Short Story

The Story of the Three Sisters

by Maria Makrovasili

“Noooooooo! What are you doing, stupid?”

“Leave me alone! It’s so much fun! Look how they react!”

“Give me the salt right now!”

“No, no, no, and nooooo!”

“I will tell mom!”

“I don’t care! Loooook what I am doing! Loooook if you dare!”

“You added salt on one side only! Are you crazy? Ha, I wanna see your excuses now when mom asks you!”

“Hey, can’t you see how happy they are? They have even given it a name! They call it Snow’! Ha ha ha ha! Look, look! They make salt-snowballs and they play! They are incredible!”

“You know this is not our game, right?”

“But why can mom play with them and I can’t? I also want to play with the toys!” The little girl in her red dress cried when the door of the room opened suddenly.

“What’s going on in here? Get out, both of you!” shouted the Mother at her daughters as their heads dropped quietly on their shoulders; each for their own reasons. The older daughter for her inability to control her impulsive little sister and the younger one because they took her toys away. There would always be someone to ruin her entertainment whenever she enjoyed the comfort of the Playroom.

***

“Annie, look! It’s snowing!” shouted her older brother with his nose stuck on the frozen window.

“That’s impossible! It’s almost the end of May. At school our teacher said that May belongs to the season of spring. Spring is the time of year when the earth is reborn and reshaped after her natural death in the cold winter. Next—”

“Stop, stop, stop! You always pretend you are smart, that’s why you don’t have friends!” observed her brother folding his arms across his chest in anger.

“I don’t pretend; I am smart! And I do have friends! I just explained to you why it is impossible for that thing over there to be snow! What are you doing? Stop dragging me, Silver!”

“I will prove to you that this is snow! Look!” said Silver all red from the cold wind.

“It looks like snow, but it’s… Hey! Stop throwing snowballs at me!”

“Ha ha ha ha! You just admitted it! It’s a snowball! It’s all yours, sis!” screamed Silver as he pointed to his sister. “Bingo! Directly at your head! Who is the master, sis?”

“Grrrr…” Annie held her fists tight. “But I will prove him wrong!” she claimed defiantly on her way back home. But before passing the threshold of their house she decided she needed help. “I have to talk to Scott,” she murmured, and made her way down the street. Apparently her brother wasn’t the only brain-deficient one. The yards were now full of children building snowmen and chasing each other. A few houses down she stopped in front of the distinct purple door; the only one to be found in this suburb of Chicago.

“Good morning, Mrs. Peregrine. Is Scott at home?”

“My dear Annie, come inside, come. I have just taken cinnamon cookies out of the oven! Two cups of hot chocolate and the perfect combination for Christmas weather is achieved! Seriously, this planet is doomed… Gloomy days are ahead of us if it snows this time of year. Come, my dear. Could you please be so kind as to take this plate of cookies upstairs? Scott is in his room.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Peregrine.”

She was the kind of woman that was destined to be a mom. Since the day Annie first met her, she would scarcely leave the warmth of her kitchen. She loved to bake cookies and prepare turkey with orange and roasted potatoes for Thanksgiving. Her culinary skills became evident when looking at Scott, her quite-grown-in-size son. But that is the case with only children, thought Annie. All the opportunities in the world at their feet and they still complain about minor problems, like solitude, a word that her little head couldn’t digest.

She knocked on the door politely before entering her friend’s room.

“Come in, genius,” screamed Scott from inside.

“My dear Scott, here are some cinnamon cookies from your lovely mother!” said Annie as politely as she could and offered him the plate.

“Finally, they’re baked! I was waiting so long for this heavenly made dessert,” uttered Scott with a look of bliss peculiarly drawn on his face as if he were a Picasso portrait.

Annie tried to hold her tongue, but it seemed impossible after a while. “It’s just cookies.”

“Hey, it’s my mom’s cookies!” added Scott with his mouth full of the blended mixture.

“Whatever, Scott. We have more important things to do. Today we have a mission,” revealed Annie excited at the idea of finally having a real mission to solve. She was so bored of Mr. Sherlock’s old crime stories.

“Really? What mission exactly?” asked Scott as he devoured two more cookies.

