Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Emma Frost)

by Willow Rose

  "Isn't that a little odd?" she asked.

  I frowned. "No. He must have washed everything down or something."

  "And left a big lock of hair on the floor?" my mother continued.

  I was getting annoyed with her. Why did she all of a sudden feel like being a detective?

  "He did it. I know he took him, Mom," I snapped at her.

  "Your mother’s right," my dad said. "At least no blood is good news. And if he was careful enough to clean the place for blood, he would have seen the hair. Don't you think?"

  I shrugged. "Maybe."

  "So maybe there is a small chance that he never hurt Christoffer?" my mother said. "Maybe he is just hiding him somewhere."

  "It's small, but it is a hope," my dad said and put his hand in mine.

  I bit my lip, wondering if they could be right. Was there a slight hope still? Part of me was afraid to believe it. Part of me was terrified not to.

  "They told me they'd let me know as soon as they knew anything," I said, while snorting. "Until then, I'm not allowed to leave my suite. They're afraid I might do something to ruin their investigation, like destroy important evidence. But I hate waiting. I hate not being able to do anything," I said, sobbing. "If Christoffer is still alive somewhere on this ship, I need to find him. He must be terrified. I know I am."

  51

  April 1984

  TWEEDLEDUM OPENED HIS EYES and looked at the white ceiling. He felt strange. He moved his body a little to the side and looked down. Then he gasped. He turned his head frantically in the direction where Deedee used to be. But the other side of the bed was empty.

  Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm all alone!

  Dumdum started sobbing, while calling for his twin brother. "Deedee, Deedee where are you?"

  This feeling of being all alone was painful. It was so wrong. So strange and so inconceivable. Dumdum cried. He couldn't take it. He couldn't bear being left like this…this silence, this solitude…no sound of someone else moving or breathing close to him.

  "Deedee," he cried into the empty room. "You promised you'd never leave me. You promised!"

  I can't believe he is gone. I can't believe I'm all alone. I don't want to be alone. We've always been together. We've done everything together. Please, don't leave me. Please find me.

  Dumdum sobbed when the door suddenly opened and a man entered. Dumdum recognized him by his grey beard. He was smiling.

  "You're awake," he said.

  Dumdum yelled at him in his and Deedee's secret language.

  "Now, now," the man said. "No need to yell. There is no room for your aggressive behavior in this place," he said and wrote on his pad.

  "Deedee," Dumdum yelled. "Deedee?"

  "Oh your brother? Well…I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but he didn't make it. He was too weak. You were always the strong one. We could only save you. I have to say it hurts me badly. I want you to know we fought for him as long as we could. But there was no chance. I'm sorry for your loss. I can tell you, the doctor who performed the surgery, Dr. Alessandrino, has taken the failure very hard. He has resigned from the hospital."

  The man with the beard cleared his throat. Tweedledum was in shock. He stared at the man, while groaning and trying to pull himself loose from his straps.

  "Now I want us to start all over," the man said. "My name is Dr. D'Avanzo. I will be your doctor and be the one to help you get back to a normal life. I have high hopes for you and think that you and I can make real progress here."

  Tweedledum snarled. Then he barked and snapped his teeth at the doctor.

  "Of course, if it turns out you refuse to cooperate, then we will have to utilize other methods," the doctor said.

  Tweedledum didn't stop. He kept barking like a dog at the doctor, wanting to hurt him, to kill him for what he had done. The sorrow in Dumdum's heart was so painful.

  "Very well," the doctor said and pushed a button on the wall. Soon after, the room was filled with men and women wearing the same white coats.

  "This patient suffers from a severe case of sCHIZOPHRENIA AFTER THE LOSS OF HIS BROTHER. HE IS SEVERELY DELUSIONAL AND NEEDS HELP TO provide relief from his psychiatric illnesses. Take him to room nine," the doctor instructed them.

  Soon Dumdum was rolled down another hallway, while screaming and yelling his pain and sorrow out.

