Page 47 of The Sisters of Crimson House

“How do you do it? Just open yourself up to what’s out there?” Charley shuddered at the memory of feeling she was going to be turned inside out, trapped inside eternal darkness.

“They’re not always trying to kill me,” Miranda said. She sat down on Charley’s bed, curling over a pillow she hugged to her chest. It made her look like a child.

Charley studied her sister anew. “But how do you…?” She was unable to articulate the horror. Of choosing that horror. She looked at her palm, at the mysterious lines forming like the ones carved into Sadie’s floor. Why had the Star chosen now to appear on her hand? What fresh horrors awaited?

“It’s what I was born to do,” Miranda said automatically, a practiced line from the many, many times she’d been asked. Her sister spoke as if it were some simple thing. She’d had a lifetime of training, of coaching by her family on spiritual etiquette. Charley flashed back to the last time they’d faced each other in her bedroom like this, Charley desperate for answers, Miranda marking up a journal with Sharpies rather than telling her sister anything.

“Every time I open this door,” said Charley, shaking her hand, “it just gets more confusing. I’m getting visions with no connective thread, and—”

She froze, a memory bubbling up from the void.

“What?” said Miranda, watching as Charley moved from the bed back to the desk.

She opened all the drawers, not caring if Miranda saw all the postcards she’d kept, the articles tracking her whereabouts. She knew it had to be here. She felt it before she saw it, the slim journal under a stack of Memphis magazines she’d kept that had interviews with Sadie.

“My journal?” Miranda said, watching Charley carefully as she walked back to the bed.

“The night before you left, you said I could keep this. I didn’t want to. I didn’t understand it, because honestly it kinda freaked me out.” Charley opened the journal, flipping through the pages. Scribbled black trees appeared to wave in the breeze as she turned each page. “Every time I get a mark on my hand, I’m seeing a tree. Over and over. A huge tree that looks like this.” She slid the journal over to Miranda, who took it but did not look at the pages. Instead she stared at Charley, unnerved.

“Tell me more about this big tree,” said Miranda. “Every detail.”

“It’s a really large tree,” began Charley, uncertainly. “I think it’s the one in Overton Park by the old house but crazy big. Sometimes there’s snakes falling from the branches, or sometimes they’re streamers made out of toilet paper. It changes, depending on the vision.”

“Paper snakes,” said Miranda suddenly.

“Yes! That’s what I want to call them,” said Charley, surprised.

Miranda absorbed this, shaken. “That’s not possible.”

She stared at the scribbled drawings, her hands shaking. A black gnarled tree erupted on the page. “Paper snakes,” she said. Miranda flipped through the journal, every page offering the same nightmarish drawing.

“When I first saw this in the journal, I thought this was you working through their accident. The tree where their car crashed,” said Charley.

Miranda shook her head. “It’s not the same tree. I’ve been dreaming about the paper snakes ever since the night Mom and Dad died,” said Miranda.

“Okay. So what does this mean?” said Charley, absorbing this.

“You tell me. What else do you see in your visions?” asked Miranda.

“A window where I’m looking outside? It gets really bright, and then I’m outside, always back at the tree, squinting up at it. Toilet paper or snakes hanging off the branches, but it’s always hard to see.”

“And why can’t you see?” Miranda asked her, intensely.

“Because the sun is in my eyes?” said Charley uncertainly. “It’s just always so bright, and then—”

“Someone screams your name,” Miranda finished for her, softly.

“Yes,” said Charley, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Because it’s me screaming.”

***

Miranda’s dream goes like this:

The sun filters in through the trees of Overton Park, casting shadows like fingers on the sidewalks and asphalt by their house. Charley is on her bike, ignoring the burn in her legs as she pumps her legs as fast as she can. It’s so bright, it’s hard to see, but she can still make out Miranda ahead, a curtain of black hair billowing behind her as she races ahead on her ten-speed.

“Wait up!” Charley calls out, not wanting to be left behind.