Weird Sisters

Spirits of earth, gaze up upon us

Spirits of sky, drape down above us

Spirits of trees, stand strong around us.

Shroud our town from all who would do harm

Shroud our town within thy goodly charm.

Shroud our town from all who are not we

Shroud us with invisibility.

Let no outsiders here befall us

Safety can be found in smallness.

It was five months, a week and two days into my life of solitude when I knew for sure that I was not alone in the house. At first I told myself it was a trick of the light, or that the sleep still hanging across my eyes in the mornings slowed everything down by a fraction of a second as my mind struggled to awaken and fall in step with the world. But once I was truly looking, I saw it every time: the hand in the mirror lifted to brush the hair from its forehead less than a heartbeat after I moved mine; the hazel eyes lingered on my face for the space of a blink after I turned my head.

And still, I might have gone on convincing myself it meant nothing, it was merely a strange curve in the glass or an unexpected side effect from the herbs and flowers I used in my daily work, were it not for the fury I saw in that face. A flash of fire in the eyes, the tiniest, cruelest curl of the lip as it regarded me. Eventually, one evening at dusk, I stepped out into the garden, away from the spotted mirror and anything else reflective, and watched the riot of orange and pink turn purple and then navy as I admitted to myself what I should have expected all along: Eris had found a way to escape, or transform or expand, the prison in which I had placed her.

It was unsurprising, really, that I had underestimated her yet again. It was my refusal to see the truth of her dark obsessions, and of just how far she had taken her ambitions, that led me to do what I did. She was always faster at learning spells than I was, always impatient to move on to more complex and demanding skills, but to me it was just another sign of her brilliance, proof that the thirteen minutes she'd lived in this world before I entered it had truly imbued her with superiority and power beyond mine, as she'd always said.

It pained me to think of how my admiration and praise for Eris gradually became defense and excuses. Others in the village weren't so willingly fooled; they saw what books she pored over, what ingredients she bought at the market, what she grew in the back garden. Neighbors began avoiding her in the streets and at our gatherings, and they watched me with lingering, suspicious glances. Not because they confused us – we were easily distinguished by our dress, our carriage, our expressions, even if our features and our heights were the same – but because they believed it fell to me to be her counterweight, the light to her dark. It was my job to contain her.

One day in the spring, three of the elders cornered me as I left the bookshop.

Edira, you know your sister's broken the rules, said the tallest, without preamble. We can't allow this to go on much longer.

What rules are those? I looked down, pretending to rearrange the small jars in my basket. Is mere experimentation now outlawed?

A fine word for it, the second elder scoffed. You imply benevolence or intellectual pursuit where there is only arrogance.

What she is doing is dangerous, said the third, leaning in even closer to me. We have seen it before. Surely we don't need to remind you what can happen, to all of us, when one of our number strays too far afield.

I stood up straighter, adjusting my cloak around my shoulders. It was my favorite, green embroidered with purple-blossomed vines. Our mother had stitched it years ago.

But we are protected, are we not? As we are so often reminded. None from the outside can find us unless we wish them to. So what need we fear of their disapproval?

The elders shifted and clucked angrily, like a trio of disgruntled chickens. You speak like a child, said the middle. Our protections are not an excuse to be reckless. Do you think our spells utterly infallible? The world is full of conjurers without scruples.

And we need the good favor of the spirits, interjected the eldest. They have looked well upon us these many years, but they could abandon us here if we anger them with defiance.

And that is to say nothing of what is right, the youngest added. Our bylaws here have naught to do with the outside. We do not commit harm because we know it to be wrong. It is known.

The middle elder took in a breath to say more, but I cut across her, fighting to keep my voice from shaking.

Eris has harmed no one. If she is challenging herself and— and mastering more difficult skills than the rest of us dare to, then she should be commended, not condemned.

There is no reason for those spells but to cause suffering, the tallest said flatly. Brilliance without goodness is no virtue at all.

You don't know Eris as I do, was all I could manage by way of reply. I know what she is capable of, and what she is not. Good day, ladies.

