Best Intentions, Chapter One

[wanderamaranth]

 

When Helen Kingsleigh’s youngest daughter was seven years old, she was stolen by the Wee Folk.

She knew this as a certainty; an undeniable fact. She knew it in the same manner she knew her maiden name was MacTavish, and that when she was sixteen and a wide-eyed cobbler’s daughter, a handsome stranger had ridden into town and swept her literally off her feet, marrying her the next week by announcement at her father’s dinner table.

Helen knew Alice was different--Touched--in the way that she knew London was her current city of residence, and that she still loved her late husband with a ferocity none of the limp-wristed Society girls he’d courted before her could have ever dreamt of. It was irrefutable; Alice had been taken by those that lived Underground, forever marking her as not-the-same as proper society.

That day had started promisingly enough. They’d been visiting Lord and Lady Ascot at their country estate (although how Charles was friends with Rupert Allen Ascot, Helen had never worked out, and she was too intimidated at the time to ask Ermintrude, Ascot's wife. As a young woman it had never occurred to her to just ask her husband, and by the time she did think of doing such a thing, it had been so many years that it hardly seemed to matter anymore). Country pursuits abounded; there was shooting and hunting and fishing for the men, riding and leisurely walks through private gardens and lawn tennis for the ladies to relish. In fact, the Kingsleighs had been so enjoying themselves on that visit that Helen and Charles had been seriously discussing the idea of purchasing a country estate themselves; a place for their family to escape the bustle of town, at least for a few months of the year.

Until it happened.

Margaret had returned from the field behind the estate, frantic. Faith and Fiona Chattaway were directly behind her, having been invited for a picnic planned later that weekend. “Alice wandered off,” she gasped, “I tried to stop her, mother, I really did, but it was like she couldn’t hear a word I was saying! I called and called to her and I even shook her upon her arm but she wouldn’t look at me and--”

Helen rose from her chair, looking over at the Lady Ascot in alarm. Ermintrude simply appeared mildly amused, as if she were observing a species of creature newly introduced into the London Zoo¹ (which was not helpful at all). “Slow down, Maggie, please, and tell me what happened.” she commanded her in her best I’m-your-mother-and-everything-will-be-just-fine voice.

So Margaret did, and what she said stirred even Lady Ascot out of her air of mildly amused superiority. “We were all in the upper field” (Margaret had not really wanted to admit this, as they were not supposed to wander that far off) “and we were picking wildflowers and…” she looked a bit nervously over at Ermintrude, knowing that she would disapprove of such behavior as she was describing, “…and dancing about, singing little songs…and Alice said that Dinah had run off again, so she went to fetch her. But she was gone ever so long! So Faith, Fiona, and I looked for her and when we found her she was just standing near this tree! We tried to call to her but she didn’t respond to us--she just gaped at this great hole in the earth under the tree! And--”

“For heaven’s sake, child, just get to the point!” Lady Ascot interrupted, leaning forward in her chair.

“Alice fell down a hole,” Fiona broke in, eyes wide, and Faith finished, “that we can not see the bottom of!”

“How could such a thing happen?” Ermintrude had demanded, raising a ruckus even as Helen, in the dream-like state of determined calm that some individuals can gather about themselves in a crisis, rose and marched to the study to find her husband. The girls and Lady Ascot trailed in her wake, spouting questions and wringing their hands.

The door to the study was thrown open, and both gentlemen therein blinked stupidly at Helen, even as she demanded, “Charles, I need you.”

A slow smirk had curled up one side of Charles’s face at this proclamation (as he’d experienced his wife doing such a thing before during a tedious party at the Lancaster estate, which led to a much more enjoyable time for them both) and he rose, more than willing to put business aside for the moment to assist his wife. Then the misses Chattaway pushed their way into the room, followed by Margaret and Lady Ascot. The hint of salaciousness that had been on his face was wiped away and replaced with concern. To have all of them in here, like this, without…

“What’s happened to Alice?” he asked.

Helen related what Margaret, Faith, and Fiona had told her. Charles was shedding his coat and rolling up his sleeves at half-way through the explanation, and charging out of doors before the end, his mind full of ropes and pulleys and some way to shine light down a fathomless hole.

