The Story Sisters

Meg couldn’t get the image of tigers out of her mind. It was said they never forgot an act of cruelty or an act of kindness. They were known for being vengeful; they returned to villages where traps had been set and wiped out everyone in their path. They dreamed of skin and bones. Everything they ate tasted like revenge.

“They’re not going to hurt her.” Meg crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that what she vowed wouldn’t be held against her if it turned out to be wrong. “And when she comes home, she’ll be the way she used to be.”

Claire didn’t say anything, but she knew it wasn’t true. She wished she could go out and gather up the robin’s bones. She wished she could make this day disappear. The spell had been said aloud and she hadn’t responded.

She kept listening to the rain. She understood what was happening. The world they’d known was slipping away from them.

AT LAST THEIR parents came back. They got inside, bringing the damp and cold with them, not speaking. They slammed the car doors shut. Alan turned the key in the ignition. There was nothing to say anymore. It was the last time they would all be together. Alan saw his daughters less and less frequently after that, and they never reached out to him. When they did see him, they would always be reminded of this day when he cried as he started up the car, sorry not for them, or for Elv, but for himself.

“If you’d been stricter with her, none of this would have happened,” he said to their mother.

Annie didn’t answer, and the girls didn’t blame her. She still had bramble scratches on her face from chasing through the woods after Elv. She had lost ten pounds without trying. Claire and Meg stayed where they were, on the floor of the car, as they drove away. They were too old to be acting so childishly, sixteen and fourteen, as tall as grown women. Ordinarily their mother would have insisted that they wear their seat belts, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even seem to notice they weren’t in their seats.

It was bumpy going on the rutted driveway, but as soon as they turned onto the paved town road the ride was smoother. The car twisted through the mountains, went past the town, then reached the highway. Claire leaned her head against the seat; she nearly fell asleep. It rained and rained, and then it stopped. They had been driving for a long time. All day. Alan pulled into the parking lot of a diner. The sandwiches Annie had made were ruined, soggy after so many hours in the cooler. Nobody wanted them. By then the light was fading and even the red leaves looked dark. All four got out of the car. Anyone would have thought they were a family. The wind was blowing and Annie was still shivering.

“Let’s have hot chocolate,” Alan suggested.

They were exhausted and cold. They couldn’t wait to get out of New Hampshire. None of them had eaten, not even breakfast, and their stomachs growled. Their father didn’t know that Claire and Meg didn’t like hot chocolate anymore. He didn’t know the first thing about them. They had started drinking coffee. They were old enough for that now. They smoothed down their hair, their coats.

“What happens next?” Claire asked her sister. She could still feel her throat closing up. Her loneliness was like a black stone she couldn’t swallow.

They were walking behind their parents. They had no idea where they were, if it was a town or just a spot on the map no one had ever heard of. The diner had a blue neon sign that looked like rain on a black road.

“Don’t ask,” Meg said.

WHEN ELV WOULDN’T calm down, they put her in a straitjacket for thirteen hours. She should have been released after seven, but the shifts changed and she was forgotten in the behavior room. The nurse on duty who found her apologized. She said it would never happen again. Surely it wouldn’t if Elv had anything to do about it. She knew how to mind her manners until she could get free. After that initial incident, she was so quiet anyone would have guessed she was calm, quite well behaved. She had good reason to appear so: The buckles from the jacket had left marks in her skin. She understood iron. She knew what sort of marks rope could leave. When she refused to eat, they threatened to force-feed her. She quickly accepted their bread. She was a quick learner. What happened once would never happen again. She grew quieter and quieter still, crouched in Arnelle, biding her time.

The doctor who examined her gave her Tylenol for her ribs. He said that if she wanted to behave so poorly, there would be consequences. She went to the room she was assigned and didn’t complain, not about her ribs and not about the cold linoleum floor or the little black bugs that skittered away when she turned on her bathroom light. She approached everyone and everything with caution. She felt anxious, panic-stricken, and often woke from her dreams gasping. She’d been betrayed and tricked, but she wouldn’t let them destroy her. The same thing had happened to the new Queen of Arnelle. The old dying Queen had warned her to trust no one. To never once shut her eyes. Betrayal was quick, sharp, unexpected. One of her sisters was jealous and petty, the other was kindhearted but weak. They had joined forces with the human world. Elv had come to despise faeries, those simpering backstabbing creatures. The story had changed, and so had her allegiance. She realized now that there was a grave distinction between a demon, who was a pure dark spirit not unlike herself, and a goblin, a human with an evil heart. As the new Queen she chose to recruit demons. They alone were powerful enough to come to her aid, unwinding the black vines used to tie her beneath the stump of a chestnut tree.

She made certain to adhere to the Westfield rules. She didn’t mouth off to the guards or the counselors or whatever they were supposed to be. She sat through group therapy and pretended to listen. Sometimes she even spoke, tentatively, not giving too much away. All the while she let herself wander more deeply into Arnelle. What was a demon but a lost soul, one that had been forced to use his skills to survive? She found sanctuary among them, escaped from the vines that tied her, ran far into the woods. She found a garden of black roses there, the perfect place to hide from faeries and goblins and humans alike.