I forced myself not to look back at the three of them as I walked away, to keep my chin tipped proudly upward, as though I had meant every word with utter conviction. But it was only half-true, I can admit that now, at least within my own heart. I knew what she could do, but I didn't yet understand the full force of her will. Or perhaps the right word is 'desire.'

Summer had not yet arrived before we learned of the sickness several towns over. Of course she had sense enough not to perform her first act at home, but her pride wouldn't let her go any farther off. She wanted to witness the fallout, I realized, far too late. She wanted to observe the confusion, the fear and the awe whip through the villages like a harsh wind over dry cornstalks.

It took me three days. Three days of mingled doubt, guilt and a deep, strange lake of sadness roiling within me before I asked her. I spent several pointless hours in the garden, avoiding her and avoiding the question lodged in my throat, but eventually I reentered the house, my eyes momentarily stunned by the late afternoon darkness after a day spent in the sunlight.

Eris was seated at the scrubbed wooden table by the west-facing window, an oversized book with crackling, yellowing pages open before her. She was taking notes in a small brown notebook with a worn leather cover and dangling strings; she kept it with her at all times as of late, and hid it well while she slept. I had searched for it to no avail the night after the elders found me in the street.

I moved to the table beside her. She didn't look up.

Did you make them sick? I said simply. There was no need to work up to it; she disliked evasions and dissembling.

Her gaze remained on her books, but her hand stopped moving and rested on the page. Is that really what you want to ask me?

What?

Now she looked up, her expression cool. I think what you want to ask is why, or perhaps why I didn't ask for your assistance.

I sank into the chair across from her, placing my hands in my lap so she wouldn't see them shaking. Why ever would I assist you with something like that?

You wouldn't, she said, a disappointed sigh hovering under the words, and so I didn't ask.

I stared at her. I had been steeling myself for this moment for days, and yet I had nothing to say? Why was I always so unprepared for her strength? She didn't need a tonic to stop my tongue or a spell to make me second-guess every thought in my head, and I hated myself for it.

Progress requires experimentation, she said after a moment, and I flinched at her coolly patient tone. Experimentation contains risk. Risk is our greatest teacher. Enlightening ourselves is our indelible right as living things.

Enlightening? I repeated, so softly I may only have mouthed the word. I swallowed hard. That village…those people did nothing to deserve your enlightenment.

She tossed her head, looking out the window towards the trees and their lengthening shadows. Bad luck comes to all of us at one time or another, Edira, she said. It has little to do with deserving. This was simply their time. And I have learned so much already.

She looked back at me with an expression I'd never seen before. Or rather, I'd seen only glimmers, flashes. Now it devoured her entire face. At the same time, her fingers shifted slightly on her notebook in her hand, concealing what she'd just written. I tried once more.

But the elders say…

I hated the petulance in my voice even before I saw her look of scorn. The elders, she repeated. I have heard all their double-tongued axioms. We are safe here, but not entirely safe. We are invisible, but we mustn't call attention. Our spells are powerful, but others could be more so. Here we have our freedom, but we must always remain humble and fearful. Do you not see these lies for the shackles they are?

I said nothing, and she turned back to her books.

I will not be constrained by the demands of the incurious, she said simply, speaking into the void of my silence. I will make myself small for no one.

Had I not chosen to venture into town the following day, I might never have learned what the council was planning. Were it not for the fact that I found the cold looks and whispers from my neighbors a more bearable torment than my sister's unconcerned silence, save for the eager scratching of her pen, I would never have made the choice to save her. If that is in fact what I did.

I wandered the streets with no purpose in mind, my bonnet pulled low over my eyes. Soon, I realized my feet had taken me instinctively to the herbs and tea shop. I had always found the fragrances, the gentle clink of jars and rustlings of parchment wrappings soothing.

The only other customer, a woman I recognized vaguely as one of the town's beekeepers, stopped speaking to the young shopgirl the moment I entered. I hovered by the shelf of lavender blossoms and oils, allowing the scent to settle over me. More whispers, and then the door opened and closed.

The girl – I recalled seeing her dance at the fall festival, her red and orange skirts swirling hypnotically, but her name evaded me – swooped out from behind the corner and came to my side.