“How could this happen?” Rupert had asked, and despite the gravity of the situation, the twins had huffed a bit in laughter at how the Lord of the estate seemed to have much the same turn of mind as his wife.

“Alice leaned forward,” Margaret panted, answering him quite seriously, “and then tumbled downward.”

“Yes.” Rupert blinked. “Quite so, I’m sure.”

Lord Ascot set about rousing his household, ordering them to prepare for the possibility of an injured child before all went to rescue the dear girl, fear in their hearts. Even small, sickly Hamish joined their party, (despite his mother’s insistence that he do no such thing,) intent on helping his age-mate. “Alice is always ever so kind to me, mother.” Hamish had asserted. “She sits with me and she tells the best stories.” (Hamish was ill so often that it often prevented him from participating in the more vigorous activities that the country estate abounded in. He spent much of his time convalescing in a lounge chair, his nurses hovering nearby and scolding him when ever he tried to do anything more than play chess or read a book. As a result, he had few friends, but he counted Alice among them, even if the girl herself did not consider him to be one of hers. Why, she would even sit with him for up to an hour some days, something that few others had been willing to do with nine-year-old Hamish.)

“Besides, mother, haven’t you said…”

“Yes, yes! Of course, dear.” Ermintrude cut her son off, before he could say something indelicate.

“Well then it’s my responsibility to help her, is it not?”

How could Lady Ascot deny this to her son? She knew the boy had taken quite a liking to the young girl, to the point where he’d even suggested when they were older…Ermintrude had simply agreed with him at the time, thinking it a school-boy crush on a pretty girl that showed him attention that would fade when he found someone more suitable…

“Of course, darling.” she conceded, and with that the boy was trailing after Charles and Rupert, walking as fast as his short legs and asthma would allow him.

Yet when they arrived at the place the girls directed them to, none of the plans concocted by Charles or the well-intentioned determination to help from Rupert and Hamish were needed. Alice lay outside of a small, seemingly normal rabbit hutch, fast asleep. A wreath of orange blossoms² crowned her head.

“Mother, look!” Hamish had whispered, voice tinged in awe. “She looks just like a maiden in one of her stories. Have I told you about the one where the nymphs and the--”

“Hamish!” Ermintrude scolded, worried and embarrassed at what her guests might say about her boy, despite the fact that they surely couldn’t care less at the moment if he spouted nonsense in Mandarin Chinese.

Yet when Helen looked at Alice, she knew that Hamish was right. Alice did look like a maiden in one of the Auld Tales. Her peaceful smile and relaxed disposition did nothing to dispel the fact that there was a crown of unearthly, beautiful flowers about her head that were (and had she gone mad, or were they really) singing to her.

It was this, the sight of those pale flowers swaying, singing words of love, duty, and devotion, that decided Helen’s actions. A fear for her little girl unlike any other she’d felt before churned her stomach, and she fought the urge to retch even as she stepped forward and commanded her elder daughter, “Margaret, to me.”

What they did next Helen was not exactly proud of. She didn’t regret the action, no, but neither was she proud of it--for who could say that they are proud of deceiving their own child, even if that deception was kindly done, with the best and most noble of intentions?

Charles had come forward with Margaret, and he carefully lifted Alice’s sleeping form away from the hole, setting her back down several yards away under a different tree altogether. Helen and Margaret proceeded to brush the dirt (and soot and jam, of all things! There was one splotch that seemed to be rather tea-like, but there was nothing they could do for that) from her clothing, and wipe her face and hands clean. An ornate thimble that neither Helen nor Margaret recognized capped Alice’s right hand ring finger³, which Margaret removed and held out to her mother, in silent question on what to do with the item. Helen jerked her head towards the hole, and said, urgently, “Throw that back down. Quickly, now!”

Helen herself lifted the crown of orange blossoms. When she did so, her half-imagined (or so she thought) fancy of them singing a lullaby to Alice was confirmed, as one of those flower-faces turned to her and huffed. “We’re just doing as we’d been told, ma’am.” Barely resisting the urge to shriek (unlike Faith and Fiona, who did so with abandon) Helen marched over to the rabbit hole, and glared at the recalcitrant blooms.

