“And she had to take care of herself,” I added.
Ruby waved that away, unconcerned. “All the sisters had to their names was their house in Olive. And when the city came with bulldozers, that house was supposed to get flattened with the rest. The girls were supposed to follow—even though they had nowhere to go and no one left. But the big sister had another idea.” She smiled here, waiting for me to say it.
“She didn’t go?”
“No, she refused. She and her baby sister—they stayed.” She was filled up to glowing at the idea. “Those girls were some of the ones who stayed till the very end, Chlo.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked. “Did you read it somewhere?”
“Hmm?” she said, distracted. “We wouldn’t’ve left, either. We would’ve stayed put until the last day, till they finished building the dam and the machines went quiet and the workers got sent back to wherever they came from. Till it was time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for the flood, Chlo. Time to take away our everything.”
“What would we have done?” I was almost whispering, but still she heard me. I wasn’t sure anymore who she was talking about—the two Winchell sisters, the older one who knew what to do or the younger one who followed, or us, real or unreal, alive or dead, catalogued in history or completely made up, the four of us confused and washed away on a wave together.
“What do you think we would’ve done?” Ruby said. “We would’ve climbed to the highest point of our house. And waited it out, just like those two girls did. The big sister led her baby sister up there, and they perched on their chimney and waited. Because when the dam was opened, they couldn’t be sure how high the water would get—it’s not like there was a line drawn in a tree trunk to give a heads-up or anything. All the trees had been chopped down.
“But before the water came, there was this sound, so loud you could hear it for miles. That was the only real warning they’d get. Last chance, run while you still can. . . . Know what it sounded like?”
She pursed her lips and let loose a shrieking hiss, like some instrument had its holes plugged and then broke apart, bursting with noise. Awful, painful noise. Ruby—it wasn’t known by many, or else they all ignored it—was actually tone-deaf.
“A steam whistle,” she explained. “But imagine that it played on and on—for an hour. A whole hour to give everyone time to get out. Then it stopped, and it was so quiet for a few seconds, you could’ve heard birds chirping in the trees . . . if, you know, they hadn’t burned down the forest and killed the birds. The steam whistle stopped. And the water gushed in. And you and I know what happened after that.”
“And those girls?” I asked.
She let her eyes go to the water, and I let mine follow. That was her answer.
“So the big sister lost her little sister after all that,” I said. “Didn’t she?”
“What do you mean?” Ruby said blankly. “Weren’t you listening?”
I was. I was trying to hear—and understand.
I returned my gaze to the reservoir, and now a shiver ran through me as I studied the calm, smooth surface. You wouldn’t think there was anything living underneath, not even fish. But my sister and I knew better.
When I looked back at Ruby, something had changed in her face. Her skin still glowed, her lips flushed without need of her lipstick, and her eyes taking on the green of the trees, but that was only what she was showing on the surface. Underneath, there were things she wasn’t letting me see.
Things involving the reservoir, I felt sure of that. Things involving Olive.
“Why are you telling me this, Ruby?” I asked.
“I only wanted you to know,” she said innocently.
“What does all this stuff about Olive have to do with us?”