Inheritance

Kate Rarey

I do the chores. I do the chores; I wash my face; I get up. Again and again, I get up. The sun rises with me. She watches while I wash my face, while I brush my teeth, while I comb. My sister Lanora doesn’t like the sun. Lanora doesn’t like most anything. She sleeps deeply, past the morning dew, past the crowing of the hens, into the bats at dusk. In the night, she wakes. I am always alone. 

In the afternoon, I walk until my feet burn and my face wilts and the inside of my eyelids shine red. When I become too weary, I sit. In the shade of the forest, I wait for them to come. Only when I’m weak, when I could not object even if I tried, they come. I hear them better when my body can’t fight back. The birdsong grows into a roar, and then it disappears. When I open my eyes next, they are here. 

The light falls from blue to brown to black. I close my eyes. I don’t have to look to see their wispy fingers, like smoke from a chimney stack, wrap around my throat. I know they are within me. From the forest floor, the dirt, the air, they emerge to surround me. I feel nothing but their horrible wind in my ears— like glass breaking on a marble floor. The desperation settles in, as it always does, deep in my stomach. But, finally, they speak, and for a moment I am held. Their voice is soft as a tinkling brook and the humming cicadas at night. They are within me, smelling of sickly sweet lemongrass and thyme. 

When I can breathe again, the sun is low in the sky. A ladybug has settled on my knee, and I brush it off as I stand. It is later than usual. My first thought is of Lanora. She will be angry if I keep the animals out too late. My legs crack and ache as I walk. I hurry. 

I let the goats into the barn in the last gasp of sunlight. I catch sight of Lanora in the kitchen; her hair shines in the candlelight as she moves toward the stairs. I keep outside for as long as I can. Lanora hates most everything, but most of all me. 

I don’t have the energy to care about what she does at night. My body is heavy with exertion, my mind is tired from their probing intrusion. Tomorrow, I will visit them again. Tonight, I rest. I listen for the slam of the back door, Lanora’s heavy steps. I watch her figure retreat toward the woods. An owl calls. I sleep. 

Blood. The next morning, I smell it-- a rusty, thick scent pushing through my open window. The grass, I think. The trees. The poor plants are contaminated. I press my ear to the chill air. The barn is quiet. I can not think about chores or washing my face. I run.

Lanora stands by the gate. Her eyes are wide, wider than I remember. When she turns to me, the disgust is plain. Nothing has changed. Our goat lies at our feet, wasted, and yet everything remains the same. 

“Was this you?” 

She laughs. It is cold. “Clean it up,” she says. She doesn’t look at me. I think I hear something catch in her voice. Maybe it’s just the wind. 

I clean. I know they will be unhappy when I am late, but I must clean this blood before the night falls again. I send out a silent hope that they will understand. 

Lanora slams doors inside our house. She is angrier today, angrier than I remember. As I build the pyre for our slaughtered animal, I try to picture her face without a scowl, without the darkness under her eyes. I realize I am picturing our mother. I can not remember her name. 

They reach me as soon as my feet touch the dark soil of the forest. I have not gotten so far, not nearly far enough to fall from exhaustion, but still they swarm. I can not see their cold reach but I feel them drop from the trees and seep from the ground. The crickets stop. I let them come. 

Foul girl, evil girl. Why do you let her feel so powerful? The chill shakes my bones as they lay their wispy fingers on every nerve, vein and artery in my body. The scent of lemongrass is overpowering but intoxicating all the same. 

When I wake, it is dark. I am disoriented; I am always home by sundown. I realize I am angry. The feeling burns holes in my stomach, cutting through the lead weight of despair. They are right, I realize. She hates my power. She hates me. Why? I wonder as I walk. Why would she kill our goat? What more is she trying to take from me? 

When I reach our home, the animals have already been put away. Lanora sits in the kitchen; her hands cradle her head. The sight is unnerving, almost jarring. 

“Why did you do it?” Anger colors my tone, and I let it. The sensation feels good, too good— I am surprised by how the heat of my cheeks brings warmth down to my toes. 

Lanora jolts, surprised herself. She studies me. She does not respond.

“Say something!” I demand. I slam my hand on the table and we both jump. Lanora’s eyes are wide again, wide as they were at the sight of death. I can not read her gaze. 

“What did they tell you?” Her voice is careful. 

I move back. Darting glances to the windows, I send her a silent, pleading warning. They don’t like to be discussed. 

Lanora stands, but she is not triumphant. Still, she will not look at me. Finally, she laughs, low and dry. 

