I’d forgotten how beautiful she was.
Little bits of memory fluttered in my mind, almost remembered but flitting away before I could fully grasp them.
“Oh, my littlest sister,” she cooed, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
It felt so good to be held, to be comforted like this. I hadn’t realized how crushed and wilted I’d become until my sister wrapped her arms around me. I nestled closer to her, my forehead against her neck, as I would have when she was alive, when I’d been so much smaller.
The memory of this sensation nearly swept me away, a riptide pulling across time.
I knew what this was supposed to feel like.
I’d done this before and I remembered it…almost.
“Why can’t I remember you? Why can’t I remember that year?” I bit my lip. “Why am I the only one who sees what I see?”
Her sigh was long and soft, the gentle swell of sea-foam reaching the shore. “A lot of things happened back then. None of them particularly pleasant.”
“Tell me,” I insisted. “Please.”
She twirled her finger around one of her loose ringlets, carefully considering her words. “There was a very cruel woman who wanted to reach out and hurt others as much as she’d been hurt herself…and she used the gods to do it.”
“The gods?” I echoed. “That’s who I wanted to talk to. That’s why I did all this.” I gestured to the spilled flask of tea, the now-crushed laurel leaves. “I need to find out more about why we’re connected. Why I can do all…this.” I waved my arm about the clearing. Rainbow prisms as large and as tangibleas butterflies danced in the air. “Are we…are we somehow related to—”
“Oh, littlest sister,” she interrupted. “There’s more than one way for a god to touch you.” She tapped at my forehead meaningfully.
It was as though I’d been peering through a pair of binoculars set improperly. The world had been blurry and indistinct until Eulalie reached out to adjust the focus and suddenly everything crystalized into place. The images were crisp and sharpened with color.
I saw everything.
Irememberedeverything.
My mind felt like a sketchbook caught in the wind, flipping through pages of the past, each memory an illustration drawn out in my own hand.
Papa remarrying.
Eulalie’s funeral.
Piles of slippers, sparkling and lustrous at first, then tattered to sad bits of spent leather.
Rosalie and Ligeia, their eyes frosted shut, mottled blue, and never to wake.
Bare feet spinning on point, over and over, without music, without partner…
I gasped as the last page of the book was revealed.
Her.
The wraith.
Black tears streaming down her face even as her lips curled back, making us dance to her own tune.
“Kosamaras,” I whispered.
Eulalie nodded sadly.
Kosamaras.
Sister to the goddess of the night. Harbinger of nightmares and madness. The bringer of delusions, illusions, tricks of the mind, and despair.
