Esmé

Esmé has always been different. She was a quiet girl. And special. Very special. I know every older sister would think that their younger sister was special but Esmé was reallyspecial. No one else was special in the same way she was. 

My and Esmé’s mother died when we she was still very young, so as her older sister who was ten years wiser than her, I took on the role as her motherly guardian. 

Mother’s death was an accident. It happened four years ago, when Esmé was only two. I hope she, Esmé, never in her life finds out how Mother lost her life. No one except me and Father knows. And it will remain that way until both of us become one with the earth. 

Esmé didn’t talk. She started mumbling when she was two, but after Mother’s death, she lost her voice. Never again have I heard her soft, angelic voice. I know she’s able to speak, but I think that part of her being so peculiarly special, is her special communication. She spoke with her eyes. Her eyes told a story, an enchantment any time they were looked into. Large, soft and blue they were, like rare gems. Father, and especially I have developed ways of understanding her. We knew when she was happy, melancholy or…perilous. 

Father, Esmé and I lived in a hut far from many people, in the suburbs of Britain. I had stopped my education long ago. After Mother’s accident, I had to stop. Father had to work to support the three of us, and I had to look after Esmé. She couldn’t go to school. I needed to maintain her. Monitor her. Especially when she was asleep. Esmé was most out of control when she was asleep. That is why I needed to stay. If Esme’s dreams got out of control, we were in mortal peril. And so was she. But she couldn’t control herself. That’s why we were living such a lonely, isolated life. Because sometimes, our nightmares got out of hand.

Because I was home so much with Esmé, I needed to keep myself busy with things while I looked after my sister. Like most women, I cleaned and I cooked. But I wasn’t just going to continue with the stereotypical things I was expected to do, no. I was a reader. Each Thursday, Father stopped at the library in town after he finished work to bring home something for me to read. Each week I got to enjoy a new book. And each book was an adventure on its own. Thursdays were always my favourite. I couldn’t wait to see what Father would bring me when he got home. Through my excessive reading I have learnt a lot over the years. I have read not only fiction, but of things that really happened. History. Pre-History. Theories. Everything there is to know that I can possibly learn. I craved knowledge like a little child craved sweets. And I tell Esmé about the things I read. She likes learning as well, I could tell by her eyes. She loved hearing the stories. But I only told her the stories that were harmless, for anything that could possibly wind up running her imagination could be the end of something else. 

I also sometimes read to her. Esmé herself, even though six, could read a bit as Mother taught her from the young age of two, just before she had died. I never continued teaching her to read as Father and I found that she might just read something that could live in her mind. But I think she did want to learn. Her eyes started thirsting for the letters, like I did when I first started reading. But I chose to act like I misread her because these things were far too menacing.

It was Monday morning, I was already drained. I couldn’t sleep when I was alone with Esmé because I didn't know when she would sleep, and I needed to be there for when she did. Father who works in town for long hours every weekday also had to sleep. Someone has to be conscious at all times in this house, and most of the time it was me. 

“Breakfast, Esmé,” I called out. I made oats. Esmé trotted to the dining room where I had placed a bowl of oats on the end of the long table, Esmé’s favourite seat. She thanked me with her eyes and bowed her head for prayer. I took the seat to her left and took her hand, and we prayed. Esmé’s eyes were filled with that look of hunger as she dug her spoon into the hot, sweet porridge. 

“Did you dream last night?” I asked Esmé. I was awake and by her side at all times but I had nodded off a few times. Naturally, she said nothing and continued devouring her porridge as if I had said nothing. 

“Esmé,” I said. She looked up for a single second but then proceeded to her food again. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I hadn’t had the chance to decipher her eyes yet. 

I opened the book that Father had gotten me from the city the last time he went out. It was one about the Cretaceous Period, and all the biotic creatures that paleontologists have found to exist in it. I couldn’t share this book with Esmé. Dinosaurs were too vicious for her to ponder. That didn’t mean I couldn’t read about them. I did. They were one of my favourite things to inquire about. I found it mesmerizing how people could conclude so much about animals that lived millions of years ago with the little remains they have left today. I was almost finished with the book. I had one last chapter left, and that was on Velociraptors. While I finished my breakfast, I dove into the last bit of the book.