  "This will calm you down," the doctor said, as they placed the electrodes on his forehead. "We're only doing it to help you."

  Tweedledum still screamed while they strapped him down and gave him the anesthesia. When he woke up again, he didn't scream anymore. After that, they gave him more electroshock-treatments…three times a week. They gave him medicine to calm him down and soon he remembered his brother no more. In fact, he didn't remember anything.

  52

  April 2014

  I CALLED MORTEN and told him everything. Crying, sobbing, and talking angrily I told him the whole story. He was in shock.

  "Oh my God, Emma. That's terrible. You want me to contact the Italian police down there and get involved? I'll do anything. If they're investigating the disappearance of a Danish boy, they should have backup from us."

  "I don't know if it'll help anything, but it probably won't hurt anything either. So that would be nice. Thank you."

  "No problem. I'm going to book a plane ticket and come down there. Where are you now?" he asked.

  "I have no idea. We left Sorrento and sailed all day yesterday, but today we’ve been still most of the day. I have no idea how far we’ve come or where we’ll dock next. They're not being very informative. Most people onboard have no clue what’s going on. According to the original plan, we were supposed to dock in Sicily tonight, but the police told us the ship will stay put until this thing has been solved. They don't want anyone to be able to leave the ship."

  "So, I'll book a flight to Rome, then decide what to do once I'm there. You'll probably know more by then," Morten said.

  "It's awfully nice of you. Can you afford it?" I asked sniffling.

  "It's police-work. I'll be there in the line of duty; the state has to pay for it. Don't you worry about that."

  I heard him tapping on his keyboard. It felt so good to talk to him, even if the circumstances were horrifying.

  "Let's just see what I can get tonight…there’s a flight out at six. I'll be in Rome at eight thirty. How does that sound? I'll contact the local police and see how I can be helpful."

  "That would be really great. I'm not sure I can do this alone. I feel so…I'm just so…oh God, Morten, what if he already killed Christoffer? What if he just dropped the body somewhere? What if he threw it overboard?" I gasped for air. "How am I ever going to tell Sophia? Should I call her now and tell her he’s missing? It'll freak her out. I don't know what to do, Morten."

  "Emma, you need to calm yourself down. Don't let your mind get carried away. Where are your mom and dad?"

  "They left."

  "They left? Now? When you need them the most?" Morten asked.

  "Well, I told them to. I told them to search the ship and ask everyone they met if they had seen Christoffer. I can't just sit here, Morten. I have to at least do something. The police told me to not leave my suite while they're interrogating the photographer, so I have to stay here with Victor, but come on. I can't just do nothing!"

  "Of course you can't. I can't believe he took Christoffer. Why would he take him? What does he want with his victims? You said he killed a teenage boy and a teenage girl? Is it something sexual? Christoffer isn't a teenager. I don't understand it," Morten said.

  "I don't either. Maybe he's just irrational. Maybe he just kills randomly for no particular reason," I said with a sigh. I was tired of crying, sick of feeling helpless.

  "Now you're sounding like me," Morten said. "It's usually the other way around."

  "I know. I think we've been a couple for too long," I said.

  "It feels like déjà-vu all over again, huh?"

  "I know. I can't believe it. Why doe
s everything keep happening to me? Is it something I do?"

  Morten sighed. "At least it doesn't seem like the killer targeted you this time. It doesn't seem planned. There doesn't seem to be an ulterior motive."

  "That's true. At least not one I can find. He takes photos of people, then kidnaps their kids. No bodies have been found. One guy was thrown in the ocean."

  "Hm," Morten said. "That's odd."

  "I know. I think he targets these kids and the guy must have gotten in his way somehow. That's my theory."

  "And he sends the parents photos, you say?" Morten asked pensively.

  "Yes. Both sets of parents received a photo stuck underneath their door."

  "What was in the photos?"

  "One showed Alberto Colombo lying on his back with dead empty eyes. His chest and stomach had been flayed."

  "Flayed you say? Huh?"

