silent voices { clover }

Vanessa Libertine has spent her whole life waiting for something to happen. The blankets are rough beneath her twitching fingers, but she waits. Her feet ache to touch the ground, but she leaves them dangling a few inches from the wooden floor. Wide eyes struggle to stay fixed on the door, and yet even tiny Nessie manages to stay still enough, just this once. And then the door creaks and Learna appears and sits cross-legged on the rug before her. "The voices say it's your birthday," she announces, and Nessie stops glancing uneasily about long enough to six her sister a pointedly disbelieving look. "You already knew that it's my birthday." Even then, the girl was more than used to being the insane one, the one with irrational beliefs and fiery mane of red hair, the one who's fears were dismissed and biting sarcasm was admired. Now the child without a soul had come and snatched it all away.

"You're not the same as me anymore," Learna points out helpfully, her fingers tracing the delicate patter of waves and fleeting tides upon the threadbare rug. A thousand arguments jump to Nessie's sharp tongue, but she bites them back, instead placing her hand beside her sister's on the floor and staring at the two hands together. They match, Nessie and Learna, with the same long fingers - when they hold their palms together, it is as though they are staring into a mirror. Nessie doesn't know that the following autumn will leave her being mistaken for the younger of the two ever-after. All she knows is that Learna Libertine is nothing like her, not at all. "No. I'm not five anymore. I'm six now, and you're still five." Not that she cares. What's nine empty months when you are two children with a world ahead of you? "When will I be six, like you?" Learna persists, pulling her hand away just as her elder sister spits, "Ask your precious voices, they'll tell you."

Nessie does not regret the cruel words that leap from her lips and onto the canvas of her sister's smile, destroying it. More than ever, she wants to run, now. Run away from accusing glares and Ursula's touch and Penelope's daydreaming ramblings. But she stays all the same, bored, for the first time in her life, with being alone. She is waiting for something spectacular, on account of her no longer being five and now being six. "You're no better than me, you know."

Nessie knows. It isn't that she cares to be better - she simply wishes to be herself. "So, what did you get me?" Learna looks up at her, puzzled, and then stops and closes her eyes in a way that makes it look like she is drifting away into an endless slumber. Nessie knows she isn't sleeping - she is listening."What do you mean?" Learna manages, struggling to remain responsive. "Why do you pretend, Learna?" At this, the sisters stop and simply breathe for a moment, because this is not a question that either of them has ever stumbled upon before. They dislike each other's peculiarities, but they accept them. Nessie Libertine is not, however, one for following the rules of what one does and what one doesn't do. So she asks, and Learna stops. Thinks. Listens to the voices that Nessie cannot hear. Silence. Waiting for something to happen. And then a deep breath and a sideways glance.

"Why are you afraid of the cameras, Nessie?"

Then the bedroom is gone, and the youngest Libertine sisters are no longer five and six years old, no longer sitting alone in a bedroom. Nessie glances at Learna and pushes a sunset strand of hair behind her ear. "Why are you afraid of them?" Learna repeats and Nessie frowns. Soul snatchers, they are. Hold your entire being as though you are encased in stone and take away all that you were. Steal it from inside your eyes and leave the empty. Nessie wants to say all this, but she doesn't. She fidgets, tugging at strands of hair and shrinking backwards. "You wouldn't understand, Learna," she says, because nobody understands. Not the stupid counsellor, not Penelope, not even herself. It was just something she knew and had always known, a rule, a fact, her life.

"Learna - those mornings when you wake up, and you know that it's going to rain, even before you've looked out the window?" Nessie stops, just looks at the girl before her, and smiles. "Well, I kind of like the rain." In this moment, Nessie is not biting or bitter or fiercely sarcastic. She is calm, perfectly still, eleven years old and finally accepting that Learna might not be such a terrible reflection to possess. The mirror holds something far less than tolerable - empty, hollow eyes the colour of the ocean in a storm, surrounded by the kind of fire that is never quite ablaze and limbs that are almost frail. Learna nods solemnly, the two eleven year olds so serious, as though dealing with the kinds of problems they do not have to care for yet.