Esmé pushed her bowl forward as an indication that she had finished eating and that I had to come now. I sighed inaudibly, as I wanted to continue reading, but closed my book and stood up nevertheless. “Let’s go get you dressed,” I smiled. 

I took my sister by the hand and led her to the room that she and I had shared. I had washed Esme’s favourite red dress the previous evening. It was laid out on my bed. Esmé’s lips curved into a slight smile. Her happiness made me beam. She skipped to grab the dress, but suddenly fell at the sudden sound of something from outside. It was loud, angry, like some sort of snarl from an animal. Esmé’s pupils dilated quickly. She was scared. I was, too. I tiptoed to the window to peek out to see what had made that villainous noise. My eyes were deceiving me…playing tricks. No…it couldn’t be. I hadto be hallucinating. It was impossible…or was it? 

“Did you read my book, Esmé?” I looked angrily at my little sister, shutting the window with effort and storming in Esmé’s direction. She crept away but continued staring me in the eyes…her big, blue eyes were everything. 

“Esmé!” I bellowed. “You can read?!”

She could, yes, her eyes told me so. But I couldn’t imagine how she could. I stormed to the front door to make sure it was shut. I yanked all the other windows in the hut closed. I could still hear the shallow snarls. I had liked the sound of them, although I knew their danger. 

Then one of the windows shattered. Glass crystals scattered the floor, the room. And she was in our house. Right before my eyes…

“Esmé, stay there!” my voice echoed through the house. I looked behind me for anything I could use as a weapon. I grabbed a chair and held it out in front of me.

“Stay-y back,” I said through my teeth. My eyes and hers were locked. Neither of us would break contact, it would imply the weakling and give the other enough confidence to strike. 

“Please,” I begged. She was creeping nearer, looking for a way to get to me. Then she charged. I threw a chair in her direction. It hit her lightly, but it was not enough. I had to run. She did, too. I cantered to the room in which I last knew Esmé was. She was still there, her eyes filled with tears. I leaped into the room and shoved the door close behind me. I felt the vibration of her on the other side of the door, trying to get in. The snarls were getting louder and more powerful as she got close. 

“Esmé, you unleashed a velociraptor into the world!” I cried out of fear and anger. But I knew Esmé couldn’t help it, she was born with these strange, peculiar dreams that could turn to reality if they got out of control. I still don’t know how it’s possible. I’ve read up about it but only ‘witchcraft’ can explain it, and naturally, I’d be ignorant to think my sister was a witch. She wasn’t. She was just a little girl who had a big imagination. It had cost us a lot, including the life of Mother. But there’s no way to stop it, and never would I murder my sister. She just needed to learn to control her dreams.

“Esmé, where’s the portal?!” I screeched, exerting every bit of strength I had to keep the door closed.

Esmé nodded in the direction of our wardrobe.

“Open it!” 

Esmé yanked herself up and ran to pull the wardrobe’s door open. Sure enough, there the portal was. It was something not of this world, like something you would hear about in stories the elder told us in princess stories. It was a transparent shade of caramel, one clearly associated with the dinosaurs use to roam the world in. 

Esmé’s dreams didn’t bring creatures to our house, no. They summoned portals to the worlds she dreamed of. She read my book behind my back, and last night she dreamt about the Cretaceous Period, millions and millions of years ago. Even though she nor I, nor Father has never entered one of the portals, things came out of them. Sometimes so amusingly unrealistic, like chimeras or griffins. Whatever her imagination pondered on, was at risk of becoming a reality. 

We needed to get the velociraptor back through the portal. How, I did not know. But if Father were to come home without the knowledge that a dinosaur is in his house, he could lose his life. We needed to get rid of the raptor as soon as possible. 

“Esmé, pull the closet doors as open as you possibly can!” I ordered. I was losing strength. But the velociraptor wasn’t. Esmé pushed the doors open, and was left idling, waiting for me to tell her what to do next. “Esmé, go open the underground room, jump out of the window, and open it!” 

Father had build an underground room for safety after Mother’s death, in fear that it would happen again. Which it did. Many, many times. 

