These Lying Eyes (5 page)

“What are you doing out here?” Mina demanded. “Where are you shoes, you dummy?”

“I don’t know.” Sarah’s voice broke, and she started to cry.

Mina slid her arm around her sister’s shoulder and tugged her into a hug. Turning, she led them both home.

“Mina.” Sarah’s voice trailed off. “I think I might be crazy.”

Mina pulled Sarah to a halt before asking softly, “Why?”

“I keep losing time.” Sarah sniffed and rubbed her hands across her face leaving a streak of dirt.

“Losing time?” Mina repeated, wiping Sarah’s face with the edge of her hoodie.

“I woke up in the woods last week.” Sarah said with a water hiccup.

“Is this the second time, then?” Mina bit her lip as Sarah shook her head. Mind racing, Mina thought that losing time was pretty bad.

Maybe really bad?

Without waiting for an answer, she asked, “Have you told Mom?”

Sarah shook her head. “She’s so freaked all the time with the triplets. How am I supposed to say that I think I might be crazy? She’d fall to pieces. You know how silent she gets whenever the least thing goes wrong.”

“I think you should tell Mom or Dad.” Mina said, trying not to choke on the irony.

Sarah shook her head, eyes wide in the darkness.

“Sarah…” Mina pleaded.

“Mina…” Sarah begged.

Her sister’s eyes could make Mina do just about anything. That gaze had manipulated her since her parents first laid Sarah in Mina’s small arms.

“You’re such a pain.” Mina said, with a squeeze of her sister’s shoulders and pulled her sister into the yard. Neither needed Mina’s confirmation that she’d help. They both knew she would.

Light spilled from the kitchen and onto the lawn.

“Does mom know you’re out here?” Mina asked, slanting a look at her sister.

Sarah shook her head, eyes wide and too bright. Trembling limbs were revealed every time a moonbeam hit them.

Mina tiptoed across the yard, holding Sarah’s hand as if she’d try to slide away and saw her Dad sitting on the back patio. One of them could climb the trellis but only if the other took the fall. Mina looked at Sarah with her torn gown and dirty feet and knew who it would be.

“Take the trellis, don’t step on the plant.” Mina whispered, adjusting her bag and walking up to her dad.

“Mina!” He yelled instantly as Sarah snuck through the shadows.

Chapter 4

“What do you think you’re doing out here, young lady? Why aren’t you in bed?” He rose, his red-bearded face hidden in the dark; his eyes, though obscured by the shadows were still able to send the clear message that her dad was super angry.

The sprites had followed Sarah to her room, and Mina was glad she didn’t have to listen to them curse while her Dad was a jerk, yet again.

“I was sitting in the orchard.” Mina answered with a scowl, suddenly certain that he wasn’t mad at her. Her phone had been silent; no one knew until now that she hadn’t been in her room. It was another sibling he was mad at, and she was the convenient target.

“I don’t know why you and your brother think you can come whenever you want.”

Fury rushed through her. She was right.

Her dad continued, shout rising in volume, “I don’t know why you kids think that you can do whatever you want, but you can not. You have responsibilities to this family, to your mother, and you will fulfill those.”

“Since when is sitting in the yard against the rules?” Mina asked, stepping into the light, “Or, is the real problem that Erik isn’t home or Jase and Kate don’t answer the phones on their Europe trip? I’m not my brothers or my sisters.”

“That is enough of that from you, Wilhelmina.”

Mina continued anyway, “Why don’t you just admit the truth? You forgot about me in the drama of whatever the others have going on?” Then she rushed past her dad and pounded up the stairs to her room.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said as Mina slammed the door to her room.

“For what,” Mina kicked the door before facing her sister.

“Dad wouldn’t have known you weren’t home if you weren’t covering for me.” Sarah had washed her face, and all sign of the black veins was gone.

Mina dumped her bag, wound her hair out of her face and surveyed the mess of her room. Finding a pile of clean clothes, she dug through for pajamas.

“Dad doesn’t know I’m alive if I’m not right in front of him,” Mina said as she walked to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. When she returned, Sarah had folded a pile of clothes and put them away. She was lifting piles of books and setting them on Mina’s shelves or the stairs to the turret.

