Eden - the musician's sister

Taegan was not fond of speaking. Monosyllables surfaced now and again, only to sink back down. His floppy hair bent in consternation over his eyes; emotions shielded, he would examine her as if from a distance.

Now, flustered, Eden buttoned her vest in the front. For all reasons vanity, she had brought it because it was asymmetrical and flattering, and looked fashionably forlorn when paired with her favorite checked scarf. She had expected it to give her confidence. Instead, when paired with Taegan's unnerving stare, it seemed to echo the same refrain: mistake, mistake.

The streets of downtown Syracuse were fraught with the chill of late September. Even this early, leaves had begun to turn: autumnal hues shaded treetops, red and orange dusting against the smoggy sky. The town itself had an air of oppressed beauty. Homes old and Victorian, storefronts standing small and hunched beside complicated, decaying touches of architecture. It was as if everything surrounding had been lovely, once, and was now fading into unrecognition.

Depressed but undaunted, Eden held her phone in the air. She squinted at the glowing Maps lines, tracking the moving dot - the two of them - around a sharp corner. The subway station sat farther off, domed roof just visible behind another onset of buildings.

Breath sparking as it struck the air, Taegan leaned towards her to read off the next set of directions. "Turn left," he said. "We've already done that."

"Yes, I know." Swiping the screen, she suppressed another flash of annoyance. "I know where I'm going."

He was silent.

"I mean it," Eden said. "I've been down here before."

"For what?"

"A gig. Multiple gigs. There was a battle of the bands close to here, me and my bandmates at the time came over to see the town."

Taegan tilted his head up. Examined the skyline, the exhaling black fumes, then her red-cheeked face again. "I didn't know you were in a band."

"Well." Another left turn. This one she took without warning; she heard him stumbling behind her, and she almost smiled. Almost. Until she realized that finding her older brother was a team effort, and antagonizing Taegan because he couldn't see her potential as part of his future wasn't, in the long run, going to help her cause much.

They had come upon an open stretch of land. She walked between the cobblestones, breathing in, breathing out. The smog wasn't as thick out here. Taegan was farther away. Seven - who knew where he was? Pausing to allow the sudden flare of bitterness to recede, Eden finished answering the question: "It was for about two years. We called ourselves - ready for this? - Diversity. We had this folk vibe, kind of soft, and then we did a few punk covers that we repurposed to fit our sound."

When she laughed, it hurt. "Didn't win any awards, but it was fun. For a while."

"You broke up after our band went big."

"Yeah," she said, surprised. "Am I that transparent?"

"When it comes to music?"

The subject fell between them, after that, a kind of stony untouchable. Eden hadn't expected embarrassment to hit her so hard. She felt foolish. A full year after Never the Less, You Narcissus's single had come out, she had refused to attend any of the shows. Refused to acknowledge her brother's newfound fame. Refused, even, to talk - or be civil - to his bandmates.

In hindsight she couldn't blame Taegan for dismissing her. But she did, and that was that, and it was still hard to look him in the eyes without wondering if she was destined to be alone, and bitter, and washed-up forever.

Instead of recovering from the moment, the conversation stumbled. Upon arriving at the subway station and venturing inside they split paths. Taegan went exploring down the long, empty hall that had housed ticket takers and waiting benches. Eden jumped onto the rusted tracks and ventured through the tunnel.

The walls were immersed in art. All though she didn't follow street art, she was still impressed. It was magnificent, a work of this capacity; a blank canvas of grey stone that had been converted to a living, breathing, complex space with the use of myriad imaginations and spray paint.

Darkness receded as the ceiling and walls curved ever narrowed. She stopped after a while, when the light behind her had begun to fade. Sometimes the homeless camped out here, or people like Seven - lost, wandering, unpredictable, fearful. Strangers were an intrusion on their domain. The hidden space seemed to beckon to her, but she backed away from it.

She found Taegan sitting on the edge of the platform. His long, jean-clad legs dangled over the rails. A flash of something tugged at her mind - the sensation of falling, a muffled scream. Disturbed, she planted both hands on the concrete lip and hauled herself up.

