11
“It didn’t say who it was from?”
I reached for the tag, searching for a sender, yet it simply said ‘My dearest Isabel. Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.’ in typewriter text, the letters smudged as though produced in haste.
“Why would you need a bow and arrow?” I had asked, running my finger along the curved wooden length of the limbs – it was beautiful, hand carved with ornate filigree and stained carefully with beeswax. I had never seen anything quite so breathtaking.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted, eyes alight with wonder and she picked up an arrow, brushing her finger against the fletching. Feathers and pieces of grass fanned from its shaft, each carefully hand tied with leather string and fixed with black melted wax.
I exhaled as I watched the awe spark in her eyes, the magic casting a haze of pure joy across her face.
And inside me, something envious twisted. Something shameful and bitter – something I would never speak aloud.
Quiet music filters through Isabels closed door, a sorrowful tune that makes my chest tighten as I approach. The sound is muffled by the aged wood, but the melody seeps through the cracks like stubborn winter air, settling into my bones with aching clarity.
She barely leaves her bedroom now, shutting herself away for days on end.
I press my palm against the door, hoping to absorb even a tiny fraction of her sadness.
I can’t understand where it comes from, why the news of Francesca’s death has broken her in this way.
When father died, she cried for days, her face reddened with caustic tears.
She was so small, hiccupping through the grief as our world turned inside out.
But she confided in me then, when she was small.
She would rest her head on my lap, asking me to tell her stories of our childhood, candlelight catching the edges of her unrelenting tears.
I remember the weight of her hair across my knees, the way her fingers would clutch the fabric of my skirt as though I might vanish if she let go.
I would tell her the same stories over and over again – how we once tried to build a raft in the creek and sank it within minutes, how we stole peaches from the orchard beyond the tree line and ate them until our stomachs hurt.
The stories were never grand, but they made her laugh through the tears, and that was enough.
Eventually, those tears dried, and she returned to her carefree self – following me through the woods, collecting wildflowers and chasing dragonflies as she bounded over fallen logs and puddles.
Her laughter used to echo through the trees with an effervescence you could hardly ignore.
Sometimes I would pretend to be annoyed by her endless questions, but secretly I loved the way she filled the quiet of the forest with her voice.
We told each other everything in those days.
Our deepest secrets, our most precious desires.
I had told her of my hopes to leave; whispering them beneath the canopy of the eucalypts as though the trees themselves might betray us.
I asked her to come with me, to imagine a life beyond the congregation, somewhere the air didn’t feel so heavy with watchful eyes.
For a long time, she refused. She called me a dreamer, rolling her eyes as though my hope were something childish.
But even then I could see the curiosity flickering behind her stubbornness.
She would ask quiet questions when no one else was around – where we would go, what the cities looked like, whether the world was truly as vast as I assured her.
But as she aged, the seasons moving past us as though they were minutes, she changed. The stern young girl who struggled to free herself from mother’s grasp slowly found freedom in her own dreams to leave.
And now, I can’t even get her to look at me, as if seeing me reminds her that those dreams are now lost. That Francesca’s death cemented that uncertainty into a hopelessness, dooming her to a life here with the congregation. Dooming her to become our mother.
And no matter how many times I whisper through her door, she won’t answer.
It’s as though she’s become a ghost.
Francesca and I made endless plans beneath the stars in our secret hideout meetings. The owls and crickets blanketing us in noise. It was the freest I’d ever felt, our hands clasped together as we watched the Southern Cross glisten in the sky.
My heart would skip beneath my breastbone whenever her fingers tightened around mine. A confusing flurry of emotions swirling inside my chest.
Often, my eyes would linger on her longer than necessary, tracing the curve of her lips, the way her cheekbone rose whenever she smiled.
As a woman only not long ago still a child, I hadn’t understood what those feelings meant.
I had no comparisons for them. For me, this was friendship.
The way I wanted to press my mouth to hers, to taste the fresh strawberry juice on her lips and feel the curves of her ribs beneath her shirt – that was the way love, true friendship, was supposed to be.
One day, I leaned into her, our breath unifying as we exhaled into each other. She tilted her head, inviting me closer, letting the daydream linger for too long before she suddenly sat back and laughed, shaking her head with sparkling eyes.
“Isa wants to come with us,” I confessed that day, easing the discomfort that had settled as Francesca dusted her knees.
“Does she? When did she tell you that?” Francesca asked, a smirk pinching the corners of her dark lips.
“The other day, after church. She finally agreed.”
I tell her the story of how Isabel came to me when we arrived home, placing herself on my bed with hesitation. I had asked her if anything had happened to change her mind, and she adamantly denied it, but I knew – I could see it in her eyes, the shift beneath her gaze.
“Interesting. Do you think she’s truly ready?” Francesca asked, brows drawn slightly.
“I think so, we just must be careful with her. Not tell her too much of the plan, or she might get overwhelmed and back out.”
While Isabel had changed, developing into a headstrong mirror of myself, she was still young at heart. Impressionable and easy to skitter, a fawn still finding her way on her solid legs.
“Yes, I agree,” Francesca sighed, standing from the dirt and straightening her skirts. “Maybe we don’t tell her anything until the day we plan to leave, so she hasn’t got a choice.”
“That’s probably best,” I agree, standing to join her. She smelled of eucalyptus and berries, the scent weaving through me, making my heart race. I followed the fragrance, feet blindingly leading me closer to her.
“I’m so excited, Raven. We’re going to be free. Just you, me, and Isa.”