aliceofthemidnightsun

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Interlude 4: The Alice’s New Year

There were no maids scheduled to be working, but somehow they ended up there anyway. Athena absconded with some of the bar’s booze and met up with them in the underbasement, where they all settled in the cafeteria. Seth brought Lindsey, terrifying her with a trip down The Chute. They pushed the tables into a circle and played broken telephone drunk, laughing themselves silly right through New Years, with none of them any the wiser until Thad sobered up around two and noticed the time. None of the maids noticed the barefoot child in the oversized hoodie as she stood just behind the doorframe, watching them. 

Bartholomew stayed on bar duty, but it remained steadfastly empty for most of the night. There were more exciting parties to attend to, or maybe people simply forgot what day it was. 

Theroux slipped away from his desk at ten minutes to midnight, allowing the position to be vacant for the first time since midnight the previous New Year’s Eve. He left a sign propped up on the desk - Had to step away, will be back next year - and set his watch carefully in his otherwise empty locker. His wrist almost felt heavier without it on. Bartholomew smiled when he saw him, and Theroux easily hopped the bar, too eager to go around. He spent midnight sharing a drink with his boyfriend. Bartholomew gently ran a finger over the indent his watch left on his wrist, savoring for once the ability to forget how much time they had left together. 

Alice du Sol Minuit opted to spend the crucial moment alone in her office. From this vantage point, she could just make out the fireworks over the port, silent blasts no bigger than a penny on the horizon. She sat on the edge of her desk with a box of apple juice, sipped from the straw, and contemplated planning a fireworks display at the hotel the following New Year - bigger and better than anything the city of Anchorage could put on. Yes, a party to become the talk of the city, maybe the state. Her assistant knocked on the door.

“Happy New Year, miss Alice.” 

“So it will be,” she replied. 

And deep below the earth, Nazareth, the head of the maintenance team, sat on a folding chair in a room flooded with brightest light. She read a magazine with sunglasses on. A minute to midnight, she slipped a pair of industrial-grade noise dampeners over her ears and waited. Though there was no clock in the room she could still hear midnight chime. The light in the center of the room swelled and the Midnight Sun grew, channeling the energy of an entire timezone worth of people celebrating the arrival of the new year. For a moment, she was completely engulfed in the light, but she didn’t mind. The noise of hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of celebrations roared around her and then died down, but even when 12:01 rolled around, the Midnight Sun shone brighter than it had before, and all of humanity shone with it. All over the world, Midnight Suns lit up in time with the source, heralding the next step into the future. Nazareth pulled out her phone. 

To her boyfriend, she texted, Love you babe, hope you’re having fun! Can’t wait to spend this year with you.

To Alice, she texted Where r u? Get down here, let’s have a drink! She grumbled audibly when a snapchat from her boss came in, a picture of a blonde kid with curly ringlets in ribbons. There was no text. “Of all the inconvenient timing,” Naz muttered. 

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #interlude

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

So apparently there was an issue with the first update post I made on this, and since it’s so late you’ve probably come to this conclusion yourselves, but AOTMS is on haitus for November because of my birthday and general creative slump. Posting will resume as normal on December 19th!

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Interlude 3: Seth’s House

Seth’s keys rattled against the door as he fumbled in the darkness for the right one in the cold, soupy 4AM darkness. The cloudy sky hid every shred of moonlight, so he couldn’t even see the porch light, uselessly unlit somewhere above him. He sighed.

Finally, he managed to click the lock open. He pushed, and the door opened about an inch. It caught on the night lock.

“Dad!” Seth yelled into the crack. “You forgot again?”

There was no reply, but Seth could see the flickering glow of the television set and hear the low murmur of voices filtering from the living room down the hall.

After a particularly arduous shift, this was about all Seth could take. The energy to knock louder, to call through the crack in the door and try and wake his father (all the while flooded by guilt for disturbing the quiet of the sleeping neighborhood) was just not there. A tear tracked silently down his face.

“Fuck it,” he said quietly. “Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.”

He turned and left. In his spite, he didn’t bother closing the door properly behind him. Let the damn chain keep it shut. Let the cold air seep in. He didn’t care.

There was only one real place to go. Not to his friends’ houses, any of them, because he wasn’t ready to admit that he’d been locked out again. And not to Athena’s. She was uncomfortable around his grief-stricken father enough as it was. So back to the hotel it was.

He didn’t want Theroux asking questions, so he waited casually by one of the outer doors. It wasn’t long before a 5AM commuter with a meeting to catch hustled out and didn’t notice Seth sneak in through the door before it swung shut.

The complicated part came afterwards. Even the broom closets around the Alice had keycard readers, so finding a place to sleep wasn’t easy, not after he’d turned his card in at the end of the shift. Much like he had on his first shift, Seth found himself wandering aimlessly. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, he would have happily curled up under an end table to sleep if he thought he wouldn’t get caught.

And then his phone buzzed. He half expected it to be his father, reaching out with yet another apology, tearing himself apart over the fact that he’d locked his own son out. Again. But it wasn’t.

Why are you still here? It was Lindsey. She’d become a friend of his since that night at the bar with Athena, albeit a nosy, suspicious one.

Locked out at home, Seth replied. Why?

I’ve been astral projecting around the hotel and I saw you. Come up to my room.

Haha.

No, really!

Seth frowned. Right. But what could it hurt?

It took him so long to make his way to the hallway outside her room without his key that she’d texted him impatiently several times before he finally knocked.

“You don’t look great,” she said as soon as she opened the door. “I can tell you’ve been crying. So don’t try to act macho.”

“I’ve been crying,” Seth admitted. It wasn’t something he was ashamed of. “Dad accidentally forgot I was coming home late and put the night lock on. Can’t open the damn door from the outside, even with my key.”

“What an asshole!” Lindsey startled him by pulling him into her room and slamming the door behind her. “Motherfucker!”

Seth didn’t know what to say, but he hated the way she jumped to anger. “He’s got a lot on his plate, okay? He and my mom just got a divorce and… he’s not taking it well. He forgets a lot of things. But I’m not mad at him.”

“I am,” Lindsey said. She dug through one of her huge drawers and chucked a bulky handful of fabric at Seth. “Pjs, for our sleepover.”

“It’s not your place to get mad at him on my behalf,” he replied. He crossed his arms, and the clothes hit the ground in front of him. “I’m the one locked out, so it’s up to me to decide if it’s something to get pissed off over, okay?”

Her face softened. “Yeah, fine. Well, you can stay with me as long as you need to. Not like this place isn’t big enough.”

And there was the other aspect of the situation making Seth uncomfortable. “Lindsey, you know I have a girlfriend.”

She snorted. “It has not escaped my attention that you’re dating absolutely the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life, you lucky bastard. I’m gay, Seth. Five hundred percent lesbian. And even if I wasn’t? Still not a homewrecker. Get over yourself.”

“Right.” Seth awkwardly bent to pick up the clothes. “Sorry. I’m just going to text Thee anyway.”

Babe, got locked out at home. I’m staying at the hotel overnight with Lindsey. SHE’S GAY, nothing’s going to happen, I promise. And I promise I’ll explain about getting locked out and everything tomorrow. Nothing to worry about. Love you. Sweet dreams. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow! He imagined her snug in her bed, just as exhausted as he’d been after his shift. Hopefully she wouldn’t get his message until tomorrow.

Lindsey smiled. “She could probably do worse than you if she’s gotta end up with a guy. Bathroom’s over there.”

While Seth changed, he called out to Lindsey from behind the closed door. “Astral projecting, eh?”

“Ok fine, I saw you coming while looking out my window.”

When Seth came back out, he found Lindsey tossing pillow after pillow from the hoard on her bed onto the ground. “Your bed,” she explained.

Seth was too tired to care. He would have slept on the floor and not given a hoot. The carpet itself was probably softer than his bed at home. “Thanks,” he said, and collapsed into the pile of pillows.

Lindsey turned off the lights, but she didn’t get ready for bed. Instead, she booted up the cinema-grade TV screen against one wall. He heard the telltale sounds of a game system starting up.

“Aren’t you going to bed?” he asked. He could see her lit up by the glow from the TV.

“You can sleep in the bathroom if it’s going to be too loud for you,” she said by way of response.

He stretched. “No, I’m too tired to care.”

She was silent for long enough that he nearly fell asleep.

“Sorry about your parents splitting,” she said finally. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He was surprised to find out that he did. It was a subject he’d been keeping quiet on for so long, unwilling to share with his close friends for fear of making them pity him, that when the opportunity arose to spill the beans to a relative stranger, he couldn’t resist.

He started with the lead-up. Elsie dying, his mother withdrawing into herself to cope. His dad, unsure how to comfort her, making things worse. It was a problem that had been festering, but losing Grandma Elsie put it all into motion.

Then the job offer. Dad deciding to move up to Alaska. His mom refusing. His dad offering to decline it, and then the bombshell. His mom telling him he may as well take it, because she wanted out of the marriage. There was nothing to be said or done about it. To her, it was already over. Go to Alaska, she said.

Seth, 20 years old. Old enough to strike out on his own or to decide which parent he wanted to stay with, and not particularly wanting to go to Alaska. But he could see that maybe his mother needed time to herself. Besides, it was nice and cold up here. Seth liked the cold.

“That basically settled it,” he said. “I barely knew what was going on. But dad’s having a really hard time adjusting. He’s kind of lost without my mom,” he admitted. “I don’t blame her for wanting to leave him. That kind of pressure is too much. It’s like having another kid and not having a partner to help raise the one you’ve got. He was too dependent, and I’m sure he’s feeling it now.”

