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Sarah doesn’t come back from the prison camp.
Also: Sarah does come back from the prison camp. It takes her a long, long time.
Outside of Alison’s house the porch light flickers on, lights the world sallow. Helena creeps down the stairs with a knife in her hand and blinks at the silhouette of her sister through the glass. It’s Sarah; she’d know her anywhere. Also: it’s not Sarah, because Helena’s heart is stone-cold-silent.
(When Sarah had d—)
(At the prison camp, when they were running, when Sarah—)
(When Sarah had—)
(On the ground, she’d—)
(The crack of bone and the way her neck had twisted when she’d hit the ground and her eyes all blank and—)
(Helena can’t do it, Helena can’t tell this story, this can’t be Helena’s story, in Helena’s story they both run from the prison camp and into the dark and the story keeps going. The story doesn’t stop.)
(Sarah doesn’t stop.)
A palm hits the glass door. The sound it makes is flat and limp and the hand that can’t be Sarah’s hand stays there, against the glass. Helena is across the room by now, because of course she is, because she couldn’t go back to sleep when Sarah could be standing there. (Only she can’t be standing there.) (Helena had run into the dark and left Sarah behind, lying on the ground, broken bones and) (it can’t be Sarah. That’s what she means.)
She puts her palm to the sliding door. It’s cold. Sarah’s fingers spread against the other side of the glass like deep-sea plants waving in the dark. Helena flicks the lock. Helena slides the door open.
When she sees Sarah, she drops the knife; it clatters to the ground. Sarah blinks at her dully. Her feet have worn through her boots, and then her bones have worn through her feet. The bottoms of her feet: worn out. Skin gone. Sarah doesn’t seem to have noticed.
Her neck is still broken. Her skin is the color of the porch light, which is to say it is not a human color. Her shoulder is out of its socket.
“Meathead,” she says, and stops.
“Sarah,” Helena says. “What happened to you?”
“I can’t come in,” Sarah says, “unless you let me. Can I come in, Helena?”
“No.”
“Can I come in, Helena?”
“No.”
Sarah stops. She reaches out, like she’s going to touch Helena’s face – like she is, for the very first time, going to touch Helena’s face – and then she stops. Her hand hovers in the space between them. Smells like rot. Her arm falls back down.
“I can hear your heart,” she says, sounding like she thinks she should be surprised. She does not manage surprise. “Sounds good. Hey, Helena? I’m hungry.”
Her tongue is black in patches with rot. Hey Helena? Hey Helena?
“I’m sorry,” Helena says. “I’m sorry I left you behind in the desert.”
Sarah smiles, the motion cracking the skin around her face. It looks enough like her smile that Helena’s breath shudders and she almost starts crying. It’s that Sarah-smile: it’s going to be fine, now that we’re together. I’m going to make it fine. “It’s alright,” she says. “I found you again.”
“I can’t let you inside,” Helena says. “There are babies in the house, Sarah. Your sister is in the house. Your sister’s husband is in the house.”
Sarah’s head tilts to the side and then too far. “I get you,” she says. “I understand you now. I’m hungry.”
Helena could say: it hurts all the time, doesn’t it.
Sarah would say: I know. I know just how it hurts. She would hold open her arms. Helena would walk into them, and die, and they could both be together finally. At last.
“How do I make you be dead,” Helena says. “How do I put you back to sleep, sestra.”
“I’m hungry,” Sarah says.
“Sarah,” Helena says.
“Helena,” Sarah says. “There were so many people in that prison camp. I’m still hungry. Why am I still hungry, Helena? Huh? Do you know? You did this to me. Do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Helena says, and now she is: crying.
“Bet you could fix it for me,” Sarah says, breath smelling like – well. Best not to say, probably, what Sarah’s breath smells like up close. “I’d only need a piece of you. Then I could stop. You’re feeding those babies all the time, aren’t you. I’m your sister. Aren’t I your sister, Helena? Can’t you feed me too?”
She’s too close. Helena steps back inside the house, back so that she is far away inside the house. Sarah leans forward but can’t get through the door.
“I’m your sister,” she snarls, face a skull covered in skin. All faces should be that, but they aren’t. Sarah’s is. It’s just bones and shriveled-up skin.
“Stop,” Helena says.
“No,” Sarah says. “I’ll get louder. I’ll scream and they’ll all wake up and I bet one of them’ll come out here, don’t you? I bet one of them’ll let me in. Auntie Sarah. Sister Sarah. They’d let me right up close.”
The knife is lying by Sarah’s feet. Helena could grab it, but then she would be outside of the house. She’s fast and Sarah is falling apart but this is not a guarantee of anything. Sarah is swaying on her feet, and every now and then strands of hair drift on down to the ground. Maybe if Helena left her out there long enough, she’d just crumble all to pieces and Helena could let her be dead again.
“This isn’t you,” Helena tries.
Sarah laughs. It is not exactly a laugh; it’s more like a wounded animal dying in a trap. It’s more like a wounded animal, dying. “It’s what’s left,” she says. “I’m what’s left. All the good parts of your sister died in the desert when you watched her fall and break her bloody neck. I got back up. I made it out of the desert. I left her behind. She’s dead.”
“You’re dead.”
“I’m hungry,” Sarah snarls. The sound is so loud the glass shivers. Are there footsteps upstairs? Is someone, sleepy, tiptoeing down towards the porch light? Helena steps closer to the door. Helena looks at the knife. Sarah looks at Helena looking at the knife, and she reaches down and picks up the knife. Expressionlessly she drags it down her wrist. The skin gapes open. Nothing else happens.
“Shit,” Sarah says, sounding unconcerned. “Guess that didn’t work.” She hurls the knife backwards, into the dark. It clatters. A dog barks. Don’t come in, Helena thinks to the dog, but also she wants it to come in so that Sarah could – oh, no, no, no.
She takes another step forward.
“Didn’t you want us to be together?” Sarah says, electric and eager now that Helena is closer enough to smell her. “I know you, Helena. Made me sick, how much you wanted us to be together. I always hated you for it. Did you know that?”
“Helena,” she says, the sound a loving mockery, “I don’t hate you now.” She holds open her arms, wide; a finger droops. “You’re all I have now,” she says. “I love you.”
Anger spikes and nausea follows and the weight shifts between them: Sarah stands there with her open arms, and Helena hates her, and Helena wishes she had a gun. She takes another step forward. Sarah’s neck is broken all the way, and the skin is rotting, and it would only take a sharp pull for her head to go bouncing away. Sarah’s arms barely clinging to their sockets, the pressure points weak as ripe fruit. Helena is the only person who knows how to break her. Helena is the best person to do it: break her.
“I love you too,” she says. “I love you and I’m sorry.” She steps out of the door and towards her sister, standing in the light.