Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

  'It's bloody cold up here,' said Julia, jumping up and down and hugging herself.

  Valentina frowned. 'Don't say "bloody". It's swearing.'

  'Okay. It's jolly cold up here. It's blooming cold. Gorblimey, it's cold up here.' Julia began to do a sort of dance. It involved running in circles, skipping and hopping in place every now and then while throwing her body sideways. Valentina stood with her arms crossed, watching Julia carom around. Now and then Julia bumped into her. 'C'mon, Mouse,' Julia said, grabbing Valentina's mittened hands. They two-stepped around in a circle for a few minutes until Valentina was out of breath. She stood leaning over with her hands on her knees, wheezing.

  'You okay?' Julia asked. Valentina shook her head and her hat fell off. Julia replaced it. After a few more minutes Valentina's breathing returned to normal. Julia felt as though she could jog up and down the hill ten times without getting as winded as Valentina had been after a couple minutes of dancing. 'You okay now?'

  'Yeah.' They began to walk down the hill. The wind dropped almost instantly. Valentina felt her lungs unclench. 'We should figure out how to get a doctor.'

  'Yeah.' They walked in silence for a while, following the same train of thought: We promised Mom we'd find a doctor right away and not wait until Valentina has some kind of emergency. But we've only been here six weeks, so really this is still 'right away'. Besides, there's a hospital just down Highgate Hill, so if anything does go wrong we could go to the emergency room. But we're still not insured, so we'd end up having to tell Mom and Dad. But how do we figure out the National Health Service? Maybe that lawyer who did Aunt Elspeth's will could explain it.

  'We should call Mr Roche,' they said in unison, and laughed.

  Julia said, 'Jinx.'

  Valentina said, 'I'm better now.' Then she had the feeling she often had lately, of being watched. Sometimes it went away; she hadn't felt it up on the hill. She turned and looked around, but they were alone on the street except for a young woman pushing a pram with a sleeping baby in it. The houses shut them out with blank narrow faces, windows curtained. The twins walked down some steps to the path along the Regent's Canal; the canal was placid, with wide paths on each bank. The houses loomed over them in strange perspective, as though the twins were walking underneath a transparent street. Cold fat raindrops fell sporadically. Valentina kept looking over her shoulder. There was a teenage boy on a bike; he rode past them without a glance. Someone was keeping pace with them on the street above. Valentina could hear footsteps crunching alongside them as they walked.

  Julia noticed Valentina's unease. 'What is it?'

  'You know.'

  Julia was about to say the same thing she'd been saying for days, which was: That's crazy, Mouse. But suddenly she became aware of the footsteps too. She looked up. There was nothing to see but the wall and the railing and the houses. She stopped walking and so did Valentina. The footsteps continued, one, two, three, four, then stopped. The water had exaggerated the footsteps; now their absence was enlarged by the canal lapping at its cement banks. Julia and Valentina stood facing each other, heads tilted to catch the sound. They waited and the footsteps waited. The twins turned and walked back the way they'd come. The footsteps walked on, away from them, hesitated, and then continued, growing faint as they moved away.

  The twins came to the steps. They ascended to the street. In the distance was a man in a long overcoat, walking away from them hurriedly. Valentina frowned. Julia said, 'Do you want to go home?'

  Yes, but not in the way you mean. 'No,' said Valentina. She had the feeling more intensely inside the flat. 'Let's go to the V&A and look at Queen Caroline's clothes.'

  'Okay,' said Julia. They stopped while Julia consulted the A-Z. Valentina stood watching, but whatever it was had gone.

