The Twins

The Twins(Luna) I will never forget the summer that I’ve spent with the twins. I was a freshly married young woman, trying to get used to the fact that I cannot have my own children. I got the diagnosis stating that I was infertile after my husband left for a business trip, and from then on, I was alone in our mansion, feeling like a ghost haunting its empty halls. All I can remember from before getting the twins is that it rained an unnerving amount that spring. It felt depressive, as if nature itself was attempting to mirror my developing nihilistic tendencies. I spent the days reading mystery novels and looking out at the garden. I went on long, rain soaked walks by the Mississippi river. That time felt like a dream, and then I believed that I could never experience worse misery, that my story of suffering would reach its limit during that humid spring. Now I find myself wishing I could go back and stay frozen in that dormant rainy spring.
Adoption was my husband’s idea. One Saturday I got a letter from him, letting me know that he adopted two children from a nearby orphanage, and I would be expecting them by Wednesday. I was still so numb from grieving my lost chance of having children of my own that I didn’t quite fathom the graveness of what had happened; I knew about his plans but I wasn’t expecting such a sudden action by my husband. By Tuesday, I managed to somehow get myself together, and I went grocery shopping, I bought chocolate and cookies, and some ingredients for cooking. I also found two identical toy bunnies, with baby pink noses and soft fur covering their plush bodies. That day it didn’t rain; it felt almost unnatural, I was so used to the moist smell and the dimness of the world around me, covered by the immense curtain of raindrops. I got a letter from the orphanage, letting me know about certain rules surrounding the children. I was ought to rid my home of any religious symbols, Christian imagery being first in line. This was not a difficult rule to obey, as we were never religious, though, it made me wonder why this might be important. I was also told not to inquire about the past of the children, and to avoid physical contact until they don’t initiate. These rather novel rules startled me somewhat, and I wrote a letter to the orphanage, asking about the children. In the reply, they told me that the children were rescued from a rather dangerous situation surrounding an organization called the Family of God.
The next day was sunny, there was a light breeze playing in the blooming treetops, but no clouds were visible in the clear blue sky. This was the first time the sun shined in a few months, and I felt rejuvenated in a way. I was standing in the driveway next to my husband’s Cadillac, wearing a white dress, holding the toy bunnies and some paperwork that had been sent to me previously. I felt a knot in my stomach when a black car parked in front of me and a man wearing a dark suit opened the back door.
I don’t remember what I was expecting, but what I’ve seen struck me as a surprise, something similar to the feeling that you get when you see a deer in the forest and you lock eyes. The two children got out of the car; they were almost completely identical, the only difference was that one of them was a boy and the other one was a girl. Their hair was white as snow, the same color as their face, and they were holding each other’s hands. They looked at me now, their light blue eyes glinted and locked in any sort of emotion. I got lost in their gazes which felt ice cold on my skin, and I struggled to pay attention to the man trying to get the paperwork done. When he left finally, I walked up to the twins as they were still standing a few feet away from me. I handed them the toy bunnies, and they took them without a word, holding the plushies to their chest.
‘My name is Marianne.’I told them, and they didn’t answer. ’ If you come with me, I can show you around in the house and you can get unpacked.’ I glanced at their small carriage; two brown leather suitcases with white ribbons on their handles that seemed silky in the pale sunlight. They followed me without a word and I showed them the house, introduced them to our cat Minny, who they seemed to be wary of, and finally, after I managed to get absolutely zero reaction from the twins, led them to their room. It was next to the master’s bedroom, and it had a small balcony with flowers that smelled like honey. Their beds were made and I put cookies and books on the nightstand, though I wasn’t sure if they could read, and I filled up the closet with clean clothes in their sizes. The room smelled from detergents and flowers, the wind gently touching my face as I stood there, unable to do anything. The children unpacked and sat down on their beds, looking at each other. I felt an extreme rush of unease as I watched them, their sterilised porcelain skin and their disturbing beauty, which wasn’t quite beauty after all. It held a sense of inhumanity, unaware of its own horror.
The twins didn’t speak in the first month. We spent our days watering the flowers on their balcony, taking walks in our garden or reading books. They liked poems, or at least I figured they did, as no other form of literature managed to gain any reaction from the children. When I was reading them my favourite poem, they smiled faintly, so I clinged to this activity as my only salvation from their stillness.
