My sister died.
There. That’s my scary story. The scariest of every scary story I’ve faced yet.
Her eyes were Irish green with amber flecks.
Her blonde hair was short and curly and framed her face like Betty Boop.
Her dimples made her look like a fairy.
And I lovingly called her pocket sized.
I’ll never see her again.
I couldn’t believe it at first. When I heard the news I instinctively wanted to text her and ask if she was ok. That she hadn’t been found on the floor of her new home.
But no. It wouldn’t be possible.
I’ll never be able to talk to her again.
So here I am, 48 hours after that heart rending phone call, wandering around the house she had moved into just three days ago.
My hands are black with soot from the charcoal I laid around the doors and windows. This may already be too late - it’s been almost three days since her passing. But I have to do what’s right, even if we didn’t share the same mother and some of our beliefs diverged. I have to protect the soul of my sister and the rest of my family’s.
Her soul may have already begun it’s way up river but I have yet to search every room, nook, and cranny to know for certain.
I need to step away from writing this for the next couple of hours as I begin my search.
That’s a lie.
Writing this is my catharsis - my old therapist will be proud - and I need a moment to control this unfamiliar, gut-wrenching pain in my chest.
When I first stepped away to eat I remained productive - I can’t stop moving or I’ll lose it. Rights had to be performed and traditions had to be followed. As always, as discreetly as possible.
Thankfully it’s cold so no one really batted an eye when I went and lit the fire pit. Ok, maybe it was a bit weird, but we’re all acting a bit weird right now.
I sat in the warm heat, chewing my sandwich, supposedly alone. I’d thrown a second sandwich into the flames and let it burn so my sister wouldn’t be hungry. I know she didn’t particularly like sandwiches but she’d get over it - she needs to get used to the food of the ghosts.
The flames left me thinking about how she’d be cremated soon. I never realized how dark my thoughts could turn so quickly. I’d never been bothered much by death - it was always someone older, ill, or distant. Never had it been someone perfectly healthy. Never had it been a sibling.
Somehow I ended up being the only person left at the house for a little while. It was kind of a relief as the only other person who had been here that understood my… quirks… is my father. My in-laws and her mother weren’t aware of the traditions I’d been raised with so my request to lay down charcoal had seemed strange, but they allowed it. I didn’t know how they’d feel with me going through the house and searching for her soul next.
That alleviated some of the burden for what I came across while they were gone.
It was simple enough. Something other indigenous groups across the world recognize as dangerous.
It was a fucking mirror.
This stupid. God forsaken tsaa of a mirror.
I had completely passed the mirror without a second look when I had first walked through the house to admire her new home. Now, I’m relieved no one else ended up in my shoes once I was alone.
A simple mirror was hung in the master bathroom. Older style but nothing antique about it.
As I washed my hands I just happened to notice something was… wrong… about my reflection.
I discovered why I hadn’t found her soul yet.
This mirror was… is hungry.
I cannot protect the others from it yet. I cannot break it. I cannot break it because… my sister is still trapped.
I need to rest a little while. I’m feeling nauseous and tears are prickling the backs of my eyes.
I’ve never done this before. I’ve never purified a mirror after death. I’ve only ever trapped spirits and guided (some of them more like chased) them to the River.
It’s been a couple of hours now and my family still isn’t back for the afternoon. I’m guessing since it’s my parents and brother-in-law it has to do with the will or whatever it is that refers to the dead’s wishes.
I’m sincerely grateful our younger sister hasn’t arrived yet. She didn’t need to see what’s happened.
I almost got stuck in that mirror. I could feel its pull and its hunger as I paced the bathroom. I shuddered with every glance I cast to it because… my eyes are most certainly not green. My deep brown eyes cannot suddenly turn green. Green with gold flecks.
I wanted to smash that mirror in pieces for eating my sister’s nukk ‘ubeze. For devouring her primary soul. Things began to make sense how a perfectly healthy young woman could die within hours of happily speaking with her family.
It took every ounce of willpower not to throw the sage and sweetgrass across the bathroom. I never wanted to be involved in death ceremonies let alone in retrieving a soul.
I could barely keep my own soul intact under normal circumstances - my yega has been damaged. My own soul being exposed made me far too easy a target for others still clinging to life. And apparently a hungry mirror was added to the list of dangers.
The mirror kept pulling my eyes to it. This inexplicable urge to look deeper, to see my sister’s eyes for the last time. To look into them and tell her I love her and miss her. The things I didn’t get to do because she was so suddenly gone.
When the pull became strong and I realized what I was doing the disconnect was jarring. I was dizzy. I swiftly felt my mental and physical scars to make sure I was still unbroken and not ripped apart by what I was fighting. No pain yet, nothing beyond a sense of longing and sorrow.
