Weekly Drabble #304: On the Other Side (Patreon)

This week's prompts are 'frost past the wall' from Framing Device and 'quiet sister' from Taelel, with a little story about a young girl and her love of winter. Enjoy!

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On the Other Side

The temperature was dropping, and that meant Yuliana’s sister would be here soon. Yuliana had to stand on her tippy-toes on the old tree’s stump just to see over the garden wall. Past it, there was a small field that, during spring and summer, was filled with wildflowers and buzzed with bees. An overgrown flagstone path led from the locked back gate into the woods with a branching trail that led to an old well with its top boarded up. It hadn’t been used since before Yuliana had been born; the house had underground wells for water, she’d been told. It didn’t need the old one and having it open was a risk.

The young girl stared out into the forest that lay just a short run from her home’s backyard. She couldn’t see very far into it as the trees thickened quickly, and there wasn’t much happening anyways. A woodpecker was out, tapping on trees as it looked for grubs, but other than that, the mid-morning forest was still.

With an annoyed huff, Yuliana dropped back down, skipping along the wall and jumping from stump to stump in self-made version of hopscoth. At one point, the backyard had had a row of trees against the wall to provide shade. On the largest, the one whose stump she had just been using to peer over the wall, had hung a tire swing and a treehouse. She knew that because she’d seen the pictures of it, but all the trees had been cut down shortly after she’d been born. There were just a few cherry and peach trees well away from the walls. Even the walls weren’t that old; there’d once been a white picket fence and wooden gate around the back yard instead of stone and brick. A lot of things in the house had changed after Yuliana was born, and her parents rarely talked about the them.

Her sister was one of those things no one ever talked about.

Yuliana wasn’t even supposed to know about Aniyah and for a very long time, she hadn’t. Not until she had overheard mom and dad when she wasn’t supposed to and even then, they hadn’t said much. She’d started wondering about other things, including whoever was on the other side of the garden wall.

The first time she’d noticed it had been two winters ago. She’d been playing outside in the snow, her mother sitting inside, watching her through the window. Her parents would always keep an eye on when she was outside during the winter. If they were busy, she wasn’t allowed out at all but otherwise one of them always had to be with her, or watching her. She’d snuck out without supervision one time. That had been a mistake, but she hadn’t understood her parents’ explosive, frightening reaction until her talk with Grandma. It was a beautiful winter’s day when she ran into the forest.

Her mother had left for a few moments, possibly to get a drink or use the washroom but in that time Yuliana had felt like she was still being watched and not in the same way Mom did. She didn’t know how to describe it, but it didn’t feel... it didn’t feel safe. She’d looked around and seen – or thought she’d seen – someone peering up over the back end of the garden wall, staring at her. Another child. They’d ducked back down when Yuliana looked in their direction and didn’t come back, so she thought her mind had been playing a trick on her.

Since that time, strange things had happened during the winter. When she circled the large backyard, she’d thought she’d heard someone walking alongside her on the other side of the wall. If she called to see who was there, Mom or Dad would come out and bring her in. They never told her why and if she asked, they’d take away her dessert for arguing.

She tried to talk to Grandma about it, but Grandma wouldn’t tell. She’d told Yuliana to stop asking, but one time the little girl had come across her when she’d been sitting in front of the big picture window, looking out at the snow. “It’s a beautiful winter,” the older woman said. “It reminds me of the old country.” After a very long time, she said some more. “It was a beautiful winter’s day when your sister was born. She loved the winter. Like a little snow leopard, she was. It was a beautiful winter’s day when she ran into the forest, and it was a beautiful winter’s day when the sheriff came to the door and told your parents they were calling off the search.”

There had been another long silence before Yuliana had asked why mom and dad never talked about her. “It hurts them,” was Grandma’s answer. “They blame themselves for what happened. Some hurts are so bad we think hiding them is the only way we can handle them. If we never talk about it, we think it will go away.” She sipped her tea slowly. “Your mother and father love you very much, but they are very sad and very scared.”

“Scared of what?” Yuliana had asked.

“Did you know,” Grandma said, “this place only used to have a fence?” She looked at Yuliana. “Don’t go into the forest, child. And when it snows... be careful. In the old country, winter is pretty, but it can hide things that aren’t. Things that aren’t always what they seem.” That was all she said on that, leaving Yuliana more confused than ever. She’d heeded her grandmother’s caution and never mentioned what she’d said to her parents. She didn’t want to make them even more sad.

When she saw footprints in the fresh snow outside the wall, she didn’t mention them. When the cold wind stirred and she heard a voice calling her name, she didn’t say anything. Her parents wouldn’t like it and she was afraid they wouldn’t let her out at all if they knew. One day early last winter she’d had her chance. She’d been walking along the inside of the wall, listening to the footsteps pacing her on the other side. Her father was watching her from the living room window when he got one of his Very Important Calls.

With a phone held up to his ear, he rapped on the window to catch the little girl’s attention and signalled for her to come in. She nodded and walked towards the door, but as soon as her father was out of sight, she went back to the wall. “Are you there?” she asked. “It’s all right. It’s me, Yuliana. It’s just me.”

And that was when she first talked to her sister. Aniyah only came out on cold days. During winter, or when the spring and fall were unexpectedly cold. They had to be careful because mom and dad would bring Yuliana in if they thought she was acting strangely, so they often communicated through notes. Yuliana would put a letter, a pencil and a rock in a ziploc baggie and throw it over the wall. Sometimes the next day or a little longer, she would find it again on her side of the wall with Aniyah’s letter to her on the other side.

She asked Aniyah why she didn’t come home, but Aniyah just said she couldn’t. Yuliana could tell her sister was sad and lonely, but also very angry. Yuliana felt sorry for her, but she was also a little scared of her sister. One day she’d been out walking with her mother. There weren’t many houses here, but there were some. One of the neighbours had a mean dog that was always after Yuliana. That day it had gotten out of the yard and as soon as Mom wasn’t looking, it attacked the girl. It tried to drag her off, but Mom booted it and sent it running back to its owner. She’d been so angry, she’d stormed up to the owner’s house and torn into them for being so careless, shoving a torn piece of Yuliana’s sleeve at them as proof of what their dog had done.

As mom railed at them, getting so angry that she’d lapse into Russian here and there, Yuliana had waited outside the fenced yard. She’d looked across the street and thought she’d seen someone in the snow-covered shrubs and small trees.

The next day, the dog’s head had been left outside their front gate and there’d been a bloody trail that went into the woods. “Coyotes,” Dad had said, but Yuliana knew it had been Aniyah. She was scared of the girl beyond the wall, but she was also always excited to find another letter from her. When that winter faded, Yuliana had been sad to see Aniyah go, but her older sister had promised she’d come back with the frost.

The frost was here, so Yuliana waited excitedly. Winter meant even more to her now. It held a secret all her own and this year, mom and dad didn’t watch her quite as much. Last winter, she’d gotten to talk with Aniyah more, and her sister wanted Yuliana to come out past the wall and the gate.

The forest, she said, was so pretty in the winter.