The Goddess Twins

by Yodassa Williams

  “Our grandfather,” I whisper, barely able to calm myself. “He and some guy named Vincent kidnapped a bunch of girls. They’ve done something really terrible to them.”

  “Yes, your grandfather’s a part of it. I wish it were only him we needed to defeat. He lured me from home, under threat of harming you two, and I thought I could handle him. I had no idea about the Brotherhood.”

  “Wait, the Brotherhood?” I ask, straining my body in the direction of her voice. “What do you mean?”

  “Yes, that’s what they call themselves. There’s at least a dozen of them, followers your grandfather has assembled. Their leader has the terrifying ability to feed off of women, absorbing their life power and abilities, and then sharing that power with his followers.”

  “What? Feeding?” I say, startled. “Wait, they’re eating the girls alive?”

  “Essentially, yes. Draining their souls and bodies dry, over and over. They have three dorm rooms back there filled with women they’ve kidnapped and abused. The Brotherhood are preparing for something big, and they’ve been talking about you and your sister obsessively.” She pauses and her next sentence comes out in a whisper that I strain to hear. “I’m very scared for you, Aurora. I really wish you weren’t here, baby.”

  In her shaking voice I hear the truth: She would give anything to take me away from here right now. I close my eyes and release the sins I’ve been carrying against her. “Mom,” I say, “I have been an evil demon child. I was so mad at you for leaving us. I was furious that you lied about our whole lives, your whole life, everything. I just snapped. I didn’t want to find you, even when it was clear you needed help. I am so very horrible. I left Arden, I got drugged and kidnapped. I don’t even know what else to say. I’m selfish and useless and sorry, so sorry. I’m so sorry.” My lungs heave, burning as the freezing air pumps in and out of my chest. I think of Arden’s face as the bus drove off, and I cry harder.

  “Oh Aurora,” Mom says. I can hear her crying from the other side of the freezer. “I know it’s not easy being my daughter, being your special self, with or without powers. But listen and know that I’ve loved you and wanted everything good for you since the moment I found out I was pregnant with you two. I wanted a life of freedom for you and Arden—for you to see the world, to be independent and spirited women, to learn to love life fearlessly. I thought if we kept moving, I could keep you safe. I made a binding spell on your powers to protect you. I tried frantically to keep the lid on the cage, but trouble found us anyway. I’m sorry I’ve told you so many lies, Aurora. What good is a goddess if she can’t seem to do right by her own children?” Mom takes a jagged breath, “I had a son many years ago …”

  “Zion? Yeah, Gran Gran told us he was murdered,” I whisper.

  “No.” She breathes deeply. “I thought he died. I was wrong.”

  Suddenly, the freezer door opens, startling us both. Light spills past an impressively built man blocking the doorway. “Don’t beat yourself up too hard there, Mother,” he says smugly. “It’s not the first or last thing you’ll get wrong in this lifetime.”

  He turns to smiles contemptuously in my direction, and my jaw drops. We share the same light brown eyes and dimples. I recognize that crooked grin from the baby photo hanging at Gran Gran’s. “Zion?” I whisper.

  He nods, smirking at me. My brother, who was murdered nearly a century ago, is very much alive.

  “And hello, baby sister Aurora. I believe one of these is yours, but I assure you, you have no need of it anymore.” He throws Arden’s and my passports at my feet.

  I say nothing.

  “Why are you so quiet? Shocked I know which twin is in front of me? I heard you were pretty wild at the club, right? So easily enticed away from the cosmic protection of your guards by a little night out in London. Only the wild twin, Aurora, would leave in such a selfish display. But, like mother like daughter, eh?”

  I ignore Zion’s taunts but wonder what he meant by cosmic protection. My mind blanks till I remember during our goddess cram session, the cousins mentioned we needed to stay together for safety. That they were our protectors. They were showing off their quartz necklaces at the time, and I thought they were just being dramatic, but were we literally under their protection? And I walked away. Into this. Wow, I suck so much I should get a medal.

