Ginger Snaps: Sisters by Black Orchid
(This story directly precedes Ginger Snaps & Ginger Snaps Back)
1999
Brigitte missed not walking home with Ginger today. She knew that they were spending way too much time together (as their mom kept reminding them) and that a little bit of independence wouldn't kill her. But it was just that Ginger seemed so gruff with her last night, and this morning. Bee couldn't understand just what she did wrong.
Maybe I didn't do anything wrong, Brigitte thought grimly as she grabbed her TV dinner from the microwave and skedaddled down the steps to the basement room she shared with Ginger. Maybe it's just like Mom said: we spend way too much time with each other. And maybe Ging has picked up on Mom's none-so-subtle hints and found herself a boyfriend.
Brigitte carefully peeled the plastic lid off the tray so the steam wouldn't scald her and then speared a rather anemic-looking carrot-slice with her fork. Why should it bother me if Ginger has a boyfriend, she wondered to herself. Isn't that the way things are supposed to work?
But it did bother her. And it bothered her that it bothered her. The two sisters had built quite a fantasy life for themselves but it was not so strong that Bee couldn't recognize that the intense bond she had with her sister was a tad on the unnatural side. Sisters are supposed to hate each other: pull each other's hair, bicker, be competitive, all of that. But they weren't. They were close. Very close. And Ginger not walking home with her after school bothered her, and the idea of Ginger getting nasty with some guy bothered her too. But she'd deal. Maybe she'd find herself a boyfriend of her own, too. Right.
The slender brunette chewed her flavorless mashed potatoes. It hadn't cooked properly and there were still cold, icy patches in it. She didn't care.
Bee eyed the photo equipment in the corner of the room and wondered how she could take pictures of herself for the "death photo" project. She had the fleeting idea of doing one of those suicide scenarios for real, but then cancelled it out of her mind as utterly retarded. Yeah, sure: she'd kill herself and then everybody would stare at her wonky corpse; they'd probably laugh. Why give them the satisfaction?
There was still food left on the TV dinner plate but Brigitte couldn't bear to eat another bite. She slid the tray under her bed and then went to sleep.
Some time later, a warm breath sounded in her ear.
"Bee?"
Ginger!
Brigitte's heart leaped in spite of itself. But she was resolved to play it cool; after all, Ginger had shunned her, and it had hurt. She pretended to be still asleep.
"Bee?" Ginger persisted, shaking the girl's arm.
Brigitte slowly turned around, feigning extreme drowsiness. Her sister's face was about two inches away, long auburn hair spilling onto Bee and the pillow.
"Mnnwhat? What do you want, Ginger?"
Her sister seemed a little taken aback by Bee's attitude. Ginger had thought that perhaps Brigitte might be feeling a little insecure & lonely after ditching her like that. She was hoping for a bit more of a welcoming vibe on her sister's part. But maybe Bee was just growing apart from her–she guessed that this would happen sooner or later. And after what she had learned, she wouldn't be at all surprised if that "Together Forever" pact they had made would be torn asunder like a house of straw once boys and whatnot got into the picture. She guessed the bond really wasn't strong enough to weather approaching adulthood–with good reason.
"Oh, nothing...just checking if you were asleep."
"Well, I was...what time is it?"
"One."
Brigitte rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. One in the morning?! Just what had her sister been doing all this time?
"Mom didn't kill you for coming back so late?"
"Nah...she acted kind of giddy, actually. Probably thinks 'her little girl' is finally a woman and swapping juice with some guy."
Bee sat up in bed and looked her sister dead in the eye.
"Well, did you?"
Ugh, Brigitte hated the waver her voice made...that edge that sounded so obviously of jealousy. She knew she had no justifiable reason to be jealous.
"Oh, yeah, Bee," Ginger said sarcastically, luxuriously draping herself upon her bed, "a real wild night of unmentionable sexual escapades. Woo, the passion! I think I've been impregnated, in fact."
"You can't be pregnant. You haven't had your first period yet," Bee corrected.
Ginger picked up a ratty old teddy bear & started fretting at one of its plastic eyes.
"Bee?"
"Yeah?"
"You...ever notice that we don't look anything alike?"
