When Ella was seven and I was four, Momma snuck up behind Ella and dumped the stuff from the fireplace tray onto her head. Jaya, who only ever talks about boys, laughed. “Look at Ella, covered in ashes!” she exclaimed. “We might as well name her Ella Ashes!” Jaya and Momma thought that was real funny. They laughed and laughed until Ella threw the tray at the cat and made him jump out the window.
After Momma and Jaya left, I went over to Ella and asked if she was okay. She just stopped sweeping and stared at me, and I waited and waited for her to say something. Finally, she put her hands on her hips and tossed her head so some of the soot flew out. “For a step sister,” she decided, “maybe you aren’t so bad.” After that, we were friends.
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“What are you wearing to the ball?”
“Do you remember that cream muslin piece I had on for your birthday last year? Well, I fixed it up with some silk flowers and threw on some lace trim and oh, it’s just lovely now! I’m so excited to try it out!”
“Well, you had better look your best, Jaya. I heard the duke is going to be there as well.”
“Oh, it’s not just the duke. It’s the earl and the marquess and every eligible baron in the country!” I tug Ella’s arm and pull her away from Jaya and her friends. “They’re acting pretty silly,” I whisper.
Ella nods. “If the prince has half a brain, he’ll call this stupid ball off before the castle gets besieged by crazy maidens.” The pitch of her voice increases to match that of my sister and her friends. “Oh darling, I’m so in love with you! In loooooove!” We both burst into giggles that aren’t too quiet for the older girls to hear. Jaya glares at us before pulling her group of friends out of the room.
“I still want to go,” Ella confides once they’re gone.
I stare at her, incredulous. “I thought you hated that kind of stuff!” I tell her.
“I do,” she folds her arms. “I’m not going for the prince or the dancing. I just want to see the castle!” Her eyes light up. “Don’t you want to see how royal people live? I’ve heard they have separate forks for salad and pasta and dessert. Can you believe that?”
“That sounds pretty silly,” I agree, smiling. “I’m sure Momma will let you come. This is the biggest royal ball in the history of ever! She has to let you see it!”
But Momma doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what Ella or I say or how nicely we ask her. She won’t let Ella come. I don’t want to go if Ella can’t come, too, but Momma says I can’t stay at home with just Ella there. The hired carriage comes and Jaya and Momma get in with their fancy dresses. I turn back towards the house to wave goodbye to Ella, but the window is empty. Now I’m even sadder for her.
The castle is far away. I’m bored and Momma and Jaya are talking to each other, so I look outside. That’s when I see Ella, hanging onto the back of the carriage! “Shh!” she whispers. Heart fluttering, I look away. Ella did come! We’re going to see the castle together!
We’re driving next to the forest now and the road is really bumpy. The carriage wheels won’t move so fast because the ground is really soggy from the water that splashes up from the river. I keep glancing out the back window to see how Ella’s doing. She’s hanging on, but I think she might be getting sick. She’s hanging onto the carriage as tightly as she can. I want to help her, but if I do, I’m afraid that Momma will see her and then we’ll both be in trouble.
We’re crossing the bridge over the river when we hit the bump that makes her let go. Both of us scream, and I reach out and grab her. Only I’m not strong enough and now Ella’s making me fall out, too. Momma looks over and sees the both of us and suddenly she and Jaya start screaming. The horses get scared and the carriage driver can’t control them so they start running. We’re all still shouting when one of them bolts into the river and pulls everyone in after it. I can’t breathe and I can’t see Momma or Jaya or the carriage driver and Ella can’t keep holding me. The river sweeps us away.
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When I get up, it’s daytime. I squint and rub my head. I don’t see Ella or Momma or Jaya or the carriage driver or anyone. There are lots of trees, though. I pull myself away from the river and look around. I guess we must have gotten carried down the river and into the forest. At least, I got carried into the forest. I don’t know where everyone else went.
“Karia!”
Ella’s on the other side of the river, running towards me. “Ella!” I shout at her. She reaches the edge and jumps in. “Ella!” I scream. I hold my breath until she plops up the bank. She kneels on the grass, wet and panting but smiling at me.
