My Brother's Keeper

By the time the donuts are devoured, and Pax has sung to me a half dozen times, Odile is kicking over loud objects and screaming profanities in my mind.

We should be done with the first gate by now. Why do you keep insisting on defying our mother? Her tantrum is distracting and forces me to leave the kitchen.

I make it to my room in time to pull the shirt from the mirror to stare at her face. She’s holding an object about to throw it when she notices me watching her. She drops what is in her hand, straightens her skirt, and approaches the mirror.

“Am I not allowed time with my father?” I question her as I press my eyebrows together. I accepted the deal. She could give me time to mend whatever bridges I could before I left the house.

Our father. Odile corrects me and places her hands on her hips.

“How is this going to work?” I ask as I point at the journal still stashed under my bed.

How is what going to work? She gives me a strange expression and shakes her head. Oh, you are asking how I will do the dirty work?

I nod my head and close my eyes. It’s not even noon, and she’s already on my last nerve.

Reflective surfaces. I can transport between reflections. Car mirrors, business windows, and puddles, to name a few. How else do you think Mother got her intel? She would send you from surface to surface, and you would report what you saw. It should all be there in the journal.

I growled. “I must have missed it between the birthday inscription and the first journal entry. There is nothing else in there but the intro and a short note on the victim.”

Word of advice: don’t think of them as victims, because then you will feel bad for what you are about to do. Odile states, and my facial expression becomes unreadable. Does she seriously think this is sound advice to give?

“I’ll remember that when I’m carving out the hearts of five heirs,” I reply.

That’s the fun part. Odile says, and my blood turns cold. What did our mother do to her?

“You are seriously twisted,” I say as I turn my back on the mirror to grab the package.

You have no idea, she says slowly. I turn my head, and she’s looking at me with her face aimed toward what I assumed was her floor.

“What is it like in there? I’m assuming you sleep and whatnot just like I do.” I ask.

Your lack of memory is annoying at times. No food because I have no stomach. You have my stomach. Otherwise, it’s the inverted version of everywhere I travel. I can interact with the mirrored images. So, if there is a chair in the room, I can sit in it as long as there is a reflection. It’s quite boring. I don’t know how you did it for so long. Odile grunts and turns around to look behind her.

“Speaking of, where is mine if I’m in your body? I assume we were both physical beings at birth.” I start to look through my drawers for clothes. I didn’t look very threatening in a pink unicorn t-shirt.

Somewhere in the underbelly, I’m sure. Mother never told me. She just said she put you in the mirror to keep you safe. Odile shrugged.

“I guess that is fitting. We have the Swan Lake history with a little Snow White necrophilia,” I said with a shiver.

It will take more than just a kiss to wake your slumbering ass up. Odile teased. It was the first time she let it slip. There was another body. Was that why she wanted on the other side?

“So, how can you kill them if you can’t touch them,” I ask, trying to keep us on target. I had asked the other question out of curiosity. If Odile was stuck in a mirror image, how could she possibly murder someone?

Skill. Something I have that you don’t. It won’t be hard. We turned eighteen today, so my power is at its strongest. Yours is in a jar somewhere inside Eider, I’m sure. She laughed manically and began to pick at her nails. Is it time yet?

I pulled on a black t-shirt and pulled my hair up in a ponytail. I grabbed my school bag, dumping my books and pencils all over the bed before tossing the dagger and journal inside. I needed to look innocent; otherwise, the victims, I mean, sacrifices, would get antsy.

“Do you think they know?” I asked as I flung the bag over my shoulder.

Know what?” Odile asked as she pressed her face against the glass.

“That they were chosen,” I reply. I thought it would be easier when the time came, but I was still torn between completing the task and crawling back in bed.

Mother didn’t advertise who she had chosen to open the gates. I’m sure they have an idea. I mean, they know what today is. Odile sighed and slowly smiled—the culling.

“Why are you so creepy?” I asked as I situated the bag on my back and threw my wallet into my back pocket. It probably wasn’t smart, but if I was mauled during this quest, I wanted my body returned to my father.

I’m the creepy one? Odile asked with a laugh. You seem to forget who you are, Alice.

“A looking glass reference, how many fairytales are tied to this quest?” I asked. I was just about ready; I just wanted to kill another minute before I left my room to become Coscoroba’s youngest serial killer. If this all went wrong, they would imprison me with Lenny’s ghost.

