The Sisters Grimm

by Menna Van Praag

“When I was young we learned Du Bois and Ama Ata Aidoo by heart,” Nya says. “Not Wonder Woman.”

  “This is a modern classic, Dagã,” Liyana says, without looking up. “It’s the greatest female empowerment film ever made.”

  “Oh, come on. Thelma & Louise is arguably the greatest—”

  “Superheroes,” Liyana interrupts, glad to be arguing about something utterly meaningless for once. “All we had before that was Catwoman and Elektra, but they weren’t a patch on this.”

  Aunt Nya sighs and Liyana falls back into her thoughts, of Kumiko, Mazmo, Goldie, dreams of her sisters, and the stories her tarot cards have been telling. On-screen, as Wonder Woman hurls a tank at Ares, her nemesis and half-brother, Liyana tries to ignore her own feeling of foreboding rising like an ocean wave.

  25th October

  Seven days . . .

  12:33 p.m.—Goldie

  “Hey!”

  I turn to see Leo waving across the hotel foyer.

  “Your hair,” he says, even before reaching me.

  My hand goes up to my shorn locks. I’d forgotten what I’d done. “Do you like it?”

  “Of course.” Leo smiles. “I’d like it no matter what—if you were bald as a coot, I’d still think you the prettiest girl in the world.”

  I frown. “It’s not that short.”

  “Long, short, I don’t care,” Leo says.

  I tug at a stray curl, feeling self-conscious. I wait for Leo to ask why I cut it.

  “Do you fancy lunch?” he says. “And don’t worry, I know it can’t be here. Operation Scandalous Love Affair Between Management and Staff is still classified to NXF Level Five. You’ve nothing to worry about there. George, the world’s most incompetent night porter, may have caught sight of something on Tuesday, but I stuck pins under his fingernails until he promised not to squeal.”

  “I’m not being silly about this,” I say. “At the Fitz everyone knew everyone’s business, what Cassie did for Garrick to—”

  “You don’t need to worry about that.” Leo’s smiling. “No one’s going to think you’re trying to sleep your way—”

  “I just don’t want everyone to hate me.”

  “You’ve got to let that go,” he says, all of a sudden serious. “You’ll never be strong enough to fight if you give a shit about stuff like that.”

  “Stop it,” I hiss. Last night I found a ledge with Liyana—a narrow one, but a ledge nevertheless—and now he’s trying to shove me over the side. “Stop banging on about all that—you sound like a lunatic.”

  Leo draws a breath, as if he’s holding back, as if he wants to say more but knows he shouldn’t. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Look, let me take you to lunch. How about the Ivy? You can order every drink on the menu—what d’you say?”

  “I’d love to. But I can’t, I’ve already got plans.”

  Leo frowns. “You’ve got a date?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve got a hot date with George the Porter. I’ve got a thing for bald men with beards. We’d make a good match now, don’t you think?”

  I smile. Leo doesn’t.

  “She’s just a . . . friend, all right? I’m meeting a friend at Fitzbillies.”

  “Right. I wasn’t—it doesn’t . . .” Leo shakes his head. “Anyway, it’s fine, I’ve got a load of paperwork to catch up on anyway—I’ve still got the report on that dead guy in room forty-seven to write, and I really should be studying too, so it’s all good.”

  I know he’s lying, but I let it go. I nod and he glances about, checking no one’s there to see us, then gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and turns to walk away. I watch him go and wonder why I’m still keeping Ana a secret from Leo and Leo a secret from Ana. Perhaps I’m simply being selfish, not wanting to share either of them yet. Or perhaps it’s something deeper, something darker. I don’t know.

  3:33 p.m.—Liyana & Goldie

  “Bloody hell,” Liyana squeals as soon as she sees me, barrelling into Fitzbillies and crash-landing at my table. “What the hell did you do to your hair?”

  I feel my cheeks flush. Unlike Leo, my sister clearly cares that I’ve cut off most of my hair. “I thought—”

  “But why?” Liyana interrupts. “Why would you?”

  I glance down at my Chelsea bun, poking it with my fork.

  “Oh, no,” Liyana says. “Wait, you didn’t?”