Then, Learna's first reaping, where Nessie does not speak to her for a whole morning, and makes a fleeting remark and Learna replies with a hushed babble of instructions that her elder sister does not care to make out. And then footsteps on the hillside and no care in the world for where the other is, slipping into her room late at night in the hope that Learna is already asleep. I don't like you, Learna Libertine. "I was worried about you," says the girl curled in her blankets in the darkness, eyes wide open in an accusing stare. "Why?" Echoes, accusations, the kind of arguments that are never resolved and carried out in hushed whispers. An unspoken agreement to dislike each other, but sisters all the same. "Because one day, you might not come back."

"I'll always come back."

Nessie turns away in the darkness so the moonlight does not give her doubtful expression away. She pretends not to care, but the reaping shakes her just like it scares the rest. "I promise," she says, because she does not care for keeping ones word. In her opinion, a promise is no more stable than a lie. They just stop people worrying. (Are you sure you're okay? Yes, I promise.) And then Learna promises too, and although Nessie is not inclined to, she believes her. Believing people is not something that the girl does, but tonight she makes an exception and slips into her bed. Tonight, she does what Learna wants in closing the window over her bed, even though she can't sleep properly without feeling the starlight.

And then everything changes again, and Nessie is in her bedroom waiting for something to happen. This time, however, she is all alone. She never did get her sixth birthday present - but she doesn't see why anybody should be awarded for not being five anymore. Just another tick of the clock closer to death. Just another moment closer to Learna, because Learna is going to die. Nessie knew this, in theory, from the moment her name was called at her second reaping, but it is only real in the sense that fairytales are real. They hold some truth, but nobody bothers to believe it. That, or they're too afraid. So she walks through to the shop, wonders vaguely when someone will get around to dusting the shelves for the second time since her birth, and sits down in front of the television. And then her sister dies.

Suddenly, Nessie Libertine is not immortal. Her little sister had been reaped, and that meant that she too could easily go the same way. This was not strong, magical Penelope, who died a death that people admired, set apart from ordinary life. This was Learna, her mirror, with the same twisted, irrational flaws and mane of fire, the same matchstick wrists. From this moment, Vanessa Libertine was no longer indestructible. Learna broke her promise, because today her body will be coming home without her in it. No photograph is burned inside a locket to hold her forever, she is simply gone. Ever since she was six years old, Nessie hated her sister for being too much like her. Now, she hates herself for being too much like her sister, far too susceptible to the usual human fates such as death.

All her life, Nessie has been waiting for something to happen, and finally, it has. "Why do you prentend, Learna?" Silence. "Because I have to."

Nessie Libertine counts her losses on both hands. First, Penelope, because somehow that loss was greater than any other. The photograph that promises it's entirety still sits above her heart, a burned soul trapped inside a golden locket. It doesn't matter to Nessie that all she has left of her older sister is a sprinkling of ashes and a thousand faded memories. She puts down three fingers for Penelope, because she lost her stories and her soul and her life. Learna, however, only counts as one. The television on the shelf shows a third replay of her little sister's death, and Nessie makes no move to turn it off. It hurts to watch, but Nessie doesn't mind. Perhaps the pain is not so sharp as when the Stark girl sent the spear through Penelope's eye, but it certainly holds much of the ache that captures Nessie's throat and stops her from breathing for a moment. Her hand doesn't dare venture to her heart, but she can feel it beating all the same. Slowly, methodically pounding against her ribcage and reminding her that she is alive. For now.

Every year since Penelope was stolen, a Libertine sister has been snatched away and met her fate in the clasp of the arena, at the hand of somebody destined to die themselves. Only Ursula and Nessie herself remain of the girls. Ursula, seemingly untouchable, always able to bargain her way out of any danger. Little Vanessa Libertine, the one who hid. With a glance to the clock that hangs on the far wall, Nessie concludes that she may not be able to hide much longer. Looking back on that day with a hope in her heart that Penelope would come home again, little girl Libertine frowns. Naive, skittish and afraid, the didn't begin to assume that that day was the beginning of the endgame. That reaping, her life fell apart.

