Free The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned.
    Claire stopped where she was.
    There was a tiny bird in her path. Both sisters knelt. “He fell out of his nest.” Elv picked up the fledgling. “He’s a robin.”
    Claire was startled by how fragile the baby bird was. She could see through its skin to its beating heart. There were only a few stray, luminous feathers.
    The girls went in search of the nest, but they couldn’t find it in the dark. There were spiderwebs that were frightening to walk through. Claire kept brushing them away, even when they were no longer there. The crickets were calling. Elv sat down in the wet grass. She looked so sad and beautiful. She was everything Claire wanted to be.
    “It’s too late anyway,” Elv decided. “Even if we did find the nest, he’s hardly alive. Do you want to hold him?” The Queen of Arnelle had decreed this was to be.
Water, sex, death
. This was number three. There was no way to save him.
    Claire sat beside her and Elv slipped a hand atop hers. She let the bird settle into Claire’s palm. Claire could feel it shudder. Its heart was beating so fast it reminded her of a moth’s wings.
    “Maybe we should say a prayer,” she suggested.
    “You do it, Gigi. You’re good at that kind of thing.”
    Claire felt emboldened by Elv’s praise. “Your life has been short,” she began in a serious voice, “but it has been as important as any other life.”
    Claire heard something then. It was Elv, crying.
    “Don’t look at me,” Elv said. She tried to think about the way time could go backward, far back, to the time when she was in the tent with her mother in the garden. There had been twelve princesses who had danced the night away in one of the stories her mother had told her. Twelve brothers had turned into swans.
    “Okay.” Claire lowered her eyes, stunned.
    “Go ahead,” Elv urged. “Finish.”
    “We hope you find peace.” Claire was thrown by Elv’s show of emotion. She ended the prayer as quickly as she could. She was probably doing it all wrong. She wasn’t as good as Elv thought she was. “We hope you’re blessed.”
    The sisters could hear one another breathing and the whir of the crickets. There was the tangled thrum of traffic from Main Street. Sound echoed for blocks on a clear night.
    “Close your eyes,” Elv said now.
    “Why?”
    The whole world seemed alive. The air was filled with gnats and mosquitoes and moths.
    “Just for a minute,” Elv said. “Trust me.”
    Claire closed her eyes. After a time the robin didn’t move anymore.
    “Okay. It’s over,” Elv said. “You can open them now.”
    The robin seemed even smaller, nothing but skin and bones. Elv went to the garage and got a shovel. She had faced the third fear on her list. Tonight she could tear up the postcard with the green ink. She came back and dug a hole beneath the privet hedge. Her face was streaked with tears. She shoveled dirt so fast she seemed more angry than upset. Claire was too much in awe to offer to help. When Elv was done, she tore off the bottom of her favorite T-shirt from Paris and carefully wrapped up the robin. Claire had never loved anyone more than she loved Elv at that moment. She felt something in the back of her throat that hurt. She felt lucky to have come outside, to have found her sister in the garden, to be with her in the dark.
    After the burial they went back to the garden. They ducked under a net of vines and sat down cross-legged beside a row of cabbages. Nobody liked cabbages, not even their mother. They were a total waste of time. Elv lit a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. The night was so dark the smoke looked green. The rest of the world seemed far away. Without warning, Elv lurched forward. At first Claire thought she was about to be slapped, like Meg, but instead Elv threw her arms around her. She hugged her tightly, then backed way. When she lifted her T-shirt to wipe her tearstained face Claire saw she wasn’t wearing anything