Love Thy Sister

Cameron loved having a sister. Cameron could borrow literally anything from her. Her own lunch pail too dirty to use for school? Yoink! She’d sling her sister’s lunch bag over her shoulder and head out the door. Her pencils looking a little dull? Swipe! Out of her sister’s hand and into her own, that’s the way it always was. ‘Course, she’d always return the stuff she took. She wasn’t no thief. Might not be in the same condition she borrowed it in, though. But battered, tattered, torn, or worn? Didn’t matter. Cameron would hand the item back and shrug her shoulders, repeating her well-worn phrase. “Whoops! Sorry, sis.” And her sister, Nora, would only smile and shrug back. “It happens,” Nora would say. Simple as that.

Having a sister was awesome.

One day, while Cameron was lounging on the couch in the basement catching some re-runs instead of doing her math homework, the sound went out on the T.V. This was typical. It was an old set from the 90’s. Usually, she’d press her thumb against one of the T.V’s RCA plugs really hard and it’d fix the sound without another problem. She didn’t know how that worked, but it did. But she didn’t feel like pressing on it this time. Made her thumb raw. She was gonna play video games later. Can’t play video games with a raw thumb.

So naturally, she went into her sister’s room to look for something useful to handle the job instead. Nothing really caught her eye besides the frilly pink and purple walls until she saw a figurine under a plastic case near the bedroom window. It was a ceramic unicorn resting peacefully on top of ceramic grass. Her sister made it and won first prize in some contest or something…? Blah, blah, blah, details she couldn’t be bothered to remember. What was most important is that the horn, pointed yet round, was just the thing she needed. Without another thought, she tossed aside the plastic case and nabbed the horse by the neck. She dashed down the basement stairs and made quick work of the unicorn’s horn.

Pieces of it flaked off as Cameron jammed it into the yellow RCA plug. Twisting and turning it, squeezing the life out of the unicorn’s body, Cameron pushed hard on the plug. Seemed to be working. Doug Heffernan’s voice was almost crystal clear! But just as the sound came back to its original quality, she lost her grip. Maybe her palms were sweaty, maybe the power of friction lapsed for a moment, or maybe a force beyond human understanding had other plans that day. Whatever the reason, the unicorn slipped out of Cameron’s hand and down to the floor. First the head came clean off as it hit the T.V stand, then the rest of the body shattered into at least a dozen pieces as it made impact with the ground. Just as her sister walked in.

Cameron eyed the pieces and tsked. “Whoops,” she said. She picked up the unicorn head by its filed-down horn and plopped it into Nora’s hand. Cameron shrugged. “Sorry, sis. Accident.”

But Nora didn’t say her line. She didn’t say anything. She only stared at the piece of ceramic in her hand, slack-jawed, her eyes the only part of her moving as she looked at the rest of her creation sprawled out on the floor. Then she looked at Cameron, the light of the basement lamp casting a shadow across Nora’s brow.

Cameron stiffened up. “Uh…” was all she could say before Nora ran up the basement stairs. Several heavy footsteps across the first floor and a slammed door ended any kind of conversation. Cameron stood there in the basement, feeling pretty hollow despite the laugh track in the background. She looked at the other pieces of unicorn on the floor. There was glitter everywhere. Probably was inside the figure. She wondered how Nora did that.

Cameron grabbed an empty popcorn bowl from the couch and started to pick up the pieces. It didn’t look so bad close up. There were only, like, 8 big pieces. And maybe 40 little ones, if that. Nora could glue this back together no problem! Which Cameron was totally going to tell her. As soon as she knocked on the door, she would tell her that.

As soon as she… knocked on the door.

There was no sound coming from Nora’s room. The sparkly light Cameron always saw coming from under the closed door was out. Nora always had that dumb lava lamp on. Not now, though. Right now, it looked completely dark. Not even the afternoon sun was shining through. Cameron’s clenched fist curled in on itself before it could rap on the wood. Probably be easier if she just yelled from the other side. She cleared her throat. “Hey! Hey, Nora! Got the other pieces here! Think this’ll come back together real nice! You can use that new purple glue Mom got you—!” Hands jutted out of Nora’s bedroom and grabbed the bowl, the door slamming in Cameron’s face before she could blink.

Cameron clasped her hands together and nodded. “ ‘K. Sounds good. I’ll just, uh… go somewhere else.”

She walked back down the hallway, taking one last glance behind her before she shuffled into the living room. Nora’s school papers were neatly spread across the coffee table. She liked doing her homework here until nighttime. She also liked listening to soft jazz while she studied. The CD was still playing, but Nora wasn’t here. Cameron thought about turning the music off and watching T.V upstairs, but she couldn’t bring herself to do either. Things didn’t feel… normal. She felt… stuck. She just stood there for a solid two minutes rubbing her neck and her arms, her eyes wandering about the room.

