The Sisterhood

by A. J. Grainger

  She’d never liked him, even in the beginning, before his utter-douche-bag credentials came to light; and she hadn’t liked Mella around Cai. Mella met him at the kayaking club. He’d started working there just before Christmas, and Mella noticed him immediately. Mind you, it was hard not to notice Cai. “You know how some people just expect to be looked at?” Rhia once said of him. And it was true. Cai moved like he was auditioning for a part. No, he moved like he’d already gotten the part everyone else wanted.

  Mella had liked plenty of guys before, but with Cai it was different. Mella looked at Cai like she couldn’t look at anything else. It scared Lil, that intensity. It was a part of Mella she couldn’t get to, and a part of her she didn’t want Cai near because it was fragile.

  There was a vulnerability to Mella. She wasn’t shy or quiet or any of those things. In fact, she was loud, with a laugh you could hear three rooms away, and a sarcasm that could cut. But still, beneath her snark and her outlandish look-at-me clothes, she was sensitive, easily hurt, and overly self-critical. “Did I sound like an idiot when I said that?” she’d ask Lil. Or, “Do you think they liked me? Or were they just pretending?” Or, “God, I do such stupid things sometimes.” And Cai, with his dark eyes, as dark as a shark’s, was not gentle enough to care for Mella. From the moment she’d met him, Lil had known he would devour her sister, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to be in love, that’s all,” Mella said when Lil expressed concerns about their relationship. “So what if we fight sometimes? We need each other. And love is hard, Lil. It makes you crazy, but if you love someone, you have to take the good and the bad. That’s the deal.”

  At night Lil would hear her sister’s voice pleading on the phone, “No, it wasn’t like that. . . . You know I love you. I barely even spoke to him. I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

  Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. On and on.

  Mella was so intense, that was the trouble. If she did something, it was always with every bit of herself, until she found a new diversion and moved on. Like the horoscopes (“horror-scopes,” Nain had called them), the crystals, and the tarot cards. Cai had been another addiction, one they all hoped would pass. Only it hadn’t, and now Mella was gone.

  Lil flipped through the rest of the sketchbook, until she came to the last sketch. The one of Lil and Mella, copied from a photograph that was in a frame on the sideboard in the kitchen. The likenesses were astonishing. Mella was incredibly talented. Mella’s arm was around Lil, pulling her close as she stared down the camera. Lil stared—as always—at Mella.

  Taid had taken the photo the day they arrived on the farm. “We need to mark this occasion,” he’d said in Welsh, and their mum had quickly translated. It was the only photo of Mella left in the house. Her mum had taken the rest down shortly after Mella went missing. Said it hurt too much to look at them. Lil knew her mum kept the baby albums in her room, though, and was sure she spent hours flicking through them when she was alone.

  Are you awake? . . . Don’t be angry.

  The memory burned and Lil shut the pad quickly and slid it across the desk, as though she could shut out the past, too.

  Lil’s room was at the back of the house and overlooked the sprawling, messy yard. Taid hadn’t been interested in growing flowers, and Lil’s mum had soon forgotten about the few she’d planted after they moved in. Lil could just make out the rough edges of Nain’s old vegetable patch. There was something moving out there in the gloom between the rotting wooden stakes that once held tomatoes and sunflowers. A fox? Badger? There was a burrow nearby.

  Lil sat forward in her chair, peering out into the twilight. She gave a start when she caught a glimpse of a pale smudge with huge, dark eyes and a round mouth staring up at her from the yard below. Her fear was replaced by an embarrassed laugh when she realized it was only her reflection in the glass. Idiot, she told herself, and stood up to change. Dusky-gray jeans, purple socks pulled over the top, a blue-and-white stripy long-sleeved T-shirt, and the cable-knit sweater she’d swiped from her mum’s wardrobe last week.

  She was pulling the sweater over her head and wishing she could shower—she still felt cold and was, let’s admit it, a little smelly—when there was a knock on the bedroom door. Lil turned to find Alice in the doorway. She’d rolled the tracksuit trousers up and pulled the drawstrings as tight as possible, but they were still massive on her. The sweatshirt swamped her too, stretching down over her hands, covering up the mark on her arm. Lil was struck again by how defenseless she was, and how small, framed in the doorway, the hallway light catching in her hair and making its wisps into downy feathers. Lil was reminded of a baby bird. Tenderness spread through her.

