by A. Z. Green
I just want this all to be over. I can’t even talk about this to Ellie or Lisa. They’re the best but they don’t know what it’s like. I can’t even grieve because it seems stupid to everyone else, and I can’t talk about it.
I guess I’ll just have to suffer this alone and in silence.
And hope it never happens again.
~Chapter 2- Spread~
Saturday February 6th, 2010: 10:45 p.m. - Arik’s Study.
Three weeks after the death of Lora Kormak, rumours had spread like wild fire about her.
People suspected she hadn’t survived child birth because she wasn't one of them. And the elders believed it was true.
“She wasn’t the right one,” said the old man. His face was lined with many decades of leadership. Tough decisions stained his memory and the consequences of them -good or bad- would haunt him forever. But it was his duty and he accepted it wholeheartedly.
His light blue eyes were youthful but severe as he gazed at the old woman across the table. The light from the hanging ceiling lamp above formed harsh shadows down both their faces.
“We don’t know that for sure,” the woman replied soberly.
“Oh come on, Maria! You've been thinking it for a while now. Don't treat me like a fool!” he growled.
She responded with a stern lip. He blinked, washing away the anger from his eyes and flashed her a delicate smile. Her face softened just a little, enough for him to notice, but she still did not return the favour. “It is possible,” she conceded, against her better judgment. “But her sister died at birth. They've already proven this.” He wafted a hand away as if that didn’t matter. “They would not lie to me. They are loyal to the Pack,” she said stiffly.
“So why aren’t they here? Why don’t they live here, where they belong? I tell you why!” he shot out the words before Maria could respond. “They do not accept who they are, they never have. They’d prefer to live around ‘normal’ people. If that is the case, then they certainly wouldn’t have wanted their pure blood daughter to live like us. Who knows what they might have done to prevent it.” His words were riddled with suspicion and accusation.
“Arik, what are you insinuating? Have you gone mad?” she whispered.
He eyed her warningly. “You deny that it is possible that they could have lied about her twin’s death, because in their mind they'd have been 'protecting' it?” Maria said nothing. Arik continued confidently. “They would never have wanted us to take their pureblood child in. They hid away from us the moment they left this place and when we finally found them and eventually got their acceptance to bring Lora here, they allowed it to happen a little too easily as if a weight were off their shoulders. It didn’t make sense to me. Garik agrees also.”
“Garik has always been overly paranoid,” she argued revealing how much she disliked her eldest son’s inability to believe anything without scouring each detail until he was sure it was true. He had watched Lora like a hawk, Maria remembered. She frowned with regret at the memory.
“Even so. Unfortunately, he was right to have his suspicions. He says he may have a lead,” Arik replied gravely.
“He always thinks he knows more than everyone else,” Maria retorted holding up her pointed chin, concealing the rolling of her dark green eyes in the shadows. The old man’s eyes were sharper than she gave them credit for, but he let it slide.
It was clear he had a soft place in his heart for his old friend. He always had.
It had crushed him when the young Maria had been paired with her late husband, Vern, though he had never breathed –and would never breathe- a word of it to anyone.
He, Vern and Maria had always been close friends. Vern’s death had caused a lot of heartache in both of them. In a way, it had brought them closer together; as friends of course, nothing more. That ship had long since sailed. Thirty odd years if anyone’s counting. He was, of course.
He blinked out of his thoughts that had lasted a mere two seconds and said with a more considerate tone, “He tells me that he has footage of Thorpe's old BMW stopping at a petrol station in Sheffield the day Eliza gave birth. He said it looked like there was an occupied baby car seat in the back. Which would beg the question, what the hell was Thorpe doing in Sheffield, three hours from home, and with a newborn baby in his car?”
Maria blanched. She remembered Thorpe calling her that day. He'd said he was with Eliza and baby Lora. He'd been in tears about the loss of the twin, so had Maria when she'd heard her son sobbing down the phone. Not once had he mentioned this peculiar trip. What would be the reason for it? He was the kind of man to stay and comfort his wife after the loss of a child, not go on mysterious trips.
Arik shifted position and sighed,“I'm sorry Maria, but the facts seem to point to Lora not having been a pureblood. She did not survive the childbirth of her son. He had been a stillbirth. That is unheard of.
“To confirm my theory, I have heard, through the grapevine, that it is possible - though extremely rare- for both twins to survive birth. Even rarer for the human twin to live beyond childhood, but still possible.”
“What are you babbling on about old man?” she remarked.
He smiled, sensing the affection beneath the rude response. “I am almost certain now, thanks to Garik and Kerk's research that Lora does in fact have a twin, alive and well and she is the pureblood sibling.”
“She?”
“Garik looked at birth certificates registered that same week in the Sheffield area, with the same birthday, and there were eight girls, no boys, born that day. So we're pretty certain we're looking for a female.
“From what Garik found it's clear that Eliza gave birth at home and went to hospital afterwards. We suspect at some point between the births and the hospital, Thorpe must have hidden the twin. Which would explain his suspicious trip.”
“Why are you saying this, Arik? Why would he do that?”
