Part Three

I faked everything. School was easy, my parents never checked The rest was harder, it wasn’t easy to pretend I was the best in my gymnastics class when I had never touched a baton.

I acted sick for a while, to excuse my sudden failures. My parents worried, my father wanted to take me to a specialist, my mother stayed home with me to try to nurse be back to health. I finally got the love that I had craved my whole childhood, but I knew it wasn’t for me. My mother thought she was taking care of Abel not me.

Time went on and things got worse. I started dreaming of my sister, that day in the fields. Night after night after night.

I’d walk to school and I would see her from the corner of my eye, walking somewhere , only to disappear when I turned around.

I’d see her for a split second in my reflection. I was so sure I was looking at her, rather than myself. She would have her mouth open, letting out a scream, just like that day.

She would sit next to me in class, become my dance partner in ballet class and hold my waist as I spun around. And then I would blink, and she would be gone, replaced by someone else.

But she would always disappear. I told myself it was only the fruit of a guilty conscience, and almost believed it, until one day she spoke to me in a dream.

***

I asked her why she kept on following me around. Was she hoping in some resurrection ritual? Or to persuade me to admit what I had done?

‘I can’t bring you back Abel, not even if I wanted to.’ I said.

‘I don’t want to be brought back, Abel.’ She responded. ‘But I do want revenge.’

‘So kill me, avenge your death, I don’t want this life, your life anymore.’

‘Dramatic as always. You’re not the victim here. I never did anything to you. Our parents neglecting you must have messed you up, but I didn’t have it easy either. But you know that now.’

‘I will not kill you, but you, Isabel Atwood, will be punished anyway. My blood soaked our fields, the soil of your precious plants. Every tree, flower, and shrub you try to tend to will wither from now on. I will take away the one true skill you had.’

‘Tomorrow, at first light, you will leave our home, and if you ever return, I will haunt you for the rest of your life. Nothing will ever be able to kill you. Not people, not sickness, not age. Your life will end only by your hand, as mine.’

And with those last words, she kissed me on the forehead, sealing her oath.

I woke up and ran to the bathroom. Red lips were painted above my brow, as if someone had just kissed me.

My mark, Abel’s promise.