Shadows Gray

Chapter Twenty-Seven



I hold my imaginary tea gingerly, as though the fragile cup holds a steaming brew that could tip. I even find myself bringing it to my lips as Rose daintily sips hers across from me. I don’t know what to say her, this girl that is my sister. Fragile and wounded, yet fierce and alarming, she bewilders me to no end. It turns out, I don’t have much opportunity to speak at all, because once she is finished with her pretend tea, she hugs her knees to her chest like a little girl and begins to talk. Her voice is melodious, sing-song like, in a higher range that is unlike my own raspy, deeper voice. She speaks lightly, tripping over the words carelessly, like a babbling brook.

“When I left the hospital there was so much to do. I needed to find you, needed to find Mother and Father. I knew you were all Lost, you see; just like me, only you were always traveling without me. I was awake, did you know that?” Rose doesn’t wait for me to answer. She is no longer looking at me but seems lost in her meanderings. “I was awake most nights. I couldn’t sleep. And when the traveling got near, I would get the most terrible headaches. So bad I would cry and cry and then of course I couldn’t sleep. Mother should have known that would be the night we were to travel and she slept anyway. Without me! You all left without me. I just sat there, crying and alone until Old Babba came.” Rose pauses. I want to speak, to comfort her, to say how sorry I am, but my throat feels sewn shut. Rose continues. “There were plenty of Lost in the hospital and Old Babba knew things too, things she told me when I made her. So I figured things out eventually. But anyway, that doesn’t matter now,” she finally turns her liquid blue eyes on me and smiles brightly. “More tea?”

“No, thank you.” My throat and lips are working again, yet this is all I say.

“Suit yourself. How is Father?”

“He’s well,” I choose my words carefully. “That is, well enough. He misses you so much, and Mother too. He is sad much of the time.”

“Is he?” Rose shrugs. “He shouldn’t be. He’s alive, isn’t he? I’m alive.” She smiles, almost mischievously. “That must have been quite a revelation for you, Sonnet. Seeing me the first time after all those years. Did you think you’d seen a ghost? You looked so white in that coffee shop when you saw me in that chair. I wanted to laugh when you tripped like that. You’re a silly girl, a silly, silly girl. I wasn’t sure you’d know me, but you did, didn’t you? You knew it was your poor missing sister, come back to haunt you. It was easy to get into your room and crawl into bed with you. Did I hurt your arm? You’re very easy to frighten, by the way.”

“I wasn’t frightened. I was confused. I’m still actually very confused, Rose.”

“Of course you are. You’ve been confused this whole time. Maybe you’re like me. The doctors used to tell me all the time how confused I was!” Rose laughs. It’s high pitched and terrible sounding. I cringe. “Maybe you’re just like me!” She stops laughing abruptly and leans forward. She is so close to me now and I will myself not to tremble when she raises her small hand and strokes my cheek. “Are you like me, sister? Are you mad too?”

“Stop it!” With a sudden movement, I jerk back from her touch and stand. “Stop playing with me. I came to take you back with me, to get you help. Come back and let us help you. Please, Rose?”

Her eyes narrow and she regards me with suspicion. “You’re worse than Mother. I don’t like you at all.”

“You don’t even remember Mother; you were only four years old.”

“Don’t I? I don’t remember the songs she used to sing, the way she made soup, her hair, her hands, her everything? I don’t remember, do I? The way she looked when I would cry, the way her arms made me feel suffocated and imprisoned, the way I knew she loved you more than she loved me?”

“That’s not true. Mother was devoted to you.”

“Devoted to her crazy little girl… I don’t think so,” these words are spat out forcefully. “She was scared of me. Even when I was small she was scared of me. She used to hide from me. Don’t you remember?”

I falter. What do I remember? What’s real and what are dreams?

“You should have seen her face that night,” Rose puts her hands up to her mouth as though covering a smile. “She looked like you at the coffee shop: so shocked. I tried to talk to her, tell her what she did to me by leaving me the way she did. I guess I didn’t go about it the right way. She wouldn’t listen. She never listened.”

A terrible feeling begins to dawn on me, one so horrible that I push it from my mind as hard as I can. Yet, the words bubble up out of me in spite of myself. “What night, Rose? What are you saying? Mother is dead. She’s been dead for years and years.”

“Of course she has been, pet. She’s quite, quite dead. I was there, so I should know.”

“What do you mean, you were there?” I feel very cold and such a large tremor goes through me that my body shakes like a leaf.

Rose smiles again. “Didn’t I tell you? I know how to travel on purpose. I can go wherever I like, whenever I like. Such a pity the rest of you haven’t figured it out. Maybe you have to be like me. I’m very special. Very, very special.”

Ordinarily such talk would fascinate me: haven’t I wanted to know the meaning of the Lost? The cause and effect, the purpose, the goal, the ability? But I can only focus on one thing now and that is Mother.

“You were there when she died?” I keep my voice even though my body still shakes.

“She kept backing away from me,” Rose scowls. “I only wanted to tell her things, that’s all. That’s all at first. But she was scared of me; I knew that look on her face well enough. Haven’t I seen it often enough on others? She was no better than some of those nurses at Bedlam. They wouldn’t look in my eyes, like what I had was catching. Don’t get too close to the Gray girl. You might catch her madness, they’d whisper. Mother was no better. She made me so angry.”

