Chapter 6: Clueless

            I sat up and screamed: “Sylvia!” gasping for breath, I looked around. I was…in my bed? Looking around I saw that my sister was not in her bed.

            In a sudden rush, I recollected what happened the night before. My sister dragged off into the darkness, the gold and silver creature talking to me, and the keys of Elen: Sadness, Regret, Anger, Revenge, and Pain.

I started to sob. My little sister was gone. Some small part of me wanted to think about what the creature had said about Sylvia being my twin sister, but mostly I was too exhausted to think too hard. I just kept crying and peeking over to see Sylvia’s bed.

Soon my aunt rushed in and sat on the edge of my bed. She didn’t say anything, just looked at me for awhile and then went out. A few minutes later she came back in with a mug and a stack of pancakes on a tray. I continued to cry as she set the tray down beside me and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Slowly, I came to the fact that crying was going to get me nowhere, and sniffling, I lay back down on the bed. My stomach suddenly growled with hunger, and I forced myself to smile.

I sat up slowly and placed the tray on my lap. Looking down, I noticed a folded piece of paper between my hot cocoa and pancakes. I unfold it and read:

“I know you’re probably in shock about your sister. But you need to tell me exactly what happened to you. I need to know. So we can find Sylvia together.”

I frowned. I remembered clearly what happened the other night, but I just wasn’t ready to share it with anyone just yet. It was not that I didn’t trust my aunt…well, maybe that was part of it. But I just felt that this was something I needed to sort out on my own, at least for now.

Aunt Helena

I sat. And thought. I thought about what happened that night. What could’ve happened.

But suddenly, I couldn’t keep focused. Tears flowed unwillingly down my cheeks and I began to cry. I cried about my sister, who was in the asylum. I cried about Sylvia, who was lost. I cried about Elen, my elder late sister, of whom I loved dearly. But mostly, I cried about Evelyn, about how clueless she was. Because her real mother was dead.

Evelyn

            I sighed contently, patting my full stomach. While eating, I had decided to search on my own, and the first place I would search would be the house. Frowning, I hopped out of bed and walked over to the closet.

            I put on jeans and a red sweater. Suddenly, a pang shot through me when I realized Sylvia wore a red sweater when we first woke up in this house. I grab the bottom of the sweater and rip it off me, putting on a red long-sleeve shirt instead. Shoving the sweater in the very back of the closet, I stalk out of my room.

|***|

            I sneezed, blowing up a bunch of dust. The particles flew towards my nose, and I sneezed again.  I glanced nervously at the attic entrance, freezing to listen for footsteps.

            I knew it would be a while before aunt found out I was poking around here in the attic, searching for keys or clues, but I had to be cautious, just in case.

            Swinging my flashlight around, I dug around in cardboard boxes, looking for something important. I only found files, useless books, and tons and tons of papers.

            Once I got all excited because I thought I had found one of the five keys, but it turned out just to be an old, moldy car key. I had thrown it away in disgust.

            Again, I continued to sneak around the piles of boxes, careful not to stomp too hard on the wooden floorboards. Peeking around a huge pile of junk, I was surprised to find a giant trunk, made purely of a silver metal. It had lost its shine, but it somehow still retained some of its previous beauty.

            I walked over and kneeled down in front of it. In the front and center was what looked like a rusted lock. This thing was seriously old. As quietly as possible, I lifted the lid and flipped it back.

            Inside were five diaries and a photo album. Reaching down, I took them out and stuffed them under my shirt as delicately as possible. I looked back at the trunk and examined the metal. Engraved in the bottom left corner of the chest was the name Elen. I frowned. The name seemed familiar. I sneezed again, and decided to get out of the attic before I thought about it more. Smiling to myself, I began to weave through the cardboard boxes and back to the attic entrance.

            All of a sudden, footsteps sounded. Flicking my flashlight off, I knelt behind a cardboard box and froze. Peeking out, I kept my eyes on the attic entrance.

             The footsteps got louder as they continued. Two seconds passed, and the footsteps finally stopped. I relaxed the slightest bit, and closed my eyes. But my eyes flickered opened when I realized that I hadn’t closed the top of the silver trunk.

            I start to shuffle towards the trunk, but I freeze again when the attic entrance swings open. Aunt Helena clambered in and started to walk in the direction of the trunk. Dread filled me as I anticipated her reaction to the open lid the chest’s empty contents.

            Listening closely, I heard her shuffle across the floorboards and stop in front of the silver chest. Peering around a box, I watched as she peered into the chest and gasped. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from gasping myself.

            Aunt snapped her head up and looked around. I knew she suspected me already, but what could I do? She then began to stomp around the trunk, routinely looking up, down, and around. The whole attic vibrated with her tension. I slowly felt the album and diaries through my shirt. They must be valuable to her. I thought.

Suddenly, a small box fell off a pile and landed next to the stack of boxes I was hiding behind, sending dust straight up my nostrils. A sneeze began to build up as Aunt Helena froze and looked in my direction. Silently, I began to think: Please don’t investigate the noise. Then, Please don’t let me sneeze.

My nose began to feel in dire need of a sneeze, so instead of covering my mouth, I pinched my nose. But that left my mouth the only source of breathing. And of course, breathing through your mouth is far louder than breathing through your nose. I tried to keep my breaths as quiet as possible, but the huh-haah of air moving through my mouth resounded in my ears.

“Who’s there?” my Aunt whispered into the attic. She sounded completely terrified. I mean, seriously, who else would it be but me? “G-Gib? She said, raising her voice. Suddenly, she drops to her knees and holds her heads in her hands, like her brain is going to pop out of her head any second now.

“M-my sister…” she whispers, and I’m struggling to hear her. My mother, Ariane; is that who she’s talking about?

