Bury the Sunlight

Their mother used to tell them that they were special.

She used to lay in Wanda's bed and stroke her dark hair softly- telling the twins the same stories night after night, year after year. The stories about when they were still safe in her tummy, wrapped around one another like they were one being- one person. She says that every time she would go for a check up- the ultrasounds would show them with they're little arms and fingers wrapped around the other. She says that sometimes the doctors would get nervous because they could only hear the quiet echo of one heartbeat- but they came to realize that the two of their hearts were so synchronous with the other that you could barely pick out the difference.

Sometimes Pietro would shuffle from his bed a few feet away and try to join Wanda and their mother on the small twin bed. His boyish frame would wiggle himself in between them. Wanda would shove him away sometimes but eventually yield and rest her head on her brother's bony shoulder. Their mother would laugh and kiss the tops of their heads.

Wanda liked to hear the story of the day they were born. Their mother would say that they came nearly four weeks earlier then expected. But that just meant that they just couldn't wait to be together, to be a family- even if it meant that their fingers and toes were especially tiny for the first few weeks. Pietro arrived twelve minutes earlier than Wanda- something he would hold over her head for years and years to come. But their mother said for those twelve minutes- Pietro cried and wailed incessantly. Nothing they or the nurses could do would comfort him in the slightest until he heard the tiny cries of his baby sister. Wanda let out a few tiny noises at first- but they set her down right next to her brother and the two of them were content- letting out tiny little coos and yawns in their parents arms. Their mother said that little Pietro just missed his sister so much that he couldn't bare it; and just because their little bodies grew doesn't mean that that side of them ever went away.
Wanda was always the first- she was the first to lift her head, the first to crawl, to walk. But her brother didn't like being left behind her so he always would follow her lead a few days or even hours later. Wanda's first word was her own rendition of her brothers name, pee-to.

Their mother would hold them close when they were little and tell them that they were so special. They had the gift of each other in their lives. They were yin and yang, opposites but always just two sides of the same coin; Pietro always the brash, loud and brave, Wanda the thoughtful, caring and cautious. They said that they were the same one soul forged into two halves and that they would always have they're second half.

As they would fall asleep in the arms of each other and their mother, she would tell them that the four of them were a family; that their family would always be together no matter what to love each other and hold each other through everything.

But mothers say a lot of things to their children.

+++

It's three weeks away from their eleventh birthday when the shell hits their building.

The living room floor collapses and they watch from the hall as the hole opens and swallows up their parents. Pietro did what he could to save himself and Wanda and they end up sheltered from their crumbling roof under Pietro's bed. The second shell falls right in front of them but by some miracle doesn’t go off. Pietro presses Wanda's face into his chest, trying by any means to hide her away- to comfort her fears. Wanda spends three days listening to the thump of his heart. They become each other's entire world.

+++

They spend over a year at the orphanage.

They don’t like to interact with the other kids much. They huddle in corners and put up barriers between themselves and everyone else. In the evenings, the caretakers have to drag them apart to the separate boys and girls dormitories. Wanda cries out for her brother every time until she falls asleep whimpering; and Pietro has a history of sneaking away to find her. The therapists that the orphanage sends them to, says that it's their way of healing and mourning. But that doesn't stop the whispering. The other children don't seem to care at all, but the facility workers think that the twins are odd.

One morning they find Pietro had snuck out of bed again. They find him and Wanda asleep, wrapped up in each others arms, with Wanda's head resting on his chest. The adults whisper that it's wrong, it's inappropriate, it's unhealthy. They split the twins up. Wanda remembers screaming for Pietro as they drag her out the door and into a van with a few other kids. From somewhere in building she hears her brother's voice shouting for her until they drive away.

+++

They put her into foster care.

Her caseworker, a woman with ink-black hair and lipstick two-shades too dark, places her with a middle aged couple. The woman has dull green eyes and blonde hair, the yellowish kind that could have only come from a bottle. The man is balding and wears thin wire-framed glasses around his dark eyes and when he smiles at Wanda and holds her hand it makes her stomach feel queasy.

