The Sisterhood

by A. J. Grainger

  Lil shut the door, trying not to linger on the mug or the photo of her mum, age sixteen, playing the piano at Konzerthaus Berlin, on tour with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. Mella loved that photo. She was always saying that Mum should hang it in the living room. Sadness washed over Lil, but she pushed through it to search the rest of the rooms on the floor.

  Alice wasn’t in any of them. There was no way she could have gotten down the stairs without them seeing her, which meant there was only one room left to look in on this floor. Lil stood outside it, staring at the door handle like it might turn into a snake.

  Kiran was beside her, steady and calm as always. “You want me to check it?”

  “No,” Lil said gently. “It’s just a room.”

  Just a room. Hand on the door handle. Just a room. Turn the handle. Just . . . Push the door open. A . . . Step inside. Room.

  It was Mella’s room.

  Everything was exactly as she’d left it the day she disappeared. After the police had done their searches and returned everything, Lil’s mum had put it all back, piece by piece, like a jigsaw. Lil’s mum came in here all the time: to dust, to vacuum, or just to sit on the bed. Lil never did. She couldn’t bear it; it still smelled of Mella. Walking in here felt like she had just popped out for five minutes, not that she’d been gone four and a half long, agonizing months.

  Sunshine-yellow drapes hung around her bed. The walls and ceiling were painted to look like a blue sky with wispy clouds. It had taken Lil and Mella a whole weekend to get it right. They had been going to do the same in Lil’s room but hadn’t gotten around to it. The wardrobe doors were covered in postcards, posters, magazine cuttings, and artwork, including a sketch Mella had done of their grandfather. Lil found it hard to look at Mella’s stuff—when she did, she didn’t know whether to cry or scream.

  Where are you, Mella? Lil asked in her head. A conversation she’d been having with herself since that terrible morning when they discovered Mella gone.

  Visiting the man in the moon, Mella replied.

  The desk was littered with crystals and colored stones. More hung from leather thongs around the mirror, and there was a string of brightly colored stones wrapped around the bed’s headboard. Mella’s latest obsession before she disappeared: healing crystals. Mella always fixated on some spiritual obsession. Before the crystals it was star signs, and before that, tarot readings. When Nain was alive, Mella had gone to church with her every Sunday for three months, before losing interest and buying a book on Buddhism. And then there had been one summer when all of Mella’s decisions had been made based on the answers of a Magic 8 Ball.

  Lil lifted up one of the crystals. It was small and the color of a duck’s egg. The one next to it was pink—a rose quartz. Once, Mella had told Lil to “fill it with happy thoughts and positive energy.” Lil had had no idea what she meant, but Mella had that desperate look in her eyes—the one she got when she hadn’t slept for days—so Lil had brought the stone to her lips and whispered knock-knock jokes to it until Mella laughed, then she’d handed it back and said, “It’s a happy quartz now.” Lil found out later that rose quartz was supposed to lead to romance, as well as self-love and acceptance. The three things Mella craved more than anything else in the world. It hurt to acknowledge how damaged and vulnerable her sister was. It was agony to realize how little she’d done to help her. The last words Lil had said to her were seared into Lil’s brain, scar tissue that would never heal.

  Trying as best she could to push the painful memories away, Lil scanned the rest of the room. Mella was too present: in the bras, pants, tights, stripy socks, skirts, and Mella’s favorite boots with the shiny steel toe caps, strewn across the desk and floor. The boots were at the same angles left by her feet as on the last day she stepped out of them. Lil had been surprised Mella left those boots.

  Took your blue Converse, didn’t I? Mella said in Lil’s head. Much more comfortable—and better for the sandy beaches in Australia.

  So you’re in Australia?

  Maybe. Maybe not. Keep on guessing, Mouse.

  The bed was unmade too, duvet thrown back exactly as Mella had left it all those months ago—except it wasn’t. It was a fabrication, created by Lil’s mum. Just like the shoes.

  Lil kept a perfect memory of Mella on that last morning, even though Lil hadn’t seen her. Her eyes had been shut tight. She’d been too mad to look at her sister, but Mella had stood right over her bed. “Don’t be angry, Mouse. Please.”

