The Story Sisters

“That’s about Elv?” Annie had noticed the shaky writing, the yellow spray-painted declaration of love.

“Yep,” Meg said.

“We assume, but we don’t know,” Claire said. She gave Meg a look. “Justin Levy has emotional problems.”

“Major ones,” Meg agreed.

“For all we know, that graffiti could be about Mary Fox,” Claire ventured.

They all laughed.

“I would tear out my cerebellum for you,” Meg joked.

“I would conjugate Latin for you,” Claire piped in.

“I would love you all the days of my life,” Annie said to her daughters, glad that she wasn’t Justin Levy’s mother.

THEY WERE UPSTAIRS doing their homework when Elv finally came home. She smelled like burning leaves. “Hard at work?” she said. She picked up one of Meg’s books—The Scarlet Letter—and thumbed through. “Who would name someone Hester?”

Meg reached under her bed and brought out the shoebox.

“Well, well,” Elv said when she saw it. She put down the book. “Look what the little detective found.”

“We don’t want you to get in trouble,” Claire told her.

“Trouble with a capital T?” Elv sat down on Claire’s bed. She was sitting on Claire’s feet, but Claire didn’t complain. “I wish you wouldn’t look through my personal belongings,” she said to Meg. “Just because you’re jealous.”

“Jealous?” Meg laughed. She didn’t sound very happy.

“It started in Paris and you know it. You couldn’t stand that you didn’t have the guts to do what I did.”

“You mean sleep all day? Or be a whore?”

Elv reached over and slapped her sister. “You’re a jealous bitch and you know it.”

Meg clutched at her burning cheek.

“You wanted to blame me for cutting your hair, but that was your decision. It’s not my fault you’re ugly.”

“Stop it!” Claire said.

“I told you,” Meg said to Claire. “This is who she is.”

Elv went to the open window and slipped outside. Claire got up, grabbed the shoebox, and replaced it in the closet. “Mom can’t find this.”

“Are you taking her side?” Meg said.

“No.” Claire slipped on a pair of flip-flops. She wished Meg had never poked around in the closet. She wished she had left things alone.

“You are. You always do.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’re no better than Justin Levy. Another one of her slaves.”

“You don’t even know her,” Claire said coldly. “You just think you do.”

CLAIRE WENT DOWNSTAIRS, then out the back door to the garden. Behind her the house was quiet. There was the muffled sound of the TV as their mother watched the news. The evening was pale, the air unmoving. There was Elv, sitting beneath the arbor, smoking a cigarette. Her white T-shirt clung to her. She was barefoot, and the soles of her feet were dark with soil. Her black hair hung to her waist. She didn’t look anything like them anymore. She looked like the queen of a country that was too far away to visit. There were moths in the garden, fluttering about blindly. The bedroom light was turned off now. Meg had probably slipped into bed, crying the way she did, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone.

“You shouldn’t have been so mean to her,” Claire told Elv.

“That wasn’t mean. It was honest. She is a bitch.”

“She said I was like Justin Levy.”

“Yeah, right. Justin is pathetic and you’re brave. If anything, you’re opposites. Meg doesn’t have a clue.” Elv suddenly threw up her hands. “Don’t come any closer,” she warned.

Claire stopped where she was.

There was a tiny bird in her path. Both sisters knelt. “He fell out of his nest.” Elv picked up the fledgling. “He’s a robin.”

Claire was startled by how fragile the baby bird was. She could see through its skin to its beating heart. There were only a few stray, luminous feathers.

The girls went in search of the nest, but they couldn’t find it in the dark. There were spiderwebs that were frightening to walk through. Claire kept brushing them away, even when they were no longer there. The crickets were calling. Elv sat down in the wet grass. She looked so sad and beautiful. She was everything Claire wanted to be.

“It’s too late anyway,” Elv decided. “Even if we did find the nest, he’s hardly alive. Do you want to hold him?” The Queen of Arnelle had decreed this was to be. Water, sex, death. This was number three. There was no way to save him.

Claire sat beside her and Elv slipped a hand atop hers. She let the bird settle into Claire’s palm. Claire could feel it shudder. Its heart was beating so fast it reminded her of a moth’s wings.

“Maybe we should say a prayer,” she suggested.

“You do it, Gigi. You’re good at that kind of thing.”

Claire felt emboldened by Elv’s praise. “Your life has been short,” she began in a serious voice, “but it has been as important as any other life.”

Claire heard something then. It was Elv, crying.

“Don’t look at me,” Elv said. She tried to think about the way time could go backward, far back, to the time when she was in the tent with her mother in the garden. There had been twelve princesses who had danced the night away in one of the stories her mother had told her. Twelve brothers had turned into swans.

“Okay.” Claire lowered her eyes, stunned.

“Go ahead,” Elv urged. “Finish.”

“We hope you find peace.” Claire was thrown by Elv’s show of emotion. She ended the prayer as quickly as she could. She was probably doing it all wrong. She wasn’t as good as Elv thought she was. “We hope you’re blessed.”

The sisters could hear one another breathing and the whir of the crickets. There was the tangled thrum of traffic from Main Street. Sound echoed for blocks on a clear night.

“Close your eyes,” Elv said now.