There are twelve sisters, and their house is falling apart. There have not always been twelve, but now there are twelve. Sometimes there are ten, because one of them is being Mother, and another Father. Sometimes there are only six, because a handful are running away. 

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Rhododendron is prettiest. Sorrel is hungriest, stomping around the house, parting floorboards and collecting termites, popping them into her mouth and crunching like potato chips. Clover is cleverest, and maybe oldest. She tracks social services, prepares for visits. Depending on the agent, the sisters can use threats and intimidation, or the Oxford English Dictionary. No one has their birth certificates. They are 18. Are you calling them liars?  

Are you? 

The agent seated on the rocking chair shakes her head. Of course not, she says. Her hair is short and so is she. The sisters could take her. 

This is a welfare check, the agent says, as did the agent before her, and the agent before her. They are always women. Always hopeful. 

Did you bring us anything? asks Briar, the littlest sister. She sits on the agent’s lap, creaking the rocking chair. They are nearly the same size. 

The last one brought macaroons, says another sister. Coconut. 

So gross, a sister says. 

The agent looks around the space and hugs her arms to her chest. She wants to hug the sisters. Of course she does. They all do. They all have that same feeling––that they’ve been here before, to this house, amongst these sisters. The feeling passes. Usually it passes. 

The agent with the passing feeling talks about malnourishment, about the house. She feels its walls, points to places where the ceiling is caving in, mentions water damage, the precariousness of the chandelier, the coming winter. 

When the agent sits back down, the rocking chair collapses. Wooden––termites. The sisters laugh and a few of them clap, because agents are enemies, and sisters shall be victorious. 

Bruised and hopeless, a little afraid, the agent takes her leave, looking back longingly. And then she is gone, and the sisters rejoice. The sisters sprint off, out of the house, buoyant, effervescent. 

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Sorrel and Briar go off together, toward the swamp. They wade in, letting mud under their skirts and into their blouses. Sorrel hands Briar a termite she has been saving. Briar kisses the mite, puts it in her pocket. 

Mother? Briar smiles. 

Fine, Sorrel says. I’ll be Mother. 

Mother, I’m taking my bath. Briar lets her body float on the marsh. Aren’t you proud? 

I’m proud darling, Sorrel says. But darling, isn’t it unfair that I have to be Mother, just because I’m older? 

Mother––Briar tips her head back into the mud, lets it coat her hair––I’m too small to be a mother. 

Sorrel starts to cry, even though she is too old to cry. I want real Mother, she says. Then she holds her breath and goes under the mud. When she emerges, she is covered, monstrous. 

Swamp monster, she says, wading toward Briar. Briar laughs, cowers. Swamp Mother! she screams. 

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When Sorrel and Briar tire of the swamp, they unmuddy themselves as best they can, and make their way to the big oak tree. 

Briar squints her eyes, sunlight glinting through the leaves. I worry she isn’t up there. 

She’s up there, Sorrel says. She has to be. Where else would she be? 

And Father? Briar embraces the tree, unable to get her arms fully around it. Is Father up there too? 

Don’t be stupid, Sorrel says. Father left us. 

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By nightfall, the rest of the sisters have joined, are circling the tree. This is ritual. Mother tree before supper. 

Rhododendron has brought binoculars but won’t let the others look through them. She says she sees Mother, so clearly, on the uppermost branch. Says Mother looks like a sloth, woven around the branch. Says Mother is nearly camouflaged, so well does she fit in with the foliage. 

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After Mother tree, the sisters slurp down supper. Soup, and other things foraged. Whatever they’ve stolen from the market. Tonight, baguettes. Clover, cleverest and maybe oldest, is the only one who goes into town. The rest of the sisters are worried they will run into Father. Worried they won’t know what to say. That they will break down and sob. That they will kill him. 

If there’s an agent tomorrow, says a sister, we should pelt her with baguettes. 

A sister makes a slurping noise. Seems wasteful. 

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There is no agent tomorrow. It is too sunny and too windy, and Briar is restless. Sucking her thumb no longer fills the void. She is growing up. She must grow up. She shall do a runaway, to mark the occasion. 

Rays of sun slash through the window as Briar packs a rucksack, packs her toothbrush and her nightie, as she has seen her sisters do––usually they are back by morning, sometimes the runaway takes longer. Briar leaves through the backdoor, wondering if sisters grow up, if a sister has ever grown up, if she will be the first grown sister in all of the world. 

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Briar counts pebbles as she makes her way in the direction of somewhere. She wishes she could count her age, but nobody will tell her, no one remembers. She is still small, has always been small. 

