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Skinny, pale, and with the presence of a ghost.
She was the girl who would find no food left on her plate by the time it was her turn to decorate it—the girl who was often missing from most Sundays, whose parents never even tried to force her to bow her head under latticed fingers, praying to God.
Their youngest, their weakest, their dumbest.
The Greco were not a family of villains, no matter how others viewed their last name now in Chicago, and yet they were not a rich family of philanthropists, either. Half of them weren’t related, or only related by half of their blood… They forgot about her, the child who couldn’t even read yet.
She cut her own hair with the scissors the sisters used to pick oranges, and when they got to America, all confused and wide-eyed like mice, her short, ugly hair started to look more like an intentional bob.
Traitor, her sisters thought to themselves, as her bangs were swept with intention and she donned dresses of plastic sequins and dyed feathers. So little was this girl that they forgot her name, and watched her like the spectators of a play as she ran around searching, searching for what?
What can a little girl who can barely speak English do in America?
…A body lay dead on the floor, armed with a cheap pistol. She stood behind him, her plumage brighter than the death leaking from his new piercing.
“I am Schneider Greco.”
And so they remembered her, her sin and her safety, the flipping of the bills she brought home, and the fear of being executed. They remembered her glory and her shame.
And others remembered them, too, for harboring the same last name as the Blasphemer of the Night.
A heavy guilt lay in each of their actions, each word they spoke to each other, and each jab they made in an attempt to copy the relationship of normal sisters. They hadn’t seen each other in an entire year, after all: Marian had been missing, and before that, Schneider had been so busy, providing for a family of strangers.
Her sisters all felt loath to call her their own. They accepted her paychecks and relocations into apartments guarded by the Chicago Outfit. But sleeping in the same cage as a murderer—when she had the luxury of returning to her own home, she knew that the inches between her and her sisters were not an unconscious accident—it unnerved them all.
Then again, Marian had always been softer than the rest of them. Maybe it was because her constitution was already poor, or maybe it was because she had blood that the rest of them didn’t, but reminiscing upon her childhood left Schneider feeling empty, accompanied only by the bread crumbs that Marian snuck her after communion and the orange juice she’d squeeze with her hands into cup-shaped peels.
Schneider would be remiss to despise the one Greco who had bothered, especially when her parents were the ones to blame for breeding like rabbits only to let their children die like runts, but still, Marian had never been enough, and they both knew it.
“Bonjornu, Schneider.”
It was 1925. She was fifteen, and her sister was nineteen.
“Buongiorno~ Hmm, what is this greeting, so formal?”
Marian’s lips curled up into a small smile. “Salutu, picciriddu,” she said instead, earning a perturbed stare from her sister. “Do you want to stay for breakfast?”
“…No.” She gathered her jacket and stuffed a matchbox and a switchblade into her breast pocket. “We have started a project that I must go to.”
Her excuses, her half-hearted cover-ups to make her job seem more respectable, they bothered Marian, who gave a short nod. All she’d been doing since they moved here was making friends with dangerous outfits.
“…Schneider,” she called out again, just before the girl was out of earshot, “happy birthday. Please be safe.”
The door swung shut without confirmation. She closed her eyes and pressed her rosary against her forehead. Is it my fault? Is it all my fault? To return to that orange grove, what I wouldn’t give…
She came home when it was dark to a quiet house, sixteen years old. The age gap between her and Marian felt both big and small—when they were little, Marian and her three years felt like they could’ve been a mother. But these days, Schneider found that the emotion of respect had torn itself out of her body. She loved so much it made her eyes misty just thinking about it, and yet, looking into the silence of the living room, watching the sleeping faces of her dear family, there existed a hatred as stifling as their house.
“Schneider,” a voice whispered from the corner of the kitchen. Startling like an ant, the girl who’d been called whipped her face in the direction of the noise.
“Of course, it is cara soru mia, Maria…”
Crickets chirped from the walls and trees, acknowledging that one of their own had managed to crawl into the house of the Greco family.