“Silly Jana. Always thinking about herself.” Bitterness floods her tone. “Have you ever considered that I’m trying to keep myself alive, too?” 

My gaze feels like fire. “By leaving me to fend for myself? By killing our goat and making me clean up the mess? If that’s your idea of self-preservation I don’t know why you bother sticking around at all.” 

“How can you be so ignorant? If I wanted to leave, don’t you think I would have by now?” 

“When mother died, you said you were going to make things right.” My anger brings memories with it, falling into place like glass in my skin. “You promised that you could free us, that we would be together again.” I think of our tears the days and weeks after our mother’s death. Holding each other in our cold, empty house. The first time Lanora went to the forest. The first time I felt them come to me in my sleep. The fights, the loneliness. How they greeted me with kindness and soft words, so like my mother’s, while Lanora fell further and further away. The resentment sits coldly between us, even now. 

“You left me the moment mother died, and you stayed gone. You don’t care what happens to me.” I look at our little home, our broken walls rooted in memories easier to forget. 

“Don’t ever accuse me of not caring, Jana.” Her voice is sharp. “They don’t like it when I look for answers that they’re not willing to give. It takes time. Do you really think I’d just give up on the only thing I have left?” 

Before I can respond, a low rumbling shakes the house. We freeze, our eyes locked with a silent understanding. They don’t like to be discussed. 

She stands. “I’m going,” she says. She pauses at the door, her back to me. She breathes as if she’s going to speak once more, but before I can demand it, she is gone.

I do not move. I can barely breathe— my mind is running a race with which my fatigue can not compete. I am angry, but more than anything I am exhausted. I drag my limbs upstairs. I feel them watch me as I dream. 

I do not see Lanora again for days. Maybe weeks, I can not tell. A gray haze descends over the hills; our home; my eyes. I visit them every day. I do my chores, I visit them, I sleep. I feel their chill in every corner of my body. One morning, I wake to another dead goat. I am not surprised anymore. I can not remember why I was angry. 

Bruises begin to appear across my collarbones. Scratches cover my stomach; I feel a pain cut my lungs when I breathe. I am weak, I realize. I am so weak. I do not have the energy to care. It will make it easier for them. I feel their excitement growing each day, ensnaring me like ice water. I am so cold. I am so cold. 

“Jana.” 

I am at the kitchen table. I realize with a start I have fallen asleep. I am so tired these days. I bring my head up from the wood to see Lanora, towering over me. I wish she would go away. 

Her hands yank me up. I do not have time to protest— my cheek is whipped back with the force of her hand. Blooming red pain spreads across my face. It is hot and sharp. 

“Get up,” she says. It is a demand. 

I hold my red cheek, and stare. Something bubbles in my stomach, against the cold slate of nothingness. I wish she would go away. 

Lanora slaps me again, and this time, anger surges, clouding my vision. I stand, with some effort, and shove her as hard as I can muster. She merely steps backwards. “You’re so weak,” she says. Her tone enrages me. 

I spit at her feet. “I’m weak? You can barely look me in the eye.” The anger has revitalized something in me, I feel stronger than I have in weeks. I want to hit her, to see her burn. I lunge again.

Lanora catches my wrists, holding my struggling form with the ease of a mother with a colicy child. I scream and writhe. It is no use. 

“Jana.” 

“Let me go,” I yell, pleading. I realize I am crying. I can not remember the last time I cried. 

“What have they done to you?” she asks quietly. She is studying my wounds, some now oozing from our fight. I hardly feel them. A deep sadness grows within me— for her, for my mother, for everything. I don’t know how much longer I can fight. 

I begin to sink to the floor. The tears turn to sobs, racking my body. I realize she is holding me. The weight of her embrace feels foreign. Human. I don’t respond. Instead, I breathe deeply against the aching of my body. The cold seeps through the floor, filling my limbs and my lungs. I am so tired. 

Lanora doesn’t speak for so long I think she might have fallen asleep, so long that I begin to feel like I’m dreaming. The skies in my mind are cloudless. No one to report to, no bruises, no pain. Only the sun; a breeze. I can breathe easier here. I might take a long walk, or lay down in the grass… 

“Do you remember mother’s clover necklaces?” 

I jolt. My dream takes a hard edge, and is lost. Our mother. 

“She would take us to the glen behind the road, close to the edge of the forest. You would ride on her back in a sling, but I was big enough to walk. We’d sit there for hours. She’d make crowns for us and a necklace for herself.” 