“So angry and then what?” I whisper.

“I pushed her,” Rose replies, in a matter of fact tone. “I pushed her. I suppose I shouldn’t have. Now you’ll want me to apologize, won’t you?”

I want to curl up in a ball and find someplace inside myself where I can be alone and I don’t have to hear these things. I am torn between wanting to flee this house and the desire to pick Rose up and shake her like a rag doll, yet I cannot find the courage to do either one. All I can do is not breathe. I am getting adept suddenly at not breathing.

“Oh, don’t be such a spoil sport!” Rose frowns at me. “You’re upset with me now and after all the lovely tea and talks we’ve had!”

“Yes, I’m upset. You just told me you murdered our mother.”

“Oh, that! You’re making a big deal out nothing! Stop judging me! I’m sick; you aren’t allowed to judge me!” She picks up her tea cup and throws it at my head. I see it coming and duck and it shatters on the floor behind me. “I don’t like you at all, Sonnet! You’re a mean sister!” She makes a grab for my cup as well, but I slap it out of her hands and it too, shatters.

Rose makes a sound like she is screaming inside her head but cannot let it escape through her clenched teeth. She stomps her feet like a child and her eyes well up with tears. Without another word, she whirls and marches back into the kitchen. I hear another piece of china shatter, and then another.

I am left standing there, surrounding by shards of glass that may as well be the pieces of my heart. I want to leave, I want to stay, I want to sob, I want to shout, I want to hurt her, and I want to love her. This wounded shell of a girl who has done these horrible things. What am I to do with her?

I find myself stooping to clean the glass. I know that I should leave, now, while Rose is occupied with throwing things in another room, but all I can think of at this moment is her bare feet and all this glass. I have never seen her wear shoes. I will pick up as much as I can and then I will leave. There is nothing more for me to stay for.

Where will I go? Down the street to a neighborhood not far enough away?

I could find Officer Walter Andrews. Will a three hundred year old murder interest him? Should my sister be locked up? Do I have the fortitude to make that happen?

The shattering of china seems to have stopped. There is silence from the kitchen now as I cup my hands and gently brush tiny shards of flowered ceramic into them. The miniscule remains slice my fingertips in a half dozen places, like the brambles and thorns of a blackberry bush, but I do not care. Soon my fingers have tiny lines of blood running down the way Rose’s had when she chewed her nails. My ears are trained towards the room where Rose disappeared to and I can hear the soft humming of a tune.

She is singing. As though she hasn’t a care in the wide world.

Then my ears detect another sound: the sound of the front door opening. From my spot, kneeling on the floor behind the settee I cannot see the person who has turned the knob but I know it is not Rose because Rose has come back in the room. Smiling and looking angelic, she acts as though she has forgotten my presence entirely and passes by me at her feet without a glance.

“Hello,” I hear her say. And then, tenderly, “I missed you so much.”

“Hello, my love. I missed you even more,” says Luke.

********************

The sound of his voice, so gentle, so familiar, so the way he sounds when he’s smiling, so full of betrayal, makes me feels nauseous. I stay frozen to the floor, on my knees, hands full of sharp and bloodied slivers of china, and I am at a loss for what to do. So I wait.

“I brought you some cake,” Luke continues. “Doesn’t it look good? Cake for dinner, you and me. Aren’t we lucky?”

I hear what must be Rose, clapping her hands in delight. “I love cake! With tea?”

“Naturally. What did you amuse yourself with while I was gone? Besides tearing apart books?” I hear the teasing in his voice.

Rose sighs. “I told you not to leave them around. I went for a walk and I put on my new dress. Do you like it?”

“You look absolutely beautiful.”

“Better than ever?”

“Better than ever. Come on, let’s get some forks and have some supper.”

Once again not breathing, I will my heart to stop thudding in my chest so loudly and stay rooted to my spot. If Luke does not turn his head far enough he may not notice me huddled on the floor, in a heap between the settee and an old chair.

And if he does? If he does, what will I say? Or should I skip the speech and slap him as hard as possible?

He does not turn his head. From behind them, as they walk into the kitchen, I watch them: his arm around her tiny waist, her face turned up to his with a saintly smile. When they are out of my sight I hear him chiding her for the broken dishes.

“You can’t break things, my love,” he says. “You’ll hurt yourself. What made you so upset?”

I will myself not to panic.

I hear Rose sigh. “Nothing. It’s the traveling is all; you know how that makes me. I get so confused. I took care of that girl. She’s all taken care of, Luke. I did it all by myself like I said I would. Aren’t you proud of me?”

“I’m always proud of you, you know that. You also know I hate it when you travel without me, even if you’re only gone for a day. It worries me.”

“I come back to you, Luke; I always come back to this dreadful city. I wouldn’t leave you behind, never. Kiss me, please?” I hear her passionate sigh and then a whispered word, ‘more,’ and I feel sick.

I raise myself to standing as silently as possible and on feet that are more like wings, I leave that house forever.