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Cece pulled out the cords from behind the tv. Her sister Tori sat on the bed with her hands cupping her chin. "What are you doing?"

"The lights in the house are off." she went behind the tv and unplugged it from the wall. "Because this bitch don't pay bills."

The two sat in their bedroom in the dark. If they could see the walls, they would be pure white. But with the darkness, they might as well had call it paint.

The smallest working thing in the room was a small digital clock that required batteries. Tori looked over her shoulder at the red light, "It's eleven-thirty." said Tori, for no reason at all except to beat the silence over them.

"Great." Cece bent to the carpet floor. She felt something wet under her knee. She sighed, "Well, Moco came in here and pissed on the carpet."

"Great." Tori stretched out her legs and sat back in the bed. "How much is the light bill?"

"Last I checked. Her bill was 480 dollars." Cece unraveled the cords. For a minute, she had an idea and lost it. She looked towards her sister in the dark. "Do we have potatoes?"

"Rotten."

"What else gives light? I'm not sitting in the dark because this bitch don't pay bills."

Tori shrugged. It wasn't the first time the lights went off. Their mother Davea cut a deal with the power company and they recently got the lights on. Two weeks, that's all it took to lose it all.

Torielle got a good five minutes into her PlayStation. Last time the lights shut off for four whole months and she had to stay downstairs and sleep on the couch. To make it worse, Davea didn't pay the water bill.

They used to live in an apartment in Brampton. If Vijay were here, he'd tell them all the things he had to do in India to get light.

The obvious answer would be stealing some candles. "Quit messing with the electric cables. Remember what happened last time." Tori reprimanded.

"I'm alive, so what?" If Tori could see in the dark, she'd find Cece's sneering face. "I'm so sick of living here. No food. No lights. It doesn't make sense."

"Like what..." claimed Tori. But she agreed. Torielle was a husky girl in overalls. A ponytail draped over her shoulder, sitting on the lower bottom of her head.

Her mother told her she looked like a pear. Cece said pay no attention to it. So Davea said she looked like a blueberry with clothes. Cece said, she's drunk.

So, when Davea was sober. She told Tori she ate up her money. Then when she was ten, after a fainting spell, it turned into, 'Baby, you need to eat something.'

At the age of 15, she weighed 150 pounds. Her sister told her it was fine. Cece, being the youngest. At 13, she weighed a good 51 pounds. Her doctor, Doctor Baxter told Davea to pick her weight up.

To quote: "She needs to eat five times a day."

Davea told the doctor she was homeless and couldn't feed the two. He said, "The girls are at the age they need to be cared for. You can put them into the adoption service."

Instead, Davea took the girls home. Told them to look at the house. Stand outside and shut the door in their faces. "Y'all is too much trouble!" she yelled through the door.

That was 3 years ago. The most frightening, anxiety-inducting, torture that girls had gone through. Halifax was in Nova Scotia. They lived near water. Cece wanted to forget the time she fell near the harbor.

Her lung clogging with water. Her body getting heavy. Tori grabbed her shirt trying to hoist her panicking sister. She took off the shirt unintentionally. Her sister was shirtless and ready to drown.

Tori yelled for help. She yelled for Vijay but he was back in Brampton. She'd rather hear sporadic gunshots or local Indians arguing on the streets.

Cece sat on the floor. Her eyes blind. She blinked and the darkness consumed more of her vision. "Cece," Tori sounded. "Hey, Cece!"

She had nothing by her side to thrown. Remember when we went to elementary and the gym teacher showed us how to swim? Float on your back. Torielle gripped her pants leg, pulling them up by the knee. "Sometimes I swear I can hear your thoughts."

Below the floor, Cece picked up the clanking of the front door. "She's home..."

"Why the fuck is my lights off?" Davea screeched. "Because you don't pay bills," the twins echoed. "And you keep lying about being homeless," muttered Tori.

"Cedrica! Torielle!" Davea threw down her bag on the wooden floor. "I can't leave the damn house without y'all playing!"

Cece and Tori stared at each other speechless. "What did we do?" Cece whispered. Tori shook her head as she scooted to the foot of the mattress and stood up.

Standing by the door, she could hear Davea yelling nonsense. Cece came next to her and rolled her eyes. "It's dark as hell in here. You could slip on something in the kitch—My foot just hit the water. Get y'all asses down here! I swear to God. Y'all just want me to die!"

