Two Houses: Part Three

Someplace Good

 Claudia had not cared for the way it had rained on and off the entire three hours it took to cross the line into Clarenceville, Pennsylvania from the city limits of Baltimore. No matter how much blue sky tried to peek out, the weather was determined to be unsettled. Nevertheless, she found herself staring up through the windshield at the patches of brightness that did show for as long as they had stayed. It irked her a little more that she had to stop and fill up the Taurus’s tank just as she made it a few miles inside town. Her hand wavered at the nozzle. A sign was taped just over the card reader reminding customers to pay before they pump if they only had cash and, in this case, it applied to her.

The door when she entered let out an electric chime but there was something wrong about it, the key of its tune off on the third note so that one felt like they were entering the opening stage of a slasher film. The first small sign that things were about to go wrong and of course, something the main character usually never notices.

It had been a thousand and one times that Claudia had experienced other people high on a dozen different things in her life up to that point. After living in such a large city – the underdeveloped parts no less – she could spot the signs even from a distance. In this case, she had a front row seat. The only other person in the shop was about to jump out of her skin, deep circles shadowing her eyes from beneath. She had emerged quietly from some back room on the left and fidgeted her way over without holding focus on any point for more than a second or two.

Claudia paused on the customer side of the counter and took the shifty gaze and momentary semblance of stillness as grounds to speak. “Hi. Could I get fifteen on pump three?”

She thought the girl nodded but wasn’t sure until she snatched the bill out of her own hand and started fiddling with the register and its computer screen. Claudia glanced around waiting for her change to be handed back to her. The interior of the place was a bit weird, she noticed. This was the first time she’d been in a gas station stop with wide-plank wood flooring and whoever decorated the rest must have loved the sea because it was giving off pure nautical vibes. She turned away from the collection of water bird statues displayed on the shelf of a very blue far wall and saw that the woman was watching her, miraculously still in that moment.

Claudia looked down at the crinkled five placed on the counter for her. She didn’t want to put her hand out and grab it. It was too close to the other woman’s, the one who a second ago looked as if she might vibrate away and was somehow like a stone in the next.

She glanced back at her money, said, “Thanks,” in a shorter tone than she’d intended, and went to quickly pick up the bill. A thud that in some way she’d been expecting echoed against the walls of the room making her jolt. The stranger was crushing her fingers down on the counter with the hard heal of their own palm.

“Hey-”

“It’s ours. You don’t belong here,” she growled.

Involuntarily, Claudia found herself swinging out and letting her free hand connect with the side of the girl’s face. There was a loud smack that echoed around them before she was released. The girl fell back into a wall of cigarettes and lottery cards, holding her head and staring at her patron in shock. Claudia’s once smashed fingers pulsed as the blood rushed back to them. She could imagine the same sensation in the stranger’s cheek, could still feel the sting the connection had left across her right hand. I’ve never hit anyone before.

Claudia watched the girl cradle her face, knowing firsthand that red and cloudy pain. Memory that was keenly familiar, if a decade old. The two women blinked at each other frozen in the reaction of such a burst of violence. She didn’t know the cashier from Adam and yet she was comfortable enough to lay a hand on her. She noticed a tear escaping down the injured party’s face and had the sudden idea that she’d completely imagined the girl’s mood swing. If – even when it was so vivid in her mind – Claudia’s hand had never once been pressed painfully into the counter after all.

Bile rose in her throat. Claudia breathed a nearly inaudible apology and ran from the building, the awful doorbell sounding again overhead. She pumped her gas into the side of her weather-beaten car and felt like she could see a scale weighing the steadiness of her mind. Where it had been relatively in balance a short time ago, someone now hovered over one side placing coins and weights when they saw fit. The main problem with this image was that the silhouette in shadow was her own and she still seemed to have no control over it.

The pump clicked off with finality. She could not stop the trembling in her limbs, carrying the nozzle to its holder and starting the engine to leave. The other girl never showed her face or came sprinting at Claudia in rage, which clarified for her that she could now count herself a horrible person. She turned the Taurus onto the highway, just a few miles from the two houses, with the phrase, “Know which way the wind is blowing,” in her immediate thoughts. It was her father’s voice, the only person she’d heard use the phrase.

“Mom,” she tapped on the window.

The handle had not given when she pulled and her mother sat as if she were frozen in driving position, hands gripped high and tight on the wheel with her chest almost against the horn. Her eyes were wide and locked on the older house. Evie was fast asleep and seemed to have been so for a while with the way the seat belt pressed deep into her right cheek.

