Isolated (Stardew Valley)

Chapter Nineteen

THE 2OTH OF winter would be a day I would never forget.

To the citizens, it was day of festivity, an event that would allow them to forget their current burdens, to relish in the sight of two people bound together by the Valley.

It didn't feel like that to me. As much as it should be.

It was a wedding that felt just as crushing as they felt joy, not only for the fact that two people I cared deeply for would leave this small town and never look back, but for the sole reason of the very woman who dashed in, interrupted like it was no occurrence, and revealed herself as the mysterious Anne.

Anne, Abigail's secret city friend who she'd been in contact with, who forced her into marrying Sebastian.

Anne, a name that felt equally as sweet as it was sour.

Anne, my sister.

Anne–Jules–no, Julianne–still had that sly grin on her face as she stared down at me, her eyes burning like a predator would its prey.

"Julianne," I repeated, her name a foreign word that scorched my lips. She always complained that her name was too long, too unnecessary. "...Jules."

Abigail gasped from behind me as she shakily got out, "You're... sisters?"

I barely managed a nod. My body was rigid, mind alert, speechless.

I dared a blink, maybe hoping that I was hallucinating. It had to have been. From the cold. But as my frost covered lids peeled off, she was still there, tall and proud, her vibrant hair a sweet dark red.

"It's Anne now," she corrected as she stood straight. She always was the tallest out of the two of us. Anne looked around to the rest of town, all watching with curious gazes, then settled back on me. "Jules has long been gone."

She was. That old person was now locked away in the hidden chambers of her heart. Jules used to be fun, carefree, liked to rebel against our strict parents. Her wild red hair would bounce as she ran through the wind, and her bright smile would stretch across her face that I wondered if it hurt.

That was over a decade age. Our bodies have grown, our mindset changed, and the distance between us molded the people we were today. Whatever dynamic duo we were—June and Jules, Jules and June—was gone.

Now, seeing my sister again, looking at me with evident distaste, I knew this was not the happy reunion I always envisioned.

She was a stranger to me now.

I was frozen, not from the season's chills or the frost that started to get to me. Anne's stare rooted me to place that I couldn't move, my lips were sealed, and I only stared in utter shock.

Mayor Lewis stepped in, bearing his famous welcoming look. He seemed to have recovered from the recent frenzy, but he was old and brittle—one more push and he would collapse. He mustered up the best smile he could with drained energy.

"Anne? Oh, it's been so long," he mused. "I remember when you were just a little girl hanging on to your Grandfather's leg."

With the mention of Grandpa, Anne's eye twitched. But she said nothing about it.

"Now," Mayor Lewis continued cautiously, "we do happily accept visitors in town, but I'm afraid this visit was unexpected and sudden..."