“That’s fucked up,” Lindsey commented. She was still engrossed in her game, and Seth was grateful for that. He didn’t think he could take telling the story to someone who seemed invested in every word.

“I wish I could just stay here,” Seth said. “The hotel is awesome, and it’s not like there aren’t enough rooms. I wouldn’t even mind sleeping in a laundry room.”

“Then why don’t you?” Lindsey asked. “Just swipe a master key and do it!”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “I couldn’t take getting fired.”

“Don’t get caught, dummy,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“It wouldn’t work,” Seth protested. He lay on his pillow pile, trying to convince himself that that was the truth. Because if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be able to resist trying. He was still thinking this as he drifted off to sleep.

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #original writing #writers on tumblr #interlude

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Chapter 3: Of Bars and Movie Stars

Time passed. His first day bled into his first week, and before Seth knew it he’d been working at the Alice for a month.

His grandmother had not disappeared. She was still there, in room 724 every single day, and he made a point of dropping in on her at least five times a week. He brought his new friends by: Ruth and Beth, accompanied of course by God, who took his time observing Elsie to try and figure out how she’d come back from the dead. It was the first time it’d happened without his direct intervention.

Elsie also met (and quickly grew to love) Seth’s brand-new girlfriend, Athena, the beautiful woman he’d met at the cafeteria on the first day. At Ruth’s insistent prompting, he’d written a note asking her out and set it in her usual kitchen-can right before she ordered. Apparently, she’d liked it. Turns out she was a bartender who preferred night shifts, and that she shared his love of a good true-crime show.

As Halloween crept up on the Alice, more decorations went up than Seth had seen anywhere else in his entire life. By October first, the place looked more like a haunted house than a hotel. Nazareth, the woman in charge of the maintenance crew, also knew a thing or two about building simple robots. Mechanical spiders of her creation skittered along the walls and across ceilings. Motion detectors littered the halls, triggering a creepy sound, or a holographic light show, or even alerting someone in costume to jump out at unsuspecting passerby. Most of the chandeliers had been turned off, replaced by jack-o-lantern towers casting their flickering light instead. Only the gardener seemed to know what kept them from rotting.

But the holiday was far from the only excitement.

Seth showed up for his shift promptly at 9PM and fell easily into his usual routine of a pre-work meal with his coworkers. As he sat in the cafeteria, poring over a sushi plate made to look like a pumpkin patch, Athena crept up behind him.

“Boo!” she teased, then leaned down to kiss his head and drop a white cloth napkin into his lap. Even in the underbasement employee cafeteria, cutlery had little black and orange bows, napkins were tied into neat little ghosts, and pumpkins sat on every table.

She climbed onto the bench and wedged herself tightly between Seth and Theodosia (and just as well, because it was really Theodora with her sister’s nametag pinned to her chest).

“So, they’re finally here!” she said, almost tangibly vibrating with excitement.

“Who is?” Seth asked around his sushi. Across the table, Beth wrinkled her nose.

“The movie crew!”

“Movie?” Theo asked.

Athena looked blankly at her. “Uh, yeah? It’s like, the most important thing that’s happened at the Alice in like, a billion years. Haven’t you been briefed on it a thousand times by Gwynneth?”  

“I’m gonna assume she hasn’t,” Beth said.

“Oh my god!” Athena’s seismic glee intensified. “So you know Lindsey Landon.”

“I think everyone knows Lindsey Landon,” Theodora-not-Theodosia replied. “I freakin’ love her!”

“I do too!” Athena clasped her hands together. “She’s here! Today! Her and Hester Arkos, who directed 20,000 Leagues Under Where?, you know, she’s amazing, and probably some other actors… probably a lot of other actors… and famous crewmembers and producers… lots of movie people, are here! They’re staying at the hotel and filming in and around the grounds. Hester’s actually staying in the Master Suite –”

“Woah,” Ruth interrupted. “Isn’t that like, thousands of dollars a night?”

“Try a hundred thousand. But she’s Hester Arkos, you know?” said Theo, getting in on Athena’s hype train. “How did I not know this?”

“Yeah anyway, they rented out the whole ritzy section to her, Lindsey, and whoever else is here and famous. And you guys get to clean their rooms! You’re so lucky! I wonder if any of them will come for drinks. I hope so!” Finally, she paused for breath.

Beth curled her lip. “Ugh, it’s such a colossal waste of money. But I did hear about that. Feel free to trade jobs with me.”

Athena’s eyes glowed with the suggestion that she would like that very much, and Beth hastily withdrew the offer. “They’re just people, though,” she said sulkily.

“Well I think it’s exciting,” Ruth said.

“What are they filming? Do we know?” Seth asked.

“I think the working title is ‘Gesundheit 451,’ but they probably have to keep the real title a secret so paparazzi don’t get too much information about it,” Athena said. She spooned a scoop of Vegetarian Green Sludge into her mouth before continuing, with her mouth full. “Either way, they’re all over room 451 right now, from what Othello told me.”

All the maids around the table, including Beth, pulled out their room assignment cards for the day, to see who had what.

“Weird,” Seth said as he squinted down at his paper.

Ruth leaned over to see what he had. “Woah.”

Across the table, Beth’s heaved a sigh. “Ugh.  No wonder I had so few rooms. One of them is the master suite.”

“You’re in the master suite!?” Athena broke in. “Okay, now you have to switch with me. Please!”

“Yeah, just 6 rooms today,” Seth recounted. “Less than usual,” he added for Athena’s benefit. “Huh, and in the central part, too.”

Athena snatched Seth’s paper from his hands and thrust it at  Theo. “Which rooms are these?” she demanded. Seth picked up his chopsticks (one black, one orange) in his newly vacant hand and resumed his sushi, eyeing the Theo he fully believed was Theodosia expectantly.

“No way, man,” she said in a tone halfway between jealousy and begrudging excitement. “You’ve got a bunch of the fancy rooms. Bet there’ll be cool people in them.” She slid his paper back across the table to him and gazed wistfully at the ceiling. “Maybe one of them will request a quart of fresh honey or something and I’ll have an excuse to get up there too. Will you take pictures?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Seth said. “’Sides it’s not like I’ll be meeting them, you know? They’re probably busy filming and stuff. Famous people’s stuff is still just stuff.”

“And famous people are still just people,” Beth said. “And yet, here you guys are acting like we’ve been graced by God.”

Ruth stared blankly at her, and Beth flushed. “Well, you know what I meant. Hey, none of you were this excited when He showed up!”

“She has a point,” God chimed in. Ruth quickly shushed him, muttering something that sounded startlingly like ‘egomaniac’ under her breath.  

“No fair,” Athena said and slumped against Seth’s arm. “Can you leave them a note asking for their autograph for me?”

Seth tilted his head down to rest his cheek on the top of Athena’s head. “If I meet one of them in person. But I’m sure they get bothered enough. It would be really unprofessional to leave them a note like that.”

Athena sighed, and he quickly continued, “But c’mon Thee. They’re definitely going to want a drink. And no one makes them as good as you do! With the way you mix you’ll be the one drawing their attention. I promise. You’ll get to see your stars.”

Their free time ended and the shift began. Athena hurried off to her rooftop poolside bar station, Theodora unpinned her clever disguise and met up with her sister in the underbasement to swap nametags, and the maids made their way to their respective floors. Beth was pale-faced, fidgety, and grumbling the whole way up.

One step into the first room and Seth realized why: these suites were no joke. Even a single room seven floors down from the master suite was bigger and fancier than any glossy hotel room he’d seen pictured in magazines for rich people. Whoever rented these was used to the star treatment, and mistakes would not be tolerated. Thankfully, the maid cart on this floor came with a handy list of extra steps to take when cleaning these rooms. Even so, he worked through them with inordinate care – just in case.

He was distracted when he stepped into his third room that night, wondering if he’d turned down the sheets properly on the kitchen/dinette sized bed in the previous room. His mind wandered – where did they even get sheets that fit such a bed? Was there a factory responsible for making linens so big you could drape an entire house under a single sheet? All important questions to be pondered as he slotted his door stopper into the doorframe. He hit the light switch on the way in, thus revealing a room even more embarrassingly, sickeningly opulent than the previous ones.

An audible groan escaped him. The room was an absolute sty. Clothes that would have made Athena cry just to touch were strewn over every available surface as if whoever was renting the room had simply decided to set a bomb off in her suitcase to unpack. The mirror on the vanity was printed with lipstick kisses, and makeup wipes spilled like crinkly snowballs from the overturned garbage can.

And that was all he had time to see before the lights turned off. He whirled around, and the last thing he saw in the rectangle of light coming in from the hall was a woman’s figure removing his doorstop. Then the door swung shut, and he was in darkness.

“Don’t scream,” the person by the door said. “I know how thick these walls are. No one will hear you.”

Seth screamed anyway. The voice in the darkness waited a moment, then said, matter-of-factly, “I told you so.”

“Who are you!?” he demanded.

She flicked the lights back on, and Seth saw a very familiar face staring back at him. A face he had seen in at least three movies at the cinema in just the past year.

“Lindsey Landon!?” he whispered.

She stepped forwards, grinning from ear to ear.

He had a thousand questions, but the one he managed first was, “My girlfriend is such a huge fan of yours. Would you be able to give me your autograph for her?”

Lindsey snorted. “You’re allowed to be a fan, dude. I can make it out to you. You don’t have to pretend.”

“No, it’s literally-”

She walked up to him, studied his nametag and said, “So I’m making it out ‘to Seth’?”