Claudia took the side of her fist and hit the glass with one good thud. Mother jumped away from the door and turned with an expression almost of horror. As soon as she recognized the face of her eldest daughter outside the car, it disappeared.  

“What are you doing?” Claudia knew her voice would be muffled through the barrier.

She watched as her mother released the steering wheel, flexing and unflexing her fingers like they ached from squeezing to long before she unlatched the door.

“What? What is it?”

“How long have you been sitting like that,” Claudia could not wipe the judgement from her features.

Mother climbed from the vehicle, looking about her finally as her daughter waited for an answer. “…Sitting?” Claudia brought her fingers up in front of her mother’s face snapping once, expectant.

“Mom. Seriously, what are you doing?”

“We were just waiting for the movers,” Mother replied innocently.

“Okay. You could have gotten out or at least turned the engine off.”

Claudia reached around and pinched the Honda’s key between two fingers. Her mother quietly spoke behind her, stating that it was cold. She glanced up at her sleep-sweaty sister and the dash screen that read the outside temperature as seventy-three. Another little flame of anxiety ignited in her chest. She pulled the keys free and nudged at Evie who grunted.

“Hey, kid. We’re here. You gotta wake up.”

With some more prodding and unintelligible grumbles, Evie sat up giving hard blinks. She looked over at Claudia with a huge pink ridge running across the side of her face.

“Wait,” Claudia straightened up to speak to her mother. “How do you know the movers haven’t already been here? I thought you told them just to drop stuff off if we hadn’t shown yet.”

“I guess I’m just assuming.” She looked uncomfortable standing there, like her arms wrapped around her torso were holding it in place.

Claudia peered over at the grass in front of the bigger house. A wide set of tracks ran parallel to each other as if a heavy truck had pulled its back end right up to the steps.

“So then, what are those,” she pointed.

Mother turned, dropping the finger whose nail she’d been chewing on down to her side. “Huh,” she replied in recognition of her mistake.

Claudia didn’t wait for her mother to follow or her sister to completely wake up and marched over toward the older home. The front door had been left completely open and she could see a confusion of wet boot prints going in and out multiple times. They always ended, shuffled, and spun around at the pile of their things that was left up against the staircase and blocking the hall. She stepped in herself, eyeing the collection of boxes and furniture.

What confused her about the situation was while most of it had been stacked neatly in that one place, she would find a few moments later that all the dishes were put away up in the rickety kitchen cupboards and her bedframe had been assembled in the farthest bedroom upstairs. There were no prints that would be found anywhere but in the foyer, and no sign of which mover decided to start unpacking for them.

“Where did you find those guys,” Claudia asked Mother, who had only shrugged when she’d been shown the odd job done.

“Just some place online. They had decent reviews, but I guess it’s a good thing nothing was taken.”

“Well, yeah. Now we have to walk all of this over to the house we’ll actually be living in. Fun.”

Mother strode past, giving her daughter’s arm a reassuring squeeze before grabbing a bag of towels.

“Where the heck is Evie?”

Claudia poked her head out the door looking toward the car. Evie’s neck was bent way back to let her mouth fall open. She could imagine the snores that were probably erupting out of her sister.

“She’s out again,” Claudia informed. “We might as well get started without her.”

Only half an hour had passed since her mother had left to find dinner and groceries, but Evie was already done with her portion of the work. Or maybe not so much done as much as didn’t feel like doing more.

“I’m gonna go look around before it gets dark,” she announced after stomping down the staircase from their shared bedroom.

“You mean you’re going to try to get lost,” Claudia muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Just stay on the property and be careful if you go in the big house.”

“Gotcha!”

Evie was out the door in a rather loud moment, singing some song that was stuck in her head and that Claudia couldn’t identify. She left the main door unlatched and the screen smacked against its frame behind her. With one ear trained on her sister, Claudia grabbed towels and a shower curtain for the bathroom and headed that way. It had been a while since she’d looked at herself in a mirror and once she’d caught a glimpse, she couldn’t help making a face. Why does no one ever say anything when my hair is falling? It was more than just falling out of the braid, really. Baby hairs and whisps were sticking out wildly every which way showing just how long the day had already been to her. I look like someone tried to shove me in a bag.

Claudia pulled the hair tie free and started running her fingers through the plait to start over. Only once did she poke her head out to listen for her sister and even though it was feint, she was pretty sure she could still hear the tune Evie’s voice rang in.

