Other Alice Read Free Page B

leaned forward to pick it up, but a sound distracted her.
    She glanced up. The nine o’clock news had just started on the TV. She snapped her notebook shut. ‘I hadn’t realised it was that late. Go and have a bath. You should be in bed
by now.’ She got up, propping the fireguard in place, and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Her mood had changed – she seemed worried again.
    Instead of going upstairs, I followed Alice to the kitchen, hovering in the doorway. The coldness of the kitchen tiles seeped through my socks. Alice was barefoot, but it didn’t seem to
bother her, or perhaps she just didn’t notice. She had a tea bag in her hand, but made no attempt to put it in a cup, seemingly lost in thought.
    ‘Everything OK?’ I asked. ‘You hardly ate any dinner.’
    ‘I wasn’t very hungry,’ said Alice. ‘Food never tastes as good when you’ve cooked it yourself.’
    ‘What were you writing about?’ I asked, shifting from one foot to the other to stop my toes from cramping.
    ‘Just this story,’ Alice said softly.
    ‘Can you read it to me?’
    She shook her head. ‘It’s not ready yet. It wouldn’t make much sense to anyone but me.’
    ‘What’s it about?’
    ‘It’s a secret.’ Alice finally put the tea bag into a cup. ‘It’s been in my head for months. But now I’m . . . well, stuck. I can’t
figure out where it goes next, or how it ends.’ She sighed, her next words a mutter. ‘Maybe it’s not even supposed to.’
    ‘Then you’ll have to give it one of your silly endings,’ I said. ‘Every story has to have an ending, right?’
    ‘Right.’ She smiled faintly. ‘But a silly one wouldn’t be right for this. This story’s different . . .’
    I eyed the notebook poking out of her pocket. ‘What else are you working on? Any detective stories?’
    ‘Only this story,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing else.’
    ‘Not even a little one?’
    ‘Not a bean.’
    ‘Beans aren’t to be sniffed at, you know,’ I said. ‘Just look at what happened with Jack and the beanstalk.’
    ‘True,’ Alice said. ‘But I’m all out of beans – magic ones, baked ones, or otherwise.’ She lifted her hand to her forehead and massaged it. ‘This
story . . . it’s taking everything. All of me.’
    Something about the look in her eyes then was different. She’d struggled with stories before, but tonight she really meant it. There was only one other time when I’d seen her like
this.
    Last summer. No one except her knew what that story had been about, and she swore no one ever would. She’d destroyed the entire thing without finishing it. But, before she had done that,
she’d told me something that had scared me a great deal, because I’d seen that Alice herself was terrified.
    The kettle came to the boil. She poured the steaming water into her cup, staring into it.
    ‘If only it were as easy to brew a story.’
    ‘You’ll figure it out,’ I said. ‘You always do.’
    ‘Not always.’
    Our eyes met in an uneasy silence. I guessed then that she, too, was thinking of last summer. Of the unfinished story . . . and of the things she had told me.
    Alice went back into the living room. I followed and we sat side by side in front of the fire, saying nothing. She took a few sips of her tea before setting it on the hearth and gazing into the
fire. I could tell she was thinking, brooding about storylines and characters. She didn’t pick up her cup again and I didn’t remind her. I’d known all along that it would go cold
before she remembered to drink it.
    The same way I also knew that, whatever this story was about, it was going to lead to trouble.

2
The Magpie’s Nest

    I WOKE IN THE NIGHT , shivering. The bedcovers had slipped off and, as I pulled them back over me, the comic I’d been
reading when I’d fallen asleep slid out and fell to the carpet. I turned over, noticing a soft glow through the bedroom door. The landing light was off, but yellow light