Stepsister

by Jennifer Donnelly

A smile, small but defiant, curved the magician’s full red lips. “That’s what we do with our pain,” she said, watching the butterfly rise. “We make it into something beautiful.” “We make it into something meaningful,” said the diva. “We make it matter,” whispered the actress.

Ghosts are not the dead, come back from the grave to torment the living; ghosts are already here. They live inside us, keening in the ashes of our sorrows, mired in the thick, clutching mud of our regrets.

Most people will fight when there is some hope of winning, no matter how slim. They are called brave. Only a few will keep fighting when all hope is gone. They are called warriors.

“It’s easy to love the lovable. Can Isabelle love when it hurts? When its costs? When the price of love may be her life?” “Mortals aren’t born strong, they become strong. Isabelle will, too.” “You are many things,” said Fate, shaking her head. “Most of all, you are ruthless.” “And you are dreary, madame,” Chance said hotly. “So dreary, you’d have everyone in bed at eight with a cup of hot milk and a plate of madeleines. Can’t you see that the courage to risk, to dare, to toss that gold coin up in the air over and over again, win or lose, is what makes humans human? They are fragile, doomed creatures, blinder than worms yet braver than the gods.” “Challenging the Fates is hard. Eating madeleines is easy. Most mortals choose the madeleines. Isabelle will, too,” Fate said.

Maman looked at Isabelle. In the icy depths of her eyes, something was shifting and cracking. Isabelle saw it and saw that her mother was helpless to stop it. “You are strong. So strong,” Maman said. “I saw that in you when you were a tiny baby. It has always frightened me, your strength. I would rock you in my arms and wonder, Where is there a place in the world for such a strong girl?”

“What a fool Isabelle is,” many people would say. “What an idiot to throw her bracelet away on a lost cause.” Never listen to such small-souled folk. The skin-and-bones dog who shows up at your door. The broken-winged bird you nurse back to health. The kitten you find crying at the side of the road. You think you’re saving them, don’t you? Ah, child. Can’t you see? They’re saving you.

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” he told Isabelle. “What they said … it isn’t true.” “Then why do they say it?” Isabelle asked quietly. Felix looked at her. At this girl. Who was weary and dirty, bloody and sweat-soaked, but defiant. This girl. Who was leading three helpless creatures that nobody wanted away from the slaughter. “That’s not the question, Isabelle,” he said softly. “The question is, why do you believe them?”

“I think we all make mistakes. What matters is that we don’t let our mistakes make us.”

Isabelle thought her heart might burst. One by one, queens, pirates, empresses, and generals from all the corners of the world told their stories, bowed their heads, and left the stage. They were not pretty, these women. Pretty did not begin to describe them. They were shrewd. Powerful. Wily. Proud. Dangerous. They were strong. They were brave. They were beautiful. Finally, after what felt to Isabelle like only minutes, but was actually hours, only Elizabeth was left on the stage. “Strange, isn’t it, how stories that are never told are the ones we most need to hear,” she said, then she bowed, too, and walked off into the darkness.

Most of the footlights had burned out, a few still glowed faintly. In their light, Isabelle could see that the marquis and his players were gone. The stage was empty and silent. All Isabelle could hear was the sound of her heart beating. The spell of the play was broken. Isabelle looked around and realized she was still standing on the chair. She stepped down, her hands clenched. The excitement and wonder and sheer joy she’d felt only moments ago ebbed away. Grief, agonizing and deep, filled the void it left. “Why show me this?” she shouted wretchedly to the darkness. “Why show me something I can never have? Something I can never be?” No one was there. Isabelle was talking to herself.

Her thoughts were silent, known only to herself. But she sent them Isabelle’s way. Stop burdening the gods. Stop cursing the devil. They will make no path for you. They gave you their dark gifts: reason and will. Now you must make your own way. What’s done is done. Whether to you, or by you, and you cannot change it. But what’s not done is not done. And there, both hope and hazard lie. Believe that you can make your way. Or don’t. Either way, you are right. Every war is different, yet each battle is the same. The enemy is only a distraction. The thing you are fighting against, always, is yourself.