My Ashes Are Not Hers

The fire from two years ago was a monster that swallowed everything, leaving me to live in its charred ribs. It was a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

When the firefighters voice cracked through the smoke, rasping that he could only carry one of us, my mother didnt hesitate. She pointed straight at me, simply because I was closer to the door.

At the time, I thought I was lucky. I thought it was love. It wasnt until later, when she convinced herself the fire had been started by usa botched attempt to rob the neighborsthat the "luck" turned into a life sentence.

She would grab me by the hair, her voice a jagged blade. "Your sister was perfect! She was the bright one! She would never have stolen anything!"

"It was you! Youre the thief! Youre the one who killed her!"

From that day on, I became a ghost in my own home. I was the surplus daughter, the shadow that didnt deserve to be fed or clothed. Every night, I was forced to kneel before my sisters portrait, a silent penitent for a crime I didnt commit.

The day the class field trip fund went missing at school, my mother didnt even ask if Id done it. She just grabbed me, dragging me toward the door, screaming that she was going to make me bow and beg for forgiveness from every student in that building.

Terrified, I tore myself from her grip and bolted into the street. I didn't see the car. I only felt the impact that sent me flying.

As I lay there, the world fading to gray, I dialed her number with trembling fingers. I begged her to save me.

But all I heard from the other end was a cold, cruel snort. "Who are you trying to scam now? You stole your sisters life two years ago. If youre dying, its finally justice."

I died that night. Two years later, the sister everyone thought was ash walked back through the front door. She told the truth through her tears: she was the one who had been stealing that night.

My mother broke. She dragged my sister to every house in the neighborhood, knocking on doors, sobbing the same words over and over: "My Maren wasn't a thief. She really wasn't..."

The impact tossed me ten feet. I hit the pavement with a sound like a bag of wet glass. Everythingevery bone, every nerveshattered.

It was a rainy night. The streetlights were dim, casting sickly yellow puddles on the asphalt. The driver didnt even get out. He rolled down his window, muttered something about a "stupid stray dog," and sped off into the dark.

The cold began to seep in, a deep, hollow chill. But I didn't want to die. Not like this.

I fumbled for my phone and called my mother. When she picked up, she didn't even give me a chance to speak.

"So, you steal the class fund and then run away? You think youre so smart, dont you?"

"Mom," I wheezed, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. "I got hit... by a car. Please. Help me."

There was a pause. A few seconds of silence where I thought maybe, just maybe, shed hear the rattle in my chest. Then, she laughed.

"You're a pathological liar, Maren. You're just scared because you got caught. You stole your sister's future, her entire life. Honestly? You should have died a long time ago."

The line went dead. The dial tone was the last thing I heard over the roar of the downpour.

Suddenly, the fight left me. I couldn't even bring myself to dial 911. What was the point?

Two years ago, my sister Lacey and I were trapped in the upstairs bedroom while the house burned. The heat was an animal. The firefighter said he could only take one.

My mother chose me because I was two feet closer to the hallway. Afterward, she told me, "Maren, you only have a heartbeat because your sister gave hers up for you."

When the investigators found the neighbors jewelry in our living room and saw the pry marks on their back door, the narrative was set. Everyone decided we had broken in, and the fire was a freak accident caused by our clumsiness.

That was the day the beatings started. My mother would whip my back with a wooden yardstick until it snapped, forcing me to kneel before Laceys photo.

"Your sister was an honors student! She was the good one! She wouldn't steal!"

"You're the thief! You killed her! Why couldn't it have been you?"

I tried to explain. I tried to tell her I didn't know anything about the jewelry. But she had already decided I was the villain. And maybe she was right. If she hadn't picked me, Lacey would be the one breathing. Lacey would have been worth the oxygen.

She was burned alive. I couldn't even imagine that pain. So, I stopped talking. I let my mother use me as a punching bag for her grief.

For two years, I lived on scraps. I wore rags.

"Your sister died hungry," shed say, pulling the plate away. "So you stay hungry."

"Think about how cold she is in the ground. You don't deserve that coat."

"You stole her life. You spend every second making up for it."

I spent seven hundred days atoning. And now, lying in a pool of my own blood in the rain, the debt was finally settled.

She wouldn't have to hit me anymore. Shed finally be satisfied.

As my eyes drifted shut, a strange, light feeling washed over me. My last thought wasn't of pain. It was a wish: I hope she saved Lacey instead.

Apparently, the universe wasn't finished with me yet. My penance wasn't over.

I felt myself drift upward, hovering over the street. Below me, I saw the girl I used to be. She looked like a heap of discarded laundry, her limbs twisted at impossible angles, her face swollen beyond recognition.

