Twins

by Caroline B. Cooney

  The desire to hurt Van flared on Jon Pear like sunspots. It blinded Mary Lee, as if looking Jon Pear’s way required special lenses.

  Jon Pear got out of his car and searched the crowds.

  Coming through the high school door were Van and Scarlett.

  “Why, Van,” said Jon Pear, his smile growing.

  “Why, Van,” said Jon Pear, gliding forward like a creature of the water, without legs, without steps.

  Chapter 12

  VAN STEPPED IN FRONT of Scarlett.

  As if standing first in line ever saved the second person.

  But Mary Lee loved him for it. Once I was that close to my sister, she thought. Once Madrigal and I trusted each other and looked out for each other.

  When the twins were little, Mother used to say, they’d fall asleep at the exact same moment, the rhythm of their breathing identical. They would eat their cereal in synchrony, each little right hand moving a spoon as the other did. They would run to the schoolbus stop, each skip timed like a choreographed dance number.

  Where did you go, Madrigal? asked Mary Lee.

  But she could not spend time on a ruined sister. She had to move on. “Leave Van and Scarlett alone,” said Mary Lee. Her voice felt old, as if she had dug it out of some dusty history text.

  Jon Pear, of course, never even looked at her, but continued to advance upon Van.

  She stepped between them.

  “Madrigal, this is my game,” said Jon Pear, never lowering his eyes to hers.

  “These are people. They aren’t a game.” She stepped in front of him again.

  He was incredulous. Nobody blocked the path of Jon Pear. “What is going on here?” demanded Jon Pear. “Who do you think you are?” His voice was no longer water rippling over the rocks. It was the rock itself, sharp. “I do anything I want.”

  “No.”

  “Madrigal,” said Jon Pear. “You’re making me angry, Madrigal.”

  She shrugged. The pretense of being Madrigal felt as if it had lasted for weeks. Drained her like a wasting disease.

  Jon Pear wanted to shove her away. She could feel his yearning to push her trembling on the other side of his own extended hand. He controlled himself, but just barely. The violence in Jon Pear was growing. She felt as if she were standing over a geographic fault line.

  Who is Jon Pear? she thought, staring at his fury.

  She knew nothing of his history and nothing of his present. Did not know his address. Did not have his phone number. Jon Pear had never mentioned parents — never quoted them, referred to them, groaned about their rules, hoped for their approval. He had mentioned no sisters or brothers. No dogs, no bedroom, no possession had been worth describing. He seemed to play no sport and, although he attended classes, he seemed not to be enrolled in them.

  He was just there.

  “If your plan, Madrigal,” said Van quietly, “is to pretend you’re on our side, so you can get us to go along with you, or divide us, you need to know we can see through you. You’re as sick as Jon Pear is.”

  She wanted desperately to have Van know who she really was.

  “It won’t work, Madrigal,” said Van. “We’ve played too many of your games. We’re not playing this time. We’re going to our car. You are not getting near us. Neither of you. You are not to touch us, nor speak to us. Ever again.”

  Mary Lee’s heart was breaking. She flushed in shame, her olive skin turning hot and beautiful.

  Jon Pear said, “Madrigal?” She could not tell whether he shook from rage or adoration.

  Van and Scarlett took a single stride toward their car, but Jon Pear leaped between them and safety. He spoke to Madrigal, but he stared into the eyes of Van and Scarlett.

  “Remember the day we saw somebody drowning, Madrigal?” said Jon Pear. “Remember how you and I stood on the shore and watched? Remember how bright and gaudy the autumn leaves were, drifting down on the water where he went under? Remember how he came to the surface again and signaled us? He knew we were there, Madrigal.”

  The miasma of his evil spread like a fishnet. Mary Lee tried to step away, but his voice caught her. She was prisoner of his voice the way she had been prisoner of the broken step.

  “The last time he came up, and didn’t have enough strength to call out to us, we waved at him.” Jon Pear’s eyes glittered like diamonds. “You and I, Madrigal. Remember what fun that was, when he went down? He knew we could have done something. And he knew we wouldn’t. That’s the most fun,” Jon Pear confided. “When you could do something, but you don’t. And they realize it, the victims. They know you chose to let them drown.”

