Page 1 of The Last Lost Girl

one

My sister stands on the ledge of the roof of our red-brick apartment building, singing a song so haunting the breath wrings from my lungs.

I stand rooted to the sidewalk with my heartbeat pounding in my ears, because I don’t know what to do.

What do I do?

I heard the lilt of her voice before I turned the corner. I thought she’d be sitting at our open window, bored out of her mind and waiting for me to come home. She’d sung me home before, but never like this.

Not on the rooftop.

Never on its ledge…

Her voice cracks. She sings of flying home.

Then, slowly, elegantly, she raises her arms and stretches them like they’re wings.

No.

NO.

This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening. Except, it is...

Strands of her long, flaxen hair and her pale, threadbare nightgown snap in the wind, flags of surrender announcing that she yields. That she’s finally giving in. That her fight is over.

Like they want me to save her. From the shadows, from herself.

She’s lost in a world of her own, and I don’t know if I can save her from it this time.

Her words blur as I rush across the empty road, washed sickly orange from the long row of streetlights. Her song doesn’t break when I shove the first-floor door open and take the stairs two at a time.

Ascending one story.

Two.

Three…

I push harder.

Her tone peaks, and the crescendo hits like a lightning bolt that strikes terror through every thread of my muscle and mind. My bag falls from my shoulder. I barely register as the contents sprinkle the steps in a personal confetti.

Keep singing, Belle.

My lungs burn as I reach the landing and shove the rusty roof door open; the edges scrape against its frame. My breath saws in and out, ragged and strained.

Belle’s back tenses, but she keeps singing.

I have to get to her before...

At the first crunch of gravel under my foot, the word she’d been drawing out is severed.

A curse forms on my lips as electricity cuts off to the east and west and one by one, the blocks of streetlights, glowing televisions, and flaring neons wink out until the outage reaches us and drenches us in night’s true nature.

The flow of traffic dies.

The fan blades of the aged air conditioning units lining the roof on either side of us slow and take their time whirring to a stop.

That’s when the crickets go quiet. The hair on my neck prickles.

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