{"id":572,"date":"2020-08-26T20:52:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T20:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=572"},"modified":"2020-08-26T20:52:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T20:52:31","slug":"my-sisters-demons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/my-sisters-demons\/572\/","title":{"rendered":"My Sister\u2019s Demons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It started off like a game. Lucy passed me her piece of cake under the table on Mum\u2019s birthday. It felt funny singing happy birthday when half an hour ago Mum was crying, and Dad wasn\u2019t living with us anymore. But I got two slices of cake and that made me smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she started putting all her lunch in my lunchbox. I didn\u2019t know what to do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t only the food. She shouted all the time and she was always in her room. Mum said it was just teenage behaviour, but I didn\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

She got really thin, wearing baggy clothes that swallowed her up. I could hear her jumping around in her bedroom. If I knocked, she\u2019d come out all wild-eyed and red-faced, screaming at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried to talk to Mum but she said, \u201cI\u2019ve got enough on my plate, Michael!\u201d Which was weird because I wasn\u2019t worried about the food on Mum\u2019s plate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I worked it out. I don\u2019t know how it took me so long to realise, when I\u2019ve read every Harry Potter book and watched all the films. Of course, it was Dementors. They feed on a person\u2019s good feelings, until they\u2019re an empty shell. They make the whole atmosphere gloomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if they came for me next? Or Mum? Who would look after us then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At school, when Leo Harris fouled me in football, I felt this big ball of fire in my chest and ran at him and punched him in the face. Mum had to come in for a meeting, and I was grounded for a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one night, Lucy threw her dinner on the floor. That was when I yelled, \u201cDo something, Mum!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMichael, who in the family is the most worried about your sister?\u201d asked the therapist. He squinted when he asked a question, like he was in pain from concentrating so hard. Then he started nodding before you answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were all sitting in this little pastel blue room with lilac curtains and lemon cushions on the seats. I think it was supposed to make us feel relaxed, but it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s easy,\u201d I said. \u201cMe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started seeing more of Dad after that. The therapist agreed with me about the Dementors. Mum and Dad had to stop arguing and work together to help Lucy eat and \u201cstand up to\u201d the Dementors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We worked out what our family Patronus would look like. That\u2019s the thing that protects against Dementors. We decided it would be a fox because we\u2019re all red-headed and quick-witted. Even though Mum and Dad aren\u2019t together, they\u2019re both still our family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dementors have gone now. To keep them away, we hung a huge painting of a fox above the fire place in Mum\u2019s house, and another one in Dad\u2019s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week it was Mum\u2019s birthday again. This time, Lucy ate her piece of cake and I only got one slice. And that made me smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started off like a game. Lucy passed me her piece of cake under the table on Mum\u2019s birthday. It felt funny singing happy birthday when half an hour ago Mum was crying, and Dad wasn\u2019t living with us anymore. But I got two slices of cake and that made me smile. Then she started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A new flash fiction from Swansea Writers: \"My Sister\u2019s Demons\"\n#flashfiction #fiction #amwriting","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,303],"tags":[307,12,306],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-september-2020-demons","tag-demons","tag-my","tag-sister"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-9e","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}