D8 // Ruthie Blyton

"RUTHIE BLYTON.

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A is for...[/font]

Ave. Aggie wont mind that I didn't put her, because Ave was my twin. There's a photo of us holding hands - all symmetrical and pretty, with bows in our tufty blonde hair. It sits atop the fire place and when I was small I'd take it down and press my fingers against the cold surface. Never once did I manage to touch my sister through the transparent shield - all I could reach was my own blurry reflection in the glass.

B is for...[/font]

Bad guys. I say Ave was my twin because a man took her away when we were three years old and Agatha was five. I've tried very hard to remember the night - I feel as though I ought to - but I don't. My sister was was here, bright and sweet and like a mirror beside me. Then, she wasn't.

C is for...[/font]

Crazy. It's what I am. I've been to enough therapists to prove it. They say it's because of Ave going missing, but I don't mind so much about that. I like to think that she's out there in another world living the life I can never live. Sometimes I don't eat for a long time because I want to be invisible like her, gone and silent and such a huge, lingering presence in our lives.

D is for...[/font]

Duckling. The story Agatha would read to me when I was small was about a duckling who started his life imperfect before blossoming into a swan. I would look into the mirror at my fluffy golden curls and round cheeks, bucked teeth and protruding lips and wish over and over for my reflection to change.

E is for...[/font]

Elegance. Agatha says that when I dance everything stops, but I think she's just trying to make me feel better about myself. For me, anyhow, the lilting of music carries me away and I focus on my arms and legs and core and perfection. When I was quite young, I attended lessons down in the old hall. Then the money ran out, but I couldn't stop, and so I didn't.

F is for...[/font]

Flying. I saw the birds and I read about the swan and the idea implanted itself into my mind. When I decide on something, no amount of distraction can tear my mind away from it. And so I try to fly whenever I get the chance - clambering up onto roofs and dressers and into the branches of trees and hurling myself downwards. Agatha's frantic, desperate for me to stay rooted to the ground.

G is for...[/font]

Gardens - we have one, you know. I flit around the district collecting seeds and pushing them into the ground and watching them grow. It was Ave who would sit and watch my mother in her store, pottering away and watering the flowers on her windowsill. I never cared, but now she's gone I feel as though it's my job to be interested enough for the both of us.

H is for...[/font]

Hungry. I am. The burning hole in my stomach claws at my insides, begging to be fed. But I can't - how can I when the mirror is shouting at me not to dare, when my sister is so much more visible than myself despite her absence. It's selfish and it's cruel and when I turn away the meals Agatha cooks my entire body begins to shake. Taking deep breaths, I count to thirteen. And again, and again. Thirteen times.

I is for...[/font]

Ignorance. Agatha says it's my fault for refusing to listen - but I prefer to make up my own rules. I dance for me, not because of a certain set of steps. I don't pay attention to the seasons that things should be planted - I just push them below the ground and let them bloom if they want to. If the words didn't struggle so much behind my eyes when I tried to read them - all fidgety and the like - perhaps I would spend more time figuring out what they have to say.

J is for...[/font]

Jigsaw. It's Aggie's favourite game to play. She likes getting the jumble of pieces and straightening them out and making them fit together. What at first is chaos becomes order and precision in her hands. I can't handle the wait, the disorder, the sitting still for minutes on end trying to figure out something that will always have seams and cracks no matter how firmly you press it together. Sometimes I feel like this myself.

K is for...[/font]

Knowing. It's something I hate - like the way I know I'm fading away despite the parts of my mind that argue. The way I know I'll never see my sister again, and that she's probably long dead. The things I know are kept well apart from the things I hope - because, as I mentioned before, I'm quite happily insane. Knowing hurts. The crunch of my arm breaking after yet another fall is just another way of knowing I'll never be okay.

L is for...[/font]

Leaves. Me and Agatha collect them together in Autumn and press them between the pages of books. Sometimes we take out novels from the library to provide the weight we need to keep the colours locked into their flesh forever and ever. Then we stick them down into paper and hang them up on my walls until we can no longer see the fading wallpaper.

M is for...[/font]

Mama who sits on her chair all day looking out the window. Agatha once said that she waiting. When I asked what she was waiting for, she told me she was watching to see Ave come home. That was the day I first pushed away what my elder sister served at tea in the hope that my mother would fill with desperation for my own return. At least then it was a longing I could grant her.

N is for...[/font]

Night. When darkness settles I find it even harder to stay quite still in my bed. It's then that the idea of going for a walk twists and turns in my mind until I can no longer disagree with it's demands. So I let myself out and stumble around in the darkness. Often I find a warehouse and dance alone in the cold. Other times, Aggie finds my body crumpled on the ground, not flying at all.

