The Midnight Twins

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  “Open this,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Why is it locked?”

  “My iPod’s in there. And my registration.”

  “Open it.”

  “Whatever,” David said. He jerked open the door of the glove box. In it was his iPod, a few sheets of paper, and a hairbrush. “See?” he snapped, closing it. Deirdre grabbed his hand.

  “Let me look,” she said. She pulled out the envelopes and the operating manual for the car. Mallory saw a flash of silver. “She was right!” Deirdre screamed. “Whose earrings are these, David?”

  “They’re for you!”

  “They’re old, David! You got me old earrings? Antiques? What’s her name, David? Is it . . . let me guess, is it Andrea? Was she afraid she’d get these caught on your sweater? Or on your belt buckle! You can go to hell, David!” Deirdre jumped out. With one stiletto heel, she kicked the door shut and began stabbing numbers into her phone. David jumped out after her, slamming the door on his side.

  In the other car, Drew glanced at Mallory.

  “I’m reliving my life here, Brynn. And it’s showing me that almost every time I’ve ever been with you, including dragging a hose upstairs when you were five and I was eight to spray it out the second-story window, I got in trouble and it was your idea.”

  Too absorbed in the scene on the sidewalk, Mally didn’t answer.

  David was yelling at Deirdre now. Kim and Merry slipped out of David’s car and into Drew’s backseat.

  “I’m asking you, Brynn,” Drew went on. “I haven’t been in a fight since I was in sixth grade. I was going to the movies for a nice, long night of vintage sci-fi. Now am I going to have to go drag that guy off her?”

  “MY BROTHER!” Deirdre yelled. “My brother, who wrestles at Cornell and who’ll kick your ass, you piece of dung!” David took a step toward Deirdre and Drew tensed, reaching for the door handle. But then David jumped into his own front seat and peeled out of the parking lot with a thin wail of tires.

  “Maybe I won’t have a sleepover,” Kim whispered.

  “You think?” Mallory asked with a snort.

  “Stop it,” Meredith told her. “Those are my best capris you have on.”

  “You always have your priorities straight, Mer,” said her twin. “Don’t you see that we got Deirdre away . . . ?”

  “Laybite,” Merry warned Mallory.

  “Away? What are you talking about?” Kim asked.

  Drew waited until a beefy guy pulled up in a big Dodge and put his arms around Deirdre, nodding at the others. Without a word, Drew drove Kim home. She hugged Merry and got out of the car, saying, “He totally has a temper, but I did not know he was seeing two girls at the same time!”

  Drew shrugged. “Probably not the smartest move,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  They had begun to back out of the Jellicos’ drive when Merry noticed that Mally’s mouth had fallen open and her head slumped forward.

  “Drew,” she said slowly. “Mallory had a blackout. But she’s fine. She had one a week ago from stress and they did blood tests and everything and she is fine. Let’s just stop and get some ice water.”

  “Jesus!” Drew cried. “No way! I’m taking her to the ER!”

  “Drew, listen,” Meredith said. “I promise you. I love her even more than you do, and yeah, I know you love her. I would never hurt her. Just, look, she’s already waking up. Just, please promise me one thing. Do whatever she says when she wakes up. Promise. Do whatever she says.”

  “Please, tell me what is happening. Or am I just the designated driver?”

  “He’s at . . . he’s going to . . . it’s okay. We can go home. I saw daylight. It was daylight, what I saw,” Mallory whispered.

  Drew got them all bottles of water. And though he kept asking the twins all the way home what had happened to Mallory, neither of them would answer.

  Only one of them could.

  A DATE WITH DRAGONS

  One Sunday, Mallory woke up and felt funny. She announced she wasn’t going to Mass. She told Tim she was sleep deprived. It was two weeks after the night at Pizza Papa’s. But the dream had not come back. Mallory believed something had happened that made David come to his senses on his own, and thank God for that.

  Maybe she really was sleep-deprived. Maybe she had a cold. She got up and ate breakfast with her family (a bite of omelet, Campbell noticed, and one sausage) and went back to bed. She noticed how pale and worn out Merry looked, as well.

