Mari plucks from her head a single string, and lies it at the altar of perfection. She needs only to master this performance. It will be her undoing.
~
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, little brother,” she says, guiding tendrils around his arms. His stance needs work, but she is meticulous. With a tug, the slightest turn of her wrist, she tunes the boy into upright bravado. Though his face betrays little, Mari recognizes the agitation in the crease of his brow, the pallor of his knuckles; she brushes both away.
“This will help you,” she insists, repositioning his fingers just so. “You just have to let it. Okay?”
He nods. Mari smiles.
~
The tomes revealed themselves to her late one night, pages crackling with potential—and the brittle aftereffects of an age-old waterlogging. Only Hero’s fretting stopped Mari from devouring them whole, and even so she was convinced he only felt as such due to waning adrenaline. Hers, meanwhile, showed no sign of flagging. Just this once were they dipping their toes into what their brothers had gotten away with countless times; how could she not take full advantage, new discoveries and all?
But Hero did not like the books. From what precious little Mari gleaned, they spoke of beings lurking not only in the crevices but all around, ever-present yet unseen, weaving patterns into the fabric of reality that only the closely-attuned could understand; and Hero, for one, had enough trouble with insects, never mind some living embodiment of an eye floater.
So Mari acquiesced, as too often she found herself doing. Every last paper was left where it was found, buried by brambles at the edge of the lake; and so close was the couple’s attention to detail that, should anyone else venture here, they would be none the wiser to any previous disturbance. And Mari left, deeply dissatisfied.
But she did not forget.
~
Spiders, Mari thinks, make very nice webs. No one has to teach them how to weave a melody, how to bring their circles to such flawless close. They are not told that, if their work is poor, they’ll achieve nothing; they will know this, viscerally, when they starve.
When her fingers fumble on the keys the whole house hears. She practices when their father is out. He does not need to make his expectations explicit for Mari to know that, should she fail—
Sunny has, to the best of her ability, been left ignorant of these matters. He could not be a paragon if he tried, and it’s for the better, Mari knows; his errors are allowed to pierce through the walls, and always she reminds him to try again.
There is a patience Sunny inspires that Mari will not, can not, afford herself. For this he is grateful, and of that Mari is certain, because why wouldn’t he be—much as his bow scratches string in a note rivaling Mewo’s wail.
No, Sunny loves her, Mari reminds herself, and wants to do her good; and she loves him, and wants the best for him, and so she tells him to stop and they start, once more, from the beginning.
~
Why do mistakes happen? It’s a question Mari turned to, night after night, bed-bound from an injury that had no right to have occurred. Externally her composure hit every note—can’t rush the healing process, little brother; these things take time—but internally, a diminuendo.
She’d needed books to sleep for years. It was a hobby; then a habit; now a crutch. Volumes scholarly and pulpy alike she gorged on, and still nothing pleased her. How maddening it was, to just sit there, and to play in the name of a perfection that the wraps around her leg disproved with the subtlety of a torn web.
And so just once, in a fit of weakness, she enlisted help.
Her father would never have allowed these books—but Mari did just a few things of which her father would not approve, and in blissful ignorance he was to remain. His frequent absences were a gift in this regard. All Mari had to do was request of Hero a “homework packet”—sealed, of course, in the name of academic integrity—and the man was none the wiser.
Was this string of coincidence a mistake, she wondered; the flyaway patriarch, the ever-doting “friend”? What of the end of her fledgling pursuits with a single misstep? Her normal god offered no reason, only its vague, elusive promise.
Objectively, the tomes were indifferent; if anything they were assured of meaning’s dearth. But within their long-stained pages, and the entities of which they spoke, Mari found patterns. The shift of air through a room, dawn to dusk—predictable, as it turned out, particles obeying the invisible whims of temperature and imperceptible mass. Spring flowers unfurl meticulously as cobwebs, leaves outstretched to a distant yet ever-present entity they know only as that which gives them life. When rain pours the streams ebb and join and part again, almost unremarkable—but never, in service of forces and paths determined long before, truly random.
It made a certain kind of poetry. That in tandem they mentioned a creature in the deep, a barely-corporeal thing impossible to name as it was to describe… It was, at the time, almost a footnote.
~
She never did pick up softball again. Music became a better respite, even if her pedaling was poorer for a time. But even so, how much more beautiful was the swell of a melody, now that she truly understood what made it! The keys acquiesced beneath her fingers, each note struck with newfound precision, and the polished body shuddered anew.
Mari, at last, felt alive.
~
There are many things Mari wants her little brother to appreciate. The view from above, for instance. Insects. A fresh swim. She knows nothing of their confluence on that fateful day, but knows all too well their effect: his form slipping languid into the dark.
It haunts her, this image. His eyes shut. His limbs, deadweight. Consumed by the abyss without complaint; even when she took his hand he hardly stirred. Drowning, she would later learn, is a silent affair. The call to oblivion is relentless as it is arbitrary, and had she been just seconds too late…
She grabbed him, and swore she’d never let go.
