The Midnight Twins (9 page)

That morning as she was eating breakfast, she said to David, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“What?”

“About the pets and the little graves. It’s so sweet.”

“What? What are you talking about?” David asked, his face changed, hardened.

“Forget I said anything,” Merry said. It was clearly a tender spot.

“Really? What are you talking about?”

“About the cats you tried to rescue, that died . . . Kim told me . . . I think it’s really—”

“Kim’s fricking crazy! I did that when I was, like . . . ten. Kim’s out of her mind.” Kim came into the room and David punched her on the arm, hard, then shot her a sneer, turned, and stomped away. Merry concentrated on her French toast. In her dream, David hadn’t been ten. He’d been wearing the same beautiful, worn, toast-colored leather bomber.

He was just embarrassed.

And so was Kim. “He never used to be like this. He’s an ass,” Kim told Merry. “He got like this after he started dating girls in Deptford. My mom says they’re . . . you know.”

Merry knew what Kim meant by “you know.” But she hoped that David would wait for her instead of settling for anyone else, “you know” or not.

DOUBLE VISIONS

Mallory did play in the last few games of her indoor soccer season, but with what the coach saw as a halfhearted effort.

He understood entirely.

Finally, a rumor came along more alluring than the fire—about Christina Pell, a junior at Ridgeline Memorial, whose grandfather owned both the town banks. Christina came back late from Christmas break not because she had a serious case of flu but because of a more disgusting reason involving you-know-what.

It grabbed everyone’s attention.

Mallory was sorry for Christina, but what an idiot! Still, at least no one talked about her or Merry anymore. But Mallory still didn’t feel like herself, and hard as she tried, she couldn’t act like her old self, either.

One day after one of the first outdoor practices, wenchy Trevor Solwyn, who nobody liked except that having a tall forward was a big bonus, made a remark she pretended was supposed to be a whisper, but was actually meant for everyone to hear. Mally was a midfielder whose speed and accuracy made her an asset in any position except the goal, where her small size was a disability. But her ability to “see” the whole field now was impaired, as was her speed and timing. Her shots careened wide or smacked into the goalie’s hands. When she pivoted, it took seconds instead of instants. Once the master of the fake, she now basically demonstrated her intentions to everyone else on the field, and everyone else blocked her. She ran as though her legs weighed as much as sandbags. Trevor said Mally should no longer be known by her nickname—the Hitter—but instead be called the Quitter.

Mally had never cried in public.

But now, she wheeled and ran off, pushing her arms through the sleeves of her parka and grabbing her boots as she ran. The coach tried, but couldn’t catch up with her. He intended to tell Mally that her position as a starter for the Ridgeline Eighty-Niners—an elite traveling team formed in 1989 and comprised of girls from seventh grade through twelfth—was secure. He wanted to tell her to pay no attention to Trevor’s poor sportsmanship, that he would speak to Trevor. After ten years of coaching, it still amazed him that people could be jealous even when someone got attention for a tragedy.

She vanished before he could find her.

Well, with a girl, you were probably better off letting her have her privacy, he thought.

Mallory was sitting against the outside fence that encircled the baseball field, the hood of her parka pulled up over her face, when Eden Cardinal sat down beside her. Besides Drew, Eden was the closest thing Mally had to a real friend. They didn’t really
talk
talk, like text each other, they were just nicer to each other than they were to other people on the team. When they were changing or warming up, Eden would make a point of asking Mally some question about her home or her training, one you could tell she made up just to be polite.

Eden lived outside of town on a farm that made casual use of the name. Mallory saw it once, when Tim picked up Eden and several other girls for a game. It was really just sort of a large, crooked plot cut out of the woods, with about five houses in various states of disrepair, in which lived about ten brothers and sisters and about thirty cousins, uncles, and aunts.

Now she knew Eden was going to try to be kind, and Mally wanted no one’s pity. So she huddled deeper into her hood. Eden seemed to ignore Mallory’s efforts to avoid her.

“Trevor’s a nasty wench,” Eden said. “But she’s noticing something. You’re not yourself, Mal. And I don’t mean on the field.”

