dawn on me, one so horrible that I push it from my mind as hard as I can. Yet, the words bubble up out of me in spite of myself. “What night, Rose? What are you saying? Mother is dead. She’s been dead for years and years.”
“Of course she has been, pet. She’s quite, quite dead. I was there, so I should know.”
“What do you mean, you were there?” I feel very cold and such a large tremor goes through me that my body shakes like a leaf.
Rose smiles again. “Didn’t I tell you? I know how to travel on purpose. I can go wherever I like, whenever I like. Such a pity the rest of you haven’t figured it out. Maybe you have to be like me. I’m very special. Very, very special.”
Ordinarily such talk would fascinate me: haven’t I wanted to know the meaning of the Lost? The cause and effect, the purpose, the goal, the ability? But I can only focus on one thing now and that is Mother.
“You were there when she died?” I keep my voice even though my body still shakes.
“She kept backing away from me,” Rose scowls. “I only wanted to tell her things, that’s all. That’s all at first. But she was scared of me; I knew that look on her face well enough. Haven’t I seen it often enough on others? She was no better than some of those nurses at Bedlam. They wouldn’t look in my eyes, like what I had was catching. Don’t get too close to the Gray girl. You might catch her madness, they’d whisper. Mother was no better. She made me so angry.”
“So angry and then what?” I whisper.
“I pushed her,” Rose replies, in a matter of fact tone. “I pushed her. I suppose I shouldn’t have. Now you’ll want me to apologize, won’t you?”
I want to curl up in a ball and find someplace inside myself where I can be alone and I don’t have to hear these things. I am torn between wanting to flee this house and the desire to pick Rose up and shake her like a rag doll, yet I cannot find the courage to do either one. All I can do is not breathe. I am getting adept suddenly at not breathing.
“Oh, don’t be such a spoil sport!” Rose frowns at me. “You’re upset with me now and after all the lovely tea and talks we’ve had!”
“Yes, I’m upset. You just told me you murdered our mother.”
“Oh, that! You’re making a big deal out nothing! Stop judging me! I’m sick; you aren’t allowed to judge me!” She picks up her tea cup and throws it at my head. I see it coming and duck and it shatters on the floor behind me. “I don’t like you at all, Sonnet! You’re a mean sister!” She makes a grab for my cup as well, but I slap it out of her hands and it too, shatters.
Rose makes a sound like she is screaming inside her head but cannot let it escape through her clenched teeth. She stomps her feet like a child and her eyes well up with tears. Without another word, she whirls and marches back into the kitchen. I hear another piece of china shatter, and then another.
I am left standing there, surrounding by shards of glass that may as well be the pieces of my heart. I want to leave, I want to stay, I want to sob, I want to shout, I want to hurt her, and I want to love her. This wounded shell of a girl who has done these horrible things. What am I to do with her?
I find myself stooping to clean the glass. I know that I should leave, now, while Rose is occupied with throwing things in another room, but all I can think of at this moment is her bare feet and all this glass. I have never seen her wear shoes. I will pick up as much as I can and then I will leave. There is nothing more for me to stay for.
Where will I go? Down the street to a neighborhood not far enough away?
I could find Officer Walter Andrews. Will a three hundred year old murder interest him? Should my sister be locked up? Do I have the fortitude to make that happen?
The shattering of china seems to have stopped. There is silence from the kitchen now as I cup my hands and gently brush tiny shards