“Her name is Athe-”

But it was too late. Lindsey had produced a glossy black and white headshot of herself and scrawled “Seth – it’s okay to admire woman actresses. You’re not a sissy. Lots of love, Lindsey,” in perfect, loopy script.  

She extended the photo to him, and he frowned. Before he could grab ahold of it, however, she yanked it away and spun out of his reach – not that he was reaching. He recoiled in surprise.

“Seth, I’m going to need a few things from you before you can have this. I promise it won’t be too tough.”

He winced. “What?” It was more an expression of surprise than a query about his supposed duties, but the actress was undeterred.

“Sit,” she said with a dismissive gesture at the vanity stool. He sank down into the lush padding, wondering how many birds had to die to provide the feather stuffing. “Now. How long do you think it’d take you to clean my room?”

Was it a trick question? He shifted his eyes uneasily around at the mess, discovering several new abhorrences in the process. A spilled cup of water on the nightstand. Every single lampshade in the room was askew, as if she’d deliberately gone around tilting them. No fewer than thirteen dirty dishes were littered in various hiding places around the room, though he suspected there were more under the bed. The bed itself was flush with stuffed animals that, according to hotel policy, he’d have to tuck cutely into bed. He could imagine a good half hour solely lining each one up and giving it a little pat on the head before pulling the covers up to their chins, just as he’d been trained to. And vacuuming up the crumbs strewn in gritty constellations across the deep plush carpet? All million meters squared of it? He didn’t even want to think about it.

“Ah… an hour? And a half?” he lied. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings with a more honest estimate of two and a half hours.

But her face lit up. “Excellent. Well, I don’t want my room cleaned. I just want to pick your brain during that time.”

Seth’s face must have given away his horror, because she backpedaled quickly. “Not literally! But we have… much to discuss. Listen, I know something’s up with this hotel.”

She wasn’t wrong, but over the past month Seth had developed a fondness for the place. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not really allowed to just chat....”

Lindsey sat down cross-legged on the carpet in front of him, despite the complete surplus of other seating surfaces available. She flipped her straight brown hair over one shoulder and propped her chin in her hands, acting as if she hadn’t heard him. “D’you know what I saw yesterday, Seth?”

“…Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“No.”

“A….” He glanced over her shoulder at her heap of stuffed animals for inspiration. “A… frog?” he croaked.  

She leaned forward, as if holding the information in was physically painful. “I saw a decorative suit of armor vaping. Like, with a strawberry-scented e-cig. Then it flipped up its visor-thing, and there was no one inside.”

Seth frowned. “We have decorative suits of armor? Where?”

“See?” She stood up quickly and started pacing, as if he’d somehow proven her point. “One of your jack-o-lanterns stuck its tongue out at me! A human tongue came out of that pumpkin, Seth!”

“…Ew….”

“I ordered mashed potatoes just like grandpa used to make from the kitchen and they chopped up little carrots into them! Without me telling them to! Just like grandpa used to make!”

“Okay that’s-”

“One of the other maids is a vampire!”

“What?”

“The carpet in here is so soft I fell asleep on the floor instead of in bed last night!”

“No, back to that last thing. A vampire maid?”

Lindsey frowned. “The one in the cape. He was here yesterday, and I came in, and he was counting all my stuffed animals. I went to open the blinds and he made up some bloody quick excuse and got the fuck outta here.”

“Um, I don’t think….”

“That’s why I didn’t ask him for information. I want to keep my blood.”

Seth sighed. “Obviously none of the maids are vampires.”

“Well, maybe it was a vampire pretending to be a maid and not one of the real ones. Bottom line: this place is weird.” She looked expectantly at him. “You know this place is weird, right?”

“Yeah, it’s weird,” he admitted, digging the toe of his shoe into the carpet. “It’s really something, but-”

“I just want to know what you know,” she said.

“Why?”

She blinked up at him. “What do you mean, why?”

“I mean, what’s it to you? You’re just here to film a movie, right?”

“But. It’s. Cool.”

He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know anything either. Things just happen, Ms. Landon.” He stood up and straightened his uniform.

“Ms. Landon?” she repeated, turning her eyes to the window. “I haven’t heard that name in years.”

“Are you… not… Lindsey Landon?”

She laughed. “No, no, I am. It’s just, I’m Lindsey Landon, you know? Most people just call me Lindsey. You can too. Plus, that meme is funny.”

Seth was still making his way to the door, but she stopped him. “Hey, Seth? You said you wanted an autograph for your girlfriend. Is that true?”

“She’s a huge fan,” he said, turning back. “It would mean a lot to her if you would.”

Lindsey smiled. “Pretty presumptuous of me to assume you were just trying to act cool. Here.” She grabbed another photo from the stack on the desk. “What’s her name?”

“Athena.”

“Athena,” Lindsey repeated. She paced over to the vanity table, grabbed an eyeliner pencil, and scribbled a few words. Then, as he watched, she applied a thick coat of bright red lipstick and pressed her lips to the bottom corner. “Give her this.”

“’Athena – Your name is really cool. Wish I could have met you, too! Stay beautiful… lipstick’” Seth read aloud.

“It’s a kiss, dweeb.”

“You can meet her,” Seth said. “If you get the urge for a drink, she’d probably pass out if you went up to the rooftop poolside bar where she’s stationed.”

“She works here?” Lindsey’s eyes lit up. “Seth, how long have you been here?”

“At the hotel?”

“No, like, in my room. You said it’d take an hour and a half to clean it? We probably still have an hour and fifteen minutes to kill. Let’s go!”

Seth was never more proud of Athena than when he saw her bartending. She was nothing short of acrobatic – strolling around behind the bar juggling open bottles of liquor and spilling nary a drop, all in perfect time to the music. Her theatrics drew a crowd every night; no one could get enough of watching her flip, pour, bounce, ignite, and balance bottles, mixers, and even the drinks themselves on various unlikely parts of her body.

When Lindsey arrived on scene, she was in the process of lining a row of shot glasses down one forearm.

“Holy shit,” Lindsey whispered to Seth. “What’s she doing?”

Seth’s face broke into a grin. “Just watch!”

With her free arm, Athena poured a flawless line of rainbow shots into the glasses. She maintained perfect balance as she walked the length of the bar, allowing the patrons gathered to pluck a glass from the row one at a time. When all the glasses were gone, she dipped into a deep bow.

“She’s amazing,” Seth whispered reverently. But Lindsey was no longer beside him.

She’d pushed her way to the front of the crowd, and he could just hear her voice over the din of the bar.

“Your boyfriend wanted me to give you this,” she said as she slid the autographed portrait across the bar to Athena. “But honestly, after seeing that, I want your autograph!”

For the first time in a very long time, Athena nearly dropped the glass she was polishing. “Lindsey Landon!?” Her face flushed, she bit her lip, and a strand of hair from her perfect updo came loose. It fluttered gently against her cheek, stirred by her suddenly heavy breathing. “Oh my god!”

Suddenly, she caught sight of Seth standing in the background, and smiled even wider.

“I can’t believe it!” she said.

Unobtrusively, the other on-duty bartender slid up next to Athena and began picking up orders in her stead. Seth recognized him, though they’d barely spoken: this was Bartholomew, the man who had taught Athena everything she knew about mixology and flair bartending.

Lindsey dragged Seth into the conversation to form a little circle.

“One Sourtoe cocktail for me, and… something virgin for this guy, he’s still on the clock.”

Athena squealed and shot a giddy look at Seth.

She always lit up the room when she was bartending, but in front of one of her biggest idols, she completely outdid herself.

Bartholomew caught her eye and nodded, then tossed Athena a bottle. Slowly, deliberately, the two of them fell into a rhythm next to each other in a pair dance of bartending. She flipped a bottle through the air and he caught it, let it roll down his arm, then propped it between his arm and chin to pour from his elbow. Athena wove around behind him to take the bottle, flip it, catch it on her upturned forearm, then bounce it effortlessly back onto the shelf. The motion was so swift and fluid; two masters of their trade putting on the most amazing show Seth had ever seen them give.

The entire bar fell silent as they watched, entranced, until everyone’s orders had been filled. The two bartenders bowed.

Several seconds of silence followed the performance. Then, finally, Lindsey stood up. Soon her clapping was joined by dozens of other hands, everyone out of their seats, in the bar’s first ever standing ovation.

Athena served Lindsey’s drink personally, reciting the famous motto of the sourtoe cocktail.

Lindsey wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t think you’d actually… serve this,” she admitted. “I thought this was like, a one-bar-in-the-world thing.”

“At the Alice, we take our customer’s requests very seriously,” Athena replied. “But you don’t-”

“Oh, I’m going to. I. Am. Going to.” With quick wink, Lindsey downed the entire nasty cocktail and thunked the empty glass back onto the bar. “Delicious,” she said, but her pursed lips and wrinkled nose said otherwise.

Seth looked at the grisly garnish, which looked even more withered and horrible without its booze bath. He sipped his own drink, a fruity virgin affair that Athena knew was his favorite. “Is that a….”

“It bloody well is,” Lindsey said. “I’m surprised you had this on hand.”

“Me too, actually,” Athena muttered. “Never seen it before today.”

“Gross,” Seth said. “I’m not even going to ask.”

Exactly an hour and a half later, Lindsey escorted him back to her room.

“Your girlfriend is the most amazing person I have ever seen in my entire life,” Lindsey said. “If I wasn’t already gay, I would be after seeing that.”