There were words unspoken between the two of them. I wanted to make sure you’d get home safe, Marian would think.
Thank you for caring about me, I love you, Schneider would think back. Please go to sleep and don’t worry about me. Even if I die, isn’t it one less mouth to feed?
But you’re the backbone of our entire family. Without you, how many of us can work? If I let you kill yourself for us, how would I live with myself?
You’ll forget about me soon. Don’t think too hard.
“Um. Have a sandwich. Goodnight.”
Losing sight of each other, each sister felt vexation, and each sister was too weak to ever try and bridge that gap.
The night is not tender; her outstretched arms are cold to touch, and in her eyes, the waves of darkened sea lap closer and closer to your form. Lose yourself in her, and she will love you with the passion of Florence Nightingale…
Don't you worry I surrender
Days are long and life's a bender
Still I know that
Tender is the Night.
On her way to the grocery store, a child ran into her legs, bouncing off of them like a rubber ball to a pile of bricks.
“Oh!” Marian exclaimed, reaching out to support her. “Where are you in such a hurry?”
The kid blinked. “M-mi dispiace… non so parlare inglese, signora.”
Her gaze became infinitely warmer. “Dove stai correndo, bambina mia?” she said softly, in the voice she’d use to talk to her younger siblings in Sicily. Marian loved children. They reminded her of how cute Schneider used to be, with short hair and a scruffy dress, running around like a boy and saying whatever came into her mind.
She’d never been a cruel or a mean person. She was still the kindest girl that Marian knew. But kindness had a way of twisting itself into violence. Worst of all, Marian was benefiting from Schneider’s bullets and blood—no matter where she tried to work, it would never be as lucrative as that mafia business.
She was using that little girl. It kept her awake at night.
But this street child was not with any sort of mafia or terrorist organization; this child was not malnourished and upsettingly skinny. This child was simply a girl, innocent, happy, and ghastly, so much like her sister, little by three years, pulling orange skin apart with her nails and laughing about the clouds. Now her nails were short so they wouldn’t tear when reloading her gun, and she giggled in the face of blood, earning herself scary nicknames from her enemies.
Marian placed her hand on the child’s back, promising to search for her mother together. Groceries could wait for a few hours; nobody was anticipating her return, anyhow. Their house was so crowded.
She could hear her sister now. “Hah! So surprised to see five hundred dollars, I’ll buy you something too next time I come home… If I come home,” she’d joke, flapping the bills around before throwing them on her table for their parents to manage. Her necklaces, her pearls, her silver: they were all purchased with her own money, and she still had enough left over to support everyone. Even Marian’s bow was from her, and her shoes…
The most important member of their family was the littlest one. What would Schneider say if she knew she was thinking about all of this? Would she apologize? Mock her? Walk away?
The child ran into an alleyway, claiming that she’d seen her mother. Marian looked up at a blue-haired Arcanist with a spike in her head…
“Hail, our most advantageous daughter.”
…and took a step back…
“Thy sister shall soon be ours.”
It scared Schneider how fast she took to Vertin. A year ago, Marian had gone missing, and without her, there was nothing she could gain from the Greco family anymore. No one would give her love, and no one who would treat her kindly. Their faces all stared at her in terror, in reverence, in greed. She was not God, but perhaps she was their Saint—Saint Greco, wrapped in Adam’s blood, with the eyes of the Snake. She would die a priceless sacrifice for free, for them: those bastards, her family, her will to live, and the bane of her existence. Oh, life was so precious. If her paltry existence could support theirs, this was a deal she’d gladly shake hands on.
And yet, the Rosa Killer saw red when she looked at that girl who was the same color as the rain, and felt like she’d seen feathers blowing in the wind.
Beautiful. Her melancholy was unlike anything else. Like a hound, Schneider could smell it—the heavy burden on Vertin’s shoulders, heavier than the whole sky. Heavier than mine. What world is it that she is supporting with her two arms, her two skinny, trembling arms?
