Wood Sprites

“Oh, it was all her idea at first. I was there the day she first showed up. She was staying the month with her sister up at the observatory. I think she scared Mr. Bell, talking about his son being killed and everything. He kept saying ‘I’m not who you think I am.’ Finally she said something like ‘The bloodline of his unbounded brilliance must go on. Without his light, darkness will take everything.’”

Louise felt shivers go down her back, and her teacup rattled on the saucer. She fought to still her hand. She felt like she had just heard the most true thing in her life, and it scared her.

Jillian hadn’t noticed; she was leaning forward, eyes wide. “Ooohhh, that is so cool.”

“What darkness?” Louise asked.

April shrugged and eyed her empty teacup. “I’d grown up in Pittsburgh, which was fast becoming a ghost town compared to what it had been. I’d never met anyone like Esme before. In New York, you meet them here and there, the big fish in a big pond. The movers. The shakers. Forces of nature. She scared me. I started to edge away, saying good-bye. I don’t think she had noticed I was in the room until I tried to escape. She turned and saw me by the door and went ‘You!’” April pointed forcibly at the door, nearly shouting the word, making Louise jump. “‘You’re going to help! How would you like to make a million dollars?’”

“A million dollars?” Louise asked.

“She paid you a million dollars to have our sister?” Jillian clarified.

April laughed. “Crazy, right? I didn’t believe her at first, but then she gave me some jewelry as a down payment. This amazing tennis bracelet.” She held up her right wrist to show off the glitter of large diamonds and blue gemstones. “And a Rolex woman’s wristwatch. Her family is rich, and she had this crazy plan of going into space and never coming back, so she was blowing it all on this baby.”

“A million dollars for our sister?” Jillian’s tone had changed slightly. And Louise understood completely: a million dollars for their older sister and nothing for their siblings still frozen in the lab.

“She had a ton of rules. I wasn’t allowed to drink or smoke or do drugs or even date — the last wasn’t that hard considering all the decent boys had left Pittsburgh. She swore me to secrecy — I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about the baby. Not my parents. Not her parents. Not even her sister. It would have been impossible to do in the summer, but we had a hard winter and spring was late. I could hide the fact I was pregnant under layers of clothes.”

“You’re telling us,” Louise pointed out.

“Oh, yinz are the exception to the rule.” April got up to start poking among her bookcase. “She said that if any of her kids were to show up at my door, I was to tell them everything. Answer every question. And — where is it — oh, here.” April pulled out a square wooden box. “And to give you this.”

“This” was a Chinese puzzle box, lacquered with a beautiful pattern. April held it out to them and, when neither took it, set it down on the coffee table between them.

“Are you sure she meant us and not our older sister?” Louise asked.

“She said ‘any kid.’ I think she even added something like ‘one or two, together or alone, boy or girl.’” April frowned for a moment. “Where exactly did you come from?”

Louise glanced at Jillian. They hadn’t come up with a cover story for that.

“We’d rather not say,” Jillian said.

“Our parents stole us,” Louise said.

April rubbed at the ridge of her nose. “It’s like your whole family has been cursed to live weird and bizarre lives.”

“We are not weird,” Louise said.

“Oh, so it’s perfectly normal for kids your age to disguise themselves as Girl Scouts and ambush people at their front door?”

“We are not disguised as Girl Scouts,” Louise snapped. “We are Girl Scouts. There’s a difference. Do you want to order cookies or not?”

“Yeah, I’ll take two boxes of Thin Mints.”

* * *

They managed to talk April into two boxes of Thin Mints, a box of Samoas, and a box of Trefoils. Then they copied all the pictures of their sister onto their tablets and collected all the personal data on “Mr. Bell,” including his phone number and address and his granddaughter’s full name, Alexander Graham Bell. Despite being out all night, April insisted on walking them back to the subway station. They barely kept her from escorting them the entire way home, escaping her protection only by promising to go straight home.

“Alexander Graham Bell.” Louise rolled the name around, trying to get used to the idea that they had an older sister, nearly eighteen. “Do you think she goes by Alex or Al or Alexi or Xander?”

“Xander?”

“I would,” Louise said. “Don’t you think it’s cool? Xander Bell.”

“Alexander Graham Bell is a stupid name. The acting guild would make you change it. The inventor would spam all hits on your name.”

“It would be a way no one could find you. If the first thousand hits were the inventor, people would give up looking for you. I think it’s ingenious.”