There was a long crack in the wall beside the medicine cabinet which continued to draw Claudia’s eye as she reworked her hair. Something about the crook of it nagged at her, as if there was a chance she’d seen it before. No matter how many times she turned away, refocused on working the new braid into her hair and not screwing it up, she would find that a moment later her eyes had drifted back to the drywall. Was it the fact that it was just another part of both houses that needed fixing or was it that it was almost identical in angle to another crack in a different house? The brother of this mark had formed under a countertop and she doubted that anyone else would have known it had been there. You had to be laying on the ground of the kitchen floor to see it.

Claudia’s hair tie snapped harshly against her fingertips, breaking at a weak spot and falling to the floor.

“Great,” she grumbled, pinching her hair in place and walking to the next room.

It’s very quiet out here…in the middle of nowhere, Claudia thought as she dug through her bag and then through boxes. She didn’t know how anyone could sleep with such silence and dreaded the fact that she was going to have to try in only a few hours. The cacophony of nocturnal city goers going about their business was too far away to lull her into any kind of real rest. She hoped the crickets would scream loud enough to form a decent replacement considering it was hours before nightfall and they could already be heard through the front window.

But I hear nothing else.

Claudia stuck her head out the door searching around her to no avail, came back to slide on some shoes, then went out on the hunt for the little sister who rarely listened.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Evie!”

***

The fact that they now had to live with only wildlife as neighbors was a miracle to Evie. As she waded through the uncut grass of the yard, she kept reminding herself that this was real. She could live here for forever if she wanted. Mom would just get lonely all by herself anyway. Her feet led her to the front porch of the big house and without a pause she shoved her way inside, the main door sticking in the jamb a bit and making the glass panes rattle in place.

It gave her the same sensation it had when she first came in to carry the misplaced boxes across the yard; she felt very much like she’d been shrunk down and placed inside an emptied doll house, built fresh and left in the box for a hundred years. She was surprised at the impatience welling up inside of her while she thought of the long process ahead, how long it would be before it was just to her mother’s liking and they could properly move in. There was another feeling behind this emotion though. The idea that there might be someone else on the opposite side of one of the walls surrounding her popped up in her head out of nowhere.

But Evie didn’t mind this. New things were still exciting to her twelve-year-old self and she rarely got to indulge the curiosity they brought with Claudia always watching over her shoulder. She understood why this was and most of the time stayed complacent when it came to her older sister’s worries. Evie could hear Claudia’s voice in her mind repeating the same sentence over, to be careful if she were near the older building.

Yes, she said be careful. She didn’t say to not come in here, Evie pointed out. But the more inside the house she was the more she felt like she was doing something wrong.

Another step and she was next to the foot of the stairs. Houses rarely feel the same empty as they do with even a few people bustling about them, and this was something she was quickly beginning to realize. Only hours ago, Evie was having visions of bright morning meals in the kitchen sat next to her mother while her sister cooked at a stove that hadn’t been purchased yet and thoughts of how smooth the wood of the banister would be sliding across her palm once it had been fixed up again. In that moment though, her palms were clammy and she recalled all the times past that she had hid behind Claudia knowing it was safe there, cocooned in her shadow. The big house was no longer piquing her interest and she was reminded by the experience of a story she’d heard someone read aloud in a classroom in Baltimore.

There once was an old woman who was married to even older man. As it usually is, he was the first to go and buried himself in a pine box with all of the frugality he’d carried with him in life. He left his wife alone for she had had no children, naturally or otherwise.

So, she waited.

This was not a woman who had been granted with natural patience. She had always assumed that once the person she shared her life with had passed on, her time would come soon after. Every season that passed brought her more agitation, impatience, and an apathetic persuasion to the world around her.

But she waited even longer.

Ten years passed and the woman was congratulated for all the time she’d accumulated here on Earth. She hid her disdain and ate her vanilla frosted cake without complaint. And finally, when death did come knocking at her bedroom door the woman found herself apprehensive. For more than a decade she had yearned to speak to her husband again and was uncertain if she would ever get the chance.

At ninety-six, she was sure she couldn’t possibly have any unfinished business. It seemed from the way he’d continued to walk the halls of their home after his death, that her husband had left at least one thing unresolved. But he died at ninety-seven, she thought.

