My Sister in the Forest. Part I - The Twins.

What you need to know are these things:

1. Grandmother has an appetite of ferocious proportions.

2. I fear my sisters dreams.

3. I will never again venture into the Black Forest.

4. I miss my sister.

Part I – The Twins

My sister loved when the fresh snows of November would fall slowly, trickling, sprinkling down upon the needles of the forest. One could, on a quite regular basis, find her sitting, staring with lingering thought, into the denseness of the Black Forest. Even with freshly laid snow she would find appropriate time to sit there on the edge of the small town. Constantly and frequently I would find myself sitting with elbows on windowsills watching her from behind the wavy, uneven glass panes of our home. Wondering, pondering her thoughts, sometimes in anticipation and other times in fear of the things that she contemplated.

From birth we were at odds. You see my sister was dead when she was born. The cord of my mother’s womb had strung itself around her neck and had made it impossible for her to breathe. The doctor's fumbling old hands worked quickly to untangle the slippery mess and once free he patted her back with the heel of his hand. Two minutes had passed before she made the tiniest of coughs and come to life, animated into the residence of the living right before our mother’s eyes. They say it was a miracle. I leave this determination to the hearer of this tale.

We are twins of age seventeen, she and I, both having deep chestnut hair with fair skin. Our fingers were nimble as were our toes. The knobs of our knees were of disproportionate size to the rest of our legs. They jutted out like crab apples sitting atop a naked tree branch. They were the subject of many a joke aimed at us by the Gillings brothers. Another set of twins that lived across the town from us. Incessantly annoying and unforgivably ugly. Between my sister and myself though, from a merely cosmetic stance we were, for all intensive purposes, perfectly alike, except for the scar that ran along the flat of my left foot. From ball of heel to tip of large toe I had been run though by an orphaned hunters knife while running in the Black Forest.

My sister and I had been playing a game of hide and seek. The sun had set below the foothills to the west and twilight came on like a deep veil over the forest. I was seeking and could not find her. I shouted and shouted for her. I was beginning to become scared, my shoulders becoming tense, as I grew weary of the forest. Fear crept on like a cold blanket.

“Isabelle!” I shouted.

I knew not where she hid and thus found myself at a crossroads. Knowing that I could not bear to be alone in the forest at dusk I yelled,

“This is no longer fun sister, I’m going home!”

I ran as though being chased. I ran as though if I were not to run death would have me. I ran because of the tales that the hunters would tell at my father’s table. I ran because of the things that my mind had created from tidbits of wives tales. I ran because I wanted to live.

As I had finally reached the forests edge my thin shoe split and I found myself prostrate on the forest floor, bare stomach aching on the frozen, compact powder snow. I slowly rolled over, reeling from the pain, only to see a large swatch of blood creeping over the white snow that layered the ground. The hunter’s knife had cut deep and had made short work of my tender skin. I began to weep and that is when my sister appeared. The crimson cloud of snow continued to grow as my sister stood idly by. I looked up at her to see her staring, without movement, just watching as my blood pooled in the heel of my shoe proceeding to pour out onto the snow. She made not a sound and said not a word, just watched, standing over me. Then finally, in utter monotone,

“I’ll fetch Mother.”

She walked away slowly with a lull in her step that made me sufficiently uneasy. I began to feel woozy.

That is when Isabelle was lost as a sister. She had become something else. She was someone that I did not know.