Chapter 10.

If the girls had hoped that Seylira's temper would have cooled over the remaining few hours of night, they'd be sadly disappointed. Their father said nothing about their strange absence. He had faith that whatever punishment Seylira had would be far worse than whatever he came up with. At breakfast, there was no butter, nor fruit, or even jam for their bread. Seylira didn't speak to them, or even look at them, and things that were place on the table were usually accompanied with a rattling clatter as they were handled a good deal rougher than they should have been. Already a cup of milk had been plunked down with enough force that it knocked over and spilled all over the table. Kyrin had jumped up and grabbed a rag to clean it, but Seylira was already rubbing at the table hard enough to wear a hole in the wood. Kyrin just keep her eyes pointed towards the floor.

Jensa, however, seemed unaffected. She kept staring out the window, oblivious to the swirling clouds of anger and discomfort from her two breakfast mates. Kyrin enviously wished she could so easily escape the torture that was Seylira's wrath. As soon as the meal was over, Jensa jumped up with a grin, heading towards the door.

"Not on your life! You're not going anywhere. You're staying right here until you've learned some sense about this world you live in."

Jensa pouted, readying herself to try and argue her way out of this. But before she could get a word out, Kyrin had grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the room.

"Hey, HEY! Whats the deal? I don't want to stay in here all day! Seylira's going to change her mind, I just have to show her that she's being an overprotective ninny. I'm not a child, and she can't treat me like one."

Kyrin shook her head, "you can't fight her on this one."

Jensa frowned, "oh yeah? Why not?"

Kyrin shifted, eyes downcast "don't you get it? She was scared. She was really worried about us."

Jensa just made a face, "why should she be? We're not little kids any more. And besides, she's not our mother, so she should stop acting like it! She's starting to act like everyone else is this stupid town. Cowards, every one of them! Everyone's afraid to live, to take chances. Whats the point in being alive, if you're never free. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of playing by the rules when it's clear the rules are nothing but bars on a cage."

Kyrin would have a surprised look on her face, "y-you don't mean that…about 'Lira? She's been so good to us. She loves us. She only wants to keep us safe."

"No, she wants to keep us by her side forever. She lost her family, so she's trying to replace them with us. She just can't handle the thought of being alone. Well I'm tired of her trying to tie us down all the time. She's nothing but the hired help, so she should just act like it and do like we tell her to."

Kyrin was struck speechless by this outburst. Sure, Seylira and Jensa had always butted heads, what with Jensa being so headstrong and Seylira being so protective, but Jensa had clearly loved and even respected Seylira, even if she didn't always show it. This flood of anger was like the rivers after the spring thaw, overflowing with force, and with no concern for whatever gets caught in its wake. Her prolonged silence seemed to confirm Jensa's suspicions of Kyrin's stance in the matter. She'd make an annoyed noise and opened the window, getting ready to launch herself out of it to freedom. "Stay here if you want, but I'm going out."

And with that, Jensa was out and off, leaving a stung and shocked Kyrin behind. The whole thing had lasted mere minutes and yet, to Kyrin, it felt like a year had passed. Her day dragged into eternity, as she lay in her room, trying to piece together Jensa's words and actions, fit them into some logical progress. But the harder she tried, the less sense it all made.

And despite the fact that Jensa had so clearly left her behind again, Kyrin found herself covering for her. Whenever Seylira peeked in, Kyrin would say Jensa was in the bathroom or sleeping. She felt lousy, lying to Seylira after what they'd done only the night before, but she feared a worse fight between Jensa and Seylira should she tell the truth. At least, that's what she told herself. In all honesty, she was more afraid of Seylira being disappointed in her again.

As the day passed, Kyrin started feeling more and more uneasy. What if Seylira found out? What was taking Jensa so long? As the day began to darken into shades of blue and purple, unease darkened to doubt, then concern, then fear. At last, when Kyrin knew that dinner was imminent and the sun was undeniably beginning to dip below the horizon, she could stand her silence no longer.

She left her room in search of Seylira, intent on confessing all their misdeeds. But strangely, she wasn't in the kitchen, preparing dinner, nor could she be found anywhere else in the house. Seylira rarely went out at this time of evening, so Kyrin was pretty unsettled to realize she was alone in the house. There was no one to help her. She'd just have to find Jensa on her own. On the upside, if she worked fast enough, maybe she could get her back here before Seylira realized they were missing. Kyrin realized that it was possible that Jensa had gone back to Gamla. She'd run to grab a lantern and flint, the clothing line in case the Morrow vine was no longer stable, and her cloak to keep out the chill night air.

