The year was 1609 in the town of London. Clouds covered the sky, in places dipping down and shedding snow onto the forest and streets. It mixed with the dirt where the street dwellers rooted through garbage, making the alleys look like sheep’s wool. Mothers tucked blankets around their children, and beggars curled into themselves as the frozen air seeped into their bones. In a small wooden house on the north side of the town, a child sat in the corner, mesmerized by the gently flickering flames in the fireplace. This itself was a luxury, one the poorer residents of the town did not all share. The child was smaller than most, and her bones protruded in areas from her mother’s lazy attempts to keep her fed. Curls of dark hair encircled her pale face, and her blue eyes reflected the light like a clash of fire and ice. Her father, long gone and buried beneath the hardened ground, was not there to care for her. Her mother must be in the bedroom, losing herself in the bottle of foul-smelling liquid that made her act funny.

Her name was Alice.

It was midday, or something like it, when Alice decided to rise from her position on the floor and snatch her wool coat from where she had left it on a plain wooden chair. She draped the thing over her shoulders and stuck her small arms through the sleeves before pushing open the door with a gentle creak. The outside air greeted her with a blast as wind carrying tiny flakes of snow encircled her, seeming to pull her into the street. In an instant she was cold, her cheeks reddening and fingers stiffening from where they resided in her pockets. But the girl was desperate, and she was hungry. After tucking in her head to defend against the wind, she walked determinedly through the town. Vendors in the market, shielding their small stocks from the cold, glared as she walked by. Children, after all, were known thieves, and the vendors could barely support themselves with the little they earned. So, Alice continued on, her tiny footprints marking a slightly darkened trail in the snow.

In a few minutes, she came to a stop. In front of her lay the edge of the woods, and she stared with wide eyes. Children were forbidden to enter, and stories of demons in the trees swirled about in hushed whispers at school. But, Alice wondered, what could be worse than what was already here? Sickness, hunger, sadness. Her stomach growled to confirm her thoughts, and she narrowed her eyes. Demons aside, the woods weren’t scary. One foot followed the other and then she was running, the thickness of the branches above blocking out most of the snow and making for a clearer ground.

She raced forward, heart pounding and breath heaving as she kept up the exertion. When she finally stopped she was in front of a large wooden structure, a strange thing among the otherworldliness of the forest. It stuck out rather terribly- it was beautiful, seeming to take on a golden tinge, and had the warm, inviting feeling of a home, and surrounding it were the dark and twisted branches of trees whose better days were long behind them. A peculiar mist swirled around the base of the cabin, seeming to beckon to Alice. A gust of wind pushed her gently from behind, a whisper of the warmth that surely awaited her just inside. Cautiously, little Alice put her ear to the door. Even the outside of it was warm, golden, and remarkably smooth. Coming from the inside there was sweet yet somber music. It reminded her of the fiddlers on the streets, but the melody was darker, slower. It was the most beautiful thing she had  ever heard, and in almost a trance she placed both hands on the wooden door and pushed.

The door slid open effortlessly, easily letting her inside where she could see that the interior was even more beautiful than its outdoor counterpart. The same golden hue was everywhere, covering the surface of every wall and each part of the floor. A reddish carpet was soft under her feet, and at the far edge of the cabin there was a huge stretch of a table, upon which was the grandest feast Alice had ever laid eyes on. Alongside saucers of sweet-smelling stew there were cuts of steaming meat, seasoned and sitting in clusters of fresh vegetables. Fruits the likes of which she had never seen bordered the entirety of the table, some so exotic that their strangely-colored skin seemed too beautiful to even think about eating. And oh- the smell. It seemed to grip Alice by the shoulders and steer her forward, a stomach so deprived wanting more and more.

