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goldeneyedgirl · 11 months ago

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TwiFicmas23 Day 11: Mad World

Good evening!

Today we have some of Mad World which I don't seem to have posted much of? Despite writing a decent amount of? Very strange.

This fic is based around Alice being Charlie's estranged niece, and being sent to live with Bella and Charlie to finish high school after an incident at her boarding school.

Of course, Alice's paternal extended family happens to be Romani, and of course, she gets mixed up in some very mysterious happenings that keep leading back to the Cullens and the Res.

It's a very rough draft, and I think will involve Alice thinking there's a murder mystery but instead, vampires and werewolves.

I hope you enjoy it!

You can find the first part of Mad World right here.

mad world.

Mami is singing to me and brushing my hair out. I’m drawing, my red crayon skating over the paper. We’re ready to go - the flowers are in the kitchen sink, and I’m dressed - no more black, Mami said. Instead, my dress is dark blue with flowers all over it; Mami made it herself. She’ll put red and white ribbons in my hair, and we’ll go to the cemetery.

“What have you drawn for your papa, angel?” Mami leans over my shoulder.

“Me and Daddy,” I say quietly. For an eight-year-old, the drawing is good. My memory of us is clear, and I have rendered it as accurately as I am able.

Mami frowns and takes my drawing. “It’s very good, but perhaps something happier?” she says gently.

“Okay, Mami,” I agree, and start a new drawing of Daddy and I in Mami’s garden, smiling as Mami folds the drawing and slips it into her apron and resumes fixing my hair.

The cemetery is within walking distance, and we find ourselves there before lunch. It’s quiet, and there are a few people around. We find Daddy easily - under the tree, where we put a bench. We are not his first visitors and Mami scowls at that. She sweeps the offerings away without care - people who never met Daddy, leaving behind little paintings, brushes and pigments, flowers and flameless candles. She arranges our flowers, props up my drawing, and then lights our candles. She holds me tight and kisses my head, and I breathe in her scent of rosewater and thyme.

Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, my father died, and the sadness has settled into our bones, into the foundations of the house. He's never coming back.

Everyone leaves me in the end.

I met my cousin Isabella first thing the next morning. I had woken up in desperate need of a shower, grabbing my last clean outfit and toiletries as I stumbled out of bed - and practically ran into her on the stairs.

She was taller than I was, with long brown hair and a few faint freckles over her nose. She wore what I was beginning to suspect was the unofficial Forks uniform of jeans, boots, and a not-inexpensive spray jacket. She definitely looked like my mom, though not as much as she did in the photos, but one thing that could be said was that she had the girl-next-door type of soft, easy prettiness.

And she did not look eager to meet me.

“Hi,” I said as brightly as I could, considering my hair was tangled, I was still filthy, and wearing a pair of ancient pajamas printed with duckies that had a rather vile but permanent blood-stain across the leg. “You must be Isabella. I’m Alice.”

“Hey,” she said, and I turned, to follow her into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t meet you last night, I was really tired,” I said as she moved around the kitchen to get her breakfast - she walked with a slight limp. “It’s a long way from North Carolina.” Especially when Mommy Dearest won’t spring for airfare.

“Mmm,” Isabella said. “Charlie said you had some paperwork for school that I needed to take in?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just grab it.” I slipped back through the house and grabbed the manila folder from my desk. I’d filled it out on the journey to Forks, and it was a little smudged and crumpled, but still perfectly legible.

Holding out the folder to my cousin, I wondered if she’d snoop on the contents - I didn’t really want her knowing all of the stuff in the there. But then, how sneaky did you have to be to page through someone’s school enrolment paperwork?

“Thanks for taking it in for me,” I said, as Isabella slid it into her backpack.

“No problem. Charlie had to leave early this morning, but he might come home for lunch,” she said, as she sloshed some coffee and milk into a thermos. “Have a good day.”