“Ye tell whomever ’as marked me daugh’er this: She’ll no be ga’n back Below. She’s my child, aye? A little girl. Ye canna have ‘er!” Then she tossed the crown down the hole, not even wincing at the distressed cries of the flowers as they tumbled downward.

Slightly floundering, the Ascot family and Chattaway girls stood off to one side and watched Helen arrange her daughter’s clothing and position to be as similar to a young girl having just fallen innocently asleep as possible. When she was finished, she turned to them, her voice a hiss.

“Nothing happened here. Do you understand me?” Raising her brows, she focused on Lady Ascot. “Trudy? Naw a ting ‘a all!” She fought the sharp edge of her own hysteria to say in a commanding manner, “Should any ask, we tell that we came because Margaret thought her sister had met with misadventure, but she was mistaken. Alice is to hear nothing of this. Ever! Not one word, Hamish Ascot! You either, girls.” she added at the last moment.

“Yes, Mrs. Kingsleigh” and “Of course, Mrs. Kingsleigh” were her answers.

“Now you, Margaret…” Helen held her elder girl by her shoulders, and looked deeply into her eyes. “The Ascots, your father and I are going to be in that copse there.. You and the girls will stay here and wake Alice. After she wakes, say nothing of what you saw here…and for the sake of the good Lord above, do not be frightened! No matter what she says or does. We will stay long enough to see that she is hale once awake, and if so, we will then go down to the house.”

“Helen, I really don’t think all of this subterfuge is--”

Expression hard, Helen turned to her husband. “You are not thinking, no! We will do this, and everything will go as I say!”

“Mrs. Kingsleigh,” a small male voice interrupted her, as Hamish stepped out of the protective circle of his parent’s embrace, “May I stay here? With the girls? I want to…that is, Alice…” he gestured helplessly towards the sleeping girl, and Helen’s face softened.

“I’m sorry, Hamish, but no. It would be too commentable for her if you were to be present. You must wait with us in the trees.”

“I’ll slow you down!” Hamish insisted, giving the woman pause. Hamish was hardly ever insistent on anything, other than his dislike of bread pudding and boiled eggs. “You do intend to get back to the Manor before them, do you not?” he asked, his freckled nose twitching. “If you have to go at my pace,” his face flushed from embarrassment that he had to acknowledge such a weakness, but pressed on despite that, “you will never get there in time. Yet if I stay here, it will perhaps…?”

It was a small detail, in the scope of things, Helen conceded. Yet plans such as this succeeded or failed depending on such details…in the end, she agreed. “Alright, Hamish, you may stay. Now come along!” she called to the elder Ascots and Charles. “Let us wait over here.”

Trudy and Rupert made a few noises about the preposterousness of being thus treated on their own property, but the majority of their bluster was diminished by the bizarre nature of what had occurred there. Once in the coppice, Ermintrude repeatedly asked her husband, “Were those flowers speaking?” and Rupert fussed that perhaps this was all his fault, for having skipped the leavings of bread-and-milk⁴ with honey this year.

For a quarter of an hour they waited in a sort of tense uncertainty. First the girls had to position themselves around her, and then Hamish had insisted on sitting right beside Alice, for which Margaret scolded him severely; finally they were ready, and Margaret reached out and shook her sister awake.

When the girl’s hazel eyes fluttered open, Margaret was calm and collected, allowing not a single preposterous thing that passed the child’s lips to be considered to be seen as truth or reality in her eyes. Faith and Fiona had less luck here, their small mouths dropping open into circles of shock as Alice excitedly chattered about a place she called ‘Wonderland’. Hamish hovered nearby, hands in his pockets, his lower lip bitten in uncertainty, saying such things as, “Really, Alice, I don’t think that--” and “How silly! Why, are you making a brand-new story just for me?”

Margaret, though, had smiled, nodded, and exclaimed in all the right places, telling Alice that she must have had the most vivid and fantastic dream (from falling asleep in the sun, no doubt; had mother not warned them of such an activity?) and didn’t she want to go to supper now?