  Kiran touched Lil’s hand. “Lil,” he said gently. “Lil, she isn’t in here.”

  Lil knew he meant Alice, but it was Mella she thought of; her throat was raw with tears.

  “You okay?” Kiran asked.

  Lil nodded. She gripped the door handle so tightly her knuckles went white. She let go and forced the air into her lungs, forced the misery back inside. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine, fine, yeah.” It sounded unconvincing, even to her. “We need to find Alice.” Then Lil pulled the door to Mella’s bedroom shut so quickly she almost trapped her own fingers in it.

  “She can’t have just vanished,” Kiran said. “Are you sure she didn’t go out the back door?”

  “No,” Lil started, “but . . .” She hoped not. “Where else could she be?” As if in answer, there was a noise above them, the soft creaking of floorboards. They both looked up.

  “Why would she go in the attic?” Kiran asked.

  “Because it’s quiet and away from everyone else.” They were Mella’s words, spoken so many times. That was where Mella had gone when “the darkness” descended. It was strange that Alice had unwittingly chosen Mella’s refuge; again Lil was struck by a similarity between them. “She must be up there. She couldn’t have crept past us, could she? I mean, she was completely silent like . . . like . . .”

  “Like a ghost,” Kiran finished.

  Goose bumps popped up on Lil’s arms. There was something unnerving, almost otherworldly, about Alice. It was nothing that she could put her finger on, but something about Alice made Lil nervous. She was being ridiculous, though. It was all in her head. She gave herself a mental shake and crossed the landing to the rickety ladder that led up into the attic. She and Mella had played up there a lot when they were younger, making a den out of old sheets. They found some of Nain’s old clothes up there too and played dressing-up. Mella liked drawing up there as she got older, said it was peaceful and the light was good. There was a large window in the roof, and the attic was bright even on gray afternoons. Lil hadn’t been up there since Mella left. What if I get up there and Mella is sitting on the floor, legs crossed, charcoal in hand, sketching a self-portrait in the old dining room mirror—the one with the crack down one side?

  There was a noise up there: soft like the pad of feet. “Can you come after me, just in case . . .” Lil didn’t finish the sentence. In case what? A small, frightened girl with a concussion attacked her? She shook her head and began to climb the ladder.

  • • •

  Lil poked her head up through the trapdoor. She spotted Alice straightaway. She sat under the large slanted window. Pale light trickled down over her. Her head was tilted back like Mella used to do when she was sunbathing.

  “Hey,” Lil said gently. “You scared me. Thought you’d run off.”

  “I needed the Light,” the girl said.

  “Light?” Lil asked, confused. A murky gray slopped down onto the floor from the skylight, casting long shadows in the attic. A light switch hung by Lil’s head. She went to pull it, but Alice stopped her.

  “Do not chase the Light away,” she said.

  Since they’d come into the attic, Kiran hung back, standing by the trapdoor, shielded by Lil. As he stepped forward, emerging from the gloom, Alice’s eyes flicked to him. Her pupils dilated and her pale skin flushed deep pink. “Who’s that?” she asked, wonder in her voice.

  “Kiran,” Lil said. “This is my friend Kiran. Alice, Kiran. Kiran, Alice.”

  “Hi,” Kiran said, smiling l
opsidedly, something he did when he was uncomfortable. He ruffled his hair, another nervous tic, and his expression said, Why is she looking at me like that?

  Lil shook her head as if to respond, I don’t know.

  There was a long, awkward silence as Alice continued to gaze in awe at him. Did she fancy him? No, that wasn’t it. Rhia’s little sister had reacted the exact same way on seeing a giraffe for the first time. It was as if Alice had never seen a boy before—but that was impossible.

  And the sisters shall live in one feminal community, in union with the Light.

  —THE BOOK

  Brilliance led the new girl to the room at the end of the first-floor corridor. The wind was battering the windows all along the hall, and rain would be pouring in through the cracks in the roof soon, but this room would stay dry. It was the largest and grandest on the compound, and it was where they always put the novices. It was important for them to have time to adjust and learn that such earthly luxury was unnecessary in the Light. They stripped the rest away at the Illumination so that they might enter the Brightness pure and free.

  The Brightness.