"Yes..." the two agreed. "We don't have a flashlight!" Tori called out.

"That's not my problem!" Cece racked her hands over her face. Pulling her hair above her hairline and breathing heavily. "Y'all know exactly what you need to do! I bet if I find light, imma find dirt and dust."

"Yeah... you find it every day." Tori glowered. "How?" her sister snickers. "It's walking downstairs now..."

The girls heard a clash against the floor. Davea yelped downstairs, throwing swears into the air. Cece worried she'd run out of breath... which wouldn't be that bad.

"I told y'all to get the fuck down here! I can't find a damn thing!"

"We can't either..." the two looked at each other. Both thinking the same thing. She's unapologetically stupid. They couldn't see; why did she think they could? "I can't fucking do anything--"

"How did she know?" the two questioned. "Throw the basketball downstairs. Make a sound as if we headed down."

"Where is it," asked Tori.

"By the wall. Near the window."

Tori parted from the door. She went to the window and felt alongside it. She kicked her foot out until she met something hard. Tori grabbed the ball and tipped toed to the door. The stairs right in front of them. "Go open the window and hide under the bed," advised Tori.

She squatted down, rolling the basketball out the door. The ball traveled down the steps. One, two, three—not enough momentum. She swore under her breath. "I hear shit!" Davea rushed to the stairs, running into the rail. "Fuck! Tori! Cece! I swear to God--"

Tori took a breath and crawled under the bed with her sister. "You forgot to close the door."

She bit her bottom lip, yelling fuck a dozen times in her head. "As soon as I find a fucking light."

"Die..." they said in unison. The two hunched under the bed, watching under the cover draping the bottom for feet. "I know y'all in here. I'm so sick of this shit."

Davea flicked on the light and cursed under her breath. "We wouldn't be in this situation if the two of you would do something for once!"

Cece's mouth hung open. Nothing the woman said made sense. Did she expect the girls to pay bills? But she said yesterday, they didn't pay bills in the house. The house they stole.

"I should put y'all asses up for adoption. I should have kept the damn amulet." Davea went on and on. "You know the best thing about the dark?" Cece tapped her sister's hand. "You can't see her saggy ass face."

Tori smiled and let out a snort. Davea stood in front of the bed and pounced on the top, shaking the two under. "Get out from under the bed. I know y'all under there. I ain't stupid!"

They looked at each other, "What does she want with us?" Cece spoke in a hushed tone. "The cure to her insanity."

"You know what... I got a better fucking idea!" Davea got off the bed. "You bout to get the fuck out my house!"

"What did we do?" Tori brought into question. "Get from under the motherfucking bed!" Davea picked up the bottom and raised it. She shook the bed to coax the girl's out who rolled out from under the bottom. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Cece fumed as she dusted herself off. "You wanna know what's wrong with me?" Davea pointed an authoritative finger towards her. "I got two witches in the house that don't bring me no luck!"

"What is you talking about?" Tori shouted, lifting from the floor. "You do this every day."

She started clapping every word. "I AM BROKE!

"WE KNOW!" Tori mocked. "Or else the lights wouldn't be off."

Davea drew in her lip and howled to the ceiling, "GET THE FUCK OUT." She grabbed Torielle and dragged her out the door. Cece followed behind, damning Davea. "I'm sick of it all. I'm tired of being broke. And all the magic in the world can't solve it!"

"I don't know magic!" exasperated Tori. "Yes, you do."

Once Davea got the front door open. She shoved Tori out the door. "Stay right there. Imma get ya sister, so you can take the trash out."

No, she didn't.

As Davea turned, Cedrica was coming down the steps. "You don't need to come and get me." she scowled.

"I don't care about you frowned up!" Neither did she. Davea's face crinkled like silver candy paper. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Cece examined her own question. Did she expect a sensible answer from a crackhead when asked why he did crack? No. This was that very situation. Davea was a crackhead believing in magic. She and her sister didn't know anything about it nor accepted it. "Are you high? Drunk? Twisted? Or Dying?"

Davea's lips contorted. "Dying?"

"People see and hear strange shit when they about to die. Maybe the devil callin'" retorted Tori. "You little motherfuckers can eat shit." the wicked bitch of the east coast growled.

"I didn't know your weave was edible." Cece crossed her arms over her white tank top."

"Whatever." Davea backed out of the threshold and slammed the door in the sister's faces.