At the end of the month, my husband came home; we baked a cake with the twins to welcome him. After the children handed them the little dessert they ran back to me and hid behind my back. I could hear their soft whispers uttered in each other's ears. My husband didn’t mind the children, meaning that he paid no attention to their presence; he tried to get them to speak but I reminded him that they haven’t spoken to me either, and that we should give them time. He muttered something about not wanting to adopt mutes, and retreated into his workspace, leaving me alone with the children again.
They followed me everywhere, to the grocery store, on walks, to the kitchen, to the garden when I was reading. They carried their presence in my traces like ghosts, always watching me and hiding in my shadows. Not that I minded their company; they helped with gardening, they drank lemonade and watched butterflies. They sat in the salon and I gave them picture books to look at as they couldn’t read and I didn’t want to start their education during the summer.
Sometimes I heard them whispering to each other, leaning in and trembling secrets, thoughts, dreams into the white locks. They held each other’s hands, and they stroked each other's hair. When I read them stories, the girl fell asleep on the boy’s shoulder and he rested his temple on the girl’s head, and I could take a look at their faces that were so angelic that it scared me. But even my fear of them couldn’t overtower my growing affection towards the twins. At certain nights they cried in silence, frozen, and I was kneeling next to their beds, crying with them. At those nights I felt like time had passed by us, and we were stuck in this fragment of fear and sorrow, locked in the room with the balcony. I was slowly slipping away from reality, with them, and I didn’t know how to keep myself from falling. Their crying had an unnerving, ritualistic sense to it, their bodies paralyzed, their mouths shut, only their eyes moving, vomiting tears. I couldn’t keep myself from crying with them, and I didn’t tell anyone. After those nights when they woke up they touched my hands with a little pat, as if stroking some kind of animal, and then they washed their face and changed into their clothes. They never changed in front of me before; I looked, in terror, at the stretching white scars on their backs, tearing into their ivory skin, and I almost started crying again, so they sat next to me and stroked my hair in synchrony. Time has lost meaning by then; I didn’t know how many weeks had passed since they arrived, but it must have been the middle of summer. That was the first time one of them has spoken to me.
‘You have pretty hair, Mrs Marianne.’ The girl muttered in my ear. ‘I used to have brown hair too.’
I sat there, and wondered, what on earth could have happened to them? Something terrifying, something evil; I could see it in their eyes as they looked at me: hollow, like the broken vessel of their long lost humanity. I couldn’t think of them as humans; for me, they were invincible like angels, as if they were already dead. Could I have loved them, or was that feeling something else, something that wasn’t quite love at all? It carried pain and fear, but still, it was so precious that I grew inexplicable from the twins. They didn’t depend on me; I was dependent on them.
I didn’t speak to my girl friends anymore, I didn’t go to boutiques and I didn’t spend nights with my husband. I was losing everything I had before meeting them, and still, I felt whole again. Maybe I could only feel whole if I lost myself completely for something that wasn’t even mine, that didn’t even want me.
During the last month of summer I could feel change in the air; the wind grew harsh, it was ripping leaves off my trees and the sky seemed faded, even though it didn’t rain. I think the twins knew as well, I could see it in their eyes as they looked at me, with melancholy and a sense of loss. For some reason I had the feeling that the summer is going to last forever, that we will be stuck in this endless cycle of humid nights and sunny days. But this belief shattered when the weak summer breeze turned into wind, and the air became heavy. Nature was slowly falling asleep and I couldn’t do anything to stop it from taking me and the twins away from the safe arms of summer.
When the last day of August came I couldn’t step out of the house. The children sat next to me in silence, staring at the flowery wallpaper. It seemed like our world was preparing for something terrible, something life altering; even the sky was grey, covered by smudged heavy clouds. That night it rained; large drops pounded on the rooftops, creating an intangible curtain around the city. I laid awake next to my husband and watched the raindrops mangling the world through the bedroom window, when I heard a noise and somewhere in the house a light flickered. I sat up in bed, motionless; for a few seconds there was silence and then I could hear hasty little steps from outside the room, and the twins appeared in the door. They were holding a lantern, their eyes watery and their pupils dilated; the flames danced on their white skin and deepened their features, drawing dark circles under their eyes. They walked up to me, and I can still remember the feeling that filled my stomach as they stood beside my bed, the feeling of true dread, something unexplainable by human words.