Unlike some of the others, it wasn't that the loss of her siblings has torn her limb from limb, filling her with a pain from which she will never recover. Nessie is quiet in her greif. Sullen and frowning and often thinking of her lost sisters. She does not yearn for them back - the most fearsome thing she has lost is her own immortality. No longer is she invisible. Time after time video cameras have been waved in front of her eyes, and before she can manage to pull herself away the film has started running. Her name is in the reaping bowl four times, and yet the three that Learna held were enough to get her dead. She blinks, worrying as always that death will come and take her prisoner long before the end of time. Not ready. Not yet. The cacophony of voices that little crazy Learna heard creep closer to the edges of Nessie's consciousness. perhaps if she listened hard enough, she would hear them.

A memory, faded and worn and perhaps not altogether truthful. A day in the training center. Ten year old Nessie jumpy and completely afraid of the world around her. It's strange, the way the child evolved into something silent and strong and still almost invisible and yet so very brave through the realisation that one day she will die. Desperate to evade this fate. Her elder brother stood beside her, no more protective than the thin fabric she wore. He had asked her to play his Games, and although she was not certain, she wanted to prove to herself that she could. How hard could it be to draw a sword and save yourself from the blade of another? Slight and supple as she was, her brother was sturdy and strong without a hint of mercy of in his glowing eyes. That was something they shared - the inability to pity another. The will to fight at all costs. It wasn't that either of them liked the other - the only person in the expansive house that Nessie would admit to caring about was Penelope. The rest she tolerated, with their clunking cameras and loud voices and stolen souls.

So she drew her sword and backed away, and when Kraken swung, she jabbed back. Then all at once the floor wasn't so steady beneath her feet and she turned and fled, scaling the net on the wall with the sword still in her hand. You lost the Game, little girl Libertine. Ten years old, fearless, and yet so very afraid. It was only once she was high on the wall that she stopped and blinked down at her brother. Frowning, she let the sword clatter to the floor and her feet carry her back down to the ground, out the door, across to street, and down to the sea. She could swim, but it wasn't something she ever enjoyed. The ocean offered only her caves, and in them she found quiet and a perpetual sense of alone that was seldom rivalled elsewhere. That was not the first time Nessie Libertine ran away from her life, and it was also not the last. She is sure, though, as she reaches out and sets the volume on the television to silence, that she will never run away again.

"This isn't me." Kraken's hollow voice surprises her, and her body jolts violently. The eyes that have been watching her fade as she realises that she is not alone. It seems to Nessie that she is almost never alone these days - even her cave does not offer the privacy she yearns for. She used to spend days away, huddled by a fire, and turn up home to realise that nobody was truly worrying for her. Only Learna, with wide eyes, would ask where she was and make her promise that she would always come home. In the end, it was Learna who didn't make it back to the shop. "It's not you, it's her. Learna. She's dead." The hypocritical words leave room for no regrets.

You're never invisible if you're beautiful or dead.

When Nessie Libertine was one year old, she waited. Back then, her life was filled with things she can no longer remember - day trips to the beach, hours spent lying beside Penelope on her back. It was then that her father's hands began to stray and her world began to fall apart, not that the baby knew it. That was the year that Learna was born - tiny and rosy-cheeked and the perfect mirror of the newborn Nessie had once been. It was that year that the girl stopped being the baby of the family and became nothing. Second-youngest, far from second-best. Still, she smiled, rolling away from photographs with a subconscious fear perhaps grown from the songs Penelope would sing over her cradle and the hushed warnings the young Ursula would give. This was the year Nessie Libertine began to develop deep crimson curls and a fearful expression, not that her absent mother noticed.

When Nessie Libertine was two years old, she waited. Although walking around for months, it was not until the wake of her third birthday that she finally opened her mouth to speak. Doctor said it was those endless siblings that stole her words from her, so she need not bother trying, and that the words would come soon. They did, in the end, but not until after countless days of silence, toddling around the store and beginning her obsession with laying her hands on whatever she pleased. Ursula warned her again that those who steal regretted it. Vanessa Libertine clapped her hands and smiled, not yet fearful but still withdrawn, not yet terrified but already beginning the tale of her own peculiarities.

