Between the Spirit and the Dust

Prologue

“Counsel, if you are ready, you can swear your witness in.”

Mr. Peters smiled at the judge and nodded. He turned towards him, the light in his eyes dimming a little and the corner of his lips turning downward. To anyone else it would have appeared that he was trying to sympathize with me. But I knew better. He was trying to tell me, Don’t screw this one up.

“Miss Emily Wilkins, do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

 “Yes I do.” My voice came out scratchy, softer than I expected. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the old lady in green’s face crumpling but then I remembered that Peters said not to look at the jurors. I forced my gaze to return back to him.

He’d caught me looking at her but said nothing. We both knew why she looked like she was going to cry when she saw me. I looked exactly like Sylvia. We’d shared the same wavy brown hair, the same almond-shaped blue eyes and even the same slightly upturned nose.  Physical appearances aside though, we had nothing else in common. Sylvia was the life of the party, the wild child. I was the good kid, the one that never strayed too far from home.

“Emily, did you hear my question?”

I startled, realizing that I had let my mind wander in the middle of the trial. Peters didn’t look pleased. His eyebrows puckered together, his eyes darting from the jurors back to me. 

Clearing my throat, I managed to ask in a steadier voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that. What did you ask me?"

“No problem at all, just let me repeat the question again… Emily, can you tell us, what were you doing on the fourth of June last year and where you were?”

The words felt like they were caught in my throat.

Seconds ticked by and Peters raised his eyebrows 

“I was…I was visiting my sister on the fourth of June last year. I was a junior then, but I was looking at colleges. Trying to…trying to figure out where I would be applying you see.” My hands were shaking and I clasped them together, hoping that nobody else could see how nervous I was. “Sylvia was already settled into her college and my parents wanted me to take a look at hers to see if I was interested in applying there.” 

Peters nodded briefly. From there we went through the basics: what were the places that we had visited, how I felt that day. These were all questions that we’d discussed before, things that I knew easily. But then, deciding that he had painted enough of the background facts, he asked, softly, “What happened later that night? After you had dinner with her?”

Even though I had known that everything was leading up to this point, it still didn’t make things any easier. The images flashed before my eyes. The way she had smiled teasingly, jokingly at me. The way I had shook my head, refused and left her. The way her body was found later on.

A cool voice interrupted my thoughts. The opposing lawyer, Samuel Hopkins had spoken. “Objection, Your Honour. He’s leading the witness.”

The judge shook her head. “Objection overruled, Counsel. I want to hear the answer to this.”

Peters had turned to look at the judge to see her reaction. Then he had looked back at me. Focus, he seemed to be saying.

I nodded, focusing only on him when I replied. This was how we had prepared. I couldn’t fail my sister now. Not when I already had. “After we had dinner, Sylvia said that there was a frat party that she wanted to go to. I told her that I didn’t want go. We joked around for a bit. She knew that it wasn’t really my scene anyway. She passed me her spare key and asked me to go back to her dorm first. I went back to her room and just, you know, stayed up for a while watching some show. I fell asleep later and all that.. and then. And then…"