Sisterland

by Salla Simukka

  “I’ve started to forget my family,” she admitted to Marissa.

  Marissa looked her in the eye.

  “So have I.”

  Alice realized that they should have been worried about this. But since the roses were singing their splendid evensong around them, and the small hands of the wind fairies were stroking their hair, they couldn’t think of anything but how nice it was to be right here, right now.

  In the garden, any sense of time strangely disappeared. At first the girls tried to count the days and maintain some semblance of a calendar, but then they just forgot. Or actually, it just meant nothing. They felt as if they had always lived in the garden. Sometimes Alice wondered how the days could go from morning to night so quickly, even though they didn’t do anything in particular. They ate the food the wind fairies brought, they jumped and ran in the changing garden, they swam in the pond, they lounged in the sun, and they told each other stories. Everything was so peaceful that it should have felt boring. But it didn’t, and sometimes that worried Alice. She’d wanted adventure, but now she was completely content with nothing whatsoever happening. It was like being half-asleep.

  Every now and then, the feeling that someone was watching them would return. Alice would squint at the sky or try to spy movement in the bushes or the tops of the trees. Nothing. Maybe she was only imagining it, Alice tried to convince herself.

  Shadow Alice had still failed to return, but Alice and Marissa were the only ones in the garden who didn’t have a shadow. That was strange, and Alice couldn’t imagine any explanation for it. She had a feeling that it was all connected, though: their shadows disappearing, how strangely content she was with life in the garden, the feeling of being watched, and how hard it was for them to remember details about life in their own world. But every time she tried to solve this riddle, she quickly tired and just went back to enjoying the lazy summer in the garden.

  * * *

  —

  Alice awoke before dawn with a chill. Marissa had taken the whole blanket and was snuffling contentedly. Alice began tugging a corner of the blanket back, but then Marissa just rolled it tighter around her and let out a little snore.

  This irritated Alice. She was cold and tired. She nudged Marissa awake.

  “What now?” Marissa asked woozily.

  “Don’t hog the covers,” Alice grumbled.

  “Okay, okay,” Marissa said, and gave up half the blanket to Alice.

  Then she fell back asleep. Alice couldn’t, though. Worries began swirling in her mind again. “Marissa,” Alice whispered.

  Marissa just snored.

  “Marissa!” Alice said more loudly, and Marissa awoke with a start.

  “What now?” she asked, this time a little irritated herself.

  “Have you thought about what we’re doing here?”

  “Not really,” Marissa said with a yawn.

  “Are we supposed to carry out some sort of mission here in Sisterland? Will it be dangerous?”

  The deluge of questions from Alice woke up Marissa all the way.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we’ll find out soon.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?” Alice asked.

  “What good would worrying do? Whatever comes will come.”

  Alice found Marissa’s calm distressing.

  “How can you think like that?” she asked in a louder and more unpleasant tone than she’d intended.

  Marissa sat up, now genuinely cross.

  “Listen. Right now, all I want to do is sleep and leave thinking about things like that for the morning!”

  Alice jumped up.

  “Well, go ahead and sleep, then. I’m going somewhere I won’t disturb Princess Not-a-Care-in-the-World and her precious rest!”

  With that, Alice stalked off. At least she wasn’t cold anymore. Her stomping woke up the dozing question flowers.

  “Why so angry? Why the rumble stomping?” the flowers asked.

  “Because Marissa is irritating,” Alice snapped.

  “Why is she irritating? What is irritating? Are you vexed?”

  “I don’t feel like explaining!”

  Alice continued walking, leaving the question flowers to wonder among themselves.

  After a while, she discovered that she’d marched right into the middle of the nearby raspberry patch. The intoxicating smell of the berries finally took the edge off her blind anger.

  Marissa’s favorite berries, Alice thought. Marissa had told her this when they’d come across the raspberry patch together, and she almost wouldn’t leave even though they both practically ate themselves sick.

  “They taste like a whole summer concentrated in a single berry,” Marissa had said.

  Suddenly Alice’s anger was gone. It had disappeared so quickly that she could hardly believe she’d ever felt it at all. Unhooking from her belt the wooden cup a barker had given her, Alice began collecting raspberries. She’d decided to take them to Marissa as a peace offering. Alice picked all the biggest, most beautiful red berries. She didn’t eat any because she wanted to save them all for Marissa.

  When Alice returned to the spot where they slept, Marissa was already sitting out front on a stump. The sun was just rising, painting everything pink. Alice hid the cup behind her back so it could be a surprise. Marissa looked at her from underneath her bangs, frowning. Was she still terribly angry? Alice was just about to say something when Marissa pulled her own wooden cup from behind her back.

  “I’m sorry. I was an idiot.”

  The cup was full of wild strawberries. Alice’s favorite berries. Alice started to laugh. She handed Marissa her own cup, which was overflowing with raspberries. Then they found blades of grass and threaded the strawberries and raspberries onto them, alternating kinds. They tasted better when you ate them off the grass, one strawberry and then one raspberry.

