The Story Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

  The light through the window was changing. It grew oddly bright just before twilight, then faded into bands of blue. By evening it was over. Claire went downstairs and opened the back door. She’d heard that was the way to release a spirit. Her grief poured out in a few wrenching sobs. She pulled herself together and glanced at the clock. This was the hour of her mother’s death. Shiloh was staring into the yard, so Claire opened the door wider.

  “Go on,” she urged.

  The dog trotted out to the lawn. The phone rang and Claire ignored it. Speaking had always seemed beside the point for her, now more than ever. What were words but a pack of lies, however you sorted them. There were birds outside, robins. All at once, they flew into the trees.

  The phone continued to chime. Claire finally picked up the receiver. When she held it to her ear, a woman’s voice said, “Mommy? Is that you?”

  Claire felt as though she’d just placed her hand on the burner of the stove. She quickly hung up. The birds were all nesting now. Not a single one sang. It had begun to drizzle and everything was turning gray. Pete came into the room. He’d heard the phone and he’d rushed down to answer it, but he knew he was too late as soon as he saw the expression on Claire’s face.

  “She called before,” he admitted.

  “She can go to hell,” Claire said.

  They didn’t need to talk to anyone right now. Instead, they stood at the back door and watched the dog walk the perimeter of the yard. Aside from the spindly tomato plants Pete had planted in a corner, the vegetable garden was filled with stray weeds. Nettle, thistle, jimson weed, nightshade. A few tremulous sweet pea vines had begun to wind along the fence. The tendrils were soft green with luminous pale buds. Natalia came from upstairs. She had covered Annie with the white linen bedspread she’d brought with her from France. It was the one that had been in the guest room, when the girls were young and Annie had slept for seventeen hours and the light was orange. In a little while they would have to call 911 and ask for an ambulance to be sent to the house. But for now they remained at the door, breathing in the evening air. There was really no place else they wanted to go.

  Changeling

  They said I was just like other children, but I had a tail and claws. They said it made no difference. I would wear a cloak and gloves and I would be just like all the rest. In the dark you couldn’t tell that my teeth were sharp.

  I went to school and did my chores. I carried water up the hill in buckets. I made the beds and swept the floors. At night I climbed out the window and chased rabbits. I always bathed in a pond before I went home, to wash away the blood. When they served me my breakfast of toast and tea, I said I wasn’t hungry. But I was.

  WHAT CLAIRE LIKED MOST ABOUT PARIS WAS THAT NO ONE noticed her. She could walk for miles without speaking to anyone. Of course there were places she made certain to avoid, the favorite, most-beloved list she and Meg had agreed upon that spring when they’d come here together. The ice cream stand by the Île Saint-Louis. The Rue de Tournon. The bookstore, Shakespeare and Co.

  Claire now bought her secondhand books from the stalls along the river. She thumbed through volumes to make certain there were no dedications. She avoided sentiments of love and loyalty. Three years had passed since Claire had moved to Paris with her grandmother. The house had been sold and Natalia had given up the apartment on Eighty-ninth Street. Claire never went to college. She didn’t apply. She wanted to go someplace where they’d once been happy. She packed a single bag of possessions and took Shiloh. Sadie, the cat, was still alive, and when the dog arrived, the two agreed to a truce, forced to share close quarters in a small flat. Claire herself despised the cat, and Sadie must have felt her contempt. It disappeared whenever she was around, hiding beneath the couch. Occasionally a claw darted out to strike at a boot or shoe.

  Shiloh went everywhere with Claire. He was beside her when she went walking after dark, late at night when the skies were heavy, filled with clouds. The only people out at this hour were the ones who couldn’t sleep, those haunted by one thing or another: love thwarted, love lost, love thrown away. They were the sort of people who didn’t wish to be noticed, who wanted to slip through shadows, be alone with their despair. Claire wore her hair short and dressed in the worn Burberry jacket her mother had donned while gardening. She had a pair of jeans she’d bought ten years ago and the boots she wore all the way through high school when she had to wait for the bus on the corner of Nightingale Lane. She liked the way the night turned green in Paris, the green air, the slick green sidewalks after a rain. She frequented a café in the Marais near her grandmother’s apartment. Everyone knew her, but acted as if they didn’t. Claire appreciated that brusque courtesy. She never looked at the waiters or the proprietor. She didn’t wish to make polite conversation about the weather or current events. She didn’t want companionship, merely coffee and a quiet table near a window.