“I don't know Maria. The same reason he couldn't stand living here any longer. What confuses me still is why he allowed Lora to come here but did all that he could to protect the other child?” Arik became lost in thought as memories flooded his mind.
“Lora was one of us! Stop talking about her like she was an outsider!” Maria snapped. “We all sensed it. She even had the scent on her! We'd have known straight away if she wasn't.”
“Do we have many 'human' twins alive to compare with?” Maria lowered her gaze at his words. He pursed his lips with displeasure at her unhappiness. He added in a lowered voice, “They don't smell the same as real humans, because they aren't the same. But they aren't like us either. She wasn't either. And now if we piece everything together that she did, or more importantly didn't do no matter what others say, we can see that for sure.
“Because of her rich bloodline, even being what she was, she may have had a such a strong invisible connection to her pureblood sister, that we never suspected her before-”
“And this is going on the even less likely assumption that a 'human' child could even survive birth in the first place?” Maria's rebuke was acidic.
Arik eyed her, continuing with his theory. “If she was the 'human' twin, which the evidence seems to point towards, then clearly she did survive. I cannot see any other alternative, as much as I would like to. We have to find her twin just to prove the theory.”
“What does it matter? Lora was still family. This changes nothing.”
“It changes everything, for many. Especially the twin. And if I'm right, and she exists and we can confirm she's the pureblood, then we have to accept Thorpe and Eliza lied to us. You know what that'll mean, don't you?”
“Of course I do!” she snapped back. She wasn't a foolish woman, quite the opposite. The idea had occurred to her but she had always ignored it, pushing it into a small corner of her mind. She didn't want to believe her son could have lied to her all these years.
But now that it was being presented to her, there was no escaping it.
Arik fixed his sky-blue eyes on
her.
“It is possible,” he confirmed with complete certainty.
Maria would never forgive herself for suggesting it but if it would save her son from a worse fate, and even her daughter-in-law, -despite the fact Eliza would never forgive her for saying it- she had to speak out. “Suppose Eliza had been unfaithful to my son?”
The old man cocked his head up, straining the tendons in his neck. The wrinkled skin was now taut as he watched Maria searchingly. “You suspect?”
Maria shook her head. “But it could be another explanation,” she said slowly.
“Explain.”
“Eliza could have mated with another of our kind, meaning the chances of baring twins was lower. She had one child, confessed her betrayal to Thorpe, he forgave her and pretended they'd had twins, telling us the other had died, as is the norm. It may not have been Thorpe's car in Sheffield, or he just didn't tell us about going there for whatever minor, harmless reason.
“Another reason perhaps is that they didn't even know Lora wasn't a pureblood? Something went wrong when she was a fetus in the womb and our gene didn't attach to her? Which, if you're so caught up on believing Lora was human, then that would make sense. And you can put all suspicions of a twin to rest.”
“There must be a twin.”
“Why must there be? Maybe Lora wasn't Thorpe's child! But, if I'm humouring your twin- sister- being-alive theory, they would have raised both of them, and sent the pureblood to us. They wouldn't have abandoned it.
“All my theories are very unlikely and most unheard of but they are less far-fetched than yours. My bet is on Eliza having had an affair. She gave birth to one child, discovered it wasn't a pureblood, then confessed her infidelity to Thorpe and he forgave her, deciding to cover it up by saying they'd had twins and one had died.”
“Why not just say they'd had one child? What difference does it make?”
“Oh Arik. Why else? In our bloodline, with our high fertility, we are more likely to have twins. He wanted everyone to believe it was his without question. I know how careful and meticulous he can be. They hoped we would never find out she wasn't a pureblood or just simply didn't know themselves.
“There's a whirlpool of explanations here. She could have even mated with a human for all we know and conceived. From what I've heard, it's not that far-fetched.”
The old man snapped his head up, piercing her with his sharp ice eyes. She froze for a moment, not liking the way he skewered her in place.
“Where did you hear that?” His voice was low and cold.
She understood quickly what was going on in his head and it surprised her. She did not like nasty surprises. She thought fast. “Oh nowhere. Rumours, people joking around about it.”
“Mating with a human is dangerous and frankly an abomination. If it was even possible for a woman to bear a human's child or the other way around, their child would no doubt be so sick and deformed it would die very young. And if it didn't, the only justified, compassionate thing to do would be to put it out of its misery. Do not speak of it again.”
Maria bit down on her tongue. She had never seen him react like this. Not over something so small. Or maybe she was severely underestimating the power of what she'd said. “So, um, what about my theory of an affair with another of our kind? My son would only be lying to save their reputation, not defy the Pack. It's a terrible act, but with a lesser punishment.”
The old man shook his head in disagreement. “You’re shooting in the dark Maria. You know very well my theory is more likely. And we cannot ignore the evidence.
“Though I don’t like the backlash this will cause for your son and his wife, if it is true, they have to face the consequences. And we must do our duty and follow this up. If this child is still out there, we need to find her. And soon. She’ll be twenty soon and you know the risks if we’re too late.”
Maria could only nod in response. “I’ll send my daughter out if she is found,” She said somberly.
