The Story Sisters

  “Come on,” Lorry said. “I’ll do anything to make you happy. I’ll get you whatever you want. Seriously. Just tell me.”

  “I want Jack,” she said.

  He backed off, frowning. “Jack?”

  Elv felt a little rise of pleasure. He was jealous. She nodded to the stable. “The old horse. He’s the best one.”

  Lorry laughed, relieved. Any air of menace dissipated. “I can’t manage that right now. But I have something else that will make going back easier.” He took a small envelope from his pocket and snapped his fingers against the waxed paper. He called it the witch. “My fatal flaw.” He laughed.

  Elv shook her head. She could see it wasn’t true. He was flawless, exactly what she’d been waiting for. How had this happened? How had she been so lucky? He had walked across the meadow and it had all begun, her real life, her life on earth. He laid out the lines of heroin. It made her think of the way the grass froze into a white patchwork of dew.

  One breath of the powder and she was blown away. Nothing she’d tried before compared to this. She leaned up against him. She was miles away from the mud in the fields and the bitter green scent of swamp cabbage. Neither of them cared that it was getting cold now that the light was fading. She hadn’t seen how beautiful it could be in New Hampshire. The grass looked black. The peepers out in the marshlands began to call. Elv really didn’t care about anything except for him. She kissed him for as long as she dared.

  SHE WAS LATE, missing dinner by nearly an hour. Anyone else would have been put in solitary, but Miss Hagen, so earnest and well-meaning, came to her defense. As punishment Elv was assigned to a second job. “It was the best I could do,” Miss Hagen said apologetically.

  “It’s fine,” Elv assured her. “I just got lost.”

  She laughed because it was true. She was lost and he had found her and she didn’t really care about punishment. She worked in the stables in the mornings and had latrine duty at night, after supper. It didn’t matter. She was just biding her time. Counting off the hours. Michael came around to watch her mopping out the rec room bathrooms. He was resentful, sullen, someone with a jealous soul. He rarely saw his brother now that Lorry was so taken with Elv. He just checked Lorry in at the administration building, then slunk away while Lorry went to meet Elv at their prearranged spot in the woods.

  Now Michael tried to unwind their bond. He perched on a chair to tell Elv she was an idiot if she thought she could keep Lorry’s attentions. Every woman who saw him fell for him. Did she think she was the first? They’d hand over their hearts and their savings and when he was done he’d walk away, on to the next. In case she hadn’t noticed, that fatal flaw Lorry joked about wasn’t a joke. He’d been hooked on heroin for years. This wasn’t a baby habit, it was King Kong—his everything. Lorry was a liar, one of the best. He was dangerous territory for a girl like Elv, too stupid to see him for what he was. Michael was his brother, of course, but he was a wolf as well. Maybe it would be better if Lorry was taken off the visitors’ list. Michael grinned when he suggested it. Elv glanced up, eyes narrowed. Just as Lorry had said: those who are most powerless are the ones who do their best to hurt you.

  Elv told Michael that if he didn’t shut up, she wouldn’t do his schoolwork anymore. Her ex-friend was clearly an idiot. Their relationship dissolved then and there. He was nothing like his brother. He couldn’t even pass simple geometry without her help. And her help was something he had only as long as Lorry was kept on his visitors’ list.

  A FEW WEEKS later, Elv thought she might be pregnant. She was panicky, scared to tell Lorry, but when at last she did, he surprised her. He said they would deal with whatever happened. They’d raise the baby just fine, the two of them. They’d do a hell of a lot better than their parents had.

  “We’re together,” he said. “I told you that. I won’t walk away.”

  When Elv got her period a few days later, she was overwhelmed by sadness. She locked herself in the stable and cried while the horses watched her. She wished she was a normal girl who lived in a house and could call the man she loved and talk to him, listening to his voice all night long. She was besotted. She wrote his name on pieces of paper the way she had once mapped out the lanes and alleyways of Arnelle. She didn’t think beyond the next visiting day. And then the worst thing happened, something so terrible she hadn’t even imagined it. Michael was being released. He had turned eighteen and had finished out the school term with A’s and B’s thanks to Elv. He was actually graduating.

  She went to the graduation—ten lackluster students and a few family members who didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved. She sat in the last row. Lorry came in and took the seat beside her. They held hands under the chairs so no one would see. Elv cried all the way through the ceremony. Lorry leaned close. “This is temporary,” he told her. “It has nothing to do with our real lives.”

  They quickly planned a meeting at the end of the week. After the ceremony, once Michael had packed up and left, Elv stood out in the empty parking lot. Miss Hagen came to comfort her, just as Elv had hoped. Miss Hagen knew Elv and Michael had been close. It was difficult when friends moved on, but Elv had made such progress. If she stuck with it, it would be her own graduation before long.

  There were June bugs floating through the heavy air. Elv didn’t have to fake blinking back tears. She thanked Miss Hagen for all she had done. For changing her life. But today had been so sad, perhaps if she could have an afternoon off. If she could walk through town, sit in a restaurant, make a phone call, she might be strong enough to carry on.

  The pass came through the very next day.

  ELV HAD NO interest in the small New Hampshire village, where there was only a pizza place, a Laundromat, and a grocery that was closed half the time. That wasn’t why she hadn’t slept all night. She went to feed the horses earlier than usual, when the sky was pitch-black, then came back to sit on the edge of her bed. She waited, dressed up in a skirt and a blouse that the school had approved for an “out” day. She was allowed to leave the grounds at ten and had to be back at three. She wasn’t thinking about coming back. She was only thinking about how long it would be before she was with him.

