Rules for Stealing Stars (17 page)

Thirty

T
he next morning, Dad makes pancakes, which is alarming since it's Thursday and not Sunday at all.

“We're going to visit your mother!” he announces. He puts a Mickey Mouse pancake on my plate, and what I think is supposed to be a dog pancake on Astrid's plate. He manages a pretty good heart pancake for Eleanor, who got back early from “Jodi's.” Dad seems unconcerned with everything but the shapes of the pancakes and Mom. He is always, always very concerned with Mom.

I wonder what would happen if I visited the memory version of him in Marla's closet and told him all my worries. Would he be more helpful? Would he get it? Would
he be a different kind of Dad, like LilyLee's, who checks on her grades and asks a million questions when we go to the mall, and pulled me aside once when LilyLee was sad about another friend to ask if I could tell him what was going on because he was so worried.

“No, thank you,” I say. I take a bite of the Mickey Mouse pancake's ear.

“That was an announcement, not a question, Silly,” Dad says. He keeps a smile on his face, but I am pretty sure there's a frown hidden underneath.

“I can stay here with the girls,” Eleanor says, like she is forty and not Astrid's twin.

“I'm not leaving you alone in the house,” Dad says. He laughs, to show how zany he thinks we're being and that we are obviously not serious. “You all going nutty? Don't you miss your mom?” Astrid shakes her head, but that's only because she has forgotten to listen to the whole rest of the conversation. “You can go to the lake today while I get all the details settled,” he says. “We're going to leave in a few days. None of you have ever seen that part of the country. It will be wonderful.”

I think about the Arizona postcards. The ridiculous amount of brown and tan and brownish tan. The prickly cactuses that seem to replace trees there.

“I would miss trees,” I say. “We need trees. To breathe and stuff. And also, stability.”
Stability
is a word the school counselor used when we all talked with her last year when Mom wasn't doing well. She kept saying it over and over to Dad, until he started repeating it too. Their whole conversation was just a repetition of that one word. Pretty weird.

“Oh, you'll like the trees there!” Dad says, missing the point entirely. “Very different! Sparse. Unique.” He nods. At least he agrees with himself. The rest of us clearly do not agree with anything he's saying.

“We're not going,” I say. It is not usually up to me to speak for all of us. That's Eleanor's job. But I'm older now. I'll be twelve in two months and three days.

I want to explain why it's impossible to leave: not only am I not ready to see Mom with her bracelets piled on one wrist and some new sunny attitude or something, but we also have the closets to worry about. And the girl who's stuck inside. And the way they save me from how impossible every day seems otherwise.

If I really want to see Arizona, I'll have Astrid make a diorama of it for Eleanor's closet.

“I have postcards,” I say. “I know what it looks like. And how Mom is. We talked. So, I think I'm good. And I
like the postcards.” I emphasize the words
postcards
like it is going to have some very deep impact on Dad. He laughs, but stops when I don't laugh along.

“We're a family, Silly,” he says carefully. He gives me another pancake. He is definitely convinced pancakes are the key. “Now, where's Marla? I know she'll be excited.” I look around and take count. It's not like I have seventy-five sisters or anything. I'm not even one of twelve. But sometimes I have to list us out to realize who is missing.
Silly, Eleanor, Astrid
, I say in my head, making sure to count myself, because I am always the first person I forget.

I look up at Astrid and Eleanor, to see if they have been doing the same calculation I've been doing, but they're quicker and faster and older, so they've already cleared their plates and run up the stairs, and Dad is looking like he wants to scold them, but can't because they put their dishes in the sink like they're supposed to.

“We better not have this very important conversation without Marla,” I say in the least-desperate voice I can muster, which is still very, very desperate. I run up the stairs and straight into Astrid and Eleanor's room, because that is the one and only place everyone would be.

Eleanor is banging on the closet door. She's jiggling the doorknob, yanking and pushing and trying to force the
doorknob to turn. I am remembering the terrible paralyzed feeling from last night, and wondering why, why, why I didn't jump out of bed and drag Marla kicking and screaming from Astrid's bad closet into my good one.

“She. Last night. I didn't. When you were. But she must have come out,” I say, and then realize I have mostly said words and not sentences. “She went in last night. I heard her. I assumed she came out after I fell asleep! I should have stopped her, but she was so mad at me and I didn't want her to yell and—”

“You heard her go in again?” Eleanor says. She repeats herself, but screeching this time.

