Corinthian Roses

Chapter One: The Magician and the Botanist

My name is Willamette Oakwood Carter. I had a twin brother once. He was my favorite person in the world, doubtless. He helped me rebel against the expectations of the world and I wouldn't be anybody without that help. I'd be just another housewife with six kids, cooking and cleaning and slowly being driven to an nonreturnable state of lunacy. The way I see it, if I were born in another century, maybe his help wouldn't have ever been needed. But it's 1907, alas.

I am a world-renowned botanist because of him. But it is no matter anymore, because my brother William Carter is no longer with me. At first I ignored any such feelings I should have felt in grief, but they only grew and metastasized, and now, now they come out. The past month has been a sort of Hell unknown. And a very personal one, I might add.

It started one night when I was blurry-eyed in my bed, looking at a photo of him and I when we were small children. In the photo he has a top hat and one of his favorite suits on. I'm wearing a lab-coat and winking at the camera. We're holding a pet bunny, named Glommer. I don't remember where he and I came up with the name— we just liked it, there was something ethereal about it.

The night wore on for dragging minutes as I drew out sobs and stared at that photo, of a boy now dead and a girl halfway there. I started hearing music. A ragtime melody, one that William and I had danced to all the time. I shuddered, realizing that insanity had finally grasped me. I sank into my covers and slept. I dreamed that night— of him. He had on his dapper suit, pinned with a rose. He seemed older than I had ever remembered him and kept pleading with me to come find him, to follow the music. I woke up and stayed up until the sun rose. Each day since then, I hear the music everywhere, hear his taunting voice, feel compelled to find it.

But he is dead. He has been dead for a full year, as of today. It was a terrible way to go for him, I think. In childhood, we lived with our mother, father, younger brother, and each other. Mother wanted me to be a good, average lady; dad wanted William to be a strong, successful gentleman. However, I wanted to be a scientist, and he wanted to be a magician. Mother and father despised us for it— but he and I empowered each other. We fought against all that our parents told us and became successful in our endeavors. But, soon, William decided he wanted to move to New York. I said if he did, he had to take me with him. He didn't. He left without me.

I was heartbroken all along, but he still communicated with me. He sent me so many letters and photos of his magician shows in New York. It seemed like a whimsical place! Yet, soon, he sent the letters less and less until I received a final one. He told me that he was going broke in New York and he had decided to move to San Francisco. He was going next week and said he'd write me there when he got settled.

He never made it to San Francisco. I got a message weeks later that he was presumed dead when a circus tent collided with his train.

I hate the circus.