“You are my chemistry genius. We have to prove to those idiots that this is not snow,” said Annie decisively.

“What?” asked Scott as a few crumbs from the cookie fell on the purple carpet.

“Do you really believe that this stuff is snow? Are you one of the idiots?” Her persistent, cold stare made him lower his head and look at the floor and the mess he had created there with his greedy hunger.

“Hmm no, ha?” asked Scott, confused by the conversation.

“Of course not, Scott! You are my friend! My chemistry genius! Therefore we will take this supposed snow and analyze it. I am sure its chemical composition will justify our speculations and prove us right!” suggested Annie passionately.

“You are right Annie! Let’s lead the world to the truth!”

***

“Mother, are you sure another daughter will come to life as you said?” asked the Mother of the two little girls.

“Yes, my dear. The prophecy has said it: ‘Three will be the Sisters. And those three will learn to share. Their duties will be divided, but they will learn to cooperate with each other in order to keep Harmony. The Past will be the Future once again due to the failure of Project X.’ It’s not me, but the stars have said it long ago, Night.”

“I know, Mother. But it’s just the younger one… She is a bit undisciplined and… I can’t help but wonder when they will take control of Project X. I am so tired of doing this. It’s impossible to maintain balance in that impossible world. Those who live there think they are the center of the Universe! They kill each other, they make wars, they rape, they hate. They have even decided to destroy their home! Do you know how hard this is?” cried Night.

“But you and me… We can’t do anything! These are divine plans and we only follow like pawns in a chess game. Your daughters will have a say when they become of an age.”

“When?”

“You know Time does not exist for us. It could be in two hours, it could be in a century,” said the old Granny. “But we still miss the Third.”

“Can you speak to the Master?”

***

“How will we do that? We aren’t taught chemistry at school,” pointed out Scott.

“For a start let’s take a piece of paper and a pencil and sit here.”

“Not on my bed! The sheets are fresh, my mom just washed them and they have this amazing lavender smell… We will make them dirty if we sit there,” said Scott apologetically.

“Okay, okay, Mr. Fresh Lavender Washed Sheets. Let’s sit on the floor.”

“I take the green pen!”

“Sometimes you are such a baby, Scott!”

“We are only ten Ann…”

“People can do great things when they’re ten years old…”

“Like?”

“Like tie their shoes!”

“You are right. Okay. You can have my green pen if you want.”

“It’s okay… You can keep it. I’ll take the red.”

“So what do we write?”

“The Peculiarity of the May Snow: A Study Case,” Annie dictated.

“Woooow! So well written… Next? Next? What’s next?” asked Scott impatiently.

“Next we analyze the snow. Show me your laboratory, Dr. Scott!”

Scott stood up and approached his big toy box. He threw a couple of teddy bears and a few plastic animals on the floor until he found what he wanted. His personal microscope of his own construction.

“Voila!”

“Woow! That’s really impressive! It will do the job. How did you do that?”

“I finished the toilet paper! This cylinder is ideal for the microscope. So I got three and taped them together and then I found this magnifying glass in a Kinder egg!”

“Genius! So we bring ‘snow’ and you can analyze it, right?”

“Yes!”

“Take a glass and bring me some snow, partner!”

***

“Hey… Do you want to play with me?” asked the little sister with her wide eyes and warm smile.

“No! Not again! You always bring trouble. I’ll tell mom about the salt!”

“Noooo! Please! She might have noticed it on her own!”

“I doubt it! She’s been missing for so long… Where do you think she is?”

“I guess she plays by herself with the toys. That is so unfair! I wanna play too!”

“Don’t behave like a baby, please. Granny?”

“Ah my dears… I am bringing you news of happiness and fulfillment. The time has arrived. Ah the time has arrived!” said granny with the happiest voice they had ever heard.

“What news, Granny? Where is the Mother?” wondered the older sister.

“Here she is!”

“Mooom! What’s that?” said the girls while unanimously pointing their index fingers at the bundle in her arms.

“Hello, my girls. This is your sister. The prophecy is fulfilled,” said the Mother with a radiant smile all over her dark face.