  It usually took half an hour to walk along the road to town, but Elv ran. Lorry was waiting in the parking lot behind the Laundromat, just the way they’d planned. They drove off and found an old logging road that led into the woods. They could be as reckless as they wanted. They could do as they pleased. They made love in the car, quickly, desperate for each other. Lorry pulled Elv into his lap and told her that this was their real life. This was what they’d been waiting for. When they got out of the car, they went exploring. They found a pond and took off their clothes and dove in heedlessly. Frogs plashed out of their way. The cold water shocked them and made them cling to each other. The sunlight was thin and pale, but when they came out into the chilly air, Elv stayed undressed. She unfolded herself onto an old blanket Lorry had put down for her. There were black-eyed Susans and thistle and dozens of small butterflies skittering over the blooms. Elv braided her hair and pinned it up. If Arnelle really had existed, it would have had this same tawny landscape of pine and oak and birch, the same banks of ferns speckled with sunlight.

  Lorry pulled on his clothes and went to retrieve something from the car. He was singing to himself. Elv thought, This is what happiness is. He’d brought along ink and needles to mark this day. He’d brought the witch as well. “My fatal flaw,” he remarked as he knelt down beside her. When Elv wanted to shoot it, Lorry was reluctant, but she teased and coaxed and at last he agreed. He did it for her, tying his belt around her arm, telling her to close her eyes, mixing it up over his lighter until it was melted and liquid. She drifted into this delicious thing she now understood to be happiness. She wanted a tattoo, so he told her to lie down and turn over. She pried herself out of her dreams and did as he said. She didn’t even feel the needle. She was floating and it was perfect and when Lorry leaned in to ask if he was hurt
ing her, she answered no, not at all. How green the light was. How quickly the dragonflies darted along the surface of the pond. When Lorry was done with the tattoo, Elv went to the car and glanced in the sideview mirror. There was a small black rose at the base of her neck.

  She didn’t want to go back. She gave him every reason she could think of to take her with him, but in the end she understood why he said he couldn’t. She wasn’t eighteen. If caught, she’d be sent back to Westfield, but Lorry would go to jail. She got dressed and unplaited her hair. It was late. That meant trouble.

  “They’re going to do something terrible to me,” Elv worried.

  “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.

  When Madame Cohen came to dinner and asked how Elv was, the Story sisters fell silent. Claire had written letters and cards but hadn’t heard back. Meg was actually dreading the time when her sister returned. Natalia had fixed a sun-dried tomato rice pilaf to accompany the roast chicken she served. Madame Cohen offered the bowl to the girls but they said they weren’t hungry. “Here in this country, herbalists thought tomatoes were bad for you well into the nineteenth century,” she told them. “It was considered an act of bravery simply to eat one.”

  Meg excused herself to help their ama carry out the drinks, homemade lemonade and a bottle of local white wine.

  “You can’t always believe what everyone tells you,” Madame Cohen told Claire, whom she found to be the most sensitive and emotional of the Story sisters. She pointed to their dinner. “We’d think this was as deadly as mandrake if we did.” She ate a forkful of the pilaf. “I had two sisters,” she said. “I was the youngest. Much like you.”

  Claire had always been a little afraid of her grandmother’s friend, wary of her black clothes and stern appearance. Madame Cohen wore her white hair up, neatly held in place with tortoise-shell combs. She always had sensible shoes and often carried an umbrella, even on sunny days. Claire didn’t know if her French was good enough to speak to Madame Cohen. “What happened to them?” she asked.

  “Exactly what your sister Elv wanted to know,” M
adame Cohen told her. “They’ve been gone for a very long time. For other people, that is. Not for me.”

  “What do you think happened to Madame Cohen’s sisters?” Claire asked Meg as they were getting ready for bed. Meg had recently made a vow to read all of Dickens. She had just begun Oliver Twist.

  “Madame Cohen had sisters?” Meg got into bed and reached for her book. Claire got in beside her. She didn’t mind if Meg stayed up reading. She liked sleeping with the light on. But even with the lamp’s yellow glow, even though she heard the rustling of pages and the familiar sound of traffic on the streets nearby, even though she knew Meg was right there beside her, she still felt alone.

  THAT SPRING THE girls’ grandmother gave them much more freedom than their mother ever would have, considering what had happened with Elv. Natalia believed freedom was never a problem, only those who didn’t know how to handle the responsibilities that went along with it. In the afternoons, while she took her nap, the girls walked toward the Île Saint-Louis, stopping at Berthillon. Meg liked to try something new each time, blood orange, for instance, or caramel-ginger, but Claire stuck with vanilla. She was loyal to her favorite things. The Story sisters would then go to gaze into the green water of the Seine as they ate their ice cream. Sometimes they sat in front of Notre Dame and watched tourists. They liked to guess which families were happy and which ones were only pretending. They figured they were right 99 percent of the time.

  Many people thought the girls were twins. Their hair was styled exactly the same, falling straight to the jawbone, angled in front. They explored the Left Bank, spending hours at Shakespeare and Co. searching through old volumes, reading the dedications scrawled on the frontispieces, wondering who had truly been in love and who was just offering up an insincere gift. They could speak enough French to order well in cafés. They loved the ones on Saint-Germain where they ordered espressos or cafés au lait and sometimes had the nerve to ask for glasses of kir, which the waiters always brought without question. They flirted with boys, but never divulged their real names or where they lived. They didn’t trust anyone except each other.