  The thought sent a shiver of excitement through her. The Illumination ceremony was hours away now. At sunset, tomorrow night. The new girl was lucky to have been saved when she was; come tomorrow there would be no sisters here to save her. They would all be resting in the Light’s eternal embrace.

  When they got to the bedroom, Brilliance drew back the heavy curtains. It was dark outside, the sky a slate gray, and the wind lashed at the trees hard enough to tear some of the weaker branches off. The driveway was littered with bits of tree and dead leaves. She turned away to check the room. There were only two beds in here, and again they were the better ones—with proper mattresses, pillows, and duvets. Many of the sisters slept on the floor with blankets bundled under them.

  “This is the biggest room I’ve ever seen!” the girl said. Brilliance had not asked her name; sisters were discouraged from asking any questions about a novice’s past. “So they feel safe,” Moon had said. “We don’t judge here. Whatever they did in the Darkness is irrelevant now they are in the Light.” Besides, there was no point learning the girl’s Dark name; she would take her true Light name if she stayed.

  She sat on the bed nearest the window and was still taking in the size of the room. It was pretty impressive; Brilliance had to admit to still being awed by it.

  The novice stopped her wide-eyed search of the room and said suspiciously, “What’ve I got to do to stay here?”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Brilliance said quickly. “The Light provides for all our needs.” And for Brilliance it really did. The Light had changed, had brightened—she smiled at the pun—her life so much.

  A frown crossed the girl’s face. “Moon mentioned something about the Light before. . . . And that mark on your faces?”

  Brilliance touched her cheek, where every morning she painted the symbol of the Sisterhood, the yellow sun.

  “I’m not sure . . . ,” the novice said. “I don’t know that I believe . . .”

  “No one forces you to do anything you don’t want.” Brilliance smiled. The new ones were often wary of the Light at first, but they always came to it in the end. It was power and energy. It was what drew all the sisters together, and it was beautiful. When Brilliance imagined it, she saw sunshine through leaves or the sparkles of dust in a room.

  “Oh, well, okay, I guess. So I don’t have to, like, pay anything to stay here?”

  Brilliance shook her head. She’d asked a similar question. She smiled at the memory; how ignorant she’d been before Moon instructed her in the true path.

  “How long have you been here?” the novice asked.

  “Long enough that I know the irrelevance of such questions.” Brilliance smiled at the girl’s perplexed face. She’d learn.

  “And how long are you staying?” the girl pressed.

  “Forever,” Brilliance replied. “The Light’s embrace is eternal.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why? Do you want to go home?”

  The novice screwed up her face like she was solving a maths problem. “No, I mean”—she gave a half laugh that held no humor in it—“I reckon they’re better off without me anyway.” She ducked her head to avoid Brilliance’s gaze and crossed to the window.

  She didn’t seem to notice the storm. She was too preoccupied with the house. “Still can’t get over the size of this place. Don’t you guys get lost?” Her eyes darted in all directions. Then she frowned. “Wait,” she said. She did another sweep of the courtyard, the driveway, and the garden, which was just visible behind the tall hedge. “There are no . . . where are the men?”

  “There aren’t any,” Brilliance said.

  “That’s . . . isn’t that weird?” the novice said.

  “It is the way of the Light,” said Brilliance. It was the answer Moon had given her, but at the time she’d also thought it strange and she’d been disappointed. She liked guys, and guys liked her. But then, hadn’t that been half the trouble? Boyfriends had never worked out that great for her. Her hand went to her cheek; the bruise was a long-faded memory, but the blow that had caused it still felt fresh. “You need to find yourself in you before you can lose yourself in someone else,” Moon had said. That was true. So true. Moon was like a walking quote book. Brilliance wanted to write them all down to look at later. Moon just said things in a way that made sense, that made you see everything so much more clearly.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “We’ll find out where she’s from,” Lil told Kiran in a hushed conversation in the hallway, while Alice got changed in the bathroom. Lil had cobbled together some of her mum’s clean clothes. Alice’s white dress was ruined. Mud-splattered, bloodstained, and torn. Even clean, it would not have been suitable for the weather. Yet another clue in the riddle that was Alice.

  “We can’t deal with this ourselves, Lil,” Kiran said.