  I nod, still not meeting her eye.

  “Because of the story.” Liyana laughs. “You cut off your hair because of my story!”

  “Are you going to sit?” I say, wishing she’d drop it. “I got you a Chelsea bun.”

  Liyana sits, still grinning. “I still can’t believe you did it.” She tears into the bun with her fingers, ignoring the fork. “Hey, this is delicious.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And only about three thousand calories a piece.”

  Liyana chews. “And worth every one. Can we go to the Fitzwilliam Museum?”

  “Of course.” I curl my hands around my teacup. “It’s just down the road. I took my brother to a Vermeer exhibition once, but I’ve not been back since. I suppose I should’ve, since I worked at the hotel across the street.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Liyana asks, as if she can’t imagine a reason to justify such neglect of art.

  I shrug. “Long shifts, never had the time.” It’s a half lie, but I’m not about to tell my posh sister that I felt too embarrassed, like I didn’t fit in.

  “We could go to the Quentin Blake exhibition now,” Liyana says, catching herself staring at my short hair and returning to devouring the Chelsea bun. “I loved his illustrations as a kid. I had to read Roald Dahl in secret, though; Dadá—Mummy banned all his books.”

  “Why?”

  “She thought they encouraged rebellion against parental authority.”

  “Ma told me they were too scary.” I smile. “I think she didn’t want me getting ideas, in case I made a bid for freedom in a giant peach.”

  “Overprotective?”

  I nod. “Massively. I spent my childhood planning my escape. But when she died . . . I still . . .”

  Liyana’s dark eyes don’t change, but still I feel the shift, the sudden weight of her sadness as if it were my own.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

  “I suppose having the nest ripped away too soon means we’ll always long for it more.” I take a gulp of tea. “Did you bring my comic?”

  “It’s not finished,” Liyana says, reaching under the table to rummage in her bag. She hands me two folders. “That’s yours and another—a few illustrations from a graphic novel I’ve been working on for a couple of years and a fairy tale. With yours, I’m thinking I might create a series.”

  “Fantastic.” Setting down my cup as far from the folders as possible, I open the one that isn’t mine. As Liyana scrapes the last of the syrup off her plate I gaze at the first page, at an image so striking I stare at it for a long time: a falling woman transforming into a bird that shrieks above a dark forest fading into the distance. Tentatively, I turn the pages to see image upon image: pen-and-ink drawings more visually masterful and emotionally arresting than anything I’ve ever seen before. “These are—they’re . . .” I’m failing to find adequate words. “They’re . . . Wow.”

  Liyana licks her fingers. “Thanks. And they’re not even yours.”

  She nods at the other folder. I open it with reverence, flicking slowly through the pages to see a woman with my face and a peacock’s wings.

  “It’s absolutely . . . stupendous,” I say, wishing I had more elegant, descriptive phrases to hand, but in the face of such beauty I’m inarticulate. “You drew it all yourself?”

  “I’ve been doing it for years.” Liyana shrugs. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It is. It’s massively amazing. You should be doing this professionally. You should publish them.”

  A flicker of disappointment passes over her face. I want to ask why but don’t. Liyana closes the folders, so the brilliant imag
es are eclipsed and the table is dull and ordinary once more. I gaze at her hands, imagining her long, strong fingers gripping a pen with such poise and purpose. If only I could write half as well as she can draw . . .

  “I’ve got a boyfriend,” I blurt out. I hadn’t been intending to tell her yet, but suddenly I need to give her something. If not a comic book, then a secret. I press my fingers to my bare neck.

  “Oh?”

  “He’s called Leo. He’s . . .” I’m annoyed by my inability to adequately describe him. “He’s, um, pretty fucking spectacular.”

  Liyana smiles. “I’d like to meet him.”

  “Yeah, that’d be . . .”

  “I’ve got a girlfriend.” Liyana plucks at the edge of the fairy tale folder, creasing the paper. “She’s . . . she’s pretty fucking spectacular too, but . . .”

  “But?”

  Liyana doesn’t meet my eye. “It’s . . . complicated right now.”

  “Ah. I’m sorry to—”

  Liyana stands. “Let’s go to the Fitzwilliam.”