  "Yes." The image has stayed with me. I gave it back to the police for the investigation, but it still lingers with me.

  "And the other one?"

  "A chopped off leg," I said.

  "Ouch. That's bad."

  "I know." I went quiet, thinking about what the photographer could possibly have to send me. "So, what do you make of it?"

  "Well, it's messy. What he does is messy. And you say there was no blood in his bathroom. Just a lock of hair?" Morten asked.

  "Yes. Just the hair on the floor. But maybe he washed the place down," I said.

  "When? When do you suppose he would have had time to do all that?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You said you came into the suite and Christoffer was gone. Immediately, you ran to the pool deck and attacked the guy and then the police came and you all went to his cabin on the lower deck where the personnel live."

  "Yes…I see what you're getting at…"

  "Flaying a person or sawing off their leg takes a long time. And it is very messy."

  "So you're saying he didn't do it? Is that it?" I asked.

  "Well, maybe he never got to it, but at least that would mean Christoffer was still alive somewhere. He could also have killed him and then hidden him somewhere with the intent of doing his thing to him later. Or maybe he didn't do any of it. Maybe you have the wrong person."

  "What about the hair?" I asked, confused. It was all getting a little too much for me right now. Thinking about poor Christoffer being flayed or not was really hard.

  "It seems a little odd that he would cut off some hair when he was this pressed for time. I mean, he had to go to your suite, kidnap Christoffer and somehow drag him all the way down to the lower deck, then cut off some of his hair before he rushed up to the pool deck and you could attack him."

  "And hide him somewhere. Don't forget that," I said.

  "Exactly. It doesn't seem possible. And people would notice a guy with a boy over his shoulder."

  "Yeah, but he works here."

  "As a photographer. Photographers don't carry people around."

  "That's true. So he could have hidden him here somewhere—on the upper deck or close to the pool area," I said, feeling a slight ray of hope grow in me. Morten was right. There was no way he could have done all those things. Maybe he didn't manage to kill Christoffer. Maybe he just sedated him somehow. Maybe he was unconscious and hidden somewhere nearby?

  "That could very well be," Morten said.

  "Or…," I stopped and looked out the window at the glittering blue ocean.

  "Or what?" Morten asked.

  "I think I know exactly what to do."

  53

  April 2014

  CHRISTOFFER OPENED HIS EYES. He felt weary and his body was sore. He gasped. A strange face was staring at him.

  "Who are you?" asked Christoffer with a shaking voice.

  The man didn't seem to understand what he was saying. He spoke to him in Italian. Christoffer didn't understand.

  "What is this place? Where am I?" Christoffer asked.

  The man didn't understand his Danish either. He looked at Christoffer with a tilted head. His eyes were creepy. Christoffer didn't understand what was going on. Where was Emma Frost? Where was Victor? Who was this man in the long black coat?

  Christoffer tried to sit up, but the man pushed him down. He switched to English. Christoffer understood a few words. He had never been good at English in school.

  "Now, now, my boy. You're not well. Lay still."

  Not well? Am I sick? I don't understand. Mommy what is this?

  Christoffer felt tears in his eyes. "I want to call my mom," he said. He tried to sit up again, but the man pushed him back down.

  "Stay in bed, please," the man said. "Doctor's orders!"

  Then he giggled. Christoffer didn't like the way he laughed or looked at him.

  "I have to get back," Christoffer said.

  "No, no, no," the doctor said, with his pointer finger in the air and a strange smile on his face. Suddenly, Christoffer remembered where he had seen him before. On the deck on the first day when they waved at the people back at the quay.

  Christoffer looked behind the man and suddenly spotted instruments on the table, nicely lined up. They looked like the ones he had seen in Victor's strange books. Knives and scalpels. What was he going to do with them?

  Christoffer gasped for air while he spoke. "What…what is that?" he asked. His voice was trembling heavily. "What are you going to do with those?"