Lanora traces gentle circles in my hair. I am afraid to breathe, to ruin the spell. I grip her arms with the perilous ache of memories lost. 

“We would collect herbs when she went into the forest. We would bring them home for dinner, wrapped in her blue scarf. Thyme for the potatoes, lemongrass for the vegetables from our garden. I can’t smell them without thinking of her.” 

I keep my eyes closed. The scent is overwhelmingly familiar. 

“One day she told us she had something she had to take care of alone. She promised that after she went, things would be different. That we wouldn’t have to rely on anyone for the growth in our garden, that we wouldn’t be stuck here on this land. You were too young to know, but I could tell she was angry.” Lanora sighed. “She always resented that they lied to her, that she gave into their promises and tied her to this place when father abandoned us. She hated herself for bringing us to them.” 

Lanora paused, her voice catching. “That day, we couldn’t come with her. You were so upset, you cried all morning. But mother never let us wallow for long. She held us and reminded us what a beautiful day it was. She told us to take the blessings from the sun, to dance and spin when it set below the trees. We spent the whole afternoon on the back porch, dancing.” 

I am shaking. I can’t believe I had forgotten. 

“She didn’t come back. Do you know why?” Lanora holds me tightly now, too tightly. I don’t want her to go on. 

I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know. Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it. 

“They took her, Jana. She wanted out, and they killed her. And now they’re doing the same to you.” 

I want to cover my ears, to run, to disappear. “Stop it, please—” 

“Listen to me. How much time do you really think you have left?” She holds my hand up in front of my eyes. It’s nearly translucent. When was the last time I’d eaten? 

“They can’t kill me— they need me!” I sound hysterical in my own ears. 

“They don’t need you, they need a feeble body to control. They don’t care about you, Jana. They will kill you.” Lanora’s voice is firm, even harsh. My anger surges again, and I manage to sit up, finding her eyes. 

“Then maybe they should.” 

My anger propels me forward, and I speak again before she can. “It’s not like there’s anything left for me here. You killed our goats. You can’t stand the sight of me. At least they pretend to care.” I have the urge to run away from her, far away, back to the forest and to the calming scent of lemongrass and thyme. The arms that held me when there was no one left. 

“I do care about you, Jana,” Lanora says softly. “And I didn’t kill our goats. I never wanted this for any of us.”

I scoff. “Right.” 

“I didn’t kill our goats, Jana. You did.” 

I bolt out of her arms. A gross accusation, a terrifying one. “What did you say?” 

Lanora’s face is sad, but her voice is firm. “You killed the goats. I saw you out there in their pen, the first night it happened. You stuck them with a kitchen knife, over and over. I tried to stop you but you couldn’t hear me. Your eyes were white.” 

I am horrified. She must be lying. “Why would you say something like that?” 

Lanora shakes her head. “You’re not listening. I started asking questions and they punished me by hurting the one thing I have left. You need to understand that they have more power over you than you know. I’ve already let it go on too long, but I just couldn’t risk them knowing that I care before I was certain about what they’re planning. I knew they wouldn't intervene if they thought we hated each other.” Her eyes are filled with tears. “They were the ones that wanted to keep us apart, Jana. Not me.” 

“They… what? Before you knew… what?” I am sputtering out— my anger fading into confusion. It doesn’t make sense. I feel Lanora’s body stiffen next to mine as she takes my cold hands in her own. 

“Look at me. They can control you now, I can’t stop that. They want your body, and they’re close to succeeding. But your anger, your sadness, your happiness. It sustains you. You have to hold on to it. You have to remember who you are. It makes you human.” She breathes deeply, with some effort. “You’re all I have. I wanted to keep you alive. I wanted to keep us both alive.” 

Before I can respond, a stillness seizes us. The crickets go silent; a sickening fear fills my body. Our eyes meet at once. They’re here. 

With a speed that only registers seconds later, the glass panes of the windows explode. For a moment I can only hear the horrible tinkling of glass across tile and skin. Then the sound comes. A deep growl shakes the bones of the house and rattles the glass strewn across the kitchen. I want to scream. 

Before darkness claims my vision, before my cheek hits the spikes of glass on tile, I see Lanora’s hair slipping, pulled by an invisible force, out from under me. I can not speak, or call for her. Don’t go, I think. But she is already gone.

I wake in the dirt. Darkness sits heavily on me. I can not tell where I am. Yet I smell them near. Lemongrass and thyme. My mother. 

We’ve been waiting for you. 

I sit up, and the pain nearly forces me down again. Something must be broken, I think. Or something is very, very wrong. 