O is for...[/font]

Oak, the first tree I ever climbed. It sat on the far eastern side of the district, it's limbs curling up into clouds. I've returned to the site many times since that day - it never has seemed quite as grand as it did when I was eight years old. I prefer to remember it that day. Aggie couldn't stand breathing the same air as Mama for a moment more, so she took me out to play and I clambered into the sky and saw my chance.

P is for...[/font]

Pale. They say I look ghostly, but all of us do. Me and Mama, we're like sheets hung out to dry. Almost translucent, a sickly shade of yellow. Sometimes I wonder if that's just the crazy leaking through. Aggie's better - really pretty, with wide eyes and skin ivory and untouchable. I can't look at her for long - her sharp rounded jawline and long features make my own face seem so sharp and angular.

Q is for...[/font]

Quirks. Apparently it's not normal to have to count to thirteen thirteen times over every time my heart rate rises. I have to say Ave's name thirteen times over before I leave the house or she'll never come home - each item of clothing I slip on must be checked twice over to make sure it's right. My first thought every time I enter a room is to find the highest place I could be - as though I'm only safe when I'm floating as far above the rest of them as I can.

R is for...[/font]

Ruth - not me, the little girl in the photographs. She's smiling all the time, and people are brave enough to refer to her with her name. It's strong and harsh and not awfully pretty, but she carries it off well. Her sister beside her, she can do anything. I miss being Ruth - when I began to show signs of being like my mother, they stopped using it. I became Ruthie - softer edges, as though the simple word that used to identify me could now break my fragile sense of self.

S is for...[/font]

Sister. I'm never quite sure if Ave still counts as being my sister or if she simply was my sister. Agatha is constant. She loves me without question and pushes my hair back when I'm sick and holds my hand when I'm afraid. She's protects me, but I think she's afraid of mind. When she looks at me, she still sees Ave and everything she could have been. The hurt in her eyes kills me over and over again.

T is for...[/font]

Trauma and concussion. Two of the words that are repeated by doctors I do not know in the underfunded hospital in which I was born. They say it each time - wishing there were enough staff to run a physiatrics ward like the kind they used in the old days but sending me home with a cast or a splint all the same. Agatha takes me. Mama can't get up from her chair and neither of us met our fathers.

U is for...[/font]

Underwater. There, below the surface of the bathwater, I am more afraid than anywhere else. It is the opposite of flying - if I was ever tossed into the sea I wouldn't swim for a moment before I sunk to the bottom. I count to thirteen as many times as I can manage before I come gasping up for air. I try to force myself back under right away, desperate to cure myself of a desire to fly - attempting to bury myself beneath the tiny waves.

V is for...[/font]

Valium. They give it to me to calm me down and force me to sleep at night. I used to resist it - the heaviness it pressed upon my body was unbearable, and I fought against it. Now, I like the soft lull it brings to my sleep. It even calms me while I'm awake. We can barely afford it in the doses I take - Agatha works hard in the factory at my side and offers all the time she can manage in the library.

W is for...[/font]

Waiting. I often feel as though I am doing a lot of waiting - despite the fact that Aggie says I can never hold myself still for more than a few seconds at a time. Perhaps I'm impatient, but I've been waiting long enough for my sister to return. Sometimes I talk to her, but she never replies. Even when I listen very hard, I can't quite manage to be crazy enough to hear her speaking to me. Sometimes I wonder if our voices are identical as well as our faces. Maybe when I speak aloud her words rain down on my ears.

X is for...[/font]

X-ray. Usually when I break my arms or legs they don't both with looking inside to see what the matter is. They look over my body and bind up whatever I landed on and send me home to rest. I've long-since mastered the art of climbing with one arm in a sling or an ankle in plaster. The first time they took a photo of what my bones have become, it was beautiful. Hundreds of tiny cracks and bends in the fabric of what holds me together. I was glad I have bones - sometimes I worry I'm empty right the way through.

Y is for...[/font]

Young. I used to worry about my name being drawn at reaping - the arena was always so foreboding and filled with dangers. Aggie would reassure me that I was young and that the chances were slim. It was only days ago that I realised time has slipped away from me - I demanded over and over to be told how long had passed. I wanted to know how many seconds I had lost from my life. The last time I really paid attention, I was three years old. Now, I cannot count the times my name repeats itself in the shining bowl that could end my life.

Z is for...[/font]

Zero. Because there is nothing left.

"INFO. [/size][/font]

Female. Seventeen. District Eight.

"NOTES. [/size][/font]

Faceclaim is Hannah Murray.
Alphabet book in Lalia's library plot.
Twin to Aventurine Shore and sister to Aggie Blyton.
Palette here.
Odair.

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