(Untitled)

This just went to a stupid, stupid place, but I love where it started. I'll have to try to chop off the ending and forget it sometime. Still needs a title . . .


My twin sister Hettie and I will only seem attractive to the men who want our fortune. We have come to accept this, and have given up any attempt to pretend otherwise. Now we sit in our rooms all day, writing romance novels, and trying to convince our older sister Geraldine that she is dead without telling her that we killed her.

“Alright, if I am dead,” she says, spinning in her nightgown, “How did I die?”

“You tripped on the stairs and broke your neck,” Hattie mumbles. She is bent over her latest manuscript, editing it. Hettie is a much better writer than I am, but I sometimes sneak in a little hint of bedroom relations, so my novels sell a great deal more. I have never been able to tell how she feels about this. I drum my feet against the clawed feet of my desk, set close to hers. I am not in the mood to write; I have not felt very romantic lately.

Our bedroom once felt like a safe haven, the only place in the world when Hettie and I would not be judged by people. I used to love its overstuffed feeling. The wallpaper is covered in enough flowers for twenty gardens, the rose-colored carpet is several inches thick, and there are three tables, a large cabinet, and quite a few bookcases in the study alone. Our bedroom is equally full, with our over-sized brass four-poster, a clothing cupboard for both of us, and a dressing table with two elegant chairs. We spent many days in here, playing with our dolls and telling each other stories about a world we did not truly understand, a place where all the women were beautiful and pure, all the men noble and handsome, all the romances grand and tragic. Now it feels like a prison. I do not know if Hettie feels the same way; I pray that she does.

“Impossible!” Geraldine declares, startling me out of my melancholy musing. “I have marvelous grace and poise. I could never have tripped, let alone fallen. Miss Danvers always said that I was the best ballet student she’d ever had.” To prove it, she does a grand jeté across the room, failing to notice that she floats through the bedpost as she does so. “There! Could somebody with that much skill ever die by falling down the stairs? Of course not! It is a ludicrous notion.”

Hettie and I look at each other and sigh. Geraldine’s long black hair hides the unnatural position of her bones, so we cannot point that out to her. It seems hopeless. Unless we explain the exact way in which she died, which Hettie has very kindly agreed not to do, she will continue to refuse to believe us and continue to haunt our bedroom.

I have not slept properly since that night.

“Geraldine, if you are alive, why do you not ever leave this room? I am sure all your suitors miss you, and you must miss all your parties.” I find a scrap of scented stationary and move it about on the desk, sending up tendrils of lavender.
She stifles a fake yawn against her palm. “Those dears? Oh, they have become ever such bores, Angelica. I simply find them too tiresome for words anymore. Perhaps in a few months, when I am not suffering from such malaise of spirit.”

Our parents, social butterflies that they were, preferred tutors to governesses, in the opinion that neglected girls should be educated. We are all quite educated in French, the flute, and drawing, though I am tone deaf and Hettie cannot draw a straight line. Geraldine was the only one who had ballet lessons, for obvious reasons. Hettie and I are the more educated, unsurprisingly; as soon as Geraldine was old enough to walk without stumbling, she has been a social creature. Her busy life of dancing, balls, and afternoon garden parties, not to mention a natural disinclination for thought, brought the lessons to a end sooner rather than later.

“I thought some of them were rather nice,” I cannot help but say, though I immediately wish to bite my tongue and pull my words back into my mouth.

Geraldine smiles, exposing the hole where the tooth she knocked out against the landing had been. It is the only thing that cheers me as she coos and flutters her eyelashes. “Is that so, Angelica? Is there anyone in particular of whom you are speaking?” She presses her hand to her chest and strikes a pose. “True, they have become boring to me, but you do not go out in society as much as I do, after all. I am sure you are not accustomed to regular conversation yet, at least that which does not involve Hettie or myself. You have been sadly neglected. If you would like me to fix you up with one of my discarded beaus, I would be happy to do so.”

If I concentrate on my letter opener, I do not have to look at her. Hettie reaches over and places a calming hand on my arm. She smears some ink on me, but I do not mind.

“It would be difficult for you to set anyone up with anyone,” she says, tone thick with mockery, “being as you are dead and they would be unable to see you.”

Geraldine scoffs. “Then how are you able to see me, dearest sisters? Please, I have heard all of your arguments before; my logic will pierce each one.”

“We can see you,” Hettie snaps, “because we—”

I jerk in horror, and she changes her sentence quickly. “—are specially gifted with psychic abilities, of course. God has granted us some recompense for our state of existence.”

“Oh, yes. Your ‘condition.’”

For once, I am gratified to hear the disgust in her voice. If it bothers her, perhaps she will go away and haunt the kitchen, or the attic, or the stairs, anywhere but our bedroom. Since she died, she has been talking incessantly and smearing ectoplasm on our clothes when she tries them on. True, we the only ones who can see it, but ectoplasm has the unpleasant appearance of snail tracks. We tell the washerwoman to wash perfectly clean clothes, and she gives us perplexed looks.

“I honestly do not know how you go on living, so deformed in that manner.” Geraldine shudders theatrically and pats her hair, looking into our only mirror, a tiny brass thing set high on the wall. She then looks over at us. “Sisters, do you ever resent our parents for being cousins? After all, that is probably why you are the way you are. Granted, I have not been cursed in such a way, or in any way, but I have always been lucky.” Rummaging through my cupboard, her hand sinking though the wood, Geraldine tries on my straw hat with the yellow ribbons. I commissioned it when I still hoped that people would learn to love me, or at least tolerate me, and when I thought we might someday spend a vacation at the sea. “Angelica, this hat must look terrible against your sallow complexions. You should really let me have it.”

We glare at her. Hettie and I tend to avoid even thinking about our single-ness, our connected disfiguration that binds our slender waists together, and we do not appreciate her ham-handed references and snide remarks.

“We are not Egyptians, Gerry. You cannot take possessions with you to the afterlife. You. Are. Deceased.” Hettie slams her pen onto her desk. “I cannot edit like this, though it may be due to the publisher tomorrow.”

Geraldine frowns. “Honestly, sisters, you have had your fun, but enough is enough! This little charade of yours has gone on far too long.” Pulling off my hat, she tosses it onto the floor, almost treading on it as she reaches for Hettie’s yellow diamond necklace.

“It is no charade!” Hettie insists, her long face containing even more of an appearance of determination than usual. “It is but the honest truth. Why do you not believe us? You no longer belong on this mortal coil; ascend to the heavens for your eternal reward.” She scowls at her. “And Mother gave me that necklace; put it down.”

“Do not be so fussy,” says Geraldine, holding the necklace against herself and preening. “I will not hurt it.” She sighs and lets the piece slip from her hands onto the bed. “And truly, Hettie, if you are going to be so cruel as to tell me that you wish me dead, I do not think I wish to be around you anymore.” Pressing a hand against her temple, she limps to the door, not noticing that her feet are not quite touching the ground. “Tell the maid to send me some powders to combat this dreadful aching head you have given me. Perhaps she should being some laudanum as well, so that I can sleep when you have put me in such a terrible distress.” Stopping for a moment to see what affect her complaints have had on us, she sniffs to see us rolling our eyes. “You have no compassion for me at all.”

Hettie sighs and looks to heaven for strength. “Geraldine, we will not be saying anything to the maid about you, as she would think us mad for speaking of our dead sister, and we have no compassion for you, because you are a vain, coldhearted person even in death.”

“Ooooh!” Geraldine stamps a foot and huffs away, not bothering to even open the door as she leaves. “I hate you!” she shouts as she leaves, and the room temperature grows noticeably colder. I shiver, and Hettie copies me.