With the logic of youth (which was not going to question why her strict older sister was not keen on punishing her for wandering off and falling asleep, like she normally would, nor yet why Hamish Ascot trailed after the girls, when a boy being alone with females was most improper) Alice accepted her adventure as a dream (“Though it seemed so real? Why, when I awoke I expected the Hatter’s thimble to be upon my finger! But of course it was not…”) and started chatting on what was to be for supper that night. Would cook perhaps prepare them an extra tea, even though they missed her afternoon offerings? She’d desperately wanted some in her dream, but she never seemed to get any!

Helen and Charles stood together in the trees while this duplicity was carried out. Charles’ hands shook in his wife’s grasp as their beloved daughter returned to speaking of Queens, beheadings and talking animals. When the children were out of earshot, he dropped Helen’s hands and said, very seriously, “This will not be the end of this. Would that it were, but…” Shaking his head, he continued, “They say I am mad, for daring to dream of new trading routes and performing risky investments.” The fear in his eyes was reflected in his voice as he said, “What now, will they say of her, when she speaks of this? Helen…what has happened to our daughter?”

Instead of answering just then, Helen quietly suggested they begin walking to get back to the Manor house before the children (whom were taking the longer route back, per Helen’s suggestion) to complete the charade that nothing had even been amiss. She simply had not known what to tell him, aside from the stories of her youth, and there was no comfort to be found in those.

No, she couldn’t tell her husband that she suspected their daughter had been led away by the fae, nor that she had no idea why those of that Realm had ever let go of their precious daughter once they had her in their grasp. The fae loved the young and imaginative, of which Alice was both. For all that Helen had heard and been told, such a thing was nearly impossible.

Rupert and Ermintrude followed behind, silent specters that Helen hardly noticed in her distraction.

That is not to say that Helen was not extremely grateful that the child did return, oh no! She loved her daughter very much. In the following weeks, she would smile at her insistence in wearing one of Charles’ old tophats, and indulged in her random pirouettes in their home that hinted the land that had taken her was not yet done with Alice.

Yet any true mention Alice made of the land Under (those words she spoke outside of her childish games) frightened Helen, badly. She immediately silenced the girl when she'd begin rambling on that subject; to speak of such things, she thought, was to invite them to you. Let her have her games, Helen had thought to herself, as long as they remain that, and nothing more. Alice would grow, and she would marry, and the fae would never touch her again.

It was only after Alice was taken for the second time (and what a horrid sight that was; she’d walked into the room just as the child stepped through the mirror--she’d rushed to it, but by the time she reached it Alice was through, and there was nothing but a cool, solid surface under her fingers) that she realized the depth of her self-deception. Just because she didn’t wish what had happened to Alice to be so didn’t make the truth any less than what it was. She’d known what had occurred, and had purposefully blinded herself to it.

She’d collapsed into the closest chair in that dining room and cried for hours. “She's too young,” Helen had wept. “Much too young, for what they intend of her.” She was convinced she'd never see her daughter again.

But see her again she did.

Alice returned a half-day later, speaking with confusion in her hazel eyes about being made a Queen in the Looking-Glass land. Helen hugged the little girl tight to her chest, raining kisses on her golden curls and fighting back new tears.

After shuffling her off to get a warm bath and go to bed, Helen ordered the staff to destroy the Looking Glass. That portal, she reasoned, was how those that lived beyond and Under were keeping track of her girl. Inside, however, she feared destroying their means of observing Alice was too little, too late. Unfortunately, she was right.

Her daughter was changed.

At the very first, there were not many signs to indicate this change. She tried to talk in public about her experiences, much like her reaction to her last visit, and Helen was able to force her silence with stern glares and subtle pinches. (Alice was told she could speak of it with her and her father while in the privacy of their own home, she told her, but she was never to speak of it to anyone else--not even Margaret.)

A few weeks after the incident, though, the poor thing began having what she described as ‘strange, mad dreams’ and had a somber cast that one so young should not wear. Although she no longer spoke of her ‘Wonderland’, she rarely slept and always had a drained, haunted look about her eyes. It was a look, Helen had been told by her own mother, that the elf-struck⁵ wore when they were unable to contact their adoptive realm.