“Karia!” she gasps. “I thought...for a moment...that I wouldn’t find you.” She takes a deep breath, coughs for a moment, and smiles again.
“Me too,” I admit, hugging her.
Now that we’re together again, I feel a lot better. It’s a few minutes before I remember that we’re alone in the middle of the wilderness. “Ella?”
“Hmm?”
“Ella, how’re we going to get back home?”
Ella blinks, remembering the situation we’re in. She stands up and takes in the scene. “I suppose we should follow the river,” she thinks out loud. “If we go upstream, we’ll eventually reach the bridge where we fell off the old road.” She looks down at me, confident. “Don’t worry. Soon, both of us will be back home and I’ll get us both some nice hot soup.” Her mouth waters, and so does mine. Hot soup sounds really good right now.
Ella and I walk all day. It’s sunny outside but the river keeps us cool. I feel a bit bad that Jaya didn’t get to meet the prince like she wanted to or that Ella and I didn’t get a chance to see the castle, but I’m glad that we’re here together now. Everything is going to be okay.
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The next morning, Ella wakes up screaming. “Ella! Ella!” I cry, jumping up to shake her. She’s stopped by now, but she doesn’t look okay. “What happened?” I ask.
Ella breathes for a moment, and then huffs and folds her arms. She’s less shocked now, and she’s trying to look mad at herself to cover up how upset she just was. “It was nothing,” she mutters. “Just a bad dream.”
“What happened?” I stare at her expectantly.
“Nothing. Seriously, it was only a stupid dream.” Ella brushes her hair back with her fingers. After a moment, she sighs. “Everything was dark, and there was a door. I walked over to it and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t move. Then it started...talking.”
Ella sighs and rubs her forehead again. “See, I told you the dream was stupid. What kind of idiot has a conversation with a door?”
“What did it say?”
Ella folds her arms. “You really want to hear this?” I nod vigorously and scoot closer to her. “Fine,” she rolls her eyes, giving in. “The door told me to open my eyes.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“Yep,” she snorts. “I listened to the faceless, talking door and closed my eyes. Then I opened them. And nothing happened. I’d just blinked.”
“And then?” I press.
“And then the door decided that that wasn’t good enough, so it told me again to open my eyes.” “So you blinked at it again?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes aren’t focused on me. “No. I mean, the second time, I blinked again. But then I did it a third time, and something...happened.” She inhales shakily and breathes out again. “Look, can we not talk about this? We need to get moving if we want to get home anytime soon. And I’m getting hungry.”
“Okay,” I agree dejectedly. I move to stand up, but Ella holds me back.
“It was only a stupid dream,” she mutters once again. “The third time I opened my eyes, instead of seeing just the door, I saw a guy as well. They were both there, but it was as if each of them was in a different place. It wasn’t like the guy was standing in front of the door. It was like, how can I describe this? It was as if I was looking at two different worlds at the same time.” Her voice gets quiet. “The guy, he was wearing white, and he was reaching towards me. Of course I started screaming, and that’s when I woke up.” Ella sighs yet again. “See, I told you the dream was stupid.”
“It was just a dream, though,” I comfort her. “Most dreams are weird like that. Come on, let’s find something to eat!”
“Yeah,” she agrees, getting up after me. “I’m practically starved.” Ella isn’t very talkative for the rest of the day.
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I wonder how Momma and Jaya are doing. Maybe they’ve found help already. Maybe they’re looking for us right now. I hope that they don’t get mad at Ella when we get back. I wonder if that’s what’s making Ella so upset.
Ella doesn’t talk to me at all today. Whenever I say anything to her, she looks distracted and doesn’t answer all the way. Now I’m getting upset, too. Why won’t she tell me what’s wrong? I’m her favorite stepsister and she’s my best friend.
When the sun starts setting, Ella stops and tells me to wait. She goes over to the river and kneels next to it for a long time. Her head is tilted to the side and it looks like she’s thinking really hard. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s just going to stare at the water forever when she gets up and mutters, “Go to sleep,” to me. I lie down and wait for her to do the same, but she walks over to one of the trees and leans against it. She stays there until I close my eyes. I guess she just needs some more alone time.
