Remember: An excerpt

This is an Excerpt from a story I recently wrote. I appreciate all and any feedback. If you are interested in reading more, let me know because the plot certainly thickens…

Remember

In the house, there are ghosts. In the house of a body. In the house of a secret. In the house of a heart. In the house of your sister’s words when she turns over to you in the dark and says, “remember…?” And so you nod, not quite looking at her face, and say “I do.” You remember how tiny her fingers used to be in your hand. As you now twist her palms in your own, reading them like the too-high stacks of books on your dresser.

You wonder when her laughter turned into a spiteful smile, and a gaze that said I’ll-see-you- later. There is no Goodbye. There never was. 

There is only the time between now and forever. It’s a short pause that tastes like cherries at midnight, and smells like jasmine incense. 

How funny it was that we would once cradle the earth with these hands, and sow promises into a land that in reality, was never ours to begin with?

“Someday…I will be a mer…maid, Li…ly,” my sister would murmur, curling thin flaxen strands behind her small ears, from which pearl earrings dangled like stars. 

I would look into those blue eyes of hers, take her fingers in my own, and taste the freshness of her golden heart. 

“Yes, Chamomile…yes you will” 

We were a garden planted by our ancestors, and uprooted by our progeny.  

In the dark, we became restless creatures, kissing the night with our eyes like stars. Milly would turn around in bed, the moonlight dancing on the nape of her neck, and I would braid her thin hair, a shiver of love skipping down her back till it reached the bottom of her toes. That was when she first asked me. 

“Tell me a storyy Lily.” She kicked the bottom of her feet against my stiff calves, curling onto her side. I didn’t move. 

I pictured her face, turned away from mine. Her hair was drawn back in a long braid, her eyes were like moonlit pebbles; her lips turned upward at one end, curving into a familiar pout. 

I sighed. 

“What should I tell you a story about Milly?” I asked her. 

“Anything!” she shouted, jutting her legs into my calves. 

I closed my eyes, taking my time to invent a story; a story that did not have unicorns and princesses; a story about two girls, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling like it was their entire world. 

And the story began with its first word. 

“Remember…” My sister craned her head back and she listened. I stroked her hair, closing my eyes as I spoke. 

“Remember the time when you were just two years old?” I asked her. I could almost see her face scrunch up, at the memory. Two??

“That’s so little” she would scoff. 

“Yes…I know” 

“You were just two years old, and Mom wasn’t home…so I took you…I carried you outside with me because I wanted to play.”

She nodded, and I knew that her pout had turned into a quiet smile. She loved it when I talked about this; about a time before remembering. 

“What happened next?” she asked. 

“Well…I wanted to go outside and make a little house in the dirt, and so I put you, right there by the porch. ‘Now don’t go far Mil’ I said to you…because I was building a dollhouse…out of dirt you see…and I had a surprise… ” I grinned, recalling the memory. 

“What was it!?” she exclaimed. 

“Well…the dollhouse that I was building out of the dirt?” I began to giggle uncontrollably. 

“Yesss…” Milly said, turning around slowly to look me in the eye. 

I placed my hand over my mouth, quelling the laughter. 

“That was for you.”

“LILY!” she yelled in absolute shock, grabbing the pillow from under her. She turned over in bed, and I held my arms out defensively as she threatened to whack me from above. 

“Milly” I gasped, trying to hide my laughter. “You—” I wheezed. “You put that down right now…”

She held the pillow over her head, her braid having loosened by the sudden turn. Pouting, she shook her head from side to side.

“Nuh uh” she said. “Not unless you tell me a better story….one that doesn’t involve burying a kid alive…” she said, shaking her head. 

I sighed, the laughter slowly dying on my lips. “Alright, just, just put the pillow down.” She side-eyed me, and begrudgingly lowered the pillow. 

A tentative ceasefire. For now. 

She laid back down, turning in the other direction again, with her back to me.

For a few minutes, we were silent. All I could hear was the rustling of sheets and her deep breathing. Was she asleep?

 “Re–” 

She cut me off, 

“Remember…remember when Dad left the stove on, and accidentally burned Mom’s wooden ladle?” she muttered. 

Her voice was quiet. A silent promise. 

I closed my eyes, willing the memory into my mind. Did I remember that? Had that happened?

It had now. 

I closed my eyes. I forged the image of the ladle licked by the flame; imprinted it on the back of my eyelids. My reply was quiet; reluctant. 

“Yes,” I said to her softly. 

I remember. 

When I open my eyes, there is a ghost staring back at me. It grins in the dark, as ghosts do. 

“Hi” its voice is ethereal. It smells like flowers. 

I watch it inch closer. Like a cool, moist blanket it drapes itself over my ankles, and lays its torso in the space between my sister and I.

I see it. Listening. 

“What else do you remember?” the ghost asks me. 

The taste of burnt soup at the bottom of a pot lingers in the back of my throat. Charred bread. I close my eyes and see a lover’s hands on mine. 

I have never loved before. 

There is no telling what it means to do. 

Stay away from my sister, I think to myself. But when I open my mouth to say it, nothing comes out. 

“Lil,” my sister shakes my leg, and I realize I’ve become frozen in a catatonic state. 

“Lil, tell me a story,” she begs. 

Her voice is a gasp in the dark; a bruise that materialized out of thin air. “What do you want to know?” The words are a low growl in the back of my throat. What does she need so desperately to know?