  I don’t want to go yet. I want to stay and read my story, to gaze at my pictures until I can see them with my eyes closed. Reluctantly, I stand, lifting the folders and pressing them to my chest. But my hold isn’t tight enough and the pages slip from their bindings, fluttering free across the floor. The door opens and a sudden gust carries them under tables and chairs.

  “Shit!”

  I scramble about on the floor of Fitzbillies to save the precious pictures before they’re crushed beneath muddy shoes or sloshed with coffee. I’d lie down and be trampled upon sooner than allow damage to the best gift I’ve ever been given.

  3:54 p.m.—Bea

  Moments later, Bea steps into Fitzbillies. She isn’t sure why she’s there since it’s not a café she usually frequents. She always went to Indigo with Vali. But, walking along Trumpington Street, she feels a sudden desire for one of its iconic Chelsea buns.

  It’s only when she’s ordered, paid, and sat at a table by the window that she sees it. Bending down, Bea reaches under the table and picks up a piece of paper. Emblazoned across it is a black-and-white illustration of a woman flying through a dark sky, transforming into a bird. Bea stares at the bird, at its screeching mouth, sharp talons, and enormous black wings opening as it rises over a nocturnal landscape of rivers and valleys, over the tops of towering trees, soaring through a midnight sky as if reaching for the moon. A blackbird.

  Studying the picture, Bea thinks of how she feels gliding above the earth in a plane: fearless, invincible, free. She’s so absorbed in the picture, so captivated, that she doesn’t see the waitress set down the plate. The illustration is so otherworldly, yet so real. Who could have drawn such a thing? Bea looks for a name, a signature, but finds only T.L.M.C. scribbled in the bottom right-hand corner. She traces the lines of the wings, the intricately penned feathers. Bea is so mesmerized that she doesn’t feel the tears on her cheeks.

  4:14 p.m.—Scarlet

  On her way to the newsagent, Scarlet pauses at the palatial wall of Saint Catherine’s College. Every autumn the thousand leaves clothing the bricks turn every shade of red, amber, and yellow. When caught by a gust of wind, they flicker: a thousand flames licking the wall like an insatiable fire. During the months of September and October, even into November, Scarlet pays a visit to the wall at least once a day. It’s her pilgrimage—one that takes, from the No. 33 Café, all of three minutes to make. Usually, the sight offers her spiritual succour. Today, it’s the altar at which she must bow her head and atone for her sins.

  Her dream rises. The spark. The fire. Her mother’s screams. This last she still can’t remember, though it must have happened. And all at her hand. Murderer. Before she cries again, Scarlet hurries on.

  Passing Fitzbillies, she slows. In the window sits a girl gazing at a picture. Scarlet stops. Pretending to be contemplating the trays of warm, sticky Chelsea buns, she gazes at the girl, who’s silently crying.

  Scarlet is struck by the strongest sense of déjà vu. She’s met this girl before, she’s certain. But it’s more than that—a feeling she doesn’t have words for. She knows this stranger intimately as she might a sister, if she had one. But how can someone be a stranger and a sister all at once? Although, Scarlet thinks, her relationship with her grandma is like that nowadays.

  Esme!

  She’s got to get back. She’s left her grandmother alone for too long now. She popped out only for a pint of milk to make blueberry drop scones. With one last glance at the girl, and forgetting the milk, Scarlet runs all the way back to the café.

  5:05 p.m.—Leo

  In the Faculty of Law building Leo sits in seminar room B16, trying to concentrate on whatever Dr. Hussein is wittering on about, something to do with the law of tort. But it’s no use. Leo can’t think why he even bothered turning up in the first place. He’s been missing so many of his lectures lately—handing in miserable essays to supervisions he’s often late for—that he’ll surely get summoned by his director of studies soon. But if he’s sent down it’s of no importance. It’s likely he’ll be dead in a week anyway, so what the hell does it matter?

  All Leo cares about now is keeping Goldie alive. Instead of applying his mind to the complexities of tort law, he needs to be solving the problem of convincing Goldie that he’s not insane, while at the same time not terrifying her into a nervous breakdown. He needs to find a balance between convincing and careful.

