The road to the city is bumpy, and the seats are filled with a constant vibration from the uneven gravel. I’m dressed the part to enter this new society.
I can hear Scarlett’s raspy voice rattling around in my head like loose change in a dryer, telling me about the horrors, the screams, the begging for mercy that goes on within those walls. One thing she was more frightened of than the screams was that nearly everyone who worked in that building seemed desensitized to the pain they were inflicting. She described the emptiness in their eyes like a one-way window where you can’t see the entity of evil looking back at you—but you can feel it, taking pride in and enjoying the torture.
The thought of meeting people like this turns my bowels watery.
As the remaining trees from the forest grow farther and farther apart, thinning like a receding hairline, the canopy overhead dissipates, and the sky shows its swollen face covered in bulging, smoky clouds. Our buggy moves forward on the road into the Chandelier City, and I lean against my window, closing my eyes to this new world as I rest for my interview to come.
~
“We’re here.” The driver wakes me. I adjust my sight as I lean my forehead against the window to behold the source of many of Scarlett’s nightmares.
The castle is small and planted in front of the Emerald Lake Mountains.
As we pull into the long and wide graveled driveway, I get a closer look. There’s a clock tower, several chimneys, and long bay windows cloaked on the inside by curtains. With east and west wings, it gives me the impression of a lavish estate. The entrance has double-sided steps to the doorway, and there are four to five women staggered on the steps, shoulders back, chins raised, matching navy-blue, knee-length, fitted dresses. A man, towering above the women, stands in the doorway, dressed in an all-black suit. Their gazes are all directed at my buggy, unflinching stares that give me pause.
We pass a lush screen of greenery on either side of the driving path. Emerald-green arborvitae, like foot soldiers disguised on the front lawn. Fresh morning dew glistens as the sun pours over the crevices on the small castle.
I don’t know if I have the nerve to start yet. I’m not entirely sure I have the guts my sister had. I haven’t even let myself grieve Scarlett’s death, and I don’t think I ever will. But I remember one of the last conversations Scarlett and I shared. The night before she died, we were sitting on her bed, legs crisscrossed. She was brushing her long straight hair, and for the first time since we were reunited at the age of fifteen, she admitted the raw and bitter feeling she had been holding on tight to.
When we spoke about our mother, Violet Ambrose, she would express her anger and hatred toward her—how she shouldn’t be allowed to be called Mother. How if she ever saw Violet again, she would probably kill her. How could a mother let men touch her daughter? How could she hear my cries and collect her coin as I suffered?
But… that night, Scarlett didn’t cry, or yell, or scream at the memory. She looked at me sadly, she said, She was my mother, Sky. She was my mother, and all I ever wanted was for her to love me. She’s made me feel unlovable and for that… I don’t hate her. I hate myself.
That night, Scarlett held my hands in hers and said: It’s just you and me now. We have to promise to never leave each other.
It was the next night that her mop of golden hair and long skinny legs burned in that fire. She was nineteen years old.
I know there’s only one way to never leave her—like we promised that night. Despite my fears of stepping foot in this crypt of living corpses and the malevolent people killing them slowly, I have no choice but to wipe my face clean of anxiety and step out of this buggy.
This is me keeping my promise.