Seth blushed. “I am the luckiest man in the entire world,” he said. “Honestly,-”

“Damn right you are,” Lindsey said. “Tell her to h-m-u if she’s ever not straight.”

“I-I’ll be sure to do that,” he stammered. It wasn’t until the door had closed behind Lindsey that he remembered what hmu stood for.

Then he was alone in the hall again. As he gathered supplies from his cart to begin cleaning the next room, he replayed the events of the evening.

Conclusively, he decided he could never trust actors. Lindsey had gotten exactly what she wanted from he and Athena: stories from their time there, theories about what was behind the strange happenings at the Alice… and yet, though he knew he’d been played, Seth couldn’t be properly angry. It’d been an incredible hour and a half, and he knew Athena had had the night of her life. Selling out and spilling the extra-ordinary details of their magical hotel to a probably well-meaning and simply curious stranger wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Not if it made Athena smile like that.

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #original story #original writing #writers on tumblr

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Interlude 2: Ruth and God

The summer before she began working at the Alice, Ruth vacationed. She meant to take some time to find herself. Instead, she found a God she never asked for.

It happened in Italy. The heat drove Ruth into short shorts and a tank top for her visit to Assisi, but her garb was not copacetic with the guards of the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi.

“C’mon,” she muttered. “It’s hot!”

The guard was so thoroughly unimpressed with her behavior that he said nothing. She squinted at the downturned corners of his mouth, where tiny wrinkle fissures revealed he was well-versed in the art of not smiling.

“Have you ever smiled?” she asked quietly. Since she clearly wasn’t getting in, might as well say her piece. “What kind of God cares what kind of clothes I wear if I’m going to grovel in his place of worship anyway? What, I’m too scandalous to grovel? Is that it? God’s never seen shoulders before?”

The guard let her vent. A sudden moment of ridiculous embarrassment washed over her – this man was so stoic she could easily be arguing with a wax figure of a guard, placed there much the same way a scarecrow stands in a field.

No. No reasonable sculptor would include that much nose hair.

“Please?” she tried again. “I just want pictures for my girlfriend. She’s so religious and she’s always wanted to come here! I’ll only be one second!”

At the mention of a girlfriend, the guard’s bushy eyebrows descended into a frown. Still, he did not speak.

“Keep your dumb church,” Ruth said after an awkward moment of silence. “Fuck it.” She was standing just far enough inside the massive entrance of the basilica to feel significantly vindicated knowing she had cussed in one of the most famous churches in the world.

The guard finally opened his mouth, but Ruth was already out of earshot.

Thankfully, there is more than one church in Assisi. And Beth hadn’t felt the need to specify which one she wanted pictures of. It wasn’t long before Ruth found the perfect one – Santo Stefano. No guards in sight, hell, no people at all in sight! Little more than a hole in the wall. She slipped in through the open door.

There was none of the basilica’s pomp and circumstance in this tiny church, but Ruth instantly felt more comfortable here. It was so still, so silent. Even the dust hung almost immobile in the air, catching the sunlight coming in through the door behind her. She was struck dumb by the quiet serenity of the place. Wordlessly, she raised her camera and took a single picture facing the altar, not even bothering to look through her viewfinder.

Ruth was not a religious woman, not by a long shot. And yet, something about this place made her want to pray. She tiptoed cautiously forward and sidled into a pew, then tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

“Dear god,” she began, but that was as far as she got.

“Ruth of Anchorage,” God said. “Be Not Afraid.”

Ruth sat bolt upright and looked around the church.

“I am the Lord Your God.”

Ruth cursed at Him, specifically. Then she cursed again, in general.

“I have called you by name,” God said. He was starting to sound a bit annoyed. “I’m beginning to think I should have sent Gabriel to do it instead.”

Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll go away, she thought.

But God said unto Ruth, “That’s Him to you. Capitalized.”

“God fucking damnit!” she screamed. “Go away!”

He did not go away. When she ignored Him, her palms started bleeding. She left the church, searching frantically for something to soak up the mess, weaving a thin red trail through the narrow streets.  Unfortunately, traveling through such a religious town bearing the wounds of Christ was less than an easy task. It wasn’t long before she had a little following, but when people started trying to touch her hands or kneel and kiss the trail of blood, she became truly unsettled.

“I’ll say there’s a stigma!” Ruth hissed when she’d found a deserted alley to duck into. “What did you do to my hands?”

“You shall bear my son,” God said.

“I won’t!” she protested. “I’m a lesbian!”

He paused. “Really? Hm. How about that.”

“Go find someone else,” Ruth said.

“No. I am certain I have chosen the right person. God makes no mistakes, you know. If that’s the case, then you must be my prophet.”

“Fucking hell,” Ruth muttered.

“First, I believe we have to work on your language,” He said.

“And why do you sound like Optimus Prime?”

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #original writing #writers on tumblr #interlude

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Link to Chapter 2

Hey everyone! Chapter 2 is up and ready to go! You can check it out here!

Also, don’t forget that if there’s some aspect of the story mentioned in this chapter or the last that you’re interested in, you can request it to be explored in greater detail in an Interlude by sending an ask to this blog! (In fact, I’d be super psyched if you did!)

Hope everyone’s having a great September, and good luck to those going back to school!

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #original writing #writers on tumblr #original story

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Chapter 2: Seth Meets God and Gives Up on Normalcy Entirely

For Seth, finding room 724 in an unfamiliar hotel with erratic and possibly fluid geography, accompanied only by a potentially sentient flamingo, was no small task. It wasn’t accessible from the main elevator bank, so he had to make his way from floor to floor, searching for a way there. Fergie kept pace easily, seemingly unfatigued by the Odyssey. And strangely, not one of the guests Seth encountered looked askance at the trainee maid and the pink bird on a bejeweled leash. Finally, he found the room, though he’d be hard pressed to say if he’d learned a thing about the layout of the place or if it’d been sheer coincidence.  

“H…housekeeping,” he said shyly as he knocked. That’s what they did in movies, right?

The door swung wide.

“So, you’ve brought the bird - oh! Seth my dear! You’re here!”

He nearly dropped the leash. For a moment, his stomach lurched into his mouth, twisting his guts as it rose, making him sway on his feet before he regained his balance.

The picture he’d seen in the bellhop closet swam before his eyes – the portrait of the old woman he thought he recognized with the massive pearl earrings. Massive, fake pearl earrings he’d seen so many times in his life they simply seemed a part of the woman who wore them. Earrings he’d thought he’d never see again, because they were supposed to be six feet under with the woman who wore them.

No, he thought. There’s no way. But when he tried to speak, all he could manage was, “Grandma!?”

Her funeral had been open-casket. No bones about it; they’d definitely buried her, earrings and all, and she’d definitely been dead at the time.

“H-how? I thought….” His voice was just a phantom of its regular volume.

“Come in, come in,” Grandma Elsie said, gripping his shoulder and pulling him into the room. “Isn’t it lovely? When your mother suggested going into a home I’ll admit I had my doubts, but this place is wonderful!

She took the leash from Seth’s slack fingers.

“Oh, and you’ve even brought Fergie for me. What a sweet man you’re growing into, Seth. If only you’d come visit more.” She looked closer at his uniform, at his nametag.

“Do you work here, Seth? I didn’t know that!”

“Grandma, I don’t understand.” His voice was deadly quiet.

“I don’t either! You’d think your mother would have told me. Unless she told you to keep an eye on this old girl in secret!”

“N…no….” Was he seeing a ghost? Her grip on his shoulder had felt real enough. The believability of it all was more disturbing than anything else; there had to be some mistake.

Elsie was still talking, but Seth couldn’t hear her. Had all the bizarre things he’d seen – the chute, his living room sitting pretty in the underbasement, the aviary – had they all been steps on a staircase of delusion? Sure he’d been playing along until now, too unsure of himself to question what was happening around him, but raising the dead? Not in real life, no way.

Finally, Elsie’s voice cut through his puzzling. “So how’s school been, my dear?”

He stiffened. Reality moved in swiftly once more, along with a feeling not unlike stepping in a bucket of ice water. Somehow, the topic of school was more uncomfortable than the prospect of his dead grandmother appearing in front of him.

“I, um, dropped out.” No use in lying.

“Well, that’s good!”

Seth rammed his hands into his pockets and scuffed his feet against the floor.

“Tea?” Elsie offered.

“No thanks, Gran.” Elsie had the unfortunate talent of making what was possibly the vilest tea possible from perfectly ordinary ingredients.

Seth couldn’t tear his eyes away from the flamingo, strutting its way around the hotel room. Silently, he begged it to make some mistake. Just one little glitch, a foot clipping through the floor, anything to prove that this wasn’t real.

“More for us then. Isn’t that right, Fergie?”

He frowned. “I don’t really think you should be giving him tea, Grandma,” he said.

“Nonsense. It’s flamingo tea.”

It was too much. “What is this place?” he demanded, flinching immediately at his harsh tone.

Elsie put down the tea tin (which, Seth noticed, truly was wrapped in a label advertising its safety for flamingoes).“My nursing home?”  

He sat down on the bed, still made up to hotel standards, and looked up at her. “Is this even real?!”  

Elsie patted him on the shoulder. Even Fergie, unflappable bird that he was, rested his beak on Seth’s knee. “Sethie, is everything alright?” she asked.

“Things that shouldn’t be able to happen keep happening. It’s like this place is magic or something.”

“Maybe it is?” she suggested.

Seth pulled a face.

“No need to be so quick to dismiss things.”

“Grandma, why did you even order this flamingo?”