“You too,” I called, as she high-tailed it out of the kitchen.

So that was my cousin.

I had other cousins, of course. Aunt Simone had five kids that I had seen during vacations with my grandmother and father in my childhood; I hadn’t really seen them often enough to be close to them. And Stephen had a brother with kids, whom I was supposed to consider my cousins. We had seen them too often for my comfort.

And Isabella. Isabella who either looked too hard or away from me; who didn’t like me, who was so uncomfortable with my presence, and who wore my mom’s face.

Seventeen months, twenty-nine days.

Isabella and I would be the best of friends, it would just take time.

It was going to be fine.

Uncle Charlie and Isabella got home together, just after six. I was going a bit stir-crazy - the rain put me off going outside, and I still felt a little uncomfortable outside of my own bedroom. I had cleaned up the kitchen and bathroom, done a load of household laundry to help out, and contemplated making a batch of brownies, but Charlie’s oven and stove were on the older side, and the whirring and rattling when I touched the knobs had put me off baking anything.

I tried to chat with Isabella and Charlie before dinner, but Charlie seemed eager to watch TV with a beer. Bella was absorbed in cooking dinner - and had been completely unimpressed when I admitted that I wasn’t much of a cook.

“I was in a dorm, and outside of home-ec classes, there weren’t any opportunities to really cook,” I said hurriedly, but I was slightly annoyed - other than the bread and peanut butter I had been sustaining on, there hadn’t been any food in the house I could have used to prepare dinner. Isabella had brought some groceries home with her.

“The stuff you learned in home-ec should be fine,” she said, putting spaghetti into bowls. “And, um, call me Bella.”

I shrugged. “Okay, Bella. And if you and Charlie aren’t picky, I’m happy to practice,” I said, unconsciously rubbing my arm, and mentally skimming the few basic recipes I’d learned at school. Most of the cooking had been camp-style basics that were just varying combinations of food plus fire. Now, if she wanted me to roll a cigarette or pick a lock, then I could have been useful.

“We can talk about it later,” Bella said, handing me a bowl, and picking up two others.

Bella seemed completely disinterested in my presence as we sat down to dinner. Uncle Charlie was exhausted, and made a point of loudly praising the chicken and broccoli alfredo Bella had made, but ate it mechanically. Neither of them made conversation, so I gave up, nibbling at the food, and volunteering to clean up. After dinner, Charlie did take the time to show me the chest freezer in the screened porch, disguised by a blanket and stack of old board games.

It was packed with a fairly obscene amount of fish, and vegetables, with a few TV-dinners packed in the corner, as well as a couple of loaves of bread.

“We don’t eat anything fancy,” Charlie said, as I helped him pack some of the groceries into it. “Bells has some cook books if you want to learn. You don’t have any allergies?”

I shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “I just hate mac and cheese.”

Charlie smiled at me. “Yeah, I never liked the stuff either.”

I followed him back into the living room, where he handed me a set of house keys.

“Good luck at school tomorrow,” he said, as I stuffed the keys into the pocket of my sweatpants. “Bells will give you a lift.”

“Thanks Uncle Charlie,” I replied. “It will be nice to be back at a normal school.”

Charlie chuckled and wandered off towards the television. I slipped back into my bedroom, pulling my cell phone out and jabbing in the number I knew by heart.

“Hullo?” My mami’s voice filled my ear, weaker than I remembered, but with her odd accent that was a little bit French, a little bit Canadian, and a little bit of the old country.

“It’s Alice, Mami,” I said, lying down on my bed.

“Oh, my Alice,” she cooed in my ear, pronouncing it the Italian way. “Sweetheart, are you okay?

“Yes, Mami. I’m in Washington, with my Uncle Charlie,” I said.

My grandmother Miriana was living in a care home in Florida, with my grandfather Thomas, and nearby my Auntie Tate, and my aunt Nicolette. I hated how far apart we were - I missed our little house with the crazy garden, I missed her standing in the kitchen, feeding the birds on the window sill, her strange amulets hanging from door frames and windowsills.