‘Is everything alright, children?’ I asked them, and they nodded in synchrony.
‘We just wanted to see you, mommy.’ the word made my stomach drop, and before I could answer a blow of wind snapped the window open, rain pouring into the room. The sound of thunder was followed by lightning slicing into the dark sky. I stood up and closed the window, struggling against the force of nature. The sound of the rain softened and I turned back towards the children, who followed me to the window and were now looking up at me, as if waiting for something. I kneeled down so that our eyes could meet and placed my hands on their shoulders.
‘I’m glad you wanted to see me. But it’s the middle of the night, you should be sleeping’ I told them, and they stepped closer to me.
‘Can we hug you, mommy?’ they asked and I felt tears filling up my eyes. I nodded and for the first time since they arrived, their arms wrapped around me, their locks falling into my face. They smelled like lavender and soil, the scent of home, childhood.
‘Don’t cry mommy.’ they whispered and their breath brushed my face like the weak summer breeze. ‘Everything shall pass.’ they said this in an unusual way, and suddenly an idea flashed through my mind: these were not their words. These were teached to them by someone else. I felt goosebumps creeping up on my back and I turned to face them now.
‘Who told you that?’ I asked them, my voice trembling, and their faces turned stone cold.
‘It’s a secret, mommy.’ they told me and hugged me again tighter than before. I felt my muscles squishing against my bones and as their grip strengthened around my torso a weird sense of comfort loosened my tension. At that moment I knew that something was about to change, that the muffled sounds of the rain was about to wash away the memories of this summer. And I cried on the floor in silence so that my husband wouldn’t wake up, and as always, I leaned on the children for salvation. As always, they were the ones comforting me, repeating, like a chant: everything shall pass. And as the storm tamed down and the rain fell silent they stopped, looking at me through the glass of their empty eyes.
‘We love you, mommy’ and with that, they left me there, sitting on the floor, hollow and calm. Now I wish I could go back in time and follow them to the bathroom where they went and where I would find them the next morning, with their wrists gaping open and their blood corrupting their ivory white hair. The only thing I can remember from that morning is that I didn’t cry. I stood there in silence, looking down at their bodies lying next to each other, their eyes closed as if they were sleeping; my husbands muffled voice echoed in my empty head as he grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the twins. I can remember repeating: their hair. Their hair is all messy. I have to fix up their hair. Their bodies were gone in an hour, and I was left there, feeling like it was not natural to take them so suddenly. In a sick way I wanted them to stay forever.
That week I didn’t leave the bedroom; I spent the days in bed, looking at the ceiling and trying to feel something, but I was drained out, I was merely a shell of a human; and I wondered, maybe that is how they felt. My husband came in occasionally, bringing me food and water but I didn’t eat, I only drank, suffocating myself with the water, forcing it down my throat, but I couldn’t think of food. The plates were left there beside my bed, untouched. I didn’t participate in the arrangement of their funeral, which was on a rainy Sunday. The only people who attended was me, my husband and a drunk priest; he read religious texts which didn’t seem appropriate for the occasion. By the end of the funeral we were all soaking wet, my clothes sticking to my body. My husband escorted me to the car and we drove to our house in silence, me watching the passing trees smudging against the grey world.
By the next week, when I finally managed to enter the twins’ room, the flowers on the balcony were dead from the excessive rain. I stepped out and touched their faded petals, their crooked stems; their flowers collapsed into my hands and fell apart. The room was cold and smelled wet, the floorboards creaked under my feet as I walked to the little beds. I stopped for a second; on their nightstand, there was a small booklet, bound together by a white silk ribbon. It seemed old and shabby, the cover made of thin leather with an unrecognisable engraving. I sat down between the beds and untied the ribbon; it smelled from lavender. On the first page, there were two names written with crooked letters, slightly differing from each other; Anna and Marcus. I turned pages, and the same writing appeared, only now it filled the paper, and the handwriting of the twins alternated with each paragraph, some written with the rigid letters of Marcus, others by the more delicate hands of Anna. I tightened my sweater and started reading.

