Warning: This story may contain triggers for depression and suicidal thoughts. If there is any chance that this can affect you, please don't read it. Contains a very macabre and depressed main character.

Dead Ebony.

"Won't it be wonderful to live in nature, dear?" Anne-Marie chirped. Her hands were clasped together and her feet threatened to take her away in a dance that may very well never stop. "Oh we'll have to wash out clothes in a stream! Oh, won't it be quaint? We'll stalk through the trees and catch our own supper! Oh, we'll be true natives by the end of the month – the end of the day! Oh dear heart, how splendid life is in this new world, our new world!"

"Yes, mother."

"Ebony, blessed precious one, just imagine! You'll look out your window one morning and a deer will be peeking in! Oh, by the end of our first year here, we'll be shooing away the little woodland creatures as though they were pesky neighbours!" Anne-Marie trilled a thrilled laugh, almost mimicking exactly a sparrow's song. A sparrow was indeed always the creature that sprang to Evet's mind when she thought of her mother: a feathery little thing, always singing and fluttering around, thoroughly in the clouds.

Ebony smiled her skeleton's grin. "You make it sound like a fairy tale," she said, placating their excitable mother. Her glassy eyes sought Evet's and they rolled dramatically. Despite life, Evet grinned back at her dead sister. Ebony had consumption, and was dying.

In fact, she died a year ago when she became too weak to do anything. Now Evet had privately decided that the sister she helped move around the ship on their way from England to America was just the lingering spirit of her sister. She wouldn't dare to mention it aloud, because Ebony would just sigh and silently agree with her (she always did); her mother would cry some more; and her uncle would yell.

Her uncle, Daniel, was a logger. Or a builder. Or a soldier. Or something. Maybe. Who knew anymore? He took her father's place in the family after her original father died. Ebony was four, and Evet was only one. The way her mother would tell it, he was a brave, dashing soldier whose life came to a tragic end after he sacrificed himself for the good of his family, and his country. Anne-Marie always told his story in a breathless voice, and her eyes became positively bejewelled with crystal tears.

Then again, maybe he just pissed off with some Parisian. Evet wasn't bothered; he wasn't with her "family", so who cared whether he was in Heaven or Paris?

"Ah, Autumn!" Daniel boomed, sucking up the crisp air and breathing it out of his mouth. "Lovely time of year, isn't it?"

"Won't that mean good work for you, Uncle?" Ebony said, her words trickling from her mouth like fog rolling across the ocean. "More dead trees, more for you to cut down?"

Huh. Guess he was a logger after all.

"Not necessarily," he said, shaking his head "It means more dead leaves, and more dangerous conditions. But yes, I suppose that means more work for me after all!"

Evet hunched her thin shoulders against the peal of booming, abrasive laughter that was being emitted from Daniel's mouth hole. It grated her ears like the salt from the sea spray burnt and stung the cracked, dry lips that Evet put up with having on her face. And, like with the spray, all she could do about it was turn away and wait for it to be over.

"Oh no, dear, I hope that it won't be too dangerous for you!" Anne-Marie wittered at Daniel "We wouldn't want you to have an accident."

"Never matter, love! I'll be right as rain," Daniel said, wafting away her concerns as though they were smoke in the air. Satisfied that his reassurance would guarantee that he wouldn't get hurt on the job, Anne-Marie took Ebony's bones and took her to the railing of the ship, where they were drawing ever closer to America. The ports and tiny people were coming into view, and it would only be a matter of minutes before they were there, little drops of water being sucked into a raging river that would grow and expand until it flooded the entire country.

"Oh, I do so love Autumn! Winter is nice and all, but the snow melts ever so quickly. Oh! If it snows here in America, we should have a family outing! Oh, it'll be darling! Simply -"

"Yes, Autumn is a joy indeed," Ebony cut in, putting an effective stop to their mother's ramblings. Anne-Marie smiled warmly at her daughter before turning her eager orbs towards the bustling docks of Boston.

Evet didn't see what was so great about Autumn. It was all a bit macabre, when you thought about it. It all looked so beautiful, until you realised that everything was actually just dying. The weather had a fit for three months, blustering with wind, and then weeping with rain until it decided that it was irate, and began three months under its blistering anger. To think that people rejoiced for mood swings in the weather was absurd.

But, without many other options, Evet joined her sister and her mother at the railings at the side of the ship. America. A whole new land, with so many stones unturned, a lifetime of secrets that its' lands had to behold. It lay before them, waiting for its coasts to be walked, enjoyed, lived – then mapped. A new country for exploring, getting lost in, being found in, for living in – then having its borders drawn up and divided.

A light touch of flesh upon her hand, made Evet snap out of her thoughts: Ebony had placed her bones upon Evet's hand, and was running her thumb along the top of said hand. Like Evet's hand was a rumpled set of clothes that had been tossed carelessly onto the ground, and she was trying to smooth out the creases.

Sister regarded sister. In the newly born rays of sunlight that were skating towards them from across the sky, Evet could see her sister again – the Ebony that she met before consumption came to stay. When Ebony was shining and alive. Shining right now in Ebony's eyes – the real Ebony – was a tender look. Tender, but sorry. Sad.

Separating her gaze from her sister's, Evet looked towards naked, new America. Ebony looked away too, but when Evet turned her cold hand up to go palm-to-palm with her sick sister's soft hand, Ebony grinned. It was most definitely a beautiful one.