“Hey, Annie, listen to this,” Louisa said quietly from the
bottom bunk, her flashlight hanging over her shoulder, shining on the book
titled Animal Totems of Native North
Americans.
The elephant is
considered to be one of the most loyal animals, grieving the loss of loved ones
in a more honouring way than even humans. Anyone who has this as a totem is
known to be strong, wise, compassionate but is only as loyal as the level of
integrity of the person they are walking beside. They can tell when there is
someone who is harmful or dangerous and will seek out revenge should there be
far too many transgressions.
“Aren’t elephants cool, Annie?”
Annie could feel Louisa’s mind drift out through the walls. She’d say that this was her real family, this
family of elephants, who would come and visit her at night. Annie heard Louisa muffle her sobs into the
pillow, consoling herself because nobody else would, asking for the elephants
to take the pain away. She said that the elephants told her that she just had
to go to the right place at the right time in the forest and they would come to
get her and make everything all better. This was Louisa’s mission most of the time
when they went outside to play. And she
would get lost every time.
Louisa made Annie swear to secrecy that she wouldn’t tell
their parents, or else the elephants would never come and get her, leaving her
behind in this horrible, horrible place with this family that didn’t love her.
One day in summer, Louisa went to play in the stream across
the road from the trailer park where they were staying. Louisa tiptoed on the stone rocks freckled
with a pinky rose jaggedy design, gently imprinting her footprint on each step
like a little girl is told she’s supposed to do.
Her sister, Annie, fumbled along behind her, almost falling
in yet-to-be discovered new worlds of moss and pointy-shelled creatures. Every
step she took, she’d say sorry to the stones thinking that she was hurting
them, picking up the ones that would roll over out of the cradle of the mud bed
they were sleeping in and soothing them with a stroke of “there there”s.
“Look, Louisa!” Annie pointed up to the sky. “It’s an
effelant, your favourite aminal.”
“El-eeee-fffffant, Annie,” Louisa said, frustrated by her
younger sister’s constant interference while she counted her delicate steps to
the other side of the creek, smiling up at the clouds.
“9, 10, 11…”
Annie dipped her toes into the ice cold water, the stream
flowing gently over her powder-white toes,
her flip flop nearly slipping out from under her foot, twisting around
her toes.
“Louisa?...where are you?”
Louisa was no longer counting. She wasn’t even in the water.
“Louisa?...” Annie quivered.
“Where are you? This isn’t funny,
Louisa…don’t do this to me, again…”
The wind swooshed through the trees calmly. The river gurgled and murmured behind her
with a soothing dependability. The stones lay embedded in the earth as
they’ve done for centuries. Everything
was the same, yet everything screamed…”Louisa’s gone”.
Annie’s shoulders tensed up with the mix of panic and
anger. She felt colder, more fragile,
wispy and utterly alone amongst pine trees that didn’t seem to care about
whether Annie had lost her sister for good this time.
“Louisa, get out here. I’m gonna tell mom on you if you
don’t come out here right now! I mean it this time!”
Still no Louisa.
Annie hopped onto every other stone and went back to get her
mom, just like her mom said to do if anything bad happened.
“Lord, why did you have to give me such a sick and crazy
child?” their mother would repeat over and over again, then blaming it on a
curse that someone put on the family line by a distant aunt 4 generations ago.
Today felt different. Annie’s knees shook and her upper
chest was cold with grief. There’s a
vacancy. A hopelessness. A sense in her little belly that there is no chance of
ever seeing Louisa again.
“Mom. I think Louisa weelly is gone dis time,” Annie
whimpered, her lips folding inward, trying not to cry. Mom didn’t like it when
Annie cried and would always tell her to stop it before she embarrassed herself.
Annie never felt embarrassed when she cried.
She just felt afraid that mom would smack her across the head. Or tell her she
couldn’t eat dinner.
“By now, Annie, I’ve really stopped caring. That child’s got
what’s coming to her.”
Annie looked down to the ground, her eyes welling and
puffing up in pockets the size of fairies’ purses.
“How dare she leave me behind,” she thought, the sadness
turning to angry knots twisting over her brow.
Mom took the frying pan from the stove that was caked in
leftover egg from yesterday and took the metal scratchy thing and scrubbed and
scrubbed.
“That little bitch is gonna make me look bad,” mom cursed into the greasy water.
Annie sat out on the front step looking up at the clouds, hoping
to see Louisa up there, waving at her with the elephants. But the sky
was clear blue, just as empty as it felt over by the forest and stream.
“I hate elephants,” Annie fermented into her heart.