  “I know, and we’ll get help, but let’s just try to talk to her first. If she won’t say where she’s from, maybe she’ll tell us where she’s going. She must have a plan.”

  “There’s something seriously weird going on here. Did you see the way she was looking at me? And she’s a mess.”

  “I bandaged her head,” Lil said.

  Kiran raised an eyebrow. “Three half-hour resuscitation sessions with Doreen”—Doreen was the dummy they used at the kayaking club—“did not prepare us for this. And it’s not just her head, anyway. Lil, she needs help. Proper help.” He was always so rational, and he was right. Which was kind of annoying.

  “If we can’t get any information out of her, we’ll get the police involved,” Lil said. “But let’s give it a go first. Okay?”

  “I guess,” he said. “And it does mean we’ll have more to tell the police when we call them.”

  Lil was relieved that Kiran had agreed to wait it out a bit longer. Alice running at first sight of the police was too big a risk. Perhaps they could gain her trust and persuade her to accept help; that was better than forcing it on her when she was terrified and suspicious.

  While Kiran went downstairs to phone his dad to say that he’d be back late, Lil hurried to her room to change. She was grateful to Kiran for sticking around, especially as he so obviously thought she was making the situation worse by keeping Alice a secret. Still, his presence was a comfort. It was good to have someone to talk to, and the uneasiness she’d felt since finding Alice had retreated since he arrived.

  Once in her room, Lil crossed to her wardrobe and tugged it open. She hadn’t changed clothes since finding Alice, and she was cold and wet. As she decided what to wear, there was a thud on the windowpane. She looked over to see a branch from the nearby tree thrash against the glass. The sky was a crimson slash, and rain poured from it as though from a wound, the wind as loud as an airplane. The sound reminded Lil of the fighter planes she’d seen once with her dad. It must have been at some sort of air show. Lil couldn’t re
member the details, only that she’d been scared and had buried her face in her dad’s legs. She remembered feeling safe as he put his hand on her back. When had he decided to remove that protective hand permanently from their lives? When had he stopped caring whether they were safe or not? He was in Australia now. Working as a conductor for the Sydney orchestra and living with a woman Lil had never met.

  Turning away from the window, she noticed one of Mella’s sketchbooks on her desk. She’d been photographing it for the Find Mella website. She sat down and pulled it onto her lap.

  Mella? she said in her head.

  There was a brief pause, and then her sister answered. Hey, Mouse. What’s up?

  Where are you?

  Guess.

  Lil stretched out her legs and looked out the window again. You’re on the beach. You’re drawing.

  What am I drawing?

  A sketch of the beach. There’s some boats out to sea, and nearer some kids are paddling—

  Mella blew a raspberry.

  Lil smiled. Okay, okay, you’re doing a life study of the cute boy lying on the sand next to you. . . .

  Ooh-la-la, that sounds better. And he looks over, sees the drawing, and is overwhelmed at my talent!

  Sure, yeah, maybe . . . Lil trailed off. Mella, come home, please. I’m scared you’re—

  Don’t say it. It isn’t true if you don’t say it.

  Does that mean you’re not?

  I’m alive in your head.

  That’s not enough.

  The image of her sister faded from her mind, replaced with the one on that last morning: “Are you awake? . . . Don’t be angry, Mouse.”

  Lil switched on the desk lamp and flicked through Mella’s sketchbook. The pictures were mostly of Cai.

  Cai. Mella’s boyfriend. Nineteen-year-old, in-a-band, lightly-tanned-skin, perfectly-wind-tousled-except-it-was-styled-in-the-bathroom-mirror-blond-surfer-hair, abs-you-could-stack-books-on, so-sexy-your-ovaries-ached Cai.

  Cai was the first person they’d suspected when Mella went missing. The police questioned him for hours and searched his trailer but found nothing. He swore he hadn’t spoken to her since the day before. Lil went around to his place countless times in those first few days, asking, then begging, him to tell the truth. He was largely silent at first and then angry. “I did nothing to her, all right? Nothing.” Lil hadn’t believed him then and she didn’t believe him now. Cai knew something more about Mella’s disappearance than he was letting on, but there was no way for Lil to prove it.