“My elder sister…” Aunt says a bit louder. I frown, because something sounds wrong with that sentence. But before I can think on it longer, Aunt Helena bursts into tears and cries out: “SHE’S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!” I’m solid still. The only sound is my aunt sobbing away.

I sit there and feel guilty, because I have some relation to this Aunt of mine who got killed, or something. But, I don’t even know her.

Aunt shuffles out of the attic, whispering something along the lines of: “No…me,” But I can’t quite make it out because she’s still choking on her tears.

I hear the attic door shut, and I let out the sneeze I was holding in. Then in the silence I take a deep breath-

-And freeze halfway through my inhaling. Because as far I know, my mother, Ariane, never had two older sisters. She only had one: Helena. The aunt I was currently living with. Helena was the eldest. So who was Gib? And who was the eldest child?

I start coughing and hacking up dust when I realize I haven’t breathing for a while. Dizzy with information, I start making my way back to my room.

Stumbling, I somehow make it down the stairs and to my door. My fingers tightly grasp the doorknob and yank it open. I take one step inside, and then shuffle forward to collapse on the bed.

I’ve had enough for one day.

Chapter 5: The Keys

           That night, I woke to Aunt Helena vigorously shaking me.”What!?” I demanded, sitting up. The lights in the room were on and Aunt Helena was sitting on my bed, a horrified look on her face.

            “Where’s your sister? Where’s Sylvia?” She screamed at me.

            Panicking, I looked to see Sylvia’s bed. It was empty. Yesterday’s events came flooding back. Fairy rings, the argument, the empty room when I came back, me falling asleep, assuming Sylvia would come back later. Aunt Helena continued to screech at me, which jarred me out of memory lane. “CALM DOWN!!!” I screamed back my Aunt. She froze.

            “Where’s your sister, Evelyn?” she whispered, now that everything had gotten quiet.

            “I don’t know…assumed she would be back…the book…fairy rings…fight,” I whispered, zooming through all of the details with no particular out of order.

            Aunt Helena seemed to realize that I was panicking. “Shhh,” she said, and then a little louder, “Slow down and tell me what happened.”

            Slowly, I told her about the book and our argument and about the color red and the fairies. I told her everything.

|***|

            Aunt Helena closed her eyes and breathed in and out. She had been doing this for 5 minutes now. “I haven’t been very truthful, have I?” she whispered, finally breaking the silence.

            “I guess not,” I answered, “But what about Sylvia? What happened?”

            “Judging from what you told me about Sylvia and her interest in the fairy rings, she could be in grave danger.” Her face darkened, and she frowned.

            “Danger?” I repeated, “But-I though fairies were nice! Y’know like those fairies in the little girls books…”

            Aunt was slowly shaking her head. “Real fairies are much, much, worse.”

            I opened my mouth to speak, but Aunt Helena put a finger to her lips.

            “It’s almost midnight. If she stands in a fairy ring at 12:00, she will be cursed to dance forever with the fairies…until she dies.”

            “Really?” I asked, this seemed a little extreme.

            “Don’t take me for a fool, if you don’t want to come, then don’t!”

            “I’m coming.”

            We rushed out into the night.

|***|

            I panted heavily. “How do you even know where she is?” I asked, huffing.

            “She should be somewhere!” Aunt yelled back. “Sylvia!” She screamed into the night.

            I checked my watch. It read 11:55 against the glowing green background. “Aunt!” I cried, “The time!”

            Just then we heard a piercing scream. “EVELYN!!!”

            “Sylvia?” I panicked, running towards her voice, not even making sure that Aunt was following me. “SYLVIA!” I picked up my speed, running faster and faster. My foot suddenly caught on a root and I went flying forward. My mouth open, I hurtled into the ground.

            Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, I looked up to see my sister reaching out to me with an outstretched hand. She stood in the center of toadstools, but she wasn’t dancing like Aunt said she would be, she looked frozen.

I reached out to her, my hand trembling, I longed to go over and just pull her out from the circle, but my legs wouldn’t move.  I was frozen too. Frozen. Just like Sylvia.

Frozen in time.

I tried to scream out, but I couldn’t. My eyes couldn’t dart around. Instead, they were glued to Sylvia’s screaming face. Time stretched out like space. It went on for what seemed like forever.

In the space of the moment, three things happened.

The first thing was that five, foot tall colorfully dressed midgets with wings stepped out of nowhere. The second thing was that four of them started to drag Sylvia back into the darkness. Suddenly, she was unfrozen. She screamed out and thrashed about. But the creatures had iron grips on her. Slowly, silently, they backed into the darkness, their bright red eyes like daggers, piercing right through my skin. I couldn’t move.

The third and most frightening thing that happened was that the fifth winged creature, all dressed in gold and silver, walked up to me, and whispered in my ear:

“Your precious twin sister is now ours.” I gasped. Twin sister? Sylvia was nowhere near me in looks or age. How in the world could we be twins?” The person sighed as I snapped back to reality. “Surprised, huh? Guess it deceived even you…” he grinned, “Well, as I was saying, I would take you too, right now, but-“ he sighed, “the master enjoys a good show, so I suppose I’ll send you on a little journey.

Smirking, the person held up five different colored keys. “The keys of Elen,” he pointed to each of the keys, giving them names. “The key of Sadness, Regret, Anger, Revenge, and Pain.”

Weirdly enough, as the winged person read out the keys’ names, I felt a pang of shock as I felt the emotions mentioned whirling through me. My eyelids began to droop, and I felt myself getting dizzy and sleepy. The world went sideways and a voice whispered in my ear:

“Find all five, and we might just give your sister back… just maybe…” The voice snickered, and then everything went black.