She stroked Fergie’s feathered head. “I wanted some company. But then, if I knew I could just order my grandson I’d have done that from the beginning.”

Her smile was so familiar. It hit him, then, that he hadn’t gotten the chance to grieve when she died. The move to Alaska had come so soon after her funeral. “I missed you, Grandma.” Seeing her again may be a blessing in heavy disguise, but he realized that this may be his only chance to take advantage of it.

“Well, I’m right here,” she said. “Now that I’m all settled in, I doubt I’ll be going anywhere.”

“At this… nursing home?” Probably best not to bring up the fact that it was just a regular hotel. He nearly snickered. A regular hotel, right. For all he knew, maybe it was a nursing home and he was the one in the wrong.

“Of course! I’ll always be right here.” She frowned. “Until I die. Then you’re on your own.”

He stared blankly at her, and she burst into laughter.

“A joke, Seth! Don’t write this old gal off just yet.”

“I, um, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And you know, as soon as I got here my arthritis just cleared right up. I think it’s the soaks in the hot springs in the basement.”

“Which basement?”

“Hm?”

“Nothing. I’m glad it helped.” He shook his head, trying not to laugh.

“You and me both.” She stretched. “I know I can’t keep you too long. There’s no use listening to me ramble when you’ve got work that needs doing. Promise me you’ll drop in on me every now and then? Fergie is lovely, but it does get lonely.”

Work. He was still at work. This was the strangest day he’d ever experienced in all his life.

“I’ll do my best, Grandma. I love you.” When he hugged her, she seemed so much sturdier than she’d been the last time he saw her, ravaged as she’d been by old age. It was strangely reassuring.

“Of course you will,” she said with a soft smile. “And I love you too, Seth.”

He stood up and shuffled awkwardly to the door. There were the cursory goodbyes, the pats on the back and the kisses left hovering a centimeter above Elsie’s lined cheeks. The last thing he saw before he closed the door was Fergie settling himself, catlike, into the impression Seth had made when he sat down on the bed.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the hallway felt uncomfortably silent, as if he’d been sealed into the vacuum of space rather than stepping out of a hotel room. He wandered aimlessly down the hall, snapping his fingers every few steps to thinly distract himself from the fact that he had no idea where to go or what to do next. He supposed finding an elevator and making his way to the underbasement was a good plan, assuming the Theos would eventually turn up there.

Quite a lot of time had passed by the time he ran into a maid. She seemed around twenty, like him, but taller, with blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her uniform was different from Seth’s; it was old fashioned, with an ankle-length black skirt, a high-necked ruffled blouse, and a starched white apron.

Her outfit was a startling contrast with her face. A lovely constellation of piercings dotted her features – multiple rings and studs in her lips, nose, ears and eyebrows. He pulled up short, immediately shy around her.

She looked him over before she spoke. “Do you work here?”

“Today is my first day,” he said. “I’m looking for an elevator.”

A grin split her face. “Welcome! Let me guess… bellhop?”

“Maid, actually.”

Her smile widened. “I am, too. I’m Beth.”

“Seth.”

“No, Beth – oh.” She winced. “You’re Seth.”

He nodded.

“How come you’re all by yourself? That’s hardly standard procedure.”

“I lost….” Suddenly Seth couldn’t remember which sister he’d been paired with. “I lost Theo.”

“Which one?”

“I… can’t remember,” he admitted.

Beth nodded. “No one ever really knows. Sometimes they swap nametags just to fuck with us.” She adjusted her necklace – a small silver cross that rested over her blouse. “But anyway, it’s just about lunch. You don’t need an elevator. If you follow me, we can probably make it in time to sit with everyone.”

Though Seth didn’t know where they were going, Beth hung back and motioned for him to take the lead. Even worse, she didn’t seem keen on giving directions. Rather, she corrected him once he’d already wandered astray.

But somehow, without ever seeing an elevator or a staircase, making their way through a complex maze of private, vacant guest rooms and suites, they emerged in the underbasement.

“How do you navigate this place?” he asked her. “It’s impossible!”

“It’s not that hard.”

“No, I mean the layout is literally impossible. There’s no way we made it here without actually going downwards.

“Oh, yeah, it’s definitely impossible.”

He squinted. “That doesn’t… bother you?”

“Nah.” Beth was quiet a moment, thoughtful. “It’s confusing, but not in a bad way. I’ve never gotten lost.”

“Never?”

“Not that I can remember. I’ve been here two years, and it hasn’t happened. It’s like the hotel knows the way to send you, if you let it.”

“That’s… one way of looking at it. I guess.” He huffed. “I got lost.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I, um, yes, I most certainly did. Twice.”

“Did you end up finding what you were looking for?”

“The first time. The second time I found you instead.”

“Then you weren’t lost. You found me,” she protested.

“I wasn’t looking for you. I was looking for an elevator.”

“That’s a you problem,” Beth said. She stepped around him, finally taking the lead.

“This place is just too weird,” he grumbled.

“I mean, I know you’ve probably seen things that can’t be what they seem.”

“I have.”

“But they are what they seem. I don’t know if it’s magic, or what. None of us do. You want to know the one thing I do know for sure?”

Seth nodded. Beth, ahead of him, took his silence for a yes.

“Don’t give yourself a headache over it. Just sit back and enjoy the show! You’re part of the Alice family, now.”

The gleaming cafeteria that Seth had seen empty that morning now hummed with activity. He checked his phone – 5AM. This lunch was brunch for all the wrong reasons.

The tables were full of individuals in every manner of dress. For a hotel that came with a ‘uniform’, things were surprisingly individualistic. There was Beth, with her old-timey garb and – hey! He’d spotted the Theos waving at him from a table they were sharing with the girl called Samantha, all who wore nondescript black scrubs. Nathaniel, stuffing food up under his bee net and lost in conversation with a girl who had what appeared to be a nest woven into her unkempt hair. A bird poked its beak out, and she held up a table morsel for it. Definitely a nest. One man wore a long, dark cape as he picked carefully through rice. It looked for all the world as if he was actually counting every single grain.

A distinctly nondescript girl waved animatedly at Beth, then blew her a kiss. Beth caught the kiss in her hand and then held up the universal punk-rock horn gesture with both hands, sticking out her tongue.

“That’s Ruth, my girlfriend,” she explained. Ruth wore a loose-fitting T shirt and jeans. “She’s already got my lunch. I’ll go get us a spot by her while you order!”

“Right,” Seth said. He weaved his way over to the line of wooden dumbwaiters set into the high-gloss white tile of the wall and picked up the slightly rusted Campell’s soup can sitting next to it. He turned the thing over and over in his hands, trying to figure out how it worked.

A woman in a floor length, shimmering black gown walked up to the can next to him, picked it up, and spoke into it.

“Hey up there! Can I get one order of Caesar salad, pretty please and thank you? And if you could hold the meat, that’d be awesome.” She held the can away from her face and giggled. “No, not this time. Alright, thanks Cynth.”

She set the can down.

Seth was still staring, partly because he was confused as hell, and partly because she was so beautiful. She bobbed her head at him and looked expectantly at the wooden panel. It was almost physically painful to move his eyes from her face, but Seth slowly turned his head to the can now sitting on the ledge in front of her.

“Oh,” she said finally. Then she smiled, and Seth had to look away. “You’re new here. And probably hungry?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You’re maybe hungry.”

“Okay, I’m hungry.”

The dumbwaiter in front of the girl made a sound like two pieces of wood colliding. She slid open the door and produced an exquisite bowl of Caesar Salad.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“The can,” she said. She pulled a shaker of parmesan cheese from the inside of the dumbwaiter, shook it over her salad, and replaced it. The door slid closed on its own. Seth watched in silence until she continued. “Just order into the can.”

“Like, verbally?”

“Like, verbally.”

Seth frowned at the soup label. It had to be some kind of joke. “I’m not doing that.”

“Then I hope you like being hungry,” she said pleasantly, and headed for her seat.

He stood, alone, in front of the little elevator, until it seemed like he’d only make a further fool of himself by not trying the woman’s suggestion. With his back turned to the rest of the room and his head carefully tilted so no one would see that he was speaking into an empty can, he whispered, “Hello?”

Immediately, a chipper, alert female voice sounded from within the can. “Goooood evening! You’ve reached the Midnight Kitchen, how may I help you?”

Startled, Seth choked on his own spit. When he was done coughing, he said, “H…hi?”

“And hello to you too, sir! Sustenance, I presume?”

She spoke so quickly, he couldn’t properly process her words. “U-um....”

The voice laughed, and when it spoke again the aggressive cheeriness had drained from her tone, replaced by genuine amusement. “Are you hungry?”

“Uh-”

“What can I getcha?”

What’s even on offer? Best to play it safe. “A Caesar salad, please.”

“Copying Athena, are we?”

“Not-”

“It’ll be right down, Seth! Have a nice day!”

The can rattled a bit from the inside and went silent, so Seth placed it back down on the ledge. As if they day could have gotten any weirder.

A minute later, the wooden panel in front of him slid open. He could smell the salad before he saw it, and saliva flooded his mouth. Amid all the confusion, it’d been too easy to forget how hungry he was.

 Back at the table, Beth introduced him to her girlfriend.

“Ruth’s a prophet,” she said after initial formalities. “A real one. She carries the voice of God.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Prophet still sounds so fusty.”

“The voice of God?” Seth asked.

“More like… the nagging of God. The whining of God,” Ruth said.

“I don’t get it.”

Beth was leaning so far over the table towards Seth in apparent anticipation that he could have touched noses with her. “Wait’ll you hear this. Do it, God!”