  “You know, I’m really annoyed that I’m not seeing double of you right now,” Zion says, sucking his teeth. “Aurora, you don’t know much about me or grandfather, but let me tell you one thing. We really hate any single bit of incompetency when it comes to executing a plan.”

  “What plan?” I ask softly. “Why are you doing this?” I look to Mother and see that she has passed out. “Just let us go,” I plead. Like Arden, the smart one, would.

  “See, I can’t let you go. I’ve waited too long as it is, baby sister. It’s finally time.”

  “Time for what? I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Of course you don’t. Grandfather prepared me for the lack of understanding, as well as the disappointment I would have to navigate. Like, when you say, ‘I need to consume a girl and her doppelgänger at exactly midnight,’ and your trusted followers say there will be no problem, but then they just deliver the shitty clone one, what are you to do other than kill them?” He shrugs. “The rest of the Brotherhood understand better now, that there is no room for failure, not tonight. I’ve got most of them on watch for your sister. Any moment they’ll have her. I guarantee she’ll be here very soon.”

  “You leave her alone!” I growl and fight against my ropes, but Zion’s smile only grows wider. “What are you on?” I yell at him. “Let me and Mom out of here! You’re my brother. What the hell are you doing? What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing is wrong with me. You don’t understand. I’m a god, you see. I’m perfect …”

  “Wrong!” I yell out.

  “I’m what the Fates should have sent to tame the earth, all those years ago,” Zion continues, squinting his eyes at me. “Powerful women are a mistake, and goddesses are an abomination. All you can do is make a mess. Didn’t Mother just admit to that exact thing? She’s pathetic. Look at all the trauma and war and turmoil in our world, and where can she be found? Singing at the opera house! I’m here to save the world that has been destroyed while the so-called goddesses have done nothing. It’s okay, baby sister. I will fix everything, with your sacrifice. And I want you to know it’s not personal. It’s necessary. After tonight, after I drain the power from you, your sister, and our mother, there will be nothing that can stop me in remaking the world as it should be.”

  I’m itching to kick his face in or use my powers to hurl this chair at him, but all I can manage is spitting a wad that hits his shoulder. He laughs and takes off his jacket, throwing it at me. I shrug it off my face angrily.

  “Ghani saw you clearly, and Grandfather and I did our homework. Arden’s the lover; you, Aurora, you’re the fighter. Not that it’ll save you tonight, fire starter.”

  “How would you know about Gran Gran’s visions?”

  “That fool Ghani? Grandfather … he should be here any moment. He knew from the moment she became a goddess that nothing would be right in the world. He has worked, waited, and planned for a way that the balance could be restored. Tonight all of his efforts will pay off.

  “I don’t even know if you can appreciate the genius of our grandfather. He came to this place many years ago when it was still a research hospital. He worked with the genetic scientists, secretly experimenting with Ghani’s blood, eventually creating a serum that granted him access to listen in on her meetings with the Fates. When he found out that Selene was pregnant with twins, a boy and girl, he began feeding her a concoction that made me stronger until my sister was absorbed into my body.”

  “Oh my god, no,” I gasp, straining against my bonds. I’ve heard about fetal resorption, a natural biological maneuver that happens during some twin pregnancies. I’d even taunted Arden about it once, tell
ing her, “I should have absorbed you while I had the chance.” But this was induced. This was murder. Grandfather turned to science to craft a grandchild into a weapon for his own revenge against the Fates.

  “Through Grandfather’s intervention of my birth, I became a conduit, able to absorb power from women. We’ve waited for your powers to ripen, and tonight, you and your sister will surrender them to me.”

  “So it’s our grandfather who feeds you all this chauvinistic horseshit? That you deserve complete power?” I scream, remembering that Grandfather Ezekiel was a part of a group who wanted to subjugate women’s power centuries ago—that he was willing to kill his own daughters for even a hope of grand control. “You are both sociopaths! We’re supposed to be family!”

