The Midnight Twins

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  “Well, our names did match. Her name was Guinevere. We called her Vera. Now, I suppose it would be Jenny; that’s what we call your aunt. I named my youngest for her. In Welsh, it means ‘the shadow in front of the light.’ And my name, Gwendolyn, means ‘white hair.’ I thought of that when my hair went white so young, like my grandma’s did.”

  “Why aren’t your daughters twins?” Mallory asked.

  “Well, Karin was a twin,” Gwenny said slowly. “But her sister died before she was born. No one knew except for me. Not even Grandpa.”

  “So you saw us?” Merry asked.

  “Not only that. I know when a baby will be healthy. Not . . . as much as I did when Vera was here. Well, alive on earth. But I knew you two would be the ones who would see both the past and the future. The greatest gift.”

  “And you were jealous of that?” Mallory asked, aghast.

  “Oh, my goodness no! I was proud. But I felt such pity, too! My poor little granddaughters. The gift has two sides, Merry. The brilliant side and the misery. And I know that it must have been as hard on you as on Mallory. You would always know what had happened if you and Mallory didn’t act on what she saw coming up ahead. You would never be free to simply not know. Such an amazing gift.”

  “No, a curse!” Meredith said. “But, Grandma, the dreams stopped. It all started just before the fire, and ended when we stopped . . . when David Jellico died,” Merry went on. “We don’t dream of the past and the future anymore. We dream of boys and . . . like, showing up for school in your underwear. Regular stuff.”

  “But this is what I kept you back from swimming to tell you,” their grandmother said. “You will.”

  “No,” Mallory said.

  Gwenny nodded. After a long moment simply looking from one to the other, she said, “You’ll always know. Not every day or even every month. Not ever for yourselves, though perhaps for each other. But always for other people in need or trouble.”

  “We don’t want it!” Mally said.

  Gwenny put her arm around Mallory. She said, “You poor babies. None of us ever did. It’s given. I had to tell you. Even knowing what’s going on inside a house could be a torment. You might know that the mayor beat his children. You might know a widow’s son was packing to run off and join the army. Or who was lonely and wanted to die. It sounds like that might be fun, but Mama said it wasn’t.”

  “But if you had to have one kind, I’d rather have that one,” Merry insisted. “It wouldn’t be scary and boring at the same time!”

  Grandma seemed to ignore Merry in her haste to get the story told. The sun was setting. Soon, everyone would come back and dinner and campfire rituals would take over and the girls would have to wait. That would have been fine with Merry, who believed she had heard enough to last a lifetime. Mallory would break out in hives if she had to live another day without hearing the rest.

  “You were the first ones born to one of the boys, not to a Massenger woman, the first twins born to a son,” Grandma said.

  “Big deal,” Merry told her with a shrug.

  “She doesn’t mean that to be rude. We just wonder why it matters. Because this is the worst thing that ever happened to us,” Mallory added. “To think of it happening once more is too horrible to imagine. To think of it happening over and over, it would be better if we’d never been born.”

  “Mallory, I’m sure even our Lord felt that way, when he knew what his work was in the world. Think of the good you’ve already done! You’ve saved the children, already more good than most people do in their whole lives. In that sense, it truly is a gift.”

  “We would have saved them anyhow, even if Mally hadn’t dreamed of a fire. It’s really, really not a gift at all, Grandma,” Merry said.

  “Maybe not to you. I can’t pretend to say why this is given. Maybe to the world.”

  “Well, the kids are safe now. And the way I feel is, the world can go to hell!” Merry objected.

  “Hush! Merry,” their grandmother said. “Every time it happens, you’ll be confused, or even frightened, but then you’ll know you have to try to help. And you’ll know how, I think.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Mally said. “I want to be happy!”

  “You’ll be happy,” Gwenny said.

  “Not if we know this is coming,” said Mallory. “Not if I know there’s something I’m going to see happen and she’s going to see it really did. That’s why I’m going to be a nun!”

  “You’re not going to be a nun, Mallory,” said Grandma Gwenny. “And you couldn’t hide from this if you were. Think about it. Yes, it’s awful to think of it coming. But what if you can change things so that the bad doesn’t happen? Isn’t that like changing the world?”

  “What if we can’t? What if we don’t know how?” Mallory asked.

  “I don’t know,” said their grandmother. “You’re unique. I don’t know if you’ll always be able to make it right.”

  “But even if we do, no one will ever know,” Merry said. “Even if we do good, if we told anyone about it, people would think we were nuts.”

  “You will know,” said their grandmother.