No wonder the driver thought I was a dog.

I tried to feel sad, but a violent tuglike a hook in my naveljerked me away. In the blink of an eye, I was back in our cramped living room.

My mother was on the phone with my principal.

"Mrs. Higgins, I am so sorry for the trouble," she was saying, her voice thick with performative shame. "I know she took the money. Ill make her write a three-thousand-word apology. Ill make her confess in front of the whole school tomorrow."

"Diane, please," Mrs. Higgins replied. "Security is still checking the tapes. We don't have proof yet. Let's not jump to conclusions."

My mother let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "I know my daughter. Shes been a thief since she was in diapers. She stole two hundred dollars from my purse just last month. She needs to learn a lesson shell never forget."

I shivered, even though I didn't have a body. Even as a soul, she could still make me flinch.

I remembered that two hundred dollars. She had screamed at me for hours, slapping me until my ears rang, demanding I tell her where I hid it. I cried until my throat was raw, until I couldn't even whisper "I didn't do it."

When I wouldn't "confess," she stripped me down to my underwear and dragged me out onto the sidewalk in broad daylight.

"If you won't admit you're a thief, then everyone can see what a thief looks like," she told the neighbors.

People stared. Some laughed. I just curled into a ball on the concrete, trying to disappear into myself.

Eventually, the lady from the HOA came over and wrapped a blanket around me. She looked at my mother and said, "Diane, didn't you pay the gardener two hundred in cash on Tuesday? I saw you hand it to him."

My mother froze. She didn't apologize. She didn't hug me. She just threw my clothes at my head and grumbled, "If you didn't take it, why didn't you just say so clearly?"

But I had. I had told her a hundred times.

You just didn't want to believe me, Mom. To you, I was a thief by birthright.

A ghostly tear slipped down my cheek and landed on her forehead. She blinked, looking up at the ceiling, wondering if the roof was leaking. She wiped it away with a look of pure disgust.

"You don't understand, Mrs. Higgins," she continued. "She's the reason my oldest daughter is dead. She broke into a house and started a fire. She's a criminal."

Lacey and I were twins. We were in the same grade. The principal knew the history.

There was a long silence on the other end. "Diane... the past is the past. Maren is your only child now. She's a good kid. I don't believe she did this. I'll call you when we have the facts."

The principal hung up before my mother could argue.

It was a strange feelingto be dead and finally have someone take my side. It felt like a warm light, but it was followed immediately by the bitter sting of iron.

After the call, the anger seemed to drain out of her, replaced by that haunting, soft madness she reserved for Lacey.

She picked up the framed photo of my sister and began to dust it with a silk cloth. For two years, I hadn't seen her look at me with anything but hatred. But for Lacey? She had all the tenderness in the world.

She whispered to the photo. She hummed a lullaby.

Could Lacey hear her? I didn't know. All I knew was that it was 2:00 AM, her living daughter was missing, and she didn't care. She probably thought I was hiding out, too ashamed of my "crime" to come home.

Suddenly, a white-hot flash of pain shot through my leg. It felt like a serrated blade tearing through muscle.

The tug happened again. I was back at the crash site.

A stray dog had found me.

It had torn a chunk out of my calf and was now sniffing at my chest. It began to claw at my clothes, shredding the old, tattered winter coat I was wearing.

The yellowed stuffing flew out like dirty snow. That coat was two years old. It was thin, patched a dozen times, and the sleeves were three inches too short. Id spent the whole winter shivering.

A few days ago, Id gathered the courage to ask for a new one.

Shed backhanded me so hard I hit the wall. "How can you be so selfish? You think youre cold? Think about Lacey in the ground. Is she warm? Youre a thiefif you want a coat so bad, go steal one!"

Now, the dog had stripped the coat away entirely. It began to bite into my stomach.

"Stop! Get away!" I screamed, kicking at the animal. But my foot passed right through its fur. I tried to grab its collar, but my hands were smoke.

I was forced to watch as the dog desecrated what was left of me.

I remembered my mothers curse the day she found out Lacey was gone. "Maren! Why couldn't it have been you? I hope you rot in a ditch!"

Well, Mom. Your wish came true.

Finally, a man approached. He had a heavy stick and chased the dog away. I felt a surge of relief. Someone would see me. Theyd call the police. My mother would have to come for me.

But the man didn't reach for a phone. He knelt down, squinting at my broken body. A slow, horrific grin spread across his face.

He was a drifter. Someone who lived in the cracks of society, someone with no light left in his soul. He began to drag me by my ankles toward the treeline.

I knew what was coming. I panicked. "No! Leave me here! Please!"

But I was just a whisper in the wind.

