Anathema

ANATHEMA


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Anathema // a person or thing accursed or consigned to damnation or destruction.

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My little sister has always been a quiet child, prone to playing by herself and rarely interacting with anyone if it could be avoided. I’d never really understood why – I mean, she was nice, I knew that. I’d never seen her be anything other than sweet, never seen her throw a tantrum or scream. She was adorable as well; the same red hair and green eyes that we’d both inherited from our father, though her eyes had more blue to them and her hair was darker, almost a true red instead of the closer to orange shade of most. My own was only a few shades lighter.
Adults thought that she was just the cutest thing ever, but I’d seen the other kids give her a wide berth, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. It was as if they sensed something in her that was wrong, something the adults didn’t see. Whatever the problem, Sammy didn’t seem to mind being alone and I didn’t want to press the issue and make her uncomfortable.
There was nothing wrong with being introverted. Nothing at all.

~*~*~*~*~


“There’s something not right about that child.”
It’s late, and I have heard this particular suspicious remark far too many times before from Camille to even take offence anymore. Much.
“Cam, leave Sammy alone. There’s nothing wrong with her.”
Samantha – or Sammy – is my baby sister, nine years old to my nineteen, and one of the sweetest children you’d ever meet. I don’t know why Cam seems to dislike her so much, but I tell myself it’s just jealousy. After all, Cam had been my best friend and confidante since before Sammy had even been born, and we’d remained close after so many years. However, that changed somewhat six months ago when my father died.
My mother had died giving birth to me. I hadn’t known Sammy’s mother well – she didn’t stick around very long after Sammy was born. Just didn’t want the stress of raising a kid, I guess. It makes me guilty that sometimes, I know exactly how she felt.
After all, I’m the closest thing to a parent Sammy’s got left.
Since I spend so much of my time taking care of Sammy, I don’t have much left for Camille. I know it makes her mad, because we’d always been so close, just like sisters, only now I had to take care of my real sister and Cam was left with seeing me whenever I could fit her in.
Which wasn’t too often lately.
“Jamie, I know she’s your sister but frankly,” she casts a look towards the door and lowers her voice, as if Sammy will hear her, “She creeps me out.”
I try to keep my voice calm even as the exhaustion creeps in. I love Cam, but she can be so childish.
“Sam is just adjusting, that’s all,” I say, rubbing my temples. I can feel the headache coming on already. “That’s all.”
Cam leans forward in her seat, resting her elbows on the table. Her dark brown hair falls around a lovely face, so familiar and comforting. But she’s really getting on my last nerve.
“No, you don’t understand. I saw her yesterday…” Her voice catches, and there’s a line forming between her eyes that speaks of true distress. “She was petting a cat – normal right? But the cat was just terrified. Couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Like she’d hurt it”
I roll my eyes and send Cam home, which she does reluctantly. It’s just jealousy, I tell myself. She’ll get over it. She has to.
And maybe when she does, I’ll be able to settle my own doubts about Sammy.

~*~*~*~*~

Because I’ve become full-time parent to Sammy now, I had to put my dreams on hold for awhile. I had wanted to go to college, to study to be a doctor. Obviously there was no way to do that and take care of Sammy too – we’d gotten money when Dad died, but I had still needed to get a job – that money wouldn’t last forever. And how do you go to college full-time and take care of a nine-year-old at the same time?
Answer? You don’t.
So I’d decided to delay my dream for a bit. I was all Sammy had – there was no other family to help me raise her. I’d gotten a job as a secretary at a health agency – not exactly a Doctor, but as close as I’d be getting for a long while. The money was enough to support us, and even if I didn’t love it, it was bearable. And I’d do it, because it was best for Sammy right now, and that’s what mattered.

~*~*~*~*~

I grip the steering wheel tight, counting down slowly and using the feel of the rubber against my palms to ground me. I close my eyes, listening to the tick of the engine as it cools.
Sammy’s school has called me to pick her up – she is feeling sick, and was practically in tears asking to go home.
All I can think of, even before worry about what could be wrong with her, is how badly this looks at work, me being called out again. The second time in less than a week, and for what? Hysterics.
I feel bad for that thought, and push away the dark questions of what my life would be like right now, had Sammy never been born. College. Friends. Maybe even a boyfriend. The things a normal girl my age would have.
I walk slowly to the office and the sound of my heels echoes eerily on the tile. All of the children are in class, behind their closed doors, and the halls are vast and silent. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself, even though it’s not particularly cold in the school, and speed up to get to the office and my waiting sister. Anything to get away from that echoing tap.

~*~*~*~*~

When Sammy was only six, she used to crawl into bed with me at night. She had terrible dreams, and as her big sister, I was a safe-haven. I don’t know why it was me and not our father she’d come to with her nightmares, but if I so much as suggest she go to him instead she’d look so lost and terrified; I didn’t have the heart to send her away.
I wonder sometimes what caused those terrible dreams, what could send her running to me at night when so often she seemed indifferent towards my presence during the day? It’s not that she didn’t love me, or felt any negativity towards me; she was just a very isolated child and preferred solitude. But it never failed that in the nighttime hours she’d come running, terrified of something she couldn’t name, begging me to keep her safe.
After Dad died, she never did it again.