They take her to their house in the suburb with a garden and a picket fence- a family's dream. But when they walk inside the air is stale and tastes like ash and cigarette smoke in Wanda's mouth. A few days later, the woman leaves the house to go grocery shopping and the man comes into Wanda's room reeking of smoke and alcohol. When he touches her, she feels herself die a little bit inside. A few tears squeeze out of her eyes but the man barely notices and if he does see- he doesn't care. She looks out the window at the setting sun and wonders if Pietro is watching the same sunset.

She wonders how long can a soul be away from it's other half before it breaks? When her soul breaks will it shatter into pieces? Or will it wither and wilt like a flower without water, until she realizes it's no longer even there?

The next day the man goes out and buys her new clothes and sweets. Wanda looses her taste for sugar and stays in the ratty t-shirts she came with, they still smell of Pietro.

Six months later Wanda wakes up, her thighs coated in blood. The woman is kind and nurturing. She buys Wanda new sheets, pajamas and tampons. But after that the man looses interest in her and Wanda feels herself sleeping easier for a few weeks. But then a new girl is placed with the couple. The girl's name is Sophia and she's barely eight years old.

That night she hears footsteps in the hallway outside her room. They pass her door and Wanda lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. She presses her ear to the wall and hears the man open Sophia's door. Wanda worries her lip between her teeth and looks out her window to the stars. The moon shines brightly on her face and she smiles in the light and thinks of Pietro. Her brother's confidence fills her and she finds herself padding down the hallway. She lingers in the doorway of Sophia's bedroom. The man sits down on the bed and Wanda feels herself surge forward. The little girl screams out when Wanda breaks a flower vase over the man's head. He falls- unconscious, the white glass shards and the red roses scatter on the bed. The red of the roses match the color of the blood trickling out of his scalp and Wanda thinks it's almost beautiful in the moonlight.

+++

Wanda sits in the back of an ambulance with a scratchy blanket wrapped around her shoulders. There are angry red cuts on her forearms and feet left from the glass shards and splinters they pulled out of her. She watches as police question the blonde woman and Sophia. Wanda wonders if the woman knew what was happening all along but the woman is crying and Wanda hopes she didn't.

She sees her caseworker pull up in an old blue sedan. She glances towards Wanda in the ambulance and shakes her head. Wanda watches as she talks with the woman and the man sitting in the back of a police car. A few minutes later she comes over and tells Wanda that if they don't press charges for molestation then the couple won't press charges for assault. Wanda shrugs.

The woman nods. Her eyes flicker over Wanda's form and she smiles a little bit and says that she won't let any other children be placed with the couple. Wanda thinks that her caseworker looks a lot prettier without the angry dark red lipstick. She says that she's sorry for what happened. She says Wanda did a good thing- protecting the other girl.

The sun rises from wherever it's been hiding all night. The light paints the sky a collage of purples and blue and pinks and orange. She feels the sunlight warm her face in little tingles and she thinks of Pietro. He'd be proud of her, too.

+++

After that they write "VIOLENT TENDENCIES" in big angry red letters on her file. Her caseworker sends her to a group home in a city they have to fly to. No family wants a violent child.

She asks her caseworker about Pietro on the flight.

She purses her too red lips as if willing her mouth shut and quiet. She takes a sip of orange juice from the tiny cup the stewardess gave her and says her brother ran away from the orphanage more than three weeks ago.

+++

The group home seems like a prison. The caretakers (one there at night and one there during the day) are her wardens and the other seven girls are the other inmates. The caretakers are kind and do things like watch TV with Wanda but they don't let anyone leave without an escort. The older girls are mean at first, pouring cold water on her while she's in the shower or spitting in her food. But once they establish their dominance and get used to her they leave her alone.

After that it does feel more comfortable, more like a home. Each of the girl has chores and cooking duties. Wanda is responsible for vacuuming the house and washing the windows once a week. She also cooks dinner for the other girls every Thursday night. She generally can only make things like pasta at first, but one of the other girls' parents were chefs and she teaches Wanda how to roast meat and cut veggies in their spare time.

She shares a room with two other girls. There isn't much for privacy but the girl that had chefs for parents tries to convince Wanda it's just like an long-term slumber party.

They watch cooking shows together and the girl likes to imagine that the chefs on TV are her parents. But then she smiles sadly and reminds herself and Wanda that isn't possible. Her parents have been dead for a long time now.