“Charlie?” Mami said sharply.

“Mom’s brother,” I said, calmly. “He’s a police officer.”

“Pfft!” I heard Mami spit. “You call me if he doesn’t treat you well, understand?” As if she could do anything to help me - custody had reverted to my mom, and Mami wasn’t strong anymore. But it still felt nice, hearing that declaration of protection.

“Yes, Mami. But how are you and Grandpa?” I closed my eyes; I could almost smell her homemade hand cream, fell her hands braiding my hair. God, I missed her.

“Good. Nicolette brought the children to see us,” Mami’s voice tapered off.

“That’s good, you always wanted to see more of them,” I said encouragingly.

“Yes,” Mami sounded distracted. “You should call Tate.”

“I will tomorrow,” I said. “After school, so I can tell her all about school. They won’t let her talk on the phone this late.”

“Yes. She will like that very much,” Mami’s sounded dreamy, but on the phone I couldn’t tell if it was the stroke damage, or just Mami being Mami. “Always put love out there, Alice. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, it will come around back to you. Remember that, Alice.”

“I will,” I said.

“Write it down,” Mami said sternly, before falling silent.

“I have to go now, Mami,” I said, after waiting a minute. Her mind was going - Grandpa had dementia, I knew the signs. “I’ll send you a letter, okay?”

“Draw me all the pictures, little one,” Mami said vaguely. “Sleep deeply.”

“You too. I love you,” I said, as Mami hung up. I missed her like crazy, but not like this. I missed my old, half-crazy grandmother, who taught me to read tarot and told me stories from the old country. Now, she felt like a ghost of her old self.

My little bed was very comfortable, and I curled into a little ball, opening up the old photos I had saved on my phone, of Mami and me when I was little. I wish...

I wished for a lot of things, all of them utterly impossible, and thinking about them just made me sadder.

Jasper Hale had, in the period of forty minutes, deeply endeared both himself and the town of Forks to me.

My shoulders were pressed against a low-hanging branch, whilst I perched on the edge of a boulder, my legs hooked over both his hips. One of his hands was sliding up the back of my shirt, and the other one was sliding under my skirt. His mouth grazed my throat, and I giggled, twisting my fingers in his hair.

“Is this weird?” I asked, as he pulled away, his eyes dark. “We’ve just met.”

Jasper chuckled, and the hand gripping my thigh slid up further.

“It’s just,” I said, my voice wavering, “I don’t want to you think that I am … the kind of girl that does this… with the first boy who smiles at her��” I was very much regretting not taking Jasper back to the Swan house, though I’m sure my bed there would have collapsed with the weight of both of us on it.

Jasper pulled back and stared at me. Actually considered me, like a painting on a wall. The hand resting on my back came up, and traced my face.

“No. No, I would not,” Jasper said softly. “I don’t do this sort of thing either. It’s … out of character, that’s for sure. I didn’t think… I think we both took a chance on each other. A meeting of the minds, I suppose.”

“Amongst other parts,” I said with a grin, and he chuckled.

“My brothers are always telling me to be more spontaneous,” he murmured, leaning back towards me, and I smiled, pulling him closer towards me.

I stumbled home after dark - both Jasper and I had lost track of time, defiling each other. Most tragically, neither of us had anticipated exactly how the day would end, and even a boy that looked like Jasper Hale wasn’t convincing me to do anything without a condom. A problem I planned to rectify the next day at Forks’ only drug store. God, wouldn’t that be a treat for the gossips - ‘Chief Swan’s estranged niece, Annette’s girl, was buying contraceptives a week after she arrived in town!'

The knees of my tights, and the back of my skirt were filthy, as I clattered in the front door to find Bella setting the table, and Charlie watching TV with a beer. Ignoring Bella’s accusatory look with a breezy greeting, I dashed into my bedroom to get changed. I still had a mountain of homework, and I was desperate for a shower.

