Mom dropped me off at school, then went to work at the grocery store. Sedna stayed in the tub. In the evenings, I locked myself in the bathroom with her. That claustrophobic room with mustard walls and moldy tile was our world. We were safe from the monster our mother was transforming into. This routine became our new normal.

"Our, um... your school has a library, right?" Sedna asked, one evening through a mouth full of PB and J. She pointed to the small, black and white television Mom had set up for her next to the sink. "The schools in the cartoons I watch have libraries."

"You have to remember the library! The librarian who lives there is really nice. He reads my class picture books."

"Can you -" Sedna cut herself off and tilted her head. "Your librarian lives in the library?"

I shrugged. "You live in the bathtub. He lives in the library... I think."

"Maybe I'm not the only weirdo," Sedna said with a simile.

"You're not a weirdo! You just live in the bathtub."

Sedna giggled, but it turned into coughing. She dipped her head under the water before asking, "Can you get me a new math book from the library? Your homework is too easy."

My eyes widened. "You're really smart, Sedna! Genius smart!"

My twin shook her head. "I just need to teach myself. You're lucky. You have a teacher."

I honored Sedna's request and then continued to get her increasingly challenging math books as the years went on. "Why are your books always speckled with water?" the librarian questioned when I returned them.

By the fourth grade, Sedna was teaching herself calculus and sped through my math homework. Numbers weren't my thing; I liked words. But over time, Mom stopped cooking dinner most nights, and the laundry piled up. An aching belly and dirty clothes became my problems to solve.

The first time I used the stove, I splashed oil on my arm. It burned. I ran screaming to the bathroom and sank my arm in Sedna's bathtub. The skin swelled and blistered. It left a scar that still speckles my left arm. But I gathered myself and finished dinner through misty eyes, and Sedna still ate that charred, oily grilled cheese with a smile.

"I'm like your pet fish," Sedna said, "you need to feed me, or I'll die."

I left a sandwich out for Mom too. The plate was empty in the morning, but Mom never thanked me. Mom never thanked me for anything.

In the fifth grade, Senda became an urban legend at school.

"Moray's twin was murdered before kindergarten!" a boy announced at recess. His eager voice gathered a crowd. Kids stopped playing soccer and hopscotch to listen. I even put down my clover chain to join.

The storyteller raised his hands dramatically, capturing his audience. "That's why Sedna had silver eyes and gray hair. She was dead; her body just didn't know it. Now she haunts this school at night, suffocating anyone she finds. She's jealous that the living can still breath."

"That's not true. Ghosts aren't real," I shouted.

Eyes turned to me.

"Then where's your sister, Moray?" the storyteller mocked before sticking out his tongue.

"She's... in the bathtub," I mumbled, embarrassed. It was a secret, or at least I thought it was.

The boy took a stomp towards me. "Speak up!" he taunted, "I can't hear you."

"Mind your own business!" I screamed back at him before chanting, "I don't wanna tell you. Don't wanna tell you. It's not gonna happen. It's none of your business." My cheeks burned.

A chorus of laughter and "oohs" erupted from the audience.

"Whatever," the boy said before running off.

And from that day on, the rumors grew like wildfire. Having a ghost for a sister had an air of mystery, but the gossip about my alcoholic mother stung. The stories of her passing out drunk around town, flirting with my classmates' dads, and throwing up behind the grocery store cut a wedge between my peers and me. "Stay away from her," I heard kids whisper in the halls. "Her mom's a drunk."

Beer cans and booze bottles piled up on the kitchen counters. Mom smacked me when I questioned her about them. "Mind your own damn business, Moray," she'd slur. "I can stop any time, but I don't wanna, sooooo it's not gonna happen."

When I was ten, Mom started forgetting to pick me. After waiting for hours and hours, I just started walking the half-hour home in the grueling heat. My skin burned, and my feet blistered. I started walking to school too. Again, this became my normal.

But, Dear Baby, it wasn't all bad. I'm not writing this to depress you. Mom still bought groceries, toys, and clothes. One particular white T-shirt with a sparkly, pink wolf paw print on the chest that I wore all the time. And my neighbor Ronda occasionally dropped off dinners. Her chicken soup and tacos were delicious.

"Why do you keep bringing me food?" I once asked Ronda as she handed me a bag full of Tupperware dishes.

Ronda smiled. She untucked an ear pinned behind her hair to reveal that it was pointed. "Because dear, life is hard. Us magic folks need to stick together. It's what my parents taught me."

"Un-huh," I said, scrunching my lips. It crossed my mind that she was a crazy old bat.

Soon after that, I found a black bike with a yellow frame on my doorstep. An attached note read, For your school commute, from Ronda. Oh, Darling Child, I wish that I could write that I showed Ronda gratitude, but I didn't. I took a page from my mother's book and never said so much as a thank you.

And I guess this isn't really a letter anymore. It's transformed into a memoir of sorts. Writer's Craft was my favorite class in high school; it gave me a means of escaping my dreary life into my own worlds. And perhaps I'm hoping to show off what I learned on these pages because I want you to think your mother was smart and good at something. But your aunt Sedna is the smart one. Learning kept her sane despite her limited life. In contrast, I only passed middle school because of her.

But I digress.

I still feel the pit in my stomach and strain on my shoulders from the first morning I skipped school. I froze mid-stride in the door. It was as if I'd slammed into a wall crafted from my dread of spending another day being ignored by my peers and listening to teachers who knew I was stupid. I screamed and swore. I turned around and punched a hole through the drywall with a bang. My knuckle, speckled with white flakes from the destruction, throbbed.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. The tab popped open, and I took a swig. It was bitter and made me gag, but I kept drinking. It felt like home.

"Moray?" my sister's voice asked. "What are you doing?"

Sedna was slouched against the kitchen's doorway. Her ribs poked through her navy bathing suit, and her cheeks were hollow. I hadn't seen her out of the bathtub in years. It was like seeing a ghost.

She gasped then collapsed to the floor.

"Sedna!" I shouted, dropping the can. Beer spilled on the tile as I dashed to kneel in front of her.

My twin crawled onto my lap, and water seeped into my pants legs. Even soaking, she hardly weighed anything. Still, she clung to my waist with a strong grip. "Don't," she said between coughs. "Don't be like Mom. You can't drink. You're all I have. Go to school."

"I can't go to school," I pleaded.

"You need to. If you're not educated, how will you escape this place? At least one of us-" Again, her hacking and wheezing stole her voice.

She convulsed as I placed her arm over my shoulders then dragged her to her feet. Trembling and heart pounding, I followed her trail of drips back to the tub. Once I placed her in the water, she lay still. Her sunken, silver eyes bore into me.

"Don't do that again," I pleaded, my eyes watering.

She coughed, and something twitched under her swimsuit. They were two frilly lines running parallel over her ribs. When I leaned forward to get a better look, she crossed her arms to hide them.

"Go to school," she wheezed.

"No. Show me your ribs."

Sedna shook her head.

"You're sick. Show me," I demanded, grabbing her wrist to move her arms out of the way. But I dropped her wrists and stepped back. Multiple, short, self-harm scars decorated the skin below her armpit. Some were old, white and puffy, but others were red with fresh scabs.

"When did you start...?" I trailed off.

"I heal fast." Senda shook her head. "Please, at least one of us needs to escape."

I sat down on the tile and rested my chin on the tub's rim. "I'm leaving, and I'm taking you with me." It was a promise.