The Reach of Sisters Excerpt
“It’s coming,” she says. “The darkness. It’s coming so quickly.” She reaches up with an open hand, letting the wind brush through her fingers. Suddenly, she closes them, snatching nothing but air. She brings her hand down to my ear and opens it.
“Can you feel it? Do you hear it? It’s coming.” I don’t hear anything; I never hear anything when she does that. We continue to lay side by side on a picnic blanket, staring into starlight. A plane’s blinking light invades the natural burning balls of gases and I pretend it’s a shooting star.
I wish she wasn’t crazy.
“Look,” I say, “A shooting star!” She laughs.
“That’s a plane, you idiot.” She may be crazy, but she isn’t stupid.
I wish I could fix her. I wish I could reach into her brain to pull out her insanity. I wonder if that would make her better or if it would change her. I look over and smile as she reaches up again, this time offering her hand to me. I take it, but I don’t know what to say anymore. She doesn’t mind. We lie there in silence.
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She thinks I’m crazy and I don’t blame her; I think I’m crazy sometimes. I keep hoping that maybe this time she’ll feel it too, but she never does. I see the way she looks at me like I am broken. She wants to fix me and I want to yell that there is nothing wrong with me. She thinks I can’t see how she feels, but how can I not? She looks at me differently and I am different. I have a gift. Somehow, it’s important.
It could save us all.
I don’t know why I think things like that. They just pop into my head like commercials on the radio. I can see it coming. They whisper about the darkness. A storm. A storm like none of us has ever seen and it’s heading this way. I can see the clouds in the distance like a thunderstorm rolling in, but it’s more terrifying than that. The light is running away. How do I stop it? No one believes me. I thought she would because she’s my sister, but she thinks I’m crazy. Why will no one help me stop it? Why is this burden on my shoulders? Why?
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When I was little, she described what she could see. She said the wind carried streams of light which flowed through the air and she could catch some in her hand. She told me that it would pool at her feet like fog and other times, it would dance around her in different shapes. She would see puppies chasing after butterflies that melted into children holding hands and laughing as ice cream dripped off their chins. I sat drooling over her stories, yearning to play in that world. I skipped home, dreaming of a new world and excitedly told our mother. Mom looked out the kitchen window with a longing and sighed before turning back to me. She knelt down and placed her hands on my arms.
“There is something you need to know,” she began. “Cassie isn’t well.” She sighed again, figuring out how to explain it to my young mind. “You know how you get sick sometimes?” I nodded. “Well, she is sick too, but up here.” She tapped my head. I looked at her with wide eyes as my lips began to tremble.
“Will she get better?” I asked. My mother rubbed her forehead and I noticed worry lines that creased my mother’s face.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know.” She pulled me into her arms for a motherly hug.
“Is it contagious?” I whispered in her ear. She laughed and pulled away, giving me a kiss on the forehead.
“No, you’re perfectly safe.”