My father says they will come for Eris soon, she said in a quiet rush. Perhaps even tomorrow.

I lifted my head to look at her. Of course, her father sat on the high council. I had watched him address us countless times from the dais in the barn; she had his pale blue eyes. But hers were concerned rather than imperious.

They say it was she who cursed the town by the river, the girl continued, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the front door. But surely no one could…

She leaned closer, seemingly unaware that her fingers were gripping my wrist. What will she do? Will she plead her innocence? Flee?

Part of me had believed that the strange incident appeared too random, too meaningless to be assigned blame, at least outside of the thicket of rumor and gossip, but it would be untrue to say that I had not also expected this. They already suspected her, and likely had for long before they addressed me in the street. We all knew what happened to those of us who violated the most serious laws – those too young to remember heard the dark tales from those who had witnessed it, or claimed to have done – but it had been so long since the last enquiry that it had almost become a thing of the past, a relic of a harsher time. But no longer.

I stared unseeingly at the lavender blooms for a long moment, then back into the face of the nervous shopgirl, who was still awaiting my reply.

Thank you, was all I said, and left the store. Before I reached home, I knew what I was going to do.

Eris had always been so impatient. She had no interest in basic spells, for simple remedies and everyday skills, and it always fell to me to mend broken things in our home, to brew up tonics, to bind wounds with fresh comfrey roots. She marched through the world without fearing, traipsing through the dark forests alone and exploring the borders in every sense of the term.

And she never bothered to carry protective tokens: many of us in the village carried powerful antidote mixtures within lockets around our necks, or wore enchanted curse-breaking stones as rings. We spoke of them merely as sensible provisions, a convenient method of repair in the unlikely events of recipe errors or spells misapplied by hasty young hands and lips – but was that all? Eris' way of thinking began to infect mine, slipping whispered doubts into my ears: was it just another way to keep us afraid of the rest of the world?

Perhaps she also underestimated me, in her way. Or she thought me too ensnared by our lifelong bond to defy her. Whatever the reason, when she finally looked up from her books with a huff of annoyance, irritated by my quiet chanting and the sharp smell of burnt hair, she saw the glass ornament in my hand and realized, too late, what I was doing. In the seconds before she vanished from sight, the expression on her face was one of utter astonishment.

The elders came the following night, just as the girl had said. Perhaps they thought it was safer to capture her in her sleep, or perhaps they wanted to avoid making a spectacle by hauling her through the crowded streets in daytime. By then I had hidden most of her belongings – some I placed inside the glass with her; my intention was not cruelty – and others I disposed of.

We quarreled, and when I returned home she had gone, I told the elders, and despite the lie it took no playacting to bring tears to my eyes. They knew that I knew what such a thing meant: there was no returning for those who left alone or without permission. Approval could be granted for short journeys with purpose, but an escort was required and a careful inspection performed upon return. It had been many years since anyone had chosen to depart for good, but surely, I hoped, it was entirely plausible that Eris had done so.

I knew she could likely see and hear the entire conversation. They could not see or hear her, no matter how she raged, roared or beat her fists against the glass – but she would never have given in to such an indignity, I knew. Even as I spun my tale and assured the elders that I would alert them if she tried in any way to contact me, I could picture her inside her prison, arms folded, eyes flashing, silent but for her furious breaths. The visitors didn't even glance at the unremarkable glass bauble on the mantel, and why would they have done?

After they left, I approached the fireplace and placed my hand on the shelf, as though on her shoulder.

I had no choice, I told her. I couldn't let them take you, but I can't allow you to continue what you've done. This was the only way to keep everyone safe.

The glass seemed to swirl with angry fog, reddish-black. Or did I simply know her well enough to understand the color of her fury at this insult? The last of my denial was gone; I knew her better now than I ever had.

I will release you when you agree to cause no further harm, and you may leave here if that is your wish, I continued. I was not as naïve as I had once been; I had sealed the glass with a binding spell, and if she accepted my terms, she would be held to her promise by more than her mere word.

It is not weakness to use your brilliance for good. Our rules are there to protect life, including our own. Surely your rebellion can't be worth this.

