The Eraser In My Brain Moved And My Sister Disappeared Chapter 04
The New Year’s remembrance ceremony began.
The town elder read a short blessing, and families stepped forward one by one to light memorial candles.
Mom bowed her head distractedly, barely paying attention.
Then the town volunteers carried the fireworks setup into the center of the clearing and stretched the fuse out across the snow. Just as someone was about to light it, Mom suddenly shouted, “Wait!”
Everyone looked at her.
“My Sienna isn’t here yet.” Her voice sounded dry. “For something this important, the whole family should be here.”
I narrowed my eyes.
Mom really did still care about me.
“She might be watching from nearby. Let’s go ahead and start. We shouldn’t miss the scheduled start of the blessing.”
“But…”
“Mom.”
Sunny suddenly tugged at Mom’s coat with one hand and pointed with the other toward the shallow hollow half-buried in snow.
“Was Sienna there yesterday?”
Mom followed the direction of her finger.
There seemed to be something at the bottom of the hollow.
Dad saw it too.
He frowned, walked over, and brushed away the thin layer of snow.
It was the sweater and coat I had taken off the night before.
They were frozen solid.
Dad’s hand stopped in midair, and Mom walked over too.
She stared at the pile of clothes for a few seconds, then suddenly lifted her head and looked around.
The snow-covered field was vast, white, and empty.
Sunny clenched the button eye tightly in her palm and asked in a small voice, “Wasn’t Sienna cold without her clothes?”
Dad picked up my sweater and stood there without moving.
“What the hell does that damn girl mean by leaving her clothes here?” Mom snapped. “Is she trying to stage some kind of pity stunt?”
Mom strode over, snatched the sweater from Dad’s hand, and shook it hard.
Ice crystals rattled down from it.
“She thinks if she leaves her clothes here, we’ll feel sorry for her and run all over town looking for her? In her dreams. If she freezes out here, that’s on her. She has no sense at all.”
Dad’s face had gone pale.
“She wasn’t here all night, was she?”
Mom froze for a moment. Then she slammed my sweater onto the ground even harder.
“It’s a pity stunt. It has to be a pity stunt. She wants us to worry. She wants us to regret scolding her yesterday. For all we know, she’s curled up in someone’s warm living room right now, laughing at us.”
Sunny pulled free from Mom’s hand and ran to the edge of the hollow too. She copied Dad and started digging through the snow.
Suddenly, she picked out something small.
It was my hair tie.
Sunny placed the hair tie beside the button eye in her frozen little hand, then looked up at Mom and Dad.
“It’s Sienna’s.”
Mom grabbed the hair tie from her, her fingers tightening until they turned white.
The neighbors around them sensed that something was wrong and gathered closer.
“Her clothes are here, but she’s gone? She didn’t come home last night?”
“Where could a child go in weather like this wearing nothing but a thermal shirt? Don’t tell me…”
“Don’t say that!” Mom cut them off sharply. “Nothing happened to her. She’s doing this on purpose.”
But I saw Mom’s hands shaking.
Dad said nothing more and started searching around the old oak.
The neighbors realized something was wrong too, and they began to help.
Mom held Sunny in her arms, and Sunny asked softly, “Did Sienna hide too, the way I did yesterday? Did she hide in that hollow?”
Mom heard her.
She suddenly froze, her gaze turning toward the hollow.
“Sienna, don’t you dare scare me. If I find out you’re tricking us, I swear I’ll kill you.”
That was what she said, but she set Sunny down and moved toward the hollow step by step.
Then she started digging with her hands.
“If you’re fooling us, I won’t want you anymore. I’ll let you forget us for good.”
Before she could finish speaking, a pink thermal shirt appeared beneath the snow.
Then came my face.