Page 40 of The Sister's Curse

A green flash moved slowly over my vision, from left to right, like headlights washing across my face.

My mom liked to sleep in. Today was no exception.

I stared at my mom’s closed bedroom door for many minutes. I put a T-shirt on over my Underoos, found my sneakers, and then slipped outside.

I plunged into the cool shade of the forest. Confusion roiled in my head. I was at home in the woods; my dad had called me his heir, a princess of the forest. I adored him and shadowed his footsteps, looking upon my mom as the villain, the one who made me put on shoes and comb my hair and go to school. Mom was boring, all about limits and telling me what to do. Dad was about freedom and following tracks in the forest. My dad had magic, showing me where salamanders slept beneath rocks and which fiddleheads were edible.

But he was gone, and Mom had surprised me. Without my dad’s presence, I felt hers, serious and watchful. And it wasn’t as awful as it had been in the past. My mom had her own way of doing things, her own magic unfolding in the dark. And despite all her coldness toward me over time, I still wanted to please her. Some hope that she could love me had been ignited in me.

But it felt like I was betraying Dad. He’d been gone only a few days. He was coming back. And how would he react if he saw me closer to my mom? Would he cast me aside, too?

I never knew what brought the two of them together. I knew only that they hated each other. And I didn’t want both of them to hate me.

Wading among the cattails, I descended to the muddy river. I bent and sniffed the water. It smelled all right.

I walked in, then let the cool water soothe my sunburned skin.

I floated on my back, looking up at the sun. Suspended between water and sky, I felt the river moving at my back, a great vein of energy unfurling below me. It was different than when I was on land, listening to birds and observing deer. Water swished over me, slowing my pulse and supporting me as if I weighed nothing.

I drifted downstream in the river’s intangible grip, my eyes closed, until I became aware of something sliding against me. I thought it might be a log or some other kind of debris. I opened my eyes and saw something brown floating beside me.

It turned in the river’s current, and I screamed.

I stared a deer in the face, his antlers reaching out like claws and his eyes white and milky, his disintegrating tongue trailing in the river.

I scrambled out of the water. Mom had been right—it was poisoned, all of it. I jammed my feet into my shoes and ran home.

I let myself into the bathroom and turned on the shower, hoping to rinse the poisoned water away. But the sickly sweet smell hit me, and I knew it was still poisoned, too.

I backed away from it, bumping into Mom.

She looked down at me, wet and disheveled. I was certain she was going to scream at me. My shoulders went up around my ears.

Instead of screaming, she went to the shower and turned it off. She put the stopper in the tub and turned the faucet on.

She left me staring at the tub, then returned with a glass mason jar. She poured its contents into the bathwater, then ordered me to strip.

“What’s that?” I asked meekly.

“Salt. Baking soda. Epsom salt.” She tugged my T-shirt overmy head and herded me into the bath. The sweet smell of the water had faded.

I pulled my knees up to my chin, feeling weird about being nude in front of my mom. As the tub filled, she poured shampoo on my hair and began to wash it. Not roughly, like that time a kid had put gum in my hair. She was gentle.

I’d begun to wonder if this was what it would be like if Dad stayed gone. Part of me wanted it to be like this with her.

“Do you think Dad is coming back?” I asked her quietly, and then immediately regretted spitting out the question.

“Do you want him to come back?” She paused in lathering my scalp. “He left us, you know.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat that rose at that abandonment. Mom could be mean, but she was always there. She always was. If I got sick, she was the one to pick me up at school. She signed all my notes for my teachers. She paid the bills neatly every month. She was boring to my mind. But maybe she was something else, too, something steady.

Did I want him to come back?

I shook my head, knowing this was the answer she wanted, and not trusting that my voice would hold steady if I spoke. Maybe he’d left because of me. Maybe it had been my fault.

“Good girl. We’ll be fine, just the two of us. You’ll see.”

“Did he leave because of me?” I whispered.