1945. September 3.
We arrived at a new location with the Family. It is very nice. There are sheeps and other animals. The Father allowed us to touch their fur and it was fluffy. He said that we will help him prepare the animals for somthing. We are very excited because he said that this means we are big now. We have to hide this book because writing is not allowed. We hide it in our pillowcases.
September. 5.
The animals don’t have fur anymore, but Father said we can keep a chunk to hug. We had to take off the fur. But then Father said that we are not doing it right because we can leave the skin on the animals. Anna cried when we had to take off the skin, but I was okay. The animals were crying too. I am alone now in the hut. The Father said that Anna didn’t do well, so he took her to his hut. It is very late and I miss Anna because I am afraid without her.
September 6.
Today we sacrifice for God. He will like us if we give him things, even the girls. Today the father chose us to prepare the sacrifice. There were new animals on a table and they were very red and ugly looking without their fur. We had to cut up their tummy and take out the wet things from there. There was a big thing that was pulsing and then it wasn’t anymore after we took it out. The Father said that Marcus did very well, because he didn’t make a face. After that we made a big fire and burned the things, but they smelled very bad. Our Family danced around the fire and they sang carols. We sang too and danced. We hope God will like us soon.

September 18.
The last weeks were very busy because we had to move. The Father said that there were people there who don’t like God. The Mother can finally be here again because she is not punished anymore. She hugged us when she came back. We don’t know where she was, but there were big cuts on her back. We love the Mother and she is sometimes scary but we still love her. The Father said that Anna needs more teaching so he took her again in his hut so I am alone again. He takes her more often.
October 10.
We did something bad and then we had to be punished. We don’t want to say what we did because God is angry. The Father said that he will protect us from God’s anger and punish us so that God doesn't have to. There was a weird thing in his hut, it was a long rod and on the end there was a long chunk of something that was very thin. He hit our back with it and we cried.
I am alone again without Anna because he said she needs more punishment.

November 20.
We didn’t want to write for some time because our backs hurt. The Father took both of us into his hut one night. We can’t sleep so we hug each other and we write. We love each other a lot. The Family is preparing for the Holy Month of December. There is going to be a big feast and it is very exciting because this is our first Holy Month with the Family. We have to read the Bible every night and we have already finished it. It makes us scared sometimes but the Father said that it will teach us about God’s anger.

December 19.
Next week will be the big feast, but only the grown ups are allowed to prepare the ceremony. There is a girl who is older and she is crying a lot. She tried to leave the Family, but the men stopped her and now she is in a cage and she is crying. We took her a flower that we found. The flower is blue and we liked it but we gave it to her anyways. We hope she was happy for the flower.

December 29.
The ceremony was weird and we were scared. The crying girl was lying on a table and she wasn’t crying anymore. The Family sang and danced around her. The Father cut up the girl’s tummy and took out the wet things. We cried but the Mother said we must not cry because God will be angry, and that this is a time for joy because that day the baby Jesus was born from a girl’s tummy.
Our hair was brown but now it is white like the fur of the sheeps.

1976. February 7.
We moved again and now we are in a cave that is very cold. Some women died because of their throats and the Father told us that God took them away because they were not believing enough. So now we try to believe a lot and we pray so we dont die from our throat. The Father said that Anna is not a girl anymore but a woman because she is seven years old, and that she is filthy now. But I love Anna and I don’t think she is filthy. I don’t understand why the Father said that. We don’t understand many things but we can’t ask much because the Father said that questions are a sin.

