The Sisters Grimm

by Menna Van Praag

But he shudders and stops, dropping his cheek to her shoulder blade, hot quick breaths on her skin. Bea twists away, pushing him off, sliding her body back around the desk.

  “Wait,” he says. “Where are you going? Don’t you want—”

  “No.” She steps away from him, pulling her skirt back into place, bending down to pick up her discarded jumper from the rug. “This isn’t happening again.”

  “Oh, come on,” Dr. Finch says, his flaccid penis still hanging through his trousers. “You can’t tell me that wasn’t fucking fantastic sex.”

  “Zip yourself up.”

  He glances down. “Bugger that. Give me ten minutes. I’ll do better next time.”

  Ignoring him, Bea crosses the room. Already she feels the dribble of sperm sliding down her thigh. She needs a shower. Now. She needs to wash every trace of him away. She pulls on her coat, her boots; snatches up her bag.

  “Wait.”

  Bea looks up to his hand pressing against the door. She frowns at him—how had he crossed the room so silently, so quickly? “Move.”

  He smiles. “You can’t fuck me like that then tell me it’ll never happen again.”

  Bea grabs his wrist. She’s half his size but, right now, her fury makes her twice as strong. She thinks of Vali—will there ever be a time she doesn’t think of him? If she could do that to an innocent man, a man she loved, imagine what she could do to one she doesn’t even like.

  “I can do whatever I want,” Bea snaps. “Now get the hell out of my way.”

  Less than a decade ago

  Goldie

  He did it. I knew he would. My bastard stepfather flushed Juniper down the toilet. At least, he tried. Moron. He could have hacked her up, even burned her. But the idiot thought drowning would be the most effective method of extinction. I suppose I should be grateful for his stupidity. He was jealous, jealous that he couldn’t do anything creative. Couldn’t cook, couldn’t draw, couldn’t tend to a tree. He never created, only destroyed. Just as he was destroying me, little by little, every night. I felt his hands on me, inside me, even when he wasn’t within touching distance. I felt his gaze on me even when he wasn’t there.

  I found Juniper one morning, plucked from her ceramic pot, roots stripped of soil, branches stripped of leaves, drowned. I plunged my hand into the water and pulled out my little tree. I held her, dripping, in my hands, and my tears only made her more wet. I’d never held a dead thing before. Not even an insect. It was strange, not to feel the pulse of life in her, just the shock between the warm rhythm of my veins and the cold stillness of hers. I locked the bathroom door and sat on the edge of the bath. I held her for a long time.

  As I held her my hands grew warmer. I closed them over her, like an oven. I don’t know how long I sat there, but after a while I started to feel a shift, a jolt. As if the faint thump-thump of her faded heartbeat was twitching back to life. I frowned at this impossible thing. But then, after my experiences in Everwhere, my parameters of possible had fallen off the edge of the earth.

  I opened my cupped hands to peer down at my tree. She didn’t look different, still bare and bereft of leaves and, it seemed, life. But she felt different, as if she were gasping for breath after breaking through ocean waves.

  She was reaching for life and I reached back. I touched every branch, every root; I whispered to her, breathing fresh carbon dioxide into her air. To make her strong again. Eventually, I got up to search for a new pot in which to plant my little tree. I found an old margarine tub under the sink being used to catch a drip. I took Juniper to the park at the end of the road, dug up handfuls of soil, and replanted her.

  Three days later my tree’s first new leaf started to sprout, a bud of bright, insistent green.

  Two days after that, the kitchen flooded. Ma had a fit.

  Liyana

  Lately, Liyana had been arguing with her mother. They’d started fighting over the littlest things. Liyana said she was old enough to walk to school alone; Isisa said not until she turned thirteen. Liyana wanted to ditch ballet and take up kickboxing; her mother declined to pay for the classes. Liyana refused to hold her mother’s hand when they crossed the road, so Isisa seized her wrist instead, clutching so tight that Liyana’s skin was mottled for hours afterwards. Last week, Liyana had demanded a lock on her bedroom door; Isisa insisted that the only lockable door would be the bathroom.