  “Oh,” Lil said gently. “You can’t wear that. It’s way too big. I’ll find something else.” Mella’s stuff would fit better, but Lil couldn’t bring herself to go back into Mella’s room, and besides, she didn’t want Alice wearing her clothes.

  “It is vanity to care about the vessel.” Alice was solemn, her tiny hands clasped before her. Lil wasn’t sure she even understood what Alice said half the time. Like now, what vessel? It all sounded learned, like a quote. Lil’s curiosity about her was increasing every second. Where had this girl come from? Everything about her—her clothes, her way of speaking, even her accent—was strange. If she’d emerged from the back of Nain’s wardrobe, dressed in a fur coat and talking about the White Witch, Lil wouldn’t have been that surprised.

  Lil pulled a sweater from her chest of drawers. It had shrunk in the wash, so would probably just about fit Alice. “Here,” she said, holding it out. “See if this is any better.”

  Alice’s mouth dropped open and her hand reached out to touch the pile of clothes in the drawer. “These are all yours?” Astonishment and fascination filled her voice. “All your very own?”

  “Yeah,” Lil said. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. She didn’t have that many clothes. Alice should see Mella’s wardrobe, or her mum’s. “If there’s anything you want instead, help yourself. They’ll be too big, but . . .”

  With a dignified and wounded air, Alice said, “A true sister does not desire another’s property.” As though Lil had accused her of stealing.

  Lil didn’t know what to make of her. No teenager talked like that. Not even Addiena Thomas, and she was the smartest girl in Lil’s year. “I just meant you’re welcome to borrow anything you like from me. I want you to be comfortable while you’re here.”

  “You mean share?” Alice clapped her hands happily. “To share is to radiate Light.” She held her palm flat up to the ceiling. Her gestures were alien too. Then, more quietly, and sounding almost like a normal teenager, she added, “We shared our possessions at home.”

  It was the most regular sentence she’d said, and Lil pounced on it. “You have a big family, then?” she asked, feigning casualness. Her questions jostled inside her like bubbles in a Coke can, and she was desperate to let them all pour out. Alice was so reticent, though; if Lil wanted to learn anything, without scaring her off, she needed to go slowly. “You’ve got brothers, sisters?”

  Alice’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Why do you ask about the sisters?”

  “Oh, er . . . no reason,” Lil backtracked with a stammer. “Just that . . . you mentioned something about sisters before and then said you shared things. I did with my sister too. Share stuff, I mean.” If sharing was your sister swiping your brand-new top before you had a chance to wear it and then never giving it back.

  It freed up your wardrobe for more new stuff. I was doing you a favor, Mella said in Lil’s head, a smile in her voice.

  “She is your blood sister?” Alice inquired.

  Blood sister? Again with the weirdness. “Er . . . yeah? I mean, we have the same parents.”

  Alice appeared disappointed. “Oh, yes. I see. It’s not the same.” She turned away, as though Lil had let her down.

  “You don’t have blood sisters?” Lil asked. Questioning Al
ice was like trying to catch snow; her answers melted at a touch.

  “I call them sisters. You would not. We are not all from one source; like a river, we merge from many springs to flow as one.”

  Lil took a second to process what Alice meant. “So you . . . erm . . . have different dads? Or mums? Are some of you adopted?” Alice’s home sounded very, very different from anything Lil had ever known. It was hard to find the right questions to ask.

  “I don’t know what that is.” Alice scrunched up her nose. “A-dopted?” Alice said, putting an emphasis on the first syllable. “The word is unfamiliar to me.”

  Lil could feel her brow furrowing. How could Alice not know what “adopted” meant? And how was it possible that Lil only felt more perplexed the more answers she got?

  As if sensing her confusion, Alice said, “We are not blood related—at least, not all of us—but we are sisters.” A look of pain crossed her face then, and she closed her eyes briefly, as though to shut out a memory. At the same time she raised both palms up flat and said, “May the Light shine upon them in all Her glory.” When she opened her eyes, they glistened with tears.

