Alice Price-Healy

**Spoiler warning!**
Ahead are significant plot details from the Patreon stories. Read at your own peril!
 **Spoiler warning!**
Ahead are significant plot details from the InCryptid novel, Spelunking Through Hell (2022). Read at your own peril!
 **Spoiler warning!**
Ahead are significant plot details from the InCryptid novel, Backpacking Through Bedlam (2023). Read at your own peril!

## Alice Price-Healy

* Fanart (adult)
* Fanart (young)
* Official art

## Identity

### Aeslin Title

The Noisy Priestess
The Pilgrim Priestess

### Nicknames

Ally (to Enid and Mary)
Puss (to Fran)
Miss Healy (to Thomas early on)
Butcher of Buckley

### Last Name

Price
Price-Healy

## Affiliations

### Organizations/ Alliances

Healy-Price Family
Campbell Family Carnival

### Occupation

Children's Librarian (former)
Bounty Hunter

### Primary Residence

Buckley Township, Michigan
Traveling

## Family

### Grandparents

Alexander Healy (paternal)
Enid Healy (paternal)

### Parents

Jonathan Healy
Frances Healy

### Children

Kevin Price
Jane Harrington-Price

## InCryptid Series

### Narrator (Shorts)

Alice and Thomas Shorts
 And Sweep Up The Wood

### Notable Appearances (Shorts)

Jonathan and Frances Shorts
Follow the Lady

### Songs

Mama Said
Cartography
Dear Thomas
Continental Divide

**Alice Enid Price-Healy** is a main character in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire. She is the grandmother of main series narrators Verity, Alex, and Antimony Price. Her early life has been chronicled in the prequel series Jonathan and Frances Shorts and Alice and Thomas Shorts.

Her first point-of-view novel is Spelunking Through Hell.

## About

### Appearance

Alice possesses the typical Healy look with blonde hair and a short, slight frame. She prefers to wear clothing that stands up to her adventures: denim, heavy boots, and comfortable tops. She is excellent at hiding weapons upon her person and sleeps armed.

As an adult, she has a dizzying array of magical tattoos spelled for protection and travel that disappear once she uses them.

She typically carries an Aeslin mouse or two to record her journeys. For a time she only brought one with her due to the strength of her borrowed teleportation magic, but adjusted to two for the sake of the mice's wellbeing.

### Personality

Alice is brash and fearless. She loves her family but is hard to pin down in one place for long. She makes frequent appearances in her grandchildren's lives but they, as with her children, know full well that finding Thomas is her highest priority.

### Abilities

Alice is a skilled combatant who favors both knives and guns. Mary has noted that Alice hardly needs to aim to get a perfect shot. Infamously, her weapon of choice is grenades, as noted by multiple family members and seen in her fights as an adult. She has presumable resistance to cuckoo mind control through her mother's lineage.

She is an excellent baker and has no moral compunctions with using cookies as bribery.

### Aeslin Lore

Alice has two dedicated sects of Aeslin mice: those who memorialize her life as the Noisy Priestess, and those who follow her current adventures as The Pilgrim Priestess. Should she ever find Thomas and settle down, the two sects would switch roles.

As a child, Alice was able to keep track of the Aeslin rites and rituals better than most.

Notable rites include The Holy Ritual of Stay in the Bag and Don't Make a Sound, which was enacted by Fran during trick-or-treating. Alice manipulated the letter of the ritual to her needs when kidnapped by a snake cult, and much later when sneaking out of the house as a teenager.

## Biography

### Jonathan and Frances Shorts

Alice is the daughter of Jonathan and Frances Healy. They raised her with the help of her grandparents Alexander and Enid and babysitter Mary Dunlavy.

Alice's life began dramatically: As a newborn, she was kidnapped by finfolk looking to save their own dying children. Though her parents recovered her quickly, Jonathan in particular remained incredibly protective throughout her childhood. She also grew up in the shadow of her brother Daniel Healy, who was murdered at three years old by cryptids with a vendetta against the family.

Alice was especially close to her mother. When Fran died, her father nearly moved them out of Buckley, but his parents convinced him that the family homestead was the safest place for them both. She possesses the same connection to the forest as her mother.

### Alice and Thomas Shorts

As a teenager, Alice continued to push against her father's rules. She spent as much time as possible in the forest behind their home and was the first to discover Thomas Price's arrival in Buckley. The two struck up a friendship despite her father's misgivings, though Alice stuck firmly to propriety and protocol with the older man. By the time she was seventeen, she was very firmly nursing a not-so-secret crush on Thomas.