Evie shivered and the rise of bumps across her skin was a hair’s breadth from painful. Her ear perked up at the sound of a light tapping coming from somewhere at the back of the house, becoming more intense the longer she paid it attention. It was almost like the sound old water pipes make when they’re hot, clanging in the walls. She knew there was no chance of that though – the water hadn’t even been hooked back up yet. Wanting to place the sound, she took one sure step further in and another that was a bit more hesitant. Would it be considered safe, following an unusual noise in an unfamiliar place? All the warnings she’d been given up to that point ran in front of her like an unwound reel with a voice stating one word firmly. The word was no. A no so loud in the back of her skull that it covered over the fact that she was technically on “her property” and she thought would’ve been audible had anyone been around. It reverberated around her insides as another girl’s face poked out at her from around the corner at the end of the hall.

***

Claudia walked, unknowingly, along the same path her sister had only minutes earlier. The grass squeaked under the rubber soles of her shoes and she wondered at what time it had rained that day. Just as the first time she visited, the place was sorting through her brain. If she tried, truly gave it some effort, the fact that she’d driven through several drizzles to get there would still evade her. It wasn’t important to the house and therefore wasn’t important to her.

The sun was about to hide behind the tops of the trees and she thought it might downpour soon from the look of a long, angry cloud making its way right over them. Almost made it the whole move in day without a sprinkle, she sighed, oh well.

“Evie!”

There was no answer, and the increasing natural silence was pounding in her ears.

What if she wandered off into the woods? Did she even have time to get lost or is she just in the big house with a broken leg from trying to slide down the banister?

Claudia weighed the odds feeling that same draw from the mass of trees beyond. Knowing this, not wanting to be pulled in herself, and it being unlikely Evie wouldn’t hear a voice calling from in there, she turned on her heal to face the grey wall dotted by five windows next to her. She started off staring up at the highest to the right that she thought was probably the first of the two bedrooms on that side but it seemed to her like there was something going on in one of the others. Each time Claudia lifted her gaze toward the movement caught in her peripheral – a shift she was positive was there – the window would look down at her completely empty. But then it would happen again, and at one point she caught the distinct form of light hair drifting out of sight.

“…-at hurts,” a high voice came from the back of the house.

Two girls were fleeing in the direction of the field, one dragging the other by the wrist as they ran. Soon they would disappear in the tall grass if she didn’t follow, the tops of their heads just below the highest reeds. Claudia bolted forward, chasing after the small figures until she was only a foot behind the second. She lurched her arm ahead reaching the back of the hostage’s jacket and sent all three of them tumbling into the weeds. A sharp pain blossomed in Claudia’s side and she saw, righting herself, that something had snaked up under her shirt and scraped at her skin. Blood dotted to the surface. She wiped lightly at the wet seeds that had gotten to the scrape then noticed just how many had clung to her clothing, something she’d have a terrible time getting off later.

Evie sat on her knees staring down at her sister mystified.

“What the hell,” Claudia blurted out, looking over at the other girl who still had her fingers laced around Evie’s arm as she pushed her self upright.

Her sister’s eyes were round with shock and when she finally opened her mouth to try and speak all that came out was, “I-”, before the little redheaded stranger made a noise of disapproval. She got to her feet and started yanking on Evie. While the words were unintelligible the meaning behind them was clear.

Claudia jumped up feeling the sharp sting from her waist pulse and grabbed the child’s hand to pry it away. It was as though the girl had just about decided to hold on for dear life before she finally released her grip and pulled her own hand to her chest like Claudia’s touch might have infected her.

For a moment, Claudia’s anger trickled away as she finally looked at the child and her wild blue eyes. She had scars all across her arms and mingled in were what appeared to be inky markings. Her feet weren’t bare but the shoes she had on were some sort of older style, like penny loafers, all cracked and worn like they’d been passed down a few times. One of the strangest things Claudia could find about her though was that she didn’t look dirty or unclean in any way other than those shoes she had snapped on; she was just more than a few decades out of date with a faded peter pan collared dress and a plastic bow clip in her hair.

Claudia looked around for a sign of any other adult and nudged Evie to stand behind her, which the girl didn’t like. She glared over at them, still cradling her hand, and shouted something in a language that sounded just shy of English.

“She keeps doing that. I don’t know what she’s trying to say,” Evie whispered over her sister’s shoulder.

“Where are your parents? Do you live around here,” Claudia wracked her brain trying to remember if there were any homes even moderately near their property but all she could recall was the ocean of trees on the map surrounding two grey pinpricks, the roofs of their two homes.

The little girl crinkled her brow as if Claudia had just spoken French and then flew off like a shot, right in the direction she’d been rushing Evie along. Claudia had the distinct feeling that they should not follow and turned around to face her sister who, somewhere in the confusion, had started to cry.