The tug happened again. Back to my mother.

I stood right in front of her, screaming into her face. "Mom! Please! Go to the woods by the highway! Help me!"

She didn't hear a thing. She just smiled to herself and pulled a brand-new, expensive down parka out of a shopping bag. It was soft pink with a cute logo on the chest. It was exactly what a girl my age would have dreamed of.

My heartthe ghost of itstilled for a second. Then it shattered.

She walked to the backyard, put the coat in a metal fire pit, and lit a match.

"Are you warm enough now, sweetie?" she whispered to the air, watching the flames lick the pink fabric. "I realized today youve probably grown. Your old clothes must be too small. Mommy is so sorry she didn't notice sooner."

The fire roared, casting a warm, golden glow over the yard. But I had never felt so cold in my life.

The next afternoon, my mother went to the grocery store and bought a massive basket of fruit.

She picked up two applesthey were on sale. But then she paused, put them back, and filled the basket with expensive, ripe mangoes.

I am deathly allergic to mangoes. They were Laceys favorite.

Mom, you really never forget, do you?

She took the fruit to my classmates' houses. Every time a door opened, she began her rehearsed apology.

"I am so incredibly sorry. My daughter stole the class money. Please, take this as compensation. Shes always been like thisa thief. She even caused the fire that killed her sister."

She went house to house, spreading the poison. People looked confused, uncomfortable. But I understood. She wanted a jury. She wanted the whole world to join her in hating me, because if everyone hated me, then it wasn't her fault that Lacey was dead.

But it didn't matter anymore. My body was currently being treated like garbage in a shallow grave in the woods. Rumors can't hurt a corpse.

The last house was the worst: Sarahs house.

Sarah was my desk mate. And after the fire, she was my primary tormentor. She led the "Thief" chants, scribbled slurs on my notebooks, and once cornered me in the bathroom to kick me until I bruised.

Id begged my mother to intervene once.

Shed just looked at me with dead eyes. "Lacey was burned alive. You got a few bruises. Get over it."

One day, Sarah had held me down and tried to force hot sauce down my throat. Id pushed her away, coughing and gagging. The school called our parents.

Sarah lied through her teeth. "Maren is a thief! She stole my snack, so I was just teaching her a lesson!"

"What did she steal?" the principal asked.

"A mango!" Sarah blurted out. "I brought a mango for lunch and it was gone after gym. It had to be her."

My mother knew about my allergy. She knew a single bite of a mango would put me in the ER. One word from her would have exposed the lie.

I looked at her, pleading. Tell them, Mom. Please.

She didn't even look at me. She just slapped me across the face. "I was wondering where that mango came from yesterday! How could I raise such a thief?"

I was stunned. You knew, Mom. You knew.

Why did you choose the bully over your own blood?

The memory made my ghostly stomach churn. I remembered the feeling of the hot saucethe burning in my throat, my lungs, my gut. Id thought that was the worst pain imaginable.

I was wrong. Being hated by the woman who gave you life is much, much worse.

When she got home, the neighbor, Mrs. Gable, was waiting by the fence. She looked pale. "Diane, did you hear? They found a body in the woods by the bypass. The police are looking for the family."

She shuddered. "They say its gruesome. Hit by a car, ravaged by animals... and then some vagrant dragged it off. My God, imagine the poor child."

My mother nodded solemnly. "That is horrific. Some people are just monsters."

Mom, you finally think Im a victim.

Then Mrs. Gable frowned. "Wait, wheres your youngest? I haven't seen her in two days. Is she okay?"

My mother gave a dismissive little snort.

"I wish it were her. After what she did to her sister, how does she even have the nerve to keep breathing? If that body in the woods is hers, after all that suffering... well, maybe she finally paid her sister back."

She talked about me like I was a piece of litter.

Mrs. Gable looked horrified. "Diane, maybe you should call the station. Just to be sure."

"She's too smart for that," my mother said, turning toward the door. "Shes just hiding because she stole that money. Let her stay out there. When she gets hungry enough, shell come crawling back. And then? Then shes really going to get it."

I let out a hollow, silent laugh.

Mom, I'm never coming back.

Suddenly, a black sedan pulled into the driveway. The door opened, and a girl stepped out. She looked so much like methe same eyes, the same hair.

My mothers face twisted into a snarl. She marched toward the girl, hand raised to strike. "You little brat, you finally showed your"

She stopped. Her hand hovered in the air. Her entire body began to shake, and tears flooded her eyes.

"Lacey? Is that... is that you?"

"Lacey, my baby... you're home. Tell me I'm not dreaming."

I watched as my sisterthe girl who had been dead for two yearsstepped into the light and hugged our mother.