“I’ll get Kerk on the search.”
Maria’s face aged ten years in that moment. She knew this wouldn’t turn out well. So much was at stake and it could all go horribly wrong.
~Chapter 3- Escape~
Friday May 6th, 2011, 9:12 a.m. - Jaz’s Living Room
It was a lazy morning at number 63. Inside the red brick house that stood slap bang in the middle of the suburban, tree filled street, Jaz was sprawled on the lilac sofa in the cosy, wood-overloaded living room.
Still in her dressing gown, she smiled politely, removing her bare feet from the dark wood coffee table as her aunt strolled into the room. Jaz hadn't moved from that spot on the sofa since she'd come down the stairs at half six that morning.
She wasn’t an early bird but ever since her horrifying, real-life nightmare, she’d found it almost impossible to sleep well. She had even resorted to sleeping pills though she hated anything like that. Pills for sleeping, pills for depression (which she refused to take). Pills, pills, pills. She despised it, but when you haven’t had a good night’s sleep for so long you get desperate.
She’d taken them the night before and had been mighty pissed off that they hadn’t worked. She’d had less than three hours sleep- probably less than two. She gave up counting the hours months ago.
Shadows were heavily set under her eyes as she gazed up at her aunt. This was not her therapist Aunt Ruth, but her father’s sister Aunt Erica. She was a kind and bubbly woman and reminded Jaz of her mother in personality. Though, Jaz noticed, Aunt Erica had a much more worldly countenance about her.
There was something wild and free about her that Jaz couldn’t explain; but she sensed it. Though her aunt was a well-dressed woman, in trouser suits and expensive shoes, Jaz could still picture her camping high up in some mountain, eating freshly caught fish for breakfast. She liked her a lot though she’d only known her about a year.
Aunt Erica had appeared on their doorstep at the end of April last year. Erica had introduced herself when Jaz had come back from a day out with her best-friends Ellie and Lisa. It was the back end of the Easter holidays, she recalled.
Jaz was surprised and puzzled that her dad had never mentioned he had a sister. She always thought he had just two brothers. She’d never seen pictures of her either.
He'd said, “Erica has been living abroad for a long time. It upset me to mention her because I never got to see her.” But Jaz didn’t buy it.
She suspected, especially after observing her parents reactions that there was some unsaid tension between them. She didn’t know why and didn’t want to get in the middle of it, but whatever it was, it caused her dad to watch her aunt cautiously at times. Her mum -she swore- had looked almost afraid, but it was swept away by a forced smile in Jaz’s direction whenever she realized she was being watched.
Jaz had long since accepted that this was the way things were and didn’t think it was her place to bring up whatever was in the past between them. They seemed to have reconciled now and that was all that mattered.
Time heals all wounds, she thought. She hoped that included her too.
Her aunt watched Jaz now with displeasure. She didn’t like to see her niece in such a state. She looked extremely pale, exhausted and had lost weight, Erica observed.
This has gone too far, she thought resolutely.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, Erica,” Jaz’s father began.
“Well you know me John, I like to surprise.” Jaz didn’t see her father’s face tense. His whole body tightened as he eyed her aunt uncomfortably. Erica ignored him and sat down next to Jaz, gazing half-heartedly at the TV before turning to look at her niece. “You haven’t been sleeping.” It wasn’t a question. Jaz simply nodded, not wanting to peel her eyes away from Scrubs and the funny escape world of JD. She was feeling sensitive today and knew that if she looked at her aunt right then, she might cry. “Have you taken anything to help?” Erica asked softly.
“My sister prescribed her with some sleeping pills,” Rachel, he
r mother, answered.
Aunt Erica barely looked at her. She couldn’t take her eyes off her niece. She was very worried about her. Jaz just wasn’t herself.
“They don’t work,” Jaz mumbled.
Aunt Erica bobbed her head once as if she understood. And she did, more than Jaz knew. She felt a twinge of guilt in her heart. “I have a suggestion- well it is more of a request,” her aunt began cheerily to lighten the mood. It caused Jaz to glance to her side at her aunt who was sitting upright with a perfect posture. She was slumped, almost lying down on the sofa. She knew how bad she looked but she couldn’t seem to will herself to care. She did really, but today just wasn’t a good day.
This sudden change in conversation, however, had given her heart a tiny lift. She gazed at her aunt inquiringly as Erica announced, “How would you like to take a break from all this,” waving her arms around her to symbolize ‘Jaz’s Life’ before adding, “and come with me on a trip?”
Jaz raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You want to take me like… on a holiday?”
Her aunt was beaming now. She had achieved what she wanted. She knew her niece would come with her. Jaz trusted her and it made Erica proud to see it. “Yes. Just for a week or two. I’m a well known member of a spa resort up north. They will treat you like a princess. There are loads of activities and you will be pampered and looked after. Trust me, when you come back you will feel a hell-of-a lot better.”
Jaz stared at the floor, considering it.
It sounded like a great offer, and not something that came along everyday.
Her aunt had been a rock to her even in the short time she’d known her. She was a breath of fresh air –an escape- from her life.