I managed to wake up before my alarm the next morning, more antsy than sleep-deprived. I wanted to look good today, in case Jasper was having second thoughts. But not like I had put in any effort at all. I had one v-neck sweater, in a fantastic blood red colour that made my boobs look more impressive, and a brand new pair of jeans. I ended up wrestling with my hair longer than was appropriate, and decided against a full face of make-up, and just added eye-liner and lipstick.

The result was… acceptable. It was a lot less interesting than I normally would have opted for, but I almost looked cute.

I’d spent far too long, the previous night, contemplating suggestions for the weekend - he had both a car and a driver’s license, so I was thinking the safest option was a movie and dinner. Or we could skip right to dessert, I didn’t mind.

I had to remember to double-check with Uncle Charlie to see if I had a curfew.

Bella had already left by the time I sloshed some coffee into a thermos cup; luckily, a bus ran right past the corner, and dropped me off close to school. I really had to get some driver’s ed classes.

I didn’t see the Cullens - or Bella - until after the bell rang. Spotting them in the hallway, I smiled and straightened up, ready to snag Jasper away from the rest of his weird family.

“Hey,” I began with a smile on my face, but I already knew. The stoic expressions, the sneer on Rosalie's face, the vaguely disgusted look on Edward’s, and the fact that Jasper was staring dead-ahead, even turning his head away from me.

The Cullens and Bella pushed past without even acknowledging me.

For a second, it was like I was outside of reality. That this wasn’t happening to me.

And then I was back, watching them walk away.

I would have thought Jasper was better than that. To blow me off, after we… after everything he said to me…

Steeling myself, I turned around and headed to my first class, trying to get my heart to stop thundering in my chest. This wasn’t new. I hadn’t had any friends at my old school either. Friends were something other people had, and I was fine on my own. Boyfriends were useless, too, unless you needed protection.

I had to focus on what I did have, not what I didn’t have or need: I was out of North Carolina, I was out of my mother’s house, and I had a year until graduation.

Whatever. Rolling my eyes, I kept walking. Friends were something other people had, and I was fine on my own. I was out of North Carolina, I wasn’t living with my mother, and I was nearly done with high school.

It still hurt.

Uncle Charlie came out to the back porch after dinner. Bella had made lasagna, and conversation had been stilted - obviously whatever Bella thought she knew about Jasper Hale and I had earned me the silent treatment. Or as close as she could get without Uncle Charlie realising.

I’d finished my homework, and come out to sketch, which had gravitated from my sketchbook to doodling a new tattoo on my thigh, over the top of one of my last uncovered scars.

“How’s it going, kid?” he asked, leaning against the railing.

“It’s going pretty well, Uncle Charlie,” I said, looking up from where I was shading the sun.

“How’s school? Making friends?”

No, but I am fucking douchebags in the woods. “Not so much,” I said honestly, capping my pen. “But I don’t really make friends well.”

“Bells can introduce you around. She knows some good kids,” Charlie said, taking a swig from his beer.

“Nah, I don’t want to cramp her style,” I smiled brightly, imagining what Bella would say if I made such a suggestion. “We already have to live together.”

Charlie didn’t reply, just watched as I sketched the tree of life onto my leg. I liked it better than the sun.

“You need anything, you just have to say something, okay Alice?” Charlie looked serious.

I nodded. “Thanks Uncle Charlie. Really. You didn’t have to take me in and I just wanted to let you know that I’m grateful,” I said quietly.

“Of course. You’re family,” Uncle Charlie studied me. “Your mom didn’t mentioned much about your dad or family…”

I looked back down at my pen-drawn tattoo. “Dad died when I was a kid, after he and mom split up,” I said, adding a few more leaves. “I stayed with my grandmother for awhile, but she had to go into a home. That’s when I moved back with Mom.”