  One night, sick of enduring the torture of hair-straightening any longer, Liyana shut herself in the bathroom and cut her hair with the kitchen scissors, chopping off every controlled curl until they lay on the tiles like decapitated snakes. For a moment Liyana thought of those myths she’d learned in school—of Medusa and Samson—and was shot through with regret. Had she just cut off the source of her power? But when Liyana caught sight of herself in the mirror, she dismissed the thought. Her hair was short, shorn to the scalp in places, with frizzy tufts sticking up like a drunkenly mown lawn. Her mother would certainly kill her but, for once, Liyana didn’t care. It looked completely and utterly splendid.

  For good measure, Liyana found the bottle of Dr. Miracle’s No-Lye Relaxer in the cabinet and tipped it down the sink, grinning as the stinging white gloop glugged down the plughole. She would pay for this, but it would be worth every smack.

  Bea

  “Kick-ass hair,” Bea said. “I bet your mamá had a stroke.”

  Liyana walked into the glade, self-consciously tweaking the uneven tufts of her hair.

  “Mamá would’ve slapped me so hard,” Bea said, grinning as if this were a fate to be devoutly wished. “She’d have set fire to the fucking house.” We all looked shocked and she laughed, the sound disturbing the air like a crow. “You’re all so sensitive, I’m going to have to toughen you up”—she paused, looking to each of us in turn—“Before it’s too late.”

  Her words drifted into the air, parting the fog, waiting to catch our attention. I wanted to ask what she meant but waited for one of my sisters to ask instead. I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long.

  “Before what’s too late?” Liyana asked, snapping the bait like a fish.

  But Bea just smiled her enigmatic smile.

  Scarlet slid down from her tree branch. “Let’s do something fun,” she said. “We can do anything we want here. Why waste our time chatting or letting her”—she nodded at Bea—“Tease us with silly riddles?”

  “I like chatting,” Liyana said. “It’s nice to get to know each other. None of us have sisters in the real world so—”

  “This is the real world,” Scarlet informed Liyana, then turned back to Bea. “Now, stop being so annoying and tell us what you’re talking about.”

  “The choice.” Bea sighed, as if under duress, as if she hadn’t been the one to bring up the topic in the first place. “If you don’t choose dark you’ll need to be strong to survive.”

  “Survive what?” Liyana snapped at the bait again.

  “If you don’t choose in his favour, then he’ll send his soldiers to kill you, or he’ll do it himself. Depends how special you are,” Bea said. “So you’ll have to hone your skills, practise—practise until you stand a fighting chance of survival.”

  She sounded like she was quoting someone, probably her ma.

  “You never said it was a life-or-death choice,” I said.

  “I thought it was obvious,” Bea said. “You didn’t expect him to let you live, did you? Just like that. He wants to father an army to support him, not a force to oppose him.”

  “I suppose your mother—”

  “What if we decided to kill him,” Scarlet interrupted. “Then what?”

  Liyana was wide-eyed. “We can’t do that!”

  “It’s self-defence, they can’t send you to prison for that,” Scarlet said. “Anyway, we didn’t ask to be born like this, did we? It’s not our fault, it’s his.”

  I wanted to echo my sister, but I wasn’t quite so brave. Liyana stared at her, incredulous. Bea rolled her eyes.

  “You’re not that special,�
� she said, going into arrogant adult mode again. “None of us are. He’s mightier than any of us will ever be, can ever be—he’s like . . . an ancient oak tree and we’re . . . seedlings—you wouldn’t stand a chance, no matter how strong you got.”

  “Why does your mummy tell you everything,” Liyana said, “and ours tell us nothing?”

  Bea sighed, assuming the stance of a schoolteacher. “I told you. It’s because they don’t know. They aren’t pure Grimms, are they? If they go to Everwhere in their dreams, they won’t think it was real.”

  “My mother knows something,” Scarlet said, almost to herself. “She looks at me sometimes, like she’s suspicious or scared.”