  “Why couldn’t we be like you? And just be able to predict the next baby who’ll be born down the street?” Merry asked.

  “If I had to, I’d guess that because you’re the daughters of so many generations of wisdom that it isn’t enough for you to see, but for you to be able to save. To be like Saint Bridget, the brave, and comfort the helpless and protect the weak,” said Gwenny. “It must seem impossible. But here you are. So strong and bright.”

  “I don’t want to be a saint! Only a nun! And then only because I could hide and not have to worry about clothes. How do you know this isn’t from some old time when things were dark and wicked? How do you know it’s a thing that comes from God and not demons?” Mallory asked. She was conscious of the hills around her, the dark mosses and teasing shadows, the chill of twilight and of the birds gone silent. “Who’ll protect us and comfort us?”

  “You’ll comfort each other. No matter how many miles there are between you, you’ll never be farther apart than you are right now. And that will make the gift something you’ll share, and even learn to cherish. Not everything ancient is wicked, Mally-lah.”

  “How do you know, Grandma?” Mally asked, as something in her sighed deeply and turned up its hands. There was no fighting it, she thought. This is not why I dreamed that the fire would happen. This is the reason that we were born.

  “It was what I saw,” Gwenny said. “What I saw on your parents’ wedding day. I saw you girls and Adam. And I thought . . . there would be another child. But I was wrong about that, I suppose.”

  “You mean it’s not even always perfect? You don’t always see everything exactly as it is?” Mallory asked, aghast.

  “Nothing is perfect,” Grandma said.

  Meredith watched as first Campbell and Tim, then their aunts and uncles and cousins, and finally their brother straggled up the path, toweling off their hair and brushing at their sandy legs. It was with a certain sadness, as though she would never see them again in quite this way—which was, of course, true.

  “All I wanted was to make varsity,” Merry said.

  Fresh, lined paper and cucumber lotion and the smell of a boy’s newly cut hair, her father’s omelets, huge as sea creatures and dripping with butter and four kinds of cheese, a bowl of pinecones dipped in glitter on the kitchen table and the shrieking of the crowd under the lights and a Twizzler fossilized in the pocket of her winter coat—all these little simple things that made up her life before seemed to whirl together and blow out like a spent star.

  “Grandma,” Mallory asked, “will you help us? If we don’t know where to turn? That was the worst part. We didn’t even know how much we could tell you. What if we don’t know what to do?”

  “As long as I live. And I don’t plan on going anywhere soon. I’ll listen, but I might not know what to do,” Gwenny said. “I’m not so powerful as y
ou are. And after I’m gone, I’ll listen, as well.”

  “Don’t say that, Grandma!” Merry cried, and Mallory shook her head, too. It was enough to take all this in. It was too much to picture a world without Grandma Gwenny.

  “So we won’t be alone,” Mallory said.

  “Not ever,” said their grandmother. “The Massenger women, your ancestors, are always with you. They always will be. They’re all around you. They will guide you. You’re not invincible. But you have protection. And so will your daughters . . .”

  “It stops here,” Merry said. “There won’t be any more twins.”

  Their grandmother pressed her lips together before she told them gently, “No, that’s not true. Mallory will have twin daughters. And you, Merry, will have three sons.”

  Merry looked down at the scar on her hand. It had healed to resemble a tree. The longest branch extended to the edge of her palm. One branch split into two, which in turn split into two. She nudged Mallory. For a long moment, she studied the scar and its portents.

  “Ster,” she finally said to Mallory. “You’re the one who never wanted to be typical.”

  “I got over it,” Mally murmured, studying the toes of her running shoes.

  “But if you are, you are. I mean, it’s going to be harder for me. I’m a cheerleader!”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mally said scornfully. “I can see that! It’s easy to be a freak if you aren’t a fruitcake with plastic pom-poms, too!”

  “Mallory, I’m only saying. If we can’t fight it, we have no other choice but to join it. We have to find a way that it doesn’t control us. We have to learn the way it works and use it to make it work. That’s what you do, Mallory. Maybe it could . . . could almost be interesting.”

  “Like a rare skin disease could be interesting,” Mallory replied. Then she breathed deeply and raised her head. “Only thing is, I guess if you have to be a freak, at least it’s better to be a freak who can do something to help . . . somehow.”

  “Especially if you have no choice.”

  “There’s that,” Mallory agreed, her eyes glum.

  “Let’s take a run,” Merry suggested. “Before dinner. We never ran up this far, or past the camp. Let’s go farther up the road.”

  “You go,” Mally said. “That road goes straight up. I just want to be a vegetable. I have to sleep this off.”