Esmé nodded. I waited for a minute. I couldn’t push any longer, I was getting weak. And then it happened. The raptor burst into the room like a wrecking ball breaking down an old building. Magnificent creature, truly. I would have appreciated her more if I hadn’t been in a life-death situation. I ran for my life. I leaped out of the window, the raptor on my heels. The underground room was nearby, and so I jumped into it. I hit the cobblestone ground hard, my shoulder smashing into it. But my only thought was to close the door above my head. I jumped up and grabbed it by the handle. I locked it as soon as I could. Then I fell down. My heart sank into my stomach. 

“Are you okay?” I heaved. Esmé blinked slowly, I was supposed to take that as affirmation. I was so out of breath. My heart was threatening to burst through my chest. We were alright, but we needed to get the velociraptor back to the portal. 

I waited to catch my breath, then pulled myself together. I searched the room for a useful weapon. My eyes scanned around, and then I saw it. My bow and arrows. I had practiced archery just like Mother, ever since I was a little girl.

“Don’t leave this room until I say so, okay?” I commanded Esmé. She was scared. But I had to go.

I hooked the the arrow sack around my shoulder pad and grabbed the bow, my name engraved into its side. I launched myself upwards to the opening of the room, and slowly stuck my head out to scan the outside world for the raptor. There she was, distracted by an anthole or something sort alike. I could aim my arrow at her right now, and finish her off. Why didn’t I? Because just like me and Esmé, this creature, beautiful but violent, was a live one. It was one of the glorious animals that roamed the earth. It wasn’t her fault she was here. And it was instinct to hunt, she was a carnivorous beast. Only, and only if she were to put my or Esme’s life on the line, would I let my arrow slip. Otherwise, she deserved to live, just like any other. My mission was to get her back through the portal.

I climbed out of underground room. I was out in the open, unprotected and visible. I aimed my arrow at the raptor but only in the case that I’d be attacked would I shoot. She saw me. Her reptilian eyes, yellow and glowing, followed me. She came charging at me. I shot. Not her, the ground, it was a warning shot. And as I hoped, she stopped dead in front of the arrow close to her foot. I quickly replaced the arrow that I shot with another, and held it to her. She stood still, waiting for me to move next. And I did. I had an idea. I was going to lure her to the portal with a chunk of chicken that I had made for last night’s supper. With my eye on her, I ran to the entrance of Father’s little hut. I barged in, but was stopped immediately. Another velociraptor. And this one was a male, for sure. Brighter colours, slightly bigger. The portal hadn’t closed yet so anything could come through. I didn’t have time to shoot my arrow. I had to run. The raptor got caught of my leg. But knowing raptors, they’d try to break the airpipe of the prey, and I wasn’t ready to be killed. With a huge yank I got my leg out, but at a cost. I hurt it severely, and the smell of the blood leaking from my ankle was luring the female raptor nearer. The two might’ve been mates, I couldn’t know. The female charged at me from one side and the male from the other. I ran straight ahead, hoping to get away from both. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I wasn’t far enough to shoot yet, if I drew my arrow I’d get hurt for sure. I heard my breath over all the noise. I was exhausted. My legs hurt, partially from the bite but also from running. I couldn’t anymore. I just fell down. I thought it was the end, waiting for the raptors to puncture my throat. But they didn’t. I turned around. They were gone. Both of them. Where were they? Then, I heard it.

“Aaaaaaghhhh!” yelped the all-too familiar sound of Esmé’s long lost voice. The door to the underground room was open. They were there. 

“NOOOO!” I bellowed, exerting my last power into charging back to save my sister. She couldn’t die. Not today. 

By the time I had gotten there I couldn’t see Esmé. I assumed she was dead. My knees sank into the floor. I didn’t even bother trying to shoot the raptors. It didn’t matter anymore. They had murdered my sister…

But then all of a sudden light shined through my closed lids. I slowly blinked, opening them. 

“The portal,” I heard myself mutter. Both raptors immediately shot through, and disappeared to the late Cretaceous Period. Just as quickly as the portal got summoned, it disappeared into thin air, as if a figment from my imagination. 

And there stood Esmé, my younger sister, alive, unharmed, and smiling.

“Wh-wh-what – I -what -,” I stuttered. Esmé just smiled and trotted to me, throwing her arms around me. I was confused, but oh-so happy. I wrapped my arms around my sister’s head and shoulders. I stroked her beautiful golden brown locks and cried. She was alive. For just a few minutes my life had been missing her, I was introduced to hell on earth. I love Esmé more than anything. She is my everything. And I will never let her go.