  Since she’d moved to Paris there had been men who were interested in her, but Claire ignored them. She thought that love ruined people. She kept her distance. Once a man had come up and kissed her as she was searching for shallots in a vegetable bin in the market. He’d grabbed her and pulled her close before she could react, then had blurted out something about her being too beautiful to ignore. Claire abandoned her groceries and left the shop. She’d never returned to that market, although it was the one closest to her grandmother’s apartment.

  She no longer cared about the many colors of sunlight in Paris. She remembered making lists with Meg about that, too. There were times when the light had been pink or pale lemon, dusty violet or gray as smoke. Then there had been the day when it was orange. Claire preferred the dark. Paris was good for that. People said it was the city of light, but not if you went out on rainy days, coat collar turned up. Not if you waited for twilight before emerging onto the street. There were many things Claire had no interest in anymore besides light. Friendship, food, conversation, men, love, school, work, dreams. She shut herself away in her room and slept most of the day. When she came out for dinner, merely a bowl of soup or some crackers, her face looked crumpled. Sometimes her grandmother feared that Claire was evaporating. What would be left of her if she kept disappearing into a smaller and smaller world of her own? Her shoes, her hat, her coat, nothing more. Claire spoke only when the need arose, but the need for speech is arbitrary. When neighbors greeted her, she looked startled, as though she’d pricked her finger with a pin. Sometimes she had terrible dreams. That was something even Claire couldn’t avoid with sleep. Several times Natalia heard her call out in the gibberish language the Story sisters used to speak.

  WHEN CLAIRE WENT on her nighttime walks, she was looking for stones, one for every day she had not visited her sister’s and mother’s graves. Stones piled up under her bed, in the closet, and in dresser drawers. Her favorites were the glassy ones gathered with a fishing net from the shallows of the Seine, but she also liked the round white ones from the Tuilleries. Her collection grew so large that the apartment rattled on windy days. The downstairs neighbors, unnerved, began to complain. Tenants in the building dreamed of earthquakes and landslides. Before long, such dreams were common even among the littlest children. A young couple moved out, believing the building to be cursed, which was perfectly fine with the landlord, who quickly found new tenants and doubled the rent.

  Claire often wondered if she herself was a demon. Long ago, Elv had taught her how to recognize one; she’d whispered the telltale signs as they’d lain side by side in bed. Demons were marked by black stars, pale eyes. When one walked through a room, ice formed on the windowpanes; plants withered. At the moment of disaster, when you turned to them, when you needed them most, they were gone. That was Claire; that was what she’d done.

  Meg would have been a grown woman with a life of her own if Claire hadn’t called for her to get in the car. She had loved books. Perhaps she would have been a writer by now, living in London or Manhattan. She would have had a lover or a husband. A child, perhaps sever
al. There was no consolation for what Claire had done. The yellow lamplight, the gargoyles with their crooked faces, the cobblestones that clattered as she walked along, the parks ringed with black iron fences were invisible as she walked through Paris in the dark. She no longer cared about human concerns such as love and happiness. She believed in punishments, reprisals, fate. She believed she and Elv were two of a kind. On several occasions she had found herself poised at the edge of the river, boots caked with mud, the gusting wind pushing her onward. What difference would it make if she never returned?

  ONE AFTERNOON NATALIA discovered her granddaughter perched on the window ledge gazing down at the white flowers that cluttered the chestnut tree in the courtyard below. It was the terrible season, the one they hated, the time of violets and pollen and green light. It was spring. Time had passed, but in many ways Claire had remained the same. She’d never gone to a university, never held a job or been in love, never cooked a meal for anyone or kissed someone until she was dizzy. She thought it was best for her to be apart from the rest of humanity. Ever since the bad day she thought she might be dangerous.

