The Winter Sister(15)
Mom sighed and stood up, brushing Pixy Stix sugar from her legs, still holding on to the paint palette. “You’re too old for that,” she said. “Come on, get up.”
But Persephone made no effort to move.
“Please?” Persephone asked, and I was surprised to see that the sparkle in her eyes was just glittering tears. My sister was usually so much stronger than rug burns.
Mom turned away from the human Persephone on the floor to look at the one made of stars on the wall. “What do you think, Sylvie?” she asked. “Is it done, or does it need any finishing touches?”
“Maybe just . . .” I began, but I was cut off by what sounded like a growl coming from deep within my sister’s body. I looked over at her just in time to see her spring from the floor and leap toward the wall, palm outstretched. She swiped her hand across the fresh paint, slashing silver through the constellation. For a moment, no one said anything. Then, Persephone made a sound—half sob, half grunt—and she stomped down the hallway. A moment later, I heard our bedroom door slam.
Mom’s eyes were closed, the skin of her lids pinched together at the edges. “Why did she do that?” I asked, feeling hot tears gather in my lashes.
When she opened her eyes again, there was a smile in them. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” she said. “It’s just Persephone being Persephone. Now, look, come down here for a second.”
She took the paintbrush from my hand and placed it on the end table. Then she swiped her finger across the tears that had spilled onto my cheek and she lay down on the beige carpet, waving at me to come join her. As I crawled beside her, I noticed that her hair mingled with the blue sugar on the floor, and that those specks looked like tiny jewels.
“Now, look up at the wall,” she said, and pointed her finger toward the constellation we’d just made. There was something strangely beautiful about the way it had been ruined. Persephone’s hand had made the disappearance dust streak across the stars meant to be her body, and it looked as if she was in motion, twirling in the sky like she’d done in the room minutes before.
“It’s like we’re looking up at the stars, and we’re seeing Persephone,” she said, “and just look at all the disappearance dust. I can still see it, can’t you?”
I nodded my head but didn’t respond, her words like a spell.
“My love for you, Sylvie,” she continued, “is exactly like those stars. It’s as eternal as each and every one of them. It goes on and on and on.”
I smiled, growing drowsy on the floor as Mom spoke, and I nestled my head against her shoulder. We were safe right then, and happy, with blue sugar in our hair and a silver constellation on the wall. And because I wasn’t Persephone’s age yet, and I wasn’t learning science in school, I didn’t know that stars don’t last forever. I had no idea that the light we see is just an echo of an old burn, or that, most of the time, it’s the absence of a glow, instead of the glow itself, that goes on and on and on.
5
We lived on the side of Spring Hill without any highway access, so to get to the yellow ranch where Aunt Jill waited to “hand over the reins” (when she said those words on the phone, I couldn’t help but imagine my mother as some leashed wild animal), I had to drive through the north side of town. Past Spring Hill Commons, where middle-aged women peered into shop windows, despite the flurries that dusted their heads. Past the churchlike Town Hall with its white columns and wide doors, its steeple that boasted stained glass windows and a large ticking clock. The benches on the town green were covered in snow so pristine it looked as if someone had laid thick white blankets over them. Even still, an older man had cleared a spot for himself to sit and, as if in prayer, he stared ahead at the gray life-size statue of George Emory, Spring Hill’s Revolutionary War hero—and Ben Emory’s great-great-great-etc.-grandfather.
Ben had been protected from the start—by his last name, his family’s money, by the Emory estate that loomed on the highest hill in town. Spring Hill’s own residents had even protected him. As soon as word got out that Ben was a “person of interest” in Persephone’s murder, the news stories filled with people classifying the killer as an “out-of-towner.”
Even the detectives, Falley and Parker, seemed to do little with the damning information I’d given them. A couple days after Persephone had been found, I worked up the courage to ask Aunt Jill for a ride to the police station, and she steered her car through a sprinkle of snow, swearing under her breath each time we slid on a patch of black ice. Then she sat with me inside the interview room, holding my hand as she, Falley, and Parker heard the secret I’d been hiding.
“I’ve been painting my sister’s bruises,” I started.
Parker and Falley exchanged a glance before Parker leaned forward. “Come again?” he asked.
I took a deep breath and looked at Aunt Jill, who, with wary eyes, nodded. “I lied to you guys the other day when you asked me if Ben ever hurt Persephone,” I said. “After she comes—came—home from seeing him, she’d have bruises on her.”
Parker wrote something on a yellow legal pad. “And you’ve been painting pictures of them?” he asked.
Falley put her hand on his, stopping him mid-scribble. When he looked at her, she shook her head, tucking loose strands of chin-length brown hair behind her ears. “I think she means she’s been painting over them,” she said.