Free No Escape by Meredith Fletcher

finding everything in its place where it had always been.
    What was unaccustomed was the silence. Even after her dad had passed away, there had always been joy in the house. Megan had been the center of it, of course, because she had been the chatterbox. Lauren hadn’t realized how silent the house could be without her sister.
    The tears came while she waited for the water to heat. For a time, she let them fall, grateful that she’d been composed throughout the service. She didn’t like showing emotions in front of others. She’d never felt comfortable doing that.
    A few minutes later, the kettle whistled. She took it from the stove and dried her tears, then filled a cup and added a tea bag. As she waited for the tea to steep, she walked through the house, finally going upstairs to the rooms she and Megan had lived in when they’d been there.
    Megan had been the first to leave, the first to get a “grown-up” job because Lauren hadn’t been able to let go of the job at the magic store. She hadn’t been ready for freefall among strangers then, and magic was—and still remained—her passion. There was something about magic, something about the illusion of being something else, or maybe someone else, that appealed to her in ways nothing else did.
    Megan’s room had been a mess after she’d departed in a whirl of excitement, littered with cast-off clothing, keepsakes from junior high, high school and college, books and rock star posters. It had taken Lauren and her mom three days to clean everything up, and they’d threatened to box it all up and send it to Megan to deal with, but neither of them wanted to think about finding the boxes sitting in Megan’s apartment unopened when they went to see her.
    The bed was neatly made. Trophies lined one wall. Pictures of Megan as a cheerleader, a business leader and in speech competitions, as well as on family trips and vacations, covered the wall. A person could stand in the middle of Megan’s room and watch her grow up in the spotlight. Lauren had always thought that was weird, the growing up part. As for the spotlight part, there just hadn’t been any other place for Megan.
    Lauren’s room, on the other hand, had been freshly cleaned and neat the day she’d left it. She’d stayed in the house till she’d gotten through college, to help her dad with her mom’s first bout with cancer. Then, when the job at the magic store had become full-time, once Mom’s cancer was in remission, Lauren had moved out and claimed her own space.
    Even four years later, that apartment still felt like a temporary way station, a brief shelter from the turbulence that had claimed the rest of her life. Nothing before had been permanent.
    This, this had been home. And now it was withering away.
    She sat on the edge of her bed and glanced at the walls. Compared to Megan’s, they were empty. The Taylors had adopted her when she was eleven, young enough that she could share a lot with Megan, but old enough that she could never really escape the experience of getting shuffled between foster homes.
    Pictures of her at that age and older were on the walls. She’d played softball and ran track and swam competitively. All were sports more or less recognized for individual effort. Only in the family photos did she look like a team player, and that was primarily because Megan had always been right there to pull her in.
    On the chest of drawers, Lauren’s early magic kits sat in boxes and pouches, as if a magician would be along any moment to put them to use. Lauren was surprised that her mother hadn’t thrown them away, but Mom had always maintained that magic was the one thing that seemed to make Lauren come alive. A magician had to have an audience, she’d always said, and that was when Lauren had shone.
    Lauren had let her believe that was true, but the actual truth was that she had sat in her room and performed magic all the time. Megan had watched in fascination at times. On other