Sisters of Darkness

There was a smile on Edith’s face as she led her younger sister by the hand towards death. Not her death, of course. No, she was guiding her sister closer to the moment that would change their lives forever. At such a young age Ruth was the perfect weapon. She would do as her big sister said without question and that was the way Edith wanted it.

The only light in the hallway was the soft glow of firelight from the living room. Together they stepped quietly along until they stood right outside. Edith heard the low voices of her parents. They sounded as grim and serious as ever.

“Do you remember what I told you?” She kept her voice very low. She knew Ruth would hear. Her sister only nodded in reply.

“They do very bad work, Ruth. Only you can do this, other people are not strong enough. Me and you are different, remember?” She pressed the blade into her sister’s hand as she said it. Ruth’s small fingers closed around the handle delicately, but her grip was firm. Like she had done this a thousand times before.

“How do you do it?” Edith watched her sister’s face carefully.

“Quickly and quietly.” She was all business. No flicker of doubt or fear in her eyes.

“The first one will be easy. Go to Father first. Then be quick and get to Mother before she makes noise. Do you understand?” Again Ruth only nodded. She didn’t even look in Edith’s direction.

Edith gave her a tap on the shoulder and stepped back into the shadows. She watched as her little sister concealed the blade in the folds of her nightgown and entered the living room.

“You should be asleep. Why are you up here?” Her mother sounded mildly irritated. There was no affection in her voice.

“I wanted to say goodnight.” Ruth sounded so sweet.

Edith heard movement and assumed her sister had moved toward one of them. She spotted the hall mirror. It was at the perfect angle. She could just about see her sister reaching to give their father a hug.

Edith closed her eyes at the last moment. She did not see anything, but she heard it. The little grunt of effort from Ruth, the cry from their father, the sharp intake of breath from their mother - and of course the blade slicing through flesh.

From then the sounds became rushed. Edith did not need to see to understand the struggle. Despite being the mastermind she had to admit that she was scared. Her heart raced as her mind created images to match what she was hearing. Not a word was spoken and that only made it worse.

The choked gasp and sudden silence made her shudder. Moments passed that seemed to stretch out into hours. Edith opened her eyes at the sound of movement beside her.

Her sister’s yellow nightdress was flecked with a deep red on one sleeve. Edith had expected much more than that and perhaps she would have been less frightened if it had been messier. The precision with which Ruth had carried this out was chilling.

“Take your nightdress off and wrap up the blade. We must make sure they are hidden and then you must go back to bed. We will pretend we know nothing of this.” Edith spoke quickly, but remained as quiet as she had been before.

Ruth did as she was told and with the blade and dress hidden the sisters returned to their shared bedroom and lay down to sleep. Edith found herself shivering under the covers with anxiety. She had to force herself not to dwell on the thought of her dead parents sitting in the living room.

“They will only be there until morning. That is what you told me.”

Ruth was watching her from the other bed. Edith should have known her sister would read her fear as easily as an open book. She took comfort in the fact that her sister was on her side and forced herself to close her eyes and think of nothing. Instead she listened to Ruth’s steady breathing until finally she slipped into sleep.


They were spared the trouble of ‘discovering’ the bodies. The servants arrived before the girls rose from sleep and found their masters cold and pale and lifeless. The scream woke them immediately.

For a moment Edith felt panic rising up inside. Then memory returned to her and for the first time in months she allowed herself to be excited. Now they would get the change they wanted. Both her and her sister would be removed from this false life and placed somewhere new.

A glance over to the opposite side of the room showed Ruth staring at her, waiting with a blank expression. She was such an obedient little girl.

“Look confused. When they tell you what happened, pretend to be very sad.” Edith followed her own orders and stared with wide, questioning eyes at the door. Not five minutes later, a servant girl rushed in with a face as white as a sheet. With shaking hands she began pulling clothes from the dresser.

“Get your sister dressed nice and quick, good girl. I want you to wait for me to come back, you hear me? Do not leave your room.” She told Edith.

“What is the matter? Somebody screamed.”

“Is Mother up yet?”

The servant pursed her lips and laid out their clothes.

“Stay here.” With that she left them. Edith dressed herself and then Ruth and together they waited for somebody to come back to them. It took quite some time and people kept arriving, neighbours and officials who would clean up the mess and figure out what happened.

When their father’s friend Roger arrived Edith’s heart sank. They had met him a few times before and understood that he never visited this house without having something terrible to say or do. It was his last visit that had inspired Edith to get the two of them away from here. One of their servants pulled him aside to where she was hiding the girls in the dining room.

“What will we do with them?” She asked. Roger threw a disgusted glance down at them. Edith glared back with all the hatred she could manage.

