Twins

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Katy pounded on the metal of the car. “Stop the car! Let me in! What are you doing? Do you want me to get killed?” She was screaming. Her own screams would bring the gang.

  Mary Lee was immobilized. This, then, was the entertainment of her own twin. Evil without vampires, evil without rituals, evil without curses or violence.

  The simple and entertaining evil of just driving away.

  Katy’s face was distorted with terror. Her fingers scrabbled helplessly against the safety glass.

  “I love panic,” said Jon Pear. “Look what it does to her face.”

  I should kick him, thought Mary Lee, disable the car, call the police, hit him with the tire iron. “Jon Pear,” she said. The words hardly formed in her mouth. Or perhaps her mouth hardly formed words. Everything was wrong with everything. “Stop the car. We have to let Katy back in.”

  “We never let them back in, Madrigal. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  We never. So her twin had done this more than once and, presumably, once to Scarlett. No wonder Van hated her.

  But why hadn’t police been called? Why hadn’t authorities stopped Jon Pear and Madrigal? If the whole school knew, why weren’t people doing anything?

  She would have to tell her parents.

  But what parents would believe that their sweet beautiful darling daughter had a hobby like this?

  No trigger pulled. No match lit. No poisons given.

  Just driving away. That was all you had to do. Drive away.

  “What did you do to Scarlett?” said Mary Lee.

  “Me?” He lowered his eyes. “I beg your pardon. You chose Scarlett.”

  Katy screamed and scrabbled and crawled on the sides of the car.

  “And what happened?” said Mary Lee.

  “You well know. You orchestrated it.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Jon Pear relaxed. “Oh, you just want a bedtime story. You just want to wallow in the details again. Well, she was much more scared than Katy. I like talking about it.”

  “Talk” was a nice, friendly, folksy word. This was not “talk.” This was obscenity.

  “Scarlett didn’t even run after us. She just folded up on the sidewalk. Then rats came out to investigate. She didn’t get bitten or anything, but they walked on her. She went insane for a while, I guess. It was so neat. We followed her block after block, just watching. She was seeing rats everywhere. She ran deeper into the tenements instead of out. She kept screaming ‘Help!’ As if anybody here would help anybody. They were probably all laughing, too, if they heard over their radios and televisions.”

  Katy stumbled and fell, leaping up with the strength of terror, trying to climb right up the car. Jon Pear, amused, accelerated. “Don’t you love it when they panic so much they aren’t human anymore,” he said.

  Katy was not human anymore. Panic had scraped off everything but the desire to survive.

  “That was beautiful. I love fear,” whispered Jon Pear. “I love panic.”

  Jon Pear turned a corner,

  A dozen blocks away were the glittering prosperous lights of safe downtown. If Katy kept running, she’d make it. But Mary Lee could not even roll down the window to yell instructions. Jon Pear had sealed the car.

  And even if Katy arrived in the safe part, what then? Did she have the money to phone? Would she go to the police? Would she call those parents that didn’t care where she was?

  “Why didn’t the Maxsoms do something to — ” she could not say us. “I mean, why didn’t Scarlett and Van — ”

  “They never tell,” said Jon Pear. “I don’t know why. People are ashamed. Victims always think it’s their fault. That’s one of the neat things about this, don’t you think? They blame themselves. They tell half of it, or none of it, or lie about it, or wait months.”

  He paused, not worrying about traffic, because no one sane would drive here, and looked back to see if Katy was emerging from the pools of dark. She wasn’t. Perhaps she was already trapped.

  “Old Scarlett was so blown away,” said Jon Pear, “that even though a fire truck happened by and found her, she got her story so wrong it was comic. She got the times wrong and the description of the car wrong and the rats wrong. You and I really couldn’t have done it! Hysterical. Scarlett set us free. Van’s a little irritated, of course. Scarlett spent two weeks in a mental ward, getting rid of rat visions. I found a rat and put it in her locker, and she ended up back in the hospital. The only thing wrong was I wasn’t there to see her face when she opened the locker. There’s no point in doing this stuff if you don’t get to see them panic.”