“I don’t feel like myself. You wouldn’t, either. And I don’t think myself was ever so great.”

“A lot of people are miserable after they go through something like you guys did, a long time after the wounds heal. I have an uncle who was in Vietnam. Maybe it’s that . . .”

“I’ve only heard somebody say that about forty times,” Mallory told her. “Maybe I just suck at soccer now. Isn’t that possible?”

“There’s one thing. You never used to put yourself down, Mally.”

“You have me confused with Meredith Brynn. I’m not the self-esteem queen. If I didn’t knock myself, I don’t know why,” Mallory answered. “At least the fire could have burned my freckles off.” She tried to laugh and hiccuped instead.

“Mally, I think you have . . . like what people who were in wars have. Like my uncle has, only it made him a drunk. You’re over it in your body, but not your head.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“You wouldn’t get it. It’s insane.”

Eden sighed. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “I so-called ‘get’ a lot of stuff you’d think is crazy, Mal.”

“My sister . . .”

“Yeah?”

“When her bandages came off, her hands were great, given everything. The doctors were surprised that there’s so little scarring.”

“And this is bad why?” Eden asked.

“There’s a little scarring, mostly on her palm, one long scar, like another lifeline. She grabbed a hot doorknob.”

“But this is all good, Mal,” Eden said.

“The fact that she has that scar means that we . . .” Mally began to cry, and once she did, the crying became sobbing, and the sobbing wouldn’t stop. Soon she was shaking, snot running out of her nose, sleet mixing with tears in her eyes. She felt like a fool. Eden reached over and put her arms around Mallory.

“You poor little bit. Tell me. You what?”

“We’re not the same anymore! It’s like I’m not a twin! It’s a spooky thing. . . .”

“I do understand. I don’t mean about you being a twin. I don’t understand
that
. But I know how you can hurt so bad over something that nobody else would think twice about,” Eden said.

“Well, this is what it is. We’re different now. We’ve been the same, totally the same except for her being right-handed, since . . . we were born . . . and it’s separating us. . . .”

“Really? Or in your mind?”

“No, really.”

“How do you know?” Eden asked.

“You won’t believe this.”

“I said . . . you know, Mally, not too much is strange to me. I’m an Indian,” said Eden, and for the first time, Mallory made that connection, with Eden’s long, straight black hair, her chiseled nose and cheekbones set up regally in her face, her perpetual tan.

“Okay. Identical twins . . . are just weird. Like, if Merry tripped and fell now, my knee would hurt. Not as bad as hers. But I would feel it.”

“That must be incredible.”

“It is. But we’re used to it, so . . . it’s just ordinary.”

“But do you have the same thoughts?”

“No,” Mally said. “But I can talk to her without saying anything. All twins can do that. I think. I guess. I really don’t know any other twins. But I assume. I looked it up and it’s called twin telepathy. It’s not uncommon. Like people who are grown up and in different cities will buy each other the same birthday card, or get sick on the night their twin gets sick.”

“That’s amazing,” Eden said. “But I believe it.”

“Well, here’s the thing. There’s this other big part of it. And it’s gone. Part of it is gone. We used to have the same dreams, at the same time. All our lives.”

“You don’t anymore.”

“And not just that! She’s an idiot! She’s in love with David Jellico. . . .” Eden rolled her eyes, and Mally went on, “And I think he’s a fake and a zero. It’s like we’re . . . two . . . we’re . . .”

“Two different people. And only one of you feels alone.”

“Right.”

Eden stood and offered Mallory a hand up. “I think I’m glad you told me this. But I also think that I’m not the one you need to tell. You have to talk to Meredith. As for David, well, you know, Mal, the heart knows when things are right that seem wrong to everyone else.”

Then Mallory stumbled, with a flash of the familiar-since-the-fire dizziness: In the instant of blackness, she saw a tall blond man, big through the shoulders. He was hiking, shouldering a huge pack, and on a ledge above him . . . what was that, with golden torch eyes, a huge wolf? A cougar?

“You . . . love somebody that you shouldn’t,” she blurted.