Brigitte was now sitting at the edge of her bed directly in front of her sister.
"Of course we do."
"No, we don't."
"Yes we do."
"No we don't."
Bee was pretty annoyed by this little exchange and raised her voice slightly.
"Yes we do, Ginger...unless you mean how you're pretty and I'm not."
Ginger's face dropped and she looked at her sister in disbelief.
"How can you say that? Of course you're beautiful."
"Not pretty, though....definitely not that...." Brigitte said turning away.
Ginger got off her bed and sat next to her sister. She gently cupped the brunette's chin with her hand.
"C'mon, Bee, look at me–you are extremely beautiful. Pretty–that's a cheap, throwaway word. Hookers & brainless cheerleaders are 'pretty.' I'll take beautiful over pretty any time."
The two girls looked into each other's eyes.
"But...we still look alike."
"No we don't," Ginger said flatly.
They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Then Ginger suddenly spoke.
"Bee, I'm not your sister."
Brigitte's head whipped around in Ginger's direction, her dark eyes huge in shock.
"W-what?"
"I'm adopted. Found out by going through Mom & Dad's things. Yesterday."
"B-but...how can that be?"
"Easy. Maybe Mom couldn't have children or something. So they grab me. Then you come along...the miracle child. Nobody's the wiser."
This was too much for Brigitte to process. She hopped up off the bed and began pacing the room.
"Did...did you tell them you know?"
"No...not yet. Maybe not ever. Maybe I'll wait for some sort of sensitive family get-together to come along & then I'll spring it on them. I don't know. But pretty funny, though, huh?"
"H-hilarious..." Brigitte said, her voice cracking. She sank to her knees and began to sob in her hands. Ginger ran up next to her and put her arm around her shoulder.
"Bee...c'mon Bee...stop it...there's no need..."
"Y-you don't understand...what this means..."
"I don't understand what?"
Brigitte's dark, wet eyes met Ginger's blue ones.
"The pact...Together Forever..."
"...is still a pact. Together Forever. It's even stronger now, in fact. We're...blood sisters. Still sisters. And even more..."
"(snif), Together Forever, Ginger."
"Together Forever, Bee."
1813
Brigitte heard a faint tapping on the window of her little room. Ginger! My God, she thought she had run away, or...
"H-hey, Bee..."
Brigitte suppressed a tight scream in her throat. Ginger was beaten-up, bruised...one of her eyes was blackened.
"W-what happened," she whispered, helping her friend inside the cabin.
"Oh, y-you know...the usual...they...Father found the notes you wrote to me. The poems...I tried to hide them, but...I guess they're too suspicious anyway and they looked everywhere."
Brigitte lit a lamp and placed it on the table. She felt herself starting to cry, her face mirrored in Ginger's tough but tear-streaked own.
"You...it's too dangerous to hold on to those notes...you should have burned them–"
"I couldn't bear it, Bee! Now that our parents won't let us see each other anymore, it was all I had left of you! It isn't fair!"
Bee dunked a cloth into the water basin and gently applied it to Ginger's injured eye.
"That should do it...until I can get to the ice cellar..."
Ginger grabbed her friend's arm and looked intently into her eyes.
"It's too dangerous even to wait that long! We must leave now! Tonight!"
"It's what I want to do, more than anything else in the world, but...our parents will kill us! Your father will beat you to death and mine will keep me locked in this room until they can secure a man to marry me...it's hopeless...I've been in this room so long..."
"Bee...we don't have to worry about my father anymore. That's why...we must leave tonight..." She cupped her friend's chin in her hand and looked deadly serious. "Do you understand?"
Oh my God, Brigitte thought.
"Y-you..."
"I couldn't take him beating me anymore...I knew he was going to kill me this time. And he never would have allowed us to be together. But...you can stay here if you want. I have no right to make you a fugitive."
"Ginger, are you kidding? Together Forever is a promise. And if I stay, all I have to look forward to is letting that horrible old logger my parents picked out for me take away my virginity."
"Are you absolutely sure about this?"
"I've never been so sure about anything in my life."
The two girls, the red & the black, embraced by the amber light of the kerosene lamp. And so the curse began.
the end