The Story Sisters

“It’s Pete, Elv.”

Elv paused, then went on. “They let me have a phone call. I knew it was graduation day. Claire probably wouldn’t want to talk to me.”

“She’s upstairs with your mother.”

“You don’t think my mother would want to talk to me, do you?”

Pete gazed out at the tree in the yard. Annie had told him Elv used to sit up there like a nymph, even in the rain. “I think she would. But she’s not capable. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Pete asked.

“If I could talk to her once, I could tell her how sorry I am.”

Pete said he was going to look in on her mother and that he’d tell her. When he went back up, Claire was curled up in a chair in the corner. Her graduation gown was rolled in a ball, tossed on the carpet. Pete hung it over the back of a chair. He went to the bedside. He didn’t know if Annie recognized him or not, but he leaned in close to tell her she didn’t have to worry about Elv anymore. She was the way she used to be, the girl in the garden with the long black hair.

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.