  When Natalia found her swaying on the ledge she called out to her granddaughter, but Claire didn’t answer. The world was closing down. Some people might have said it was a nervous breakdown, a mental collapse brought on by trauma and stress. Natalia wondered if it was the philosophy of doom that held Claire in thrall. If you believed in something strongly and gave it enough credence, it could appear right in front of you. Though it had been created in your mind, it would claim a presence in the real world, a monster at your door, a demon pulling at your coat sleeve.

  Natalia grabbed her granddaughter back through the window. It was like wresting a sleeper from a dream. She tugged so hard she wrenched her shoulder. She wasn’t the sort to let go. Secretly she wrote to Elv every week, chatty letters about her neighbors, stories about the Marais. She jotted down the histories of local people, how long they’d lived in their apartments, the names of husbands and wives, homey facts—what was eaten for dinner, how it was cooked, what the weather had been. She didn’t give up, even though she hadn’t heard back. For all she knew, her granddaughter threw her letters away, unread. She didn’t realize how much Elv looked forward to these letters until Natalia came down with the flu and missed a few weeks of writing. A letter from the States arrived soon after, the very first she’d received from Elv. Did Madame Michelle marry the man who’d been courting her? What happened to the Maltese puppy he’d brought her as a gift? Did she ever have the heart to tell him she was allergic to dogs? Did the café around the corner dismiss the waiter everyone loved, but who was so tired from working two jobs, he often fell asleep on his feet, tray in hand? Were the chestnut flowers in bloom? Did the air smell like almonds? What color was the light? When will I hear from you again?

  Natalia refused to let go of her grandchildren. If anything, that was her philosophy. That was the reason she had slapped Claire’s face. “Wake up!” she cried.

  Claire held a hand to her cheek and looked stunned.

  “What did you think you were doing out there? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  Claire shook her head. She didn’t seem to know.

  Natalia’s eyesight was failing, but that night as she made her way to the bathroom she spied something with black wings. She could hear it, trapped like a moth in the narrow hall. She saw a dark haze flit past the gold-framed mirror beside the door. There was no reflection cast, but something was definitely there. She steadied herself. She saw what she believed to be a tiny woman with black wings.

  Natalia sat down and had a drink, a good-sized glass of whiskey from a bottle of Johnnie Walker that had belonged to her husband. She always missed Martin, but she especially missed him tonight. She felt quite confused. Had she created the creature in the hallway, imagined it into existence? She wondered if she should see an ophthalmologist, perhaps even a psychiatrist. She had another drink after the first and was considering a third. Madame Cohen had always insisted there were demons in this world. How else would all the troubles that beset humankind come to be? Whatever these creatures were made of, skin and bones, ashes and memory, Natalia was not about to let them get hold of her granddaughter.

  SHE WENT TO see Madame Cohen the next day at her shop at the end of the Rue des Rosiers. Each had sorrows she never discussed with anyone else. Their camaraderie was unusual and rare. Friendships were usually based on trivial matters, played out over games of cards and cups of coffee, but theirs was rooted in sterner stuff, catastrophe and survival. They sat in the back room of the shop beside the cabinet of diamonds and onions. They drank steamy cups of Marco Polo tea from the Marriage Frères tea shop on Rue du Bourg Tibourg, where more than four hundred varieties were sold. Good tea was one of Madame Cohen’s few indulgences. There was a freshly pressed tablecloth on the small, round table. The linoleum on the floor was peeling, but the spoons they used to stir their sugar were 22-karat gold, brought from Moscow. The family had always been jewelers and goldsmiths; Madame Cohen’s grandmother had sewn the spoons into the hem of her coat when she’d fled to France. She had eaten a handful of diamonds meant for a countess’s brooch, then shat them out painfully into a bowl. The largest diamond had been set into an engagement ring, which had belonged to Madame Cohen’s mother and now belonged to her. It served to remind her of her grandmother’s suffering and dedication every single day.

