What You Pay For

**What You Pay For** is an InCryptid short story. It is eighth in the Alice and Thomas Shorts.

## Synopsis

We're back to Buckley, where a young Alice Healy is fighting to stay alive long enough to eventually become an old Alice Healy.  Sadly, she's still trying...

## Plot

Gwendolyn Brandt arrives in Buckley, looking for Thomas Price. She charms a local into driving her to the Old Parrish Place, where Thomas immediately recognizes her and is forced to welcome her inside, then declares her intent to marry him and live together long enough to produce a Price heir. Then Mary, disguised to look human, interrupts and claims to be Thomas's wife.

Meanwhile, Alice is two weeks past her seventeenth birthday, hunting jackalope and daydreaming about Thomas Price. Determined to show him that seventeen was much more grown up than sixteen, she bikes to his house. While traveling through the forest, she is chased by a bear-creature, which she leads to the swamp bromeliad's lair. The plant traps the bear in its vines but soon catches up with her again as she nears the Parrish Place. A big truck passes by on the road, and she times it so it hits the not-a-bear. She pauses to investigate it and gets some sentient slime on herself, then bottles some of it up in a jar.

Alice arrives at the Parrish Place in time to see Mary and Thomas kissing in order to keep up their ruse. Shocked, Alice flees. Thomas must continue the ruse and deal with Gwendolyn, who immediately identifies Alice's Carew ancestry. When she looks at Alice's abandoned schoolbag, she also identifies the slime Alice took as a specimen.

Elsewhere, the last pieces of the not-a-bear regenerate with Alice's scent in its nostrils...

## Characters

* Alice Healy
* Thomas Price
* Gwendolyn "Gwen" Brandt
* Mary Dunlavy
* David Lewis, townsperson

**Mentioned**

* Jonathan Healy
* Laura Campbell
* Juniper Campbell
* Frances Healy
* Alexander Healy
* Enid Healy
* Magdalene "Maggie" Carew

## Field Guide

* Jackalope
* Tailypo
* Swamp Bromeliad
* Alkabyiftiris slime
* Crossroads Ghost

**Mentioned**

* Finfolk

## Locations

* Buckley Township, Michigan
	+ Old Parrish Place
	+ The forest
	+ The Red Angel (mentioned)
	+ The school (mentioned)
	+ Lakeside Drive
	+ Library (mentioned)

**Mentioned**

* Penton Hall
* Gentling, Maine

## Organizations

* Covenant of St. George
* Campbell Family Carnival (mentioned)

## Continuity

* Reference to Betty Smith's visit
* Reference to the finfolk of Gentling

## Trivia

* The Brandt women are known for their beauty and indeed matched in the Covenant breeding program to continuously improve it.
	+ They are also known for staying out in the field far longer into their pregnancies that in strictly safe.
* "The only family more adept at hiding armory under a thin layer of fabric were the Carews."
* Thomas's full name is Thomas Wallingford Evelyn Price, born to Mary Katherine Bullard and Wallingford Vernon Price.
* Gwendolyn has no issue with Thomas potentially not preferring the company of women, and has methods to help him produce an heir regardless.
* Thomas was terrified of Gwendolyn throughout their teenage years. They were betrothed at age fifteen.
* Alice has never been allowed to go on the family trips to Gentling.

## Quotes

* "This house hates everyone, present country included. I'm more than reasonably sure the house, rather than the exile, is my actual punishment." -Thomas
* "I swear upon the pen and the page that I'm not here to harm you." -Gwendolyn
* "Men who preferred the company of men had been a part of the Covenant since its inception, as had women who preferred the company of women...Perhaps the wider world had time for such prejudices, but when one was attempting to preserve humanity against a tide of unspeakable horrors, such small matters as who one preferred as a bedfellow simply didn't come up."
* "He'd started to find Alice's tendency to conjure guns from the ether almost charming. That was probably a bad sign." -Thomas