And for a time, she swore she’d be patient, too. It mattered not how wretchedly the bowstring dragged, she told herself, when every sharp could have been his last. Wasn’t it a privilege, that they could start over still? That she could watch the enthusiasm drain from his eyes, sinking ever through the floor as she reminded him, time and time again, to hold it this way, to hit that note, just once…!
How blessed she was to witness the wane of his energy anew, over a song. How fragile this moment, imperfect and ever-meaningless. Someday, she is certain, he will understand all the work it took to put this violin in his hand, and he will understand all they’ve given for him, and when he finally cherishes that he will play well.
~
He doesn’t.
~
Mari could be mad. She could resent her little brother for his failings. He is not overt with his thanklessness, but that it is nigh-imperceptible does not mean it is nonexistent; she catches it in the abrasion with which he returns the instrument to its sepulchre, in how once he rose at the crack of dawn from her beckon but now needs significant coaxing. His eyes are bleary.
It means nothing to him, it seems. And Mari cannot control or change this.
But she is not angry. She is patient. She holds her tongue. Perhaps there is no sense to be found here. Maybe there never was.
Just what changed, in the dark?
She cannot hope to understand her brother. Yet there’s another being Mari can hope to bargain with, and perhaps that will be enough. If it is a pursuit of hubris, she decides, then so be it. The recital will be worthwhile.
~
There’s something in the lake.
Mari finds it in the breeze through the branches, its chill in her bones; she holds firm, like a stray cobweb swayed but ultimately still woven. It curls into her core, and she welcomes it around her; it gave her life all those years ago, after all. When the water ripples even in wind’s absence, she knows viscerally it is anything but random.
She thanks it for its guidance, and tells it to wait. In its silence she hears everything.
~
For the next several days, Sunny is a maestro. Mari has allowed him solo practice, and here at last he exceeds. His melodies soar, her praises are endless, and he even wakes with renewed vigor—
And yet. Enter piano; exit his competence. Worse is that Mari now knows he hasn’t given up; when he gets it right she can almost see his smile, and when he (still too often) gets it wrong his reinvigorated passion turns against him, twisting his expression into a momentary but intense fury. It is a horrid thing to witness, and even more damning to hear, as the duo’s frustrations circle each other in a gladiatorial dance—until finally, every time, Sunny capitulates.
For now, Mari allows him to walk. She does not like that he turns away; but she likes less that, even now, he leaves so much wanting.
But she is less helpless, this time.
~
The introduction must be slow.
“See?” she says. “It won’t hurt you. Be patient.”
Sunny stifles a shiver as the tendril creeps up his palm, sinewy and slick as a newborn. Poor boy must think this is a nightmare; after all, Mari told everyone to keep away from this place, and the implicitly the sentiment had included the two of them, too. But there was so much she hadn’t accounted for then. When this is through, Sunny will grasp its necessity.
“It’s not as scary as you think,” Mari lies, rubbing her brother’s shoulders, readying herself on the occasion the tendril might snake around his arm and tug. She reminds herself that it, as she has read, has little interest in senseless violence. One must only be willing.
“I know you’re worried about the recital.” She hums. “This will help.”
Her little brother makes a breathy sound, perhaps an aborted “How?”. Mari leans close, reminds him to breathe. Be steady. Calm down, and control yourself.
Something snakes into his veins, and he stays very, very still.
~
So they play.
They play to the frenzy of their god, and it just about resembles perfection.
~
It was going so well.
He can do better. She knows he can! His improvement is undeniable; his mistakes now put his past peak to shame! Mari tries everything. Months dwindle to weeks, and the closer they get to their best, the more frustrating it is when, inevitably, he gets it wrong.
Still. Still! She can be patient. As days wind down Mari wakes him even earlier, pulls her strings more carefully. Doing this does not bring her joy, much as Sunny’s dour glares suggest he believes otherwise. She wants merely for him to understand what potential he has, much as he resists it.
She tells him as much until he stops struggling.
But perhaps she goes too far. After all, Mari knew from the beginning that, to some degree, this was a farce. Is he really achieving his fullest, after all, if he needs such heavy-handed help? Will it abate all expectation, or (more likely) feed into them? The air is heavy in their practice room; on the scale of a stage, will it be suffocating? There are limits to her poise; there are limits to how much he will listen.
He storms out. She thinks him possessed. The violin leaves with him, and—
It splinters, something inside her.
Mari knows her raised voice is futile, even as she yells. She knows the sheet music is useless now, though her fist closes around it. She wonders what the point was, of buying that infernal instrument, when not once has he been grateful. And a creeping dread, thick as bile, rises in her throat—because he’s ruined it. All the world’s prayers would not fix this.
She only wanted him to feel alive.
Wasn’t getting it right the least he could do?!
Mari does not let him go, and from the wreckage of their dreams rises an incurable darkness. It wraps around her last thread, reminds her he is scared, he is tired; she should merely have taken better care of him. And she still can, if he doesn’t run away. The shadow will help her, as she’s helped the poor boy, if only he will let it. How can he not feel its presence, desperation crawling in through every seam?
Why must he act confused? Little brother shakes; big sister asks only for his trust. He is reached for; there’s something behind her—
Sunny shoves.