In the Dim Light

She had been her mother's princess once, so very long ago. Two lifetimes ago really, if she counted time in that way, a lifetime for each "Virginia". She sometimes does, but only sometimes. Like now, when it's dark and cold and no one is around to tell her that she simply must accept the fact that everyone who used to matter is gone. Her step dad's in jail again and her mom is dead (she can‘t seem to stop saying the word anymore, now that it applies to her life. She repeates it like a mantra under her breath when she can‘t sleep. When she doesn't want to sleep), and even the faint memory of her dad's gentle voice never seemed so vague. But it was Helen that hit her the hardest. Helen who isn't herself. Not anymore. She is cold and cruel and a harsh reminder to Virginia what will happen to her if she stops believing.
But she tells herself to remember to love Helen (in whatever foster home she's in currently), because they are still sisters, even with the shadows so heavy now.
And she does for the most part, save for sometimes, which are far and few between, when she lets her mind wander and she finds herself remembering Ursula play by the beach with her, and hoping that somewhere, Helen is there again, surrounded by happy foster siblings. And it's when she thinks like this that she remembers more than crumpled sand castles, or Helen inviting her to join the volleyball game while she sat on the sideline, immersed in her tattered fantasy series. It's times like these when she allows herself to remember a boy standing under the lamplight, kissing Helen when he was supposed to be Virginia's boyfriend, a wool coat they were told to share on cold winter days (alternating between it and the ratty one that was short in the arms), her mother's careworn smile, and the strange flash in her eyes that Virginia hadn't bothered to try and interpret.
She remembers Helen laughing lightly at Virginia's dreams because, for Virginia at least, fairy tales had quite gradually become more solid than reality. She remembers her sister shrugging and shaking her head about silly games that were more.
Helen had used to believe in them.
Virginia had been so sure of herself back then, so sure that the every story could have a happy ending, where anyone could be kings and queens, if they opened a certain wardrobe door. There had been so many flaws she simply hadn't seen, hadn't let herself see, too busy with her fictional friends, too caught up the fantasy universe she'd traded the grey world for.
But she has some comfort; the sun comes up in the grey sky, bleary and tired and fading the alleyway outside her window from near-black to sepia, but the wondrous visions of Narnia do not fade.