Three

BEFORE

Lucie

Lily and I laid patiently on the springy double bed we shared waiting for Dad's snore. Outside, a blue-black blanket of sky shone with mesmerising stars. Mesmerising was a new word I learnt in English class. It means something very beautiful it puts you in a trance, something hypnotising. Trance was also a new word I'd learnt. 

Once I heard Dad's snore, I tapped Lily even though I know that she was not asleep. "It's time, Lily. Dad is asleep."

"What about mummy? What if she is not sleeping?" Lily asked and I wished Mummy snored too.

"Let's just... Risk it." I liked the word risk. 

Lily did not argue, it was one of the things I loved about her. She was my partner in crime and a faithful follower, the best sister anyone could ask for.

The wind howled outside the sliding glass window, lighting flashed through our curtains and a rumble of thunder followed. It began to drizzle. The raindrops made a plink-plunk drip-drop sound as it hit the glass window. I imagined it sliding down the window leaving tracks that form designs. It was funny how rain could start at any moment.

"It is raining," Lily moaned.  It made me want to hit her for being a wimp. I did not like when she complained or gave excuses. Mum said I had a temper that's why I always hit Lily, she said it would get me into trouble one day.

I sat up on the bed and pushed the thick duvet off me.  I could make out her face in the darkness. People said we look like twins. I did not think that was true, I was far more beautiful than Lily was. Dad called me beautiful, not her.

"We'll get our umbrErins and raincoats." Her voice was a whisper, she was scared that Mum might overhear. I knew Mum could not hear anything above Dad's snoring.

"Maybe God doesn't want us to go tonight." She slid off the bed, tiptoed to the window like she usually did every night and pressed her nose to it. "And it's cold!"

I scoffed. "You get to wear your new wellies!" Mum had bought us new wellies for the rainy season. We had not gotten the opportunity to wear it yet. I loved it when I got to wear new things for the first time. 

Lily squealed in delight like an excited puppy and I shushed her by pressing my index finger to my lip and making the sound the librarian did when we were talking too loudly in the library at school.  

We tiptoed out of our room, past our parent's room where Dad snored like a bear in a cave. We got to the tall cupboard in the hall next to the kitchen where Mum kept all the unwrapped presents from their wedding, mortar and pestle we used in the kitchen, cartons and boxes of dusty unknown things and most importantly, our new rainy day gear.

Lily took her pink umbrErin and matching pink and white raincoat, her wellies were also pink with white plastic lillies on them. I hated pink. The colour made me want to vomit. 

Red is better. Red is grown-up and beautiful. My rainy day gear were all in red and my wellies had black drawstrings on them and a black sole. It was way more mature than Lily's.

"Let us go," I whispered to Lily as I pull her back to our room, she followed like an obedient puppet. Like the puppets in the friday puppet shows at school.

I locked the door behind us making sure our parents would not be able to check up on us while we are out. We walked to the glass window, it was pouring outside like the shower when it is tuned to the highest. It was like a waterfall. I started to draw something in the frost on the window. 

"What are you drawing?" Lily asked.

I drew two broomstick girls holding hands. "Me and you outside. Imagine how fun it would be to adventure under the rain!" 

Lily did not seem as excited as I expected. She bit her lip and glanced at the locked door.

"Ready?" I asked. "Puppet," I added tentatively.

She shook her head. "Let's just go back to bed, please."

She was visibly shaking. She was such a wimp. My hand almost left my side to connect with her cheek but I clenched it making a fist. Mum had always told me that instead of slapping my baby sister, I should hug her instead. I pulled her to me and hugged her. 

"Don't you want to see the fairies?" I said. Fairies were the only reason she even thought of following me outside, she told me how she would love to see them.

"Y-Yes," she stammered like Dad used to sometimes, especially when he was tired.

"Then come on." I clicked the lock open and slid it open. Goosebumps erupted from my arms even under the raincoat when the icy cold wind stroked me, it reminded me of ice cubes from the freezer. 

I helped Lily wear her raincoat and wellies then I wore mine. We climbed out and landed on Mum's aloe vera patch. Mum would be livid. Livid was a new word I learnt in school, it meant angry. It also meant the colour of a bruise like the bruises Aunt Alami had around her eyes before she divorced her husband.

The rain fell like it did in the Bible when God destroyed all the bad people with a flood. I wondered if another flood was going to happen then I remember it won't because we were told in Sunday school that God put the rainbow in the sky was a reminder of His promise that the world will never be destroyed with a flood again. I put out my tongue and tasted the falling water. So this is how clouds taste.

I saw Lily's lip quavering and her teeth chattering when a spike of lighting flashed in the dark sky. I thought she was calling my name but the roar of thunder was drowning her baby voice so I could only see her mouth move. The tips of our umbrErins bumped into each other as we waddled through the huge river that the rain had formed in front of our house, we were up to our shins in the river. I wondered if our house is like Noah's ark and we were wrong for not staying inside.

