Sister Games

I used to steal things from my little sister.  She doesn’t know it, even to this day.  I’d sneak into her room while she was at mage school, and take her magic stuff, and hide them around the house.  Mom didn’t even know I had been in her room.  I’d take a few jars, a spellbook or two, and hide them in various places.  Mostly around the house itself, but occasionally outside in the barn or near the stream where my sister studied her spells.  A few times I even hid the stuff I took in my sister’s room, but never any place she put her magic stuff.  It would be so funny to watch her face as a puzzled look came over it when she tried to remember the last time she had used whatever she had found.  Once I even hid her mages robe that she had to wear to school, and would one day wear all the time she informed me once.  But when I laughed at how frantic she was looking for it instead of helping to look for it, I got in trouble and decided not to hide the robe again.
I could never understand why my parents let her go to that stupid school.  Mages weren’t good for anything, except maybe to entertain people at fairs.  Still they encouraged her.  After she had asked to go, my parents asked me if I wanted a mages education.  I vehemently shook my head no and went to the local tavern.  I wanted to be a barmaid, the best job in the world!  And definitely better than being a magic user.  Ugh.  I still shudder at the memory.  I still can’t understand why they let her go so easily.  But then again maybe they thought with her pale complexion and thin frame she’d never be cut out for hard labor.  Wouldn’t be able to work a farm like mom did.
Kayla is still the mystery child.  Mom and dad are both medium skinned, with dark hair and built for hard labor.  They say I’m a lot like them, could work on a farm or anything like that.  But Kayla was born small and frail.  I used to tell mom that somehow we had the wrong baby.  Mom told me that a few people on her side of the family are like Kayla is.  It just doesn’t show up very often.  Since I’ve never seen any of my family, I can’t really find out if mom is right or not.  Kayla was a good baby, didn’t cry much, but she didn’t each much either.  I always wondered if she’d die, but somehow she didn’t.  So when she was five mom and dad took her to the local fair and showed her the traveling mage that comes through every year.  She loved the man and his tricks.  When they asked her if she would like to learn how to do that, she just nodded.  They caught me watching her and asked me if I wanted to go also.  How could they think that about me?  I was nine, too old for such childish thoughts.  I had to think about a real future.
So off Kayla went with my dad the next day to the local mage school.  It was a two-day walk, even with Kayla on a horse.  She was enrolled and the following week she left for three months.  That’s how long she had to be gone since it took so long to get there and home.  She stayed there all the time.  I loved it.  When she’d come home, Kayla would have the most interesting stuff to look at.  A book she said would one day be her spellbook for all the spells she would learn in a few years.  I checked it out, all the pages were blank except for some squiggles on the first page.  My sister said they were magic words that wouldn’t be active until she could pronounce them, but I didn’t believe her.  I think someone just didn’t know how to write.  I could write better than that and I didn’t have much schooling.  Enough to get by and be a great barmaid, that was all I needed.  Kayla also brought home a pouch, that she said would later hold the spell components for her spells, whatever those were, and the robe that she would later wear.  I looked at them with little interest.
Kayla made this same trek for years.  When she got to be eight, she got to bring home more stuff, scrolls that she said contained spells, ink and quills to write in her spellbook, which she could now read spells out of.  I tried to take the spellbooks once to hide it, after she had brought it home with spells in it.  When I tried to touch it, I got a shock.  I don’t know how the book did it, but the shock hurt.  I decided not to try to take it again.  Once Kayla started bringing home all this new stuff, I started to hide some of it.  As she got older, she got even more stuff.  More pouches, actual spell components, which always seemed like ordinary things to me, a dagger for her to hid somewhere on herself.  She told me that a dagger was the only weapon a mage could use, besides their magic.  Not much of a weapon.  I just knew the first time she tried to use the dagger and her magic in battle, if she was even brave enough to get in one, that would be when she got killed.  My parents would mourn her, I would be sorry since she was my sister even if she followed a stupid life path, but there wouldn’t be anything we could do.
         But life went on and we both got older.  I started working around the farm and when I was old enough, at the tavern like I wanted.  Life was great.  Kayla was away from home for longer periods of time.  She would even stay away when she had break and write home.  Mom said Kayla was studying to be the best mage she could.  I’d just nod and secretly laugh.  Of course I couldn’t keep hiding her things from her with her being gone so much.  And I had too much work to do at the tavern.  Not to mention the warrior who came into town and frequented the tavern, just to see me.  He was handsome and very nice and one day asked me to marry him.  Of course I agreed and I didn’t think about Kayla much after that.
The year after my wedding, Kayla returned home.  She looked very different in her white robe and just smiled at me.  I hugged her, I had missed her.  But she wasn’t the same.  Not mean or anything, just different.  She met my husband, who left right after on a quest.  He was on those a lot.  It was dangerous but it paid well.  Once he was gone she looked at me and asked if I would be staying with mom and dad while he was gone.  I shook my head no and she smiled this funny smile.
         “Good.  Now I won’t have to worry,” was her only reply.  I walked away puzzled.  I had no idea what that meant.  She couldn’t know what I had done to her all those years ago, could she?