The moon is hanging low over the dark, still waters. Abbie could've never imagined any forest to be as utterly still as this one. Not a whisper in the branches, not a sound, not a rustle. The moon is silver and heavy and smooth, the moon is a coin left forgotten, and the water is painted bright. Jenny looks at her, intent and still, and says, "Come on, sister mine. Are we doing it?"
Abbie looks at her and swallows, and nods instead of speaking. They undress each other under the moonlight, chaste and quiet, and Abbie just thinks, I was always the eldest. I helped you get dressed for school and brushed your hair, and now here you are, ready to lead me down.
Jenny smiles at her, a quicksilver sliver of teeth, and it's been so long, so long. Since they've been co-conspirators, in on a secret joke, and the world could scare them with nothing. So long, but maybe - maybe again.
Abbie smiles back and takes Jenny's hand, Jenny's warm narrow palm. They look at each other, different bodies and different stories and different scars, made alike by the moon and the silence, and Abbie trusts Jenny to lead them into the darkness and out again. To salvage something out of this godforsaken mess – all for something she'd have forbidden herself to even contemplate believing several years ago, for something she wants.
(For somebody who wouldn't be taken from her this time, for kind hands and a smirking mouth and a soft voice.)
They step into the water as one, and the water is cold and weightless and molten and shining and dark, so dark.
Jenny says, sing-song and incongruous, "Three, two, one, I am going to seek", and Abbie laughs out loud, surprised and delighted, and when the water closes over their heads, she is not afraid.