Chapter Annabelle #2
“No!” Sabrina screams in a voice that you haven’t heard since you were children: pure outrage.
Then, her nails are in your skin, her face so close to yours that the ends of her hair tickle your shoulders.
The two of you tumble to the ground, your body now heavier than hers for these past few months but Sabrina is more vicious, her fingers scrambling for your eyes, her hands at your throat.
You land a hard kick to her shin, pull her hair until she yelps.
For a second you can make out the smell of the mushrooms you’ve trampled, mineral and filthy, but even that passing thought is enough to put you at a disadvantage.
Sabrina throws you off her and your head lands hard on the ground, your back teeth crashing together.
The truth pulses between the two of you, both of you revealing just how much you want to hurt one another, in the way that only sisters can.
Because in that rage, there is need. In that rage is its counterpoint—a wild, ineffable love.
Then, as quickly as she had attacked, Sabrina retreats.
“Annabelle,” she says, and her voice sounds very far away, her breathing heavy. The sound of your name reminds you that you are separate: two brains, two throbbing hearts.
At first you don’t know whose blood it is.
Only that it is everywhere. Smears on Sabrina’s cheek and wrist. A splatter on your shin.
You both scan the ground, your eyes landing on it at the same time: a broken Ball jar, something your mother used to gather cut flowers in, half submerged next to what used to be her herb garden, the raised beds now disorderly with weeds.
The rough edges of the pale blue glass shimmer with blood.
Once you see it, you feel it. The pulse drumming in your arm. Your shirt torn and the air on your skin where the fabric had been. The blood nearly black on the cotton.
“Stay here,” Sabrina says, and bolts to the back door.
The screen is wide open still from when the two of you first set out, now that your mother is no longer here to warn about flies.
Now that there is never any fruit in the wooden bowl on the counter or baskets of scones to swarm.
Only a freezer stacked with boxes of macaroni and cheese.
Wait, you want to say, though you know she is going to get help, to find a way to fix you. Please don’t leave me.
You stare into the dark of the woods at the edge of the yard and wish you could stagger over and dip your body in the cool shade, but every time you move your cut surges with more blood.
You lower yourself to the ground, not knowing if it is the heat or the bleeding that is making you lightheaded, making the world feel unfamiliar and indistinct.
The blades of grass go fuzzy. The pines look like triangles, trees drawn by children.
Then, a sense of motion out of the corner of your eye. An animal, you think. But then you know the hands upon you as your sister’s.
You are relieved enough to close your eyes, but then you open them to a flash of metal in the lazy summer light.
With the blade of your father’s pocketknife she cuts away the fabric of your sleeve, eyeing the wound evenly, without pity, without disgust or fear.
She applies pressure, which makes you gasp, and the pain makes the world disappear for a moment, everything black.
Sabrina’s hands are steady as she wraps a dishcloth tight around your upper arm and she lifts the cloth every few minutes to check the bleeding, replaces one soaked rag with another.
She sighs. “I think you need stitches.” Her voice is calm but she’s started looking over her shoulder, as though she is searching for someone else who can help.
“We could call an ambulance.” What you both know but don’t say: The hospital would be another bill.
Another bill would be ruinous. Another bill would mean who knows how long without that cash appearing under the letter opener, both of you hungry, wearing sweaters that are too short this winter.
The SAT registration fees you’ll need to pay.
“I’ll be right back.”
She runs to the house and when she comes back she has a package of fishing line, 20-pound test, something she must have brought back from her job at the bait shop.
But why? There’s a glint in her teeth that you realize is a needle, something she probably had to scrounge out of your mother’s sewing kit.
She pulls a metal Zippo from her back pocket.
Much nicer than the junky little Bic lighters your father uses to light up his Marlboros, or the long skinny matches your mother used for her beeswax candles.
Where did you get that? You want to ask, but then you realize what she’s about to do and the fear steals the thoughts from your head.
She flares the lighter and runs the needle through the flame.
You know you should feel something on your own behalf, but you can’t.
You are staring between the trunks of the trees, drifting somewhere else.
Somewhere cooler, somewhere you are not encumbered by a body that can hurt and bleed.
You have been able to do this since your mother left.
Disappear from your body for long stretches of time. Leave your mind behind.
“Stay still,” she says. She spills something over your wound, a chemical ammoniac stink to it, and it sizzles against your skin. You hear someone cry out, realize only when you see Sabrina wince that it is you.
She squints as she stitches, taking her time. Inhaling a little each time the needle pierces your skin.
“He told me he met you. Didn’t say anything else. But he didn’t have to.”
“Oh,” you manage to say. And you wonder how well you really know her.
Wonder if she knew the glass was there, in wait, and she knew she just needed to get the angle right.
Knew that if she was successful you’d be marked forever.
And that there would be no risk of you thinking you could slip sideways into her life ever again.
“And I found those brochures under your bed.”
The college brochures. Big cities and faraway places near the ocean. Schools Sabrina could never get into. Her voice cracks a little, but then she clears her throat. “Almost done,” she says, soft, consoling.
You’ll never know the truth. Whether she wanted to hurt you or heal you. Or maybe the truth is, she wanted to do both. Maybe that’s what you both have wanted since you grew together in your mother’s body, the two of you alone in the warmth and dark, competing for nourishment.