My childhood with Elizabeth was predictable in its unpredictability. One day we might be warriors together, traversing a long-lost domain to slay invisible dragons in the name of our mother, the queen. She would encourage me on those travails and request my advice on how to proceed, as an equal. Then on other days I became, inexplicably, her enemy. We might venture into the swamp, and she would throw a rock at me when I followed too closely, narrowly missing my face with the muddy missile, and yell at me to leave her alone. After the rock, I might shed some tears, and she would tell me to go cry to Mother, who had sequestered herself away again with her drink and her silence and her loneliness.

Now that I think of it, that smooth rock in my bedroom is one that was thrown at me, and I kept it so long because it carried with it a curse that I thought, one day, I might hurl back at my sister.

Elizabeth was always a force of nature: benevolent when it pleased her, conspiratorial with me when she liked, and abruptly fearsome or vengeful when the mood struck.

As we grew older, her vindictiveness smoothed out to a kind of niceness, on the surface, even when she was being scornful. Those are the ones you have to watch out for. People who are outwardly aggressive are easier to predict; you always know what they are feeling. Elizabeth was the type that forced me to go back over our conversations to determine what, if any, cruelty might underlie the polite words, what criticisms, what barbs, what condescension.

I find it much easier, in general, to despise Elizabeth. Her incuriosity. Her self-centeredness. Her cattiness. But I mustn’t let myself hate her. To hate is so easy, so comforting. To love is much more difficult.

But I loved her when she wore that necklace of arrowheads. I wonder whatever happened to it.

The house feels stuffy. The air is thick with secrets.

I follow the dark, narrow hallways and creaking staircases down and out to the backyard, the cool wind berating me as I join the shrubs and trees that shiver against it. Overgrown grass blows flat and stands up again, hiding whatever lies in the soil beneath. I think about the treasures Elizabeth and I found when we were young, rooting around for additions to her necklace.

I don’t see echoes of us, though. There are others here.

Clearly we are not the only ones who dig in the dirt as children, who dredge up enchanted artifacts from the mystical swamp like sacred tokens of childhood. Such possessions of seemingly magical provenance, of a history so ancient as to seem folkloric.

But who are these other children? Who is the boy mining the mud, playing with a girl dressed in an old-fashioned frock and bonnet holding in wisps of escaping blonde hair? Who are they, these two mysteries so close to the swamp, happily digging together?