CHAPTER ONE : little hands, little feet. a childhood spent curious about the world around her, before that spark could be stamped out. easily scared of the dark, a candle burns by her bedside, a young girl learns slowly to read. it’s better to read from a book than to let her mind run rampant, conjuring scary stories to fill the silence of her bedroom. alice fitzroy is her mother’s first daughter, a bundle of joy, a blooming rose. she expects that she is to be a princess, but quickly learns that is not the case. a fellow noble daughter, a few years her senior, is the first to inform her, an innocent asking inquisitively, that she should watch out for the witch. the witch? yes, your mother. and so, wheels begin to turn. alice was a loving child, warm and receptive, but the first seeds of doubts have been planted.
CHAPTER TWO : in her early teens, alice withdraws. they theorize that her mother is a witch. they say that she and her full - blooded siblings are products of treachery and poison, dripped into the ear of queen lianor. she begins to believe the whispers, despite seeing how in love her parents are, infatuated with each other in a way one rarely associates with royal marriages. they are not being punished. alice, her siblings? they are. only one of them legitimized, alice hearing her name being thrown around as a bargaining chip already . . . she doubts she will ever experience love like her parents. as the evidence of their sin, alice feels the rumours and conspiracies weighing heavily upon her shoulders. things go bump in the night and alice is convinced that it is more than just her imagination. a ghost, not vengeful, but bitter.
CHAPTER THREE : parchment scrawled with poetry, lying somewhere between mediocre and inspired. a long boat ride brings alice to new shores for the first time in her life. she is surrounded by art at every turn, a veritable explosion of creativity that she is privileged to have found herself in florence during. lady alice fitzroy, paranoid as ever, is in an environment that suits her. after years of forcing herself to draw from the rainy hills of england, florence comes as a welcome change of scenery, that she intends to take full advantage of. she is beginning to feel like a person, a real person, who breathes. with the sun shining on her rosy cheeks, reflecting in her eyes, new life is breathed into a girl who has always been more of a ghost. a flower, petals wilting, falling one by one, turns its head towards the light.