“Give them to one of the orphanages. The little creatures only cause us too much trouble.”

“But, Sir, we cannot put them with other children. They are not -”

Roger silenced her with a backhand slap to the face that made the sisters jump. They had seen him raise a hand to the staff many times but it had been so sudden this time they could not help but be surprised.

“If you wish to take these monstrous things home with you then by all means do so.” Roger had lowered his voice to a vicious hiss and leaned in close. “You have seen what they can do. If it were up to me they would both be killed! I knew those fools would die for what they had done, tampering with nature in such perverse ways!” He gestured in the direction of the living room where their mother and father’s bodies had been found.

“Pack whatever few things those creatures need and dump them in an orphanage. Create some false story for them if you want but just get them out of my sight. I never want to see or hear of them again.” He turned and left the three of them standing in a heavy silence.

Edith stood pressed against the wall with her fists clenched. Roger knew it was them who had killed their parents. He also seemed to know more. What did he mean when he said their parents had tampered with nature?

“Girls, you must leave here. Nobody can see you, not until we are in the town. Wait there by the door, do not move. I will get your bags.” With tears in her eyes she went to pack their things.

“Edith, he called us creatures.”

Ruth’s normally emotionless expression had turned darker than Edith had ever seen it. She had to admit that it scared her.

“It is just name-calling. He never liked us.”

“No. He said we were monstrous. I have heard him say things like that before when he thought we were not listening. He told Mother and Father that we were dangerous and not human.”

Edith looked down at her sister and frowned.

“Ruth, that is just the same as saying we are very unpleasant people. Of course we are human - what else could we be? Do I have a tail?” Ruth pulled a face and shook her head. “Then I am not an animal. And I do not have wings, so I am not a bird. If I am neither bird nor animal then I am human. You are the same.”

Ruth looked at her doubtfully.

“You told me last night that we were the only ones who could get rid of Mother and Father because we are different. Everybody is human but if we are different then we cannot be human, too. So what are we?”

Edith could not think of a response. Her sister had a point. She, too, had heard the staff whispering and gossiping and had seen the way they looked at them. Her mother had told her in person that both she and Ruth were different to everybody else - but how could a person not be a human?

“Tampering with nature . . . ”

“What?” Ruth frowned at her.

The servant girl came back in hauling two bags behind her. They did not look large enough to carry a lot of things so Edith assumed they would be leaving most of their belongings here.

“Are we humans?”

Edith almost smacked her sister for asking.

The servant stared at them for a while as if trying to figure something out.

“Of course you are! How could you be anything else, silly girl?” She handed Edith the smaller bag and ushered Ruth out the back door. “You will come with me to my home. I will take care of you.”

They followed along through the garden without saying anything until they reached the shabby old building that served as the staff living quarters. This servant did not live here it seemed, because she kept walking down the path towards the gate that led to town.

Edith dropped the bag she was holding and doubled over, leaning against one particular window sill. The servant and Ruth both stopped and watched her. Ruth’s eyes narrowed.

“Are you okay? Are you ill?”

Edith slid to her knees, bowing her head and letting her hair fall forward to form a curtain. She heard the servant drop the bag she was holding and come closer. She felt the girl’s hands on her shoulders as she bent to check on her.

Edith jumped up and forward, slamming into the unsuspecting servant girl with enough force to knock her backwards. Not giving her time to cry out, Edith raised both arms and brought them down with all her might on the girl’s throat. Her eyes were wide and panicked and her hands made a feeble attempt to shove Edith off, but she was choking on her own blood and it wasn’t long before the life left her eyes.She went limp.

Edith got to her feet and removed the blade from the servant’s throat. She returned it to the little hole in the flower bed under the window sill where she had hidden it last night, along with Ruth’s bloodied nightdress. She used the dress to clean her hands and covered the hole with dirt once more. She picked up her bag.

“I think she lied to us. When she said we were human.” Ruth pulled the other bag up off the ground. It seemed to take little effort.

“I think so, too. After all, what kind of humans kill their parents without shedding a tear? Come on, somebody in town will show us the way to an orphanage. There are plenty of people there for us to play with.” Edith felt a broad smile spread across her face.

“Plenty of unsuspecting idiots for us to play with,” Ruth repeated

Edith took the lead and walked toward the gates at the end of the path. This was the change she and her sister had wanted. No more living a false life. Now they could go to a new place and do fun things. Real things, not like the pretend forms of entertainment their parents provided them with, such as dolls and books. No, the real fun was in a town full of people who were too quick to trust innocent faces.

“Edith. I think I can kill more of them than you can.” She looked over her shoulder to see Ruth grinning at her, her eyes sparkling.
“We will see.” She answered with a laugh.