The spring of her senior year, Alice is fatally poisoned by a cryptid in the Buckley Wood. There is no cure and no time, so Thomas makes a deal with the crossroads for Alice's life. Alice goes off to college not knowing about the deal or that her feelings for Thomas are mutual.

That fall, she attends the University of Michigan with Laura Campbell as her roommate. Her father restricts her mail to and from Thomas, as well as restricting communications with Alexander for a time.

### And Sweep Up The Wood

After returning to Buckley after college, Alice becomes the children's librarian under her father's supervision and continues to live in his house. She visits Thomas every week, but remains proper and distant with him to the point that he considers finding a mind-control antidote for her. She does learn that he is homebound, but not why.

When a hive of Apraxis wasps start stealing the children of Buckley, Alice and Jonathan go to investigate. Jonathan is killed, Alice is badly injured, and Alice knows she must destroy the eggs that are gestating in Jonathan's corpse. About to set out on the suicide mission, she finally confronts Thomas with her true feelings and discovers he reciprocates them. She manages to destroy the eggs and survive.

Several Aeslin rituals and family legends surround this event, although the details may be muddied given that Alice had no Aeslin with her that night.

* The first time Alice and Thomas hooked up, including a ceremonial procession to the graveyard.
* A family story about Alice taking on a whole hive of Apraxis wasps with nothing but concussion grenades.
* The story of how Jonathan died in an Apraxis wasp attack in the woods surrounding Buckley, and Alice was severely wounded in the same attack.
* Alice supposedly burned a lot of Jonathan's things when he died, and her grandson Alex Price believes she had good reason for it.

### Adulthood

Thomas had to ask Alice to marry him three times before she realized he was even asking. After that, she said yes. They were married in Thomas's home, attended only by the Aeslin mice.[*citation needed*]

Their son Kevin was born a few years later. With Thomas housebound, he felt guiltily that Alice had to do the bulk of the work parenting. Then when Alice was eight months pregnant with Jane, the crossroads took Thomas away. Mary convinced her not to follow him immediately, but as soon as her body recovered from childbirth she left both children with the Campbell Family Carnival and went in search of him. She sought out Naga, who provided her with tattooed charms to travel between dimensions in search of Thomas. He also advised her on the best and worst places to search.

Alice has spent the past fifty-odd years searching different dimensions to find Thomas. Over the years, she began to lose hope that she would find Thomas alive. Recent discoveries have renewed her faith and her search.

## Main Series

Alice is beloved by her extended family, even if they do not believe in her quest. The family seems to have some ways to contact her, as she occasionally pops up to help her grandchildren during times of need.

### Chaos Choreography

Alice joins her granddaughter Verity in Los Angeles where Verity is competing in the All-Star season of Dance or Die. Alice pretends to be Verity's sister "Elle" and squats in one of the empty cast apartments.

### Follow the Lady

Alice meets up with Antimony in Buckley. Annie tells her that the crossroads have been destroyed and Thomas is likely alive somewhere. Alice sets out at once rededicating herself to finding him.

### Spelunking Through Hell

Alice chances upon new knowledge that leads her to the dimension where Thomas is trapped on behalf of the crossroads. The two are reunited and work together to escape, and ultimately succeed.

### Backpacking Through Bedlam

Alice and Thomas, with a new adopted daughter in tow, finally return to Earth, only to be thrown back into action almost immediately. Through Rose, the Ocean Lady sends them to New York to fight the Covenant.

## Relationships

### Thomas Price

Alice met her future husband when she was sixteen and he was twenty-six. The two maintained a careful friendship with the support of Alice's grandparents but significant pushback from her father. Jonathan's concerns focused on Thomas being Covenant more than the age gap.

When Alice's life is in mortal danger, Thomas makes a deal with the crossroads to save her. Specifically, he argues with Jonathan to be the one to make the bargain because he doesn't trust that Jonathan won't barter to change something fundamental in Alice's personality. Thomas does not tell her about his sacrifice and her family respects his decision. He does not want her to feel obligated or tied to him, especially since she is about to head off to college.

When Thomas disappears, Alice becomes single-minded in her quest to find him. She drops her young son and daughter off with the Campbell Family Carnival and has been questing through the dimensions to find Thomas ever since.