  Mary Lee would have preferred to find that Jon Pear had fangs and supernatural skills. But he was just a teenager without a soul or a heart, without a conscience or a care.

  And so was my identical twin.

  Jon Pear explained himself with the open heart of a lover. “Jon Pear has always been alone,” he said, as if Jon Pear were some third party. “Who would have guessed that he’d find a partner?” He held her hand as he drove, and squeezed it affectionately.

  Jon Pear swam under the water of evil. It lapped up against Mary Lee, as if she were a pebble on the lake of evil, soon to be covered by a wave of it.

  “It’s wrong,” she said to him.

  “Of course it’s wrong. That’s the fun part.” This time he held her in his arms as if about to declare wedding vows. “Oh Madrigal!” he breathed. He drank in her beauty, and Mary Lee saw that he truly was in love.

  She would have thought evil people were incapable of love, but she was wrong: Evil could love just as deeply.

  For Jon Pear loved Madrigal.

  “Oh, Madrigal, I’m so glad Mary Lee is gone out of our lives,” said Jon Pear. “Those foolish, friendly, forgiving thoughts she was always cluttering up your mind with are gone forever.”

  Mary Lee spun out into space, as if she were a black hole, an eternal sorrow. He kissed her and in spite of the horror it was a wonderful kiss, because it was truly full of love. Who would have thought that love could flourish in an evil soul?

  “You’re just like me,” Jon Pear told her. “For you, people are no different from sheep or ants or hamsters. Just breathers, to provide entertainment.”

  The gold curtain dropped over his eyes.

  “And now,” said Jon Pear lovingly, opening her door, “I want to see you scared, too.”

  Chapter 11

  I JUST WON’T MOVE, she said to herself.

  I’ll just stand very still, right here in the street.

  Nothing can happen to me in the middle of the pavement.

  Jon Pear sat within the locked car, the tiny little lights on his dashboard flickering upward under his chin. He was laughing, his mouth open, his white teeth tinted by the lights.

  His glittering golden eyes waited for her to panic.

  His chest lifted and fell too fast, a panting dog ready to bite.

  She could not look at him. He was not human.

  Mary Lee looked away, down the street into the total black and up the street where Jon Pear’s headlights made queerly yellow shadows. She needed an ally. Somebody to stand with.

  This is no different from boarding school, she thought, no different from the cafeteria. All anybody wants in life is somebody to stand with!

  Mary Lee called out to Katy, but terror had robbed her of the air to support her voice. Only a mumble came from her mouth. Nobody came to her aid.

  A rat, however, came to her feet.

  She had not known a rat would be that large, that sure of itself. She had not known its little eyes would fix on hers, making its little rat plans. She had not known its long, hairless tail would be so plump.

  The rat grabbed her dangling shoelace in its teeth, its teeth yellowy green. Now the scream Mary Lee had not been able to produce invented itself.

  She felt her face change shape and her jaw stretch, she felt her eyes scream along with her mouth, widening and gaping. She heard the terrible sound of her own horror scrapi
ng its way out of her lungs.

  She kicked. She didn’t want even her shoe to touch the rat. She had to get it off her! Get away!

  Mary Lee, too, tried to mount the car body, tried to tip the windows down, tried to tear the doors off the hinges — anything — just to get inside, be safe, be civilized.

  Jon Pear was delighted.

  Bright-eyed, he watched her.

  The rat followed.

  She choked on her own scream.

  How silent was the city. How soundless the rat.

  There was no urban din. No radio. No engine. No horn. No bark.

  Just the heaving of her own chest, the sucking of her own lungs.

  She ran. She had to run. She didn’t know if she was running from Jon Pear — sitting all normal and cozy like an ordinary high-school boy waiting for the light to change — or from the rat.

  Only the rat followed her.

  The street belonged to the rat. She had to leave the street. She had to run faster than the rat. She would go into this building — she would — but no human beings went into this building. She made it up the first step, and up the second, and while her foot was still in midair, reaching for the third, she saw how the doors and windows were solid: blank, with splintered plywood nailed on to make empty boxes of night out of ordinary buildings.