A breezy sigh came from the general direction of Ruth, ruffling his hair, and then a voice spoke. “Hello, Seth.”

He jumped in his seat. “What!?”

The voice was deep, resounding, incredibly familiar, and a few heads turned from other tables to glance at Ruth. The onlookers lost interest quickly and returned to their meals.

“I am The Lord Your God.”

The voice did not remind Seth of God. “You sound just like Optimus Prime,” he said after a moment.

Beth and Ruth burst into laughter, nearly drowning out the voice’s frustrated huff.

“Optimus Prime sounds like me.”

Ruth wiped a tear from her eye and tried to catch her breath to speak. “Sure, God, sure….”

“He gets that all the time!” Beth wheezed. “All the time!”

“It’s not funny!” God boomed. All eyes in the lunchroom turned to their table, and several people snickered.

“Yes it is!” the two women said between giggles..

In response, the water in Ruth’s cup turned red.

“The blood thing again? Really? I was thirsty,” she complained when she’d calmed down. “Don’t be a pouty-pants.”

The water slowly turned clear again. “I have always sounded like this, long before Peter Cullen was lucky enough to have this voice.”

“We know, Big G,” Beth said. “It’s just funny.”

Seth hadn’t taken a single bite of his food. “So you’re just… you’re god?”

“Capital G,” he replied. “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” he said, sounding almost bored.

“Like, Ten Commandments God?”

“In the flesh.”

“My flesh,” Ruth muttered.

God ignored her. “Be not afraid, Seth of Saskatoon, Son of Eric and of Meredith.”

“Woah,” Seth whispered. “That’s insane! You can’t just tell me you’re possessed by God of all people.”

“I don’t know if he’s really in the ‘people’ category,” Beth said.

Ruth interrupted. “I’m not possessed. I was just on vacation to some church and I heard him talk.”

God chuckled, a sound so bewildering to Seth that he could only blink. “And Ruth said unto God, ‘Fuck off,’” he recalled.

“You told God to fuck off?” Seth asked. That had to be some kind of blasphemy, or something.

“I chose Ruth because she would not be silenced,” God explained. “Not even in the face of God.”

“Chose her for what?”

“In good time, Seth. For now, you must eat.”

Seth blinked at his salad for a moment. “Can I ask just one more question?”

Beth raised an eyebrow. “He won’t tell us if we’re going to heaven or what the meaning of life is or why he allows so much suffering in the world….”

“My grandma… died,” Seth interrupted.

“Yes,” God said. “I know. It was her time.”

“But she’s in room 724. I just saw her.”

“What?” God asked.

“Ew,” Beth said. She scrunched her nose. “Like, rotting?”

“No. Like, alive.”

God was silent. Seth thought that perhaps he was thinking until Ruth took another bite of her sandwich – and he realized that no answer would be forthcoming. Beth patted his hand and turned back to her spaghetti.

“It is what it is,” she said quietly. “Told you this place was weird.

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #original writing #original story #writers on tumblr

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

On the subject of Interludes: Each one will be published on the 1st of every month, and will go into a bit more detail on one specific part of the Alice universe, be it character background, world history, or anything of the sort.

After playing around with the idea, I’ve decided the subject of monthly Interludes will be available for request, meaning that people can feel free to message me with subjects they’d like to see explored in the Interludes. Bear in mind that I’ll only be able to choose one per month! Requests can be sent to the inbox of this blog. Because there’s only a very small following for this story, I’ll continue choosing subjects on my own in the event no requests are sent!

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #interlude

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Interlude 1: Theroux’s Watch

The Alice’s manager, front desk-man and clock winder – for all intents and purposes, the grease in the hotel’s gears – was born to an accountant father and a clockmaker mother. Timekeeping is in his blood: his mother, her mother before her, and her mother’s mother have all been clockmakers. Trace it far enough back, and you’ll find the Mayan brainiac who first looked at the stars and thought she saw a way to tell time.

Theroux has not been blessed with the gift of clockmaking. Instead, he focuses on the fine art of hotel management.  He balances his love for timekeeping with his love for order and routine. Theroux does not like surprises.

His sister, however, does have the gift. Her timepieces are beautiful, certainly, but she tends towards more unorthodox projects. For her little brother’s twelfth birthday, she crafted him a beautifully utilitarian, utterly huge watch. She never made another one like it. The memory of the day he received it is one he still treasures to this day.

Newly twelve, Theroux blinked at the watch. “But it counts backwards!”

Amelie grinned wide. “I know, that’s what makes it so cool. I made it using one of your baby teeth. See?” Through a little window set into the clock’s face, Theroux could see his tooth, locked into the machinery. It beat like a heart. “This watch shows how much time you have left until you die. I was a bit nervous to make it, because I was scared I’d find out something terrible. But look! You’re going to live a perfectly long life! Isn’t that brilliant?” She leaned forward to fasten the watch onto his wrist. Etched below the tooth was golden script, spelling out a date and time, which Amelie pointed to. “This is when you’ll die. But now that you know exactly when, you’ll be able to budget your time wisely, won’t you?”

Theroux’s eyes went as wide as the watch face itself, and smile spread slowly over his face. He clutched the timepiece to his chest.

 A breathy giggle escaped his lips. “This is… it’s perfect.”

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #interlude #memento mori man

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Link to Chapter 1!

Hey guys! Chapter 1 is officially UP! To avoid spamming people’s dashes by reblogging the chapter in its entirety (and because i know readmores don’t always work, I’m linking the post here!

Chapter 1

#original writing #writers on tumblr

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Chapter 1: In Which Seth Begins to Wonder Exactly What He’s Gotten Into

if you are a lost and wandering soul, or seeking rest before your journey folds, allow heaven’s tilt to guide you to sleep at the alice of the midnight sun

                               -Tori

 Seth closed the brochure and hesitated outside of the cubicle. Alice of the Midnight Sun, hiring maids. A hotel. It definitely caught his eye more than some of the other places he’d seen so far. He wondered what his mother would say if he got hired as a maid. “You know, you can clean my bathroom any time too!”

The blandness of the Anchorage job fair: the beige cubicles, the tired interviewers, the forms and applications, the gradually thinning stack of identical resumes in his hand. All of it was wearing on him. He hoped that at the very least, this interview might be interesting.

The man in the cubicle was middle aged, rail thin, all handsome features and sharp angles. And then he smiled, so wide and genuine that it lit up the room – or maybe he was just blinded by the man’s teeth, white and straight as a picket fence. Seth couldn’t help but smile back. There was a snow-globe on the desk, next to a nameplate that read simply: Theroux. As soon as Seth sat down, the man flipped the snowglobe.

“Name?” he asked, without so much as a hello.

“Seth,” he replied dutifully.

“Mm.” Theroux made a note on his clipboard. All traces of his welcoming demeanor had vanished; he was all business now. In the snowglobe, the storm was winding down, only a few flakes still drifted hazily in the liquid atmosphere. “Favorite colour?” Theroux continued.

“What?”

“Favorite. Colour.” He enunciated every syllable, with strong emphasis on the T. Seth sat up straighter.

“Um… yellow. Why?”

He underlined something, then flipped the page. “When can you start?”

“Uh, now. I mean, whenever!”

“Now would be appropriate,” Theroux said, glancing briefly at the snowglobe. It was then that Seth noticed a truly immense timepiece on his wrist, looking heavy enough to hold down his entire arm. But he lifted it effortlessly, and held his hand out to Seth. The watch was thicker than his wrist; it looked like a little island of metal supported by a very thin bridge. The impulse to refuse the handshake, to see just how long that twiggy arm could hold up the watch, shook Seth. He resisted. Theroux’s hand was strong, and almost oppressively warm. “The Alice welcomes you,” he said, and the inviting demeanor with which he had greeted Seth was back.

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. All the practicing for the interviews, all the preparation of references, his carefully crafted resume. All the other interviewers had turned him down, but this one hadn’t even asked his last name!

“So, um…,” he began.

“You got the job,” Theroux said briskly. “Effective immediately.” He squinted. “Is there a problem?”

“No, of course… it’s just… that was fast?” Seth’s voice raised into a question of its own accord.

“Yes, well.” He checked his enormous watch. “It’s just that I’ve only got forty-three years, two months, and twelve days left. I must make the most of the time.”

“Left?” Seth asked.

“Yep, the exit will be on your left. Hurry now, we haven’t got all day. I expect you in tip top shape tomorrow!” He handed Seth a thick white envelope, half-pushing him out the door as he did so. “Your information packet. I trust you’ll be able to find Alice.”

And then he was out of the cubicle, taking his papers and his snowglobe and his enormous watch. So much for more interviews. Seth stepped out after him, but he’d already vanished. Alone, the envelope offered neither clues nor comfort in this strange situation.

Despite his directions, Seth found the exit on the opposite side of the job fair.

“He lied, it wasn’t on the left at all,” said Seth righteously. It wasn’t until he’d exited the building and was out in the car lot that he realized he hadn’t given the interviewer his resume or reference sheet.

He shivered slightly. It had been exactly one week since he’d moved to Anchorage with his father, and already he was staring to put down roots here. The thought made him feel a bit sick, so he tucked it away in his mind and headed for his car.

Seth’s first day on the job began at 2AM sharp, according to his information packet. Perplexed, he showed up exactly on time, in the butler-esque uniform he’d been provided. For his breast pocket, a yellow handkerchief had been included – a coincidence, or evidence that Theroux had actually noted his favorite colour? The sky was still eerily lit by a low-sitting sun, and Seth’s more southern-reared sensitivities weren’t used to all this daylight. Winter, he speculated, would be even more difficult to accept.

