Elle shrank when the wedding drew near. Our mother promised me it was normal for most brides, that she herself had been so nervous before her wedding day that she’d locked herself in her room for days on end. I hated watching my sister transform from the willful, intelligent,intensegirl I knew into a silenced waif.
If anything, our parents’ deaths have freed us of those obligations, as terrible as it is to think. Is it only her ego that keeps us here or something else she hides from me?
Has donefor me?
It’s too much. Every nerve in my arms tingles. I reach forward and turn the table over. I surprise us both with my strength as our supper smashes to the floor. The plates upturn, splashing fish scales and sour asparagus stems on her precious dead man’s clothes. Behind her, a few seconds after, something metal on the kitchen counter clatters—a knife, maybe?
Elle shrieks but stands frozen, a cod skin slipping down her trouser leg. I bolt around her, lunge for the stairs, and run up. My breath hitches in my throat at the sudden exertion, twice in one day, but I don’t stop. Her fingers swipe for the hem of my dress. I reach the storage room door and swing it open, dodging her grasp. I twist as Elle once taught me after a dance instructor taught her, years ago in a stolen life, and slam the door in her face.
The lock!Chamomile chimes. She’s ecstatic at my show of agency. I bolt the door as Elle pulls on the handle.
“Caroline Anne Forsyth!” Elle hollers, banging on the door. “Openthe door!”
“A taste of life without me!” I call out, coughing between the words. “Enjoy!”
My breath quickens into a shallow wheeze. I can’t catch it as my chest tightens into a vise. I need air. The storeroom’s musty interior presses in.
Chamomile is lost in her glee. I shouldn’t have listened to her. My blood freezes as quick as it boiled. I check my fingers, and even in the dim light from the edges of the door, I can tell their tips are turning blue.
“Ungrateful brat!” Elle yells, but my head swims and I can’t answer. “You want to turn everything we have to ash? For what? To return to the wolf I saved you from?”
Each breath is shallower than the last. I try to say her name, but nothing comes out.
“I’m youronlyfamily.” Elle’s voice overflows with venom and something else. Tears? “I’m the only one who can keep you safe. I’ll do whatever it—”
“Elle,” I cough out. I lean against the door as my chest heaves without air. “Elle, I can’t—”
My head spins, and then I’m falling before I can brace myself. I collapse in a heap against the door, too low to reach the bolt. The ice in my veins stutters my heart.
Is this how I die? Fighting my sister, opening old wounds, trapped by my own constitution?
I wave weakly to Chamomile for help. She stops celebrating and cocks her head to the side until her tight, shining curls touch one shoulder delicately.
“Go on,” Elle fumes from the other side of the door. “You can’t…?”
“Breathe,” I rasp, barely audible even to me.
We aren’t done with you, Caroline.
Did I hear that or think it? Everything is a numb fog. Chamomilemoves closer to me, then beside me, then past. Through the door. She’s left me here. Alone again. Is this my mind preparing itself for the end? Will I see my parents much sooner than I hoped?
A thud, like a heartbeat, knocks me farther down against the door. As my breath descends from shallow into nothing, I close my eyes and pray one small, rare prayer. Might as well.
Let me see her. She needs me.
5Elle
To Save
I could kill her if I weren’t trying to save her life.
Stupid girl. What was she thinking, racing up the stairs—away from me?
Beneath the quiet exterior, Liney can hold the hot poker of want as hard as I can. I’ve noticed her glances out to the mainland. How they tricked her with false promises. It’s easy to forget how enticing the world can seem to a young woman free of guilt. All I see on the horizon are the specters I’ve left behind. Like that damned newspaper. Thomas’s words woven into sympathy. How much did Liney read into them? Was there more that she didn’t show me, that I should’ve read before I burnt it? I can’t focus on what’s now ashes.
Liney was eight years old the last time she was in this kind of peril. A physician had told my parents that the salt and breeze from the beach could be good for her asthma. My only instruction as we were sent off with an older cousin was simple:Do not let your sister swim. She was wilder back then, fighting for the life she saw other children takingfor granted. Too clever for her own good. She waited for our cousin to fall asleep under her parasol, then led me to the shore. She revealed Mother’s stolen swim dress underneath her linens. I tried to tell her no, but she pleaded and promised she’d stay close to shore. I was barely fourteen and lenient.
A riptide caught her. That moment sticks in my mind like a daguerreotype, preserved forever. She swam only a few feet out before sun rays burst through the clouds and my vision blackened with dots. She was easily ten times farther out by the time I’d blinked them away. Only the crown of her head bobbed above the water, her hair like seaweed. I stripped off my outer layers and dived in. I swam in pathetic sweeps of my arms and legs. The ocean rejected me. As if the water itself were pushing me out of the way. I don’t know how Liney got so far in that current.
