C2 Chapter 2: Elizabeth

Our home is smaller than our old home, but still very spacious with many rooms. Our money is gradually becoming scarce, but father is optimistic to earn more soon. I miss our maid, even though she often didn’t approve when I helped her with the housework. To me she was more than a servant. She was a friend. It was bad enough that Elisabeth – I mean Elizabeth – kept harassing and bossing her around. She always enjoyed being served. But even more, to humiliate and crush her … With the memories I feel sick in my stomach. I suppress the sad thoughts of the past and concentrate rather on the here and now.

One day when I enter Elizabeth’s room, I can’t believe my eyes. The room is wrapped in darkness, black shadows dance on the wall and the worst: She sits motionless on her bed and stares through me with empty, dead eyes. The white of her eyeballs is so bright that it is a strong contrast to the rest of the room, and it scares me in a way I have never known before.

Nevertheless, I pull myself together and walk towards her. I grab her by the shoulder and shake her: “Wake up, Elizabeth! What is up with you?” I ask desperately, but there is no reaction from her. Black smoke spreads further and further and she begins to whisper strange words – almost as if she were in command of the Shadows.

I storm out of the room and almost collide with my mother. “What’s the matter, Mary? I was just going to tell you that dinner is almost ready,” she says with a frown. I stammer, wiping the sweat off my forehead. When I finally get my breath back, I say: “It’s okay, Mom. Elizabeth is in her room, I’ll get her right away.”

"She’s not doing something forbidden again, is she?” she asks skeptically, but I shake my head vehemently.

“No, everything’s fine. She’s just resting,” I assure her.

She won’t tell me, but I can see the relief. When she goes down the stairs again and leaves me alone in the hallway, I can’t suppress a sigh. Elisabeth, what are you doing? I’m just trying to protect you.

A few minutes later she sits with us at the dining table and dines. Her eyes are normal again and nothing reminds me of the horrible scene that has just taken place in her room. While I’m poking around my food without appetite, she grins at me. Does she even know how much she's already trapped in this darkness? Does she realize what just happened? But when I meet her look and she just looks at me in confusion, I feel an ice-cold shower running down my spine. She doesn’t know.

The days become weeks, the weeks months. Nothing helps, nothing gets through to her. My sister is lost and with her a part of me. She has done terrible things and I am disappointed and hurt. But I can’t give her up. Never. She’s my sister.