The stairs to the turret led to a book nook filled with a window seat and piles of books. There was a small door to the attic. At the base of the stairs, french doors opened onto a second floor patio. The room was amazing and had been Mina’s for two years since their oldest sister had gone to college. Everyone had upgraded once Kate and Jase had moved out. Eric getting the large basement room to himself. Mina and Sarah no longer shared; Sarah kept the old room across the hall, while Mina got the upgrade by virtue of being a little older.

“You don’t have to clean my room.” Mina watched her sister work; before slumping onto the bed.

“I know, but…” Sarah trailed off, and Mina knew Sarah was stifling yet another apology.
Mina opened a bedside table drawer, pulled out a bag of dried apple chips and another of chocolate and tossed them to the end of bed where her sister would eventually curl up.

Sarah picked up Mina’s room while Mina read aloud. It didn’t take long before Sarah was in her usual spot, and they were sharing the snacks and letting the story carry their trouble away. It was the book Grace had given Mina, and it was winding up. It didn’t matter that Sarah had missed the beginning. It hadn’t for a long time. All that mattered was that they were stealing back pieces of their childhood when they read to each other in the night time.

As the story resolved, a new type of character appeared. A small one. With wings like a raven’s, hair as white as snow, and skin that faded from gray to blue. Mina licked her lips slowly, looking up as Sarah popped a chocolate into her mouth.

It was actually called a sprite. But that couldn’t be. Right? That’s what Mina had named her imaginary friends. Granted, it wasn’t the most original of name, but the character was just like
her
sprites. Around the same size. Funky wings like her friends. Vibrant hair and skin. Even the normal clothes. Mina stopped the story and tapped the book several times.

“What?” Sarah asked. It was quiet except for the sound of them shifting on the bed until Sarah stood, wrapped a blanket around herself, and asked, “Will you visit me in the psych ward?”

“No,” Mina answered, “I’ll break you out. But you aren’t crazy. I’ve seen crazy.” In the mirror, she thought before continuing, “and you aren’t it.”

“Sarah can you think of lots of stories that have fairies in them? Like the sprites in that book?” Mina licked her lips and tried to hide her anxiety.

“Mmmm,” Sarah said, holding up her hand and ticking off one finger, “Peter Pan.”

They paused and stared at each other.

“That’s all I can think of too.” Mina said.

“Is that for your fairy tale class?’ Sarah asked. “Cause that could be a fun essay to write.”

“Yeah.” Mina lied, reopening the book, finding the sprite scene, and examining the description again.

“I always wanted a fairy buddy like Tinkerbell.” Sarah said as she left the room. “Peter Pan made me so mad when he ignored Tink for stupid Wendy.”

“Hmm?” Mina looked up, “Oh totally.”

“What if I get cash from mom for shopping tomorrow?” Sarah asked. “We haven’t done that in a while. We could go to Madelyne’s and get shoes or Belmont’s for undies.”

“Your lingerie habit is weird.” Mina said, “But you choose.”

“Both.” Sarah grinned, the last signs of worry fading in that moment, “and The Chocolate Shack too since I just ate your stash.”

After the reading and the joking Sarah was almost herself as she left Mina’s room and crossed the hall to her own. Mina ignored the rush of anxiety for her sister in favor of the burst of fear for herself. As soon as the door closed to Sarah’s room, Mina was off the bed and at the chest near the end of her bed. Her mom had saved some of her early drawings, and Mina dug through until she found a crayon drawing of the sprites. Sure, the pictures were juvenile, but identifiably her friends. And they matched the description in the novel she’d just read.

A huge what-if roiled in Mina’s head until she forced the thoughts of herself from her head and began to worry over her sister instead.

* * *

Just before school the next day, Mina parked the scooter outside the library. The sprites peeled off, whispering between themselves before waving and disappearing into the clouds. Mina winked at them before running up the path to the converted old stone church. The stained glass windows glinted in the morning sun, but there was a wet chill to the wind.

“Hello darling,” Grace said as Mina plopped into the patchwork chair across from Grace. “I don’t think I can keep my job and let you skip school here.”