After they are finally reunited, Alice acknowledges that the two have lived fifty years of trauma apart from one another. Their love is still strong, but she expects it will be a rocky road as they rediscover what it means to be together.

### Jonathan Healy

Although Alice loves her father, they have a strained relationship. Jonathan is overprotective of her after losing both Daniel and Fran to the cryptid world. He would prefer her to be a gentle, polite young lady (albeit trained in multiple forms of combat) than to traipse around the forest as she loves to do.

Alice keeps secrets from her father, sneaking out of the house and concealing most of her adventures from him.

Jonathan tries to bargain with the crossroads when Alice's life is in mortal danger, but Thomas argues that he asked first. Mary, likely knowing that Jonathan will use the opportunity to further control Alice, dismisses Jonathan and negotiates with Thomas instead.

Jonathan becomes even more controlling when Alice goes off to college, intercepting her mail so that neither her grandfather nor Thomas can communicate with her. After she graduates, he is her supervisor at the library and knows exactly how to appear as such, even when his actions leave bruises on her arms.

Jonathan dies the day he changes his usual pattern of forbidding her from going in the forest. He instead offers to go help her deal with a swarm of Apraxis wasps, and the trip kills him.

### Enid and Alexander Healy

Alice grew up in her paternal grandparent's home. The two indulge her even as they teach her combat skills, knowing that she needs practical experience to survive and thrive. They often turn a blind eye when she breaks her father's rules.

### Mary Dunlavy

Mary was Alice's babysitter from infancy through adulthood. Even once Alice is a teen, Mary is able to keep a preternatural eye on her and assist Alice within limits. She teaches Alice to be careful about asking questions and favors lest the Crossroads force Mary to exact a price for her help.

When Alice graduated high school, Mary feared that the crossroads would decide Alice no longer needed a babysitter and reassign Mary to full-time crossroads ghost duty. However, Alice's injury allowed Mary to take on role of nurse and caregiver, and travel with Alice when she went away to college.

### Laura Campbell

Laura was Alice's best friend growing up, though they only saw each other a few times a year. Laura was the only other person her age who Alice could openly discuss cryptids and ghosts with, and they treasured their time together. When Alice goes to college, Laura arranges to be her roommate in the dorms as a way to keep Alice safer.

### Frances Healy

Fran and Alice were close when Alice was a child. After Fran's death, she became as much legend as real person thanks to the Aeslin recitations of her history.

### Galway Woods

Sometimes called the Buckley Woods. Alice has a unique relationship with the forest bordering Buckley. It was "a need that bordered on hunger on nights when the air grew hot and humid and the frickens sang."[*citation needed*]

### Naga

Alice first meets Naga when she is six years old. She is kidnapped by a snake cult who wants to sacrifice her to the "god" they summoned. Alice introduces herself to Naga and they engage in polite conversation instead.

He becomes a friend of the family, called "Uncle Naga," and attends various family holidays all the way through the grandchildren's youth.

When Thomas is taken by the crossroads, Alice goes to Naga for help searching across dimensions. He is disgusted by her mammalian signs of motherhood, but hides his reaction and provides her the tools she needs. This begins half a century of lying to Alice, modifying her memories, and taking advantage of her travels in order to turn a profit. Less than a decade in, he explicitly warns her away from the very route that would lead her to Thomas because he does not wish to lose her as a tool.

Alice finally realizes the truth after she finally tracks Thomas down. The two return to Naga's world to deal with him, and Alice discovers her mind has been modified to prevent her from harming Naga in any way. Thomas kills him on her behalf.

### Rose Marshall

Alice is one of the few living people who knew Rose when she was alive. They became friends after Rose's death, and Rose became an honorary aunt to her children and grandchildren.

## Trivia

* Family legend says that Alice once shot the Boob Fairy with buckshot.
* She also shot at the Tooth Fairy, not liking things sneaking up on her at night and buzzing.
* Fran named her "Alice" as a Lewis Carroll reference, and with dreams of seeing Alice ride her white horse Rabbit. "Alice" also sounds similar to "Alex", as a way to honor Alexander Healy, and her middle name honors Enid.

