The Story Sisters

  “Halav semma burra.” She was half in a dream. This is so uncomfortable.

  Elv still wore the robin’s bones. They were turning yellow, black lines striating the marrow, but she didn’t mind their decay. Every girl needed protection against evil.

  Elv was heavy, but Claire didn’t complain. She ran her fingers through her sister’s knotted hair. Elv didn’t brush it or take care of it and it was still beautiful. For an instant Claire thought she should wake her. If they escaped, they could live in the woods. They could eat wild berries, commune with bears, never be found.

  “Let her sleep,” Meg whispered.

  Ever since Meg’s hair had been cut, it had turned coarse. It wasn’t straight anymore and on humid days it grew curly. She had turned sixteen and for a little while was the same age as Elv. In fact, she felt like the older sister, the one who had to get up and do all the chores, weed the garden, complete the schoolwork, keep quiet when she wanted to scream. Earlier that morning, as they went out to the driveway, Meg had leaned in close to whisper to Claire. Do what I tell you when we get to New Hampshire.

  Their mother had confided in Meg. She’d told her the intervention was for Elv’s own good. They wanted to save her. When Meg had revealed some of this to Claire, Claire couldn’t help but wonder if Elv wanted to be saved.

  As they drove on, Meg remembered reading somewhere that tigers could smell fear. The best thing to do if one ever attacked you was to think of chocolate or cinnamon, scents that would mask your terror. She forced herself to think of chocolate sauce and hot apple pie and the marshmallow s’mores they used to make on the grill in the summertime. She thought so hard she could taste the chocolate, but it had a harsh flavor and she wished she could reach the cooler her mother had brought along, in which there were bottles of spring water.

  When Elv woke, she lay there prone, tired, and out of sorts. She could see fleeting images out the window: red leaves, the black bark of the trees, the shadows of other cars. She knew they’d been driving a long time. “Harra leviv jolee,” she murmured. Our parents are crazy. “Je below New Hampshire.” I hate New Hampshire.

  In spite of their nerves, Meg and Claire both laughed. They hated New Hampshire too. The day was already too long. Their legs were falling asleep under their sister’s weight. Elv had little red marks all over the backs of her hands where she’d burned herself when she was bored. The burns had scabbed up and it looked as though she was recovering from the chicken pox. She had fifteen black stars on her body, most in places her mother couldn’t see, homemade tattoos she’d made by plunging an inky needle into her skin. There were dozens of broken-down Bic pens on the floor of their closet. Since their mother didn’t see anything, Elv had gotten away with it. She had perfected household deception. A secret, after all, was only a secret if no one heard it.

  Annie switched on the radio to a song about falling in love. She looked straight ahead at the road. Being in the car with Alan was even more uncomfortable than she had imagined. But he was the girls’ father, despite the fact that he’d moved in with his girlfriend, that nice woman who’d been there for Elv’s birthday cake. Well, what difference did it make who he was with? If Annie had ever loved him, she didn’t now. As they drove along, she wondered if she would ever feel anything again. Maybe she was heartless. What sort of person tricked her own daughter? She had become the witch in the woods, just as Elv’s diary had predicted, leading the way with a trail of sandwiches and good cheer. She was the old woman who stole children and coaxed them into the forest. Where they were going, no one escaped. That’s what the brochure had said. Not a single student had ever successfully run away.

  The rain had begun, and there was the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers. The windows were foggy and streaked. Red leaves fell in clouds. They drove through a little town where everything but the gas station seemed to have closed for the day or gone out of business. Annie had done nothing but research for the past few weeks. She had hired a consultant and seen a therapist. She had been on the Internet and talked with other distraught parents halfway across the country. The consensus was always the same. The Westfield School was the best. It was ridiculously expensive, but was said to have the most success with kids like Elv. Annie had borrowed the money from her parents. Her father had written out the check without even asking what it was for. He was ailing, struck with congestive heart failure, and she hated to ask him for anything. But he’d been in Paris with the girls in the spring. He’d seen what was happening to Elv. When they’d gone back to Paris after spending the summer in New York, that man she’d gotten herself involved with was still skulking around. Once they had returned home from the opera to find him weeping beneath the chestnut tree. Martin had had to chase him off with a broom.

  After the Storys had driven through the sleepy little town, they turned onto an old logging road that snaked through the mountains. Along the roadside were stone walls marking the boundaries of abandoned apple orchards. The fields were still dotted with twisted black trees. The school was located on a run-down estate. A fence rimmed the property. It was hidden in the pines, but when you looked carefully you could see it, a crisscross of barbed wire. Claire spied it right away; it made her think of a sharp spiderweb. She imagined thousands of spiders, and her skin crawled. She was having a panic attack. She didn’t understand why it hurt every time she took a breath. They drove through an automatic gate that clicked closed behind them. It was still raining, a cold rain for October. They had to navigate through pools of mud. No wonder they all hated New Hampshire.

  Elv had been very stoned the night before. She was hung-over, exhausted, more compliant than usual, quite surprised by the notion that their father, usually so disinterested, would be with them. She had no idea that the counselors were ready for her, two large men who didn’t look the way Annie had assumed school counselors would look. They seemed like prizefighters or bouncers in a nightclub. They wore black rain jackets and work boots. They were standing in the rain, waiting. If Annie could have felt anything, she might have been flooded with second thoughts. She might have made Alan turn the car around. But she was paralyzed. They all were. Meg and Claire gazed out the window. The place looked like a prison. The car stopped, and Alan opened the door and got out. Annie turned to her younger daughters. Meg thought she could smell her mother’s fear. No one had told her to think of chocolate.

