Sisters, Long Ago

1

NUK UA em ennu en Xu ammu Xu.

Willow stirred in her sleep. Beside her, Muttsie stood, turned in a circle, and curled up again.

Nuk ua em ennu en Xu ammu Xu.

The words floated into her consciousness, waking her gently.

Willow blinked in the darkness and reached for the tablet and pencil. Since she first dreamed of Kalos, she had kept paper and pencil next to her bed. If she had such dreams again, she wanted to write them down before she forgot them. She switched on her lamp.

Nuk ua em ennu en Xu ammu Xu.

She stared at what she had written. She had no idea what the words meant yet she sensed that they were important.

Why? What could this mumbo-jumbo sentence mean?

She said the words out loud. Nuk ua em ennu en Xu ammu Xu. It was clearly a different language but she didn’t know which one. Could it be a code? Did it have something to do with Kalos?

A month earlier, Willow would have gone back to sleep and forgotten the words. But not now. Too many things had happened. Strange things. Odd things, like these nonsense words.

It all began on her birthday.

Willow and her best friend, Gretchen, had walked barefoot on the warm sand, past Camelback Rock, to the cove where the old driftwood log provided a natural table.

Gretchen carried their towels, a Frisbie, a bag of sandwiches, sunscreen, and a pink cardboard carton containing a chocolate birthday cake with thirteen candles on it. She refused to let Willow carry anything.

You aren’t lifting your little pinkie today, Gretchen said. You’re going to lie in the sun and pig out on the picnic.

Sounds good to me, Willow said.

When they reached the log, Gretchen made a big production out of spreading Willow’s towel on the sand for her and handing her the bottle of sunscreen. You use first, honorable aged one, she said, bowing low.

Aged one! You sound like I’m your grandmother, Willow said, but she took the oil and began smoothing it on her legs.

Grandma Willow look youthful for her age. Not seem a day over forty.

Willow finished oiling herself and lay back on her towel, savoring the warm rays of the sun. It was wonderful to have someone wait on her, for a change.

She didn’t mind ironing Sarah’s blouses for her, or doing the dishes even when it was Sarah’s turn. She felt sorry for her sister and wanted to help her, but she did get weary. Even though Sarah was in remission, she remained frail and tired easily. Her leukemia was always there, hovering over Willow’s family like a thundercloud about to burst.

Mr. and Mrs. Paige, Willow’s parents, worried constantly about Sarah. Sometimes it seemed to Willow that they thought of nothing else. Other families talked about politics or football games or the neighbors. Willow’s parents discussed Sarah’s lack of appetite or Sarah’s blood count or Sarah’s latest nosebleed. Potential disaster lurked around the corner of each new day.

Willow knew it wasn’t Sarah’s fault that she was sick. Most of the time, Willow didn’t mind doing whatever she could to make Sarah’s life easier. Still, it was pleasant to have Gretchen fuss over her today; it felt good to be pampered.

Willow stretched out her arms, wanting to catch the sun in every pore. As the heat entered her body, it soothed her frazzled nerves and calmed her troubled thoughts. She relaxed, lulled by the luxury of laziness.

Hunk alert! Gretchen whispered, as she poked Willow in the ribs.

Willow opened her eyes. Squinting in the brightness, she looked at the couple who were spreading towels a short distance down the beach. Gretchen was right. The guy was definitely good looking.

The girl with him jammed a red beach umbrella into the sand, tilting it to get the right angle. Willow watched her lazily, noting the girl’s long, single blonde braid and her bright blue swimsuit.

The girl adjusted the umbrella, stepped back, and turned to face Willow. When their eyes met, the girl stopped and stood perfectly still, staring. Her look was so intense that for a moment, Willow thought perhaps the girl was someone she knew.

No. If Willow had seen that long blonde braid before, she would remember it. Probably the girl was looking at her because she realized that Willow had been watching her. Embarrassed to be caught staring at a stranger, Willow lay back on her towel and closed her eyes.

She awoke when Gretchen shook her shoulder. You’re scorching, Gretchen said. Roll over and toast the other side for a while.

Willow looked at the pink hue on her legs and arms. She felt hot and sticky; she knew she’d be geranium red by evening.