  Scarlett was weeping.

  Van continued to appear preppy and perfect, athletic and interesting. But his complexion drained of color, and beneath his tan he was gray. As gray as the skies and the heart that had accompanied Mary Lee on her plane trips.

  Mary Lee, too, struggled for air she would never find and reached out with frozen fingers to haul herself to safety, and found only a maple leaf. In a voice that had no sound, only horror, she said, My sister did that?

  Her knees buckled. Half-fainting, Mary Lee ended not unconscious but kneeling in front of Jon Pear, as if begging for mercy.

  “I don’t do mercy,” said Jon Pear. “I don’t do anything I could go to jail for, either. I just stand there. Watching. What happens, happens. I love watching it.”

  She felt herself folding, growing smaller and smaller. She had nothing inside now but agony. What he was was bad. Not a mirage, not a ghost, not a vampire, but a completely bad person. And either Madrigal had been born the same, or he had taught her to be the same.

  “And you do, too, Madrigal. Don’t pretend now that you didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. Don’t try to get Van Maxsom back by pretending you’re really a nice person. You’re Madrigal, who stands laughing while people die.” He smiled a real smile, the smile of a person who found life satisfying.

  “I will do nothing with you, Jon Pear!” she shouted. “I will stop you.”

  How he laughed. His eyes bright. “Nothing stops me. Least of all you, Madrigal! I’ll have whatever victim I want. Including you, if I want you.”

  In the parking lot that Mary Lee had thought empty, students appeared. They formed a distant circle, silent and watching.

  “Ah, this is what I like,” said Jon Pear. “A larger audience.”

  She knew them. Geordie, Kip, Stephen, Rog, Kelly, Courtney, Nate … and Katy.

  Jon Pear’s voice like a satin wedding gown, tempting her down a terrible aisle. “Join me, Madrigal. You and I are twins now, remember. The perfect match.”

  “No, Jon Pear. Never.”

  “I own you, Madrigal. I know everything you ever did. I even know you murdered your own sister. Mary Lee was far away but she was still there. You couldn’t stand it! You couldn’t stand those soft little thoughts of hers wafting home, you couldn’t stand that whimpering — come visit me. You decided miles weren’t enough. You wanted her completely and forever gone.”

  She spread her legs for balance, and gripped her waist with her two hands for courage. “I am not Madrigal. I do not know what Madrigal had in mind for Mary Lee, but nothing happened to Mary Lee. It happened to Madrigal herself. The body was identified by a ski suit and I, Mary Lee, took advantage. I thought she had the better life, and I thought I wanted her life. Now I see that Madrigal’s life was ugly and barren and cruel. And you, too, Jon Pear. You are ugly and barren and cruel. And I will stop you.”

  The night air was less cold. The wind was more quiet.

  “You are Mary Lee?” whispered Scarlett.

  “She is not!” shouted Jon Pear. He jumped up and down, as if trying to crush the opposition under his feet. “I know everything, and I would have known.”

  Mary Lee folded her arms across her heart. Either the memory of her twin or the violence of Jon Pear was going to destroy her if she didn’t keep a very tight hold. “You know very little, Jon Pear. You know nothing of love. You corrup
ted Madrigal, but you will not have me.”

  “You are Madrigal!”

  “I am Mary Lee.”

  “Impossible! Nothing fools me. I would have known.” He clung to the little vial of tears, and Mary Lee saw suddenly that it was for his sake he had the gold chain and the talisman: It made him feel bigger and better.

  She grabbed the chain and jerked it hard, snapping it against the back of Jon Pear’s own neck, and she threw it into the weeds where it belonged.

  There was silence.

  There was darkness.

  There was astonishment.

  Scarlett whispered, “You are Mary Lee!” She pivoted slowly, creeping around behind the safety of her brother, hardly daring to believe.

  “I’m sorry.” Mary Lee was weeping. “Oh, Scarlett, for all the things my sister did, I’m sorry. I didn’t know! I knew some other Madrigal. I don’t know who this one was, that Madrigal who hurt everybody and liked it.”

