• Holly had been only fifteen when the rain came. Great sheets of freezing drops fell about her, chilling her to the bone, disheveling her, demanding so much of her heat, her heart, and her soul. The rain was never-ending; the sun couldn’t shine through it. She never got a respite from the pounding waves and the rushing rivulets that coursed down the streets and streaked her face. The downpour heralded her suffering; the drizzle reminded her it was never quite over. Yes, the rain had come before, but now it would never leave.

    Even as the relentless storm tossed her about in its wake, she always had shelter. When her father was taken away from her with promises of return and reunion, she still believed in the world. She trusted the men in the sharp navy suits and oddly creased hats, they had calmed her. Her father did indeed come back to them, but leagues of fabric dyed in red, white, and blue and a cheap pine box separated them forever. However, when he was taken away, her sweet mother was there. Her mother, who never said a harsh word, who kept strong for her girls, who supported them without a smidgen of help, would always be there for them. Until, of course, the rain took her away in a whirling rapid that rushed past the twins, Hope and Holly, sucking the breath out of them with its freezing waves and leaving them with nothing but a note stained with tears that they found after they discovered their mother’s shell.

    The twins had no other family, at least, not that could take them. They were forced to sit in a stuffy office belonging to a strict woman with cat-eye glasses and listen to all of their relatives reject their pleas for help. They were poor, they were busy, and they just couldn’t handle teenagers at that time. And when that was over and done with, it was to be a stranger. However, they refused to be separated. The sisters were each other’s umbrellas, without each other, they had no one. At last, the lady with the cat-eye glasses found someone to take them in, both of them.

    The umbrella was tattered; where it used to be black, it was grey, and where it was once white, it had turned brown. But it was a shelter. They had that, and they had each other.

    But now what did Holly have? She was sitting in wet, muddy, grass. The rain turned her flame hair dull, and her fragile arms were pulled around her knees. A ripped grey and brown umbrella caught on a tree in front of her and flapped feebly in the wind before blowing away. The lights from the police cars in the street created a glowing haze through the dark, dreary fog. Before, she had shielded herself from the rain, but now something was missing from her side, from her eyes, from her heart. Hope was taken from her.