  “She’s probably got a bit of Grimm blood then,” Bea said. “Enough to go through the gates anyway.”

  “I don’t think Mummy knows anything,” Liyana said.

  A few weeks ago I’d have said Ma knew nothing either, but I was starting to wonder. It’d make sense then, why she held me so tight.

  “What if, when it’s time to choose, we hide somewhere and don’t come back here?” Liyana twisted the spikes of her shorn hair. “Then we won’t have to be in an army or die or try to kill anyone either.”

  Silence dropped over the glade, as if all sound had been smothered by a dense and sudden fog. This suggestion of never returning was so shocking, so untenable, that no one sanctified it with a response. Death, surely, was better than desertion.

  “You can’t run away,” Bea said at last. “You’ll keep coming back, even if only in your dreams, even if you don’t want to.”

  “Why?” Liyana and Scarlet asked in unison.

  “The need to return has been inside us since we were conceived,” Bea said, pausing to recall her ma’s words. “It’s a product of the bright-white wishing and black-edged desire. We’re like those fish . . . the salmon that always return to the place they were born.”

  “So, how will you survive the Choosing?” Scarlet asked. “If you won’t be strong enough to defeat him.”

  A look passed across Bea’s face that I couldn’t quite decipher. When she spoke every trace of teasing was gone.

  “You don’t have to defeat him,” she said, “if you’re going to go dark.”

  26th October

  Six days . . .

  3:33 a.m.—Goldie & Liyana

  “She still loves you,” I say, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder, whispering so Teddy won’t hear. At last, Liyana’s told me everything: her mother, the tarot, Kumiko, the Slade, Aunt Nya, Mazmo, Tesco—at least I think it’s everything.

  “I’m not sure,” Liyana says.

  “I am.” And I am. Even though I’ve never met Kumiko, I’m still certain. “Love doesn’t suddenly stop, Ana,” I say, as if I’m the sudden expert on the subject. “You need to win her back.”

  I hear Liyana sigh.

  “I think she’s right about your aunt, though.” I’m more tentative now. I want to say something about Mazmo and art school, about having to work hard for things and not being ashamed to do shitty jobs, but I’m not sure how to put it without causing offence. So I stick to the safer subject. “You can’t give up everything for her.”

  “I know,” Liyana whispers. “I know, it’s just so hard. She’s been—she’s done . . . She’s . . .”

  “She’ll be okay,” I say. “She doesn’t need you to save her.”

  I hear Liyana sigh again. “Perhaps.”

  “And as for Kumiko, you have to . . . don’t give up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” I try to think of an example. “Show her what she means to you. Walk naked through Trafalgar Square, climb up Big Ben—”

  Liyana laughs. “I can’t do that.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Of course.”

  “If you love her, you’ll do anything.”

  Liyana’s silent.

  “Ana . . .” I hesitate.

  “Yeah?”

  “For what it’s worth, I think Kumiko might be right about Mazmo too.”

  Liyana’s so quiet that I start to wonder if she might have hung up on me.

  “But . . .” I try to find a less painful subject. “I, um, would you—would you give me a tarot reading?”

  Still, Liyana says nothing and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing, again.

  “Ana?”

  “Sorry,” she says. “I . . . But yeah, I guess so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure,” she says. “I don’t mind, I’ve just never done it for anyone else before. I don’t know if it’ll work.”

  “If you could try, that’d be amazing,” I say. “I’ve—there are things I’m sensing, but I’ve got no proof.”

  “But the cards won’t give you that,” Liyana says. “My readings are more like stories, telling you what’s happening and what might happen . . . But, honestly, lately I’ve not been able to make much sense of them myself.”

  Not wanting to pressure her, I say nothing.

  “Hold on,” Liyana says. “I’ll get the cards.”

  I wait until she picks up the phone again.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right, I’ll put you on speaker while I shuffle and deal.”