  Scarlett placed a gentle kiss on Mary Lee’s cheek. It was unbearably similar to the kiss of twins. “We forgive you for what Madrigal was, and what she did.”

  Mary Lee left Jon Pear standing alone. She left him humiliated and tricked. She left after calling him ugly. She stood with Van and Scarlett, with Kip and Geordie, Courtney and Nate.

  No one can bear to be left standing alone and friendless.

  No one can bear to see a circle of people closing in on him.

  The worse kind of person you are, the more you need other people. You have to brag. You have to show off. You have to swagger.

  Jon Pear would show them.

  He would have something to swagger about.

  Chapter 13

  AS IF THEY HAD been in a VCR clicked to PAUSE, they now clicked to PLAY.

  People moved back to their cars. Chatter and laughter returned. Tonight’s athletic event was over; now they must remind each other of the next one, and promise to be there, and to win.

  “Winter Sleigh Day is Saturday,” they called to each other.

  “I’m in the relay race,” Stephen said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m selling T-shirts,” said Kelly.

  “I’m selling hot chocolate,” said Courtney.

  “I’m renting ice skates,” said Rog.

  Van and Scarlett walked Mary Lee to her car. Van opened the door for her, and checked to see that the other doors were locked, and waited until she had her key out. “I’m stunned,” he said. “I have to admit — I only half-believe you, Mary Lee. Madrigal, you see, was so crafty. She could fool anybody.”

  “She fooled me,” said Mary Lee.

  Scarlett said, giving a great gift to Mary Lee, “I don’t believe for one minute that Madrigal was going to hurt you when she went to visit. That’s typical Jon Pear. He turns a perfectly nice visit to a sister into something evil and violent. I’m sure Madrigal really missed you.”

  Van looked at his sister. His eyes were flat and his mouth was tight. He believed Madrigal had planned to hurt her sister. He had no trouble believing it at all.

  What he had trouble believing was that Madrigal didn’t pull it off — that it was Mary Lee who had survived.

  Like photographic negatives, in the half-illumination of half-working parking-lot lights, students in cars were ghosts on black. Muffled, their engines began. Slowly, nosing forward like migrating herds, they found the exits and drove away.

  Van and Scarlett went to their car.

  Mary Lee turned the key in her engine.

  Van and Scarlett slammed their own doors and locked them.

  Mary Lee’s key turned, but her engine didn’t.

  Van and Scarlett started up and drove away.

  Mary Lee tried the key again, and the engine was silent, and again, and the engine was silent, and —

  Jon Pear slid into the passenger seat.

  “I locked the door!” she said.

  He laughed. “I have a key, of course. And I took the precaution of disabling your car, of course. Wave good-bye to your little friends, Mary Lee.”

  But her little friends were gone, nothing but red rear lights vanishing down the road. The last parting student waved good-bye. Did that person know? Did that driver see who had gotten into the car with her? Was that person doing for a hobby exactly what Madrigal and Jon Pear had done — committing the sin of just driving away?

  “Winter Sleigh Day,” said Jon Pear meditatively. “Let’s spell that differently, Mary Lee. Winter Slay Day.” His smile was back. “Whom shall we slay, my new little twin?” His fingers closed over Mary Lee’s wrist.

  “So you are really Mary Lee.” He shook his head. “Fascinating. Madrigal tried to talk back to me once, too.”

  “She did?” Mary Lee felt a thread of hope for her sister.

  “You are braver than she is. You’re trying a second time.”

  I am braver than Madrigal?

  “But it won’t work. I will make you my twin just the way I made Madrigal my twin. You and I will be twins in evil.”

  “Never! Anyway, Jon Pear, you’re not evil. You’re ordinary. You’re just mean and low. You’re just ugly and pointless. The world has lots of people like you.”

  Jon Pear was furious. What could be a greater insult than being called ordinary? “I am evil,” he told her. He tilted her chin up as if to kiss her lips, but kept tilting as if to snap her neck. “And you tried it, Mary Lee. You were a passenger in the car that put old Katy out in the street.”

  “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said.