  “. . . so, if one uses the case of Beckett v. Hargreaves as an example of this, one must consider . . .”

  Leo slams his textbook shut, stands, snatches up his bag, and strides out of seminar room B16. Thirty startled students turn to watch him go.

  6:01 p.m.—Goldie

  When I get home that night I decide to try again, this time with a daisy I picked in the park instead of a stolen rose. I tell myself I won’t be humiliated by ridiculous hopes, but my spirits are buoyed from seeing my sister and reading the beginnings of my very own graphic novel. Seeing myself as a superhero has given me the fanciful, but not altogether improbable, notion that I might have certain supernatural powers after all.

  As I set the daisy on the kitchen counter, glancing at my juniper tree, a memory rises, just out of reach: Juniper bare and bereft of leaves, my hands closing like an oven, a faded heartbeat twitching back to life . . . I feel a surge of anticipation, promise, nerve . . . I place my hands flat on either side of the flower and focus on it. This time I’m wondering how it feels to be this flower—the breath of the breeze on its petals, the warmth of the sun on its leaves. I imagine Leo is beside me, Ana too. Then I think of Ma. And, all at once, I feel that this was something she could do: small magic tricks, though perhaps she didn’t know it.

  As they cheer me on, the thought of lifting something, especially something as insubstantial as a daisy, doesn’t seem quite so fantastical. No more so than atoms or electricity or radio waves. After all, I think, is telekinesis or telepathy any more extraordinary than email or instant messaging? I bring my forefingers and thumbs together so that the daisy sits in the space between. I stare at the little flower.

  Nothing. I close my eyes.

  Rise.

  I peek. Nothing.

  “Rise.”

  Another peek. Nothing. I open my eyes.

  “Rise!”

  And it does. Just a fraction. A twitch in the air. A hairbreadth off the counter. I’m certain. Almost.

  8:38 p.m.—Bea

  Dr. Jonathon Finch

  Logic and Language

  Bea barely glances at the plaque, twisting the handle and pushing so hard that the door slams back into the bookcase against the wall. Striding into the room, she drops her bag and strips off her coat and clothes as she crosses the floor—until she’s only wearing her skirt, high on her thighs.

  Dr. Finch, pen still in hand, stares at her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Saying nothing, Bea lifts herself onto his desk, displacing student essays that dri
ft to the floor like the leaves of Everwhere.

  “No, wait—”

  “Leave them.” Bea slides into his lap, wriggling her skirt up her thighs.

  “I don’t understand,” Dr. Finch says, fumbling with his zip. “Last time, you said it wouldn’t happen—”

  Bea pulls back. “You want me to go?”

  “No,” he says, freeing himself. “No, no, no.”

  “Right,” Bea says. “So shut the fuck up.”

  Dr. Finch frowns, opening his mouth to speak but letting out a long sigh as Bea shifts her hips and slides onto him.

  “Oh, good God . . .”

  “I told you. Shut up.” Bea pushes him deeper as he moans louder. She pulls back her hand and, just as he closes his eyes, slaps him hard.

  Dr. Finch’s eyes snap open. “What the fuck did you—?”

  Bea slaps him again.

  “Stop!”

  She pulls back her hand a third time. “Make me.”

  Dr. Finch seizes hold of Bea’s wrist, then locks his fingers around both her hands and holds her tight. Bea arches her back, twists her hips, and pulls herself free.

  “Wait.” Dr. Finch lets her go. “Please, don’t—”

  Bea turns, pressing her body, her breasts, her face, into his desk.

  “Oh, God,” he gasps, grasping her buttocks with both hands and sliding into her again. “Oh, good God.”

  “Slap me,” Bea whispers. “Slap me back.”

  “What? No.”

  “Do it,” she snaps.

  He hesitates.

  “Do it, you spineless—”

  The slap stings her skin and clouds her sight. She bites her lip, leeching the blood. “Again.”

  “Are you—”

  “Otra vez. Again!” Bea bites down harder and tastes blood on her tongue. “Again.” Pain shoots up her spine.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh . . .”

  “Again.”