  While she cuts the cards, Liyana focuses on Goldie, asking the tarot to tell a story about her sister. She shuffles longer than usual, trying to impress the cards with Goldie’s energy instead of her own, before laying them down. The Ten of Swords: a blue-haired girl faints beneath the points of ten hovering swords, oblivious to the circling butterflies or the glittering stars above. An ending, entering into darkness. The Tower: a growling stone beast guards the crumbling tower, flames roaring from the windows, licking the sky. Blown by a ferocious grey wind, vultures soar above the people tumbling to their deaths. Loss, sudden change, devastation. The Nine of Swords: a howling phantom haunts a terrified woman who vainly wields six swords in defence. The three remaining blades pierce her dress, pinning her to the ground. Fear, doubt, psychic dreams. The Seven of Swords: a yellow-cloaked man courted by snakes points four swords at an unseen assailant who brandishes the other three. Betrayal, deceit, mistrust. The Three of Pentacles: three triumphant witches gather in a lush garden casting shape-shifting enchantments while red-eyed rabbits play at their feet. Teamwork, unity, sisterhood.

  Liyana doesn’t need to wait for the story to emerge to know that, with the exception of the final card, this particular spread doesn’t bode well.

  “So?” I nudge her. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing, it’s not . . .” Liyana coughs. “I did something wrong. I need to do it again.”

  I don’t need to see her face to know that she’s lying.

  4:00 p.m.—Liyana

  “You’re cooking?” Liyana steps into the kitchen.

  “Yes,” Aunt Nya says. “Is that so surprising?”

  “Well . . .”

  “You underestimate me. I cooked for the fifth husband all the time.”

  Liyana raises an eyebrow.

  “Okay, not all the time,” her aunt amends, setting down cutlery. “Perhaps it was a more exclusive event. But, as with all things, it’s quality not quantity.”

  Liyana decides not to press the matter. “So, who’s the lucky recipient this time?”

  “I’ve invited Mazmo to dinner.” Nya tweaks the forks so they perfectly parallel the knives. “Will you get the wineglasses?”

  Liyana pulls out a chair and sits.

  “What are you doing?”

  Liyana fiddles with a weighty silver fork. “He’s not coming.”

  “Of course he’s coming.” Nya opens a cupboard, removing three wineglasses. “I invited him.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Speak up!” her aunt snaps. “I didn’t pay thirty thousand a year for a Saint Paul’s education to have you muttering. Enunciate. Project.”

  Liyana looks up. “I . . . I can’t do it, Dagã. I’m sorry, I
can’t marry Mazmo.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nya holds the glasses aloft. Liyana imagines them dropping, smashing on the stone floor. “I only invited him yesterday.”

  Liyana swallows. “I called him this morning, then I called the Tesco Metro on the green and took the night job stacking shelves. I know it’ll take me a while to save for the Slade and I know we’ll have to move but . . .”

  With a deep sigh, Nya leans against the kitchen counter.

  “I’m sorry, I wanted to do this—for you, for me too—but I . . . I can’t.”

  Her aunt stares at the wineglasses.

  “But it’s okay.” Liyana sits forward. “Look, it might turn out to be a good thing, Dagã. Kumiko said some things, about being spoiled and always taking the easy route, and now I realize that she was—”

  “Stop right there.” Nya sets the glasses on the table. “You’ve got no idea how hard my life has been. Absolutely none. So don’t you dare judge me for how I’ve—”

  “Wait,” Liyana protests, “I wasn’t—I didn’t—”

  “No,” her aunt snaps. “You wait. You’ve been raised wanting for nothing. I gave your mother everything she needed to give you all that and more. And, after she died, I gave you even more. You’ve never had to compromise, you’ve never had to do things that twist up your soul in order to survive—so don’t tell me about being spoiled.”

  Nyasha stops, knocks a wineglass off the table. It shatters on the stone floor. Then she turns and walks out of the kitchen. Liyana slumps back in her chair.

  On the table the white wine in the bottle begins to turn red.

  Liyana is pulling herself up from the table when the doorbell rings. Her first thought is of Mazmo, since he hadn’t received the news terminating their acquaintance with particular enthusiasm, so she hesitates. When it rings again, Liyana masters her reluctance and goes to answer it. Better now than later.