“You were missing a few hours and now you come back with a baby? Isn’t it enough I have one sister? Why do I need another one?” The older sister felt a great injustice upon her shoulders. She always had to keep an eye on her younger sister and her Mother had just rewarded her with another baby and its caprices. She felt her eyes swell and water burst in every direction. The Mother embraced her.

“My beautiful little daughter… My three little daughters… Let me tell you a story…”

***

“I just see snow, Ann,” observed Scott quite disheartened after having spent half an hour over his microscope.

“But what is particular about this snow in the glass?” asked Annie in doubt.

“Nothing. It’s as white as snow is supposed to be.”

“And its chemical composition? Can you see it?” insisted Annie.

“If you mean those very small bodies that hold hands and create different objects and liquids, I am afraid not. I only see white.”

“Then we did something wrong!”

“What if we are wrong?”

“How can we be? Weren’t you in class last Tuesday? The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the teacher was making us recite the months and seasons! May belongs to spring. Spring doesn’t have snow!”

“But it does snow in March… And March is the first month of spring… So it might actually be normal to have snow in May.”

Annie was getting annoyed. Her friend had messed up and now he was trying to put the blame on her! “It was 70 degrees the other day. And now it is snowing! Is that normal?”

“That is why Miss Rosie told us we must recycle. Because the Earth is a living organism and if we don’t recycle we kill it. Maybe snow is a reaction?”

That sounded rational but she wouldn’t give up.

***

“…Millions of years ago the Universe was created and a Master was appointed as its Ruler. He had many responsibilities and among them was the observance of a project, the Project X. He had to note the progress and the drawbacks of this project and his purpose was to make it as perfect as was the Great Master of the Creation. But the items of the project were careless and self-destructive from the beginning. That is why he employed the Three Sisters to help him in his divine plan. The Three Sisters, also known as the Three Fates, were in charge of the destiny of these items. They tried to show them the proper way to live life in order to get as close as possible to the perfection of the Great Master. They divided their duties and each of them took a part of the items’ thread of life. Clotho, the oldest, was the Animator; the one spinning the thread and putting the items into existence. And then there was the middle sister, Lachesis, the Entertainer. She dispensed the thread, choosing the fate of the items, their wealth and their poorness, their good or bad luck. She was the one who enjoyed the Experiment the most. And then there was the third sister, Atropos, the sister of Death. She had the burden of cutting the thread of life when the time had come. For years the experiment was under their supervision. With the passing of time the Sisters learned how to respond to their responsibilities. But they made huge mistakes in the process of learning. One day the Great Master demanded their suspension… until now. Project X failed him so deeply that He needs your help. However, the price is that you have to learn from scratch how to govern people’s fate.”

“What do you mean?” asked the older sister so totally perplexed from what she had just heard.

“You are Clotho, my darling. You will put the puppets into action. Under your command people will be born. And you, young lady… You that gave me the hardest of times… You can now play with your puppets as you and your sisters fancy. But with one purpose! Make the Project succeed. Make it perfect. And you, my little baby… You creature of life, you shall take the lives of others…”

“C-c-ccut,” spelled the baby and everyone felt the chill of Death.

***

“Hey, don’t go, Ann! Take a cookie,” suggested Scott and he offered the plate. “Now who is behaving like a baby?”

“Damn him,” thought Annie, “he knows how to handle me so well.”

“We are in this mission together! Anyways, I have never seen snow in May. This is peculiar,” tried Scott.

“So we continue?”

“Yes! But what do we do?” Once again he felt lost in the process of their mission.

“Let’s write down all the properties of snow,” suggested Annie, brightened by her sudden idea.

“For example?”

“Hmm…” cold… wrote Annie on her paper. “Touch it.”

“It’s cold,” announced Scott frustrated.

“Then scratch that off of the list”

“What else?”

“Hey! Wait a minute… I know what else! And it is not happening to this ‘snow.’”

“Tell me!”

“How much time have we been here, in your hot room?”

“Thirty-two minutes and five seconds,” replied Scott with precision.

“Exactly. Do you see what I mean?”

***

“But, Mother… Isn’t this dangerous? We are so young,” observed Clotho.

“That is the point… You are young and you will learn how to share and divide your duties,” the Mother answered. She opened the great door of the Playroom and let the Three Sisters inside.