The rest of the evening was spent almost entirely silent, the mood tainted. Neither of the girls knew quite how to act with the knowledge that the youngest had almost been kidnapped and the eldest might not have known it was ever happening if she hadn’t decided to swing around that certain side of the yard. Claudia continued alternating between the determination to never let her sister out of her sight and the admittance that she’d never pull it off, and Evie’s mindset was best described as “in the early stages of shock”. Only when she heard her mother’s car door slam from outside did she realize exactly why the event should be bothering her the same amount it was bothering Claudia.

She looked up from arranging the kitchen utensils in the stone crock that had always held the spoons and the spatulas and finally spoke in a hushed voice toward her sister. “Can we not tell mom about this?”

“Well…if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t say anything.”

Claudia thought she could understand this but seeing how Evie wanted to clam up regarding the ordeal didn’t lessen her concern. Perhaps I’m the one blowing it out of proportions, she countered.

“I don’t think we need to bother her. It was just weird anyway,” Evie shrugged, her lip showing the hint of a quiver.

“Alright,” Claudia pulled out their old silverware and stuffed it into a drawer on the far side of the kitchen. “Do you want to tell me anything else?”

The quiver was increasing but she didn’t think her little sister had any more tears left in her for the night, not that she’d blubbered before. Evie was just someone who quickly got over things, albeit after working herself up more than she maybe should. But she was young and it was a free country.

“She seemed friendly at first and I thought she might be lost, but I couldn’t understand her. It was like that deaf guy mom always had as a customer in the deli who had those hearing aids. Like she didn’t know the way the words were supposed to sound because she could never hear them. But she did hear us, obviously.”

That was it, Claudia thought. She wished she could go back if only to listen to the girl with that new thought placed in her hands and see if her ears could decipher.

Evie finally met her sister’s eye and added, “I don’t think she was taking me some place good. Not after the look she gave you.”

And Claudia thought about that for a long time. She had nothing to say in response, but that last sentence clung to her for the evening like a burr.

There had been no rhyme or reason to the way Claudia had packed her own belongings, mainly because she didn’t place them under “important” in the list of goods inside her head but sorting everything out was a handy distraction from the little girl’s face blinking between thoughts. The sound of the tape ripping from the cardboard as she went over to them one by one was also satisfying and her own small victory of the day. The shrick of the glue releasing from paper said you’re here, you’re about to put down new roots, and you made it without any real kind of scene being made from your side of things. Honestly, she’d been wary about what was going to happen upon leaving the home where so much had occurred. Every other second had been a pause, waiting for that big break-down her psychiatrist had told her would “definitely, probably” come one day and to “be prepared”.

How do you prepare for that? Do you have cards made, hand them out to each person you meet that say, “If you find me twitching on the ground in the next second, don’t worry. I should be fine. Childhood trauma’s just flooded back and this is my way of dealing with it finally. Please excuse the foam coming from my mouth unless I start to choke.”

She shook her head and sighed. If only she had a way of bringing it on prematurely so there would be at least a little preparation. Apparently, we’ll still be looking out for that.

Claudia’s palm had itched intermittently throughout the day but the why had escaped her, flying out her car window as she drove down the lane. In the same way that she had no idea when the grass had gotten wet as she’d looked for Evie, she would not be permitted to recall that her trip was not in fact a flawless one. And even if she did run into the clerk later on, she would only believe that she herself had flown off the handle on an undeserving victim. Whether this was the truth or not would have to be decided later.

The stairs creaked from down below. Evie was coming up to bed, yawning with her jaw open wide and fully willing to sleep on a stripped mattress with a single sheet if that’s what she must do. She came up beside Claudia who was opening another of the boxes and realizing that was the only part she was excited to do in the whole moving in deal.

“What’s that for,” Evie asked. Her expression was cheaply hidden surprise.

“Just for protection. My dad gave it to me years ago.”

They both stood, quiet, staring accusingly into the case. The object tucked in the middle of a pile of old socks grasped their attention like a poisonous snake entering the bedroom uninvited. It was in its holster, a nine-millimeter. This was the only useful gift she could remember being given by her father and it looked malicious sitting still. She didn’t like it but she knew it was necessary in her gut.

Her sister coughed and started by picking it up. “It’s heavy. Where are you going to put it?”

Claudia looked around the room, noticed how tacky the wallpaper was, and pointed out that there was nowhere to hide it apart from under her mattress.