  Jon Pear laughed. His laughter rose like smoky pollution from some ancient factory. “You knew something bad was going to happen, and you wanted to see what it was. Don’t lie, Mary Lee. But even if you didn’t lie, you’re still caught. See, once you go bad, you stay bad. You get only one chance. You don’t get to say, ‘Oh, let’s not count this, I’m sorry now, I want to be nice again.’”

  “Yes, you can. You can say you’re sorry.” She wondered what he was going to do to her. He was stronger. He could run faster.

  “People love to say they’re sorry,” he agreed, “and maybe somebody somewhere gives you points for it. But you stay bad, whether you’re sorry or not.”

  There was a sort of purity to Jon Pear. Weren’t most people a mixture? Didn’t most people, no matter how ugly, have some redeeming quality? Jon Pear was scum, acid.

  “How did you disable my car?” she said sharply.

  “Oh, right, I’m going to tell you so you can do it to mine.” He snorted.

  How strange, she thought. It never occurred to me to do it to his, I just wanted to change the subject and maybe even figure out how to get it going again.

  “I may have been fooled by a change of clothing, Mary Lee,” whispered Jon Pear, and the whisper whistled through the silent frightened night. “But you! You were fooled by Madrigal’s entire life.”

  “Not her entire life,” said Mary Lee. “Some of our lives — most of our lives — Madrigal was good.”

  He snorted. “Madrigal was born bad and got worse. Madrigal hated being a twin. She hated you for flirting with Van that day and she hated you for going to the mall with Scarlett. She hated you for looking the same and sounding the same and acting the same as her. She thought boarding school would be enough, but it wasn’t. You were still an aura in the house. Your mother and father still missed you. Your room was still there. She could feel your messages. How you were lonely and scared. Of course, she was glad about that, but she hated it that you still had a thought wave to her.”

  It was just as well that Mary Lee did not still have a thought wave to her twin. Don’t tell me her plans for that visit, thought Mary Lee. Don’t give me any details about what Madrigal said she’d do to me.

  “Winter Sleigh Day,” said Jon Pear. “What is it, anyway?”

  Beyond the tennis courts and the big oval track, beyond the stand of pine trees that bordered the school campus, a charming lake emptied into a wild white-water river. Winter Sleigh Day used it a
ll: courts, track, trees, lake, and river. It was a day of merrymaking, the highlight of the season, the most fun and the most friendly.

  An idea came to Mary Lee.

  “Madrigal and I,” said Mary Lee, “always loved Winter Sleigh Day. We wore matching purple-velvet snowsuits when we were little, and Mother curled our hair out around the white trim of our hoods, and we would make maple sugar candy on the snow, and fly down the hill on the toboggan.”

  “Spare me the infant memories,” said Jon Pear. “The past does not interest me unless I am in it.”

  Mary Lee said, “You must have been in it somewhere. How did you get here? Where did you come from?”

  Jon Pear laughed without sound. “My parents are boring. Stupid. Dull. My whole life would be boring stupid and dull, but I decided to have fun. And I’m going to have fun, Mary Lee, and I’m going to have fun with you.”

  She wet her lips in spite of the fact that Jon Pear would see her anxiety, and use it against her. “Winter Sleigh Day is such a pretty holiday.” She closed her eyes and spoke from the darkness. “They have ice carving and snowman contests. They bring in sled dogs. Ice skating and cross-country skiing are competitive events, and there are also silly events, like snowball wars and icicle eating. So no disrupting Winter Sleigh Day, Jon Pear. It’s an important day. You need to confine your silly little pranks to school days. No fooling around on Winter Sleigh Day.”

  “I don’t fool around!” said Jon Pear. He muttered to himself. “Pranks!”

  “Childish,” said Mary Lee. “You’re just frustrated. Now, I want you to make a real effort to act more adult. You’re not very mature, and if you just try hard, Jon Pear, you can — ”

  “I can see why Madrigal hated you,” said Jon Pear. “You’re a lecturing frumpy little middle-aged — ”

  “I’m just trying to help, Jon Pear. Have you thought of counseling? Well, we’ll save that for another day, when you’re not so moody. Saturday is Winter Sleigh Day, and you absolutely must not do anything naughty.”

  “Naughty!” exploded Jon Pear.