  Because Madame Cohen had seen demons before, she was hardly surprised when Natalia reported her vision in the hall. This was not a sign of insanity, but rather a clear-eyed vision of evil in the world. Leah Cohen’s sisters, whom she never spoke of because their memory caused her such grief, had disappeared into a hail of ashes, surely a demon’s touch. She often thought of a particular summer day when they’d traveled into the country by train for the weekend. It was the last time they were together. They had no idea that demons were already flying into the city of Paris, perching in the trees. At their picnic, the peaches had stained their fingers with juice. They were wearing dresses that were too warm for the season. When no one was looking, they threw off their dresses and lounged in the grass in their slips. Leah Cohen had her watercolors along and she quickly painted her sisters in shades of yellow and wheat and tangerine. Her sisters’ names were Hannah and Marlena. Not long after that, they were murdered during the war. The painting of their picnic had been lost during a hurried move when Madame Cohen first married. Things were easily lost back then. But when Madame Cohen closed her eyes, her sisters’ faces came back to her, even now. They were beautiful, sitting in the grass in their white slips.

  Of course she would help Natalia. She was something of a demon expert, actually. She had learned everything from her grandmother and her mother, who knew tricks few people did. This was reason enough to have a daughter, someone to whom you could tell your secrets.

  Madame Cohen suggested setting out saucers of salt at every window. She told her friend to spray the air with salt water that very evening. Natalia went home and followed her advice. Soon enough the buzzing went away. There were no more creatures flitting about the hallway. This was excellent news, Madame Cohen said when Natalia reported back. But it wasn’t enough. Claire was still listless, barely rising from bed.

  When Madame Cohen said she must find meaningful work, Natalia suggested that Claire work at the Cohens’ jewelry shop, only a few blocks away. She needed a schedule, responsibility, guidance. Madame Cohen would be doing a mitzvah, a good deed, in hiring Claire, who had no work experience and very little to recommend her other than her grandmother’s love. Leah Cohen insisted on interviewing Claire first. Charitable actions did not mean stupid, blind faith, after all.

  When she came to the apartment on the appointed night, Madame Cohen brought along a cake that was so delicious no one could turn it down, not even a woman who claimed never to be hungry. The batter was a mixture of fresh eggs, flour, sugar, lemon rind. Anise seed was added and dry cherries were mixed in. It was an
old recipe, handed down from her grandmother. Some people called it Honesty Cake. No one could eat it and not tell the truth. She’d often made it for her grandsons when they got into mischief to discover who the culprit was. Now it would be a way for Madame Cohen to find out Claire’s true nature. This was the job interview.

  When Claire was called in to tea, she was surprised to find such a large piece of cake set onto her plate. Her grandmother knew she wasn’t a fan of sweets. “I’m really not hungry,” she insisted. She was wearing the torn jeans and gray sweatshirt she’d had as a teenager. THE GRAVES ACADEMY was printed in faded maroon letters. She hadn’t kept in contact with any of her schoolmates. Her English teacher, Miss Jarrett, had written to her once, suggesting she reconsider college, but Claire never applied. The only one she ever communicated with was Pete Smith, who phoned on a regular basis.

  “You’ll be surprised what you’ll wind up liking,” Madame Cohen told her. “Try a bite.”

  They sat at the table and ate in silence. The older women took note of how quickly Claire devoured the cake, as though she were starving.

  “What recipe was that?” Claire asked when she was done. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.” She was licking the back of her fork, proof that she still had human desires.

  “Madame Cohen is here to offer you a job. Would you like that?”

  Claire was indeed honest. “Not really.”

  “But would you show up and be responsible?” Madame Cohen prodded.

  “I’m always responsible.” Claire said. Everything about herself made her sad, including that. “Even when I don’t want to be.”

  “Why don’t you prepare the tea for us,” Madame Cohen suggested. This was a part of the interview. People did background checks and extensive questionnaires, but you could tell a great deal more about someone from the way they readied a pot of tea. Madame Cohen had brought along her own tin filled with a green leafy mixture to which she’d added dried violets, sage, licorice root, ginger. The water was already boiling in the kettle. Claire went to pour. As the steam rose she started to cry. That wasn’t at all like her. She wasn’t a crier; she was empty inside. “I must have gotten a speck of dirt in my eye,” she guessed.