Archive of Our Own

A Welsh concept of longing for home.  To some, it implies the meaning of missing a time, an era, or a person. It is associated with the bittersweet memory of missing something or someone, while being grateful of that/ their existence. 

@randomwriteronline wrote a story where their character Eska was Esther and Joey’s brother, so now I’m gonna write something with it. 

Esther had two brothers one brother. 

Joey was six years younger, so their relationship could be a bit strained sometimes. Their gap in age was large enough that they were always in different stages of development. But she loved him more than anything, and there was nothing she enjoyed more than watching him draw. She’d draw with him sometimes, but she’d never been as good as he was. He told her it just took practice, and that she’d be good if she just kept trying, but she didn’t have the joy for it that he did.

She’d been closer to Eli. He’d only been three years younger. He didn’t like being inside much. They’d loved playing down by the river and looking for animals. Sometimes Eli would find little animal skulls and take them home to put in a box under his bed. Esther liked finding pretty rocks or feathers to give him. She loved seeing him smile when she presented him with her gifts. Their parents had been worried about him. But he never hurt anyone. 

A lot of kids had picked on Joey. He was small, sickly, and he would rather have spent his time drawing than playing with other children. The fact that he was Jewish didn’t help matters. Other kids liked taking his sketchbooks and throwing them in puddles or ripping them up in front of him. Given that Esther was six years older, this meant she was older and bigger than most of Joey’s bullies. She didn’t feel too bad about beating up a bunch of kids. They might have been children, but they were cruel and hateful creatures. Joey could be a little shit sometimes, but no one was allowed to rip up his sketchbooks or beat him up. He was her brother and she would protect him with her life.

Kids beat up Eli too. A lot more than Joey, actually. He didn’t like talking to other children. He stayed in the library during school hours, reading in a corner. The librarians had adored him. They always said he was such a polite boy. Although, that might just have been because he didn’t talk much. Most people didn’t like Eli. They thought he was unsettling. Everyone said he had strange eyes. One brown, one blue. No one in their family had blue eyes. They didn’t know where it had come from. Eli never fought back when people hurt him. He just curled into himself. He didn’t cry. 

Joey got sick a lot. The doctors their parents took him to said he had a weak immune system. Their parents’ greatest fear was that Joey would get polio. Polio was practically a death sentence. Everyone was a little overprotective of him when it came to his health. Eli never seemed to get sick. Maybe it was all the playing outside. Joey’s health got better as he got older, although he was always prone to sickness. Thankfully, he never caught polio. At least, he never got it while he was living at home. Looking back, Esther wondered if she shouldn’t have coddled him so much. She’d always had a hard time telling him no. Their parents had been the same way. Maybe if they’d been more firm with him, he wouldn’t have done all he had.

Lots of people said there was something wrong with Eli. Esther and Joey didn’t like those people. Their parents were always polite, but they knew their parents didn’t like those people either. There was nothing wrong with him, no matter what anyone else said. He was just different, that was all. Once their parents figured out that he needed different care than Esther, they were all a lot happier. Even if their parents didn’t always understand Eli, they loved him. Esther liked counting his freckles and comparing them to constellations.  That always made him smile. She did it with Joey too, but Eli liked it more. Eli liked constellations. Sometimes Esther looked up at the sky and traced the constellations she’d pointed out to him. 

Joey liked drawing everything and anything. He especially liked drawing people, even though he wasn’t much good at it. Eli was his favorite. He always said Eli had an interesting face. He told their parents a lot that he wanted to be an artist. They encouraged him, seeing how happy drawing made him, but they were always quick to point out that it was hard to make a living as an artist. They were worried about him, that was all. Joey took it to mean they didn’t believe in him. But then again, he was always such an angry child. He was always angry. Angry at the world for the way it treated him and his family, angry at Esther, angry at his parents. He got angry at Eli too, but not often. Eli didn’t do much to make people in the house angry. 

