Drake entered his house and immediately knew something was wrong.
There was no soft sandy noise streaming through the walls. All was quiet. The Ayis greeted him, but he fluttered a preoccupied hand and they streamed away like rats off a sinking ship.
The stairs were ascended slowly. They knew better than to creak.
Still no soft sand. The jewels lay motionless, like they never did.
Was their sifter preoccupied with the necessities of dried mangoes or a toilet? Drake loitered at the top of the steps, but still there came no sound.
Then something happened. A vibrance of soft blues struck him in the chest, causing him to stumble.
He blinked. "What was that?" he asked the waiting air. It didn't reply.
Then the sound came again. A dance of noise, feminine and shaky, blue with spurts of red. It was a laugh. Something you never dared hear from your glowless sister.
When Drake heard the laugh for a third time, he leaped up the stairs.
His stomach lurched, turning an unfamiliar corner down the corridor. The thin white door grinned Cheshire-catlike for him. Numerous odors hit his nose. He turned back, but heard a fourth laugh.
There was another turn, and some breathing through the mouth.
The door handle felt slippery, but Drake turned it.
The room was not as horrifying as he had imagined. It was simply rather sad.
The litter box was placed in the center, some of its escaped jewels scattered around it in rings according to color. One cat was almost knocked over due to its proximity to the opening door. It meowed. Then it kept spinning, long blueish fur blowing up as it chased its tail.
The other cat was chewing at what once had been a piece of dried mango. Its bones poked at its dusty tortoiseshell coat, oranges and browns and blacks too unsaturated to be distinguished from one another. Two windows were open. The smell ignored them and refused to leave, grumping over everyone in shades of cat poop and decaying armpit.
Drake made a noise akin to that of a duck choking.
Another laugh shattered the smell and Drake turned.
There, by the window, someone covered in brown sat. Long brown hair, snaking up to her thighs and falling over the carpet, adorned with jewels of the room. Tattered, dusty layers of clothing whispering to her heels, half-invaded by stains at the sleeves.
Something small was pushing at the brown, a mass of small fuzzy grey in her lap. It glowed a soft, pulsing lilac. Not one of the cats that spun. Feline, perhaps, but smaller.
"Cassandra?" Drake asked. That was her name, he remembered. Cassandra something something Hirsch. "Cassie?"
The brown looked up, transparently pale like fine china. A pair of dark midnights flittered uneasily. They blinked.
"Hello," Cassandra said, sounding slightly puzzled.
She paused, looking Drake up and down, taking him in. Pale porcelain skin, gleaming off a small, pointed face topped with shaggy raven-wing hair. Too-big eyes blinked. Long, skeleton-like fingers pinched at a minute, straight nose. Very small. Very tall for being that small. His clean school uniform refused to interact with the dirt.
"Are you a food-bringer?" Cassandra said. She was definitely puzzled now. Drake wasn't stupid; he was trilingual and two fifths. He knew the words Cassandra said were empty, and the unfamiliar boy she saw in her eyes was really not unfamiliar, just more familiar than she was capable of thinking.
Drake blinked. Something fell from his heart to his knees and sank into the floor.
Cassandra looked back at him, midnight seeming disturbed.
"No," Drake said. His voice was a speck amid the thousands of jewels his sister sorted through each day. "A food-bringer...an Ayi? Then, no, no...I'm not."
Cassandra squinted. Drake thought it was curious how people often squinted as if squinting could part some veil of confusion. "Who are you, then?"
One of her hands was absentmindedly stroking the grey. It started to make a vibrating noise like a rusty air-conditioner. Cassandra tore her gaze from the stranger to look down at the grey pulsing lilac and laugh.
Drake felt something else fall with every word he spoke until he was left there, stripped and bare save for his clothes, which fluttered transparently in the stink. Last time he was here, she didn't think he was a food-bringer. But last time was long ago, and the last time she still glowed.
"No, Cassie, I'm Drake."
She didn't reply. The stink slipped in between them. She became blurry.
"I'm Drake. Drake Lucius Hirsch?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not know you."
"How can you not know me? I'm Drake!"
"I'm really sorry. Extremely sorry. I suppose I'm not the one you were looking for..."
"I am looking for you."
"You are? Why is that so?"
"I'm your brother."
Silence.
"Cassandra, I'm your brother."
Silence.
"Cassie. I'm Drake, your brother."
Silence.
The stink was heavy in between them, brown clouding Drake's eyes. Apparently it also manifested in wetness, because something wet was prickling at his eyelids. Cassandra shook her head, once, twice. She parted wet lips with a soft murmur.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I have no brother."