and at home. Accidents, people getting hurt, or falling sick. Tell me about these.’

  ‘They were for practise.’ Dorothy fidgeted. ‘When do I get my stories back?’

  ‘We need to keep them for a while yet. Can you tell me more about what you mean by “practise”?’

  ‘I thought doctors were supposed to be clever?’ Dorothy sneered. ‘Practise! You know, to learn something and get better at it?’

  ‘So, really, all these earlier stories . . .’ Dr Rosemary leafed through some papers. ‘Let’s see, Poisoned Apples, Pride Before a Fall and Teacher’s Pet for example. These were written before the, uh, incidents at school?’

  Dorothy drummed her fingers on the arms of the chair. There was a pen on the desk in front of her, but it was out of reach. She wanted it very much.

  ‘Yes. Except for Pride Before a Fall. Can I hold that pen?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Dorothy. So you wrote that one after you pushed Jessica Pride down the stairs?’

  ‘Who says it was me who pushed her?’

  Dr Rosemary ignored the comment.

  ‘And the other two stories were written before?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Would you say you preferred writing the stories before or after these things happened?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Whether a story is for planning or just as a keepsake. You know, to remember.’

  ‘Like a sort of . . . trophy?’

  Dorothy pulled against the cuffs. The metal bit into her wrists. ‘I want to go back now. These are hurting.’

  ‘They won’t hurt if you sit still and don’t pull against them. Would you say your stories are trophies?’ the doctor repeated.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe, if that’s what you want to call them.’ Dorothy rolled the word around on her tongue, liking the sound of it. ‘Yes, trophies. When do I get them back? I want them.’

  ‘Soon. You can have them soon.’

  ‘Are you sure they’re being looked after?’ Dorothy asked. Was it her imagination, or did Dr Rosemary look uncomfortable?

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Because there’s one I need to finish,’ she complained. ‘They took it before it was ready.’

  She wasn’t imagining it. The doctor’s face was reddening.

  ‘Perhaps we could talk about that,’ she said. ‘I think, going forward, that if we could steer your stories in a different direction, it would greatly improve your chances of recovery.’

  ‘A different direction? You mean you want to tell me what to write?’

  ‘Not tell you, no. But there are some exercises we could try that—’

  ‘I want to finish that one.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be helpful to anyone.’

  ‘It would be helpful to me.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think it would be helpful for the people that die in that story. Unless you’d be prepared to change the names at least? It’s not very nice to use the names of living people. People that know you.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve read it then? What did you think?’

  ‘I’ve read everything you’ve written, Dorothy. Including the story about how you escape from this hospital.’ The doctor shuffled her papers. ‘I think we should try the exercises I mentioned in our next session. You clearly have a great imagination—’

  ‘I’m not writing what you or anyone else tells me to write. They’re my stories.’

  Were the cuffs getting tighter? Why were they hurting so much?

  ‘Calm down, please. Would you be prepared to give it a go?’

  ‘No. I want that story. Right now!’

  The doctor sighed and reached into the file, looking thoughtful. She placed a handful of pages on the desk and spread them out. ‘I’ll make a deal with you. You can have the story. We’ll keep the beginning, but, to continue it, we’ll try the exercises. Does that sound fair?’

  Dorothy peered at the pages. ‘What’s that? That’s not my story. It’s typed.’

  ‘They had to be typed for our files.’

  ‘I want the original.’

  ‘I’m afra
id that’s not possible—’

  ‘GIVE ME MY STORY!’ She threw herself back in the chair, rocking it dangerously, but before it could tip it was caught by burly arms behind her. ‘I want my story! I’ll write new ones, I swear, and you’ll die in all of them—’

  Dr Rosemary gave a nod to the burly arms. ‘Take her back and give her something to calm her down.’

  ‘Give me a pen!’ Dorothy screeched, struggling against her captor. ‘Writing about your blood will calm me down! Give me a pen, I said! I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth!’

  Dr Rosemary stayed seated as Dorothy was dragged from the room, and she remained that way until her screams had faded away down the corridor. Only then did she look down and see her hands pressed so hard against the surface of the desk that her fingertips were white.

  She released a long breath and put the papers in a neat pile before sorting through them again. Then she closed the folder, picked up the telephone and dialled a number.

  It was answered almost immediately.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘I’ve just seen Dorothy Grimes.’ She paused. ‘No, it ended badly, as usual.’ Another pause. ‘I’m trying. There may be a chance she’ll co-operate, but only if we can continue with a certain story she began before her incarceration. Yes. Yes, that’s the one. I know I have it, but it’s from the transcript. She’s demanding the original.’ Frustration crept into her voice. ‘Well then, you’d better find it, or else come up with a jolly good forgery! What? I don’t see how it could have been mislaid for this long.’ She massaged the bridge of her nose. ‘It should have been guarded properly! You know how high profile this case is, how many people are sniffing around after those stories. They’re not to be seen by the public, whether they’re unfinished or not.’ She held the phone away from her ear slightly as the voice at the other end rose.

  ‘I think you know more than you’re saying. And, if you value our friendship, you’ll make sure that story finds its way back here, or it’ll be my head on the chopping block!’

  She slammed the phone down, breathing hard. She shoved the folder into the cabinet, glad to have it out of sight.

  Heads on chopping blocks? That wasn’t like her. She shuddered. There was something about Dorothy Grimes that got under her skin, infected everything. Like ink that had seeped into the doctor’s veins, slowly poisoning her.