Other things occurred. Helen didn’t know precisely when it was that random items were moved throughout her house, nor yet when the watcher animals, as Helen dubbed them in her mind, began tracing her movements. Sometimes they were spiders; other times, birds outside the window, or flies on the ceiling. Helen spoke to no one of those creatures, not even her husband, for she knew she ran the risk of being called quite mad if any knew what she suspected: that they were sent to watch her girl. The insects she was able to squash, but the birds...she'd had to resort to keeping the curtains drawn at all times of the day and night, something which did not help her now-sickly daughter's health.

Helen's vigilance with the watcher animals paid off; she began to feel their presence less and less. Afterwards, the only signs Helen ever saw (besides Alice's lingering illness, which Helen firmly refused to think on) that would indicate that there was someone perhaps...interested in her daughter were the odd trinkets found throughout the house. Small gifts neither she nor Charles had given her began appearing, every year, on her birthday. Once, when Alice turned nine, Helen had even found a piece a scrap of paper with very poorly written verse on one side and the numbers 10/6 on the other.

She’d immediately chucked it into the fire, shoving aside the clenching in her stomach the masculine, slanted words had given her.

Charles had helped their daughter as best he could by lifting Alice’s spirits. He’d not lied to her further, but instead told her nothing with wrong with her. He assured her of his love, of the idea that madness was not necessarily a bad thing--between that and Helen’s sternness, they struck a balance that was enough to keep the majority of Alice’s oddity hidden from society.

A large part of Helen had been afraid to show her child affection. How could she allow herself to care for her, when at any moment she could be snatched away?

They made me a Queen, mama! Can you imagine? It was so very thrilling. But then they made me practice my arithmetic, and that was less so...

Yet it was impossible to not love Alice. Despite the scare of her second trip to the land Under, and the various signs that appeared around the house, Helen had grown complacent as more years went by without any actual sightings of the Wee Folk. Alice had matured and gradually forgotten her adventures, and they slipped into the pattern of a normal, happy family…and if Alice was a bit closer to Charles than she, well, then, that was simply because some little girls were closer to their fathers than others, wasn’t it? It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d been the one to soothe her after…and if Alice’s gaze occasionally seemed to catch on things that weren’t actually there, then that was ignored.

After Charles passed, though, Helen had been overwhelmed. Margaret was of age; she set about making a decent match for her, accepting the first offer to come along that was not completely ludicrous. Lowell Manchester had seemed to be everything a young man petitioning for her daughter should be; young, well-bred, wealthy. What Helen hadn’t realized, what Charles would have been easily able to learn had he still been alive, was Manchester’s growing reputation for unsavory activities…chief among them womanizing and gambling.

Still, Margaret was married. She was settled, and seemingly safe enough. It was the best that Helen could do for her. Alice, however….Alice, she feared, would never make a suitable match. Despite everything that she and Charles had done over the years, there had still been enough instances where her daughter’s head had been in the clouds when it should have been on the ground, and people had talked. That, coupled with the fact that she was a sickly girl (the health and vigor of her younger years was but a memory) worked to Helen's disadvantage when trying to find a suitable match for the girl.

The day that Hamish Ascot had come to her, more nervous than the one time she’d ever seen him be truly naughty (when he’d smuggled a frog to dinner in an attempt to impress Alice; she’d been talking about a variety of animals serving foods and being present at a meal, so he’d thought to either tease her or impress her--Helen still wasn’t certain which--and the unfortunate creature had escaped from his trouser pockets before he’d had a chance to present it to her. Several expensive broken fine china plates and one dead frog later, Hamish was desperately trying to console a heartbroken Alice, who railed at him for being ‘so extraordinarily cruel’ as to ‘be the instrument which brought about ending an innocent creature’s life’ while his mother screamed above him that he had no business bringing amphibians into her home, especially at her dinner table while they were entertaining guests, and couldn’t he leave that poor little girl alone for one moment and attend to what she was saying? Come to think of it, that had been when the rift between Hamish and Alice had started to grow--when the awkward friendship of their early youth gave way to the half-formed hostility of their elder years) was a relief and a concern, all at once.