  Elspeth felt that she was on the verge of a breakthrough. She had been giving serious thought to haunting. There's a balance between the aesthetics and the practical side of it. I've been muddling around trying to do the things living people do, messing with objects and such. But I can do things they can't do: I can fly and pass through walls and blow out TVs. I'm not exactly matter so I must be energy. Elspeth wished she'd paid more attention to physics. Most of her knowledge of the hard sciences came from quiz shows and crossword puzzles. If I'm energy, then what? She didn't understand why Valentina seemed to be able to sense her while Julia couldn't. But Elspeth redoubled her efforts: she followed Valentina around the flat, turning lights on and off. Valentina complained to Julia about the old wiring and worried that the building was going to burn down. When the twins were out Elspeth gave herself exercises to do: cast a shadow, make a Tesco's receipt float a few inches off the dining-room table. (She couldn't manage either task.) She imagined grand tableaux: I'll pull all the books off the shelves, break all the windows, play the 'Maple Leaf Rag' on the piano. But she was too weak to sound even one note. She walked over the piano keys, stomping as hard as she could in her yellow Doc Martens. The keys depressed a few millimetres; she thought she heard the strings whisper, but really there was nothing at all. She was more successful with doors; if the hinges were well oiled she could close a door by leaning against it and pushing with all her might.

  So she kept practising. If I'd worked out this hard when I was alive I could have lifted a Mini Cooper. The results were gradual, but definite. The most effective thing Elspeth did was simply to stare at Valentina.

  Valentina didn't like it. She seemed to pick up on Elspeth's emotional states. But even when Elspeth tried to project brightness and smiles, Valentina was uneasy. She would look around, get up and move, abandoning her book, taking her cup of tea to some other room. Sometimes Elspeth followed her and sometimes she let her escape. Elspeth tried staring at Julia, just to be fair, but Julia was impervious.

  One morning Elspeth came upon them at breakfast in the dining room. As she entered the room Valentina was speaking. '... I don't know, it's like, a ghost, just, you know, a presence. Like someone's there.' Valentina looked around the room, which was bright with morning sun. 'It's here now. It wasn't a minute ago.'

  Julia obediently cocked her head and sat still, trying to feel the ghost. Then she shook her head and said, 'Nope.'

  Do something, Elspeth thought. She was excited because Valentina had actually used the word ghost. Elspeth walked behind Julia's chair and bent over her, wrapped her arms around Julia's shoulders and placed her hands over Julia's heart. Julia let out a little shriek and exclaimed, 'Yowza!' Elspeth let go of her and Julia huddled in her chair, shivering.

  'What?' said Valentina, alarmed.

  'It just got super cold in here. Didn't you feel it?'

  Valentina shook her head and said, 'It's the ghost.' Elspeth ran her fingers up Valentina's arm. She was afraid to embrace Valentina the way she had just done to Julia; she wasn't sure Valentina's heart would stand it. Valentina rubbed her arm and said, 'It is kind of draughty in here.' Both of them sat concentrating, waiting. Now, it's now or never. Elspeth scanned the room for anything delicate enough for her to move. She managed a slight quivering of Valentina's spoon against her teacup. The twins sat watching it, looking at each other, then back to the spoon. Elspeth illuminated the light bulbs in the wall sconces. The room was bright and the twins didn't see her do it, so she went back to rattling the spoon.

  'Well?' said Valentina.

  Julia said, 'I don't know. What do you think?' Humour her.

  'Something's going on.'

  'Ghosts?'

  Valentina shrugged. Elspeth felt a surge of delight: We're on the verge. Valentina said, 'It's happy.'

  'How do you know?' Julia asked.

  'Because I suddenly felt happy, except I'm not happy. It was like it came from outside me.'

  'At least it's not a mean ghost. You know, like in Poltergeist, where they put the house on top of the cemetery,' Julia said. She looked at Valentina doubtfully.

  'You think it's something from the cemetery?' Valentina imagined a vaporous slimy dead thing climbing o
ver the cemetery wall, up the side of the house and into their flat. 'Ugh.' She stood up, ready to flee.

  'This is getting weird,' Julia said. 'Let's go out.' Julia could see that the Mouse was freaking; it would be better to get moving, to go outside.

  Valentina said, 'We're going out, ghost. Please don't follow us, I hate it when you do that.'

  What are you talking about? I never leave the flat. Elspeth watched the twins as they dressed and then followed them to the front door. Valentina said, 'Bye, ghost,' in a voice tinged with hostility, and let the door slam in Elspeth's face. She tried not to take it personally.