The ground was hard and cold beneath her. She shifted, aligning her wrists and ankles. From the corner of her eyes, she caught his gaze. "He's not here," she said.

"Yeah."

Words echoed and rose around them, dissipating like smoke into the vast hollow basin overhead. Her speaking voice sounded like a shout. Switching to a whisper, she said: "Where next?"

"Philadelphia."

"Where, exactly, in Philadelphia?"

"Starr University."

"Is that where Esau is? My cousin," she added.

"Yeah."

He didn't have to communicate verbally that he didn't want her there: his awkward, darting silences were louder than his one-word answers. Eden balled her fists in her lap.

"Would you -"

Light splashed across her lap. Startled, she stopped with her mouth half-open. Taegan, mouth half-closed, became a soft statue. Footsteps broke the ground to their backs; a sharp tapping chipped through the silence.

It was eerie, and frightening, and she was positive that this was penance for all the terrible things she had said and done. She was going to be found later, she thought, in a ditch somewhere. Destitute, a romantic lost cause. The muddled concoction of darkness and light became a slit of interchanging colors as she closed her eyes. This was her telling moment.

"Oh, man," a voice said. "I thought you two were statues or dead bodies. Taegan, man, I thought you were in Philadelphia?"

Taegan and Eden turned at once. He spoke first.

"How'd you know who I was?"

"The beanie, man. The beanie."

Even when she blinked, hard, the figure before her did not change. Percy stood, grinning, beating the heels of his boots against the ground. His speaking voice sounded like the dubstep Corrin liked to listen to when he was alone in the basement: bubbling, brewing, each syllable higher and less sustainable than the next.

Mohawk cutting blue through the gloom, he launched himself towards his bandmate. They exchanged claps on the back; Eden crossed her arms over her chest and watched.

"Why are you here?" She broke into their excited dialogue.

Both boys stopped, stared at her. Percy shook his head. "This is dumb luck!"

"Stupid," Taegan agreed. "We're looking for -"

"Seven. Yeah. I went to his house, you guys weren't there, so I was gonna head up to Philadelphia. This seemed..." He ran his hand through his hair. It rumpled up along the center of his head. The sides of his scalp were blank, bare, and veins stood at his temples. "...less obvious."

Eden gazed up at the ceiling and realized that this was exactly where her brother should have gone. It was quiet, dark. A soft dimness permeated even the grounds outside. Two skating girls, outlined in black, swooped across her field of vision. Further back, words became sentences that became a half-portrait. If standing there, locked in place, would have been an option, she would have chosen it.

Because as she followed Taegan and Percy back to their cars; as she climbed again into the passenger seat and waved a landmark goodbye; as she turned, straining, over her shoulder to see it just once more; she felt more comfortable within those voiceless walls that she did up onstage, and, rather than question it, she tried to capture that snug, solid feeling.

Perhaps her hatred was misguided. She faced the road. Caught sight of the back of Percy's van, windows plastered with promotional stickers and gimmicks. Perhaps, she thought. But perhaps not.

***

Halfway to Philadelphia, her mother called.

"Seven's home."

Hand cupped over the phone, Eden glanced at Taegan. "Seven's home."

"Yes," her mother said, "I told you that, already. You need to turn around."

"Is he okay?"

"He's...home."

Unscrewing the cap of the water bottle sitting between her legs, Eden took a sip. She swished the water around in her mouth. A metallic taste rested on her tongue - the inside of her cheek was wet with blood. "Is he okay?"

"Well." Her mother was silent. It was an inherited catchphrase, a bridge between the two of them. Not that there were many bridges. None worth walking across.

From beside her, Taegan mouthed: How is he?

With a shrug, she tapped the phone's mouthpiece, waiting for her mother's murmured sigh.

"He went up to see Esau," she began. "Spent the weekend sleeping on his dorm room floor. Had a nice couple of days...before he came home, he bumped into some fans, took a few pictures. He's..."

Eden pulled the phone away from her ear. How had she not seen the pictures? She kept tabs on the band's hashtag across social networks; each smiling selfie chewed at her defenses, degraded her own dreams. It was an obsession. It was unhealthy. Sometimes, it blinded her.