When Esther was 15, she stopped beating up the bullies. She was getting into high school now, and it was quickly becoming less and less acceptable for ‘a lady her age’ to be engaging in such activities. A few of the parents had actually threatened to call the police on her. She was at the age where she was beginning to grow painfully aware of what people thought of her. She didn’t want to be known as a troublemaker. She had to think about what she wanted to do with her life. She knew she wanted to do something to help people who couldn’t help themselves. She wanted to defend the people who were picked on by society. 

Seeing how anxious Esther was about high school and her future, their parents had decided they all needed a vacation. There was a lakehouse that a friend of their father’s had. They’d gone down there a few times before. It was a nice enough place. The Drew children often swam in the lake or spent time wandering through the woods. 

They didn’t go there again after Eli was gone. It was where he died, after all.

The trip over was uneventful, even if Esther and Joey were snipping at each other the whole way over. Esther had a book she needed to read and an essay she needed to write on said book and it was stressing her out quite a bit. Eli sat between them to keep them from hitting each other. He was excited because he always found cool things in the lake or the forest. Almost as soon as they got there, Joey dragged her into the forest. He wanted to go sketch some plants. Eli wanted to find some animal skulls, so he helped with the dragging. Esther put up a bit of a fight, insisting she had homework to do. But her brothers’ enthusiasm prevailed. She liked the forest anyway.

She ended up sitting on the bank of the lake, just staring at the water. She took her shoes off, letting her feet dangle in the water. Joey had gone to his favorite spot to draw, a clearing with a fairy circle and a small collection of wildflowers. He liked drawing flowers. Eli had disappeared to God knows where. He was exceptionally good at disappearing into nature. Esther stared down into the water, humming to herself. It was nice to be away from the stress of school for a little. She didn’t have to worry about her responsibilities or people’s expectations for the moment. 

After a moment or two, she sighed and laid down, turning her gaze to the sky. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, a few powderpuff clouds drifting across the blue blue sky. Esther allowed herself a small smile. Joey had been really excited to come here. He’d been so moody lately. She’d been worried.

Suddenly Joey came running out of the woods. His face was red and blotchy, streaked with tears, and his clothes were covered in blood. 

“Jojo? What’s-” She started to ask what was wrong.

“Eli fell out of a tree! He’s not moving!” Joey wailed, grabbing her arm and tugging hurriedly at it. She let him drag her to where their brother lay. He was on the ground, body crumpled like a discarded doll. There was blood coming from a wound on his head and his neck was bent at an odd angle. He wasn’t moving.

“What do we do?” Joey looked on the verge of a total breakdown.

“We have to get Ma and Pa.” Esther managed to force the words out, hoping her voice wasn’t shaking as much as she thought it was. She’d never seen someone die before.

“I’ll stay here.” She looked down at Joey. “Go get Ma and Pa.” Joey hesitated a little but did as she asked. Esther knelt beside her little brother, trying to force herself not to cry.

“You’re okay.” She whispered, drawing him into her lap. “You’re going to be okay.” He wasn’t breathing. His eyes were glassy and lifeless. He was dead. She knew he was dead. 

By the time Joey returned with their parents, she was holding Eli to her chest and sobbing. She said something about him getting cold and that he needed a sweater. She didn’t want to let him go, even as their parents tried to gently pry him away from her. They needed to take him back to the house. Maybe clean him up a little. Esther didn’t want to let him go.

The descendants of Eli were supposedly cursed to die before reaching old age. She hadn’t known it would happen to her Eli.

They left the lakehouse early. She couldn’t remember why. She didn’t like thinking about that vacation. For some reason, it always made her feel like crying. 

They took him back home. He was buried the next day. He had to be buried as soon as possible, in keeping with their traditions. Joey said at the funeral that Eli would probably like the fact that his body would provide food for the creatures who lived in the ground. They all took some comfort in this fact. Eli would be happy that his body was returning to nature.

