Page 17 of Again, In Autumn

I’m not here to relive swoony nights over a boy. I’m here for my sister, the way she wanted me that summer.

The lights flip on, and warmth covers my soul.

I’m home.

Chapter Five

“Wake up! Wake up!”

My heart thumps. I don’t know where I am, who is yelling, where these sheets came from, but the uncertainty passes as quickly as it came. I immediately realize what’s happening, and it’s the exact scenario I feared last night.

They’re here. Much too early.

Rolling into my pillow, I groan, “Go away.”

Small, sticky fingers pry open my eye lids. “Auntie Vee,” Alice whispers into my open mouth. Her nose tickles mine. “Auntie Vee…”

“I said, go away,” I sing into cotton.

She giggles and shouts into my ear, “Auntie Vee!”

“She’s not here.”

“Auntie Vee!”

“You silly girl,” I mutter, scooping her up around the waist and squeezing her against me, flattened out on the bed.

She breathes through a smile and proceeds to dig into my hair, flip the shoulder of my tank top back and forth, smell my ear, and hide herself under the comforter.

“Did you just smell my ear?” I ask, rolling over on my back.

Thank God she didn’t lick it.

The blob beside my hip doesn’t move. It sits on its knees and bounces gently into the mattress like a quilted mountain on the verge of an avalanche. Her breath comes out in quiet shoots of little laughter.

I pull up to a seat. “Where did Ally go?”

She shakes.

“I know she was just here.” I feel my hand around the top of the quilt, making audible sounds as my nails drag over the stitches, tormenting her with anticipation. “Ally girl? Oh, Alice.” I tuck my stretched legs beneath me. After a beat, I attack – fingers dancing into her squishy three-year-old belly.

She squirms and screams and throws the cover off her wild, white hair. It sticks up in all directions, a rainbow clip dangling off a chunk, and the gap of a knocked-out tooth is the star of her smile. She falls into a heap in my lap.

“What’s going on up there?” Fran calls.

“A monster came in and disturbed my slumber,” I respond, covering Alice’s little pink cheeks with kisses.

She sighs and pushes back hair from my face.

I do the same to her. Her blue eyes sparkle with the innocence only children can express. They roam my face and hair with unabashed observation, so completely at ease and full of thought that I feel like strange phenomena being assessed.

The open bedroom door squeaks.

“It’s so funny, Vienna,” Francesca begins, coming inside. “I went to look for you in your bedroom, but you weren’t there. I would have never thought to find you in the big bedroom. It’s so funny that you thought you’d sleep here.” She smirks, passing me a cup of coffee.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to wash the sheets and go back to my quarters tonight, your majesty.” I hold the cup high as Alice scrambles off the bed.

She asks, “Where’s Grayson?”

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