I need to cool down, she said. I’m going for a swim.

Wait for me!

Together, Gretchen and Willow waded into the lake, shrieking and shivering as the cold water covered their ankles. As Willow tried to get up her nerve to go in farther, Gretchen bellyflopped forward and started to swim. The sudden shower of water caught Willow in the face and she spluttered for a moment before she dove in, too.

She swam steadily but without pushing herself. She knew there was no hope of catching Gretchen—not after Gretchen took off first—so she didn’t even try to keep up. Instead, she alternated between a breaststroke and a sidestroke, taking it easy, liking the fluid way her body slid through the water.

The cramp caught her by surprise. She was sidestroking when it hit her. She clutched her stomach and tried to tread water but the cramp was so strong that she doubled over with the pain.

She opened her mouth to yell for help. When her lips parted, no sound came out. Instead, lake water rushed in. The water stung her throat, filling her nose and ears, choking her so that she couldn’t think clearly. In her panic, she forgot to move her arms or kick her legs. She could think only about air. The more she struggled to inhale, the worse it got.

The water closed over the top of her head.

I’m drowning.

The thought gave her a fresh spurt of energy. She kicked furiously, ignoring the cramp in her stomach, pushing aside the pain in her chest.

Her head burst up above the surface and Willow gulped frantically, trying to get air without water but unable to control what entered her nose and mouth. She screamed, or at least she thought she screamed, before she went under again.

And that’s when it happened. She was still struggling, still aware that she was drowning, when, in her mind, she clearly saw herself as a young child. She was about three years old and she had made a gift for her grandmother: a piece of yellow construction paper filled with red crayon squiggles and lines. Her grandmother held the yellow paper in one hand while she hugged Willow tightly. Her grandfather stood beside them, beaming.

She felt their love. It was a tangible thing, surrounding her, engulfing her. The room was full of love and Willow felt cherished and secure.

The scene lasted only a fraction of a second and then she saw a different scene. A girl stood on a small raft made of woven branches. She wore a simple, long white gown, belted at the waist, and her straight black hair hung to her shoulders. She was twelve and her name was Kalos. This black-haired girl looked nothing like Willow and yet Willow knew immediately that she and Kalos were the same person. She was watching herself, in a different time.

The raft, which was piled high with grain, floated on a wide river where tall reeds grew along the banks. Kalos moved her head back and forth as she pushed her steering pole into the river, watching carefully for sandbanks or crocodiles. She wasn’t far now from the east bank of the river. She would be home soon and her tired muscles were glad of it.

A flock of wild geese rose from the reeds ahead, startling her with their honking and flapping. On the shore, she saw two boys with throwing sticks. The boys took aim and flung the sticks with all their might. Kalos stopped poling and watched to see if either of the sticks would hit its target.

In that brief moment, when she failed to concentrate on the river, her raft struck the huge snout of a crocodile. Enraged, the beast brought its jaws down on the raft, tipping it sideways, spilling the grain into the river. Frantically, Kalos jammed her steering pole into the water, trying to steady the raft and move it out of the crocodile’s reach. She was too late. The crocodile snapped again and the raft broke, dumping Kalos into the river.

She clung to the pole as she tried to swim through the thick stand of reeds. The water behind her thrashed violently; she knew the enraged crocodile would spot her at any moment.

Kalos jammed her pole into the river bottom and tried to propel herself faster but it was impossible to move quickly. The reeds tore her clothing and cut her arms. Dark water washed into her mouth and, though she struggled with every bit of strength she possessed, her head sank beneath the surface.

Kalos looked upward, her vision blurred by the murky brown water, and saw the thick stand of reeds close over her. She would be gone without a trace. Her parents and Tiy would never know what had happened to her, or where.

She forced the pole upward, trying to move it forward. Her feet kicked frantically. A large shape, as big as herself, loomed in the water ahead of her.

Kalos quit struggling. Better to drown, she thought, than to be eaten alive by the crocodile.

And then, just as Kalos felt herself losing consciousness, the pole, which she still held in her hand, jerked. For a moment, she thought the crocodile had found her but then, even