  The third step collapsed. Sneaker and sock were slashed as her foot went down. Down into air, down into nothing, down where probably not just rats but also snakes hid! Down with spiders and things that bit and things that chewed.

  Mary Lee had not known she possessed as many screams. They came rolling out of her like links on a chain, one after another, huge shining polished screams.

  Jon Pear was backing up his car. He was not a good backer. The car veered first to the left and then to the right. She hoped he would crash into some unyielding brick building and total his car, but he wasn’t going fast enough for that.

  Rolling down his window with the little push button, Jon Pear grinned at her. Loose and easy, like a cheerleader at a game. “Hey, Maddy, what’s happening?” He giggled.

  Mary Lee thought: My sister Madrigal enjoyed hurting people. Madrigal did this. More than once. She sat in that car with Jon Pear, with the windows up and the doors locked, and she laughed while her face turned green in the light and her victim screamed among the rats.

  My twin.

  Katy staggered around the corner. Her eyes were unnaturally wide. Her hands were filthy and also her kneecaps; she’d fallen in a gutter and the trash had stuck to her.

  Jon Pear vaulted out of the car. He escorted Katy to the car like a boyfriend privileged to have such a pretty date for the prom.

  “Jon Pear,” whispered Mary Lee. “Jon Pear, I can’t get my foot out. I’m stuck.”

  “Dear, dear,” said Jon Pear, tucking Katy into the front passenger seat, and gently fastening her seatbelt, and gently closing her door. Jon Pear waved at Mary Lee. “Bye, bye, Madrigal,” he said softly, blowing her a kiss.

  He strolled around the car to get in and drive away.

  Lock him out, Katy! thought Mary Lee. Lock Jon Pear out in the street and drive away! I don’t care what happens to me as long as Jon Pear gets his! Lock the doors, Katy.

  Katy scrunched against the door, clinging to herself and the armrest.

  Mary Lee’s screams were all used up now, tired and pointless, and the tears began.

  Jon Pear scared Madrigal so much that my sister had to participate, thought Mary Lee. My sister didn’t really want to do this. Jon Pear forced her …

  No. The sister who visited her at boarding school hadn’t been afraid of her boyfriend. The thought of Jon Pear had brought only smiles to Madrigal’s face.

  No wonder Van hates me, thought Mary Lee. No wonder Scarlett is afraid of me.

  Jon Pear rested on the back of the car, like a horse trainer lounging against the fence.

  She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to beg. Say please, say the magic word.

  He wanted power.

  He wanted proof that he could give fear and take away fear.

  He could start panic and take away panic.

  I will stop him, she thought, I will end him. I will never never never let Jon Pear hurt anybody else again!

  “Please, Jon Pear,” she begged. “Please don’t leave me here.”

  He stomped down on the broken step, breaking it more, and giving her room to pull her foot out. He helped her into the backseat. Very gentlemanly. When she sagged down onto the leather, the soft-as-butter leather, the warm once-alive leather, she felt safe and civilized again.

  Jon Pear actually said thank you to Mary Lee when he started the car. “That was great, Madrigal,” he said. “You were great. You were as scared as any of them. Because you knew I’d really drive away. You really knew what to be scared of.”

  Jon Pear laughed happily and changed radio stations.

  “Wasn’t that a high, Katy?” said Jon Pear. He flashed his marvelous smile at her. The smile had a life and character of its own. He was the sponsor of the smile, but it wasn’t his. He’d just bought it somewhere. “Weren’t you thrilled, Katy? There’s nothing like having your life in danger.”

  Katy burst into tears.

  They reached a red light in the center of downtown, ten blocks and a million emotional miles from where he had dumped Katy. Theater patrons bustled in their finery, and the late-night restaurant crowd rustled in and out bright-lit doors. The music of pianos and small bands spilled out onto the friendly sidewalks.

  Jon Pear took Katy’s hands away from her face as if those were his own, as if Katy had them on loan. Her face was stricken and tear-stained. He chose a tear, lifting it carefully with a bare finger. He looked down onto the tear like somebody telling fortunes, and a wild and boyish smile crossed his face.