“I mean to ask Alice for her hand in marriage,” he’d said, nose held high in the air. His weak chin was nearly one with his neck, and he held the lapels of his jacket tight. Only keen observation showed Helen the fine tremor of his hands, the subtle tightness about his eyes. “Do I have your consent, madam?”

It was highly unusual for Hamish to be making his petition to her; yet they had no male relatives besides Lowell who would be able to hear that request, and she and Hamish both knew that unfortunately it would be best if they existed as if the man didn’t.

“Of course, Hamish. When will you be asking her?” She didn’t try to keep the relief out of her voice. Hamish knew--he had been there, that day in the field--and he was willing to marry Alice regardless. Thanks be to God, Helen whispered in the back of her mind as she maintained a stoic expression for the man’s benefit. I only hope that the marriage can occur before they try to claim her for the third and final time. Three journeys, three marks on her soul. But if she is already safely wed, then maybe, just maybe, they will release her, instead of binding her Below. She Ignored the voice that told her marrying Alice off would be too little, too late.

A scuffing of his expensive Italian-made leather shoes upon the drawing room floor had been Hamish's only initial answer. “Mother is planning a garden party for next week. Here.”

He withdrew an ostentatiously decorated envelope and passed it to Helen, who accepted it with an amused tilt to her brow that belied her fears.

“Trudy is…excited, about your decision, then?”

Uncharacteristically, Hamish snorted. “She is thrilled beyond measure. All she can think of is physically attractive grandchildren. Why, it’s almost as if she doesn’t remember…” he cut himself off mid-speech, suddenly clamping his mouth closed.

“Doesn’t remember what?” Helen inquired. Was he, she thought with dread, referring to that incident years ago?

It was something else entirely. “I told my mother when I was nine years old that I intended to marry Alice one day. She didn’t believe me. Told me I’d be better off waiting for a young lady better suited for my rank and title.” He shrugged, semi-apologetically, and Helen waved the insult away. She knew perfectly well what her family’s position in society was; it never had been as good as the Ascots, and she’d long ago accepted that. To be offended when reminded of one’s place would lead to a very frustrating and sorrowful life.

“I know that Alice is…different.” he said, large blue eyes meeting Helen’s own. “Yet I believe with a strong hand guiding her and someone who understands…where her fancies come from…she will completely overcome her more...flighty tendencies.”

“And is that the only reason why you are offering for Alice?” Helen asked him, voice knowing. “Because you are a gentleman who wishes to assist a lady?”

After a long, quiet, tense moment, Hamish admitted, “No.” His sweaty hand went up to rub the back of his equally sweaty neck, and his grimaced in distaste before sighing and saying, “She sat with me--spoke to me!--when there were woefully few who would. Alice was kind to me when no one else ever thought of being so, and unkind to me when I deserved it. I think she is the only person in my entire life who has ever been completely honest with me.” Swallowing, he said, “That is why I am offering for your daughter.”

It wasn’t love, but it would have to do. It was the closest Alice was likely to ever get in this life.

“What day is the party?” Helen asked, and Hamish huffed a breath in relief.

“Thursday; Mother would like you both to be there by four.”

That party was supposed to be Alice’s salvation. It was to go exactly as Margaret had outlined it to her sister: she was to marry Hamish, pleased that she’d managed to attract the affections of a Lord, and be content with her lot in life. Instead, she ran away from the young man’s proposal, had left him kneeling in the gazebo with a bit of his heart and most of his pride in his hands, and took off into the brush. Helen had wanted to go after her, but a firm hand on her arm from Lord Ascot prevented her.

“Rupert!” she’d hissed, jerking out of his confining grip. “My daughter is distressed! I need to go to her!”

“You need to stay put!” the elder Ascot said warningly. “This already looks bad enough for the both of you--if you go rushing off after her, all you’re going to do is add fuel to the paper-writer’s fires. Don’t do that, Helen.”

Chafing under the reprimand, but agreeing once she’d exerted control over herself (and her instincts) she resigned herself to waiting for her girl. She immediately regretted it when she saw her appearance when she returned.

Something strange had happened to Alice once again.