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The next day, we reach the old bridge. “Hey, that’s where we fell in, Ella! We’re almost home!” I exclaim.
“Yeah,” she mutters. She still looks distracted. Her hands are in her pockets and she keeps fidgeting them uncomfortably. I look back at the river in front of us. “Ella?” I ask.
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t you want to talk with me anymore?”
“Yeah. Sure,” she murmurs, too preoccupied to understand the question.
I’m really frustrated now. “Ella!” I shout, yanking at her hand. It comes out of her pocket and both of us suddenly freeze. Ella’s hand is so faded and transparent that I can see right through it. She blinks at it and then at me in wonder. Then she covers her face, and the tears finally come. “I guess I couldn’t have kept it a secret forever,” she murmurs.
For a long time, it doesn’t seem like either of us can speak. Finally, I face it enough to look at her. “So you’re dead.” It sounds hollow, empty. “When you fell off the carriage, you...you didn’t make it.”
Ella takes my hands in her fading ones. She can’t look at me. I notice that the other hand is ghostly now, too. “Ella, I’m not mad at you.” I sniffle and fall into her arms. “I don’t care that you’re a ghost. You’re still my sister. We--we’ll go back to Momma, and I won’t even tell her you’re there if you don’t want me to. You’re going to be okay.”
Ella shakes a little more. “No,” she says, and her voice is surprisingly steady. I look away. I don’t want her to be a ghost, either. I just want things to be okay.
“No,” Ella repeats. This time, she meets my eyes. “Karia, cross that bridge.”
I blink, suddenly confused. “Why? Ella, I’m not leaving you--”
“Wait, don’t. Karia, please, I’m sorry. Don’t do it.”
She sinks to her knees and covers her face again. I move to pat her comfortingly, but she twists and shakes me off. “Ella,” I start, and my eyes wander towards the bridge. I step away from my crying stepsister and stand at the edge of the bridge. I close my eyes, take a step forward, and find that I cannot move. My heart skips a beat and my eyes flash open. I push and push and push against the air, but I just can’t step onto the bridge.
“You can’t cross it.” The voice comes from behind me, and it takes a moment for me to realize it’s Ella who's talking. I shake my head slowly, but Ella’s standing up and moving past me, onto the bridge. She crosses over it as easily as air. “Karia, you can’t cross the bridge. You can’t do it now and you can’t do it ever, because I’m not dead. You are.” I close my eyes and shake my head, but Ella swallows hard and goes on. “When we fell into the river, I made it to the shore before passing out. The man from my dream was real. He’d rescued me and he was trying to get me to wake up. After I opened my eyes and before I started screaming and fainted again, I asked him if he had found anyone else. He said he hadn’t. Karia, you and your mother and Jaya and the carriage driver, you all never made it out. Karia, somewhere out there you’re floating along looking bloody and bloated and it’s so horrible but I couldn’t tell it to you. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that you were dead.”
“Oh.” I have a kind of funny feeling in my tummy. It kind of makes me want to cry, and maybe also be sick all over my dress. I don’t know what to say to Ella. I don’t know what to say to myself.
Ella looks away again. “I’m waking up,” she says flatly. “Soon, I’ll be well enough to leave this place. When I do, I don’t think I can come back. Not for a long time, at least.” Her posture is slumped and she hasn’t stopped shaking. “Karia, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
There isn’t enough time to find the right words to say exactly what we need to say. Ella’s fading too fast. I want to cry or scream at her or yell that it isn’t fair, that it shouldn’t have been me who died. Ella’s crying. I don’t want to be the brave one. I don’t want her to go.
“It’s not a bad place to be stuck in,” I finally decide. She meets my eyes, her face red and teary. “I’m okay here, and you’re going to be okay, too.”
Ella chokes out a smile. “That’s good, I guess. That’s good.” She’s almost gone. “I want you to be happy. I’m sorry.”
“I want you to be happy, too.” With our few remaining moments, I hold her. “Live a happy life, okay Ella? We’ll meet again someday.”
“Someday,” she murmurs. She can barely feel me anymore. Her eyes close with resignation. “I love you, sis. Goodbye.”