“Silly!” Astrid says. Silly. Not Priscilla. If I don't get it together soon, if I don't turn into a much better sister and person, like, ASAP, there will be no one left in the world who calls me by a real name.

Astrid's the one who was asleep in the room when Marla went in. But I'm the one who will get all the blame. Astrid is allowed to be sleepy and spacey, but I'm not allowed to do anything wrong ever.

“What about getting stuck?” Eleanor says. Then they're both banging on the door, and their voices are higher and scarier and scratchier, and I am banging too, and the closet is not opening. Dad knocks on the bedroom door. Thank goodness we closed it behind us.

“Girls? It's a little loud. Are you being mean to Marla?” he says.

“We'll be quieter!” Eleanor calls out. “We're playing!”

“Well. Okay. But we need to finish our conversation,” Dad says. He still doesn't open the door. It's some kind of miracle, the way he trusts us.

“Totally! Can't wait!” Astrid says. She sounds more like Eleanor than herself, but desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. We stay quiet, listening to Dad make his way back downstairs. We start banging again when we're sure he's gone.

“I'll come out when I'm done,” Marla says from inside the closet. “I'm almost done, I'm almost done!” Her voice is wet. Teary. Catching on itself and tripping itself up. “Let me be! Leave me here! Everything's fine.” It's a relief to hear her voice. All three of us stop for a moment, inhale and exhale deeply.

“Come out now!” Eleanor says. She cups both her hands around her mouth and leans in close to the crack between the door and the wall, like that extra bit of sound that will poke through could make all the difference in saving Marla.

“I like it in here,” Marla says, her voice a little farther away, no longer right at the door. I can't stop rubbing my own forehead.
I did this. I did this
, I say inside my head over
and over until the words sort of stop being words.

“Marla? Come out? Please?” For a moment I think me asking her will make all the difference. She said we were a team, after all. She said she trusted me. I lean in closer to the closet door and listen for a sound of approval, listen for the turn of the doorknob, but there's only silence.

“I'm not coming out. But I can let you in, if I want you in,” Marla says. It's getting harder to hear her. “Someone who won't break the magic. Silly. I want Silly.”

“Silly will go in, then,” Astrid says. I don't look up from the doorknob, where I've been focusing all my energy, hoping it's going to turn at last and let Marla out. “Silly. Go in and get her,” Astrid says, louder now.

Eleanor clears her throat and shares a look with Astrid.

“It can only be you, Silly, she's right. You have to go in,” Eleanor says. Coming from Eleanor it's a command, it's the thing I have to do. “If Marla feels like she needs you, I think the closet will maybe let you in. And the closet might listen to you and your needs too. You have your special powers, right?”

“If Marla wants you in there, you'll be able to get in,” Astrid says, nodding too much.

“I hate it in there,” I say. Eleanor nods and Astrid pulls me into a hug, but neither of them tells me that I don't have
to go. “I'm not like Marla. I don't like that closet,” I say into Astrid's shoulder.

“Oh! I have something!” Astrid says, releasing me from her arms too suddenly, so that I trip a little from having to stand up alone. Astrid goes to her bed, with its patchwork quilt and too many pillows, and reaches underneath, pulling out a brand-new diorama.

It is in a white box, the kind that is shiny and probably from the most expensive store in Boston. The kind of box you couldn't even find in New Hampshire, because in New Hampshire things don't come that fancy. Inside Astrid has created a tiny world that is gentle and clean and light pink and blindingly white.

“You can do something. With your closet powers. You have to,” Eleanor says. She doesn't sound as sure as she usually sounds.

“Wow,” I say, and reach my fingers inside to touch the cotton balls that Astrid must have pulled apart to create the snowy veil on the bottom. She's sprinkled glitter on top, so that the snow is impossibly pretty and magical, and not the cruel, cold kind that comes late in February or even in March and gives a mean, wet chill.

“I've been saving it,” Astrid says. Aside from the glittering cotton snow, there're also tiny flowers made out of tissue
paper, all baby pink and not quite bloomed. There's pink lace on the sides of the box, and a familiar pale fabric cut up in strips and coiled into pretty spiral shapes in all four corners. It's glued in, so I can't take it out to look more closely, but I use my pinkie to trace the soft fabric, and bring the box closer to my face for a better look.

“That's your baby blanket,” I say, my head still partially inside the box.

