Annie had not gone far down the road before she heard the front door swing open and Josephine weakly call her name.
She stopped and turned towards the sound, watching her sister draw nearer like that ghost she had seen only a few hours ago, pale and breathless in the neverending heat.
“Don’t go back to the forest,” Josephine panted, bracing her palms on her knees and sucking in air once she reached Annie. “Don’t.”
Annie furrowed her brows and stepped back. “I’m going back to the forest no matter what. I’m not staying here for eternity.”
“You don’t have to stay here for eternity. I’ll figure out a way to get you home— just—” —Josephine reached for her hand— “just stay with me and I’ll— I’ll figure out a way to get you back.”
As Josephine’s hand brushed hers, Annie yanked back, taking yet another step to the forest. She hadn’t seen the buck yet, but she could feel something watching her from that line of shadows like a distant king watching an honored knight.
“I don’t want to go back,” she replied sharply, “I want answers. I want you to stop being sick.”
“Annie.” Josephine reached out again, clasping both of her surprisingly cold hands around one of Annie’s, holding fast despite her sister’s attempts to pull away. “I’m— I’m not sick. I’m perfectly fine as far a-as you’re concerned. I know how to get you h-home and that’s what I’m going to do, okay? Just let me take— take care of you.”
Annie scanned her, searched for warmth in her expression and certainty in her movements, but found nothing and could see right into the hollow shell that had become Josephine, eaten away by some foreign sickness that— no matter how she tried to deny it— was evidently growing worse by the hour. Her ankles shook and she stumbled, putting her weight on Annie, and she realized her elder sister hadn’t grabbed her hand to take her back to the house; she’d grabbed it for support.
“Sit down, Josie.” Annie mumbled. “Just sit down.”
“Come on.” Josephine started to make her way back.
Annie watched her drag herself along, her eyes fixed through a will of iron, absolutely determined to get back to the safety of the house simply because— Annie assumed— she was afraid of what lay beyond.
As she listened to a shriek which sounded from the shadows, she couldn’t put it past her, and she wondered if she were afraid for good reason. Perhaps Josephine was keeping secrets for a truly good cause, maybe she was just trying to keep her safe, and maybe Levond wasn’t really Levond, but there wasn’t much that they could lose in this heat cursed hell anyway, and Annie knew that they both had better chances of survival in the forest.
But she gave in and followed slowly, letting Josephine lean her full weight on her shoulders, which wasn’t much.
She watched the orange-film world around them, the empty houses, sagging and sinking into their foundations with their windows sifting in an endless mirage, forever churning with the lonesome air of the rest of the world. She thought of the days Levond had been there, and she thought of what life had been like when he and Josephine were together. They couldn’t have been as sick back then, the world couldn’t have been as terrifyingly strange as it was now.
Annie looked back to her sister.
“…Did you love him?” The question rose from her throat like something invisible had reached in and pulled it from her.
Josephine stumbled to a stop. Her grip on Annie’s wrist tightened, then eased, and the words hung heavy in the air.
She did not speak or move for a long moment. She let go of Annie and stole a glance at the forest, then drew back and reached out for something to hold onto. Annie moved to catch her weight once more.
“Levond, I mean. Mother told me about you and Sam. Sometimes he comes around to visit. Was it like that?”
Josephine eyed her like a predator caught in a trap, the knife raised above its head. She turned her head away as if blindness would make the killing blow easier to bear.
“No,” she answered, “nothing like that.”
“…Why was it different?”
“It doesn’t matter. Neither of them are in my life anymore.”
“It does matter. I want to know about you, Josie, I want to know what happened after you— you left. I miss you.”
Josephine swayed for a moment, then sat down on the grass, bringing her knees to her chest. Annie sat beside her as she ran her fingers over the dead blades in thought.
“Mom always said I shouldn’t linger on the past.” Josephine muttered.
“She only used to say that when you’d ask about your real parents.”
Her elder sister looked at her clearly as if she were the glass statue of a woman and part of her had just been shattered.
Annie smiled softly. “I know that much, Josie.”
She sighed and rested her chin on her knees.
“…I guess S-Sam was too shallow for my liking,” Josephine began warily, her eyes dancing around, “he didn’t think very much. He…he just did whatever he felt like in that moment, and sometimes he was…a lot. He d-didn’t believe in anything greater than himself and after a while he wasn’t very— very inspiring to be around.” She yanked a tuft of grass from the earth.
“Then why were you with him?”
Josephine let a shrug roll off her shoulders, though it was more of rolling a physical weight off than a dismissive action. “I g-guess I thought he c-could give me freedom. Something new, aside from the house and our neighborhood.” She motioned to the houses around them. “But he couldn’t offer anything, really, except for what he— he wanted me to be.”
“Everybody hated him when the fire happened.” Annie watched mirage. “When he left you in there. Levond would have gone in after you, wouldn’t he?”
Josephine stared, pursing her lips thoughtfully.
“Levond had a lot of crazy ideas about the world and maybe running in after me would have been one of them. It’s hard to say, he wasn’t there.”
