{strangeness and charm .:. indigo&ivy

Indigo was alone again. Perched at her windowsill, she watched a mother bird feed her chicks in a nest above her head, a neighbor stroke her kitten’s fur by the fireplace, and two children - a boy and a girl - sprint hand in hand as their laughter pierced the winter atmosphere that seemed to drag every soul into a cave of ice. They are all together. The birds were never alone; the mother had her children, and the children had their mother. The woman - even without a lover or a partner - managed to invest companionship in such a small, delicate, and feeble minded creature, awarding her happiness because of it. It is friendship. But where was her friendship? Her company? She already knew the answer - it was fading like sunlight in a rainstorm, and she couldn’t bear to admit it to herself even when the evidence stared her straight in the eye. Her bond with Ivy - forged during childhood, when the two knew nothing of true joy and freedom - was powerful, capable of withstanding the harshest of storms. Yet, with age, what was made in the distant past grew weak, and recently the beginning of perhaps an inevitable end had seemingly arrived. Indigo was seeing less and less of her sister, the girl who screamed of locked doors and enclosed walls. Don’t pretend that you’re as fearless as you act, Indigo. You dream of it too. But did she dream of what Ivy longed for? No, because she did not know what Ivy desired - it was all kept hidden, as if stored away in a locket dangling from the girl’s pale neck.

Will they ever let me understand? Ivy? Mother? She wanted to know their pains, their aches, the causes of their misery, because while they wallowed in the dark she felt grateful for her new life. School, a job, people, freedom. ”It’s a dangerous world out there,” Mother used to say, and was she wrong? Not at all, but the world Indigo had always dreamed about was not some wretched Hell - not like the Hell in which she lived for eleven damned years of her life, years wasted for a maniac bastard who suffered the obsession of possession and the fear of change. He couldn’t let us go. Most people first saw it as a heroic trait - “he loved you“. But when she told them she was imprisoned in a warehouse for eleven years, they were alarmed. When she told them their mother was raped by the same man, they were horrified. And when she told them Indigo and Ivy were the result - they pitied me. But she didn’t want their pity. Indigo was not some frangible, broken soul who cried the first time her eyes beheld the miracle of sunlight. She was not just some abused and tormented child - she was fearless, and she would flaunt her courage everyday with pride until people understood this fact.

Ivy, on the other hand, was different.

Perhaps she wasn’t truly fearful, but she did not carry the air of confidence Indigo did. Despite the mornings spent together - including today’s, when Ivy had weaved her hair into a flawless braid draped over her shoulder - she appeared awfully distant. Whenever she was home, Indigo could faintly sense the traces of fabricated happiness lurking when she tried to smile. Unlike reflections, their smiles no longer matched. There was something wrong with Ivy - emotionally, maybe mentally. What it was, though, Indigo was afraid to ask. No, I’m not afraid. She always told herself she feared nothing and nobody, but the thought of questioning Ivy troubled her for if there was one lesson she learned from life’s harsh treatment it was that the truth always bore an ugly face, and she was not sure if she was prepared to face this grotesque side of Ivy’s life. Still, when the duplicate voice rang like bells into her disturbing silence she reacted quickly, as if expecting something extraordinary to happen. "Indigo! I’m here.” She was back, finally back. Returned from a trip to the grocery store that had taken far too much time to complete. It made her suspicious, yet when she removed herself from the windowsill and walked to the front door she greeted her sister with a smile that said “Everything is perfect.” It wasn’t.

”I came home.” The way she spoke it, the fact that she said it at all - it raised her suspicion further. The words suggested that her presence should’ve been a surprise, like she was supposed to never return. Was that her plan? To run away? No, she would never leave us. She would never leave me. It was a phase, she told herself. Teenagers experienced stages of confusion and sadness all the time, but they always overcame these battling emotions and discovered the truth behind their true identities. Surely Ivy would be cured of whatever ailment was draining her, right? And then she remembered Ivy’s words, bursting through the shower of rain like wrecking ball sent to destroy their paradise. ”I’m trapped in my nightmares, still. The past shaped who I am and continues to haunt me to this day. How do you cope? Tell me how you cope and I struggle inside.” The words had paralyzed her. She had detected nothing, not a single sign hinting to Ivy’s unhappiness. Now that she knew, though, the odd behavior seemed almost too obvious to neglect. How could I be so blind? She was so absorbed in her dream world, so focused on her goal of eternal comfort that she had unintentionally turned a blind eye to her own sister, and now she was guilty of terrible, careless neglect because of it.

”Hi, did you have a nice trip?” She was avoiding the inevitable - the question that was clawing at the back of her skull like a little mouse scratching its way through dirt and muck to find light again. Chewing her lower lip, she exhaled through pursed lips and tried to make contact with the almond eyes that matched hers. ”What took you so long?”