“I never met your dad,” Uncle Charlie sounded genial, but he was a cop. He’d know how to get kids to talk. “He came after your mom left Forks.”

I nodded - that wasn’t a surprise. Mom never really spoke about her life before she left the Swans - she always spoke of her family as if she wasn’t apart of them - and she certainly never would have tolerated a tag-along boyfriend, someone who knew her ‘before’.

“Dad was great,” I said softly. “He lived with my grandmother, Miriana. They were the best.”

“You miss them a lot, huh,” Charlie said as he finished his beer.

“More than a lot. Dad dying was like my world ended,” I said, staring off into space. “But Mami was there and made things better. Then she had a stroke and Aunt Nico put her in a home. In Florida.” It did make sense - my grandfather was in the same home already, and Aunt Nic lived in Florida with her family. It still broke my heart.

“So, your dad’s side of the family was just his parents and a sister?” Charlie asked.

“Hmm? No, he has three sisters. Nicolette, Simone and Tate. But none of them could take me in,” I said. “Nic’s got five kids - one who has major special needs; Simone lives on a weird commune in California that I’m 99% sure is just an elaborate weed farm, and Tate lives in a care facility. Plus Mom has no way of contacting them.” Well, she’d been conspiring with Nico for years, but had never admitted to it.

“I wasn’t criticizing, Alice. I’m glad to have you. I was just wondering who’d been looking after you all these years,” Charlie really was very kind.

“I look after myself,” I said staunchly. “And Mami did fine right up until the stroke. She cooked and cleaned and took care of me. And she had Tate in a residential care place nearby for years. We’d visit her once a week and at Christmas. When Mami moved, Nic moved Tate as well.”

It was hard to explain my father’s side of the family. Mami had come from a huge Romani family, and had scandalised everyone when she ran off with a French-Canadian college student in her youth. Grandpa Thomas had always had an amused sort of tolerance for Mami and her beliefs. He had loved his family, loved her traditions even when he couldn’t understand them, and fiercely protected all of us from bigotry, with his words, his fists, and his nice, plain surname.

Dad had met Mom in Biloxi, and that’s where I’d spent my first three years of life. I didn’t really know much more than that; Mom had rarely mentioned Dad, and when she did, it was mostly to insult him. I just know Dad had hated Biloxi and when the marriage was over, he took me with him when he went home.

The art teacher’s slide show was never-ending, and I needed it to end. But the last slide was the worst. Dad’s portrait, looking thin and haunted, along with his last painting.

“Nico Brandon committed suicide July 11th that year, at the age of 34,” my art teacher droned on. “It is generally accepted that the suicide was planned in great detail, as the final act itself completed his final painting - according to his agent, one of the few people to see that painting in person.”

Maxine. I had loathed her.

“How did killing himself finish the painting?” Ashley asked, confused.

“Brandon shot himself in the head,” Ms Cage said. “The blood and matter transferred to the canvas behind him.”

I was 7. I had escaped Mami’s eye for a minute and slipped out to the studio to see him. He was sitting on a stool in front of the canvas - the Big One, he called it.

The gun was already in his mouth.

His finger on the trigger.

“Daddy?” I asked, confused, but his finger was already closing over the trigger, his blue eyes on mine.

Bang.

“… no, the painting has never been displayed,” Ms Cage said patiently.

“So gross,” someone said.

Bang.

I didn’t scream.

Mami did, when she found me.

Maxine wailed.

“Alice?” I looked over at Angela beside me. She looked worried. “Are you okay?”

I was crying, I realised, in the middle of class.

The teacher had spotted me, and looked concerned. It would take her another few moments to realise she’d just presented a lecture on my father’s suicide. It was no secret that it had been his daughter that had found him.

Everyone still thought of me as Annie Swan’s daughter.

The whole class was staring at me now, and Angela pressed a tissue into my hand.