“Good memory,” Astrid says. It's not memory, though. Astrid has had her baby blanket on her bed since she was actually a baby. It's silky and soft and worn and familiar. “I wanted it to be a box of everything safe and pretty. I don't know if my closet does anything with dioramas, but probably with you in there, you can make something happen. I figure those things won't go bad in the closet. They're too gentle and good. And you too, Priscilla. You can't go bad either.” She says this last bit so quickly, so quietly, I think I must have misheard her. I know that soft white snow and tiny pink barely budded flowers and the softest most-loved bit of blanket have a kind of purity that Astrid has to believe in. But I am not something soft and pretty and familiar. I have pin-straight hair and awkward elbows and ears that are a little too big for my face and cheeks that are a little too pink to be cute the way they were when I was a baby.

I want to say all this, but Astrid and Eleanor are both
looking at me with identical expressions. I think it might be hope.

Hope that I will fix everything.

If not everything, then at least this. I will fix Marla or the closet or both.

Thirty-One

B
efore the closets, I was never the special sister. Eleanor is special because she is smart and beautiful and knows how to do everything without ever having to officially learn how to do it. Astrid is special because she is creative and strange and lives on her own pretty Astrid planet. Marla is special because she demands attention and is like the very important sick child, even though she isn't actually sick. She's the one we all feel bad for.

I'm the one they protect but don't think of as a whole person. I'm the one who sees things and does nothing to help. I'm the one who is Silly.

Until now.

“You can do this,” Astrid says. “We've seen what you can do, remember?” I shiver when Astrid says this, because I know it means I won't be able to just pull Marla out by the wrist or elbow. I think Marla has to want to come out, and I'm not sure she does.

But a small part of me thinks maybe Astrid's right. That if anyone can help, it's me. I remember Astrid not being able to get onto the petals of the tulips and Marla not able to get on the boat in the fairy tale in my closet, and the way the memory closet shifted when I wanted it to, even though Marla didn't want it to. And maybe I am something special. Maybe I can do something, finally, to help.

“I'm coming in, Marla,” I say. Astrid and Eleanor visibly relax.

“Silly? That's you?” Marla's voice is closer again. She must be near the door, but still under a canopy of black, wilting, aggressive trees. My eyes sting with the beginnings of tears. I want to be brave enough to do this.

“Just me,” I say, and turn the doorknob. The knob spins, but the door doesn't open.

I pull again, harder. Twist harder. Twist and pull at the same time. Twist first, pull second. Pull first, twist second. I don't know if my magic is supposed to open it, or Marla's want for me to be there, but nothing has changed.

The door doesn't budge. I use both my hands and reach
down in my stomach for the world's biggest grunt, and pull so hard I worry my shoulders will break away from my arms. At first, I'm almost pleased. If the door doesn't open, I don't have to go inside. My shoulders relax. My eyes stop watering. My mouth lets me swallow again.

It takes only a few seconds, though, before I realize not being able to get inside is the worst thing, not the best. If the door still won't open, it means Marla doesn't really want me in there with her. She wants to be alone. She wants to be trapped.

“Why aren't you opening the door?” Astrid says. “Marla wants you inside. You should be able to get inside. Marla said—”

“Marla doesn't know that much either!” I say. The twins have forgotten that none of us know that much. That we're all still figuring it out. They want to believe one of us knows something Special and Important. But we don't.

“I'm trying,” I say. I pull again, this time with my knees bent, and I jiggle the knob back and forth. I sort of know it won't work, but I can't stop doing it.

“That's not working,” Eleanor says, like she has figured everything out.

“Hello?” Marla says in a small voice. The knob is alternately hot and cold, but never turning.

“Fine, you try,” I say. I don't know why I am suddenly
angry with Eleanor and Astrid, but it's easier than being angry at the door.

Eleanor and Astrid look at each other again. I'm getting tired of knowing that they have a plan that I'm not in on.

“What?” I say, loud and annoyed this time.

“Are you coming in?” Marla says. She sounds like she is moments away from sleep.

“Maybe you can let me in?” I say. I don't want to alarm her. But I'm pretty sure that only she can choose to let me in. And I'm pretty sure she's choosing to not let me in. Somehow she doesn't know it herself.

Stuck, stuck, stuck
, the scared voice in my head says. That voice sounds a whole lot like Mom.

“Mmmmm,” Marla says. The door shudders a little but doesn't open.

“Don't fall asleep! Are you falling asleep?” I shout through the door.

“It won't open . . . ,” Marla says in her sleepiest voice. Singsongy. “You do it.”