I realized I had to give in before anyone came home. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to look back at those eyes and plead for forgiveness.
Forgiveness for not being there.
Forgiveness for not calling her more.
Forgiveness for the pain her soul was about to go through.
But I had to. I had to look back at those beautiful eyes and feel my own soul be licked and ripped at. Feel the burn in my back as if things bit into it. Feel every horror and nightmare come to the forefront as my own soul was weakened to be devoured.
And I begged her to forgive me. For nonsense and nothing that ever needed forgiving. The mirror worked its way into my mind, making me feel as if I had done nothing but wrong in the entirety of our relationship.
I begged with my eyes as I used the reflection to watch my hand movements. I couldn’t break from the mirror. Even as I cringed and bit through my lip from the invisible wounds the mirror was inflicting on my mind.
I knew that my sister never even thought of these things. She never needed to forgive me for anything. If anything she protected me as best she could with as little as she knew. I kept telling myself that there was hostility between us. The discord being thrust into my heart was far from the truth.
I lit the end of the sweetgrass braid, hoping that this mirror listened to southern spirits more than northern. I prayed to Creator through gritted teeth.
I faltered a moment, realizing I was never actually taught how to deal with a trapped soul, let alone release one. If it were anyone else I’d have smashed the mirror and burned the shards until the silver ran away. But this was my sister. Come hell or high water she was going to go up river into a new life.
As the smoke licked the mirror I felt like I was being repeatedly punched in the gut, trying to bowl me over so I’d break eye contact. I felt the clawing of my skin and gnawing on my mind. Still, my sister’s eyes looked back at me. I couldn’t tell if the fear in them was hers or mine at this point.
In the meantime… I know that during all of this turmoil the world around me was completely still. There was no battle or struggle in the real world. To anyone else, all there was was me standing in the bathroom, gently blowing sweet grass smoke toward a totally normal looking mirror.
Where the hell is the fairness in that?
My prayers were slowly being heard, but not fast enough. Between trying to retrieve my sister and protect myself I could only do so much. I was about to scream at Dena but I kept my resolve strong enough to drop the sweet grass into the sink and pull up the sage.
My prayers suddenly added one more line to them, “please work, this is my last line of defense.”
It was painful. Not just the pain from the last desperate grip the had mirror on my soul. But knowing this would be the last time I saw her eyes. The last time green and gold would glitter back at me.
With those thoughts I suddenly found myself crying. Not from physical pain or fear for my own soul. My sobs were what happens when you’ve lost a loved one so close to you. Who protected you. Who fought for you. Who would go to bat any day of the week to save you. Who laughed with you. Who taught you so many things in the little time you had together.
I almost let the mirror have me. I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore. My prayers changed from Dena saving my sister’s soul to begging for the agony to stop. I forgot what I was doing and why I was there. This pain was worse than the fear I had felt and I wanted it to end.
I prayed, begged and pleaded as well as I could to Creator before I collapsed. Something had released me too quickly and I laid in a ball on the floor. I couldn’t stop wailing. The pain in my soul hadn’t just been inflicted on me by the mirror. I laid there, incapable of breathing through the sobs and hiccups, snot running down my nose.
I missed her. No… I miss her.
I don’t know how long I was on the floor. I know it was long enough for the tile to be warm. When I finally stood and looked in the mirror, I felt nothing from it. None of the hunger.
And my eyes were brown.
Hands trembling, I slowly packed up my remaining sage and sweetgrass then rinsed the ash down the drain.
My face still wet, I motioned down the hall. “All right big sis, follow me,” was all I could think to say. It would probably be the only time I could be grateful I was guiding my sister’s spirit. Another soul may have tried to steal my body. I couldn’t protect myself right now with how pathetically shredded my yega has become from this encounter.
The pain in my back is excruciating in relation to where my soul had been chewed on and I don’t know if the mental or emotional exhaustion is what’s going to make me sleep for the next few days.
Perhaps it’s both.
Either way… I miss my sister. And I’m glad I got to bring her to River safely.
My cathartic writing did end up helping. At least it helped me organize my thoughts of what happened. What should have been simple purification became a difficult fight to get my sister’s soul back.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by these events. Weird things happen at the border of death and I’m sure this won’t be the strangest thing I’ll encounter.
Mental note for next time I go to purify a home, bring stronger emergency medicine. If I had known I’d have difficulty I’d have prepared a Devil’s club solution to just spray all over this thing and have been done with it. Burning some of it too probably wouldn’t be a bad thing either.
But that’s for later. For now… now I need to continue crying, because grief is for the living.