Anais Grimoire -- Wanderer

1. The dull glow of the fluorescent lamps overhead. The valleys and caves shadows paint on skin, the layer of bone, something to cover, then something to show. The green fabric of their uniforms. The prickled sweat. The tinkling of stainless steel, the contrast against rubber gloves. The labored breathing. The grip on her husband's hand, tightening. The first wails. "My darling, are you okay?" "Where is my child?" "Two, actually. Twins. What do you want to name them?" "Astoria." "And the other one?"

2. "Anais!" The faint sounds socked feet makes against the carpeted floor. A toddler's stumble, the amused coo from an unknowing mind. "You're learning to walk! I'll tell -" Arms outstretched to scoop another weight up. The wide eyes trained on one thing only - a five-point shape, a decal stuck on the wall, the color of her eldest sister's hair and the chain draped around her mother's neck. Ask, only if you know how to speak. The thing is, you don't, not yet.

3. The furnished room, once another powder room, now a place for learning. The wallpapered walls tacked with crayon drawings and watercolor paintings. The descending line their offspring make, from Shyla to Astoria and Anais. Astoria and Anais, Anais and Astoria, never apart, with hands linked together. Anais crumples a piece of paper, presents it to her darling sister as though a flower, remembering Mommy and Daddy from that night past. Astoria takes it, smiles, and kisses her cheek in return.

4. The concept of sharing, in the makeshift garden on the roof of their building. They've planted flowers, too, those silent ashen-faced helpers that never wave back when she gives them one. Astoria learns the lesson, pulls tufts of grass with both of her hands and offers one handful to her sister. However, Anais is intent on spreading friendship. After all, Mommy said it's only good. She eyes one in particular, one with hair like wood, leather boots and mud, but with eyes like the color of the sky. One second, two. She holds her smile. Three, four. Her face breaks into an untrained smile, and Anais looks back at her sister with joy in her - what did they call it? - her heart. "Thank you," she says as she receives her sister's gift. In the background, Shyla sings, Thylia sleeps, and the one with hair like wood, leather boots and mud is taken away and never seen again. "Have you learnt your lesson, Anais?" "Sharing is good.
Happy is good.
Smiles are good."

5. Days are longer during the summer, says Thylia, reading aloud from her new science book. Days are indeed longer, the sun's warmth against their skin enough to turn pale flesh into a blushing shade. They move to lie and sit under the shade of a tree, the bokeh of lights and shadows dancing on their limp marionette figures. Xindianne admires the patterns they make on her skin, but Astoria looks at the foliage itself, never mind the patches of light that blinds her at times. "That'll hurt your eyes." "But it's pretty." Anais looks at the sky and, despite the constant insistence of 'look at the clouds! Look how interesting their shapes are!' against the bright cerulean sky, wishes for the night instead. She picks a few dandelions and daisies sprouting by the base of the tree, and does her best to weave them into a halo. The outcome is nothing stellar, nothing out of her eight-year-old hands are, but she places it on Astoria's head, silently crowning her as Queen of the Flowers. She thinks that, one day, she will take her to her kingdom. Maybe in spring, when the helpers can plant more. Mommy says work is good, it keeps them alive. Or us alive. I don't remember what she said.

6. She is ten when she remembers her fascination, the image of the five-point shape hovering over some corner in her memory, fuzzy and blurred. She sees it everywhere, but remembers them as insubstantial. At six, she remembers receiving that gold sticker and having it stick on the back of her hand. At four, she remembers climbing into her mother's lap, the brush of chiffon against the underside of her thighs, eyes closed in on the glittering crystals around her neck. She touches them, admiring the smooth, hard-cut edges. At seven she discovers them not to be like her mother's precious gems set in gleaming metal, but balls of hot, hot gas. She wonders if the feel of cotton would suffice. Such a childish mind. She decides it to be silly, then looks at her hands as if imagining red spots all over her palms. At ten she pushes herself through the thick crowd, leans over the banister in such a precarious stance that Astoria has to hold her back. It is New Year's Eve and the countdown has ended, the fireworks are lit. She is suspended in admiration with each burst, then trails down to the descending sparks. She holds out a hand, palm out, but missed it through the cracks of her fingers, watched as it landed on the pavement and burnt out. She is thirteen when she learns of tasting them rather than simply looking at them, or at least that's partly what the boy says. He tips the bottle, the almost-but-not-quite gold liquid pouring over the clear flute gas, his hands awkward and much too small to be holding a finely-aged bottle. He pours another for himself, raises the glass and toasts. She feels as if she has swallowed a star itself and felt it burst right in her mouth. A few minutes later he kisses her, and she decides that if she could have the stars, she would have them only to herself.

7. It was either Shyla, Requiem, Emery or Astoria who went first. Shyla because she built herself a home in another body that ended up dead, and now home has lost all meaning. Requiem because they lived around geometrical buildings and clean edges and manufactured colors and she wasn't made for that. Emery because while their skyscrapers are tall, some trees are taller and there were birds to chase around instead of socialites clad in outrageous clothes. Astoria because their city is planted on the unmarked graves of fallen trees and bulldozed fields, and the cracks are haunting her. But it's the same ending, whichever ignited the spark. One goes, the other follows.

8. They ran.

9. The uncanny silence in the hallways. Their mother knows it before she can even process it. She runs fast, like her own daughters, but not fast enough. She opens each of their bedroom doors, her own heartbeats threatening to overlap over another until she reaches the last room. Everything is arranged, neat although cloaked in the six p.m. shadows. The sheets are folded, there is no note. She approaches the bed slowly, caresses the satin duvet, presses her hand and then her weight, the creases on the surface increasing like little waves during one dive. Her body has sunk - if this was an ocean. But this was a bed - the bed of her own twin daughters - and she remains still, breathing quiet but shaking, reminiscence of those laboring hours. She does not asks where she went wrong, she does not wonder where they went. Her husband can do that. There is no weight of depression falling over her shoulders, just the buoying emptiness of vacant rooms and a hollow womb.

10. Astoria is in her kingdom, hungrily roams about, plucking plants and leaves not for her stomach but instead presses them in between the pages of her notebook. Emery swings from tree to tree, paws on the dirt with her own bare hands. Anais smiles, and then looks up. She, however, has a long way to go.