  “What’s happened to you?” Lil asked softly. Alice seemed to have gone through so much, and while Lil didn’t understand a lot of what she was saying, she couldn’t help but feel for her.

  Alice ducked her head. “I have said too much already. Thank you for inviting me into your home. I will not trouble you for long.”

  “But what’s your plan?” Lil asked. “When I found you, where were you going?”

  Alice didn’t answer, and Lil sensed that the window of opportunity to ask her more had closed. Her face was wary again and uncertain. It cleared for a moment as her eyes fell on the bookcase that ran along one wall. “You have so many books,” she cried.

  “Yeah.” Lil went to stand behind her. “Mostly kids’ stuff. I don’t read much of it now.”

  Alice pulled one out, a smile lighting up her face. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I know this one.”

  Lil sat down next to her. “That was my sister’s favorite. She loved the White Rabbit.” She smiled as she realized, “Hey! You’re called Alice too! Are you named after the book?”

  “ ‘A sister’s name is her most sacred possession,’ ” Alice said sadly, and she stroked the book cover tenderly. “A friend told me this story. Before that, I knew of only one book.” Alice picked up another book. It was Winnie-the-Pooh. Her smile widened. “Look at this funny little bear! What is this? A pig? A pig and a bear are friends?” Her eyes were oceans in her face, and she sounded so innocent that Lil couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Yeah, that’s Piglet and Winnie-the-Pooh.”

  “Poo?” Alice said, screwing up her nose.

  Lil laughed again. “ ‘Pooh’ with an h. Not ‘poo’ as in . . . well, ‘poo’ without an h.”

  “It’s a strange name.”

  Lil nodded. “I’m sure there’s a reason he’s called that, but I don’t know it.”

  Alice had opened the book and was turning the pages carefully, like each one was precious. She stroked the illustrations. “They are very beautiful. For children, yes? I would have loved this when I was a child.” She paused and then said more quietly, “I didn’t know it could be like this. The world.”

  Lil wasn’t sure she understood what Alice was saying, but she felt sad anyway.

  Alice laughed and turned the book around to show Lil the page. “Look,” she said, “he’s got his head stuck in a pot!”

  Lil grinned. “Yeah, my dad always liked that drawing too. This was his book from when he was a kid. He read it to us when we were little.”

  “Where is your father now?” Alice asked quietly.

  Lil looked down at her hands. “He left.”

  “I never knew my father. My mother abandoned us too when I was small. They are recreant now.”

  “What do you mean? Recreant?” Lil struggled to pronounce it.

  “You don’t know?” Alice asked, eyes wide in surprise. “How can you not know?” She shook her head. “It’s not like I thought it would be out here. It’s not like they said it was.”

  “Like who said it was?”

  Alice shook her head again, as though the question didn’t matter. She returned the book to the shelf and sat back on her heels. Misery clung to her like a blanket.

  “I want to help you,” Lil said, distraught. “Please. Just tell me what I can do.”

  Alice didn’t answer; her sadness was replaced by another emotion, no less uncomfortable: fear.

  “What?” Lil asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “We are being watched.”

  Lil’s heart fluttered with fright. “What do you mean? Who’s—”

  Alice held a hand up, indicating for Lil to be quiet. Her gaze was riveted to the yard, right at the back, where the trees were tightest and the shadows longest.

  “It’s probably just a sheep,” Lil said, trying and failing to sound reassuring. “They get out of their fields all the time. They’re like Houdini or something, my taid said. . . .” Lil stopped talking. She was rambling and Alice had gone rigid with terror.

  The hairs rose on the back of Lil’s neck. Part of her wanted to pull her curtains across the window, but another part of her was afraid to. She had a vision of the gathering gloom pressing unseen against the glass pane like fingers, fumbling for the lock. She remembered playing What’s the Time, Mister Wolf? as a kid. No one could move so long as you kept watching. But as soon as you turned your back . . . Prickles of sensation ran up and down Lil’s back.

  “Were you witnessed bringing me here?” Alice asked.