April 25.
It is not that cold anymore and we can play outside. We like to play a game where we act like we live in a city where we can do things that normal kids do. We saw a city on our way to this place and there were many people and kids too. They were playing with a round thing and they kicked it and we wished we could have a round thing as well. The Father said that it is a toy that is from Satan and we can’t think of it because it is a sin, but we are very bored sometimes.

May 3.
The Father and the Mother called us to their hut today and told us something very important which is a secret but we will write it down. They said that we are chosen by God and that we will be given to God as a gift at the end of the summer months. They said that we should be very happy because this is very important. They said that if we are not given to God at the end of the summer the Family will starve because of God’s anger and they will die because of us.
We are afraid because we don’t want to be like the crying girl. But we don’t want our Family to die because we love our Family. Sometimes we want to go away but that is a sin and will make the Father sad too.

May 10.
Something very weird happened and we are not with our Family anymore. Men came with loud rods that killed people from far and they took us away with other children. The Father and many of the grown ups left and now we are in a building and we get food and clothes. We cried a lot because we miss the Family and we are scared.

June 21.
We were taken to a big house and they packed our clothes in two bags. There is a lady who is called Marianne and we are staying with her now. We don’t speak to her and we are scared. She gave us two things that look like rabbits and they are soft, but they are not real rabbits. We have a real room that has flowers and beds, and there were foods on a table. There was a cat animal and it seemed scary. Mrs Marianne said that we can go out in the garden and read, but we don’t want to read because the Father said that reading books that are not the Bible is a sin.
June 23.
We like Mrs Marianne because her voice is not loud and she stays with us. We watered the plants in the garden and we listened to her reading something that was like a carol because it had rhymes but it was not a carol and we liked it. We are very sad and scared sometimes because when our heads are empty we remember things like the crying girl who was given to God, and we don’t like to think of that.
June 30.
The husband of Mrs Marianne came home but we don’t like him because he is not nice to Mrs Marianne and is scary. We made him a food that was sweet, it is called a cake. We like it here but we always feel sad and we don’t like that.

July 5.
Mrs Marianne came into our room because we were crying, but we didn't know why we were crying and we couldn’t stop. She stayed with us and she cried when she saw the lines on our back that protected us from God’s anger, so we stroked her hair because the Father said that it is okay to stroke someone when they are sad. We don’t want Mrs Marianne to be sad like us because she is nice.
We don’t understand why we are scared always, but we feel weird.

July 12.
We like it here. We started thinking about the end of summer, and we are sad and we feel like our tummies are hurting even though they are not. We don’t want our Family to starve.

August 9.
We don’t want to be sad anymore. We are very tired and sleepy all the time and we don’t want to play a lot. We always dream of memories and things that the Father did and during the day we remember them too, and we tell each other what the Father and the Mother did but it doesn’t help. We are very afraid but Mrs Marianne is nice and we think we love her.

August 19.
It is almost the end of summer. We feel bad because we are not thinking of the Family a lot, and we don’t want them to die because of us. We don’t think we are going to be okay because we don’t want to wake up in the mornings and we always think of the bad things that happened. We want to stay asleep forever and be together while we sleep. In the bathroom there are sharp things and we know that the Father used those things on the crying girl. We love Mrs Marianne but we don’t want to stay here anymore and be sad.

August 31.
It is the last day of the summer months. We are very sad and we want to say goodbye to Mrs Marianne because she is one of the people who we love because she made us feel safe and it was very nice here. But we can’t think of any ways to tell her why we have to go, because we don't want to make her sad. We want to not be here anymore and we can’t let our Family starve because they will die because of us. But we think Mrs Marianne will understand because she will meet us again in Heaven where God is not mad at us anymore and we can be together. We will tell Mrs Marianne that we love her, but we will not tell her anything else because she might be sad. We felt happy here sometimes and we liked the room and the garden too, but we can’t stay because we don’t like feeling things anymore and remembering things. So we will give ourselves to God tonight, and we won’t be sad anymore that way.