Alice's Tale

Ever since I was a little girl, I'd heard stories about my great-great grandmother named Alice. Some said she had been a well respected member of her church and a woman of strong faith. Others said she had been a witch who'd put a curse on our family's line. Almost everyone in my family seemed to attribute any bad luck through the generations to the legendary curse. They all seemed to be frightened of even just the mention of her name. Then there was me. I was fascinated by her although I didn't know what she'd looked like. I'd always wanted to know more about her and exactly how a person ended up with such two opposing memories.

One night when I was around six years old, I went to bed at around nine o' clock like any other night. Unlike any other night, I had the strangest dream. I dreamed of a beautiful woman with smooth, dark skin and snow white hair that fell to her hips. She was smiling at me with sharp, high cheek bones. Seeming to glow, she reminded me of an angel. Every night following, I'd hoped to see her again in my dreams but I never did, up until last night. It had been nearly thirty years since that long ago dream. This time she was holding a little black book with one word on the front cover. It was the name, Alice, in faded gold lettering.

The next day I went to my grandmother's house. "Hey Grandma!" I greeted as I hugged her.

"Here's all those old picture albums you asked me about over the phone. What do you want with them anyway?"

"Just a little research I was doing online. Wanted to try matching some faces with names."

"Okay well I'll be in my room napping. Take your time."

For hours I searched through every album without finding a trace of the woman I believed to be Alice. Flipping the last page of the album, I noticed the corner of a picture peaking out from behind another one. My heart began beating faster as I reached beneath the plastic to retrieve the hidden picture. It was her! It was Alice in all her glory of smooth skin and impossibly long, white hair. While marveling at her regal beauty, I noticed the picture had been taken in front of the very house I was in. In her hand she held the little black book bearing her name just as it had in my dream.

I hurried to explore my grandmother's house in search of the book. Hoping my grandmother wouldn't wake from her nap, I searched the house for the next two hours. Nearly ready to give up, I thought of one last place to look. I remembered there was an old book case up in the attic. Looking at every title on the shelves, I didn't see anything resembling the little black book.

Ready to give up in frustration, I turned to head back downstairs when I tripped over a box. I reached out to grab onto the book case, knocking down a huge tome of a book. To my great surprise, it fell open revealing right in front of my very eyes the little black book. It was tucked into a hole that had been cut it of the pages of the bigger book. Obviously, it had been purposely made as a hidey hole for the smaller book. It simply read "Alice".

Making myself comfortable in old arm chair, I began thumbing through what seemed to be a diary. The entries were drab and mundane, recounting the practicalities of her day-to-day life. Nearing the end of the journal and feeling hopeless about ever learning anything of significance, I came upon a rather interesting entry.

"Ever since I can remember, I've had a rather strange gift or curse, depending on how you see it. When I sleep at night enter the dream world, I have this innate ability to travel into others' dreams. As a girl, I had no control over this thing. I would find myself in other people's dreams without knowing how I got there. When I told my mother, she was frightened as it dawned on her that she didn't see me in her sleep by happenstance. She yelled at me and warned me that I must never tell a soul. She said I must stop my "dream walking" as she called it. I tried. I really did. The more I tried to stop it, the more I began to gain control over it. By the time I was marrying age, I could choose who's dreams to enter and when, even as I slept."

"From the time my oldest son got married, his wife and I haven't seen eye to eye. To be honest, I'm not sure of the root of it. Anyhow, I wanted peace in my family. Almost a month back, I decided I would visit her in her dreams to try and understand her so I could find a way to mend the tension between us. At the time, she was about five months gone with what would have been my first grandbaby. When I went to visit her in her sleep, we had a horrible argument. The very next morning I learned from my son that he had awakened to their marriage bed soaked with blood and my grandbaby was gone. Days later my daughter-in-law came here to my house, cursing up a storm and calling me a witch! She's convinced that I took her baby from her."

"I was so overcome with grief. The next day I was shocked to find my long, beautiful, black hair had turned stark white overnight. Ever since, her and my son have been miserable. None of my other children or church family have been to see me in a month. Everyone always seems to be busy when I come calling. I was only trying to fix things but it seems I only managed to make them worse. Even my own husband seems to avoid me these days. If only I'd listened to my mother."

I had finally uncovered the real story behind my great-great-grandmother's bad reputation. Now I wondered if she had been visiting my dreams from the other side. I was so excited to go show my grandmother what I'd discovered, that I dropped the book on my down the stairs. Something metallic bounced down the steps. Bending down to fetch it, I realized it was a tiny brass key. Immediately I was distracted from Alice's diary and burning with curiosity about this key. "Grandma! Grandma! Where are you?!" My grandma came rushing from her room.

"Yes child what is it?"

"I found this little key lying around. Do you know what it goes to?" She looked puzzled for a moment. Suddenly her eyes lit up.

"I have a miniature trunk up in the attic. My grandmother, Alice, gave it to me shortly before she died but she never did give me the key and well, my mother didn't want anything to do with it. That has to be it because it's the only lock small enough to fit it!"

My grandmother and I climbed the stairs to the attic like two small children on an adventure. When we got there, my grandmother pulled a tiny wooden trunk from a shelf. With my heart beating fast, I put the little key into the lock. At first I met some resistance from the tiny old lock. It was a little rusty but after a few tries it finally gave.

Imagine our surprise when we saw neat stacks of old, dusty hundred dollar bills piled neatly into the small box. We started to cry and laugh simultaneously. For the next hour we counted the money. It came up to twenty thousand dollars! The next day we went to the bank and my grandmother gave me half of the money because she said without me we would have never found it or the truth about Alice. Not only was I ten thousand dollars richer, I finally knew my great-great grandmother could rest in peace knowing her descendants knew her story.