For Tally

1st ♬

A/N: Please remember to always pay attention to the banners. It's actually notes, letters and things like that. Thanks for reading, enjoy (: x

ONE

I was starting to really worry now. It wasn’t just because my sister went missing two months ago, or because I was suddenly scared that the massive range of clouds above my head were probably about to fall. I was worried because one of my rose bushes had died by the heavy sun that always seemed to continue to beat down atop my head. I sighed, feeling tears well up in my eyes, (I cared about the roses this much.)

Without a second glance I skidded off my window sill and turned my eyes away. It was too much to look at, too much to go through with. If those roses died then I’d lose my sense of being, I’d lose everything that held my humanity together like a knitting-needle. I growled, already marching down the creaky steps, seeing my grandmother shake her head with a complete empathetic look in her eyes. “Tally,” she started as we locked eyes.

“Gram,” I stormed over to her. “If that heat doesn’t disappear soon I’m going to have to do something about the weather on my own!” My arms flailed out and over my head where they eventually landed limp at my sides. Grams gritted her teeth together. I had hit breaking point. I felt Gram's arm on my shoulder. This was her way of comforting.

“I know you care about those flowers-”

“Roses,” I corrected angrily. I didn’t like how people called them just flowers. They weren’t ‘just flowers’, they were roses me and my sister planted together on a cold day. So why was it suddenly turning warm without her here beside me? It had never been that way before. “Continue,” my cheeks went a little red, perhaps I was too protective over our (meaning Lilac and my) roses. Lilac was my sister; she was eighteen when she went missing in the northern mountains with a group of her friends on a camping trip.

Gram shook her head. “Tally Haven, listen to me. I know you care about those roses,” she began again, an irritated look crossing her mid-fifty’s face, “but sometimes that’s the way it goes, not everything lives forever-“ she cut herself off quickly, realizing the sour look that crossed my face. She muttered an apology. Why would she say that? She should know that was mean to my sister!

“I’m going to go to the meadow,” I said softly, bringing all the sad energy out of my voice. I didn’t like who I was becoming. I didn’t talk very much, didn’t eat very much, and didn’t sleep at all. I stayed up half the night and wrote notes about pointless stuff. “I’ll be back soon.” And with that I slung my duffle bag over my shoulder and was about to walk out the door when Gram interrupted me.

“Tally, before you go. I wanted to tell you that a family is moving in next door.” She said, sitting down in a rocking chair by the large open window. The sun poured through it with such a desolate and unrelenting force that I forced myself to restrain the need to block my eyes. When her words eventually sunk in I gritted my teeth together. No one had lived in that house for ages; it has been for sale for at least a year.

“Okay, who are they?” I asked with owlish eyes. Gram sipped the hot tea she was holding – which I didn’t actually notice she had before.

“The Summers, just came here from Virginia.” She shrugged her shoulders. I frowned. Why would anyone want to move from Virginia to a tiny town in Louisiana? My family, well, we lived on a farm where it usually rained so we couldn’t grow crops and the animals would usually go and do their own thing. Although, I like to grow flowers, hundreds of them. My favourites were lilacs. The name of my sister of whom I missed so much.

I nodded again, “just a couple renting out a house? They’ll be gone within a few months in that rickety haunted thing.” I snickered. It had never quite occurred to me that I should probably be nicer, however, I found it hard because I was still trying not to let go of my sister. The only sibling I had…