“Nuh-uh. You could do like a secret agent move and shove it in the vent,” Evie pointed to the brown grate between their feet. “Ooh, or we could make like a hidden door in the drywall and have a whole panic room in the attic space.”

“Evie, this is the attic space,” Claudia corrected. She crouched down and started to pry with her fingernails. “This might actually do, though.”

Claudia was not a fitful sleeper. In fact, many times she’d been compared to a drunk with her odd skill of collapsing anywhere and everywhere, unmovable from the spot she landed. But there’s a first time for everything, and Claudia tossed and turned on her mattress like she was out at sea, caught on a ship thrust through the waves of a thunderstorm.  The dream – the cause of such a disturbance – went as follows.

She was alone and the beat-up microwave from her old home was presented to her in the same place it had been sitting when she left. She could press the buttons blindfolded and know what she was doing easily but, in this instance, it was already turning with its dull hum. Something inside was cooking and from the sound of it, it was seconds from exploding.

But it’ll be frozen.

 Claudia’s thoughts were fact. She knew that no matter how much noise the meal was making it wouldn’t actually be thawed out.

What was inside was only a bubbling shape behind a tiny, dotted window not clear enough to see the details of its contents. She thought about how angry her mother would be if she came home to find food splashed and burnt all on the inner walls of the microwave, but her instincts told her that if she didn’t want to get sick, she should wait.

Another minute or two passed. The timer on the side read three, zero, zero in blocked green numbers. It seems like it just said three minutes the last time I looked at it. The machine’s drone kicked down a notch like a singer running out of breath. I think it’s leaking. Claudia spied dripping from the lip of the microwave door onto the counter. The condensation, she thought, was nothing to worry about considering she’d just grabbed the meal from the freezer. But only within the span of a few blinks had the drips stopped being drips and combined into the tiny, forceful streams that declared the machine as overflowing.

Still, the clock had its time at three minutes.

She watched as it pooled under the knobby feet of the box and refused to touch the thing, disgusted by the scene it was making. If it would only do its job and defrost there wouldn’t be all this mess.

The water, while still thin, looked muddled in its color as if it had been heavily seasoned. Flakes of something that seemed like oregano were sprinkled all throughout and created brown swirls as they dissolved. The murky pool then spilled over the lip of the counter, down the front of the cabinet, and onto the linoleum with a splash that sprayed at her where it ran.

Claudia felt her body involuntarily cringe as the ice-cold water splashed onto her bare toes. A lake was beginning to form on the kitchen floor and she couldn’t make herself move to stop it, only bothering to notice that the clock had gone down by five seconds.

But that was when she knew, not needing to even take a confirming look, that someone was behind her. Someone tall and very close. A person whose body could easily envelope her own starting at the crown of her skull. She could feel them inch closer with a comfortable sort of speed as if they had the confidence to do so, and then they bent their head so that she could hear what they whispered more clearly.

The muscles in her neck tightened as their breath ran across the skin of her earlobe. “It was going to spill over at some point if you kept ignoring it like that,” a woman spoke. She could smell something coming from their words, as if they’d been chewing flavored gum just before but it had trouble sticking. A warm hand snaked its way around, reaching up to grip her throat before adding, “Here let me help you.”

Claudia’s eyes jerked open wanting to end the madness early. She rose up slowly in her bed, the joints in her arms weak and shaking. The world was blurry again which meant the nightmare had skuttled back to the dark. The crickets chirped from outside just as loud as she had wished they would earlier, rivaling the honks and shouts of the city. It was a very constant sound, not shocking in the way people were and she assumed that one day it would bring her more comfort once she’d acquired its taste.

Purely out of habit, she turned her gaze to her sister’s bed. Without her glasses she could tell at least someone was laying sprawled out over there with their thin leg hanging over the side and the sheets pushed down around their waist. Claudia squinted wondering what part of the sheet was black and how Evie had managed to tangle that same leg up in it. Last time she checked Evie’s comforter had been yellow with flowers around the end.

Claudia reached over to the side table for her glasses, almost knocking them onto the floor before pinching one of the ear pieces. She blinked a few times at the sleep-fuzzy image of the opposite side of the room. Even with the help of lenses it was hard for Claudia to see in the cloud-covered night, not so much as an alarm clock to light up the space. So, she squinted harder and after a brief pause saw that what she’d thought was dark fabric was actually the skin of a hand encircling her sister’s ankle.

And then it wrenched her from her bed.