vinculum
At age eleven, Elain fractured her hand. The bones in her palm cracked straight through in two places, crushed under the weight of her own body.
She’d been scaling the monkey bars to sit on top and swing her legs off the side, because it was cool to do that sort of thing, and she’d done it so many times that it was nothing new. She’d lain lazily across it. The entire metal structure had been ablaze under the insistent rays of the sun.
Penny’s shiny hair, as she picked her way across the playground, caught Elain’s gaze.
Something shifted, behind her. Penny seemed unbothered, but whatever was behind her, it was moving –-
Elain blinked her eyes, rapid, trying to clear her vision to better see the strange thing.
Nothing.
Penny moved forward, again, and this time she saw Elain. She waved a bright “hello” to her sister.
Elain moved her hand from under her chin so she could wave back.
And there, the thing from before --
It moved again --
“Penny,” Elain’s voice sputtered, frantic. Her eyes blew wide as she gripped the metal bars to lean over the edge. “Penny, look –- ”
Penny glanced over her shoulder, but she didn’t see anything. No, no, Elain needed to protect her –-
Her hand slipped on the edge of the structure, and she plunged forward with all the weight in her, heart flying up and lodging in her throat. A terrible flash of panic leaked in.
The next thing she remembers is the insistent throbbing of her hand, trapped between her ribs and the splintering wood-chips.
Penny hovered over her, hands gently pulling Elain’s arm. She cradled the limb like it was a butterfly, fragile-like.
Elain hardly recognized it as her own hand. It must have swelled to the size of a tennis ball.
Penny cupped it in her palm, whispering something indiscernible, and all Elain understood was the confusion lacing her tone.
(There was nothing behind Penny.)
**
It has been eight years since that fracture. Elain’s hand healed fantastically, and the family doctor assured she would never have to worry about it again. The memory collects dust in the cramped corners of her mind.
She tucks her hand under her pillow, an empty gaze trained on the window. It’s storming outside, monsoon season. A lulling sound.
Thunder cracks loud like a whip through the room. At its heels comes a jarring crash.
Elain jolts upright, and tightens her fingers against the covers, waiting for another sound. Because Penny’s room is upstairs; the crash must have come from her. It must have.
The house is still, but Elain knows instinct when she feels it, swirling low and ominous in her belly.
Did she forget to lock the front door again? She gets so distracted. If she forgot to lock the door -- if there’s someone hurting Penny -- if it’s her fault --
She wouldn’t forgive herself.
Elain pitches out of bed, and almost trips on her way up the stairs, toes caught on the second-to-last step, but she emerges intact. She peers down the cramped hallway - Penny’s room is the second door. It’s silent.
Her skin prickles. Carefully, she toes the door open.
The first thing that catches her eye is shattered glass. Sharp edges and scarce light flashing off the shards and onto the walls. The bed covers are tousled, bunched up.
A shadow of a person that is not supposed to be there.
Fear spikes through her veins so rapidly her blood numbs into ice, and she lurches forward. The glass to her right is what remains of Penny’s vanity mirror - now in pieces, and as the dark mass of a stranger in Penny’s room whips around to evade Elain’s grasp, Elain’s fingers catch on the glass in an attempt to remain upright.
A shard carves into the soft part of her palm, and it rips a pained shriek from her throat. Blood swells from the wound, and she can feel it along her palm, viscous and lukewarm. Immediately she pulls her hand away, and cradles it against her chest.
The figure moves closer, and Elain thinks it might be whispering something, but the sound of it is swirled with the thrumming of Elain’s pulse, and she can’t comprehend it.
With a jerk of a movement Elain glances over at the bed, where a lump sits comfortably, swathed in bed covers. That’s Penny. She looks back at the dark figure before her. That’s not Penny.
Life returns to her limbs. Her hands fly to the figure, clasping around where the neck must be. This is defense - this is for her, this is for Penny --
The figure’s fingers come to claw at where Elain has tightened her hands, and they bend underneath the pressure.
“Don’t - ” she manages, through clenched teeth, as loud as she dares, “I’m protecting her.”
A choking sound reaches Elain’s ears, past the thud-thud-thud of her heartbeat. It sounds like a plea, but Elain’s eyebrows draw closer together in concentration, and she clenches her fingers tighter. She can’t let up now - she’s so close --
The meager light reflecting around the room illuminates the shine of blood against the figure’s throat as the body goes still between her hands, dead weight crumpling. Elain almost follows it down, but she’s snapped out of her stupor by the dull crack of the intruder’s skull against the bedframe, and stands slowly.
She blinks, reeling, and takes a deep, calming breath. She’s done it. Another glance to the bed confirms it - Penny’s unmistakeable figure lies still under the cover.
Elain wipes the blood on her hand against her nightgown, but the smear and the strain of her skin remind her that there’s still an open wound. The previously absent pain comes rushing back, and she grimaces for it.
She turns, careful to skirt around the glass lest it dig into the tender skin of her foot, and slips back to her room.
**
Elain had woken to a smarting gash on the palm of her right hand, painting a nasty picture with coppery blood on her pillow and the side of her nightgown.
A shame - it had always been her favorite nightgown.
Daylight slashes across the room in beams, and Elain waits and listens. Penny should be up by now, clattering about in the kitchen.
Can’t hear a thing.
After a few moments, she decides to go check on Penny herself. She knocks lightly before pushing the door ajar.
“Penny?” Elain calls, softly. She sees Penny’s bright hair first, splayed against the white duvet.
She moves a little further into the room.
The shattered mirror on the adjacent wall casts shards of light across the room.
There’s blood smeared on some fragments of glass. The scent of it, stagnant and corrosive, invades. Her throat is uneasy when she tries again, “Penny?”
Penny doesn’t move. The hair on the bed, Elain notices, is attached not to the figure under the covers but rather to a static-looking body slumped unnaturally against the covers. The same shade of carmine-red is stamped across the neck in broken fingerprints.
An acerbic feeling rises up in the pit of her stomach, lapping at her lungs. The hoarse feeling in her throat persists when she tries to force it back down. “Penny?”
Penny is still, unmoving, and glassy eyes are focused on a spot above Elain’s head.
A horrible, choked sound wrestles itself from Elain’s throat. She feels her knees buckle beneath her, and the carpet rushes up to meet her before she catches herself on her hands and knees.
No.
Penny will wake, now that Elain’s made such a loud noise, she will wake and she will look at Elain and tell her good morning --
No.
Elain turns as fast as she dares, her messy hair whipping around and catching against her lips. Suddenly, the carpet is too far below her and the ceiling is too high above.
Blindly she pushes downstairs, almost slips down the last few steps, and the smell of her fresh omelet is sickening. It threatens to bring bile up; but all that emerge are breathless dry heaves.
The air outside is too sharp, in the same way that the air inside had been too dull. It pushes and stings and sticks to the underside of her skin.
Elain does not stop moving until fallen brown leaves mask the uneven thud-thud-thud of her footsteps -- until her hand, aching, snags on the rough bark of a tree and starts to leave a trail of glistening red drops where she goes.
She does not stop moving until her lungs strain with the effort and her nightgown is disheveled and torn in three places.
She falls to her knees gracelessly, then rests her back against a wide tree trunk. The scenery is unfamiliar; the adrenalin seeps out of her system slowly, so slowly, and it’s only replaced by dread.
Elain thinks, I do not know how to get home.
Elain thinks, that’s alright.
Penny will find me.
**