Euridicies My Sister

Our mother made breakfast. It wasn’t even anyone’s birthday. 

I didn’t know what day it was. I blinked my unfocused eyes and looked around.

My youngest sister was tired. She was slumped over the table. I looked across from her. My middle sister was growing angrier every second.

“Eat up,” our mother said. Her voice was higher pitched than it should be. I squinted at the omelet. Something moved inside of it. 

“I’m not hungry,” I said. 

My middle sister poked her omelet with a fork. It made a belching noise. 

“Me neither,” she said.

My youngest sister pushed hers into the middle of the table.

The thing that was almost our mother had long lashes and a red line carved up the middle of its cheeks. 

“How did we get here?” I said.

It laughed. “You live here of course. I‘m your mother.”

I shook my head slowly. “I have been living on my own for a while. I’m an adult.”

The eyes bulged yellow in the thing’s face. “You are my babies, why would you leave?”

I pushed my omelet away. “I need to go.”

The thing that was definitely not our mother grabbed the three omelets. She replaced them with textbooks. “If you are done eating it’s time to do your homework.”

I looked down at the work sheets stapled with a brass staple. I picked them up and thumbed through them. The letters swirled, or maybe numbers. The text was unreadable.

“I can’t,” all three of us said. 

The thing that was not our mother seemed to widen. Her face remained the same, her legs thickened. As she stood from her chair her stomach seemed to suck into her spine. 

“DO THEM OR NO DESERT.” 

I flinched. I didn’t want to be yelled at. I didn’t even want to be seen by this thing. A cool shiver ran down my spine leaving my back cold.

“We need pens,” I said. The not-mother stilled.

“My clever babies. Of course you need pens. Don’t move.” She walked out into a hallway. 

The moment the not-mother was gone we jumped off the barstools . 

I grabbed my sisters and pulled them close. “Whatever is happening we can get out of it. As sisters, we’ll make it out of here together. Nothing can separate us.”

I held them close.

My youngest sister nodded. The middle sister hugged me but the anger was still there. I looked around. We were at a normal-sized kitchen island in the middle of a kitchen as wide as a basketball court. The ovens were on the far side behind us, by another hallway.

“Over there. There has to be a closet somewhere, or a door outside.”

My sisters nodded.

“Oh, clever girls! You can’t be done yet.” 

I shivered and cold seemed to grip my left leg down to my knee. I turned, putting myself between the not-mother and my sisters.

“Why don’t you come give your mom a hug,” The not-mother opened its arms. Its ribs rolled under drum-tight skin. 

“Run,” I whispered. My sisters and I ran like half dead Hel herself was on our heels. And maybe she was. The thing no longer the shape of our mother was changing. It looked leaner on top, and thicker at the legs. It frowned. 

“You are my babies. You will not leave my house until I say you can. Now get back here young ladies.” Its march sounded slimy, though it appeared to be walking over wood. It walked through the big basketball court-sized kitchen pointing in front of it, demanding our presence. I pushed my sisters ahead of me. “Find somewhere to hide. I’ll find you.”

“What are you doing?” My youngest sister asked. Her eyes were wide. 

“I’m just going to distract it a bit, I’ll be fine. Go hide.”

My sisters nodded to each other. Hand in hand they ran down the hall. I turned my attention to the not-mother.

And she was right in front of me. “You stayed, good. Those naughty children will be found. Do you know what happens to naughty children?”

A shiver ran down my spine. The not-mother smiled, almost kindly.

“Naughty children need to be nurtured, protected. They never leave,” she said. She ran a finger down the side of my face, it stopped feeling like flesh as she got to my chin. 

“Have you been a naughty child?” 

Her finger was sharp, and hard like a talon. I gulped. All I wanted was to be invisible, to escape this creature. That strange cold feeling from before ran down my leg. I took a step back and my bare foot made a crunching noise. 

The not-mother looked down. Her grin tore bloody gashes in her cheeks. “Naughty.”