“Crazy? You think he’s crazy?”
“I think he was definitely a crazy romantic.” A ghostly smile tugged at her lips, and Annie thought she saw color drain back into her cheeks. “Nothing wrong with that, though. He was curious, he’s…he was smart, too. Had a lot of big ideas and didn’t know where to put them, which then just turned into energy. He would stay up for what must’ve been days doing whatever got that energy out.” She eyed her. “Sometimes he’d take us to the roof of the tallest house in the neighborhood and he’d tell me stories of faraway places— sometimes I questioned their truth— but that didn’t matter. He could tell tales that would send all kinds of chills down your spine. I’m sure he’d even be able to shut Raymond up with the kind of words he used.”
Annie tilted her head. “What happened to him? To you two?”
Josephine pulled her hand away from the grass and balled her fingers into a gentle fist. Her eyes clouded over and she took a long, ragged breath. She was that corpse again, the color gone, the trembling motions tied back to her soul. “Doesn’t— doesn’t matter, Annie. He’s gone. I couldn’t keep him here…and— and maybe it…no…” she looked away. “It— it’s just supposed to be like this. There- there was a reason we never met on Earth.”
Annie shifted and leaned away, a chill washing over her at Josephine’s quick acceptance of fate. Back home, things would have been different. She wouldn’t have given up so easily, not Josephine, not the sister Annie knew.
But I was only six back then, she thought, maybe Josephine was always like this. Maybe she never tried. Maybe that’s why she attracted Sam. They were one in the same when it came to giving up. Could that be why she died in the first place?
The thought was as if someone had clamped their hand around her heart, slowly twisting it around in her chest in a drawn-out agony.
Wouldn’t she have stayed for me if she had the chance?
Annie narrowed her eyes and grabbed her wrist, yanking her to her feet. “Come on. We’re going into the forest. You’re going to meet Levond.”
“I don’t need— need to meet Levond. I already knew h-him once.” She pulled weakly. “Y-you have to go home, Annie, you have to go— go home.”
“No!”
Josephine grabbed Annie’s wrist with both of her hands as her sister dragged her towards the forest. There was a shriek, then a howl.
“Annie, please. Don’t. Don’t— you don’t—”
“I want answers, Josephine, and you’re not giving me any. I’m going to reunite you with him and when you two are healthy again he’ll tell me everything. What all of this is.”
Josephine gave one mighty pull and she stumbled backwards, taking Annie with her. Her little sister floundered for a moment, then caught Josephine just before she lost her balance, helping her stand upright again.
“Why do you— you want answers so bad?” The blonde asked, shakily fixing her dress.
“Because.” Annie straightened her posture and tilted her chin defiantly upwards. “I just want them.”
“Annie.” Josephine looked at her sternly, and despite her sickness there was a glimpse of that other sister, the healthy one from all those years ago who ruled the house like a beloved queen in all her beauty and grace that the neighborhood had revered her for.
Annie felt herself falter. Her straight posture deflated and she let out a defeated sigh, looking down.
“I…I want answers so I can know what this world is and live in it with you.” She mumbled. “So I can be with you again, Josie. And not with the stupid boys.” She kicked a rock. “Levond can tell me how to stay, I think. But to fix his sickness, he needs you. And you need him.”
Josephine looked at her with squinted eyes, studying her, then easing her gaze to stare back at the forest. She balled her hands up, bit her lip and drew a small amount of blood, then sighed, although it sounded empty, as if she were having trouble breathing.
She eyed her younger sister.
“Please, Josephine.” Annie gently took her hand. “Please go with me.”
Josephine’s hand relaxed in hers and she shook her head. “Fine.”
Annie smiled and began to lead her towards the shadows. “You won’t regret it. Trust me, it’ll be good. He’s waiting for you.”
Her elder sister gave no response, only an easy, relaxed gait, her limp having disappeared and her balance miraculously regained.
The silence lingered and settled over Annie in such a way that she felt she couldn’t breathe.
Turning to look at her sister, she found that she had already been staring at her, eyes wide, teeming with terrors and hauntings and thoughts which Annie thought Josephine could never have. She could see an unknown emotion in the twitching of her mouth, as if she were itching to tell her something but couldn’t force it up.
They came to the edge of the forest and Josephine did not blink and did not breathe. She watched and Annie waited for her to speak.
“You can still go home, Annie.” The blonde whispered. Her voice rang throughout the world and Annie was caught between comfort and dread. “Don’t make yourself go in there. Turn around.”
“You’re sick, Josie.” Annie kept her voice from trembling. “He’ll help you.”
“Do you even know what he is?” Josephine turned her head towards the forest, watching less with fear and more with a deep, eldritch knowledge, as if she were all too familiar with what lay beyond not because she had lived adjacent to it for the past six years but because she was part of it, too, mind and body.
“…Are…are you really Josephine?” She whispered in response.
“If I were something else, would you turn back?”
Annie watched her for a long moment. The twitching stopped yet she was still not breathing.
She thought back to Levond. Had he looked like this? Had he been human?
He had been sick, yes.
But had he been human?