Alice’s Order

2. The Muse

Two

The Muse

“Alice.” Dawn put on a fruity voice as she held a monkey doll, wagging it in front of a six-year-old Alice.

Alice sniggered and tried to snatch the monkey. Her peewee arms went around the doll, her hands unable to touch. “Aw, I’d love a hug.” Dawn bunched the monkey against Alice’s chest.

Her brother, Cyrus, crouched in the corner with a visor, enclosed by haphazard cans of Go! Go! Juice. He twisted his arms into what looked like interpretive dancing from the outside, but he was fighting invisible monsters in his game. The game was called Go! Go!, which the juice was named after. Alice could hear the chatter in his headset. He was a brown-haired seventeen-year-old boy with a goofy grin that countered his intensely focused, icy eyes. His spindly knuckles were a rosy red, and he was slender—veins bulging out of his skinny arms.

“Pepper them! Awesome!” The voice was canned by the output of Cyrus’s headset.

“Nerds.” Dawn paused from painting a beautiful oak tree.

“Can I play?” Alice walked over.

“Yeah, right.” Cyrus made a Z-pose with his arms and squatted.

“Final attack: s**t your pants.” Dawn went back to her painting.

“What’s s**t?” Alice asked.

“That’s a word only I use,” Dawn replied, embarrassed. Dawn took out her tablet and viewed Cyrus’s stream. “How much money are you making from ads?”

“I dunno—ultimate attack!” Cyrus shouted and sprung into a mountain pose, feet hip-width apart with his arms raised, emitting the stupidest groan that left Dawn laughing hysterically.

Dawn picked up a juice can and glanced at the ugly orange font sprawled across the aluminum: Go! Go! Juice. Dawn mocked Cyrus in an adenoidal voice, adding snorts along the way, “My name is Cyrus Isaac Winder and I smell like a den of farts.”

“Who wants to buy a stupid painting of a tree?”

Dawn pulled out her own visor from under her bed. The helmet was turquoise, dotted with red, blue, green, and yellow polka dots. She flapped her arms around and stood on one leg.

“You can’t join!” Cyrus hollered.

“Look, I got a donation of one thousand dollars.”

“Do you even see the comment? It says nice boobs.”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t make any money!”

“Stupid, filthy, casual, thumbnail-boob imitating—”

Dawn poked him in the ribs and Alice caught Cyrus’s smile despite his frustration.

Alice looked at the tablet of Cyrus’s stream. He was jumping up in the air in a mech suit, peppering bullets at his opponents. Millions of comments swarmed the left side of the screen in green text. Commentators roared in the chat to the right in panels overlaid in Cyrus’ stream—boys with headsets and microphones. She watched him, in-game, leap in the air while his mech turned in a circle, raining hellfire on his enemies and she let out a small “Wow.”

Dr. Winder entered the room and eyed Cyrus disapprovingly. The two looked strikingly similar, only differing in age. Dr. Winder had bristly gray hair, a craggy face that bore high cheekbones, and beady blue eyes. His bony fingers were gnarled with gray hairs. He wore a stainless-steel ring with an engraving on it on his right hand. He wore all black: a sweater, dress pants, and pointed brogue shoes. He radiated an air of severity that extended inwards. His expression only turned warm when he glimpsed at Alice.

“Alice.” He outstretched his hand to her.

Alice took her father’s hand. To the left, outside the children’s quarters, was an outdoor path. Each compartment of the house was its own building. Behind the children’s room, down a straight gravel path, was the master bedroom. They turned to the left, into an opening of the spiral wall, to enter the central gardens of the house, which every quarter had a view of. A giant willow tree stood in one corner. In the center, there was a circular pool like an iris. Alice hoped they’d play with his drones again, but he sat her by the edge of the pool.

“Would you like to hear a story, Alice?”

She nodded, sitting closer to him. She beamed up at him and he smiled, though he gave her a thousand-yard stare. He took her little hands into his old, worn ones.

“Once upon a time, there was a magnificent Princess. Eyes like a coming storm, she was cunning and brave. She came from the Kingdom of Flowers, her symbol was the Narcissus.” Dr. Winder pulled from his pocket a dried narcissus and placed it into Alice’s hands. She touched the petals and let out a wow. “Do you know that once flowers were very rare, Alice? Now they grow in abundance. She would have loved to see this.” Alice waved her gift excitedly and Dr. Winder smiled. He continued. “This Princess could sense the earth was dying, sucked of its life. But the world did not care. There was a great beast disguised as a man who had the power to reset the universe. He did this because he did not want the cosmos to die in a cold or fiery death. So over and over he did this when the seas became deserts, the nutrients in our soil turned to dust and the sun disappeared behind a cloud of ash. Those who were unhappy with the earth, their lives and their fates turned towards him, as he would promise them something significant in the next cycle. The Princess could see the Beast inside this man. The Princess rose up against this man, but the man went after her family. One by one, each fell in battle until she was left. Before she went to fight her final fight, she sent the last child of the family to safety…”

Dr. Winder trailed off. Alice glanced up at her father, saw tears in the corners of his eyes. Fear.

“Dad?” She reached up at his sleeve.

Dr. Winder wiped away his tears and embraced her. “What do you want to do today?”

“You said you’d teach me how to fly your drones.” Alice reminded him.

“Right. Come, I’ll show you.”

Her father and her childhood memories vanished as soon as her body was bathed in the bright, white light of the hallway. Alice hid under her blanket as Cyrus approached her.

“Go away,” she could barely speak without the snot escaping her nostrils.

Cyrus sat and the bed let out an exhale. He placed his hand on her back. She felt him lay his head down on her back and she felt his tears through her blanket, through her shirt, and then felt his shaking. She heard him mumbling but couldn’t hear. She turned, slightly lifting her blanket off her head.

She caught the last bit of his words, “I’m too afraid to go…”

He sat up as she did, and the two locked identical eyes. He faltered and stared into his lap, his tears hitting his thighs.

“Afraid of what?” Alice asked, quietly.

“To go identify her.” Cyrus’s voice cracked at his last word.

Her anger washed away into shame. She wanted to take back her words of anger towards him, to erase the rage she put out into the world as if it never existed.

“I’m sorry, Alice.”

She didn’t respond immediately. He wiped away his tears and rose. She took his hand.

She managed to smile, “Do you remember when you took me and Dawn to Sanisco?”

“Of course.”

She patted the bedsheet, gestured him to sit. A genuine smile marked his face briefly before he sunk into her lap and she held his head as she mumbled her memories.