Ever After . . .
EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY a story is begun. Some of these stories are published and sold in bookshops all over the world, and some may never be finished, instead gathering dust at the bottom of drawers or under beds, forgotten.
What is a story? It might be a memory, of an event or a person. Perhaps a relative we never met, who exists only in photographs and the memories of those who knew them. It could be a fairy tale, like the ones you and I have both known for ever; the stories that everybody knows of witches and of gingerbread cottages, and fingers pricked on the spindles of spinning wheels . . . warnings to stay on the right path. Or it could be a sister weaving her own tales to tell to a lonely younger brother.
Sometimes true and sometimes made up.
Sometimes a little bit of both.
It’s often said there are two sides to every story. The version you hear depends on who is telling it. What they remember, or what they choose to leave out.
What they want you to believe.
If Alice had told this tale her way, it would still be about what happened when she was unable to finish one of her stories and went missing, and how I found her, only with certain differences. In Alice’s version, perhaps, the statue of the stag really would have five legs, or maybe the old derelict mansion would have been a castle, surrounded by a forest of brambles.
This is not Alice’s story, though. It’s mine, so I have told it the way only I can.
As for Alice and me, we went on to have many more adventures, and Alice wrote many more stories. She still does and they’re better now than ever. Sometimes she finishes them and sometimes not. It doesn’t matter now, because the curse is broken. Maybe one day you’ll read them, or perhaps you have already, although you might not know it, because she uses a different name for her books. A secret name that only her family knows.
I will end this tale by saying that stories, like gossip, or curses, have the power to harm. As our mother taught us: Be careful what you believe in. If you believe you are cursed, then you are.
But stories have the power to heal, too. If you believe in luck, and that you will succeed – whatever monsters come your way – then you can. As Alice once wrote: the problem with monsters is that those of our own making are the most terrifying of all.
Yet, if we created them, we also have the power to overcome them.
Acknowledgments
It would not have been physically possible to write this story without the generosity of my family. I’m grateful to my mum, sisters Theresa and Janet, and Nicola for helping out and looking after Jack in order to give me time to write.
My wonderful agent, Julia, to whom this book is dedicated: you pepped me up and calmed me down as required during moments of gloom, missed deadlines, and worries that this, too, could end up as a tale unfinished. You always have the right words – a magic all your own.
I’m indebted to my editor, Rachel Mann, whose wisdom made this story work even when I feared I might well end up as mad as Alice. It takes great skill to balance knowing when to heighten the tension and when less is more, and you have it in bags.
Thanks also to my copy editor Jane Tait, whose careful attention caught many errors and added a layer of sparkle.
Last but not least, thanks to the lovely Cat Healy who named Gypsy’s boat with a word that is very much hers: Elsewhere.
© Charlie Hopkinson 2008
Michelle Harrison is a full time author who lives in Essex. Her first novel, The Thirteen Treasures, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and is published in sixteen countries including the UK. It was followed by The Thirteen Curses and The Thirteen Secrets. Michelle has since written Unrest, a ghost story for older readers and One Wish, a prequel to the Thirteen Treasures books. The Other Alice is her sixth novel.
Michelle’s path to becoming a writer was inspired by stories told by her sisters as she was growing up, one of which was so vivid it prompted her to dig in the garden looking for evidence of a dead fairy. (She didn’t find anything.) Since becoming a published author she still does strange things like asking people to shut her in the boots of their cars – all in the name of research, of course – like Alice.
Michelle has a son called Jack and two black cats. She suspects one of them is a mischief, but hasn’t caught her drinking tea . . . yet.
For more information visit Michelle’s website: www.michelleharrisonbooks.com or find her on Twitter: @MHarrison13
Also by Michelle Harrison
The Thirteen Treasures
The Thirteen Curses
The Thirteen Secrets
One Wish
For older readers
Unrest
THE MAGICAL WORLD OF MICHELLE HARRISON’S AWARD-WINNING
THE THIRTEEN TREASURES
Fairies . . . bu not as you know them . . .
www.facebook.com/thirteentreasures
www.welcometospinneywicket.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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Copyright © 2016 Michelle Harrison
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Michelle Harrison to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.
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PB ISBN 978-1-4711-2427-3
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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