“But I don’t wanna share anything!” announced Lachesis with her childish voice full of stubbornness.

“But you have to. Now let the game begin!” said the Mother in her most dramatic of tones.

“Wait, mom! Lachesis dropped all the salt on one small part of the world!”

“Why did you tell her?” cried Lachesis and shot her sister a terrible look.

“Amazing!” commented the Mother.

“What’s amazing? It’s salt, mom!”

“But they think it’s snow!” pointed Lachesis. “No one will know!”

“They are not stupid, Lachesis!”

“They might be, Clotho!”

“Ssssh… Silence! That is the first problem you have to solve by yourselves. Talk to each other and think about how you can fix your carelessness,” instructed the Mother as she left the Playroom.

“What do we do?” murmured Clotho. “What do we do to fix your careless games?”

“Nothing will happen. They won’t notice!”

“Maybe that’s what we have to do… Let’s see if anyone has noticed!”

“Okay, whatever. We’ll just lose official playtime with our toys!”

“Focus, Lachesis! Grow up! We have a mission! We have to make this Project work again! You heard Mother.”

Lachesis dropped her head on her shoulders. She hated to be a grown-up.

“Each observes a person-item, okay?”

“Okay.”

The two sisters stared through their magnifying glasses. They let the baby crawl on the floor while they were occupied with that messed up part of the world.

“Did you find anything?” asked Clotho desperately.

“I think so… Come and see…” Lachesis showed her discovery. “It’s this little girl, Annie. She tried to convince her brother that this is not snow.”

“Let me see… Oh holy Master! They even have a microscope to analyze it! I told you, Lachesis!”

“I know… I’m sorry… But at least it didn’t work. How will they prove it?”

“‘How much time have we been here, in your hot room?’ ‘Thirty-two minutes and five seconds’ ‘Exactly. Do you see what I mean?’” repeated Clotho.

“Which means?” asked Lachesis, confused.

“Which means this snow didn’t melt after thirty-two minutes,” replied Clotho.

“What do we do now?”

“C-ccccut,” laughed the baby and two teeth appeared in her smile.

“No, Atropos! We will not kill people because Lachesis made a mistake!”

“C-cccccut!” repeated the baby.

“No, wait! Okay… It was my mistake… So I will fix it!”

“What do you need the hose for?” Clotho was surprised to see the medal nozzle appear so suddenly in her sister’s hands.

“I made them think salt is snow! So now it’s time for rain!”

“Brilliant!”

***

“It hasn’t melted yet, Scott! That’s strange for snow inside the house, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is… Wooow! Looook!” screamed Scott and ran towards the window.

“What’s that? It’s like someone is pouring a glass of water over our head!” observed Annie.

“I feel sorry for the kids playing in the snow… Ha ha ha ha. They are all wet now!”

“That’s strange… All the snow is gone… Give me the glass please!”

“Here it is. Hey, what are you doing? Do you want my mom to kill me? It’s everywhere in the room.”

“I have seen it before… It doesn’t smell…”

“Of course you have! It’s salt, Ann!”

“Bliah, indeed it is. So it wasn’t snow. IT WASN’T SNOW AS I SAID.”

“I think we confused it…”

“What do you mean? We just saw that this is not S-N-O-W, but S-A-L-T.”

“Well… When you sent me to collect the snow, I made a stop at the kitchen… My mom baked more cinnamon cookies… I had to try them, Ann… Don’t look at me like that… I might have taken the wrong glass when I left the kitchen…”

“Oh Scott!”

***

“Give me five! You are a genius, little sis!” said Clotho glowing in happiness. Their first problem was fixed and it was unbelievable that Lachesis was the one to save the day.

“Thanks, Clotho! We made it together… Because in the end you were also right… But look on the bright side! I found my favorite puppet! She is amazing, isn’t she?”

“Definitely, yes! Hey, what are you doing now?” asked Clotho, unable to believe her eyes.

“Now our game starts officially! Let’s play!!!!” said Lachesis excited.

“Not with the pepper! GIVE ME THE PEPPER! NOW, LACHESIS!”

Appeared in Issue Spring '19