  Christoffer pointed at the table behind the man. The man turned and looked. Then he giggled. "Ah those," he said. "You're wondering about them. Beautiful aren't they? Don't worry. I cleaned them well."

  Christoffer didn't understand much of what he said. He was scared, terrified. He tried, once again, to get up, but the man forced him down again. This time, he slapped him across the face.

  "No getting up," he said. "Stay in bed."

  Christoffer touched his cheek. It was throbbing. Then he cried. "Please, sir. Please just let me get back to my friends. I miss my mom. Please, let me go."

  The man tilted his head again and Christoffer knew he didn't understand his Danish. He was sobbing now. How was he supposed to explain to the man that he wanted to go back? His cheek was hurting badly. The man was giggling and looking at him strangely. He reached down and grabbed his face between his fingers and pulled the skin on his cheeks. Then he laughed and nodded.

  "Very nice. Very soft and smooth," the man said.

  "Please, sir," Christoffer pleaded. Tears were rolling quickly down his cheeks. The man wiped them off with a napkin. Then he smiled.

  "Before we start, there’s someone I want you to meet," he said.

  Christoffer didn't want to. He wanted to get out of this place. He wanted to go back to the suite where he had fallen asleep. He wanted his mom.

  Help me, Mommy. Help me. This is a very bad man. I think he is a very bad man, Mommy.

  The man rose and pulled off his black coat with a grin.

  "Meet Deedee," he said. "Deedee, meet your new face."

  Christoffer looked at the strange thing that seemed to be sewn to the man's shoulder. What was that? Christoffer gasped for air.

  Mommy, the bad man has a head on his shoulder. It's creepy.

  The man took one of the knives from the table. He leaned in over Christoffer, who was sweating and shaking.

  "I'm sorry. This will hurt a lot," he said. He lifted Christoffer's chin so he looked into the man's eyes.

  Just as he placed the knife on Christoffer's throat, there was a loud knock on the door.

  54

  February 1980

  SALVATORE ROSETTI HAD THOUGHT about his babies every day, every hour of his life since he left them in the dumpster. For many years, he drank the pain away, traveling the seas working as a sailor doing any kind of job they would let him. The harder, the better, since it seemed to make him forget the pain slightly, at least for a short while, the harder he worked.

  But it never lasted long before it was back to torture him.

  Once land-bound again, ten years
later, he tried another approach. He visited his childhood church outside of Rome and asked father Adorno for forgiveness. He told him everything about the babies that he hadn't wanted and that he had regretted abandoning for every minute since.

  "I even went back there, Father," he said, sitting in the confession chair. "Later that same night, I returned. But the dumpster was empty. They were gone. I keep picturing what might have happened to them. I keep wondering if an animal, a fox or maybe something bigger might have taken them."

  Father Adorno thought it over for a little while. "Or maybe a kind and merciful human took them in. Did you ever think about that?"

  "You mean to say, they might still be alive?" Salvatore had never dared to think the thought, but now it sparkled inside of him, this newfound hope that maybe, just maybe, they were out there somewhere.

  "They might be," the father said.

  "I needed to find them," he said.

  "First, you must repent, my son."

  "Do you think God will ever forgive me?"

  "I believe he will. But you must ask him to. And you must repent your sins first."

  "I repent. I repent," Salvatore said.

  After leaving the church, Salvatore realized he had no way of knowing where to start looking. He decided to start where it had all begun. At the dumpster in the alley. Salvatore made posters and placed them all over the area and, every day, he waited by the dumpster like he had said on the poster that he would, hoping someone would show up.

  After three days, someone did. An old woman who told him she lived in the building next to the alley.

  "I saw your boys," she said. "I found them when I was throwing out my trash one night. I gave them to the orphanage. If you're lucky, they still have them there."

  Tears rolled quickly down Salvatore's face. He looked at the woman with compassion. He grabbed her hand and shook it eagerly. "Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for taking them."

  Then he ran off to the orphanage. He asked about the boys, but the manager told him they had run off many years ago.