  Zion laughs darkly and begins pacing in front of the door. The freezer switches from darkness to light each time he walks in front of the single light on in the kitchen. “You’re just a young girl,” he says, his voice low. “You haven’t seen, don’t know half of what I know about how the world really works—its constant corruption and suppression of the strength and potential of the black man. You have no idea how it was for me growing up back then—the racism, the hatred I constantly felt. And then once my powers took hold, how I could feel the way white men wished for my death, threatened by nothing more than my mere presence. And it’s so much worse everywhere else! God, we can’t even begin to talk about all that’s happening in America! But I will fix all of it and put the black man back in his seat of power. In just a few minutes, you’ll die, but I’ll absorb your full powers and put them to good use, forever. You know, you should actually thank me for making your abomination of a life worth something.”

  I feel myself inflamed, thinking of the ghost girls, their transparent skin and sad, hollow eyes. They are all suffering because my brother and grandfather share some fermented misogynistic delusion of grandeur?

  “It wasn’t evolution,” I say. “It was evil science, drugging and murder. You need to be put down, Zion. You’re nothing but a disgusting thief, robbing what belongs to those weaker than yourself. How can you even look in the mirror?” I once thought I was evil and was scared to look myself. But now, and here, in the face of the most horrifying actions of another, I realize I am definitely closer to good than I ever gave myself credit for being.

  Zion folds his hands across his chest. “You would do well to show some respect to me while you are still alive.”

  “You’re not a god; you’re not even a man. A true man supports all women and protects his mother and sisters, even if they have strength that rivals his. Because in the end he is never looking to fight against them but with them. I’m sorry if our mother disappointed you, but you’ve become a pathetic excuse for a man. How can you believe that this horrible plan is the path to a better world? I will not let you kill me today or any day. And I’ll make you pay for what you’ve done to those girls and Mother.”

  In that moment, I feel it, the fire moving through my body that means my powers have activated. My mojo is back. I use my powers to snap out of my bonds. With my mind, I slam Zion backwards against the freezer door. His body hits it with such force it breaks off its hinges, and Zion winds up stunned on the floor in the dimly lit kitchen.

  “Mother!” I yell, tearing her bonds off and throwing her arms around me. We limp out of the freezer, me supporting her barely conscious body, and I realize Zion is no longer on the floor. I can’t see him anywhere. Mother and I move along a long, stainless steel counter, then duck when we hear a scream echo in the distance. Someone fires a gun twice. Then we hear more shouting and slamming, and then a lion’s roar and a bear’s growl. The cacophony continues. I wonder what the hell is going on, but just as we approach the open kitchen door, Zion appears in front of us.

  “Leaving me for a second time, Mother? For shame, for shame,” he sneers and reaches toward us to grab Mom’s throat.

  I send him flying back against the wall, but he rebounds quickly, pulling a painting off the wall and throwing it toward us. I stop the painting in midair and send it boomeranging back at Zion. He dodges it with superhuman speed. In a blink he is gone from sight.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” I ask.

  She murmurs weakly as I hitch her weight under my arm and steer us to the hallway, but Zion appears again in front of us.

  “Where do you think you’re going, baby sis? It will be midnight and your last birthday very soon. And …” He smiles in a devilish way. “I’m excited to announce our final dinner guest has arrived. She’s here, finally. I know how you teens love to be fashionably late.”

  “Arden!” My heart jumps. It must be her and the cousins making all that noise in the hallway. Arden, please be safe. I think, sending out my love to her. I’m so sorry about everything. You were right, Mom needed us, and I should have gotten my shit together from the jump. I should have been fighting with you, not against you. I hated on her for being so steadfast and good, but I am so damn proud of her for following through, despite all the odds. She fought so hard to find Mom. I didn’t want to see it before, but all along she’s been fighting hard to love me, like a true sister would. I only pray she won’t get hurt trying to rescue me and Mom. Please be safe, Arden.

  “Aurora! I hear you!” Arden’s voice comes in through my head, and only Zion’s menacing gaze keeps me from shouting with joy at the sound.

  Arden! It’s working, your voice is in my head, your telepathy works on me!

  “I’m coming!” Arden says.

  You need to leave, Arden. It’s our brother. He’s alive, he’s evil, and he wants to consume our powers at midnight. I’ll explain more later, but I need you to do something now. There’s three rooms full of girls who have been kidnapped and abused, just down the left hallway. You need to get them out of here. Don’t worry about Mom and me; I’ll hold Zion off, but those girls need rescuing now.