~*~*~*~*~

It’s like a great yawning chasm in my mind, that night. The night he died. Doctors say it was an accident, that he’d fallen down the stairs and broken his neck. He’d died instantly. I’d seen it happen – or at least, they tell me I did. They found me sitting beside him, just staring blankly at nothing. The last thing I remember was Sammy sneaking into my room again, nine years old and still so afraid, whispering to me – and then, nothing. Like white noise inside my head, up until when I woke in the hospital.
Sammy hadn’t seemed to take his death very hard, and in ways it bothered me. He was our father – why didn’t she grieve? But I guess she dealt with it her own way, as she’d always done. Quietly.
At night, her sleep was more peaceful than it’d ever been.

~*~*~*~*~

I dream about dad sometimes. His neck is twisted grotesquely, obviously broken. His eyes are sunken into his face, a sickly pallid color that says, dead. All I can remember is the horror of it, the stink of rotting flesh and body fluids; a hand that reaches for me, the nails broken and covered in dirt as if he’d clawed his way from the grave.
How ironic that it’s me who wakes at night now, shaking and mouth open as if to scream. So scared, that no sound comes but a half-choking aborted gasp.
I don’t know what he’s saying, in these dreams. My mind just blanks out.
Sammy is the only one sleeping well lately.

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The dreams just get worse as time goes on. Seeing Sammy makes me feel terrible; like something sick and twisted has crawled its way inside me and taken root. She seems happy; too happy, and that nasty, twisted part of me whispers that she’s glad dad died. That she doesn’t care at all what happened to him, that I’d had to give up my ambitions to play mommy when I was only nineteen and how it’s just not fair, not fair at all.
It’s all her fault.
I take time off from work; try to tell myself it’s all in my head. Repression maybe, memories of seeing his death resurfacing and mixing with an active imagination to make my worst nightmare; buried guilt that I’d seen it happen and hadn’t stopped it. That had to be it. There was no other explanation.


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Sunlight no longer chases the dreams away. I know it’s crazy, but I can still smell him faintly, the stench of something dead and rotted, but obviously not gone. He gets closer, so close I can taste it, taste death on my tongue, in the back of my throat, choking me.
Tonight, for the first time, I hear his voice. One word, accusing.
“Sammy.”

~*~*~*~*~

I didn’t want to believe it, because Sammy is such a sweet little girl. She’s never hurt anybody in her life, and it seemed so insane that she could have pushed him. Pushed our father down the stairs, breaking his neck and ultimately killing him.
The nastiness twists in my gut and whispers sibilantly in my ear, about how she’d seemed so unaffected by his death. How she did not seem to grieve, not even now, almost seven months after he’d died. About sociopaths, born so normal-seeming but broken inside, unable to feel the way normal people do. How it could be hidden for so long, until they started killing. No reason for it, no justification anyone else could understand. Could that be Sammy?
I can see her doing it, see her standing behind him as he stands at the top of the stairs, maybe coming down for a drink of water. See her push him, her face blank and uncaring, perhaps even interested, as his body tumbles down the stairs, the sickening crack as his fragile bones snap. I can see it so clearly, that I begin to wonder if it’s a memory, if I am finally regaining those lost moments. Moments I had blocked, perhaps from the trauma of seeing my baby sister kill our father?
Could I really believe she had done it?

~*~*~*~*~

I can hear screaming; terrified, hurt. A familiar childish voice.
“You’re supposed to be dead! Dead! I saw you die!”
Choked sobbing and the feeling of little hands pushing desperately at me. What’s going on? Sammy…she’s scared. I can’t move. I can’t see.
I can hear though, and I can feel.
She’s so terrified; I can practically hear her heartbeat, like a trapped thing.
Quick movement, a choked noise, and suddenly my hands are wet, covered in something warm and metallic-smelling.
And just like that, the veil over my memories is gone.

~*~*~*~*~

Sammy, crawling into bed with me, so scared; practically in tears, dark circles under her eyes.
Asking her why she refuses to go to dad.
Rage, blind rage, coloring my vision red when she breaks down and confesses a multitude of his sins to me.
Everything put into perspective; why she is so shy and introverted, why she does not play with others, why she comes to me at night shaking and scared.
Leaving her behind in my room, seeing him there in the hall, at the top of the stairs. Perhaps going to get a drink, perhaps headed to the bathroom. I don’t care.
It’s so easy, to just reach out and push him. To watch him fall, hear the snapping of his bones as he hits the stairs. The vicious satisfaction as I see his blank eyes staring, staring almost accusingly. I don’t care. Let him accuse.
Disgusting. Horrifying, that it could have gone for so long and I’d never known. That he’d hurt an innocent child so much and I’d never seen…
I call the police. Sink down onto the floor beside his unmoving body and feel…
Nothing.

~*~*~*~*~

I scrub and scrub at the blood on my hands, but it just won’t go away. God, Sammy…she’s not moving. She’s not breathing. I can hear the sound of the ambulance coming and I want to be found, want to be punished for what he’d done, what he’d used me to do.
Even over the ambulance, I can almost swear I hear the sound of his laughter.