The Color of Knowledge

Chapter Four (pt. 1)

Ivy lay awake that night, too nervous about what was to come the following morning. She had felt the same way when she had first arrived to the Safe Place with her parents. When they got there, most of their valuables didn't make it past the color inspection. She even had to give up the red teddy bear her grandmother had made her.

A soft knock came at the door. It creaked open and Spencer slipped through. "I can't sleep," she whispered.

Ivy pulled back a corner of the bed sheet that covered her, inviting Spencer to climb in. "I can't sleep either, Spence. Is it the creatures?"

Spencer nodded as she nestled in next to Ivy. The bed was twin sized, but they both fit comfortably.

"Tell me a story."

Ivy thought for a moment. "What kind of story?"

"The one of how I got my scar," said Spencer, her eyes half closed.

Ivy had been telling Spencer the story of how she got her scar as the young girl grew up. She had two versions: one was the truth of what had happened, and the other a lie.

"Well," Ivy started, "you were about one when it happened." She looked down at Spencer whose eyes were closed, but she knew she was listening.

"You had just become a pro at walking. The whole house was baby-proofed just for you. One day you were wobbling around the kitchen while mom was cooking dinner. She hadn't been herself lately, because of work and being a full-time mother of two great kids.

"You wanted her to pick you up. She couldn't though; she was terribly busy. I, however, came to your rescue. I picked you up and set you on the counter. I went to go get your favorite toy, to keep you quiet. While I was gone, you decided you wanted to play with something shiny. Something you had never seen before.

"Mom hadn't noticed what you were doing," Ivy continued, suppressing a yawn. "You picked up the knife she had been chopping onions with. The beans were burning on the stove, so her back was to you. Your tiny little arms could barely hold the weight of the knife, and it slipped, creating a large gash on your forehead, just as I was walking back in."

As Ivy finished the story, she wished she did not have to withhold some information. She couldn't tell Spencer that it had taken at least four years for their mother to come out of her depression from losing a child. That was the real reason why she had not been alert and focused at the time. The knot that had formed in the pit of Ivy's stomach when she walked back in to the kitchen to see the knife Spencer was holding, was the same knot she had experienced a little over two years previously, when faced with a similar situation. No one knew, not even her parents, of her memory.

Ivy also did not want Spencer to know how much trouble she had gotten into for being the main reason her sister had a large scar on her forehead. If only she had not placed Spencer on that countertop. Luckily, her father was able to stitch it up without a trip to the hospital. Spencer was treated like a golden child from then on. Ivy, who had been eleven at time, was somewhat ostracized, mostly by her mother. How could she have almost been responsible for the death of another child?