As she has no sense of direction, no sense at all really, she is soon at the outskirts of town. She flaps her skirt, shaking off crusted mud, and proceeds into town. She will be the bravest sister. 

Briar enters the market, lured by scents, and drags her feet through the dairy aisle. She is thinking what to steal––she can’t remember what milk is supposed to smell like––when she’s grabbed by the collar and guided toward the checkout counter. A man collects grocery bags, and the woman whose hand is on Briar’s collar kisses the man, smiles at the cashier, and the three of them make their way out of the market together, Briar trying to think what to say, what to do. She will decide later. 

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The sisters do not miss Briar. Sorrel has the feeling, over the next few days, that something is missing, something has been forgotten, but she can’t put a finger on it. Then Clover steals Rhododendron’s binoculars and hell breaks loose, and Briar is less than a thought. 

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Where Briar is, has been, is a bedroom, in a house that is strange, because it is clean and sturdy. The room is painted orange with pictures of insects on the walls, and a faraway photo of a little girl who might be Briar. 

The mother keeps coming in to check on her. Not hungry? she asks. 

Briar shrugs and looks at the termite Sorrel gave her, which is fossilizing on her new nightstand. 

You should bathe, the mother says. I can draw you a bath. Would you like that? 

Briar scrunches her nose. She is smelling, likely, herself. 

The mother says she knows what Briar is feeling, she thinks she does, thinks she has been where Briar is, that Briar should trust her, because they are alike. 

If Briar could gather the courage to speak, to make her voice loud and intelligible, she might ask, might inquire, might be curious if her sisters are coming too. 

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She doesn’t ask. Eventually, she forgets entirely. A week or two passes, and Briar is the only-est only child there is. Has accepted the father and even the mother, in spite of the nagging feeling that a realer one is up in an oak tree. 

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No more trees. No mud. Briar has never been cleaner. She doesn’t need her toothbrush, or her nightie. The parents give her fresh ones, without holes, without mold between the bristles. Briar’s bed is sturdy enough to jump on. She wants to see how many jumps until it breaks. She jumps and jumps into her new life. 

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Her life moves forward. She bathes. Starts school. Gets taller, though not by much. Learns to garden. Her mother teaches her, teaches her about seeds and soil and patience. About watching things grow. Waiting until they are ripe, then plucking them. 

When Briar bleeds, her mother smiles and says she is growing up. And Briar remembers, yes, that is what she set out to do. She has done what she set out to do. She will keep going. Growing and growing. Until she is ripe. 

△ 

There are eleven sisters and their house is falling apart. There have not always been eleven, but now there are eleven. 

Time passes. So much time. The sisters do not register it. Nor do their bodies. Their bodies do not change. Because of the house, the mother tree, termites, malnourishment, water damage, the coming winter––the sisters stay the same. Routine and ritual and sameness––their lives are built upon it. 

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An agent is coming, says Clover. She’s by the window, binoculars in hand.  

Rhododendron did not speak to Clover for several months, years even, but has since forgotten, since accepted, that the binoculars belong to and always belonged to Clover. 

Woman? 

Naturally, says Clover. 

Small? 

Small. 

What else? 

She is walking like she owns the sidewalk, Clover scowls. She is carrying a purse, and her nose is way up in the air, like a balloon. 

The sisters laugh, scowl, get in ready position. Seating themselves along the couch like the pristine and capable and competent 18 year olds they are. Are you calling them liars? 

The agent shakes her head. She stands by the door, studying the house. It is like a painting she has seen, must have seen, when she was younger, too young to remember. The chandelier, decadent and tarnished, hanging tenuously from the ceiling. She wants to swing on it. Though she is grown, the agent imagines herself swinging, has a feeling––a feeling that will not pass––that she has swung on this chandelier before, that part of her is swinging on it now, and has been her whole life. 

Come with me, she tells the sisters, her sisters. I can help you, like I was helped. Leaving isn’t always bad, we all have to leave. Leave with me, she says, but her mind is elsewhere. Her mind is a pendulum, swinging, hypnotized. And the sisters are stomping their feet and refusing, shouting, cursing, and soon enough the agent is being tackled by all eleven of them. 

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Beneath the sisters, the agent struggles to breathe, while feeling, simultaneously, that she can finally breathe, can finally exhale a long and labored breath. Her eyes move around the floorboards. A termite scuttles toward her, and she wants it, remembers it, opens her mouth and waits for it to crawl in.