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The clouds shifted and let out the sun. Molly rolled onto her back, careful to keep her sandy feet off the towel. Grimacing, she made her hand into a visor and peered toward the rocks at the end of the beach to see Olivia perched atop them, knees pulled up into her chest, gazing out over the water.

“I found a weird rock,” Olivia said, later, when they were packing up their things. It was somewhat square and shiny black, the surface covered in thumbprint-sized indentations. Olivia talked about it the whole walk home.

“It’s a meteorite,” said their father, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a magnet that stuck against its surface. “Those depressions are called regmaglypts. There’s metallic iron inside, that’s why it’s so heavy and why the magnet sticks.”

Molly left her sister and her father to their rhapsodizing and went to take a shower. They were both gone when she got out. Molly dried her hair and journaled and folded her laundry. It wasn’t until nine that she started to wonder; another hour went by before they returned, claiming they’d gone to look for more meteorites.

“In the dark?” Molly asked.

“I thought you didn’t care,” Olivia said, curt, as she closed the door to her room.

In the middle of the night, Molly woke to Olivia screaming, the sound cutting out as she rushed from bed and into the hallway. Her father was already there, closing the door to Olivia’s bedroom and rubbing his temples.

“She had a bad dream,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”

“How did you get downstairs so fast?” Molly asked, rubbing one of her eyes with the heel of her palm. Her father tilted his head, and even in the darkness she could feel him peering at her. “I couldn’t sleep, so I was up reading in the living room. I think it probably took you a little bit of time to wake up.” Molly nodded and shook the thoughts from her brain as her father closed the gap to hug her and kiss her on the forehead.

In the morning, Molly woke to an empty house. She searched the rooms, the backyard, and walked down to the corner store, but couldn’t find them anywhere. She thought of the night before, and her worry shifted into annoyance as she realized what they’d gone out to do.

“You could have left a note,” she muttered, walking through the streets and onto the sand, crossing the beach as she headed for the boulders that blocked off the northern shore. She’d never been good at scaling rocks, but she found a foothold and hoisted herself onto a shallow shelf, and from there hooked her foot in an indentation and pulled herself up, scraping her forearm and the front of her thigh as she made it over the side, and gasped at what she saw.

The beach beyond was lined with hundreds of neat rows of meteorites, each spaced out in lines that stretched past the breaking tide and along the seabed. A little down the shore, she saw the figure of her sister, face down and sprawled among the rocks.

Molly yelled and turned to clamber down the rock face, breathing hard as she jumped the last few feet and partially landed on one of the strange black stones. She winced, and carefully stepped and jumped on the sand between them. Turning her sister onto her back, she started to shake her, saying her name in a whisper that rose to a whine as Olivia failed to stir.

“Wake up,” Molly squeaked. “Wake up, wake up, please, wake up.” She pressed two fingers to the side of Olivia’s throat, closing her eyes and choking back a sob at the dull throb she found.

There was a rustling, and then a sharp pull at her hair. Molly snapped her eyes open to meet her sister’s. But instead of eyes, something else was there, an inky black liquid that swirled and obscured the whites and iris, so dark and shiny that Molly could see her silhouette in reflection. Olivia was quick, and Molly caught off guard. In a moment the younger girl had pushed the older one onto her back and straddled her stomach and reached down to wrap her hands around her throat. Pain burst at the back of Molly’s skull as it hit one of the rocks. She choked and flailed and tried to hit at Olivia, but the younger girl kept her grip.

Molly slapped her hand against the beach, frantic, and closed her palm around something square and heavy. Head buzzing, lungs burning, the edges of her vision were starting to go. Gripping the rock, she scrunched her face in preparation of the impact and brought it as hard as she could into the side of her sister’s head.

“Molly! Molly!”

Molly’s eyes snapped open. She was lying on her stomach. She scrambled back off of her towel, wrinkling it and pushing it into the sand as she went, blinking as she got her bearings.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Olivia said. “But, also, your back is all burned.”

Molly let her breath slow, and shook her head a couple times. “Yeah. I, um, had a really weird dream.” The sun was dipping lower in the sky, blooming rosy color over the clouds.

Molly shook out her towel and packed it away, gathering their things to head home, pushing the nightmare from her head. She winced as she pulled her backpack onto her burnt shoulders.

“I found a weird rock while I was exploring,” Olivia said, as they were walking up the sand toward the street. “Want to see? I’m bringing it home.”