  Marissa laughed, and to Alice it was the best sound in the world. It was so honest and always took her by surprise. Her laughter was like a soda bottle that someone had shaken up and then popped open. It exploded into the sky in a bubbling shower. Alice had never seen or heard anyone laugh that way, so infectiously. But the best thing about Marissa’s laughter was that it sounded even better mixed with Alice’s. Their laughs complemented each other, like the strawberries and raspberries.

  * * *

  —

  That night as the girls lay on the grass staring at the bright, foreign stars in the sky, Marissa grabbed Alice’s hand and started to trace constellations with their clasped and upraised hands.

  “Look, there’s a dragon constellation,” she said, and followed one star to another, shaping the head and wings and long, long tail of a dragon.

  Alice saw the dragon. Marissa could draw it and make her see.

  “And there is the shapeshifter,” Marissa said, and traced a figure that changed shapes from wolf to insect and back again.

  Alice had a wonderful, floating feeling. For the first time in her life, she felt like she really knew how to draw, even if Marissa was helping. Their hands fell back to the grass, and their fingers intertwined.

  “When I look at the stars long enough, I start feeling like I’m falling into them. Falling up,” Marissa said.

  Alice’s heart leapt with joy.

  “I always think that too when I look at the stars,” she said.

  “You know, I do wonder why we’re here,” Marissa admitted. “What if there’s some dangerous mission we have to complete? I’m not much of a hero.”

  “I don’t think I am either,” Alice sighed. “I’ve always wanted to have an adventure, but I’m not sure how I’d do in a real dangerous situation.”

  They thought together in silence.

  “But I’m still not worried,” Marissa finally said. “Do you know why?”

  “W
hy?”

  “Because I think together we could be heroes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Somehow we complete each other.”

  Alice’s heart felt as if it swelled to the size of an ocean, and the whole world was full of color and light even though it was night.

  She looked at Marissa, who gazed at the sky. Alice had never had a best friend before. But maybe now she did.

  * * *

  —

  The next night, Alice woke up cold again. But this time, it wasn’t because Marissa had stolen the covers. There was no Marissa. And no garden. Alice lay alone in a dark room with icy cold lurking in the corners. She sat up on the hard floor and then stood. Cautiously she moved forward, feeling with her hands until she met the cold wall. Alice looked for a light switch. Finally, she found it, and a lamp in the ceiling filled the room with flickering light.

  Alice looked around. The room was small and had neither furniture nor door. The walls and floor were gray. There was a window in the room, but something opaque covered it. Stepping to the window, Alice tried to open it. The window seemed to be jammed. When she pulled hard enough, it opened with a creak, and cold white snow rushed in.

  Horrified, Alice started pushing the window closed again and finally succeeded. Her fingers and toes were frozen. Her teeth chattered.

  “Marissa!” Alice cried in fright.

  Then muffled shouting started to come from behind one of the walls. Alice couldn’t make out the words. She rushed to the wall and banged on it with her fists.

  “Marissa! Is that you?”

  In a flash, the wall turned transparent, as if it were made of glass. On the other side, Alice didn’t see Marissa; she saw her mother, father, and sister. They waded up to their waists in snow in some sort of glass cube that was open on top. More snow continued to fall. They screamed and pounded the wall with their fists. Gradually Alice began to make out their words.

  “Help! We’re drowning! Alice, you have to save us, or we’ll die!”

  Alice tried to break the wall, but she couldn’t. She saw her parents and sister crying, and felt tears running down her own cheeks.

  “I’m trying!” she yelled back.

  Then everything went dark. Something warm touched Alice’s cheek.

  “Hush. It was just a bad dream,” Marissa said gently, and stroked Alice’s hair.

  Alice was still shaking with cold.

  “It…it felt so real,” she whimpered.

  Marissa hugged her. This helped Alice feel more comfortable and safe, but the icy terror of the nightmare did not completely release its grip.

  Alice and Marissa didn’t know how many days they’d been in the garden when the wind fairies flew up to them in a field, carrying large wreaths of flowers, and told them that today they might become official residents of the Garden of Secrets if the other residents agreed at their meeting.

  “This evening, come to the largest oak in the garden,” the wind fairies said.

  “What will happen there?” Alice asked.

  “You shall see. If you wish to become official residents, you must be present,” the wind fairies replied.

  * * *

  —

  That evening, Alice and Marissa searched for the great oak in the center of the garden. It wasn’t hard, since the tree was so enormous that its branches formed a wide canopy, and the trunk was so thick that it would have required ten Alices and ten Marissas to wrap their arms around it.

  No one else was anywhere to be seen. It was perfectly quiet.

  They circled the tree. They tried to see if anything was carved in it. They knocked on the trunk. They whistled and called. But nothing revealed itself. The tree just stood there, great, majestic, silent. The girls tested the tangled roots at the base and tried to squeeze between them. Nothing.

  Finally, they grew tired and decided to return the following night in case the secret of the tree might be revealed to them then. Maybe the wind fairies were wrong about the day. That wouldn’t have been the strangest thing in the garden, since the days seemed to melt together so. Just when Alice and Marissa were leaving, they heard a small snort behind them.

