Sara remembered her parents taking starry strolls through town late into the night before her father left. She wondered if her mother was mourning and the bitter tea was an attempt to spare them from her suffering. 

​

It wasn’t long before Nina convinced Sara to join in faking their way through the heavy-eyed tea and meeting by the hearth beneath the attic. Initially, Nina suggested they spend the time snooping through the house, but Sara was far more reluctant to test their mother’s temper. They compromised to use the time for inspiration, sharing a passion for reading and writing. 

​

One night, Nina appeared before the hearth with a stack of glinted hardcover novels piled high over her head. “I’ve created a disguise. She’ll never know.”

Sara rejoiced. “Where did you unearth these?”

She lowered the books beneath her eyes, still hiding. “Ask mother, if you have the nerve. I saved them from a cluttered disaster. She’s collecting all sorts of things recently.”

“She said you could have them?”

Nina dropped the pile of books. “Should I have asked?”

“You know how she is, Nina. If you’re caught.”

She handed her one with a heavy thunk. “I’m careful.” 

After finishing a poignant passage, Sara felt herself escaping to an exhilarating dimension. “All I want is to write. To make people feel the way I do when I read something beautiful.”

Nina selected another book. “I found this. I want you to keep it. Father’s journal.”

Sara took it in her hand gently as if holding a treasured relic. “He left this? I never knew he wrote.”

“He never shared much.”

“It must be in my blood to write.” She eagerly flipped through every page, all scribbled, scratched, and torn; not a single entry remained.

Nina leaned closer. “Strange, isn’t it? Do you think he did that because he enjoyed secrets? Or is my blood from our mother?”

“Don’t be cruel.”

“Don’t be naive.”

 

Sara writhed awake with a stiff spine cracking away from the decrepit mattress where she slept. As everything came into focus, she noticed something was reflecting light in the otherwise empty attic; glimmering under a sunbeam cast over uneven, drab stones was a bronze pen crowned with a crimson quill that had belonged to James Wills.

 

Sara coasted dreamily down the stairs in a creative afterglow, late for the meager family breakfast that awaited. 

 

An unseasonably harsh heat bursting from the main floor suddenly made it difficult to breathe.

 

It wasn’t until the last twist of stairs that the source revealed itself; a fire had been lit over the hearth, trapping her from entering the rest of the house. 

 

 

She paced the stairwell, up and down, up and down, drawing nearer to the fire to see how much she could withstand. She considered running through the flames. As she held her breath to dip her toes into the hot coals, she heard her mother and Nina together in the kitchen, laughing. 

​

 

The fire roared late into the night. 

 

A door creaked open and slammed shut beneath her, startling her awake. She perched in a tiny window facing town as her mother shuffled down the hill into a small shop. After hours of waiting and dozing in and out of sleep, she saw her mother exit the shop, carrying nothing.

​

 

When she sat up for sunrise, the writing set was gone, but the fire had died. 

​

 

At breakfast, Elaine and Nina chewed slowly as Sara scarfed down her meal. Elaine avoided eye contact with Sara. Instead, she remained intent on Nina, who smiled back warmly.

 

When the sisters spoke of it later, Nina said laconically, “You know how she is.”

​

 

Elaine left again late that night, but the twins did not meet. 

​

​

 

Nina awoke before dawn to prepare breakfast, surprised to find that her mother was not impatiently waiting at the head of the table as she usually was. 

​

 

She was nowhere to be found.