She hungrily latched onto this girl who took heavier steps than herself. But it was nothing like looking into a mirror, because Vertin’s eyes were dripping with determination. Vertin was a humanitarian. Vertin did not condone the sacrifice of the few for the pleasure of the many. In that way, perhaps she was naive.
…Or was it Schneider who had been naive?
Watching that sycophantic Foundation dog hang around her lord, she contemplated many matters. Have I corrupted my family? she wondered, caressing the ledger she kept for them all. These necessary bribe monies—was it the result of this black tar surrounding her, or was it the darkness inside of her heart?
Ah, what’s the problem…
A necessary charge to stay alive.
That was something people like them would die without.
The adult who blanched at the sight of her, hysterical and denying all accounts of being an arcanist, was not her sister. That skirt was just the same as all those years ago, but her skin was paler, her eyes were faraway, and, oh…
The Manus Vindictae could not save them. It could save nobody. She was wrong to have assumed she could use them…
While Marian pictured an orchard, Schneider could only bring her back to a forest of buildings, and for the first time since Schneider was still a child, they sat together, silent.
The night was not tender around them this time, either.
“You are working with the Manus Vindictae,” Marian stated.
Between them, there was a foot of space—the blanket that covered their laps was on one of each of their thighs, but neither could find the motivation to scooch closer to the other.
Schneider, who felt a sort of anger bubbling up in her, simply replied, “Are you accusing me?”
“Just… why, why? How could you… Why did you? Those scum who tortured me, those same scum as my sister…”
“It’s not your business,” the Rosa Killer snapped back, just like always. Schneider could never take someone’s abuse sitting down, but she could take it lying. Marian would hate her, and blame her, and this was better than knowing how the Manus used her to lure her little sister into their poisonous orbit.
What did those bastards do to you? It was a question both of them wanted to ask each other, yet neither did.
“You know, Schneider, I have a hard time remembering who you are now…” Marian turned to the side, reaching out a hand and holding her little sister’s cheek. “Mia soru, mia topolina… You don’t know what they did.” She turned back around, staring into space.
Then tell me…
The dam broke all at once, and too suddenly. This Marian was different, perhaps, but if she couldn’t accept a new Marian, what was left for her in this world? The idea of her older sister had been her motivation for a year, and now, for the rest of her life, if need be.
“I didn’t know anything,” the younger one finally confessed. “I didn’t know where you were… First that babbo, Forget me Not, mentioned you… Then that Foundation tipa told me where you were… I’m a human too. I was searching for a year…”
“A year?” Marian asked, sounding surprised. “It was a year…?” Her eyes turned again to a history divergent, a history Schneider could not see.
“Mia soru, please, what is your name? Your name before America, before Schneider, before Arcana.”
“You don’t remember…?”
The 21-year-old shook her head like a puppet quivering from its strings being pulled.
“…Humm. Maria, nothing is going to save us anymore.”
Outside, the rain fell back into the clouds, faster and faster. Although Schneider couldn’t see it, her lord claimed it was so, so it must’ve been.
“I thought I’d die, there, anyway.”
“I want to go with milord. This world will disappear with us in it.”
“I couldn’t tell the hour or the month.”
“Let’s forget these stupid survivals. There’s no place for humanity like us.”
“…Okay.”
Schneider grasped her sister’s cheeks. “When we die, say goodbye to me.”
Marian closed her eyes, and her lips trembled. She spoke in practice of their final hours, and for some reason, heading to her death, she could remember all of the sunshine and chlorophyll from their childhood. “Goodbye, Rosmarina Greco.”
In the end, death wasn’t so glamorous.
All she could do was ask that shining diamond to never forget her.
Non dimenticarmi.
Never forget how my heartbeat feels against your skin.
Then the world folded up into the warped reflections shown by the raindrops falling back into the sky, and for a second, Schneider was flying like a turtledove leaving everything sad behind her.