**Chaos Choreography**

* Per her grandson Alex, Alice's philosophy is that going into the field should be treated like going to war: eat when you can, sleep when you can, never put your gun down, and never get drunker than the people around you. (Ch. 6)
* Alice knows how to hot-wire a car and tried to teach six-year-old Verity. This, and other decisions, made Kevin declare Alice wasn't allowed to be alone with the grandkids until they were sixteen. (Ch. 9)
* The Aeslin have been worshipping Alice nonstop for nearly eighty years. She is the only family member with two separate sects: the Noisy Priestess at home, Pilgrim Priestess when searching for Thomas (Ch. 8)
* Alice writes in a leather-bound journal (Ch. 8)
* At Kevin and Evelyn's wedding, Alice punched Angela in the face. She wasn't invited to Jane's wedding. (Ch. 9)
* Unlike her grandchildren, who treat the Aeslin as a sort of background dressing, Alice chats directly with the mice. (Ch. 9) This matches her childhood tendency to remember all their rituals.
* For Verity's sixth birthday, Alice got her a Barbie and a bear trap. She wanted to get Verity a bear, too, but Evelyn put her foot down. (Ch. 16)
* Uncle Naga provides Alice with her interdimensional portal charms (Ch. 16)
* Alice knits as a hobby. Or she's joking about it. (Ch. 17)

## Quotes

### General

* **Verity to Alice:** "Grandma, if I try to teach you about Facebook and social media, we're going to be here all night."
* "I’ve always found Grandma Alice to be remarkably soothing in her unrelenting dedication to her chosen calling. Most of the family doesn’t realize how hard the last forty-some years have been on her, but I can’t help it, and the psychic damage she’s carrying cuts all the way down to the bone. She’s basically a big sack of broken glass and feral cats pressed into the shape of a woman, and for all that, she’s got one goal: she wants to find her husband and bring him home to meet his children. She’s done all this to herself in the pursuit of a happily ever after that may or may not exist. Basically, my grandmother is what happens when a Disney princess goes horrifically wrong, and the single-minded nature of her goals and pursuits means that she’s always been a nice break from spending time around more complicated people. She may be damaged, but she’s not complex, and that makes her easy." --**Sarah Zellaby**, Calculated Risks

### Epigraphs

**Discount Armageddon**

* "True love always shoots to kill." (Ch. 1)
* "When in doubt, play dead. Well, unless you might be dealing with a ghoul, or a basilisk, or something else that likes its meat a little ripe. Actually, when in doubt, just start shooting." (Ch. 5)
* "Thomas? I think I'm going to need a bigger gun." (Ch. 9)
* "The problem with people who say monsters don't really exist is that they're almost never saying it to the monsters." (Ch. 12)
* "There's nothing wrong with making a last stand. Just make sure you bring enough grenades to share with the entire class." (Ch. 15)
* "This isn't the sort of business that comes with a lifetime guarantee. You start because it's the right thing to do, and by the time you realize that the only way to quit is a closed casket funeral, it's too late to get out. That's just the way it is." (Ch. 18)
* "Most of the time, there isn't time to adjust to whatever's going on before you have to deal with it. Life in our world is very sink or swim, and that's for the best. If you can't survive in the deep end, you should get out before you drown." (Ch. 21)
* "There's no such thing as fighting dirty. There's fighting like you want to live, and fighting like you want to die. If you've got anything to live for--anything at all--I suggest you try the first way. The people you love will thank you for it." (Ch. 23)
* "All's well that ends with only minor lacerations." (Epilogue)

**Midnight Blue-Light Special**

* "The best thing I ever did was figure out how to hide a pistol in my brassiere. The second best thing I ever did was let Thomas figure out how to find it, but that's a story for another day." (Ch. 1)
* "We aren't exiles from the Covenant of St. George. We're natives in our own country, and when that country is endangered, it's our duty to dig in our heels and fight. If we aren't willing to save ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to save us?" (Ch. 6)
* "I know that we're supposed to be the better people and all, but sometimes I just want to stop playing nice and start playing for keeps." (Ch. 9)
* "Blood is thicker than water, but family isn't just about blood. Family is about faith, and loyalty, and who you love. If you don't have those things, I don't care what the blood says. You're not family." (Ch. 13)
* "Damn." (Ch. 16)
* "You know what, honey? You're right. It's time to change my approach. Can you give me one of those nice concussion grenades?" (Ch. 19)
* "Don't worry about whether you failed your family. Family loves you, no matter what. Worry about whether you failed yourself. As long as the answer's 'no,' then there's still a chance that everything else will be okay." (Ch. 23)
* "Any ending where you're still standing on your own feet is a happy one." (Epilogue)