  “You need to go back to sleep, too,” she said.

  “No way,” Merry said. She didn’t elaborate. Campbell left her alone.

  “They’re growing,” Campbell told Tim.

  As Mallory walked away, Campbell noticed a new roundness in her daughter’s body. By the pencil marks on the door the previous week, Mally measured nearly four-eleven, as did Meredith. They’d grown almost an inch. “That’s all it is. They’re filling out and growing.”

  Tim was relieved. A female thing. Campbell would sort it out.

  Monday was a Teacher Training Day. Mallory figured she could do all her homework then. But thinking about Merry made Mally toss and turn so much that her comforter and sheets were a mess after half an hour. Slob that she was, Mally couldn’t sleep in a messy bed. Finally, she got up and slipped into her clothes, washed her face, and ran a brush through her hair.

  Merry had stayed awake all night on Saturday.

  She watched reruns of The X-Files. She watched The Philadelphia Story, which she had bought the previous summer from Mrs. Olin, but never watched, and which was probably made when her mom was her age. She watched yoga class at four a.m. and did all the poses. Finally, she fell asleep on the couch.

  It was night. David was driving. The radio was blaring, and he tore off his coat. He slowed down when a girl Merry didn’t recognize gave him a flirty over-the-shoulder glance. The girl kept walking, letting her hips swing a little. David slowed his father’s van to a crawl. Fifty feet ahead, the girl didn’t notice. Just as David bumped up over the curb, a bus came roaring out of a side street and pulled up at the stop. The girl got on. Merry could see David’s face as she walked through the lighted aisle. His lips were drawn back, but not in a smile. David looked like a thing, a beast, like an angry dog. . . . Merry woke with a yelp of fear and ran up the stairs.

  When Campbell woke, she had to step over Meredith, who was curled outside her parents’ door in her big blue comforter. Merry clutched the comforter around her as though she was freezing, but Campbell could see tendrils around her forehead where sweat had curled her hair. Even after so long, dreams of the fire, Campbell thought. Well, it was enough to terrify anyone, coming that close to death. And then poor Mally, with the prank when they were out.

  Somebody’s kids deserved a good scare themselves.

  When both girls were up, their mother suggested that they box up their winter clothes, and they did this without a bleat of protest and without, in Meredith’s case, a wail of mourning that she had no clothes at all for spring. They folded the towels together. Campbell was beginning to think there was something seriously wrong.

  Then Alli called and asked Merry to go to the mall.

  Merry hesitated. If she didn’t agree, Alli would think she was nuts. She covered the phone with one cupped hand.

  “Come to the mall with me,” she told Mallory.

  “No way,” Mallory replied.

  “Please, Ster. I have reasons. I just, I don’t want to go without you.” Mallory looked Meredith over. Even after the fire, Merry had never looked so bleak and ghostly.

  “I promised Mom I’d help her clean the camp cabins,” Mally said.

  “We’ll be fine,” Campbell called. “Go to the mall.”

  And so Merry agreed. She got back on the phone and told Alli that on the way to work, Tim would drop her off outside the north entrance . . . but with her sister.

  “Mally hates shopping,” Alli objected. “She’ll moan and gri
pe the whole time.”

  “No, she needs new stuff. She needs new running shoes,” Merry improvised.

  “Oh . . . kay,” Alli said, sounding unconvinced.

  Merry hoped to be excited by the displays of summer clothes. But everything looked cheap and garish, even at Modernessa. She and Mallory waited patiently while Alli tried on pair after pair of white shorts, until she had two she couldn’t choose between. She bought them both. They looked exactly alike except that one had a waist with a buckle.

  “Do you want to go look for shoes now, Mallory?” Alli asked.

  “No,” Mallory said. “I don’t need shoes. I’ll just sit here and you guys go.” Alli shot Meredith a disgusted look, as if to say, See, what did I tell you? Mallory actually did need new soccer shoes, since hers were beginning to pinch. But her dad would bring a ton of pairs home for her to try. And she could have them for cost.

  Merry shrugged.

