Read Online Steeplechase by Krissy Kneen - Free Book Online Page B

it in the neck of my shirt. I struggle to turn the T-shirt and I reach for a cardigan to hide behind.
    And then there is this.
    Emily stands suddenly and jogs on the spot. She opens the door and runs down the stairs and off towards the fence. It seems she might be about to leave the property. She will be punished for this. We will both be punished. I hurry out to the veranda. She tags the fence as if this were a game. She runs back towards me and I cower to one side, her hand stretched out to hit me, not to hit me, to tap the front door and then she turns again and runs, faster now, panting, sweating, running as if she is being chased. Fence, tap, door, tap, fence, tap, door, tap and I count a dozen repetitions before she stops suddenly and bends over, clutching her knees, catching her breath.
    It is a long time before she straightens and even then she grasps at her side and bends a little to ease the pain of a stitch. She slinks past me without even glancing in my direction, but when she opens the door she hisses, ‘Don’t bother thanking me,’ and slams the screen door shut behind her.
    And.
    She touches a vase sixteen times. Suddenly. Without explanation. Counting.
    And.
    She turns on her bed and sleeps with her feet touching the headboard.
    And.
    She crouches in the prickly grass and whispers something to no one and then kills a meat ant with her thumb. I watch her lick it off her finger and swallow it, eyes squeezed tight shut, a grim frown tugging her lips down. She speaks to herself but when I approach she stops and pretends she was not speaking at all.
    And one time she pinches me. I am doing nothing. I am sitting in the grass following an ant as it braves a miniature world of struggle and danger, dragging a twig, of all things. It walks backwards, hauling the thing clutched between two strong mandibles. I hold my breath as it reaches a rock and feels for a foothold with one of its back legs. Precarious, life and death, one false move and it will tumble. The stick will crash onto it, the ant will be crushed. Her fingers pinch my arm so hard that my eyes water. Palomino, who is sleeping calmly behind me, his warm dog-scented flank pressed against my back, startles at the sudden movement and scrambles to his feet.
    â€˜What?’
    But she has turned and is running as if she is frightened that I might chase after her. I rub my arm, which is already starting to bruise. Palomino trails behind me as I walk back to the house. Our mother is standing by the window as if she was watching this exchange. Before our mother snapped she was tightly wound: a leprechaun, our grandmother called her, an imp, a spriggan. A troublemaker, but she says this in a way that makes the word into a compliment. You are just like your mother, she says to Emily sometimes but this is not a compliment.
    I let the door swing shut behind me and stand at the window beside my mother and slip my fingers into her hand. Maybe she can feel me. She rarely flinches when I touch her. My voice can’t disturb her waking sleep. Only our grandmother can make her sit or stand or eat.
    There is still an hour of free play left. Outside my sister stands at the fence line, leaning forward, making the taut wire stretch. I wonder what it looks like to be wound so tight that you might snap. I wonder if our mother used to pinch people all of a sudden or run laps of the garden as if her life depended on it, speak to herself quietly when no one else was there to hear. I imagine Emily after she has snapped: standing at the fence. She wouldn’t look any different. She is swinging back and forth and sometimes our mother rocks in her chair. Maybe Emily has snapped already. I watch her until my legs ache from standing too long in the same position. She has grown taller. She looks more like a woman than a child. She is beautiful and slender and yet her waist nips in, giving her an hourglass silhouette.
    There is a dark bruise on my upper arm. I wriggle my