Thick clumps of dirt and mud clung to her ice blue dress; three seemingly deep yet fully healed gashes marred the previously unbroken skin of her right arm, and above all there was that Look in her eyes. The Look she’d had when returning from the faerie realms, before Helen had been able to convince her it was all a dream--the look that said that anything was possible, and if you refuted her, she’d set about proving herself to you. She positively glowed. Helen was amazed and hopeful, oh-so-hopeful, that perhaps Hamish's proposal alone had been enough. Had been enough, that is, to heal her elf-struck sickness, to bring her fully back into this world. A ramble in the woods before accepting a proposal could and would be overlooked; her bedraggled appearance could be smoothed over, even if it looked like she'd climbed Mount Pleasant⁶ with someone. All she had to do was accept him, and she'd be safe. Safe!

Then she’d gone and refused Hamish.

Refused him and publicly humiliated him, no less.

Helen had begged the girl, had pleaded with her to reconsider. Alice, however, was resolute. “Hamish is not the man for me,” she said with absolute conviction when asked, and that was all. She tried to reason with her, explain why it would be an advantageous match for both—she even went so far as to inform her of Hamish's long-standing regard for her.

Alice had blinked, face blank, for several moments. Helen felt a surge of hope—perhaps she'd only refused because she thought Hamish offered out of a sense of honor? Then Alice got a far-away look in her eyes (the look she got when thinking about that place) and said, “I am sorry to have given occasion to cause Hamish pain, then, but mother....he is not for me. I'm sorry.”

China had been the only viable solution after that. Alice later told her that Hamish had gone to her privately--an impertinence she wouldn’t have expected from Lord Ascot’s only child!--and renewed his suit, only to be denied again (although apparently with much kinder words this time; some good came of Helen informing Alice of Hamish's regard, at least). Helen had to get her away—as far away as possible from those that would steal her. Be she married or be she off of English soil, it didn’t matter. Either way, she’d be out of the clutches of the sidhe, and that was what mattered the most.

She really should have known better, to think that sending her to China and away from the English mounds would be the end of it. Alice had to come back eventually, yes? And when she did, the same problems that she’d left behind would still be waiting for her upon her return, would they not? Yes, of course they would. Her health when she set out on the voyage had been the best it had been since she was a child, and even as Helen suspected why, she'd waved to her daughter on that ship and hoped. Helen was so proud of her hale and healthy girl, with her luminescent smile as she didn't wave to them from the bow of the ship. When Alice returned, though, another occurrence that Helen feared happening had taken place.

The pale, thin girl that disembarked that ship was not the same young woman who'd climbed aboard. Her hair, skin and nails looked lifeless and dull; physical exertion expended for more than a half-hour at a time exhausted her. She was Fading; there was no other word for it. Being so far away from the land Helen knew she was bound to had weakened her considerably.

Faerie hadn’t let Alice go out of any kindness or compassion in their cold hearts; something whispered to Helen that those that lived below had been simply waiting until she was old enough to survive being taken there permanently. It was only a matter of time before they came for her—before he, that one that had slipped the thimble on her tiny finger, walked into her home and sought out her girl.

Unfortunately, Helen had this epiphany too late. Much too late, for she had it when she stepped into the hall, prepared to visit an acquaintance, and saw the creature standing on the bottom of her stairwell, looking wistfully upward. Much too late to actually protect her daughter from what was about to occur.

*~*~*~*

Author's Notes

1 The London Zoo opened on April 27, 1827, but was not opened to the public until 1847; it is considered the world's oldest scientific zoo.

2 Orange blossom wreaths are considered very traditional wedding attire; it's an evergreen plant, symbolizing the everlasting nature of true love; it is also associated with innocence, purity, fertility and motherhood. Queen Victoria re-popularized the use of orange blossoms when she used them in her wedding to Albert in 1840.

3 Alice wears the thimble on her right ring finger to symbolize an oath, vow or bond.

4 Referring to the tradition of leaving bread, milk, or honey to satisfy faeries, or at least convince them to leave your guests/family in peace

5 A term used to describe those enchanted, possessed, or charmed by the fae

6An act of copulation

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