  They all agreed on a pile of nachos the size of a Halloween pumpkin, smothered with jalapenos, cheese, and sour cream. And then Merry said, “You know, I think I’m getting a cold. Do you guys want to go home?”

  “It’s not even three o’clock,” Alli gasped. Merry normally left the stores when the owners were lowering the metal grates over the doors. “Erica’s coming to look at bathing suits.”

  “You stay. I’ll call our dad,” Mally told her.

  But the Brynns’ answering machine pointed out that they were away from the phone just then. Adam’s voiced piped up, “If we like you, we’ll call back! ” She couldn’t reach her father on his cell, and when she finally got Rick at the store, he told her that Adam and Tim were picking up some inventory in Deptford. They’d be back in an hour.

  Merry called Grandma Gwenny before she remembered Gwenny would be with her sisters, as well as Campbell and her other daughters-in-law, getting the cabins ready for spring. Grandma and Grandpa started spending most weekends in the big cabin in April. There was no cell phone coverage up at the camp, and the phones in the houses were turned off in winter.

  “We’ll just have to wait until Dad closes the store,” Merry finally said.

  “Maybe Drew will come and get us. It’s not like it’s a huge ride.”

  “It’s a twenty-minute ride, Mal.”

  “Yeah, but he feels sorry for me since he thinks I’m mentally ill,” Mallory said.

  Mallory punched in Drew’s number. Drew groaned. He had to be at work at five. It was forty minutes to the mall and back. “I’ll give you gas money,” Mallory told him. “I’ll give you more movie passes. I’ll give you two. Otherwise, we’ll have to just sit here. Come on.” Reluctantly, Drew finally agreed. They were to meet him outside the bookstore in twenty minutes.

  The twins went outside and lounged on the brick wall in front of the bookstore. It was a beautiful, languid day, the storm drains running with meltwater, a haze of green shimmering around the branches of the trees—not quite about to bud, but nearly.

  At home, Campbell’s daffodils were up, and the only ice left in the whole county was tucked under the recesses of the rocks up near the ridge.

  Across the street from the mall, people were outside, rushing the season, taking down storm doors and ripping away plastic coverings. There would be more cold nights and cement skies. Ridgeline could always count on an April blizzard. But today, the air was too full of promise to keep it all outside. What felt cozy at Thanksgiving now felt cramped and stale. People wore sweaters but threw open the windows.

  Mally was pumped because outdoor soccer practice would begin next week. It was going to be such a good summer.

  She needed to think about that.

  She was strong and uninjured. Coach promised her she could count on starting at midfield, the most important defender. Tim drilled her a couple of nights a week in the backyard. Mallory was teaching Adam, who was interested in soccer at last. Someday, she would coach his summer league.

  And until yesterday, Merry seemed pretty good, too.

  She was using her hand again in routines, back walkover after back walkover down the hall—doing her idiot practices to music in front of the mirror, smiling so wide that she looked like some kind of predatory creature instead of a happy girl. (“You have to make them see your teeth in the top row,” she told Mallory, who said that little kids in the first row who saw that face would be scarred for life.)

  “What happened last night?” Mallory finally asked her sister. Oh, please Saint Bridget, Mally prayed, let her say, “Oh, nothing.”

  But Merry turned to Mallory and said, “I had a dream.”

  Mally didn’t have to ask about whom. “Anno,” she said, patting Merry’s back. “Was it awful?”

  “He was stalking this girl. He was going to grab her. I could tell.”

  “What happened?”

  “She got on a bus,” Merry said. “I woke up.”

  “I thought it was over. I thought that nothing would happen ever again because it didn’t happen. After I had my dream.”

  “But it did. David was driving the van. It was late at night. . . .”

  “No, Merry, it was during the day. I saw that it was during the day. I saw just where it was and it wasn’t on a street with a bus stop.”

  The day was beautiful. Merry wore her jean jacket but Mallory had on only a turtleneck under a short-sleeved T-shirt. The girls spontaneously huddled together in the apricot light of the afternoon sun.

  “So what I saw, he already did,” Merry said.