Mina laughed before setting the slim gray book on the desk. “Hullo, my pet.” Mina said in a poor imitation of a British accent. “Can I have the rest of the series?”

Grace nodded and got Mina the books. When she came back out of the stacks, Mina said, “So, I was thinking I’d make the essay for my fairy tale class on actual fairies. You know? Like Tinkerbell style.”

“Oh that could be fun,” Grace said, holding the books for Mina while she stuffed them into her messenger bag.

“And I was wondering if you have any more books like these ones. Where the sprite-fairy-things are characters?”

“Sure,” Grace said disappearing back into the stacks with a bright grin.

* * *

Mina skipped her first class to look through the books that Grace had given her. Several of the books had “sprites” as characters. Sprites like her Zizi, Hitch, and Poppy. Mina wrote the names of the authors down and used the school wi-fi to research who the authors were and what happened to them.

They were mostly from the states and England. But, that made sense since the books were all in English. There weren’t ties between the authors like she thought there would be. Maybe, she had thought, they were part of the same writing group, but the writers lived in different places, different times. How could they all have the same type of creature? It wasn’t as if sprites were as common as dogs. Sprites were a fantasy.

Mina tapped her notes and stared at the wall while she thought.

Zizi, Hitch, and Poppy would tell her they were real. They would tell her that horned bunnies with fangs were real. And the crimson-winged squirrels up near Sacagawea Park. And the little dude she’d once seen riding a deer. And the pixies who dug through the trash and stole stuff from tourists. But of course
they
would say that.

Mina googled “sprites” and found oodles of stuff. Wiccan shops that sold decks of sprite tarot cards, sprites knick-knacks.

It was useless.

* * *

“Where were you?” Max asked as they passed in the halls.

“Doing homework for my distance class.” Mina said, adjusting her bag and marveling that tiny Max had grown so big. She couldn’t help but see the remnants of her old sidekick. “What’d I miss?”

“I thought we were gonna skip together,” He smiled wide, and his dimple flashed, and Mina thought for a moment that he was flirting with her. But, he was probably just remembering what she used to be like. “You didn’t miss anything; we just read pieces of the play. It’ll be easy to catch up.”

“Perfect,” Mina said. She caught a glimpse of her brother, made a face at him, and then watched him disappear into the crowd. “When we skip, we’ll skip right. Leave the school, get some books, haunt the stores and make the shopkeepers uncomfortable because they know what we’re doing.”

The warning bell rang, and she waved as she darted into the mass of bodies.

“Mina!”

She turned and saw Max walking backwards.

“Lunch?”

She grinned and nodded before she was swept towards her bio class.

* * *

Max was supposed to meet her in the cafeteria. The day before, she’d hid in the library and made herself do homework, so she wasn’t quite sure where the lunch room was. She didn’t try to find her way; instead, she just followed those who dumped book bags and walked in the same general direction.

Only when she got to the cafeteria, Max was slouching down next to a girl with long black hair and a great figure.

She watched his dimples appear, feeling a sense of unreasonable betrayal. He was
her
sidekick. And then that made her feel like a super jerk, so she
told herself to suck it up, and then spun. Pausing for a moment in the dark crowded hall outside of the cafeteria and forcing herself to control her emotions, she caught yet another glimpse of her brother.

An evil smile crossed her face. Man, she thought, he was such a jerk.

She left the building, circling it until she reached the student parking lot. And as she did, she got to feel the warmth of the rare fall sun. Her grin grew even wider when she saw her brother’s car hidden behind a large rusty truck.

She looked around, found no one, and marveled. She waited a few minutes, but no one came by. Who knew lunch time would be such a great chance for sabotaging her brother’s car? When she reached the truck, she confirmed she was still alone and dropped to the ground next to the blue Volvo. She twisted a small cap, carefully applied pressure, and received another gift—the squeal of air escaping a perfectly functioning tire.

“Mina. Miiiiiiinaaaaa. Mina. Mina.” Poppy was circling over head like a hawk; Mina shook her head, easing her frustration with the collapse of each tire. She doubted it, but maybe her brother would have to ride the bus today.