Eden said nothing. She reached out and pulled loose the thread of Mally’s parka that had snagged on the chain-link fence when she’d stumbled, and tucked it back into the miniscule hole the fence had made. “That should be okay if you put a little stitch in it,” she finally murmured.

“He’s grown up. Is he in college?” Mally asked. Eden shook her head. “Does he work in the city? Edes, it’s not fair you get to tell me all about my stuff and I say something about your stuff . . .”

“It creeps me out that you know,” Eden finally told her.

“It’s another thing.”

“Another what thing?”

“Another thing since the fire. I can see other people’s stuff. Like, not their names or junk. But I can see things. I thought they were hallucinations in the hospital, but I still have them. I see stuff David does, for one thing.”

“He’s a wilderness guide,” said Eden.

Mallory swallowed back nausea. She had seen the man with the pack, and hadn’t wanted to speak it aloud. Had she taken his image from Eden’s mind? How could she know what was in
Eden’s
mind? She had never seen anyone’s thoughts except Meredith’s, or things that had to do with Meredith. Not until now. What had broken into the house of her brain since the fire? Mallory didn’t want it, any of it. It felt like licking someone else’s skin.

She flashed again. The big cat . . . a mountain lion, white as farm butter.

“He’s in danger in places where he goes,” Mallory said softly to Eden. Eden fiddled with the catch on her big leather bag. The wind whickered about them, colder now as the sun set. “He really is.”

“Not like you think,” Eden finally answered calmly.

Mally thought,
What in the heck . . . ?

“You know what I saw?” she asked.

“No,” Eden said. “I’m just imagining. I’m trying to picture what you thought you saw from what I know. I’m not psychic.”

“Neither am I!” Mallory told her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. But I saw an animal.”

“That’s not what you think, I told you,” Eden said quickly, rummaging in her bag for her car keys. “I’m sure there are probably animals around him all the time,” she added, as if they were talking about a strategy for defense against the Deptford Strikers. “I have to get home. My mom works third shift and I have to look after the kids. Want a ride?”

“From this one, this animal, he’s in danger.”

“Don’t say that, Mallory.” Eden looked alarmed.

“Okay.” Mallory held up her hands. “Why?”

“It scares me.”

“And not me? Like I wanted to see that?”

“He’s not even out on the trail now.”

“Cut it out! He is!”

“Not until next week.”

“So I saw this guy, dressed in a blue flannel shirt over this long-sleeved waffle thing, a gray thing, with a . . . a red backpack . . . a tall guy with blond, no, like brownish blond hair, and black boots . . . and a red hat that has a lightning—”

“Stop it, Mally. Come on. I’ll give you a ride. Jump in the sexy beast,” Eden said nervously, pointing to her pickup truck, which seemed to have a dent in every possible flat surface. “He just got that hat. It was his birthday present from me. He’s never even worn it. You must have seen one like it on someone else. That’s all.”

“I’ll walk. My head is full of bees,” Mally said. “I’ll call my dad after a few minutes. He was going to pick me up anyhow. Thanks, Edes. For all that.”

“I don’t think I was much help,” Eden said, but hurriedly now.

Mallory thought,
Why did I say that junk? Now I’ve scared her away. I could maybe have talked to her.

Finally Mallory shrugged and said, “I don’t think there is help. Maybe it’s like you said and it will go away after I start forgetting the fire.”

Eden smiled, but sadly.

ALONE IN THE MIRROR

That night, Mallory woke up crying. She turned her face into the pillow, trying to muffle the sound.

Meredith listened, knowing Mal would be furious if she said a word. It was she who got weepy. Finally, she turned on her reading lamp.

“You don’t know, do you?” Mallory pleaded with her twin. “What’s happening to us?”

“I don’t know if it’s something that would make me cry. We’re growing up. What do you mean?”

“Merry, you didn’t know I dreamed about the fire before it happened, and it wasn’t because you weren’t asleep.”

“Yes it was.”

“And you don’t know what I was dreaming right now, do you?”

“I was awake.”

“No you weren’t. I heard you snoring about an hour ago.”

“Okay, so I didn’t know what you were dreaming.”