Emma gave me a blank, dirty look, went to the kitchen without saying another word about it. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. I ran my hand over the wallpaper then my chair; felt the sticky coating of Mrs Borden’s cream cake. I rubbed my finger over my teeth, tasted remains of days’-old entertaining.
When I was ten, I used to like it when Father and Mrs Borden invited the occasional friend over, liked the way I could go unnoticed like a critter, biting off conversation here, sipping mulled wine there. Emma was often invited to sit with Mrs Borden and friends. I never could.
‘It’s to make me like her more,’ Emma spat out.
‘It’s because you’re a grown-up. You’re lucky.’
Emma pulled at her throat. ‘It’s not that fun.’
From the front stairs I’d watch Emma in the parlour drink cups of tea. Mrs Borden would say, ‘Emma, dear, tell us about the things you’re crafting.’
Sip, sip. ‘I’m sketching a landscape scene.’ Sip, sip. ‘Nothing too important.’
‘Your mother tells us all the time how talented you are,’ a friend would say.
Sip, sip. ‘Oh.’ Sip, sip and Emma would stare at Mrs Borden before saying, ‘I still have quite a lot to learn about form and colour.’ Sip, sip. When were they going to talk to me about what I liked? After skin flushed red, Emma would make excuses to leave the table, taking with her a handful of Borden-made cookies and heading for the backyard. Everyone always chooses the wrong sister. I wanted to be at the table. I’d make my way down, quiet into Emma’s chair and listen to adult talk.
‘No, Lizzie. Not this time.’ Mrs Borden rushed her fingers over my head, made skin dance. Nothing was ever my time.
I rubbed my fingers along my forehead, massaged an ache away. Emma came back into the parlour, placed tea onto the small table between us and watched me.
‘Are you alright?’ She stared at me, made me shiver.
‘Why?’
‘Your head. You keep touching it.’
I rubbed again. ‘Just a strange throb, that’s all.’ The butcher pounded.
‘Let’s call for Dr Bowen again in the morning.’
I smiled, and Emma kept her watch of me and I looked around the room. We were surrounded by ghosts of sympathy. On small tables, half-full cups of tea and cream had been left by Father and Mrs Borden’s friends who could no longer handle the stench of their absence. Underneath the sofa were tiny pieces of paper that had come away from police officers’ notebooks, trailing from sofa to kitchen like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs, hoping to find their way home. I rubbed my forehead again. There would be many things Emma would have to fix to make everything right. I could see Father’s blood on the sofa.
Words slipped out of me then. ‘I was in here talking to Mrs Borden this morning.’
Emma seized. ‘When was this?’ Her voice scratched at my ear.
‘After she told Bridget to keep cleaning the windows. She said there was a strange smell.’
Emma’s nose twitched. ‘What kind of smell?’
The sweet syrup tripped through my limbs. ‘I don’t know. It was probably her.’ I giggled.
‘What time did you speak to her?’ Emma said.
My head jerked towards her. ‘I just told you.’
‘But you said she had gone to see a sick relative.’
I rubbed my forehead. ‘She did but I spoke to her first.’ Is this the way things really go? The butcher pounded out all sense.
Emma got haughty. ‘I’m simply trying to understand . . .’
I heard a tiny voice say not to speak anymore, that she wouldn’t understand the thoughts swimming inside. But it was hard to keep a tongue still. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. My body swooned and clothes gripped tight around ribs. This feeling of being held too tightly when I was younger, first by Father then by Emma. The feeling that made you want to jump out of your skin, run like hammers away, away, I shouldn’t be feeling like this now.
I turned to Emma, saw her stare at me like I was a caged animal. ‘Why do you keep staring?’
‘You look pale,’ Emma said.
I touched my face, pulled down on skin. ‘Do I?’
‘You should rest.’
‘There’s so much to do. We have to plan the funeral.’ I parted the parlour curtains, looked out the window, watched people hold hands as they passed and tried to see in. Heads make curious shapes. ‘Who do you think Father would want to attend for him?’
Emma breathed, curled around my ear. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’
‘But it’s important.’
Emma’s face drained of colour. I leaned towards her and saw light-blue veins along jawbone tighten and pulse, all the little angers waiting to come out and spill. I leaned closer.
‘Sit back,’ she snarled.
‘Stop looking at me like that.’ I pulled at my neck. Emma kept watch until I felt her begin to crawl under my skin, eyes like parasites.
‘Like what?’ she said.
Her eyes continued to take my skin as a feast, ate the layers until I felt her inside my insides. ‘You always do this,’ I said.
‘What am I doing, exactly?’ Emma burrowed in closer, chewed to bone. All the little strings that hold a body together threatened to undo. How far would she go?
‘Nothing,’ I said. But the more she looked at me, the more I thought things, thought about the time we were robbed last year, how Emma had looked and looked at me for days after. Just like this. ‘You told Father about the necklace, didn’t you?’ I folded teeth over teeth.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Last year. You told Father I took the necklace, that it was me who stole all Mrs Borden’s jewellery.’
She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe this. It’s not that important.’
My heart drummed, strike up the band! and pressed against my chest, throat tightened. ‘But how do I know you’re not going to tell the police things about me? Things I’ve said?’
Her eyes pinched into nothingness. ‘Why are you saying . . .’
‘I made one little mistake! I only ever make one little mistake and you always make sure I’m punished. I absolutely hate you sometimes.’ Heart drummed into my head. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked.
‘Lizzie, cut it out right now,’ her voice spat across the room.
My body lurched forwards then back, forwards then back, the way a body on gallows would swing. My neck ached. I wept. I shook until the floorboards whispered, no more, no more. From upstairs I heard Uncle call out, ‘What’s going on down there?’ Emma rushed at me, wrapped skeleton arm around me and shooshed, shooshed, shooshed. ‘It will be alright,’ she said. Her head curled into mine, magnetic skin, and in we breathed, out we breathed, like children, we children without parents.
‘This is how you should always be to me,’ I hummed into her ears. We were warm for a time. Then Emma’s fingers crawled over my head, soothed like God and made me electric.
‘What’s this?’ Her fingers stopped sharp at my temple. She pulled away, looked me over.
‘What?’
‘What’s in your hair?’ she whispered.
I ran my hand over the spot that had made her break from me; something brittle and coated.
Emma pulled my head towards her and studied. The clock on the mantel ticked ticked. ‘There’s something hard stuck in your hair.’ Her fingers weaved through strands, pulled gently. ‘Oh, my,’ she whispered again.