  “Hoo.”

  They turned to look at the oak. Had the tree spoken to them? But the voice had sounded more like…

  Then they saw it. A fluffy owl head poked out of a heart-shaped hollow in the tree.

  “Hoohoo. Who sabotaged my dream?”

  The owl appeared upset, although he hadn’t even bothered to open his eyes. He was very small and would have fit in Alice’s hand. His plumage was spotted and brown, and he gave the impression of being a very haughty creature even with shut eyes.

  “We did,” Marissa replied.

  With much effort, the owl opened one eye. His yellow gaze somehow managed to burrow into both Alice and Marissa at once.

  “We? Who is we?” the owl demanded.

  “Alice,” Alice replied.

  “And Marissa,” Marissa said. “And who are you?”

  Now the owl opened his other eye. He appeared irritated at the question.

  “Who am I? Hoo, who am I?”

  “Yes. That was our question.”

  The owl pushed himself completely through the hole and strutted onto a branch. He fluffed up all his feathers and spoke in a dignified tone.

  “I am Raven.”

  Alice and Marissa looked at each other.

  “You mean Owl,” they both said.

  The creature stared at them, aghast, and turned his head so that one eye was directly above the other.

  “No, Raven,” he said with even more emphasis.

  “But you’re an owl?” Alice said.

  “Certainly I am an owl,” Raven said indignantly. “Is this not obvious?”

  “Well, but then why—” Marissa began, but the creature interrupted her.

  “You have come here today because it is Poeday.”

  “What?” Alice asked.

  “Poeday. That is now. Today.”

  “There isn’t any day like that,” Marissa said. “There are Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, but no—”

  Raven interrupted her again.

  “Oh, so there’s a ‘Moonday’ now!”

  “No, Monday,” Marissa said.

  “Just as I said. Moonday. Silly child. But today is Poeday. And everyone knows what that means.”

  Alice and Marissa waited for Raven to explain.

  “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

  The girls had no idea what this meant. What was the bird going on about?

  “I don’t quite—” Alice said.

  “The famous Edgar Allan Poet,” the bird barked.

  “Isn’t it just Edgar Allan Poe?” Marissa whispered to Alice.

  Alice nodded in reply.

  “Hoo!” Raven exclaimed. “You are wrong! Only a poet could want to write as mysterious as a cat.”

  “Okay,” Marissa said slowly.

  “Poeday compulsory reading time,” a chorus of voices behind Alice and Marissa suddenly said.

  When they turned, the girls saw that the garden residents had now arrived in droves. There were the barkers and the nightwalkers. The dream weavers were there with their cloth, still embroidering and mending with shining needles. The wind fairies flitted above the others’ heads.

  “What is a compulsory reading time?” Alice asked one of the wind fairies.

  “Each Poeday, we come to the great oak for Poeday reading time,” the wind fairy replied. “All the official residents are here.”

  “But why is it compulsory?” Marissa asked. “Don’t you like reading?”

  “We do,” one of the moss trolls said from down near the ground. “But every time, we have to read that same author…
.”

  “Edgar Allan Poet!” Raven proclaimed from his branch in a loud voice. “Today we read a poem about Annabel Lee. Quoth I:

  “It was many and many a year ago,

  In a kingdom by the sea,

  That a maiden there lived whom you may know

  By the name of Annabel Lee;

  And this maiden she lived with no other thought

  Than to love and be loved by me.”

  The garden residents joined in with the recitation, mumbling and muttering. Everyone obviously knew Poe’s poem by heart.

  “You really don’t ever read anything else?” Alice asked in a low voice, turning to the dream weaver sitting next to her.

  “Unfortunately, no,” the weaver answered with a sigh. “Not that he isn’t a wonderful poet, but a little variety would be nice from time to time.”

  “Have you ever tried to suggest someone else?” Marissa whispered.

  Raven completed his recitation and cast his yellow stare at Alice and Marissa. Silence fell.

  “You clearly do not know how to show proper respect for Poeday, even though you are supposed to become official residents of the garden. But I see that you are from somewhere else,” Raven said sternly.

  “Yes. We’re from a completely different world,” Marissa replied, holding her head high.

  Suddenly Raven stopped stock-still on the branch. His head swiveled around once and then back.

  “You are THEY,” Raven exclaimed.

  “Who?” Alice asked.

  “Hoohum, hoohoo, you are the girls, the important girls,” Raven said.

  His yellow eyes froze in his head, and he looked as if he had gone into some sort of trance.

  “All will change. The world will not be as it was. When two girls come through the snow, through the garden, over the sea, dreams will come true and truth will be dream once more.”

  It sounded as if Raven was reciting an ancient prophecy. Alice felt Marissa grab her hand. The entire mood around them had changed. The rustling of the trees was more melancholy, and the light had become a strange mixture of gray and muzzy red. It was as if all the residents of the garden were silently holding their breath. Alice was tense, although she didn’t know why.