  THE LITTLE KITTEN OF DEATH

  THE FOLLOWING NIGHT it snowed. Valentina and Julia walked carefully down the icy path that led from South Grove to Vautravers. There was only half an inch of snow, but they were wearing smooth-soled leather shoes, and the path descended at an angle that made walking without traction an adventure. They were discussing whether clearing the path was their problem or their neighbours'. St Michael's wall threw the path into shadow. Above them the night sky was bright; the full moon and the snow had turned Highgate Village into a glittering fairyland. Julia was smoking a cigarette. Its orange tip floated a few inches from her shadowed face, bobbing along as they walked, then arcing down as Julia took it from her lips and blew the invisible smoke above her head.

  Valentina was annoyed; Julia would smell like smoke in bed, and her breath would reek in the morning. But she didn't say anything. Valentina figured if she kept quiet about it, Julia wouldn't start smoking all the time just to bug her. Just then Julia inhaled too deeply and had to stop and cough for a minute. Valentina stood staring past Julia's hacking frame and it was then that she saw a small white thing scurrying through the ivy, straight up the church's wall. It was about the size of a squirrel, and Valentina wondered if they had white squirrels here in London. Then she thought of the ghost, and her throat contracted. The thing darted towards the top of the wall and then seemed to hang there, as though it knew it was being watched. Julia stopped coughing and straightened up.

  'Look,' Valentina whispered, pointing. The white thing heaved itself onto the top of the wall, and as it stood up silhouetted the twins saw that it was a cat, a little cat: a kitten. It stretched itself and sat down on the wall. It looked down at them, scorning their inferior position. The wall was fifteen feet high, so the kitten appeared both small and incongruous.

  'Whoa,' said Julia. 'Can cats do that? It's like a monkey.'

  Valentina thought about a white tiger they had seen once in a circus. It had placed its paw on the shoulder of its keeper so gently, as though it meant to dance with him. The tiger had walked on a tightrope ten feet off the ground.

  'It's the Death-Defying Kitten,' Valentina said. 'Do you think it lives in the cemetery?'

  'It's the Little Kitten of Death,' said Julia. 'Hi, Little Kitten of Death!' She made what were meant to be cat-calling noises - sk-sk-sk - but the kitten shrugged itself and disappeared over the wall. They could hear it thrashing through the ivy on the other side.

  When they got home, Valentina put an old chipped teacup full of milk and a saucer of tuna fish out on the dining-room balcony. Julia noticed it the next morning at breakfast.

  'What's that for?'

  'The Little Kitten of Death. I want it to come up to us.'

  Julia rolled her eyes. 'More likely you'll just get raccoons. Or those foxes.'

  'I don't think they climb like that.'

  'Raccoons climb anywhere they please,' Julia said, munching her buttered toast.

  The tuna and milk sat there all day, attracting a few curious birds. Valentina snuck into the dining room a few times to see if anything had visited, but the cup and saucer sat untouched until dinner.

  'That's gonna attract ants if you leave it there long enough,' said Julia.

  'It's winter. All the ants are hibernating,' said Valentina. Later she dumped the milk down the sink, washed the cup and refilled it with fresh milk; likewise the tuna. She put the cup and saucer back in their positions on the balcony and went to bed.

  The following morning Valentina opened the French windows to the balcony and inspected the cup and saucer. She was pleased to see that something had been at them: the tuna was gone and the milk was only about half as full as it had been the night before. She removed the dishes before Julia came in. That night she filled them and put them on the balcony, turned out the lights and sat on the floor of the dining room, waiting.

  She could hear Julia moving around the flat. At first she was just moving: undressing for bed, washing her face, brushing her teeth. Then she began moving through the apartment in search of Valentina. 'Mouse?' Julia's footsteps went down the hall and into the front of the flat. 'Mouse?' Valentina sat silent, as though they were playing hide-and-seek. Julia was walking along the hall, she was outside the dining room. Warmer, warmer. 'Mouse? Where are you?' She opened the door and saw Valentina sitting in the pool of moonlight beside the French windows. Hot. 'What are you doing?'

  'Ssh. I'm waiting for the kitten,' Valentina whispered.

  'Ohh. Can I wait too?' Valentina wondered how it was possible for Julia's whispering to be louder than her normal speaking voice.

