“I like it in here,” Marla says, her voice a little farther away, no longer right at the door. I can’t stop rubbing my own forehead. I did this. I did this, I say inside my head over and over until the words sort of stop being words.
“Marla? Come out? Please?” For a moment I think me asking her will make all the difference. She said we were a team, after all. She said she trusted me. I lean in closer to the closet door and listen for a sound of approval, listen for the turn of the doorknob, but there’s only silence.
“I’m not coming out. But I can let you in, if I want you in,” Marla says. It’s getting harder to hear her. “Someone who won’t break the magic. Silly. I want Silly.”
“Silly will go in, then,” Astrid says. I don’t look up from the doorknob, where I’ve been focusing all my energy, hoping it’s going to turn at last and let Marla out. “Silly. Go in and get her,” Astrid says, louder now.
Eleanor clears her throat and shares a look with Astrid.
“It can only be you, Silly, she’s right. You have to go in,” Eleanor says. Coming from Eleanor it’s a command, it’s the thing I have to do. “If Marla feels like she needs you, I think the closet will maybe let you in. And the closet might listen to you and your needs too. You have your special powers, right?”
“If Marla wants you in there, you’ll be able to get in,” Astrid says, nodding too much.
“I hate it in there,” I say. Eleanor nods and Astrid pulls me into a hug, but neither of them tells me that I don’t have to go. “I’m not like Marla. I don’t like that closet,” I say into Astrid’s shoulder.
“Oh! I have something!” Astrid says, releasing me from her arms too suddenly, so that I trip a little from having to stand up alone. Astrid goes to her bed, with its patchwork quilt and too many pillows, and reaches underneath, pulling out a brand-new diorama.
It is in a white box, the kind that is shiny and probably from the most expensive store in Boston. The kind of box you couldn’t even find in New Hampshire, because in New Hampshire things don’t come that fancy. Inside Astrid has created a tiny world that is gentle and clean and light pink and blindingly white.
“You can do something. With your closet powers. You have to,” Eleanor says. She doesn’t sound as sure as she usually sounds.
“Wow,” I say, and reach my fingers inside to touch the cotton balls that Astrid must have pulled apart to create the snowy veil on the bottom. She’s sprinkled glitter on top, so that the snow is impossibly pretty and magical, and not the cruel, cold kind that comes late in February or even in March and gives a mean, wet chill.
“I’ve been saving it,” Astrid says. Aside from the glittering cotton snow, there’re also tiny flowers made out of tissue paper, all baby pink and not quite bloomed. There’s pink lace on the sides of the box, and a familiar pale fabric cut up in strips and coiled into pretty spiral shapes in all four corners. It’s glued in, so I can’t take it out to look more closely, but I use my pinkie to trace the soft fabric, and bring the box closer to my face for a better look.
“That’s your baby blanket,” I say, my head still partially inside the box.
“Good memory,” Astrid says. It’s not memory, though. Astrid has had her baby blanket on her bed since she was actually a baby. It’s silky and soft and worn and familiar. “I wanted it to be a box of everything safe and pretty. I don’t know if my closet does anything with dioramas, but probably with you in there, you can make something happen. I figure those things won’t go bad in the closet. They’re too gentle and good. And you too, Priscilla. You can’t go bad either.” She says this last bit so quickly, so quietly, I think I must have misheard her. I know that soft white snow and tiny pink barely budded flowers and the softest most-loved bit of blanket have a kind of purity that Astrid has to believe in. But I am not something soft and pretty and familiar. I have pin-straight hair and awkward elbows and ears that are a little too big for my face and cheeks that are a little too pink to be cute the way they were when I was a baby.
I want to say all this, but Astrid and Eleanor are both looking at me with identical expressions. I think it might be hope.
Hope that I will fix everything.
If not everything, then at least this. I will fix Marla or the closet or both.
Thirty-One
Before the closets, I was never the special sister. Eleanor is special because she is smart and beautiful and knows how to do everything without ever having to officially learn how to do it. Astrid is special because she is creative and strange and lives on her own pretty Astrid planet. Marla is special because she demands attention and is like the very important sick child, even though she isn’t actually sick. She’s the one we all feel bad for.
I’m the one they protect but don’t think of as a whole person. I’m the one who sees things and does nothing to help. I’m the one who is Silly.