  “And what I saw, he didn’t do yet,” Mally said. “I didn’t even see David. I just saw a place and I knew something bad would happen.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know it yet.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know what the rules are!” Mallory cried. “I have to know the rules!” She brushed both her arms until the goose bumps lay down. “So, here. We’ll do the same thing. It said Crest Haven. I saw a sign. That’s the old people’s condos. The tennis court. There was no ice. So it would have to be later, when all the ice was gone.”

  “Most of the ice is gone,” Merry said.

  “But it’s still a little cold,” Mallory begged her. “Isn’t it a little cold?”

  “Not much,” Merry said softly. “How are you going to know?”

  “I’ll know,” Mallory told her. “It was pretty specific. I saw a girl the other time. I saw Deirdre. Maybe I’ll have another dream.” She rubbed her arms again with both hands. “I don’t want to have another dream. The truth is, I have no idea.”

  “But what do we . . . do it for the rest of our lives? Until school lets out? What if we stop him next time and then he does it again? We can’t devote our whole lives to following around David Jellico. I can’t even go see Kim. I’m too scared,” Merry said urgently.

  “I don’t blame you. No, this time, we’ll tell him.”

  “Tell him?”

  “Tell him we know he’s a sicko.”

  “Isn’t he going to wonder why we know?” Merry asked.

  “I frankly don’t give if he wonders how we know. All that matters is that we can convince him.”

  “You think we’ll be able to?”

  “Yes! You saw him burying the dog. I saw him kill the poor thing. I know he was going to hurt Deirdre. Maybe rape Deirdre. You saw him chase that girl.”

  “If only there was some other way out of this.”

  “Think of one, then. Please. I don’t want it. I can’t! Otherwise, it will be the only thing we do for the rest of our lives,” said Mallory. “Once he knows we know, he won’t ever dare to try it again. It’s the only way.”

  “Maybe, Mally, we could just go to that policewoman, the one who came here when you heard the banging on the door. And just tell her!”

  “Tell her what? That I had a dream about a guy who didn’t do something I thought he was going to do?”

  Meredith sighed. “It was an idea.”

  “It will be daytime and we’ll be together. We’ll be okay.”

  “Ster,” Meredith sa
id. “I just can’t handle this like you. I never thought of us thinking about stuff like this, Mally. We had it good, all our lives.” Meredith kicked the warm stone with the heel of her shoes, considering how she’d hardly gotten started on her future before she had to consider the good old days.

  And then Drew arrived, and though he’d really never looked at them normally since that night at the pizza place, today it was as though a clean rain had fallen on all their faces. Their neighbor was the old Drewsky—with ancient Van Halen CDs cranking and cheeseburger wrappers all over the floor of his car. Mally sat in front, and they played headbangers and she almost forgot how much had changed. They went through the drive-through and got supersize fries. Drew squirted ketchup on Mally’s bare leg. She flicked it on his jeans.

  Cleaning her hands off with a napkin, Mallory sighed in contentment and rolled the window down just halfway. Drew was about to complain about the noise of the wind when she saw the sign.

  “Drew, stop,” she said. “Back up a little.”

  “Now what?”

  “I think I saw something. Yeah, I did! Look, Mer! My bike is back there! Remember I told you my bike was stolen out of the garage? That’s it! We’ll get out here and walk the rest of the way home. It’s not even a mile. Look, back there, leaning against that garage that’s just the frame?”

  Merry screeched, “A mile? Your bike? Your bike is just . . .”

  “We’ll be great! I can ride her on the handlebars,” Mallory rushed on.

  “I have to take off,” Drew said. “I’m already practically late.”

  Drew was a stocker at Bill’s Star Market. He said lifting the crates of chicken stock and lettuce kept him buff and the few bucks he got each week kept him in gas. Mallory literally hauled Meredith out of the car and squeezed her elbow. They waved as Drew slowly drove off.

  Finally when his old green Toyota turned out onto Cambridge Street, Merry cried, “Are you out of your mind? Why am I even asking? Your bike was never stolen! Why did you do this to me? This place is like a mud factory! Why are we here?”

  Mallory could barely keep her teeth from clacking in the bright sunlight. She turned up the collar on her turtleneck.