  'Okay,' Valentina replied, 'but you have to be totally silent.' The twins sat side by side on the floor. Neither of them had a watch. Time passed.

  Julia stretched out on the floor and fell asleep. It was cold in the room, and colder on the floor. Julia was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved Wilco T-shirt she had stolen from Luke Brenner, a boy she'd had a crush on in high school. Valentina thought about getting some pillows and blankets for Julia, who looked uncomfortable. Valentina was fully dressed, but her hands and feet and nose were cold. She considered making herself a cup of tea. She got up and left the room.

  When Valentina came back with the tea, the pillows and the blankets, Julia was awake. She put her finger to her lips as Valentina came in. There was a rustling noise, as though something was swimming through dry leaves. Valentina sank to the floor, cushioned in pillows. She set the tea down silently.

  Julia looked over at her twin, whose eyes shone in the half-shadow. Valentina hadn't washed her hair that day, and it hung lank and darkish. Valentina breathed deeply, focused on the cup and saucer. Julia smiled and looked at the cup and saucer too. She loved it when Valentina wanted something badly.

  The noises came closer, then stopped. The twins were still. Everything paused, and then the white kitten launched itself from the wall onto the balcony.

  It was small and thin. The twins could see its ribs. The kitten had immense, bat-like ears. Its fur was matted and short. But somehow it was not pathetic; it came off as determined. There was nothing especially preternatural about it. It was businesslike, and immediately ran to the saucer to gulp down the tuna fish. The twins could see its sides working as it fed. Valentina thought of the jellyfish she had once seen washed up on a Florida beach. The kitten was so thin she felt as though she could see all its internal organs. It was a female kitten. Valentina was entranced.

  The kitten finished eating and sat cleaning herself. She looked at them briefly (or in their direction; Valentina wasn't sure the kitten could see them, since the moon had moved and they now sat in shadow). Then she hopped off the balcony and rustled away.

  Julia held out her palm, and Valentina high-fived her. 'That was really cool, Mouse. Are you going to keep feeding her?'

  Valentina smiled. 'I'm going to adopt her. Before you know it she'll be wearing a collar and sitting on my lap.'

  'But don't you think she's a little ... feral? What if she's not litter-box trained?'

  Valentina shot Julia a look. 'She's a kitten. She'll learn.'

  The scene was repeated on subsequent nights. Valentina went to Sainsbury's and bought tins of cat food and a litter box. Each night she sat and waited for the Little Kitten of Death to arrive. Usually she sat well back from the French windows and simply watched. After five nights of this she left the windows sl
ightly open, and tried to entice the kitten inside, but this only frightened it, and Valentina had to start again. The kitten was truly wild, and would not be coaxed.

  'I thought she'd be sitting on your lap by now,' Julia teased.

  'You try,' retorted Valentina.

  Julia gave it some thought, and that night she showed up in the dining room with a spool of thread from Elspeth's sewing box. She waited for the kitten to finish her meal, then rolled the spool out onto the balcony. The kitten eyed it suspiciously. Julia tugged a bit on the thread. The kitten put out a tentative paw. Soon the kitten was chasing the spool across the balcony, madly pouncing and hopping, waiting for the next tug on the thread. But as soon as Julia pulled the spool into the room, the kitten looked up, saw Julia and darted off the balcony into the ivy.

  'Nice try,' Valentina said. She was secretly pleased that the kitten had not come in for Julia either, though by now Valentina wanted the kitten so badly that it almost wouldn't have mattered.

  In the end, it was neither Valentina nor Julia who lured the Little Kitten of Death indoors. One Tuesday night in late February, Valentina prepared the kitten's food and was negotiating the dining-room door with the tray in her hands when she heard something skittering, ivy rustling. The French windows were ajar, and cold air flowed into the room. Out on the balcony the kitten frisked and pounced. The spool of thread jerked and rolled, controlled by an imperceptible hand: now just outside the white kitten's grasp, now flicking across the balcony, checked by the kitten's spread paw. Valentina stood still. The spool of thread spun into the space between one of the doors and the sill. It rocked there, enticingly. The kitten hesitated. It gathered itself, and pounced. Its momentum sent it scooting forward into the room. The door shut behind it.