“We're, um, trying,” I say. “It's like before, Marla. When I was in there with you. You said that happens sometimes, right? Sometimes it won't open, but then it does, so let's just wait a second. But don't fall asleep. You sound like you're falling asleep.” I pull the door again, lightly, like that might make all the difference.

“Before?” Astrid says.

“You got stuck before?” Eleanor says. “When you went in there, you couldn't get out?”

“For a second. A minute. Then it let us out,” I say.

“You didn't tell us that part,” Eleanor says. “The closet shouldn't be able to keep you in there. Not ever.”

I nod. And shrug. And blush. And trip myself up over an explanation for why I didn't mention it.

“But it was fine,” I say. “This happens. And it's fine. It will open in a minute. Or like ten, I bet. Ten minutes. Bam.” I want Eleanor and Astrid to nod enthusiastically, believing me.

They don't. But we wait ten minutes anyway. We try to keep Marla awake by singing snippets of songs we know she likes, and forcing her to sing along on the other side of the door. But partway through, her voice gets even quieter and slower and stranger.

Marla doesn't sound so much like she needs me in there anymore. She doesn't sound like she wants me. She doesn't even sound like Marla.

It reminds me of the way Mom gets sometimes. The terrible transition from normal to slower-than-normal to not-normal-at-all.

“It's so dark and cloudy in here,” she says, after a rousing rendition of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” which
is not at all season-appropriate, but at least we know the words. “It smells like sleep. And like burning wood. And it's telling me to rest. So I'm gonna do that. You guys go do your thing. I can take a nice long nap in here.” I try the door again. I don't like the way her voice has slowed down so much that it's all distorted and wrong-sounding. I don't like that she isn't trying to get out, that she isn't concerned.

“If she doesn't want to get out, the closet won't let her out,” Eleanor says. She's right. It's how the closets work. They give you what you want.

This is what Marla wants.

“It's too early to fall asleep!” I say. “It's morning! We can go to the lake!”

“It's really okay. I don't think it wants to let me out right now.”

“You can't stay in the closet!” I say. But Eleanor has backed up, and so has Astrid. They aren't yelling for Marla to come out. They aren't pulling on the door.

“Shoot,” Eleanor says under her breath.

Astrid wipes at her eyes. She has tears in them. The pretty kind.

“Why aren't you trying to get her out?” I say. “Let's take down the door! Dad has tools and stuff, right? We can take it off the hinges.”

“We told you guys not to go in,” Eleanor says. She shakes
her head. I am getting sick and tired of Eleanor shaking her head.

“Stop telling me all the ways I've messed up!” I say.

“You did mess up,” Eleanor says. “You're eleven. What are you doing keeping secrets from us? You can't ask to be treated like one of us, and then act like . . . some baby playing dress-up.” There's zero inflection to her tone, so it feels weird to cry or yell back, when she's so monotone.

I let my mouth open a tiny bit, enough to let the shock slip out, and I blink, blink, blink at her.

“Maybe it will open up after she sleeps,” Astrid says. She hiccups back a few tears. She holds Eleanor's shoulder, like that might somehow keep Eleanor's meanness back.

“Who would want to be stuck in that awful place?” I say, but secretly I'm wondering if I could decide to get stuck in my closet, on one of my flower-climbing, purple-sea-swimming, glowing-orb-chasing adventures.

I can't stop thinking of the girl in the palace memory. Laurel, who is like me. Laurel, who is maybe stuck in the closet too. Laurel, who Dad says is dead but Mom says is stuck. Laurel, who loved the closets too much, maybe, like Marla.

We listen to the silence behind the closet door. We sit and listen to the way Marla's not coming back right now.
We watch one another stop trying to open the door. We watch one another giving up.

We try to play cards, but everyone loses.

We play the alphabet game, but I can't think of a name that starts with
P
.

“Your own name,” Eleanor says.

“Oh. Yeah,” I say. I shrug. The game ends.

Astrid makes half a diorama. Eleanor reads a chapter of a book. I close my eyes and imagine everything working out, but it's hard to think of what that would look like.

Hours pass. Doing nothing makes my sisters tired, and soon Eleanor is snoring, and Astrid is breathing heavily, and all I can hear is the ceiling fan and the sound of my heart beating.

I hope maybe Marla has a star inside the closet with her. Something warm and bright and strength-giving. Something that makes her feel hopeful and UnWorried. Something magical.