The lakes are so close to one another, but so different. The larger is a crystalline blue, twinkling at me with a myriad of facets like pale sapphires. It’s beauty is famous and reverie-inducing. My abdomen froze at its first touch, I clenched my teeth to ward off a shivering fit. Soon the temperature was kinder. Either my body temperature lowered a few degrees, or my skin went numb. It didn’t matter that the water was cold, though. I was enjoying a peaceful bliss, nestled below forested granite peaks, and cradled in gentle blue water.
It was my sister’s antics that drove me back over the fire-spitting sand. The grains cooled against the wet soles of my feet, instead of baking them as they had earlier. Something was off about her. Her body has filled out in the expected womanly places, but she was sliding over the sand with a squeal and manner that was more at home on a seven year-old child.
The other lake is small, enough that my family and I were able to walk around it in an hour’s time. It’s depths are a murky brown. It’s banks are reedy and muddy, littered with goose droppings and swarming with gnats. A grove of aspens surround it, unlike the ancient evergreens around the other. It has it’s own beauty.
Hana jostled over the distance on our hips, her eyes large and observant. Her grabby fingers were still as she absorbed the new landscape, her round face fresh with cherubic wonder.
My knuckles are white against the steering wheel. Even lake-inspired peace fails to calm me on the road back to mom’s house. The cliff on my right is more than ten feet away, but it’s still not enough. Night is falling. The cliff feels closer in the nearing dark. My sister has fallen silent in the passenger seat. Silence is rare for her, but I’m too nervous to take notice. The cliff rises next to me. It forms a small hill with the cliff plunging down its right. In it’s side are crosses mourning those lost on this road.
I remember the crosses placed there when I was a child as well. Are they for the same people, or have new mourners replaced the old ones? My foot hovers and taps the brake until the cliff is behind me. She is still silent. I glance at her. Her shoulders are hunched, her neck curved, dangling her head like a cloth doll.
I call her name. “Are you okay?” Nothing in her body responds to my voice
“What’s wrong?” “Do you feel sick?” Still nothing. I call her name a few more times. My right hand reaches for her not knowing where to grab. My fingers wrap around her hair and tug her face away from the window.
“_____, you better not be messing with me,” I threaten, but it’s too late for threats. There is no messing around here. Her head lolls toward me, her body maintaining enough control to keep her from toppling into the dash. Her eyes stare at the junction between the windshield and the roof, vacant.
It comes with the racing of my pulse. Her arm clenches toward me; I let go of her hair to paralyze it. Her legs thump against the floor and the glove compartment, an out-of-rhythm beat more suited to horror movies. Not much I can do about it. She slumps against my shoulders, her left arm jerking in my grip.
“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh.” I remember someone once saying that she can choke on her tongue when she’s on her back. I try to determine the state of her tongue, if she’s turned enough, but unlike this morning when she fell on me, her mouth contorting like a fleshy Halloween mask, her mouth is closed.
I honk to alert Mom’s car that something is wrong. Her car speeds ahead, and I pound on the gas to catch up. In the back Cadence is laughing.
“Mommy, ____ is silly.”
“No sweetie, ____ is very sick.”
Her giggles cease and she grows thoughtful, trying to understand what is going on. My sister’s body unclenches all at once, her arm limp in my fist. I let it go. Her face is resting against my arm. She lets out a series of odd snorts and gurgles. Wetness slips down my skin as spit burbles around her teeth and out of her lips. Her tongue doesn’t seem to be in the way. She leans away like a slumberer remedying an uncomfortable position. Her eyes flutter.
I call for her. Her eyes swim around the car without focus. “If you can hear me, look at me,” I demand. Orders come natural for an older sister. Her eyes roll around and land on me for a short second. Good enough. She sinks back into the chair, asleep, exhausted, but okay.
We roll in front of mom’s house, the blue sparkle of one lake and the murky gleam of the other too far behind to reach us.