I opened my mouth to tell Ms Cage I was going to the nurse, but instead, my traitorous mouth said, “We didn’t know he had the gun.”

Ms Cage looked confused, then horrified, going white and then red.

“M-Ms Weber, can you take her to the nurse?”

The thing with living in such close quarters in the middle of puberty is that affection burned fast and hard. I'd had boyfriends - and a girlfriend - at school, and none of them lingered in my mind fondly.

Hearing Charlie rant about some poor girl’s injuries from her boyfriend made me feel… antsy. Irritable. And kind of amused she’d made such a fuss.

“If anyone ever lifts a hand to you girls…” Charlie shook his head. I snorted.

“It’s okay Uncle Charlie,” I said, “I wouldn’t even bother mentioning it to him, let alone get the police involved.”

Charlie’s knife scraped against his plate, and he was staring at me.

“Alice, if a boy so much as looks at you funny, I want you to tell me,” Charlie said slowly. “If anyone tries to hit you, I want you to call 911 immediately. Boys aren’t supposed to hurt you.”

I wanted to laugh. That’s all boys did. Dad swallowed a bullet in front of me; my stepfather had hit me; the school director admitted me to that hellhole; the faceless boys who stalked me at school...

And Jasper Hale had ghosted me.

All boys ever did was hurt me. Uncle Charlie hadn’t yet, but I hadn’t known him very long; he still had a year and a half to prove my hypothesis.

Of course, girls hadn’t exactly been kind to me either. Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it was just me.

“I just don’t like a lot of fuss,” I managed, but Bella and Charlie exchanged looks.

Jasper didn't look amused as he took a seat beside me in History. The junior class wasn't big enough to avoid someone forever - this moment was inevitable.

"Alice..." Jasper began stiffly, and I shook my head.

"We have four weeks to get this paper done. I vote we do it fast and then pretend it never happened," I said without looking up, my fingers twisting through one of my necklaces - a saint's medallion that my Catholic grandfather had given me. Hopefully, it was the patron saint of avoiding awkward moments. "You don't even have to talk to me in school - we can do it all over email or in class."

Jasper stared at me and for a moment, I felt sad. Disappointed and almost oddly longing. And then it passed and he nodded.

"That's probably best," he said finally and pushed his notebook closer, offering me a pen. "Your email?"

I scrawled my details down, ignoring the way he watched me, his eyes darting when the tattoo on my arm was revealed. He'd seen it before, and the others, when I'd started school.

The bell rang and I nearly threw the pen down in my haste to leave.

If Jasper hadn't wanted to be with me, we could have just been friends. I would have liked a friend.

It didn't matter; the school year was almost over. I probably wouldn't cross paths with Jasper much after this. Mom had already informed me that I was being sent to some summer camp to get me out of Uncle Charlie's hair; and what were the odds that one of the amazing Cullens and I would share senior year classes? They were all outstanding students, and I was just happy to be graduating on time.

The next day, when I get my laundry in, I find the red hair again - long, curly strands tangled around the branches of the tree near the clothesline at the back of the property. It was so odd, and I wondered if it wasn't the wolves howling that was keeping me awake, but whatever weirdo was prowling around the Swan backyard late at night.

I needed to mention it to Uncle Charlie or Bella. It just seemed so silly. None of my clothing or underwear was missing, I just kept finding the strands of hair.

Maybe there were campers or something nearby. Or the wind was blowing hair from the salon dumpster around town. It sounded dumb but a lot less ridiculous than the idea that someone was so fixated on the Swans that they were hiding in the trees.

#alice cullen #jasper hale #jalice #my fic: mad world #jasper having the biggest crush but the family outvoting him getting closer to alice #alice being hurt and angry #charlie being confused but trying to be a good uncle #and bella just constantly worrying alice is going to figure out edward sneaks into her room #it needs a ton of research into the jewish romani community plus romani immigration which i only did very briefly for the draft #diverse twilight is fun

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