“Yes, sweet boy?”
“Is it true—that I killed my mother?”
Arietta paled, rising up slightly to lean right over Jason. “Who said that to you?”
The little boy looked away.
“Was it your father?”
His reluctance to say was all Arietta needed.
“My darling child, your mother died because the doctor couldn’t stop the bleeding. She just didn’t have enough strength to keep breathing.”
“But, if I had not been born, she would have lived. Father says she was smiling, happy, after David was born—that she let go when I tried to enter the world.”
“No, Jason—” Arietta couldn’t find the words to make it all okay. I wondered if a part of her, too, believed this, or if maybe she was so horrified by this child’s certainty of his existence destroying another’s, that she couldn’t speak. “Jason, your father was not even in the room when my sister passed. I was there. I saw her smile when the doctor told her there was another child. I saw her eyes light with joy for the fact that you would be born.” She stroked his hair, her eyes touching every inch of his little face. “Oh, my sweet, sweet boy. She wanted nothing more than to hold you, I know this, because she was my sister, and we have the same heart—” She touched her chest. “If I love you this much, then she would have loved you just the same.”
Jason nodded into the cup of her hand, but I saw it in his eyes, that her truth couldn’t change what was in his heart—what he had been told since he was old enough to understand words.
“I am so sorry I can’t stay here and be your mother, Jason. If your father would have me, I would not leave you at the end of the summer—not ever, but—” She looked down, her eyes tearing. “But just know that, even though we can’t be together, I never stop loving you—or your brother.”
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, watched tears fall between his fingertips, sinking through the blades of grass under his hands. Thunder made the day close in on him and the rain came down around his knees, over his shoulders, making the cold harsh and the pain go deeper. He swiped a hand across his nose, barely able to see the name on the headstone before him.
“This is the second woman our family has buried because of you.”
Jason stood quickly and spun around to his brother’s angered face. “David, how can you say such things? I cannot be to blame for this.”
The two thirteen-year-old versions of the twins stood face to face; one softened by grief, the other hardened, with hate-filled eyes barring his brother. “You tell yourself that, demon. Go ahead. If it eases your guilt.”
“Guilt. Guilt for what? I ran. I told you this. I ran as fast as I could—”
“And yet it was not fast enough.”
Jason reached out to gently clasp the lapel of David’s coat. “I will not be to blame. I could not have saved her if I’d grown wings and flown to get uncle.”
David’s stiff body seemed to shake, his lips tight, his nostrils flaring with each breath of hatred or grief or whatever he was carrying inside that made me take a step back. “It’s not how fast you ran, brother; it’s not how long it took you to bring Uncle—it’s your mere existence. You were never meant to be, and until your ashes are in this earth, balance can never be restored.”
“I don’t believe that. And Arietta didn’t believe that, either.”
David looked at her grave, clenching his teeth so firmly his cheeks appeared hollow. “She could never see past your lies, and now she’s dead. She is dead because you are an abomination.” His arm shook, his finger aimed at the beastly creature across from him. “But I see you for what you are. I see you for what Father knew you were. As far as I’m concerned, from this day forth, I have no brother,” he said, not a shred of sympathy softening his rain-soaked face, and he backed away, leaving Jason to grieve the loss—alone.
My heart saturated with sadness, but I couldn’t allow it—couldn’t let pity change how I felt about either of them. I wanted to hate David as much as I wanted to fall beside Jason, as he sunk to the ground, and wrap my arms around him—around his young self—tell him everything would be okay. But it wouldn’t. Not for him. From that day on, the one person who loved him, saw him as just a boy, would never lay eyes on him again, never lay a comforting hand to his cheek. He was alone now.
I backed away, too, my heart pounding in my chest.
He was truly all alone.
“Walk with me.”
I looked up suddenly to the other version of myself; she watched on to the scene before us, her eyes hollow, distant, like she wasn’t aware she was beside me. But when she turned her head and looked directly into my eyes, I felt her presence, her sentience. I shuddered inside.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She turned away, hugging her arms across her waist, her yellow dress falling softly around her knees, not blown by the wind that swept her hair. “Walk with me,” is all she said.
So I did. I followed her through the field, feeling the long grass between my toes, feeling every rock, every rise of soil touch the balls of my feet, while the warm wind did nothing to steal the chill radiating from her ghostly presence, like an icy cloth.
“Tell me where we’re going,” I called out.
“To find understanding.”
“Understanding? For what, who?”
“Jason.”
“Jason? Why?”
“You need to see.” Her voice had a distant, resonating echo to it—like she wasn’t real, or the part of her that once had been, no longer was.
“What do I need to see?”
“How you loved him.”
I stopped walking, the world going dark, quiet all around me. “That love was never real. It was the spirit bind.”
When she stopped also, I felt the eerie weight of her madness creep across my shoulders; the very energy of her impatience made the air thick and heavy. “That is the lie you tell yourself.”
“No. It’s the truth.”
She smiled conceitedly. “Then why do you wish he never died?”
My mouth gaped; I took a few steps back. “I wish no such thing.”
“Liar.”
“No.” I started walking away again. “We’re all better off now he’s dead.”
“If you believe that, then perhaps you’re more like David than I wanted to imagine,” she called out through the darkness.