With little else to occupy herself, Cameron sat down at the coffee table and grabbed her backpack off the floor, separating her math homework from the rest of the crumpled heap at the bottom of the bag. She flattened out the paper and went to grab the pencil Nora had been using, hovering over it a second, then just grabbed a broken one from her own backpack. She let out a long sigh and eyed the first problem.

“Alright, so… ‘Nate and Nisha run a dishwashing service. If Nate can wash 100 dishes in 4 hours and Nisha can wash 100 dishes in 5 hours, how long will it take them if they work together’…? … so… is there a formula, or…? We have dishes and time…” She tapped the chewed end of her pencil against her temple and scoffed. “Bet if Nisha broke a dish, Nate wouldn’t give her the silent treatment… underline 4, then the 5… even if it was his most favorite dish, it’s just one dish… x= 4 and y= 5… I mean, an accident’s an accident, right? … t = 4x + 5y… if she didn’t want it touched, she’d ‘ve put it in a safer place… C = pi r squared… she can’t just ignore me all day! Ugh!!!” Cameron threw her hands in the air. “This is a dumb question! Who even washes dishes in 5 hours?? Just stick ‘em in the dishwasher at that point!”

Cameron heard a door open and Nora came striding out of the hallway.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Cameron exclaimed. “Are we cool now? Good. ‘Cause I really need help with—”

“I’m making dinner,” Nora said without breaking the pace in her stride.

Cameron watched her sister go into the kitchen, confused about what was happening. “Dinner? But it’s Thursday. We always have leftovers on—”

“I’m making. Dinner,” Nora said again. Her green eyes glared at Cameron. Her voice was firm. Cold. Unflinching.

Cameron slumped into her space behind the coffee table. “ ‘K.”

Nora walked into the kitchen. Cameron completely forgot about the math homework and focused on how angry Nora seemed. Nora was never angry! Ever! Sure, she got frustrated this one time when she got a B on her chemistry test. Or this other time when she couldn’t get a stain out of the bathroom carpet. But never angry.

And this anger wasn’t even the typical shouty anger that Cameron could fight. No. This was quiet anger. All that emotion was just brewing in Nora’s head. Like… like, she was planning something. Like she was planning something to get back at Cameron.

… in the kitchen… with the food…

… Wait. No. No, no. Nora could never. She would never!

Then a chuckle drew Cameron out of her thoughts and towards the kitchen. Those same green eyes that shot daggers at her earlier were peering at Cameron from behind the kitchen pass, eyelids crinkling in dark glee.

Oh gosh, she was. She totally was. Nora was gonna poison Cameron!!!

Quickly, Cameron plunged a hand into her backpack and pulled out her phone. She powered it on.

3% battery.

Shoot! She hadn’t charged it for a few days. She just kept using Nora’s. She had to act fast to learn a book’s worth of info about poisons. This was a life-and-death situation!!

She opened up her browser just as her phone hit 2%. “what dcan somepone ouse to poinson food???” she typed out without a moment spared to correct the words. The engine spit out a list. Staphylococcus. Salmonella. Clostridium. Nora liked biology. She loved biology!! Could she have brought something home in a petri dish and stashed it somewhere for later? To get revenge??? Or maybe this quiet genius had a secret lab behind a hidden door somewhere!!

Cameron shook her head. “No. No, has to be something accessible and something someone couldn’t trace back to her!”

She typed again with only 1% remaining. “stuff in house that dcna poison fodo!!!” Besides pictures of an ill Frodo Baggins, another list popped up of things that chilled Cameron to her core. Bleach. Antifreeze. Medicines??? That was stuff that they had in the house, wasn’t it?? Bleach was in the laundry room. Antifreeze was in the garage. Her dad was on all kinds of meds!! Like… what was that… propanol? Propofol? Didn’t that slow down the heart???

She quickly scanned the list for other stuff when she suddenly remembered the one super important thing she should’ve looked up.

Antidotes!! Antidotes, dummy!!!

She barely squeaked out the word in the search bar and hit the enter key before the screen winked off. It was just her panicked face reflected off the black nothingness. And whatever ghostly thing was flying out of the kitchen. Cameron looked up. She swore she saw purple smoke billowing from the oven, like some concoction from a witch’s brew. Maybe Nora was trying to poison her before dinner even started!! She ducked her nose into her shirt and covered her mouth with her hands in a makeshift gas mask, repeating what little she learned over and over in her head, tugging hard on that only lifeline.