Her mother's voice became a thin thread of air. The screen changed colors beneath her fingertips. Under a username of useless gibberish and jumbled numbers, she found it. Taken at a movie theater, featuring her brother and the two fans: a boy in a velour tracksuit, his voluptuous girlfriend. Matching grins, hands looped around Seven's shoulders. It was dated two days prior.

"This one." she said to Taegan, curving it towards him. To her mother she said, "Panic attack?"

"Not today."

Pulling the phone away from her ear: "He had another panic attack."

"When?" Taegan asked.

"She won't tell me, she's being vague."

"Eden," her mother said, "Extend me the courtesy of hanging up, or at least asking another question."

"Fine. He's alive, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"We're on our way back."

For the next ten miles, she replayed the sound of the dial tone and ignored the boy sitting beside her. Irritation grew and settled on her lungs. Her brother, the scapegoat. Her brother, scoot-free. When he ran away, he came back home. The prodigal son. The triumphant return. And her, the wounded elder sister, running into last place over and over again.

Rain sluiced against the windshield, pounding with relentless knocking at the windows and road before them. The sun fell back and night crept across the sky. Despite being two hours into a four hour drive, Eden was unsettled by the fervor of the storm. What if a tornado came to chase after their vehicle? What if -

With a vicious lurch, the car skidded across wet asphalt. Over the noise of the rain, Eden couldn't hear much - just a muffled bang - but Taegan slumped forward with a groan.

He pressed his forehead to the steering wheel.

"Flat tire."

"Well," she said, "you know how to fix it, right?"

Looking out at the bleary, thunder-darkened world, he shook his head. Pressed his lips together. Lightning cracked open overhead, white light flashed through the vehicle, Eden saw a red flush staining his cheeks.

Her voice rose. Against the drumbeat she sounded frantic. "Right?"

Another shake of his head. Her heart stopped.

"How are we going to change a tire!"

"I thought..." he hesitated. "I thought you would know."

"We both know how to play guitar," she said. "Just because I know how to fix an instrument doesn't mean I know how to fix something related to a...car."

Cursing softly, Taegan put the car in park and clambered out. Through the weak gold glow of the lights, she twisted around in her seat and watched him - outlined, a shadow - bend at the waist to examine the offending tire. Then he straightened, creased into the night, vanished.

He came back around, shirt soaked, and made a face that would have been puppyish, adorable, if dread hadn't made even admiring his long-fingered hands and wrists impossible.

"I can't fix it," he said.

From the drink caddy by her thigh, her phone chimed. Heart lodged in her windpipe, Eden blinked at the words appearing on the screen. "Tornado warning."

"Fantastic." He had climbed back into the car, dripping water everywhere. Locking the doors, Taegan leaned his head back against his seat rest and groaned. "This means..."

"That we call someone to help us change the tire?"

Staring at his lap: "No."

"So we'll have to sleep in the car."

Another groan. "Take the backseat."

"We are sleeping here? With a tornado warning? Aren't we supposed to - seek some sort of ground, higher..."

"The car," Taegan said, "is all we have."

"Unless I want to walk across miles of country road at midnight in the storm, right?" She was getting tired of finishing the sentences he had no intention of finishing. The slow, purposeful way he chose each word was driving her insane. His face - cherubic, soft-edged - but the longer she stared into it the more she felt like what she was: a cynic.

"Take the backseat," he repeated.

Panic was shaking through her legs. The thought of being in a car, a metal contraption, as a tornado threatened to touch down on the ground under them - it made every hair along her forearm stand up.

Taegan touched her thigh. The gesture in itself was enough to shock her breathing steady.

"Eden?"

"Okay, okay. No need to be heroic," she said, but she unbuckled her seatbelt and wedged her legs, then her torso, across the divider and collapsed across the smooth leather.

The wind howled. Her fear shrieked. Taegan snored. And, limbs contorted, goosebumps on her exposed skin, eyes fastened on the miry, unfathomable outside, Eden kept watch until her mind stopped spinning and her REM cycle moved in to fill the silence.