  “Stay in the car,” she told them.

  When Annie got out, she was immediately drenched. The rain was coming down so hard it was deafening. While Alan went to talk to the counselors, Annie opened the back door and leaned in.

  “Elv.” She sounded like a betrayer, even to herself. “Get up.”

  Elv yawned and stretched. Rain was splattering on her legs.

  “Al je meara,” Elv said. Leave me alone.

  Annie reached in and shook her by the shoulder. “We’re here.”

  No destination had been mentioned before. It was a ride in the country. Just an autumn picnic. The chance to spend some time with their dad. She’d agreed to go. She’d let down her guard. Suddenly there was a here. Elv didn’t like the sound of that. She rose from the backseat and looked out, eyeing her father and the two men talking to him. The building behind them seemed like a prison to her, too. She didn’t need to see any more. She could tell it was a trap. She pushed past her mother. Annie was no match for her; she toppled backward as Elv leaped out of the car.

  Elv wasn’t as stupid as they thought. She didn’t give a damn about the mud all around, splashing up as she ran. Her hair was like a waterfall as she raced through the rain. She focused on the woods in front of her. The red leaves, the black bark. She thought she was far out in front, flying, but then she heard their heavy breathing. They sounded like horses, close behind her. They took her down so hard three of her ribs were fractured. She could hear the bones crack. The breath was knocked out of her in a searing flash. In the mud, she tried to wrestle out of their hold. The robin’s-bones necklace fell to pieces. It
shone like opals as it scattered. She reached for the broken pieces but they slipped out of her grasp. The ground was cold and slimy. The mud could choke you if you were screaming and struggling and they had you facedown on the ground. They were hurting her, but she didn’t stop trying to get away. She had practiced escaping from ropes so no one could ever do this to her again. She had cut herself to strengthen herself and inure herself to pain. She wished she could find the door that led to the otherworld, but she was too far away. She felt herself being overtaken, so she bit the hand of the man who’d grabbed hold of her. He shook her and spat out some curses, then held on more tightly. Elv saw stars, but she didn’t care. She’d drawn blood. She would never again let herself be tied in knots, shackled in iron handcuffs, gagged.

  The director’s assistant had come to usher Alan and Annie inside, holding a black umbrella above their heads. There were some things no parents should see. After a quick half-hour orientation, they would be asked to leave. No phone calls or visits were allowed during the first three months, no packages from home. Students needed to be out of their element, away from the triggers that had driven them to drugs and out-of-control behavior. Annie was shivering. Alan was drenched. Pools collected on the tile floor under their feet. The school smelled like Lysol and that morning’s breakfast, bacon and overdone toast. They sat at a conference table and signed the papers registering their daughter while the counselors dragged Elv to the door of the residence hall. It was a concrete building, painted pale green. Claire and Meg watched through the car window. Claire’s throat was closing up.

  “Nom gig!” Elv screamed. “Reuna malin.” Rescue me.

  One of the big men picked her up; he had his hands all over her. He touched her in places he shouldn’t have just because he could. He hoisted her off the ground as though she were nothing more than a sack of skin and bones.

  Claire and Meg couldn’t move.

  “Come and help me!” Elv screamed to them.

  One of the men opened the door into the dormitory. The other one had Elv. Claire lowered the window to see more clearly. They were hurting her. The rain came inside. It was cold.

  “Don’t listen,” Meg told Claire. She closed the window. They couldn’t take back what they’d done. The rain was coming down harder all the time. There were so many leaves on the windshield the girls couldn’t see through the glass anymore. They crouched on the floor of the car, arms around each other. Claire was thinking of the blackflies circling on the corner with the stop sign and of the sinking feeling she’d had and how paralyzed she’d been on the bad day.

  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.

  Before long Elv was able to be in both places at once. It was a great triumph and an even greater relief. She was able to speak to a teacher and at the very same time be in the black garden. She made an Arnish promise, one she planned to keep. She would get through this, then she would make them pay for what they’d done to her. She and the demons would take back Arnelle from the rebels who were after her still. The faeries and their human coconspirators were scooping up demons in butterfly nets, then releasing them into the waking world, in New York City, in Paris, right there in the New Hampshire woods. Each of these demons had been betrayed just as she had, cast out and reviled. Each one was utterly alone.

  The brochure said Westfield was a therapeutic school, but as far as Elv could tell, it was simply a holding tank for spoiled, drug-addicted brats with personality disorders. Most of the students came from middle-class families. Those who did not were there via court orders that ensured that the state or county or town where they’d lived would pay the academic fees. By the end of the first month Elv had come to understand the school’s philosophy. They swiftly broke you down until you were nothing. They destroyed you, then built you back up again. Only they did it their way, the Westfield way. What they wanted were clones, people without minds of their own who had the Westfield agenda imprinted on their souls. They hammered at people, tearing them apart in therapy groups. During the first month, Elv had a piece of cardboard strung around her neck that proclaimed I AM A LIAR. She had told a teacher she had missed class because she felt feverish, but when her temperature was taken it had been normal. Well, she’d hated that class. And if she was a liar, at least she was good at it. They’d have to do a whole lot more than dangle a sign around her neck if they wanted to humiliate her. Thankfully, she wasn’t in the group with the therapist who insisted his patients strip naked and stand in a circle so they couldn’t hide their inner selves. They would have had to tear her clothes off, and even then she wasn’t about to reveal anything.