**Magic for Nothing**

* "It's better to act than it is to react. Acting gets you into trouble. Reacting all too frequently gets you dead." (Ch. 1)
* "When your back's to the wall, just remember: you're allowed to take those bastards with you." (Ch. 6)
* "People can be awfully confusing sometimes. Knives are easier, but knives won't ever love you." (Ch. 11)
* "I don't care what else you do. Just come home to me." (Ch. 16)
* "'I'm sorry' is not a magic spell that makes everything better. I wish to God it were." (Ch. 21)

**Tricks for Free**

* “Loving too much is just as bad as not loving at all. Maybe it’s worse. People who don’t have anything to lose never have to worry about the inevitable.” (Ch. 4)
* “The thing to remember about allies is that they want you to be an ally right back. If you’re not a friend to your friends, you’re going to be an enemy eventually.” (Ch. 17)
* “Mercy is for the winners. When you’re losing, it’s the last thing you can afford.” (Ch. 23)

**Imaginary Numbers**

* "A lie's a lie, even when it's wearing Sunday clothes. That doesn't mean a lie is necessarily the wrong choice. Just that you shouldn't pretend it's something that it's not." (Ch. 2)
* "Nobody gets to pick where they're born or who they're born to, but everybody gets to pick their family. Make good choices with yours." (Ch. 9)
* "No one's ever really lost. Sometimes we don't know where they are, exactly, but that just means it's time for us to go out and find them." (Epilogue)

**Calculated Risks**

* "It's never fun to be the stranger. It's never fun to be the one who's out of place and doesn't know what's happening. But it happens to everyone eventually, and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it teaches us something." (Ch. 6)
* "I hope you never have to learn what you're not willing to give up. Knowledge like that always costs so much more than you were hoping to pay." (Ch. 10)
* "The difference between sacrifice and slaughter is consent." (Ch. 15)
* "There's nothing like moonlight and monsters to remind a girl why she loves her job." (Ch. 16)
* "Nothing is too much to pay to bring the ones you love safely home. Remember that when the time comes to pay the last thing you wanted to lose." (Ch. 22)
* "Oh, baby. Rest now. Rest, and remember that I love. you." (Ch. 25)

**Short Stories**

* "There's nothing wrong with pausing to catch your breath every so often. It's best to live a balanced life when you can, and that means enjoying yourself. You only live once, after all." (The Ghosts of Bourbon Street)
* “We don’t always grow into the lives we thought we’d have when we were children. That’s not a bad thing. It’s nice to meet the people we never expected to become.” (Blocked)
* "You have to love something outside the fight. If you don't, it's going to consume you. Obsession is as dangerous as anything else you might face." (Singing the Comic-Con Blues)

### Aeslin Proverbs & Rituals

Regarding young Alice:

* "That Girl Knows No Fear"
* "Dammit, Fran, She's Going to Get Herself Et"
* "This Is From Your Side of the Family, Jonathan, No One In My Family Has Ever Hugged a Basilisk Before"

## References

1. ↑ Halfway Through the Wood Ch. 12
2. ↑ We Both Go Down Together
3. ↑ https://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/654756591140290560/question-that-is-hopefully-reference-not-spoiler
4. ↑ Oh Pretty Bird
5. ↑ The Lay of the Land
6. ↑ Snakes and Ladders
7. ↑ What Was I Meant to Do?
8. ↑ Chaos Choreography
9. ↑ By Any Other Name
10. ↑ Chaos Choreography
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Follow the Lady
12. ↑ Backpacking Through Bedlam Prologue
13. ↑ Chaos Choreography Ch. 9
14. ↑ Snakes and Ladders
15. ↑ By Any Other Name
16. ↑ The Way Home
17. ↑ Discount Armageddon Ch. 2
18. ↑ Discount Armageddon Ch. 10
19. ↑ Discount Armageddon Ch. 22
20. ↑ Half-Off Ragnarok Ch. 15
21. ↑ Spelunking Through Hell Ch. 15
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 And Sweep Up The Wood
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Spelunking Through Hell
24. ↑ Follow the Lady
25. ↑ The Lay of the Land
26. ↑ By Any Other Name
27. ↑ Halfway Through the Wood
28. ↑ Spelunking Through Hell
29. ↑ Midnight Blue-Light Special Ch. 10
30. ↑ Halfway Through the Wood Ch. 6
31. ↑ We Both Go Down Together
32. ↑ Chaos Choreography Ch. 9