The Story Sisters

“Even if they do,” Lorry said, “they can’t touch you.”

He drove her halfway back to school, then pulled onto the side of the road. She scrambled back into his lap, her arms and legs around him. She didn’t want to let go of him. This world, so bright with him in it, was meaningless without him.

“What if I never see you again?” she asked.

Lorry vowed that when she got out of Westfield, he would be there for her. He would find her no matter where she was.

“What happened to the dog?” she asked. “Mother? At least tell me that.”

After a while, some of the worst of the People had put a price on his dog’s head. Lorry had been invincible with Mother by his side, from the time he was ten until his seventeenth birthday. Some people didn’t like that; it threatened the hierarchy that existed in the world below, where evil was sometimes its own reward and the good and kind often suffered. It had happened in midsummer, when the tunnels were hot, and tempers were twitchy. His heart sank when he woke to find his dog gone. Mother would have never left Lorry of his own will.

“Then what happened?” Elv wrapped her arms more tightly around him.

There wasn’t time for the rest of the story. The sky was already that deep summery blue of early evening. There was no time left at all. After he drove off, Elv had a sharp instant of panic. She felt like running after the car along that stark stretch of road. But she didn’t dare wreck their future with some hasty, love-crazed act.

She went back the way she’d come, ignoring the truckers who honked their horns, following the road to Westfield. It was long past curfew. They were waiting for her. Five more minutes and they would have handed her disappearance over to the state police. Even Miss Hagen couldn’t get her out of this one.

They chopped off her hair, then used an electric razor. She remembered the way he’d held his arms around her, the promises they’d made. She thought of the green water, the frogs, the swamp cabbage unfolding, leaf by leaf. She thought of his first kiss and all it had revealed. Elv had always believed her long hair was the only worthwhile part of her, her single bit of beauty. Frankly, she’d been shocked by how brave Meg had been on the day she’d cut it all off. Now it was her turn, but she wouldn’t resent the loss the way Meg had or let it define her. She refused to hide herself away. The rest of the world didn’t matter. She was one thing only, and that was his alone. When the counselors held up a mirror, Elv wasn’t like the other girls, who cried and covered their heads. She wasn’t like her sister, willing to betray her own flesh and blood. She didn’t flinch when she saw her reflection. Now that her hair had been shorn, the black rose at the base of her neck was visible, as if in bloom. So much the better.

This was who she was inside.

THEIR GRANDFATHER HAD died of heart failure at the end of the winter. The funeral was in New York. It was a somber occasion, attended by a small circle. No one spoke about the fact that Elv wasn’t there, though everyone knew what had happened. She’d been sent off because of her erratic behavior; there’d been drugs involved and a series of boys. She’d been a charming child one minute, an out-of-control teenager the next. Of course the family was crushed. Annie looked ten years older, and the younger daughters were exceedingly quiet, their complexions pale. Not a single one of the relatives mentioned that only two of the Story sisters were in attendance, dressed in black coats, standing at the grave site beside their mother and their beloved ama. Mary Fox, always so serious and clever, cried her eyes out and needed to be comforted by her mother. She then went to try to compose herself beneath the hanging branches of the pine trees, turning her back so the others wouldn’t see her sobbing. Meg and Claire, however, had remained stoic, their faces expressionless, arms linked. Afterward, their grandmother went back to Paris. Once school had adjourned for spring vacation, Claire and Meg went to join her. They were still in love with the city. The sunlight was a thousand different colors in Paris. Every day it changed. But it was a time when everyone was lonely, even when they were together, even when they were in their favorite place in the world, their ama’s apartment in the Marais.

The chestnut tree was in flower, and the leaves were especially lustrous this year. Every morning the girls and their grandmother had soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. They drank bowls of hot milk laced with coffee. They did not talk about Elv. They tried not to think about her. But of course the cat that Elv had rescued was always underfoot. Natalia was terribly attached to her and brought her back and forth across the Atlantic in a carry-on case. Sadie had grown to be a large, disagreeable tabby with green eyes. For some reason the cat took a dislike to Meg; as soon as she heard Meg’s voice, she skittered into the closet to nest among boots and umbrellas. Meg didn’t seem to mind. She said she was allergic to cats and avoided Sadie completely. But Claire often lay on the floor to play with the cat’s favorite toy—a crocheted mouse on a string—until Sadie came to halfheartedly bat at the mouse with a paw.

Claire and Meg seemed older than their ages. They were wary and never spoke to strangers. Sometimes Elv’s name tumbled out in conversation as they remembered other years in Paris, recalling how they would hide behind the old stone trough when their mother came looking to call them to dinner; they remembered the memory game they’d played on the day they’d taken the train to Versailles. They bit their lips then and looked at the ground. Meg thought about the way her sister had pinched her when she was angry. But Claire thought about the time that Elv had told her the story of Grimin, the most evil human in the world. He thought I would drown, but I didn’t. He thought I would bleed to death, but I’m still here. There wasn’t a day that went by when Claire didn’t regret not opening the car door at Westfield. She should have gotten out and rescued her sister. If they had run far enough, New Hampshire would have disappeared behind them. All the stories they’d ever known would have disappeared as well, the words falling down around them, letter by letter, down to the bottom of the deepest well.