He’d seen the Alice before – in passing, on trips exploring his new city. Standing in front of it, in person, was an entirely different story. The building was gargantuan: a tall central building with shorter, wide wings stretching out in a semicircle on either side in an enormous embrace. The front lawn was more of a courtyard, with hundreds and hundreds of black windows gazing uniformly out at him. Above him was the logo of the hotel, the midnight sun, shining bronze and proud – the crown of the building. The way the metal caught the light truly did create the illusion of a smaller, more brilliant sun shining against the mountainous backdrop. Intimidating, and yet, Seth was not afraid to take his first steps across the lawn to the three granite stairs leading to the ornate entranceway.

Gold-gilded glass revolving doors welcomed him into the lobby, where his new supervisor (at least, if the cardboard sign she was holding – ‘Seth’s new supervisor’ – were to be believed) waited for him. She was a tall woman with blonde hair and a business pantsuit, impeccably groomed.

“You must be Seth!” she exclaimed with vigor.

He clutched his information packet, running through it again once more in his head before saying, “Are you Gwynneth?”

“That’s me! It’s lovely to meet you.” She extended her hand in greeting.

Her handshake was firm and confident, and Seth worried he was suffering a sure case of dead-fish-hand in comparison. “L-likewise,” he said chummily.

She wasted no time. “In order to get you started here, I’m going to pair you up with some of our bell-hops. I take it you’ve never visited the Alice before?”

“Never.”

Without missing a beat, she continued. “Following them will give you a better understanding of the hotel’s layout, give you a better feel for the place, than following our maidstaff would. So! Sorry to say, no toilet scrubbing today.”

Behind Gwynneth stood a pair of identically energetic women in matching black scrubs and hijabs.

“Theodora,” the first said, by way of introduction.

“Theodosia,” chimed in the second.

“Theos, plural,” Gwynneth said.

“Theos,” Seth tried, and the left Theo smirked. Theodosia, according to her nametag.

Gwynneth stepped past Seth and began to leave, but paused to ruffle his hair on the way past. “Pleasure to have you, Seth! Stick with the Theos today. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow! Oh,” she said, speaking over her shoulder as she continued walking away. “And no need to be nervous.”

Right, he thought. When he looked back at the Theos, they were already walking away. He hurried to catch up.

He stumbled after them, tripping repeatedly over the plush carpet as he went. The lobby was so opulent, with dual sweeping staircases fringing an ornate, carved wooden arched door leading to the first floor rooms. The carpet, laid out in pathways across the beige marble floor, was rich and red, and soft enough to sleep in. Seth swore his feet were getting stuck, sunk in with every step. Gold gilding covered the railings and wall mouldings, and the lobby and waiting rooms were dotted with richly upholstered couches and mahogany coffee tables. Despite it all, there wasn’t a single guest in sight. Right, he thought. 2 AM.

Behind the front desk, he caught sight of Theroux polishing a mirror. Seth caught his eye in the reflection, and Theroux flashed him an expressionless peace sign, which Seth returned with a grin.

Chandeliers lining the broad, carpeted way to the golden elevator bank seemed to be literally dripping crystals in the corners of his eyes; shining droplets that he could almost hear clinking as they hit the carpet. But when he looked, they were still, and there were no small piles of jewels beneath them. Even the few visible stars seemed to sparkle extra vividly through the massive arched windows, bright points in the deep orange light of midnight dusk. Once again, he wondered if he’d ever get used to these nights-that-weren’t-nights.

“Coming?” asked a Theo, breaking his reverie. Seth nearly saw which of the sisters had spoken, but they both turned away before he could read their nametags.

“This place is beautiful!” Seth said, too lost in the splendor to answer the question.

Both Theos stopped and regarded the extravagance around them.

“That it is,” Theodosia commented nonchalantly.

“You kind of get used to it.” Theodora shrugged. “But it is pretty nice.”

Seth doubted very much that he’d ever get used to it. All this opulence… it was unmatched, anywhere he’d been.

“You need a card to get to the restricted floors,” Theodora explained. She and her sister pulled out small, black keycards monogrammed with the hotel’s logo in white print.

“Since you’re a newb,” Theodosia explained, “Y’ain’t got one yet. But don’t worry, you can borrow mine if you end up needing one.”

“So anyway,” Theodora interrupted. “There’s a big staff commons in the underbasement. Everyone meets there. Maids, kitchen staff, animal and bird specialists, maintenance staff, librarians, desk staff… well, you get the picture.”

“You forgot the bellhops,” Theodosia said.

“Oh yeah, us. There’s more bellhops usually, but not today. We got it covered for this shift.”

“You also forgot –”

“Anyway, it’s not important,” Theodora said impatiently. “You’ll meet everyone eventually. She called an elevator and beckoned her companions inside, then inserted her keycard into a slot at the bottom of the keypad and tapped a button. It was then that Seth noticed the sheer number of buttons – far more floors than the outside of the hotel would suggest.

“Jeez, how many stories does this place have?”

“About 100, give or take a few on weekends,” said Theodosia.  

“Plus basements.”

“And extras. Can’t reach everything from this elevator bank.”

“Some rooms, you have to take the ski lift to get to.”

“How can there be one hundred stories,” Seth asked. By the time the ‘ski lift’ bit had time to process in his mind, he was too baffled to comment on it.

Theodosia shrugged. “There just are,” she said. “And you’ll be cleaning rooms on all of them, so no need to take our word on it.”

Seth said nothing. It was all too strange, like things were happening in a dream. He continued scanning the panel of buttons – lobby, basement, B1, etc…. one button, ominously, simply read, ‘Canada.’ On the very bottom of the panel was a slightly elongated button labeled ‘Underbasement,’ approximately twenty floors down from where they stood. It was this button that Theodora pushed.

“Hold onto your cookies!” she said cheerfully.

“Huh?”

Too late. The floor dropped out from beneath the three employees, and simultaneously, the lights went out.

The Theos’ echoing giggles and squeals nearly drowned out his scream. The fall was long – so long that Seth had time to reflect on the length. His scream petered out and he gasped for breath. The fall was just too long. his eyes began to adjust to the dark, seeing cracks in the elevator shaft column: doors from other floors, letting in a little bit of light.

“Theos?” he asked. He was trying to sound calm, but his voice broke on the name.

“Yep!” replied one. “’Sup, Seth?”

“What the fuck?” he asked, as conversationally as he could manage.

“It’s the chute.”

“Does this thing even have a bottom?” he asked baselessly.

“Of course. Almost there!”

Seth was suddenly unsure if reaching the bottom was a good idea, given their speed.

It was too dark to see what they fell into, but it felt like a layer of cotton balls so thick that he barely felt the slowing effect until they were seven feet into the… pile.

“Oh,” Seth said when they finally came to a stop. All ten of his fingers trembled, and he lay still, not trusting himself to even move. There was quite a large part of him that was convinced he’d definitely died.

“Totally safe,” the Theos said together. “And fun. And practical.”

“It’s so dark,” Seth said delightedly. “I can’t really… see.”

Someone clapped, and fluorescent lights flashed to life along the walls of the shaft, temporarily blinding Seth. When his eyes readjusted, he poked his head out of the top of the white fluffy cushioning that had saved his life. One of the Theo’s heads was visible; of the other, all he could see was an arm adrift in the cottony sea.

“Oh, Theo, your hijab,” said the more visible sister to the arm. “I can see your hair. Better fix it.”

“How do we get out?” Seth asked.

“We climb… swim… ish. Just make your way to that door.” Theodosia said, joining her arm in Seth’s field of view, hijab intact.

The three of them trundled through the mess in silence for several minutes.

“This is really inefficient,” Seth said.

“Beats not having a cushion,” Theodora said.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Plus, it’s pretty fun,” her sister chimed in. “The Alice loves fun.”

“Who’s Alice?”

“Not Alice. The Alice,” Theodosia corrected. “The hotel. Oh, here we are.” She pulled herself to freedom from the cushiony cloud. Through the door, Seth and the Theos entered a low-ceilinged, drippy pathway. The walls, floors, and ceiling had been painted sky-blue in an attempt to liven the place up, and someone had gone to all the trouble of painting in fluffy white clouds. It was a corridor of sky, but the exposed pipes and leaky walls made it anything but cheery. Seth thought of making the walk through here every morning, of taking the fall down the chute, and his stomach sank. The move had been hard enough to adjust to without all of the inexplicable things he’d seen this morning. Further dampening matters, his foot caught in an algae-coated, stagnant puddle and he felt the filthy cold water ooze into his sock. He scowled.

Finally, the corridor gave way to a barred steel door.

“After you,” beckoned Theodosia after she opened it. Seth stepped in.

On the other side of the door was his living room. Startled, he jumped back.

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s like that for everyone,” Theodora explained. Her eyes drifted past him, over his shoulder. “Salām, Daadi,” she said, waving at Seth’s fireplace.

“What?”

“She’s talking to our grandmother, who can’t see you,” explained Theodosia in a stage whisper. “And you can’t see her. You’re in your home, and we’re in ours. Is anyone home for you?”

“N-no?” Seth stuttered. He followed the women nervously through the room, trying not to flinch when they walked through his sofa. It was an exact replica of the new living room – he half expected his father to walk and ask him why he wasn’t at work.

Both Theos said goodbye to the figure only they could see before they left.

“What happened back there?” Seth asked.