  He ate the tear.

  Mary Lee made herself think of good things. Of parents and warmth, of sunshine and autumn leaves, of laughter and sharing. Once she would also have thought of twins, but there was no beauty in that thought now.

  “Tears are the soul,” said Jon Pear. “Tears are pain.”

  No, thought Mary Lee, tears are just proof. Just a weird creepy way of showing that you made somebody cry.

  She saw there was just something animal about Jon Pear; he was closer to the rat. He was a boy, a high school boy, but a wilding. He was so handsome, so well-packaged! It was hard to tell, beneath the good clothing and the great hair, the shining smile and the fine speech, that he was less, not more.

  Subhuman, she thought. That’s what it is.

  How much, she thought, as Jon Pear’s car moved through the city and got back on the highway, how much did Mother and Father know? They knew I was in danger. Did they know exactly what Madrigal was up to? Did somebody’s parents call them? Did Madrigal brag? Did they follow her?

  Now the two thousand miles her mother and father had chosen seemed like a fine gift. If only it had worked! Mary Lee would have been happier to be lonely and confused all her life, than to know what kind of person Madrigal had really been.

  I have to be sure Mother and Father know that I’m really Mary Lee. We have to bury Madrigal, and we have to bury her deep and forever.

  And Jon Pear … how do we bury Jon Pear?

  Mary Lee made plan after plan. But nothing would really work. Jon Pear would slide out of whatever came and wait a while and then — here or elsewhere — start up again.

  Katy and I will go to the police, she thought. The simple solution is always best. We’ll tell the authorities and have Jon Pear imprisoned.

  But Jon Pear had been here before. How clever he was! In moments, he had Katy giggling to please him. He had Katy admitting that the night had been a real high. He had Katy pressing her lips together in a one-person kiss, listening to a hint that Jon Pear might ask her out again one day.

  It chilled Mary Lee more than the rat.

  Katy was cooperating.

  Katy wouldn’t tell a soul.

 
So there would be no police to stop Jon Pear. No principal, no parent, no passerby.

  Only Mary Lee.

  They took Katy home. She actually said thank-you after she said good-bye. Jon Pear laughed all the way to the high school.

  How Mary Lee yearned to be in her own car! Doors locked, wheels pointed toward the safety of home.

  There had evidently been some event at the school, for late as it was, people were pouring out of the building, laughing, cheering, and thrusting fists of victory into the air. Boys were whapping each other on the back, and girls were hopping up and down with delight.

  How nice to enjoy a sport like basketball, where the worst that can happen is you lose. Whereas Madrigal’s sport …

  “Jon Pear,” said Mary Lee, “we’re not going to hurt anybody again. This hobby is over.”

  It startled him. “What are you trying to pull?” said Jon Pear suspiciously.

  “This is truly bad! You have to stop being so rotten.”

  Jon Pear laughed. “Too much fun. You should have seen your face, Madrigal. You were so scared. You were jelly. You were panic. You were gone, girl. And everybody is jealous of me. I do what I want. They want to, too, but they’re timid, see. My plan is to get them all. We’ll have a whole school of people who will do anything to anybody.”

  “You will not! They won’t cooperate with you. This school is full of good people! Kind, generous, decent people.”

  He was skeptical. “Name one.”

  It was easy to name one. Easy to name two. Scarlett and Van were kind, generous, decent people.

  “Van,” she told Jon Pear. Just uttering Van’s name made her feel better. “Van is a good person.”

  She had made a mistake.

  A huge and serious mistake.

  Everything about Jon Pear darkened and deepened. He moved back from her, and she saw, for a splintered second, the creature that was beneath his skin. A creature with no compassion, no humanity. A soul as empty as the glass vial in which he had dropped her tear.

  “You like him,” said Jon Pear. He was truly shocked. “You like Van!”

  She had forgotten that Jon Pear loved Madrigal. Trusted Madrigal. Confided in her.

  She had betrayed Jon Pear. And in so doing, had betrayed Van. For Jon Pear, who had simply wanted entertainment, now had a greater motive.