A red brown translucence, so unpleasant and familiar, coats my eyes. Their forms are nebulous but distinct— they are everywhere. In the trees and from the dirt they coalesce around me like vultures with their prey. They’ve never shown themselves to me like this. Their excitement is nauseating; I know I would be sick if I could. My body feels stiff and foreign. Something is very, very wrong. 

“You can’t have me!” I shout into the nothingness. A terrible grinding sound greets me in response— the shrill cut of machinery, or the screaming of wet wood on fire. I realize it must be their laughter. 

Do you miss your mother? 

“Fuck you,” I spit, and they laugh again. What was her name? I rack my brain while they push closer, as they choke into my nose and mouth. I can barely think— the brown translucent gauze is shoved down my throat and into my eyes. Lemongrass and thyme. Lemongrass and thyme. 

Be still. It will only be worse if you struggle. They are cooing now, a horrible hissing, a terrible mockery of comfort. 

Suddenly their tone changes. Jana, they say. It is my mother’s voice. Jana, don’t be afraid. I’m here now. 

I stop at once. I know it isn’t her, it can’t be her, and yet her scent is overwhelming. All my life, all the time I spent with them, I held on to hope. I knew she was lost, but maybe, just maybe, she could be found. I could find her. She’s here, she’s with me now. “Mother?” 

They swarm with fervor. I feel their excitement grow and encase me. Yet their touch is not warm, their scent no longer sweet. I am so cold. I am ready. Come to me, Jana, my baby, my child. I am here.

They are within me. I feel my limbs slacken and stiffen, my lungs constrict so tightly I’m not sure how I could ever breathe. I picture my mother’s face. It comes clearly to me now. 

A memory, sharp and real, runs down my spine. Lanora, I think. Her face, so like my mother’s. Lanora and Jana and…who? What was her name? 

“Mirah.” 

They are playing with me; they must have given it to me. No, I realize with a shock: I found it. It is mine and Lanora’s. They can not own her name. 

They hiss, and ebb from my lungs long enough for me to breathe. I gasp with effort, my vision coming in red-brown sheets. “Mirah, my mother. You are not her. Where is Mirah?” 

Shut up, foul child. Be still. Their terrible clanking voice has returned, my mother is gone. I wish I could cry, but I am triumphant: my mother’s name. My mother’s face. 

Again and again, I think it. Mirah. I regain another breath and I speak it. “Give me Mirah.” I am angry, I realize, and I have never been so relieved. They are not my mother, nor my sister. “Give me Lanora and Mirah.” I breathe a deeper breath. “I am Jana. Where is Lanora?” 

They are screaming now, so loudly I cover my ears. I can not feel them anymore, and their absence leaves behind an ache like a missing tooth. I force myself to stand, to repeat the phrase as many times as I can. “Mirah, Lanora, Jana. Mirah, Lanora, Jana.” 

Is it their fear I feel? It can’t be— I am so weak, I could not win. And yet, repeating the phrase, they can not touch me. I walk, slowly, step by step through the terrible darkness. Mirah, Lanora, Jana. They can not touch me: I am human, I am whole. I am a daughter and a sister who lives and breathes. Just a few more steps. Each one feels like it might be my last. Just a few more. 

I break the edge of the wood. The sun is not yet up, but the sky glows red to the east. Mirah, Lanora, Jana. I hold on to it as tightly as I can. Tears fall as I walk. I mourn the scent of my mother; her voice; her face. I wonder what they told her to convince her to give up, what she heard that made her stop fighting. I will never see them again, they will not take anything more from me. Mirah, Lanora, Jana. 

I reach the steps of our house. It is destroyed— wood and glass is strewn everywhere, the furniture shredded. The house they created for their own sick plot, in their own horrible corner of the world, reduced to nothing. I am glad to see it in pieces. I must find Lanora, tell her what I’ve done. How I’ve survived. She will be proud; we will be together again. We are finally free, just as my mother wanted. Mirah, Lanora, Jana. 

I find her face down in the grass. Her neck is at an inhuman angle, her limbs are splayed ungracefully. A kitchen knife sticks from her back. 

The sun rises slowly. It is a beautiful day. I lay Lanora in the meadow, straightened so it might look like she’s sleeping. She’ll wake at night anyways— Lanora hates the sun. Lanora hates most everything, but not me. I’ll decorate her with clovers. I’ll tuck lemongrass and thyme into her hands. When the sun sets below the trees, she’ll find me there, dancing.