“Oh, our grandma likes to stay up late watching the murder mysteries,” a Theo explained.

“No, I meant… that was my house!” Seth said with a frown.

“Oh. That. Yeah, sorry about that. It’s a bit weird at first. We’re occupying different places in that room,” Theodora explained.

This did nothing to ease his confusion, and his frown deepend.

“You get used to it?” she tried.

“It’s pretty convenient if you forget your lunch in the living room,” Theodosia said.

“Wait, it… it works like that? It’s real? I was just home?”

“’Course. The Alice is like that sometimes. Weird stuff happens, and honestly, you’re going to have to start getting used to it a bit faster. It’s all uphill from here.”

He was so lost. Whatever this place was, it was definitely not normal. So he followed his guides. What else was he to do?

The Theos spent the next hour showing him the underbasement, realm of the staff. A whirlwind tour that Seth barely registered. He’d begun to feel disconnected - out of tune with the oddness of his surroundings.

The cafeteria: state of the art, all steel and white marble. Surprisingly glamorous, considering it was staff-only. Food was delivered via dumbwaiter – any food, apparently. If the Theos were to be believed, Seth could eat whatever he wanted for free from the restaurant above, so long as he asked nicely into a tin can perched on the ledge next to the dumbwaiter.

The laundry room: maid headquarters. The Theos barely ‘wasted’ time showing him this room; said he’d learn all about it tomorrow. All his peers-to-be were making the rounds and doing rooms, so there was nothing to see there.

Though there was much more of the hotel to be seen, the Theos cut the tour short, claiming that the rest of the hotel wasn’t something to be toured, but to be experienced. So they ended off with the bellhop ‘office’ – a closet next to a stairwell, crammed full of all manner of things. A bed, a gaming system, several books, and an artist’s easel.

“We just chill here until someone rings for us.”

“People ring a lot.”

“We don’t chill a lot,” the Theos explained.

“And usually there are more people in.”

“It’s slow season.”

“Slow season?” Seth cut in. “It’s summer!”

“Slow season,” Theodosia confirmed.

But the most remarkable thing about the office was the charcoal images papering the walls, arranged in a carefully numbered, labeled grid. Somehow, in the tiny amount of wall space available, there seemed to be a drawing for every single room in the hotel. Each was a caricature, a uniquely captured individual glaring from the walls.

“Did you draw these?” Seth asked. He stepped closer to the walls, then jumped back. He could have sworn he saw one of the drawings wink.

“Yep!”

“They’re… they’re the guests!” he said as he caught on.

In front of his very eyes, a rheumy-looing old man with jowls for days turned and, in a series of jerky movements resembling a flip-book, left through the side of his drawing.

“There goes 216,” remarked Theodora.

“Maybe he died,” suggested Theodosia. “He was pretty old.”

Theodora giggled. “Gross.”

More and more of the portraits turned and left their drawings.

“Check out time,” Theodora said. Seth glanced at his watch. At 3:00 AM? Yet another question to add to the pile forming in his mind.

“Or they’re all dying,” Theodosia posited.

“Has anyone actually died here?” Seth asked, shaken from his confusion for a moment.

The Theos blinked at him as if unsure how to take the question.

“Hoards,” Theodosia said blankly.

“Suicides, murders, and natural causes. Lots of people seem to think this is a good place to come to die,” Theodora said.

“I bet they’re right,” said her sister.

“But don’t worry, we hardly ever find the bodies.”

“Don’t go into a room with a raven on the door handle, that’s a good rule,” Theodosia said. “They’re the hotel’s corpse-sniffing ravens. If you see one, just call security. Seriously, don’t go in. It’s not worth it.”

The silence that followed hung heavy. For his part, Seth had no idea how to respond to this information. Corpse-sniffing ravens? He was seriously beginning to believe he’d slept through his alarm and this was all a dream.

In the end, it wasn’t any of them that broke the silence. It was one of the portraits.

“OI!”

Both Theos jumped and turned to the source of the noise. One of the portraits was leaning out and, in that bizarre stop-motion art style, speaking to them.

Seth’s jaw dropped open. The woman in the drawing had overly exaggerated large pearl earrings, but on closer inspection, he could have sworn, “Hey, that looks like…”

The Theos bowed. “Bellhop service,” they said in unison.

“724 will be requiring a flamingo for this evening, please.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

The portrait retreated back into the page and fell still once more.

“Well, you heard,” Theodosia said to a still-stunned Seth. He was forced to pull his eyes from the portrait.

Theodora glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye. “Trial by fire?”

Theodosia smiled. “Exactly.”

Theodosia handed him her key. “To the aviary, captain!” Frankly, he was relieved that Theodora had stayed behind to handle other guests. It was much easier to call her by name when only one of the sisters was present.

He scanned the directory, punched in a code, and swiped his key. “To the apiary,” he agreed.

“No!” she protested, but it was too late. It was then that he noticed aviary and apiary might possibly be separate words.

“Um, oops.”

“The apiary is on the roof,” she moaned. “The aviary is in basement one. We passed it already!”

“Already? We fell for so long! There’s no way we made it that far so quickly.”

Theo jerked her head at a scrolling series of numbers above the door – somehow, they were on floor 13 already. “The hotel doesn’t care about your logic.”

“It’s not logic, it’s… physics, or something.”

“The Alice doesn’t care about that either.”

Don’t even bother asking, he thought. Just then, the elevator dinged: they’d reached the roof. The doors slid open, and a man haloed by a bug hat and a swarm of bees waved at them from beneath the streaky orange sky. Sometime while they’d been in the underbasement, the darkest part of night had passed and the sun was making its return trip.

“Hey Nathaniel,” Theo said. “This basic bitch sent us here instead of the aviary.”

“New?” the man asked Seth.

“Brand spankin,’” Theo replied for him.

“Happens to the best of us,” the beekeeper replied. “What do you need from the aviary?”

“724 wants a flamingo.”

“Just one? They usually ask for ‘em in pairs.”

“Just one.”

“Well, enjoy that. Maybe give them Fergie, he’s pretty good at being a lone wolf.”

“Fergie?” Seth asked.

“One of the birds,” Nathaniel explained. “Such a nice guy.”

Somehow, the ride to basement one from the roof lasted much longer than the trip from the underbasement to the roof, despite covering a shorter distance. It was on the tip of Seth’s tongue to ask how, but he’d already completely given up understanding this place.

“This way to the avia-hey! Samantha!”

A wide-eyed, short-haired brunette standing in the hall turned to look at Theo.

“A Theo!” she exclaimed.

“The one-and-not-so-only,” Theo said with a grin. “Hey, Seth. That way to the aviary. Keep my key. Catch ya later?”

She phrased it as a question, but she was already making her way over to where Samantha waited, looking curiously at Seth.

“Oh, and ask for Fergie when you get there! Put him on a leash! See ya!”

Whatever he’d expected from a basement aviary, it wasn’t this. Neither cavelike nor dim, a warm, damp breeze greeted him as he stepped through the palm-covered doors.

The noise was outstanding, so much so that Seth stepped back out of the room and shut the door to prepare himself properly for the onslaught. But once he was in the room, the birds settled down.

“Would it kill you to knock?” squawked a parrot perched in a tree by the door.

“U-um, sorry.”

The parrot flapped away.

There was no organization to the aviary that Seth could see. It was an entire indoor zoo, divided by climate zone. Puffins, robins, birds of paradise. Trees, ponds… he had no idea how long he’d been wandering when he saw a flamingo.

“Uh, Fergie?”

He could have sworn that the bird shook its head before ambling away on its stilt legs. Moments later, another one wandered over and settled next to him.

“Fergie?”

The bird squawked.

“Could have just asked, could have just asked,” the parrot caroled, winging by overhead.

“Alright. We’re going for this.”

It took him another twenty minutes to find the leash (pink, rhinestoned), and by the time he reached the elevator, Theo had come and gone and all that remained was a note stuck to the elevator shaft with a pink magnet shaped like the word “LOL.”

Seth. It’s sink or swim. It’s up to you to find 724. Me and Sam are needed elsewhere. Also, you got this.

“Well, shit,” Seth muttered.

#alice of the midnight sun #AOTMS #original writing #writers on tumblr #chapter 1

[aliceofthemidnightsun]

Prologue

The north is the land of seasons of day and night rather than summer and winter. For as long as those who came before us remember, the earth has been tilted such that the Arctic phases through intense periods of winter darkness and summer brilliance. But before there were humans, things were different. The earth was different. The tilt we came to know did not exist, and in the land that would become Alaska, days and nights passed with nothing to distinguish them from the nights and days of anywhere else.

Curiously, as humanity came to be, our earliest ancestors gathered as if drawn to a cold, desolate region on earth. And with them, they brought the midnight sun. The earth tilted.

Today, a hotel stands on the hallowed ground discovered by our ancestors. If you search archives and records, eventually you will find the earliest mention of the name ‘Alice of the Midnight Sun’ dating back to an inn founded by Gavrie du Sol Minuit, and named after his daughter, Alice. Before Gavrie there were other innkeepers, other stories, but it was The Alice that held its own against time.

Thanks to the gold rush, Alice of the Midnight Sun grew rich on prospectors’ money. The land surrounding the hotel is now known as Anchorage, Alaska. Thousands of people pass through the hotel’s tall, gilded doors each year, unaware of the magic surrounding them. But dig deeper, ask any of the hotel’s staff: there’s much more to The Alice than you’d suspect.

#alice of the midnight sun #aotms #original writing #here it is!!!!!!!!!