Esther didn’t remember why she and Joey had grown apart so much. After they’d returned from the lake, it was like there was a rift between the two of them. She threw herself into her schoolwork, focusing on staying out of trouble as much as possible. She stopped beating up Joey’s bullies. She’d still threaten them, of course, but they no longer received a violent punishment from her. Joey’s anger grew, simmering quietly in his heart as his sister seemingly turned her back on him. Their parents became even more protective of Joey. Like they were scared of losing him.

They all forgot Eli. It happened slowly. First, he started vanishing from pictures, then letters. His school assignments started to go missing. He was gone from their memories before they even understood what was happening. They’d been trying to put him from their minds anyway. But Esther still had a box of rocks and skulls under her bed. She didn’t know where it had come from, but she knew it was important. Joey had always wanted a room of his own. Now he finally had it. He didn’t even notice Eli’s things were gone.

When Joey ran away, their parents were inconsolable. They didn’t understand why they were reacting so strongly. They were terrified at the idea of losing him, as though they’d lost a child before. Esther too was terrified when her mother called her at the law firm to tell her. The feeling felt familiar somehow. She felt like she’d lost her brother before. But that couldn’t possibly be right. She disregarded it as her mind playing tricks on her in her panic. 

Sometimes Esther found herself missing a brother she didn’t think she’d had. She had a vague memory of a second brother, one older than Joey but younger than her. But there was no evidence that she’d ever had a brother aside from Joey. She’d asked her parents about it, and they didn’t remember having another child either. But still…Sometimes they’d point to a spot family photo and start to say someone’s name before stopping, realizing that there was no one there.

Her children asked after their uncle often. They knew their mother had a brother. There was an empty room at their grandparent’s house filled with toys and books and things labeled with Joey’s name. Esther didn’t talk about Joey very often. After all, he’d made it quite clear he didn’t want to be found by them. He hadn’t told them where he’d been going. They had to find out from the announcement of his studio’s opening in the papers that he was even still alive. So Esther had avoided every question. But sometimes, if she wasn’t paying attention, she’d start telling them about their uncle who had loved animals and collected animals skulls and pretty rocks before quickly realizing that she’d never had a brother like that. 

“If Uncle Joey isn’t like that, then who does that box belong to?” Rachel asked, pointing to the box Esther kept on the mantle. She didn’t know why she’d brought the box with her when she’d left for college. She’d kept it with her even after she’d married Robert. 

“I’ve told you, sweetheart, it’s probably mine,” Esther assured her. It had a faded E on the lid, after all.

“But you said it wasn’t yours.” Isaac piped up. “You said it belonged to someone else.” Esther sighed.

“Alright, maybe I did.” She conceded. 

“Who did it belong to?” Rachel demanded. “Why is it so important?”

“I don’t know, darling.”

Such a vague answer had never been good enough for someone like Rachel, but she couldn’t find any better answers. No one in the family knew where the box had come from. Esther just knew it was important to her. She didn’t want to lose it. 

She didn’t understand why, when she went to her brother’s studio, the handyman with the skull mask was so familiar. She’d passed him on her way to Joey’s office to deliver the bankruptcy documents. She’d insisted on handling the case. This time, she was going to make sure she helped her brother. He might not want her help, but he was getting it. The handyman was latched onto a small dark-skinned man who was talking with a blonde woman. He was very tall and very thin, with cinnamon skin peppered with freckles, wearing a ratty pair of overalls. His freckles formed constellations on his skin. Their eyes met as she passed. He had strange eyes. One brown, one blue. 

“Mrs. Klein?” Grant cleared his throat politely. “Mr. Drew’s office is this way.”

“Ah, of course.” She nodded, turning away from the handyman and following Grant down to the office. 

She didn’t see the handyman when she left. She told herself she’d just been imagining it. That strange feeling she’d gotten when she’d seen his eyes. She didn’t know him. 

Eska wondered if she still had his box of animals skulls and rocks. He missed that box. He didn’t want to talk to her, though. He wasn’t her brother anymore. If she helped Joey, he’d have to kill her. Joey was going to do bad things. She could do bad things too. She was Joey’s sister, after all. Just as impulsive as him. But he hoped he wouldn’t have to kill her. She was nice.