Why do you care? Let’s get the ball rolling. The first sacrifice won’t kill themselves. However, it would make our jobs much easier. Odile disappeared from the mirror, and I exited my room in a cold sweat.

I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had never killed anyone, no matter how often I was told my hands were bloody. The body had a history, but the soul was squeaky clean.

“Is it that time already?” my father asked as I descended the stairs.

“Yeah, Odile is a little murder happy.” I sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

“We could just forget it all and let total anarchy take over. I’m pretty sure they will start to kill each other before they come for Pax,” my father said with a shrug. I know he’s trying to make a dark joke out of the situation, but I can’t let him. Even discussing the acts seemed a little over the top.

“I’ll be home before you know it,” I reply, shoving my hands in my pockets. I have to admit I kind of like his idea of hiding until total anarchy.

“Do you have everything you need?” my father asks as he clears his throat.

I nod and point toward my backpack. “Mom had a gift under my bed.”

My father blinked and glanced at the floor. “How did she manage that?” he asked.

“I’ve learned not to ask too many questions about the magic,” I groan.

“Well then, behave, do what you must, and come home. Karen’s already packing. We all know this is just the beginning.” He places his hands on my shoulders and pulls me close to kiss my forehead. “I don’t like this, but we must get Pax through the gates before anyone else. At least that is what Karen says.”

“Right now, she knows more than I do. Keep them safe. Once it gets out what I’m doing, anyone could show up on the doorstep demanding retribution.”

With one last hug, I turned and left the house. I had assumed there would be a sick feeling once I crossed the threshold, but there wasn’t.

It’s because you know it’s what you have to do, what we have to do. Odile says in my head. It was nice of her to give me a few minutes alone with our father. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the conversation with her berating me in my ear.

“I have a feeling we are doing this for separate reasons,” I say as I turn right at the end of the driveway and pull out the journal to see if anything else has opened.

Where are we headed? She asks, and it takes me by surprise. I assume she already knew.

“Mallard Park,” I reply as I read some of my mother’s notes.

The house of Mallard is one of the lowest levels of royals in the kingdom. This will make them more susceptible to a head-to-head attack with little effort. They were never fighters, more like leeches living on the kingdom’s prosperity. They were good people with good intentions, but their thirst for the throne was at the bottom of their long list of mooching.

“Did she ever talk about the houses?” I ask as I look at the sky. In a way, I was judging the time remaining in the day, and the other was me not wanting to leave the driveway.

No, she rarely talked about the kingdom at all outside the story. Odile says, and I can envision her shrugging her shoulder and then ignoring me.

“How did all of this happen?” I asked as I tossed my bag over my shoulder and began the walk toward the park.

When the happy couple tossed themselves into the lake, their souls instantly flew upward, and the townspeople mourned their loss. However, when the sorcerer and his daughter were dumped into the water, their souls never left. Their evil polluted the water and the plants around it. Before long, the soil was poisoned, and the kingdom fell apart. The borders were closed to prevent the curse from spreading, but the damage had been done. Our mother found the rift and exploited it. Citizens fled the kingdom and took new lives in this world. Odile had a bit more of the story than I did. I found myself intrigued by what had happened following our great-aunt’s death.

“What drove her over the edge?” I asked as we trudged along on the concrete path.

She didn’t expect the bloodshed when she opened the gates between this world and ours. We didn’t build this place. There were people here before us. How do you think Dad got here? However, the people of Coscoroba were already well-entuned with the need to fight for what they had. The blood on our mother’s hands was enough to cause her to go insane. Not to mention, while the citizens fled the kingdom, our aunts and cousins were left behind. Odile’s tone is sullen, which shocks me.

I had my assumptions about our father and his impact on the town. What I didn’t understand was why he stayed even before we were born. Pax came along three years after me, so it wasn’t Karen that kept him locked in place.

“Is this why you are okay with the whole killing thing?” I ask.

I’m okay with it because that is how I was raised. I was as loyal to our mother as you are to our father. Odile says, and I shove my hands in my pockets.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her. I mean it, I am. She did not deserve the life she was forced to lead.

Can we make a stop? Odile asks, and it takes me by surprise, knowing she wants to finish everything before dark.

“Where?” I ask.

Her grave, do you know where they buried her? Odile asks.

I had asked my father if we could visit my mother’s grave on my birthday, but things had been weird. Small inconveniences marred my entire plan for the day.

“Yeah, I don’t think that is a bad idea at all,” I said, picking up some speed as I crossed a cracked road in our subdivision.