The rapier sharp finger thrust up through my tongue. I could feel the sharp tip slicing into the top of my mouth. I was choking. It wasn’t blood though. The taste was wrong. The edge scratched inside my nasal cavity. My eyes burned as the not-mother caressed the back of my throat. I tried not to swallow.

“Now don’t move. I need to go find your sisters. I want all my babies back.”

She pulled her talon out and I saw her hand, five sharpened fleshy centipede legs rather than fingers. The one that had been in my head was covered in a glistening clear liquid rather than the blood I expected. I just wanted to curl in on myself and disappear.

The not-mother went down the hall searching out my sisters.

I stumbled after her. I blinked as it threw me off balance. I looked down at the leg that felt cold. My foot was made of glass. I wiggled the toes on it. I could move, I could feel. But it was made of glass. I thought of the cool shivers that had run down my back.

I ran for the storage closet. The abomination mother was just disappearing down the next hall when I stumbled to the door. I yanked it open and fell in. I crashed into old vacuum tubes, a lush carpet floor and something warm. My head hit metal and it all went dark.

I blinked my eyes open. My youngest sister huddled close to me, the middle sister watched out the crack where the door had not quite shut behind us. Her hand held mine.

“You’re awake. Did she hurt you?” My youngest sister asked.

I sat up slowly. I was cold to my elbows. I shook my head, “I don’t know.” I hid my leg made completely of clear glass underneath me. I felt my chin but I didn’t feel a hole. I could still feel the tickling in my head, like she was caressing my brain. I shuddered. My other leg was cold.

“Don’t worry,” my youngest sister said, “As sisters, we’ll make it out of here together. Nothing can separate us. Right?” 

“Right, “I said. The words had been as much to comfort me as them. But I had learned that want and belief had a weird way of being fulfilled in this strange place. I put glass fingers to my youngest sister’s face then pulled her into a hug. My middle sister joined the group hug. Hidden in the storage closet we huddled close, taking comfort in the presence of our sisters. 

“Mine! My babies!” The not-mother screeched. Her fingers had sharpened to points. They had lengthened to chopsticks.

Fear shot through me. I wanted to be invisible. I could feel my left arm turning to glass. The not-mother disappeared into a room. With a moment of mental weakness I feared losing my sisters. In that moment of distraction, both of my sisters turned to slime in my arms. Viscous like old seaweed stewed with okra. They started to slip out of my arms.

The not-mother ran past with two slime lumps in her arms. “Hush my babies. Be mine, my babies, forever.”

A leg began to take shape and her wide mouth began a grin that split her head all the way back to the spine with pointed teeth to match. 

I closed my eyes and held tight to the lumps of slime I held. No, to my sisters. I had to believe they were my sisters or I would never get them out of this nightmare. Slowly I felt a warm hand clinging back at mine. I let out a sigh. But I didn’t open my eyes until I felt two warm bodies huddling close.

“That was close wasn’t it?” My youngest sister said. 

“Too close.”

My other sister looked out the closet door. “We can’t get out.”

“No, we can,” I said. I pulled them both closer. ”We just have to make a break for it. She never seems to leave the building. All we have to do is make it outside.”

The not-mother rounded the hall again, hissing about her babies being stolen. She ran past us her face unhinged like a snake and gaping in half, her mouth wide and toothy, her lean body barely more than spine and ribs. Her legs were thick with muscle but twisted out of shape. Her legs were too short, her feet too long. She ran down the corridor.

Believe. They are your sisters, and you are getting out.

The moment the not-mother turned down the other hall out of sight I ran as quietly as I could with my sisters’ hands in mine. As we reached the corner only a stride from the door the not-mother rounded the corner down the other hall. 

She screamed. She dropped all pretense of running like a human and dropped to the tips of her pointed fingers. Her little spikes of bone off her spine undulated like centipede legs, that didn’t touch the ground. Some of those centipede talons reached out to skitter on the wall to hypnotically propel her forward, bringing that wide unhinged jaw down the hall at an unearthly speed. 