Wanda asks if the weight in her heart will ever go away and the girl shakes her head. Not really, but it can lighten.

She also tells Wanda that she'll go blind if she watches the sun any longer.

+++

Eventually the chefs' daughter turns eighteen and leaves without another look back.

The other girls say she moved in with some distant cousin and Wanda never sees her again.

Wanda understands why she left. Given the opportunity and the means Wanda would probably leave this place too. But Wanda's heart feels heavy like iron in her chest when she thinks about her friend. The chef's daughter had people waiting for her outside the system- people to go to- to miss her. Wanda isn't quite sure what will happen to her in a few years when she ages out of the system. She doesn't think anyone will be waiting with open arms for her- no distant cousins to speak of.

She wonders if Pietro still remembers her.

If he did run away why did he never come for her? They were always supposed to be together. What is a soul without it's other half?

++

She can't look at herself in the mirror after that. As a result she can hardly recognize herself on the rare occasion she catches a glimpse of her reflection- she only sees Pietro's face staring back at her. Their bones are shaped the same, same high cheek bones, same nose, same brow. But Wanda's eyes are dark like chocolate and her lips are fuller and more tinted than Pietro and the disconnect makes Wanda queasy every time.

And it hurts too much so she avoids it all together.

++

The day after her sixteenth birthday her caseworker comes to the house. Her makeup is smudged from sleeping on the flight and her lips are still two shades too dark.

She says there is a woman in the country side that is willing to take her in. Her caseworker smiles as she says it but given her history with foster families Wanda is less than pleased.

She thinks this is hardly a birthday present.

++

The woman's name is Gloria. She picks Wanda up from the train station in town in a rickety old pick up truck. Her skin is the color of the salted caramel her brother used to love so much and she talks with an accent Wanda doesn't recognize. But her face round and warm and her eyes crinkle with age when she laughs.

They drive for nearly an hour on a highway leading away from civilization. They drive over rolling hills and expansive meadows and farmland. It's a side of her home country Wanda has never seen before- away from the violence, from the war. The countryside is peaceful and still as the sun sets. Gloria pulls off the main street onto a beat up gravel road and Wanda can see the big farmhouse and barn looming on the horizon as they drive closer.

Gloria tries to strike up a conversation but Wanda is tired and quiet in the passenger seat and Gloria lets it go until they pull the truck up next to the house.

"Do you have a family?" Wanda asks when they enter through the side door. She toes a curiously small pair of shoes on the doormat with her boot.
Gloria smiles, sun-darkened wrinkles forming around her mouth.

"Not anymore." She takes a breath and shakes her head. "Had a husband once- didn't stick. Last foster kid- a little boy- bless his heart- they found some relative or friend of his family to take him in."

She explains that her family came to Sokovia when she was just a young girl from a country to the south. They were refugees- running from one war to another. After all their trials and turmoil, her parents were killed on the street for the cash in their pockets. With no one to claim her she was sent into the foster system.

"I know that there are bad foster families in the world." Gloria sighs later, sliding a mug of tea across the counter Wanda is leaning on. "So I want to make sure that there is at least one good one."
Wanda's lips form a small smile around the rim of her mug. Gloria mumbles something about maybe being a bit self-righteous.

++

Gloria is kind and caring like a lot of her caretakers have been in the past. But Gloria is different. She puts Wanda to work and actually pays her for it- cleaning the stables, feeding the horses- horses! Wanda's six year old self is grinning inside her head when she pats their necks or hears them whinny at night. She teaches Wanda how to drive the truck and eventually she gets the hang of it. She gives Wanda choices; something that Wanda hasn't experienced in nearly seven years. She lets Wanda pick her bedroom from the three upstairs, she lets Wanda go to sleep and eat when she wants- the only exception being dinner-time which would be a sit down occasion every night unless Gloria has to work late. Along with managing the small farm, Gloria somehow manages to find the time to be a Spanish teacher at the local school. She asks Wanda if she wants to be enrolled in school at the start of the new semester. But Wanda would rather not, so Gloria homeschools her in their free time.

One of the horses gives birth during Wanda's third month there and Gloria lets her name the foal. Wanda feels the warmth of the sun's light on her skin trickling through cracks in the barn wall. She names the baby Pietro.

Gloria knowingly smiles sadly beside her.

