Ignite

Chapter 26

When Jake returns, we catch the train back to our hotel.

I spend the entire time watching him, unable to ignore the differences that have appeared between us. Seeing mum has drained me, made me feel hollow and broken, but Jake looks undeniably filled.

He doesn't look happy exactly, but more alive, like our mother is a current and she's lifted sediment back into the water column that is Jake's veins and heart and lungs.

I can see Sylvia looking between us — at the twin who's suddenly animated and the twin who's become still — and she bites her lip, a worried frown distorting her face.

The rest of the trip follows a similar strand.

On Sunday, when Sylvia wakes me and asks if I still want to visit our old house, I roll over and stare at the wall.

If I see that house — my house — I'm sure I'll disintegrate and fly away in pieces on the wind, just like the trees on our property had, like the walls and doors and anything that resembled what I'd called home.

She takes this for the refusal it is, but Jake still wants to visit, so they go without me.

I fill the hours they're gone with sleep, and once we're on our flight, I sleep as well. When we return home I sleep, and halfway through the school day on Monday I'm sent to the sick bay for looking 'pale and sleep deprived' where I spent the rest of the day... asleep.

I'm strangely aware of the way I'm acting, of the worried looks and cautious comments, but only through a hazy film, like I'm watching my movements from below rippled water.

That is, until Sylvia loses her shit on Wednesday night.

It's dinner time and Peter comes to coax me from my bedroom, promising a return to its safety if I sit at the dining table for half an hour.

I reluctantly agree and follow him downstairs, squeezing around the table to sit in my usual corner.

Sylvia gives me a brilliant smile and pours a cup of orange juice, plonking it in front of me. I stare at it uncertainly, imagining the sickly sweetness as it slips down my throat, the acidic taste it will leave in my mouth.

Sylvia is staring at me though, so I give her a weak smile and bring the cup to my lips. This satisfies her, and she turns away, moving to the stove where pasta boils in a pot.

"I've made spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread tonight, Claude. Are you hungry?"

I glance at the pan, my brain foggy and distant.

"Thanks, Sylvia, but I'll be fine with the juice."

Sylvia turns to me, her expression battling against some powerful emotion.

"Just a small bowl, then?" she asks.

Jake's elbow nudges mine, his gaze heavy with meaning, and I frown at him in confusion, my brain too muddled and slow to understand the warning he gives.

"No, that's alright. I don't feel like eating."

The room falls silent and then there's a massive crash, the pan Sylvia had been holding thumping down onto the stove.

"That's it! I'm taking you to see Muhammad tomorrow. I can't take this anymore."

I stare at her in shock and Peter sighs.

"Sylvia—"

"No!" She rounds on him, her hands flying in the air. "I know what you're going to say, but she loves spaghetti bolognese! Usually I'm worried to serve it because she eats so much she might explode. But no! This won't improve if we keep ignoring it, Peter. She's unwell."

"Sylvia," Peter says quietly. "Don't yell. It isn't helping."

Sylvia runs a hand through her hair, sending curls springing wild, and turns to me, her eyes desperate.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to yell, but Claude, you need to pull yourself out of this. The way you've reacted to seeing your mother is scaring me, okay? And I don't know how to help you. Even when you first came here, you weren't this blue."

Jake grabs my hand under the table, squeezing hard.

"I'm sorry," I mumble.

"No, honey, don't apologise." Sylvia crouches in front of me, looking at me with big, sad eyes. "I just... I need you to go see Muhammad tomorrow. Is that okay?"

I nod, but she continues to stare at me and an intense awkwardness penetrates the fog that surrounds my mind.

"I'm going to go up to bed, if that's alright. I'll take some food with me."

"Of course."

Sylvia rushes to dump a large serving of pasta and sauce into a bowl before handing it to me. It's warm against my hands.

"Let me know if you want anything else."

I nod, turn and walk up the stairs, the boards creaking beneath my feet.

Whispers explode behind me once I reach the top landing and I stop, opening and closing my door while remaining in the hallway, listening.

As I expect, the whispers ease once they think I'm in my room, morphing into full voices with timbre and tone and volume.

"Claude will be fine," Jake says. "Give her a week and she'll be back to normal."

Sylvia murmurs a reply, the sentence indistinguishable, but I am sure I hear the words 'hurt herself'.

"No," Jake says. "Never, not even when she was at her worst."

I don't want to hear anymore, so I slip into my room, placing my spaghetti bolognese on my desk before flopping back into bed. 

...

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Next chapter out in a week :)

- Skylar xx