She quickly forgot about the music, which ceased to play as she looked over the food. With a glance over both shoulders, she checked to be sure this was no one else’s food- she had been the victim of punishment for taking food in the past, and it was not an event she wished to repeat. When it seemed she was alone, she began to feast. Mouthful after mouthful she swallowed, desperate hands grabbing at anything she could reach. Her long-deprived stomach seemed to be bottomless as she attempted to fill it. It was, with no comparison, the best food she had ever tasted. The stuff of fairytales, of daydreams brought on by streaks of fasting. When she was finally finished, her body seemed to glow with the same soft golden light, and she contentedly made her way to a rocking chair in the corner. It must have been there the whole time, though she hadn’t noticed it earlier. It was a beautiful white, made of what looked like the most high quality wood one could buy, and sat empty on the carpet. It seemed a shame to let such a beautiful chair go to waste, anyway, so Alice sat upon it and reclined on its perfectly-formed backrest as her eyes began to drift slowly shut.

“Hello, darling.”
She looked up into the face of a woman, dressed all in white with a smile stretching across her snow-colored face. Alice sat up, self-consciously smoothing her dress, and smiled. “Hello.” She was not worried about being scolded. The woman’s face was a shining light, and something about her seemed nurturing and harmless.
“Did you like the food? I made it just for you,” the lady told her. She gestured a hand to the table where several dishes lay collapsed on their sides, emptied of all but sauces and herbs.
Alice nodded, but her eyebrows came together briefly in confusion. “How did you know I was coming?”
“I know all about you, Alice,” was the reply, and the woman took both of the girl’s hands in her own. “And I’ll tell you a secret.”
“What is it?” Alice asked eagerly, leaning forward as she awaited the words.
“You can stay with me here now, forever. You’ll never go back to the days of starvation and neglect.”
“Oh.” The girl looked into the pale features of the figure before her, and her eyes shot to the door. “I’m not sure. Mother needs my help.”
“Why?” The woman narrowed her eyes, but kept the same angelic smile. “She never helps you.”
“But-” Alice began to speak, but was silenced by a cold finger pressed against her lips. When the finger was brought away, she could not open her mouth. It felt as if her lips had been sewn together, but were cold as ice. Frozen shut.
“You must be a good girl, Alice,” the woman chided her, still smiling. “I won’t allow for any disobedience in my daughter.”
Alice squirmed uncomfortably, starting to feel scared of the white-dressed beauty. This woman was not her mother. She wanted to leave, but once she tried to stand found that she seemed to be stuck to the chair as well. As she looked into the face in front of her, all of the woman’s features began to sag and drip, like snow melting from the roof of a house. Soon there was no face at all, only a white, ghostly figure in front of Alice, which began to surround her and move around her in fast circles, wrapping her in a foggy cloud of white.
The girl screamed, a muffled sound through the sealed lips and thrashed her arms about in a desperate attempt to save herself. Finally, through enough force, she managed to stand from the chair and fight her way out of the swirling white tempest, even as small daggers of frost scraped across her skin. She ran as fast as she could, escaping through the door and running out into the woods once more. Tears ran down her frozen cheeks, turning to droplets of ice as they made their journey down her face. She vowed that, if she could return home, she would never leave the small comfort of her mother again.
Alice had been running for impossibly long, and her legs were growing tired. Within minutes her movements were slow and labored, and she was unable to go further. Finally, she stopped in a clearing and rested for a moment. The snowy demon was behind her now, but the curse had already begun. Her feet stuck to the ground, and her legs froze in place. The gradual coating of ice began to seep its way up her body, and, too tired to do anything, Alice was forced to watch. Her last movement was a slow, desperate reach up to the sky.

There is a space, far within the trees of a forest long feared by its neighbors, where a frozen statue of a girl now stands. Her dress can be seen as it flows out behind her, curling around her legs, and one skinny arm extends up towards the heavens with fingers outstretched. The ominous eyes look up following the direction of her hand, and if one gathers the courage to look closely, sometimes the pupils can still be seen, flitting about in all directions as Alice awaits the rescue that will never come.