I could not see beyond the flower bushes. Lily began to peer into the pink and white flower bushes that lined the road for fairies, I knew she would not find any, fairies aren't real (Dad told me this when I caught him stealing Lily's tooth and trying to shove a note under her pillow, it was then he told him that the tooth fairy AND Santa Claus do not exist. I cried for a week) but she did not know that so I stood and watched her waste her time. Besides, it was too dark to see anything.

We moved further down the street because she could not find any fairies in the pink and white flower bushes. I noticed her begin to sniff and wipe at her eyes. She said she can't find any fairies, maybe they went home to sleep because of the rain. I told her that their home is deep in the forest, they are waiting the rain out in the bushes but she would not listen, she stopped walking and looked the way we came from. She said she was cold and scared, we weren't supposed to go anywhere without Mum and Dad. Her cries became so loud I could hear it above the rain.

And that was when I slap her. My palm stung from the impact. She became quiet. I felt much better, her cries were annoying me. Then she started crying again, even louder than before. I kept hitting her so she would stop crying but she cried even louder and louder and louder.

I saw a dark figure move towards us, the rain was too heavy I could not tell who the person was. I thought it was monster. I grabbed Lily's hand.  "Let's go, let's go." 

We started running and she followed, still crying. Then the person was right behind us and swooped Lily into his arms. It is a man, the man who lives in the house opposite ours with his wife and a son who is a grown-up. He did not have any rainy day gear on him so his clothes were soaked. He said something to me, the sound of thunder was even louder and deafening than before so I could not hear him. Lily flinched and held onto the man like he was her saviour. I felt angry, why is he here?

Lily stopped crying. I could not hear what she was telling him. I felt so angry, why did he come? He grabbed my hand and started walking back to our house, I wanted to run away but his grip was too strong. He knocked on the door for a very long time before Dad opened the door and stared at us with his mouth open. I could not hear what they said. Dad shook his head, shook the man's hand and pulled us inside.

"Dad I—" I started to say but Dad shot me an angry look.

He collected our rainy day gear and returned them to the cupboard then came back with mugs of hot tea and blankets. Mum did not wake up but I knew he would tell Mum everything in the morning. Lily told him everything that happened, I wanted to squeeze her mouth shut. Dad did not look at me as she spoke. I was very angry at Lily for telling Dad what happened and at Dad for ignoring me. Dad slept in our room—sitting on the chair— snoring like a bear.

The next day, a man with a dirty overall came to fix protector bars to our window. Dad called him a welder. Lily hated the bars, she could not press her nose to the window anymore.

In the morning while we were eating toast, Dad placed two wrapped presents on the table, "ta-da!" He said. I did not think it was funny, he said it everytime. When we unwrapped the presents, we found bedsheets and duvets with fairies on it in the boxes, so we can catch fairies in our dreams.

AFTER

Lily

I wear a cloud of Luc's vanilla perfume and clothes I stole from her; black palazzo, grey turtleneck and black flat sandals with weaven straps. I wear her dangling gold earrings, gold bangles over sleeves of the turtleneck, a necklace with a gold 'K' pendant and a ring on every finger. 

The sky is dark and gloomy, heavy clouds lean down and before I can make it to the yellow Mercedes waiting for me in front of my house with James in it, it begins to drizzle again. Gentle raindrops land on my face, my hand and I'm transported back to the day Luc and I went out under the terrible rain to catch non-existent fairies.

James smiles when I slide into the seat beside him. "You look great," he says. He leans in and fingers caress my cockscrew curls. My heart skips a beat and I stop breathing for some seconds. His lips are dangerously close, I want to lean in and kiss him.

When the car eases into the road, I see our neighbour outside his white bungalow with shears trimming the pink and white bushes in front of his house. I ask James to stop the car and he does so with a puzzled expression on his face. I jump out and walk towards the man. 

We were not exactly friendly with our neighbours, a few murmured greetings now and then. Even after a decade, we still did not know our neighbours first names and only entered their houses when necessary, which never happened.

"Good afternoon," I say making sure to stand a few feet away so the leaves won't land on me.

He stops shearing and smiles at me and says a good afternoon, there are wrinkles around his eyes and his hands are heavily veined.

"My sister Lucinda died. I just thought that you should know." I can't recognize my voice, is it pain that makes my voice strained?

Something flashed across his face, his eyes close for a second and open again. He stammers his condolences, no wonder he hasn't seen her in a while. He says I should be strong and that God knows best. His rests his large hand on my shoulder, his eyes are sad and kind. 

I wave him goodbye as I make my way back to the yellow Mercedes. When I sit down and buckle the seatbelt, I break down into tears and James rubs my back.