On Monday afternoon, Morning comes home only to find that the room he shares with his twin sister Liss has been possessed by an infestation of cheep candles, and that all of the curtains have been tightly drawn and the ends stapled to the wall. He lets out a long sigh when he spots her ragged figure hunched over in the center, using a lighter to complete the circle of candles.

“Liss, what’re you doing?” Morning asks, trying to get his sister’s attention, but she just continues to shuffle around the various things that she has pulled out of the shoe box that lives on her closet shelf, ignoring him in a manner which he is sure is deliberate.

“Liss?” He tries again. Still no response.

“Liss!” He says for the final time, raising his voice several levels.

“What?” She responds crossly at last, standing up so that the peeved look on her face will be visible and obvious to Morning, if he hasn’t picked up the clues from her voice.

“What’re you doing with all of these candles?”

“Putting a curse on Gene.”

“Oh.” He says, slightly taken aback. It’s not that Morning isn’t already accustomed to Liss’s wild-child-witchy antics, (because he definitely is), but more that Gene has been nothing but kind to Morning and Liss since the accident. Morning doesn’t say anything more for a while, just watches Liss re-arrange the small yarn dolls and green ribbons and colored rocks from the box, and contemplates Gene. But thoughts of the green-eyed senior boy quickly lead to thoughts of his older brother, and that isn’t a place that Morning likes to go in his head.

“Why?” Morning asks, and busies himself with the task of sitting down inside of Liss’s candle circle to distract himself from thinking of Andrew.

“Hmm?” Liss responds absentmindedly, failing to notice Morning’s new position.

“Liss, why are you putting a curse on Gene?” he asks again, expanding on his earlier question.

“So he’ll be just as miserable as me.” She answers matter-of-factly, and then turns around and finally realizes where Morning is sitting. She gives him a single sharp look, but when he only shrugs (he’s pretty much immune to her glares at this point), she drops the matter and lets him stay.

“Oh.” Is all that Morning says, though internally his brain has just been thrown for a large loop. He’s not too worried about Liss’s logic though, as he’s grown up with her and is used to non-sequitur train of thought. He decides to not say anything, but after a while, can’t help from asking,

“Why are you miserable?”

“‘Cause I’m in love with Gene.”

“Oh. Can I watch?” Morning isn’t exactly curious, (well, maybe a little), but he feels that he owes enough to Gene to monitor Liss and make sure that she doesn’t do anything beyond the realm of her normal tricks.

“Mmm.” Liss’s response isn’t a flat out confirmation or rejection of his request, so Morning takes the initiative and assumes that since she hasn’t physically made him leave he can stay. They’re both quiet for a while as Liss puts the finishing touches on her arrangement, before Morning breaks the silence as he notices something else.

“Liss?”

“What?” She’s annoyed again now, as evidenced by the pinched look on her face as she takes her seat in the circle across from Morning. But at least she answered, Morning thinks, which is a good sign.

“These are birthday candles.”

“So?” She snaps a little.

“I was just making sure that you knew.” He says, and tries to hide his laugh.

“I know, Morning.” She responds exasperatedly, completely aware of the fact that he is laughing at her.

“Is it going to work?”

“‘Course it will work.” She says, offended at the notion, and as if to prove her point, closes her eyes tightly to begin visualizing her objective and start the spell.

“Liss, are you sure that cursing Gene is the right thing?” Morning asks after a pause.Despite the fact that Morning knows that Liss’s “spells” are just something that Liss does when she’s angry or upset, or, apparently, in love, Morning can’t help picturing Gene’s solemn green eyes and cringing when he thinks about Liss “cursing” him. Even a love “spell” would be better in his book.

“‘Course it is.” Her reply is definitive and rock solid, but she opens her eyes to look at Morning.

“I just mean, shouldn’t you try casting a spell to make him fall in love with you instead of a curse?” Morning continues his train of thought aloud, to Liss’s obvious annoyance.

“Well.” Is what she actually says, though it comes out as a grunt, and is more hesitant than her early answer. Morning can almost hear the gears turning in Liss’s head, as she contemplates this new suggestion.

“Well, what?” He asks, impatiently, though he knows from experience that pressing Liss produces bad results.

“I could put a curse of him first, and then a love spell.” Liss says slowly at first, and then speeds up as she makes her decision.

“Seems like a lot of extra work to me.” Morning asserts, hoping that he has managed to be subtle about his goal of avoiding the unsettling sight of watching Liss plunge needles into the creepily accurate representation of Gene that she has just picked up from her pile.

“Well, how else can I pay him back and make him fall in love with me!” She exclaims and then pouts, staring down sulkily at the doll in her hands.

“You could just try the love spell, and then if it worked, you wouldn’t be miserable anymore.” He suggests, feeling a little guilty that in his consideration of Gene, he’s totally disregarded Liss’s feelings. She is his sister, after all, he thinks, as frustrating and difficult as she can be sometimes.

Liss stops and thinks about this new alternative, before suddenly crying,

“All right! Fine! I won’t curse him. But I’m still going to make him fall in love with me.” And resolutely she begins to set everything up all over again, as Morning tries to hide a smile. Gene is safe for now, he thinks as he stares at one of the candles which has begun to gutter strangely.

Muttering to herself half-heartedly, Liss re-arranges the paper hearts and safety pins and ribbons and thread-dolls and pieces of mirror into a new pattern on the floor.

“There, happy now?”Says Liss crankily, and looks up, only to find that Morning isn’t paying attention but is instead staring entranced into the candle flame.

“Morning?” Liss asks, waving her hand in front of his face. When this method doesn’t work, she gently sticks out two fingers and prods his shoulder carefully.

“Mor-“ she attempts to get his attention again, peeved now, but chokes on his name as she sees for herself what has Morning so hooked on the candle flame. A small human-shaped figure is slowly coming into focus in between the halos of two candles on Liss’s left, and then begins to grow larger, like it’s making it’s way closer from a great distance. Too stunned for words, the twins sit rooted to the spot, watching until there is enough detail that both can discern the fact that the figure is that of a tall blond-haired boy in his late teens. Because of the common bond created by their shared guilt (or, possibly, but not very likely, because they are twins) they both realize who it is at the same time. And that’s when Liss screams.

Morning doesn’t really have enough time for his brain to fully process the apparition of the dead boy before Liss has fled. So he is left alone in the room, staring into the eyes of his dead brother and wishing that Liss hadn’t decided to cast a love spell on Gene after all. Then he faints.

A/N: This is based (very very) loosely off of characters in the King Arthur stories. The reason I had to write ‘very very’ is because I changed up some of the family relationships pretty drastically. If you were curious, ‘Liss’ is short for ‘Melissa’, and the character is a really rough version of Morgaine, who has nothing much in common with the real one, besides the fact that she is a “witch.” Morning has even less in common with Mordred, besides the fact that that is the way I started him out in my original planning. Pay no attention to the fact that they are siblings here…(my mind is strange…)

And if anyone was wondering, my story “Bright Eyes” is not in fact dead! I have even written roughly half of chapter five. This is my spring break, so I’m hoping to finish it with what little time I have left.