“Antifreeze, sweet… nutmeg, earthy… bleach, creamy… antifreeze, sweet… I should’ve never borrowed that unicorn from her… nutmeg, earthy… bleach, creamy… I should’ve never borrowed anything from her… antifreeze, earthy… bleach, nutty… if I had known I was living with a psychopath, I would’ve never—!”

A timer sounded from the kitchen. It stopped.

Nora’s head slithered from behind the kitchen doorway. “Dinner’s ready. Sit at the dinner table. I’ll bring your food.”

Cameron put on a fake smile. “Gee, awful sweet of you, sis. But I… I’d hate to disappoint Mom and waste the leftovers, so I think I’ll just—"

“Go.”

Cameron shot up and rushed to the dining room. She sat down in one of the wooden chairs. She swore she saw a dozen eyes from within the dark hallway watching the execution unfolding before them. She could feel the presence of a man behind the wall, hand ready to pull down the handle once the signal was given.

And here came her last meal.

Nora placed a dish in front of her. A plate of macaroni and cheese. Loaded with cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. A perfect cover-up for poison.

Nora sat herself in the chair across from Cameron. She had no plate on her placemat.

Cameron tugged at her shirt collar. “You’re… uh… not gonna h… have any?”

“Not hungry,” Nora said, unblinking. She picked up a pitcher at the table. “Juice?’

Juice… sweet… antifreeze!

Nora reached behind her and fumbled for the bottle her parents kept by the windowsill to water the indoor plants. “I’m good!! I got water!!” She smashed the opening against her mouth and took a swig, wiping off bits of soil from her lips. “Mmm, see?! I got a drink already!! Eh heh…”

“Good. Now eat,” Nora said.

Cameron stared at the macaroni. Was it just her eyes, or did the macaroni look like it was pulsing?? The lines of plaid on the tablecloth bled into each other until all Cameron could see was red accentuating the white bleach in the macaroni. Or the white powder of her dad’s crushed pills!! Or the brown… tan… whatever color nutmeg was! She didn’t even have an antidote on hand! What was it the internet said? What was it?? She tried to rise from the table, stammering out an excuse to go get what she needed.

“I’m just gonna… maybe also… grab a glass of milk… or, uh… stroll by the grill and get some charcoal for no particular reason—"

“Sit. Down,” Nora demanded. Her voice remained calm. Flat. Deadly. Cameron dropped back into her seat.

“Eat it,” Nora said.

There was no escaping it. This was it. This was Cameron’s last moment. She lifted a limp hand onto the table, weak with shame. Wrapped her fingers around her fork, stiff with fear. Dragged the prongs along the plate into the pile of pasta, heavy with regret.

She tore off a chunk of macaroni and slowly brought the thing to her mouth. Her lips refused to budge. They were so dry. They felt sewn shut. Cameron wished they were. Anything to have an excuse. But there was no such relief. Nora’s piercing glare cut through Cameron’s hesitation. Cameron stuck the whole bite into her mouth. Maybe, just maybe, if she swallowed fast enough, the food would hit her stomach, and her stomach acid could fight off the poison!

But Cameron couldn’t bring herself to swallow, so the food just sat there in her mouth in a deathly, watery stew.

“How is it?” Nora asked.

Cameron couldn’t answer. She could feel the little buggers crawling from their hiding spots within the elbows and invading her gums, her tongue, her cheeks, eating her from the inside out. Or, no!! That tingling was from the bleach!! It was digging through every pore. She swore she could taste blood!!

Was it burning her throat now?? Or was that just stomach acid climbing up to try to save her? But didn't acid activate poisons?? Didn't it do that???

Her heart was speeding up!! No, no!! It was slowing down!! She was feeling clammy!! She was becoming a corpse!! Her sister was gonna bury her alive!! The only thing her parents would notice in the backyard was a slightly disturbed patch of grass and a note in forged handwriting that said Cameron was running away because she had threatened to do that before and no one would question it and no one would come looking for her because she was a terrible person and–

Then she couldn’t hold the thing in her mouth any longer. She swallowed it in one involuntary gulp. And she tasted it. It was… it was…

“… ice… cold?”

“And that’s what you get!!!” Nora jumped from her seat and shot a pointed finger at Cameron. “Enjoy your cold macaroni, you Unicorn-ruiner!!” Nora darted into the living room. “And have fun scrubbing the cheese off your plate!! Hahaha!!”

Cameron sat there dumbfounded, a piece of macaroni still on her tongue. Her body shivered as the adrenaline wore off. All she could think was…

She sure was glad Nora was her sister.