“I didn’t bring anything,” I say. Eleanor looks at me funny. Astrid coughs.
We wait for the closet to do its thing, and soon enough the light turns a pinkish color and the orb spins and lowers and the whole thing is much more frenetic and hyper than the lovely, slow dance from earlier. The light flickers a speedy rhythm, like a strobe light; then the spinning hastens and the orb that used to be a lightbulb shrinks to the size of a dragonfly, grows wings, and buzzes around the room, goading us on. Eleanor presses herself against the wall and looks like she wants to leave, but I chase the bug that used to be a light. It’s like trying to swat a mosquito when it’s buzzing in your ears, but instead of waving my arms around to scare it into leaving, I’m waving my arms around trying to outrace it and get it cupped in my palms.
“I don’t like this!” Eleanor says. “This isn’t relaxing! This isn’t why we do this!”
Astrid sits with her back against the wall and giggles, watching me. I think this is exactly why we do this. My heart’s pounding in the good way, the way that lets you know you’re alive and capable of having fun.
“Look at Priscilla. Stop thinking about yourself. Look,” Astrid says to her twin. I am getting out of breath, racing back and forth. The closet expands to accommodate my burst of energy and my desire to play tag with this thing. At first it’s only a few steps wide, then large enough to fit all the happiness I feel and the frantic energy of the buzzing orb. Larger than the whole house, it seems. I can’t ever get the little thing in my hands.
“It’s crazy enough out there,” Eleanor says, gesturing to the closet door. “Why would you want more craziness in here?” I’m not sure if she’s asking me or Astrid, so I say nothing and continue running and waving and letting my heart buzz in time with the orb’s little wings.
I can’t believe we’re letting Marla sleep through this. We are terrible sisters.
But she’s a terrible sister too, for telling them I went inside without permission. So I guess none of us really know how to be good at the sister thing, which is weird, since we’ve been doing it our whole lives.
“This closet is Priscilla’s,” Astrid says. She looks so pleased, so ridiculously glad that I am having fun. I stop for a moment to catch my breath, and the orb keeps zipping around me. I liked Eleanor’s closet, but Astrid’s right, this one is distinctly mine in a very different way. Not homey and sweet, but buzzy and fun and thrilling.
Eleanor’s eyebrows look like they are working very hard to reach each other across the bridge of her nose. I get the feeling there are still more and more secrets they are keeping from me, but it’s hard to care when the orb buzzes near my ear and then dashes to the far corner. I sprint after it and laugh when it takes a sharp turn, changing directions and tripping me up.
“Don’t you want to have fun?” I call out, but Eleanor leans against the wall and crosses her arms as I flop on top of Astrid in a giggling fit. Astrid tickles me, and for a moment we are younger and sweeter and sillier than we’ve ever been. I think if we were brothers we would play like this all the time: raucous and physical and piled on top of one another. But my sisters and I usually stay in our own spaces, touching for brief moments, then releasing.
I try to pull Eleanor into our wrestling, so that we can be a mess of limbs and laughter on the ground. I wouldn’t mind watching the orb from down here—letting it do a dance above our heads. Swatting at it from our backs.
“Don’t be scared,” I say. It’s the oldest I’ve ever been. But Eleanor shakes her head.
“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen,” she says. “You don’t know about the bad closet.” I can’t stop myself from shivering, even in here.
“My closet—,” Astrid starts.
“Not now,” Eleanor interrupts.
Can’t anything be just wonderful and nothing else?
“It’s time to go to bed,” Eleanor says. “We’ll discuss the closets, all of them, in the morning.”
I don’t necessarily want to leave the warm, pink-lit space, but I’m too tired to put up a real fight.
The orb lands on my shoulder, and I wonder, for a moment, what would happen if I took it out with me. If it would fill my whole bedroom with its pulsing glow. I have a feeling that even though the diorama went back to normal when the door was open, this might be different.
I might be different.
I can’t do it now. I’m certain Eleanor has all kinds of rules about that, too. But I don’t have whatever creeping feeling she does about the magic. I have the sense that it would be okay if I took things out of the closet and into my world. Maybe Eleanor simply doesn’t understand the closets the way I do. Maybe that’s why her closet needs a diorama and mine doesn’t. I let myself smile for three seconds, with the delicious idea that I know more than Eleanor for once.
We open the door and watch the magic fade.
“No more secrets,” Eleanor says.