“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he
does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss
also looks into you.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Diane stood awkwardly among the small gathering of adults as the priest
droned on with his speech. She shifted uncomfortably under the cumbersome black
out-fit, wanting more than anything to throw it all off and go down to the lake
like all the other children. But she couldn’t. Not yet anyway. Maybe after her
father’s funeral. Despite her youth, death did not confuse her. She knew death
was a grim reality just as sure as she knew her father was going to hell. And
it didn’t bother her one bit. Her gaze drifted over the faces of the few adults
who had turned up. They knew just as well as she did the crimes her father had
committed. Yet they had chosen to ignore it. Had looked politely indifferent,
just as they did now.
Bored, her gaze wandered off into the distance as her mind drifted to
thoughts of swimming. She gave a sudden start when her gaze met that of a
familiar stranger standing between the trees. Diane frowned as the small figure
began walking towards the mourners. It wasn’t long before whispers rippled
through the adults. Many of them gasped and pointed fingers, but it was Diane
who ran forward as it suddenly dawned on her who the stranger was.
“Isabel.” She whispered.
*****
Isabel’s return was the talk of the town. The nine year old girl who had
hit her abusive father over the head with a pan before disappearing for two
years was back. Not that anyone had really tried looking for her. The police
had bigger cases to solve, and her father thought she had most probably curled
up into a little ball and died somewhere. Good riddance. Only Diane had longed
for her sister’s safety. She knew that wherever Isabel was, she was safer than
she would be under the same roof as her father. And now their father was dead,
it was finally safe for Isabel to come back home. But she was different now. Diane
looked at her sister and still felt the way she had when she had seen Isabel walking
towards her at the funeral. Like she was looking at a familiar stranger. Isabel
could no longer talk. Or maybe she chose not to. Not a single word, nor a hum
of a tune. Just silence. Her eyes were the worst. Shuttered and closed,
betraying not a single emotion. Dead.
Despite this, Isabel was ever watchful. Especially of Diane. It was a
fascination that had begun long back when Isabel had questioned “Why me?”
Why wasn’t it Diane who had been abused. They were identical twins after
all, born at basically the same time. There were complications during the
entire delivery. So why had their father blamed Isabel for their mothers death.
And morbidly this fascination grew, especially when Isabel had gone into
hiding. Lurking in the shadows and always always always watching Diane. What was
so special about her. With time, fascination grew into a vile jealousy. Not only
was Isabel watching now. She was evolving.
With each of the years that passed, Diane was under constant scrutiny
from her sister. The way she spoke, the way she laughed, the way she raised an
eye brow or frowned when she was in deep concentration. Isabel ingrained all
this into memory. She made sure she had the same hairstyle as Diane. The same
outfits. Diane thought nothing of it as they grew up. She allowed Isabel whatever
comfort she wanted. The only way you could tell them apart now was that Isabel
was the silent one. And it wasn’t long before Isabel began experimenting on
unsuspecting victims. Isabel would mimic Diane. She would become Diane. And no one knew the difference, for it was in these
moments that Isabel would speak. She did it to their great aunt who had taken
them in, she did it to the teachers at school. She even did it to Diane’s
friends. And not one of them suspected a thing. Not even Diane herself. Isabel became
so obsessed with memorizing Diane that she often confused her name with Diane’s.
Whenever someone called Diane, Isabel would find that she would look up and
almost answer.
The obsession grew long into their teen
years and both girls found they fell for the same boy. But of course Isabel didn’t
say anything. A stigma had followed her around ever since she had returned
home. The abused girl. The strange one. The lesser twin. Who would want her. Certainly
not a guy like Matthew. With his gorgeous brown eyes, and his sexy messy hair. Of
course he would want Diane. And so she watched them with an ache in her heart. How
he looked at her with such a soft look in his eyes. How he tucked stray strands
of her hair behind her ears. And Isabel wanted that so badly to be her he
looked at so lovingly. To have his fingers trace the outline of her jaw. To love
her. And that ache grew so despairingly that soon she was victimizing Matthew
as well. She would steal moments with him, pretending to be Diane. Her culmination
was going to the extent of sleeping with him and conceiving the same day as Diane.
And still no one suspected a thing. For Isabel was freakishly careful.
*****
Isabel sat quietly at the dinner table as
usual. Though they were now living in their own homes, every Sunday they would
come back to their great aunts house for family dinner. For some reason Diane was
late, and Isabel knew she was had been with Matthew the whole day. She felt a
pang of jealousy at this thought. She knew she was treading dangerous waters
now that she was pregnant at the same time as Diane, but she still had a few
more weeks to figure out what to do before the pregnancy started showing. The front
door suddenly banged open and in came a beaming Diane, all out of breath. She could
hardly contain herself.
“I have some really great news!” she looked
around the dinner table at her aunt and cousins and finally at her sister. Then
she held up her left hand to show a sparkling engagement ring.
“Matthew proposed!”
There was a clamor at the table as everyone
stood to gush around Diane. Isabel on the other hand, felt something snap
inside her. She was seething with anger but somehow she managed to smile at Diane
and hug her. And all the while that Diane described the proposal in great nauseous
detail, Isabel was already planning her next move.
To be continued…
By Wilhelmine Wachter
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