  “Okay, stay strong sis. I’ll free the girls, but I am coming for you and Mom next.”

  I’m sorry I’ve been such garbage to you. And everyone.

  “Hold your apology for when I save you, loser,” Arden responds, and I can’t help but smile at how much I love her.

  “Is there something amusing about your impending death, sister?” Zion asks me.

  “Riddle me this, Zion. If you are our grandfather’s truest disciple and most steadfast believer in the cause and blah blah whatever, where is he at now? Huh? How come he isn’t here at your side, watching your triumphant rise to power?” I taunt him, shrugging my shoulders.

  Mom, finally fully awake, and picks up the conversation. “Yeah, I haven’t seen him much since the first day I got here, Zion. You’d think he would be here right now, by your side, if it is really what he wants,” she says.

  “Of course, this is what he wants!” Zion snarls. “I have done everything he has ever wanted, every step of the way. I have become exactly who he wants me to be. I know he’ll be here any moment now. Tonight is following his plan precisely.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Mom asks. “From where I’m standing, it looks like he couldn’t be bothered with what happens next.”

  “Yeah, from what I hear,” I add, “he’s not that into loyalty. Maybe he realized you’re a sorry excuse for a leader and dipped out before you became a total embarrassment.”

  Zion strides forward and slaps me hard across my cheek, slamming me down to the floor in the process. He picks Mom up by the throat, and my own ears are buzzing as I struggle to stay conscious.

  “Your time has long passed, Mother. It’s time I put away childish things, and that includes any concern for you.”

  I flinch as Zion strangles Mom, but then see Lilo behind Zion, morphing from a black bear back to a human. I have never been as happy to see her as I am the moment she body-slams my brother. Surprised, he lets go of Mom and turns to the now tiny goddess behind him.

  “So, you came back from the dead just to kill your family, Cuz?” Lilo shakes her head at Zion. “That’s like, super mo
rbid, you know.”

  I grab Mom away from the fray and pull her into the kitchen as Lilo laughs.

  “Who are you?” he yells, punching the air as Lilo gracefully dodges him. “I want you dead!”

  “There no reasoning with a dick, am I right?” she says, throwing her knee into Zion’s groin with the force of a truck. He groans and doubles over, falling to the floor with an unconscious thud.

  “All right Lilo!” I cheer, and the three of us quickly set to tying Zion’s limbs together with the rope I pulled off Mom. We prop his body against the kitchen wall.

  “Mackenzie is going to be so mad she missed out on all this fun. We’ve got twelve guys knocked out and tied up in a room. Arden just led out a bunch of girls from some rooms out back. We are killing this rescue mission!” Lilo says, dancing on tip toe around Zion’s slumped frame.

  “I’m just glad she’s safe,” Mom sighs.

  I’m nodding in relief when suddenly Zion’s watch beeps loudly. With a start he comes to, wrangling me to the floor. Mom and Lilo scream and grab at him, helpless against his snake hold on me.

  “Happy birthday, sister,” he says, squeezing my head between his hands.

  I feel a wave of nausea rush through me as Zion inhales, sucking the power from my body. Mom’s and Lilo’s screams are mute to my ears, as they try to pull his arms and drag me away. After a second, I feel waves of weakness throughout my body. I look into Zion’s eyes, and I see the fire and life that I once saw in my own.

  “Let go of my sister!” a voice pierces my foggy grasp on consciousness. Arden!

  Zion turns to her, losing his grip on me. Maybe, just maybe I’m not evil, but she’s definitely the good twin. Definitely.

  As he lets go of my skull, I fall to the floor limply, gasping for breath. And then I see Arden. She’s standing in the doorway, glowing, much bigger than herself. Her whole being rings with strength as she glares into Zion’s eyes and walks toward him. She could probably melt his brain, but I know she won’t kill him. She’s going to use her powers to make Zion good again. Because Arden uses herself to make the world a better place. Just before I pass out cold, it clicks: And that’s why people have children.