  “No . . . no,” Lil stammered. “I don’t . . . I mean, there was no one around.” She remembered the sense of being watched on the road. “Who are you hiding from, Alice?”

  Then the outside security light flicked on, and Alice jumped. “What’s that?”

  “It’s just the light. The yard light.” It lit up the entire yard, beating back the darkness. “There’s no one out there,” Lil said, tugging the curtains closed. “No one for miles.” Lil regretted saying that. It reminded her how isolated they were. “Alice, you need to start talking to me. Where are you from? What’s happened to you? Everything you say is . . . well . . . odd. Sorry, that’s rude, I know, but . . . it’s like you don’t live in Wales.” On Earth, Lil added in her head.

  “ ‘Knowledge is the Dark’s curse. Do not seek it out unless you are certain it leads into the Light.’ ”

  “What? What does that mean? You talk in riddles! How can I help you if I don’t—”

  Alice whitened, cheeks burning crimson. “Please. Forgive me. I cannot give voice to these things.” In a scared voice she whispered, “It is forbidden!”

  “What is forbidden? Where are you from?” The words came out more screechy and old-hag than she’d intended, but she was incredibly frustrated. They were going around in circles! Lil drew a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “I get it, you can’t answer my questions about your past, but tell me one thing. What are you going to do now? You must have been going somewhere when I found you. What were you doing out there in the rain? How did you get there?” Lil sucked in a breath and made herself stop talking. She hadn’t meant to let her questions out in such a torrent.

  Alice hesitated and then said, “When I left, I didn’t have a plan, only to flee. I cannot go home. I can never go home.” Her shoulders slumped as if under the weight of her misery, and the brightness of her brown eyes dimmed.

  “Alice,” Lil said softly, “I’m so sorry.” She touched Alice’s shoulder gently. She didn’t know what else to say.

  Alice gave her a weak smile.

  There was a knock on the door and Kiran’s head appeared around it. “All right?” he said, glancing from one to the other as though he could sense the tension in the room. He held out his phone. “Sabrina. She sounds panicked. Said she’s been trying to call you for ages. I told her you broke your phone falling
off your bike.”

  Lil gladly took the phone. Sabrina was exactly who she needed right now. And yet Alice had vehemently rejected any offer of help from the police. Lil didn’t know what to do.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Diolch i Dduw eich bod yn ddiogel.” Sabrina’s blast of Welsh, and its normalness, came as though from a different world, but a comforting, familiar one.

  Lil gripped the phone tighter to her, letting her aunt’s warm concern and love seep through her. “Sorry I scared you. I’m okay, honest.”

  Am I? Lil glanced at Alice. This was too much to handle. She should tell her aunt everything that had happened. Sabrina would know what to do. But would Alice run?

  Sabrina was talking. “Well, that’s a relief. Can’t believe you were out cycling, sweet pea. Don’t you listen to the weather report?”

  “We were supposed to be going kayaking.”

  “Kayaking! Lilian, we have had an entire month’s rain in five hours. The river is going to burst any minute. Are you all right up there?”

  “Yeah, but it’s cold. Sabrina, there’s something else I should tell you. . . . I . . .” Lil paused. She could sense both Kiran’s and Alice’s eyes on her. What should she do? If someone was after Alice, then she needed the police, social services, a hundred other things that Lil couldn’t provide. Was keeping Alice’s secret really the best way to help her? And yet doubt nagged at Lil.

  She couldn’t talk with them both staring at her. She went out into the hall, still torn. In the end Lil was saved from having to make a decision because Sabrina said, “Hang on.” Then when she spoke again, it was to someone else, her voice muffled like she had her hand over the phone. “Tell the Fischers they don’t have a choice. . . . Yes. . . . Yes. All right, I’ll tell them myself.” Then she was back, loud in Lil’s ear: “I have to go. It’s chaos down here. And this damn rain just won’t stop. Stay put, okay, sweetie? Hopefully the rain’ll stop soon. I’ll tell your mum you’re all right—she’s gone to Chester today, right? Heaven knows how she made it in the storm. And I’ll speak to Kiran’s dad. Much better for you and Kiran to keep out of the storm for the moment. I’ll call again later. Get up to you tonight if I can.”