++

Exactly seven months after she moved in a boy one year her senior comes to live at the farm. Gloria accepts him too with a warm smile and a mug of tea.

The first time Wanda sees him her heart almost stops. His hair is a dark mop of brown a top his head and his eyes are the color of the sky. She sees Pietro in his face and when she kisses his lips a month later she thinks of her brother.

She gives up what is left of her virginity to the boy when she's seventeen and he pretends he doesn't hear her when she comes with her face in the sunlight and Pietro's name on her lips.

++

Wanda realizes that she forgets that other people have stories- they have their own demons.

Because four months after the boy that made her heart flutter came into her life with her brother's features hidden in his face, he swallows a bottle of pills and dies in the room next to hers while she sleeps.

++

They offer her and Gloria grief counseling. But they both know how to deal with tragedy by now.

++

The day after her eighteenth birthday Gloria drives her to the train station. Wanda's caseworker meets them in the parking lot with a hug. Wanda hoists her heavy gym bag (upgraded from her small duffel bag) from the bed of the truck and they all say their goodbyes.

Gloria assures Wanda that there will always be a place at her table for her if she ever needs it. Wanda smiles, her skin darkened and tough from two years in the sun. She would love to stay in the never ending plains- where she could run with the horses for miles and miles in the sun until her body gave out. But now she has a mission- a goal to achieve.

She boards the train confidently and from behind her on the platform hears Gloria tell her caseworker that she should try a lighter shade of lipstick.

++

Wanda walks the city streets of her old home until angry blisters form on her heels in her shoes- but she doesn't want to stop. The busy roads are eerie in the pinks and blues of twilight; familiar but so foreign, like walking in a dream. She runs her fingers along the old brick of a stoic building. She thinks there used to be a bakery here- it's a mini-mart now.

She walks the last few block slowly- the skin of her feet screaming in protest. She knows the building she is looking for, but she's standing in front of where it once stood and in front of her is the charred ruins of hat used to be. Her heart leaps into her throat and she runs her fingers down the front door- ash sticking to the pads of her fingers.

"Burned down three years ago." A gruff voice to her left says. She sees a homeless man sitting on the ground about ten feet away. "Any spare change?"

"Sorry." Wanda shakes her head then clears her throat. "Do you know anything about it?"

"No one died." The man shrugged. "They got all the kids out in time but they lost basically everything else."

"Including any records." Wanda thought aloud.

"I would guess." He nodded and pursed his lips. "You stay at the orphanage when it was open?"

"My brother and I did." She sighed, the man grunted in response. All records of what may have happened to Pietro after they took her away were gone now. Her only lead to her brother. The last bit of sun started to disappear against the horizon, the light leaking away with it. She silently begged the sun not to set- for the light to not leave her again.

She sat on the stoop, holding back tears as darkness fell. She tossed the man half of the sandwich Gloria packed her.

++

Wanda exhausted every avenue of investigation that she could to find her brother. But she barely had enough cash to keep herself alive- much less pay the lawyers and private investigators necessary to get the information she wanted. So she got a job waitressing in their old home neighborhood. She hoped Pietro would come looking for her too one day.

++

Two years later Wanda steps out of the restaurant through the side door. She finds the least dirty part of the thin alleyway and sits. She thumbs through the novel previously tucked away in her apron and takes a drink from a bottle of water. She hears the footsteps approaching and tenses instinctively.

"Piss off." She says without looking up. The alley was usually deserted and peaceful but every now and again vagrants would find her little excuse for a break room.

"Hell of a way to great someone with an opportunity." The approaching man chuckled. "Wanda Maximoff?"

Wanda's eyes flick up. "Who's asking?"

"I represent a global peace keeping organization and we have an opportunity for you." The man stands a few feet away from her with a briefcase in one hand and his other hand outstretched for Wanda to take. She narrows her eyes at him.

"Oh really?" Wanda scoffs. "Why would you ever want little old me?"

"Let's just say we're interested in a genetic trait you possess." The man pauses and shifts his weight on his feet. "You're a twin, Ms. Maximoff."

"You want- you want to experiment on me?" Wanda nearly laughs. "Hell of a business pitch. Why would I just agree blindly to that?

"Because we can find your brother, Ms. Maximoff."