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The very first lesson Meredith had received as a child is also the most important. It formed the foundation of all her earliest memories, giving her a sense of purpose before she’d even learnt to speak. The Maker sent you here to look after your sister, their mother always says.
Perhaps there are others who would consider the responsibility a burden, but Meredith is not like other people. She’s strong where Amelia is frail, and brave where Amelia is shy. Meredith turns heads wherever she goes, with her big blue eyes and golden hair, and that’s not to mention her sheer force of presence.
She’s always felt larger than her body, like it’s just a vessel guarding her soul.
Amelia, on the other hand, rarely goes anywhere, and given the circumstances, seclusion is her safest option. Before Amelia’s magic had manifested, her parents had tried to encourage her to explore the outside world more often, fearful their eldest daughter might grow into a recluse. Now, that life is the best any of them can hope for when it comes to Amelia.
Sometimes, late at night, Meredith catches her mother weeping, heart-wrenching sobs choked out between the items on her lengthy list of opportunities Amelia will be denied simply due to an accident of birth. Why couldn’t it be you, her mother asks as she combs out the knots in Meredith’s tangled tresses, pulling on the comb more than strictly necessary, but Meredith doesn’t mind it. She never does.
What she does mind, what she does want to ask, is whether her mother has ever asked Amelia what she wanted. But Meredith knows better. She’d tried once, only to have her mother scream right in her face: your sister doesn’t know what she wants.
But Meredith’s certain that’s not true. For all their mother weeps for Amelia’s wasted potential, whenever the sisters settle down to bed at night, Amelia conjures several balls of glowing light, the only little bit of magic she’s learnt to control, teaching them to twist this way and that, projecting patterns against the wall closest to Meredith.
Their parents would never allow them to keep their room lit overnight with more traditional methods, and they’ve long stopped checking in on them so long as Amelia is quiet. “Thank you,” Meredith whispers, gaze focused on the intersecting lines, drawing pictures with her mind that aren’t quite there, but could be, if she turns her head this way and that. It’s always been the easiest way for her to think, to focus on something external while allowing her mind to run free in a way she can’t outside the safety of her room, anywhere anyone else exists, other than her and Amelia.
“Thank you,” Amelia answers. She’s never been the type to talk much, but she’s never needed to. Instead, she reaches across the tiny gap that separates their beds and gives Meredith’s hand a squeeze.
Their mother might worry about Amelia’s future, but Amelia doesn’t, so Meredith won’t. And yet, even though she is certain of their truth, Meredith still can’t reach the words she needs to piece together in order to help her mother understand. Whenever she tries, her tongue ties into knots, in anticipation of another reprimand, another rebuke, a repeated you’ll understand when you’re older. Or worse, one day you’ll want a life away from your sister.
It's what makes Meredith think that their mother doesn’t know them at all, because if she could tell her, could stop the words from catching in her throat, she knows exactly what she would say:
Amelia wishes for nothing more than a simple life, and I will always be there to protect her.