When Nessie Libertine was three years old, she waited. Words began to spill from her lips - few and far between. Penelope had drifted away, and despite sticky fingers pulling at the hem of her skirt, it seemed that her elder sister was rather lost indeed. She got on well with everyone - left to wander far more than a toddler should. This was the year she found her cave. The year that lurks right on the edge of her memory, not quite there but hardly forgotten. She grew more steady on her feet and ran whenever she got the chance. An older sibling instructed to babysit would find their little sister gone as soon as the eye wandered from her. Despite the constant escaping, the tiny child wasn't waiting to get away. She was waiting to grow up and finally be something more than the one lost in the middle.

When Nessie Libertine was four years old, she waited. She started school that year. It took a week for the teacher to inquire at home as to why Nessie had not yet spoken. Perhaps she needs a little extra help settling in? she suggested, and yet when Mama Libertine turned to Nessie, the tiny child smiled and pointed out that nobody had let her know she was expected to speak at school. Even there, she was just a shadow. Waiting. It wasn't that she didn't try. An entire month passed before she finally slipped through the classroom door and returned to the safety of her cave. Since then, it's been a constant struggle to keep Nessie anywhere at all. She didn't like the eyes, that's what she said. How they bore into her soul and try to see much more than she wants to show them.

When Nessie Libertine was five years old, she waited. They bought her a camera for her birthday, did her parents. Penelope smiled at her, worry in her eyes. Maybe she knew. Perhaps they all knew, Mama and Papa and Kraken and Learna and the rest. The baby began to cry as she loaded the film with shaking fingers. One polaroid of Ursula with little Learna on her knee until somebody suggested that the birthday girl have a picture taken. All at once, the camera was on the ground and little-girl Libertine was gone. It took them two days to find her, and she swore that the camera was trying to steal away her soul. Childish nightmares, perhaps, but Nessie was livid and so afraid. Penelope sung her to sleep again that night, for the first time in far too long.

When Nessie Libertine was ten years old, she was still waiting. That year, Kraken took her hand and led her to the training center. This is where you'll learn to fight, they said, but Nessie already knew what she needed to know. Cameras can steal your soul, eyes bore deep into your flesh and take your secrets. Sinners pay. Urusla knows everything. Learna is upset when she doesn't come home, but she does it anyway, because she's tired of Learna being a better Nessie Libertine than she. Penelope is the only one who can sing her to sleep, not that many tried. She put up with it. It was better than school. Hours spent clambering up and down netting and painting pretty patterns on her skin set the itching inside of her at rest, just a little. She didn't yearn to flee the way people do in nightmares, when their feet are stuck to the floor. She was okay, for a while.

When Nessie Libertine was fourteen years old, she stopped waiting. It turns out that there is no difference in coming of age. Nothing Penelope gained by approaching her eighteenth birthday and being free that Nessie didn't have. Still the confines of the district snatch a person up, still the cameras blare and the Games play and people pry into her thoughts. Still, she was venerable to knives and spears. School and career training are mandatory. Still, Urusla teases her and Kraken asks her to fight him and Learna cries when she doesn't come home. Only not anymore, because even when you close the door after days in your cave alone, there is only the brother inside. No Learna waiting up. No Learna smiling, no Learna ever again.

Nessie Libertine squints at her elder brother in the fading light, trying to work out what he wants and why. ”Are you just going to sit there? Or are you going to get of your lazy ass and do something?” She blinked, startled by his sudden accusations. She isn't just sitting there. She's waiting. Waiting for the pain to go away for the little sister who she never even liked. Waiting for the fear to fade of following in the footsteps of dear Penelope. Waiting for something to happen, something to change. “I’m going to go and show some idiots who is boss.” There is a pause, and the girl remembers his hand in hers, taking her to the place with the pretty pains and nice nets, spears and knives and terrible things. She shudders. “Would you care to join me?"

At first, Nessie shakes her head. No. No, because what will that fix? Who can ever pay for what Nessie has lost? Then she hesitates, thinking through the morning with a slow and tentative mind. “Alright." And then - “She's not coming back. Nothing we can do will bring her back." Although her words are confident and clear, Nessie Libertine has no idea as to whether she is talking about Learna. Perhaps Penelope. Or maybe she is referring to the little girl on the beach, the baby with the entire world ahead of her. Waiting to grow up is not, in fact, the best way to spend one's life.