There was no response. An owl screamed somewhere in the trees outside, but the house was quiet. Days passed, then weeks. Then it was five months without my sister. It was a strange way to be gone. I knew where she was every moment, but with every day that passed with her stubborn silence, the further away from me she seemed to be.

And then one day, the mirror changed. My reflection began to defy me, its movements just slightly out of step with mine, its expressions cold and harsh when I was instead fatigued, shrewd when I felt merely melancholy. If I turned my head quickly as I passed by, or if I stood before it with my head lowered and then looked up with a sudden snap, I had time enough to see it change, to rearrange its features into its best approximation of mine.

How had she done it? The glass prison remained intact, my enchantment had held. I had allowed her none of her beloved books, she had no talisman. And yet…

I found myself opening the curtains only when the sun had fully risen and closing them again in late afternoon, not wishing to catch sight of her-me-us in the windowpanes. Was traveling through glass even possible? I had never heard of such an ability, but then, many of her talents were unknown to me before she displayed them. I considered looking through her forbidden books for an explanation, but they were forbidden for a reason. What if they were sealed with curses? What if she had shielded them from any gaze but her own? Opening the cover could wipe my memory, burn my eyes.

Or perhaps she had found a way into anything in which our shared face was visible. I started avoiding anything smooth and calm, even still bowls of water. We had always shared clothes; what if her essence remained in the cottons and silks?

Or perhaps it was none of these and she was simply trying to drive me mad, I thought, lying in bed at night and watching the shadows of tree branches dance on the ceiling. I have trapped her body, and so her revenge is to trap me within my own mind.

I needed to understand. I returned to the mirror.

For a moment, I saw only myself, pale and uncertain. Then: the eyebrow quirked, one corner of the mouth twitched. She was amused by my fear.

Eris, I said aloud. Another twitch. I swallowed the useless question of how and asked, Where does this end?

I waited, half-expecting her to maintain her stony silence, again proving herself the stronger one as I gave in to desperation. But then—

We have always been two, a perfect balance.

Her lips didn't move with the words. Was I hearing her from within the glass, or only inside my head?

We were two, but then you chose for us both. You reduced us to one. You chose yourself and reduced me.

You have always chosen yourself, I hissed, and my hands gripped the sides of the mirror. You chose yourself over all those people. You put your ambition above their lives.

And yet you thought you could best me, Edira, she replied, and the breath seemed to leave my body at the ease with which she said it. Gone were her excuses, the pull in her voice signaling her desire to make me understand. It seemed that by containing her, pressing her to give in and change her ways, I had instead hardened her resolve. I had crushed her into a diamond.

My hands had grown cold, and then hot on the mirror's edges. Was I imagining things in my anguished state, or was I unable to loosen my grip?

This can't go on, I said quietly, and I realized I was leaning closer and closer to the glass. We cannot battle over this forever.

I agree, Eris said, still in that calm voice. But you made your choice. You reduced us to one. And now one we must remain.

I felt dizzy. The room seemed to pitch like a ship's deck, the wooden floor slanting beneath me. The mirror was before me – or was it under me?

Was I falling?

You could have fled yourself, you know, Eris continued, and despite my disorientation her voice seemed clearer, sharper, as though she were standing right next to me. Like when we shared a bed as children, and she would send me off to sleep with stories of her own invention, elaborate tales of adventures, villains and twisted surprises.

If you found me so objectionable, you could have gone and left me to face the penalty you believed I was owed. If you were brave, you would have left and abandoned me to this jejune place. But you decided that only one of us deserved a life at all.

I was weightless. The mirror was silver mist. The world around me was swallowing me whole. Now her voice was above and all around me. Shrouding me in green. Or no – that was my favorite cloak, billowing in the air.

Why had she thrown it around her shoulders so? It was mine.

And yet, I should thank you, Eris said. In imprisoning me this way, you've also given me my absolution. Or at least—

(and here I could hear her smile, or could I in fact see it? It seemed as large as the sky, as dark as a raincloud)

—a perfect disguise. Because who, sister, will be able to tell the difference now?

Was it Eris chanting in a mocking tone? Or did I simply hear the old familiar words from within?

Safety can be found in smallness.