  “You’ll sleep your life away,” Merry teased her. “You going off to nap is just the same as me trying to put it out of my mind.”

  “Maybe it is,” Mally agreed. “Maybe I was wrong. Let’s both put it out of our minds. Anyhow, I can’t sleep. What if I have a dream? Okay. I’ll go if we run all the way to Canada, not just to the end of Canada Road.”

  Merry shrugged. Then, handing over her bowl of snapped beans to her grandmother, she stretched her calves and set off.

  Within ten minutes, she was so far up the steep path she could feel it in her lungs. She rounded a bend and, through the scrubby trees, caught sight of the camp—a ring of old cabins and a bare patch of ground so far below and behind her that she hardly recognized it. Up here, where few people except a few hikers and backpackers used it, the path narrowed and veered closer to the jagged brow of cliff on her right. If she stopped and leaned over the side, she would see down, down, down—to the rocks on the riverbed. While the sky above was still bright, shadows seeped into the spaces at the bases of trees, making the way ahead dim. Then, behind her, she heard the unmistakable slurry rasp of pebbles sliding away under the feet of someone faster, coming up behind. Merry stumbled. Her throat refused to open. She thought of that morning, alone on the path, of David’s guttural voice, his face distorted by rage. Merry stumbled. She cried out with her mind, Mally!

  The footsteps stopped.

  A single pebble rolled.

  Then she heard Mally thinking to her: It’s me.

  Just where the path widened, Mally was waiting. She laughed. “Beester!” she said, panting, bending to grasp her knees. “This is straight up! I couldn’t catch you!”

  “I’m fast now. I’m not a big sissy anymore.”

  “Sure you are,” Mallory teased. “I heard you up there. You were about to start bawling!”

  Merry pushed past her twin. Mallory reached out, but Merry jerked away. Turning to face Mally, she said, “You know, Mallory? You’re so tough. But you weren’t here. You didn’t hear the disgusting things he said. You never saw anybody die. You never saw the white thing that came . . .”

  “No. You’re right,” said Mally. “I was never here. But I felt what you felt. I thought I would die, too. Are you glad he fell?”

  For a long moment, Merry didn’t answer. Mallory couldn’t see her face. “I’m glad it’s over,” she said finally. “At least, that part is over.”

  She took Mallory’s hand. “Everything is okay now. Or at least, it’s as okay as it can be. I know you hate it, but we can’t change the future. Well, I mean, we can change the future, but we can’t change this power . . . or whatever it is. All we can do is live with it. And the only thing harder than dealing with it would be dealing with it alone.” Meredith stopped. When she continued, it was in a voice more serious than Mally had ever heard her use. “I’ve been thinking, Mal. Maybe that’s all you get. The only bonus is someone to help you bear it. I don’t think anything can drive you crazy if you have somebody to share it with. At least, that’s my idea and I’m sticking to it.”

  For the first time since they were in kindergarten, and frightened by the boys on the big slide, Mallory squeezed Merry’s hand instead of pulling away. After a moment, Merry released her. They began to walk, tentatively, in the dusk. For a moment, the only sound was the crunch of their steps.

  Then Merry said, “Look. Just down there. You can see the campfire. All we have to do is stay together and stick to the path. I’ll go first. I’m getting used to seeing in the dark.”

  Acknowledgments

  This is a work of fiction, but twin telepathy is very real (although not to the degree here posited). For their assistance in helping me understand it, I thank “the grown-up twins,” who knew (telepathically, I am sure) how to find me at book signings and events all over the country, as well as L.C., who allowed me to observe her five-year-old daughters at play. Plotting this book needed all I could give, never having written a mystery. For this, I am grateful to friends and colleagues Sara Pennypacker, Anne D. LeClaire, Jodi Picoult, Holly Kennedy, Andy Scontras, Jana K. Felt, Susan Schofield, Michael Schofield, John Fetto, Lisa Alexander, and Dr. Ann Collins, all of whom gave me essential suggestions in helping create Meredith and Mallory’s world. Ben Schrank of Razorbill has the lightest hands on the bit of any editor I have ever met, and I am thrilled that he and I will work together on two more Midnight Twins novels. For plot advice, I thank my son, Daniel Brent-Allegretti. To my cousins, Rayna Cardinal Shawa and Bridget Cardinal Swallow, for their love and insight into our common Canadian/American Indian heritage, I send best love. Enduring gratitude goes to the Ragdale Foundation, where this book was written in 2007. My agent, Jane (Sadie) Gelfman, has my heart, always, as do my cherished friends, my estimable husband, and my seven astounding children.