She'd slip out the door and started headed immediately for the edge of town. It was still light enough that people should have been walking around the town center, hurriedly finishing the errands for the day before the night set in. But the streets were as empty as they'd been last night. Things were oddly still, even for this place. Kyrin suppressed a shiver, despite the relative warmth of the evening. Something just didn't feel right.

Kyrin jumped when she heard raised voices. "She's a devil!" "Spawn of monsters, an abomination!"

"She'll kill us all, taint our children and pervert them to her evil deeds." "She must be destroyed, sent back to the hell hole she came from."

Kyrin broke into a run, stopping short in horror at what she encountered. A crowd of thirty, maybe forty people, an impressive turn out for such a small town. They formed a tight circle around something, but Kyrin couldn't see what. So far, she'd not yet been noticed, so it was easy to climb up on the roof of a firewood lean-to. From there, she could see whom all those angry people ringed in. It was Jensa. And right in front with her, was Mrs. Timbre, pointing a long, thin finger at Jensa accusingly.

"I saw her, last night. She moved like a serpent, as if she had no bones in her body. She's clearly a wild spirit dressed in the guise of a human! She'll poison our whole village. She's already tainted our cursed lives. That drought last year? The storm that tore our land apart the night they were born! She's brought this town nothing but hardship. She must be dealt with!"

The crowd nodded its approval, the word, 'exile' being whispered from person to person. That was the standard punishment, of course. Anyone who was different, anyone who could be held up as the scapegoat. Kyrin felt an icy pit in her stomach. Exile was the worst thing that could happen to Jensa. How would she ever survive out in the wilds? Feverishly her mind was trying to come up with a way out, something she could do to pacify the crowd. She hadn't even noticed at first that Mrs., Timbre had started speaking again.

"-not the right course of action. This blight is too powerful. Her Spirit will not leave this town easily, she will haunt it, curse us from afar. No, we need to take more powerful methods."

Kyrin's body tensed as the world seemed to slow down in front of her. The whole movement should have taken but a moment and yet it seemed endlessly slow, as if she had all the time in the world to join the crowd, calmly talk to them about their mistake and convince them that no, her sister wasn't possessed by the devil. As the seconds passed by though, her body felt heavy, feet planted into the boxes she stood atop. The only part of her that was able to move was her eyes as they followed the silver arc of the long handled knife. She was struck by how graceful the movement was, an after image of silver following behind like the tail of a shooting star. The beauty of the image was fleeting as are all things, red staining the falling light, extinguishing with it, the flames of hate.

This time there was no doubt as to where the scream came from it. It boiled up from deep inside, coursing out of ever part of Kyrin's body. She felt it, the cold steal imbedded in the side that was hers, but wasn't. The pain was real, a deep and eternally severing cut. For one moment, twin reflections into the soul locked on to each other, an eternity passing in an instant as time finally began to move again. But the reflection died as the lights went out. One body falling limply to the ground, a black mark in a sea of red, the reflection of the body, released from it's spell, and suddenly barely able to hold itself up. Barely aware of the stares and yelling moving ever closer to her. Her scream had drawn the attention of all those present, still echoed through the town, carried by some unseen wings to the very ends of the settlement and out into the wild lands. Broken threats and curses jumbled together in her head, forming incoherent sentences.

Kill

twin

same

taint

curse

revenge

stop

don't

must

never

let

one

live

Something was tearing, some fundamental part of the fabric that held her together. There was a large gash inside her, through which all that she knew was rushing out, like the red flood that drained from her Same. She'd been left behind, not able to keep up, not able to follow. Never again to follow, never again to be the one in back. Time would not slow down, nor flow in the typical pattern that other people…those people lived in. From now on, time is her own, accelerated never slowing down, never being caught, never being left in the dust. And indeed time had sped up, or perhaps everything else had slowed down while she'd stayed the same. Houses, trees, people all seemed to speed by her, and yet, they were standing still, and she was moving. The solidness of earth beneath her seemed more like the fluid movement of water, instead of the constant pressure of land.

Never stop, never be left behind, never, never, never. Keep moving, keeping running away; never stand, never fall.

Out of time, out of space, out of town, but never out of land, always more, always farther to go. With feet unmoving, they carry father, faster than the wind.

Farther and farther, closer and closer. No end, no beginning. Take the plunge, nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, no no no.

All there is, is the ever approaching black depths. Don't hesitate, don't falter, up to the edge, don't even stop. Just jump, jump into the darkness, fall into nothing, give yourself over to the engulfing, suffocating cold.

We are alone.