I kicked the door open. I pushed outside. My youngest sister was out. But the second had long spiny fingers through her shoulder. Teeth dug into her heel. 

The not-mother spoke through one side of her mouth. “Where are you going, my babies. Not outside. No, outside is dangerous. You could get stolen from me out there. You could get hurt.”

The monster’s teeth dug into my sister’s heel and she cried out. I took one hand and my youngest sister took the other. We needed to believe. 

“We are leaving!” I yelled.

In surprise, the monster’s jaw fell open. Our sister cried out as we pulled her off the spiked fingers. We collapsed into a pile on the bare dirt outside.

The not-mother screamed. It crawled up and around the inside of the hall. Unable to pass through the doorway. 

“You are my babies! My Babies!” it screeched. 

I hugged my sisters tight. “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” I said.

We stood, hand in hand. My youngest sister reluctantly let go of our middle sister to run. 

We ran across a barren yard the size of a hospital parking lot, fog and mist filled the edges of my vision, but always behind me even facing forward, I could sense the building calling. The not-mother’s screams were physically dampened by the fog, but still clear and enticing in my mind. 

The path ahead resolved into a single iron gate. I could see the sun beyond. The brick walls to either side held the fog in like a cloud bank. 

“We made it! Thank goodness. We made it,” I said. I wanted to cry. 

And for the briefest moment, I let go. I raised my hand toward the gate, toward the lock. And my middle sister melted. I tried to grab her. And she slid out of my glass hand. 

“No! Not now!” I yelled. I scrambled in the dirt with one hand as the slime fell. It began slithering impossibly fast back to the building like an octopus made of iron filings and seaweed. It was out of my reach before my hand could close around the last slick piece. 

I hardened my resolve and kept a firm grip on my youngest sister’s hand. I had to believe I had her.

I unlatched the gate. I won. It was still a victory. I walked through. My hand, tight on my sister’s hand, yanked short of pulling her through. We hovered there for a moment. Me outside the gate with the sun on my face, her inside, both facing freedom. 

I turned to look at her. She was contemplating the ground.

“You said as sisters we wouldn’t be separated.” She looked up at me, her expression blank.

“We have to get out or might not ever find the way again,” I said.  I tried to tug her through but she shook her head.

“I know where the gate is,” she said. Her brown eyes seemed to bore a hole through me.  “You let go of her. She is still stuck in there. “

My desperation was rising. “You don’t know that. Maybe this part is all a dream. If I get you out you’ll be safe. That’s all I know.”

The little girl scowled at me. Her hand slid out of mine. Not as slime, just as a child’s hand out of my all-too-clumsy adult fingers, my slick fingers of glass. The light from outside shone through my hand as she let go. The sun hadn’t quite crested the horizon

I fell to my knees outside the gate. “Don’t go back. I can’t save you,” I whispered.

For a moment we stayed there. Her staring down from within the wall with judgment in every pore, me kneeling one hand outstretched toward her, eyes pleading her to take it, to cross the threshold and be free.

“I’m not the one who needs saving,” she spoke harshly. I flinched like I’d been slapped. She turned and started her walk back to the house. 

My hand fell.  My hands tried to grip the ground. My fingers dug into the dirt. I watched my youngest sister’s progress to the building. The fog parted for her. She opened the door. I blinked. The screen door swung closed. 

With a cracking sensation deep in my chest, I knew I would be lost the moment I crossed that threshold again, no matter how much I loved them, it would destroy me. The cracking spread until it felt every limb and organ was glass. Clear tears fell onto glass hands as I stared back through the open gate.

I cried quietly outside the gate. Inside were my sisters and the monster who had replaced my mother. Outside of the gate were light, life, and freedom. 

I cried as the sun came up. It refracted rainbows on the ground through my paperweight skin.

As the sunlight filtered down through the leaves of the trees I wiped at my tears. My finger clicked against my cheek. I stood slowly trying to pull myself together. I took a deep breath.

I took a step in the right direction, and shattered.