Twins (12 page)

Jon Pear was backing up his car. He was not a good backer. The car veered first to the left and then to the right. She hoped he would crash into some unyielding brick building and total his car, but he wasn’t going fast enough for that.

Rolling down his window with the little push button, Jon Pear grinned at her. Loose and easy, like a cheerleader at a game. “Hey, Maddy, what’s happening?” He giggled.

Mary Lee thought: My sister Madrigal enjoyed hurting people. Madrigal did this. More than once. She sat in that car with Jon Pear, with the windows up and the doors locked, and she laughed while her face turned green in the light and her victim screamed among the rats.

My twin.

Katy staggered around the corner. Her eyes were unnaturally wide. Her hands were filthy and also her kneecaps; she’d fallen in a gutter and the trash had stuck to her.

Jon Pear vaulted out of the car. He escorted Katy to the car like a boyfriend privileged to have such a pretty date for the prom.

“Jon Pear,” whispered Mary Lee. “Jon Pear, I can’t get my foot out. I’m stuck.”

“Dear, dear,” said Jon Pear, tucking Katy into the front passenger seat, and gently fastening her seatbelt, and gently closing her door. Jon Pear waved at Mary Lee. “Bye, bye, Madrigal,” he said softly, blowing her a kiss.

He strolled around the car to get in and drive away.

Lock him out, Katy! thought Mary Lee. Lock Jon Pear out in the street and drive away! I don’t care what happens to me as long as Jon Pear gets his! Lock the doors, Katy.

Katy scrunched against the door, clinging to herself and the armrest.

Mary Lee’s screams were all used up now, tired and pointless, and the tears began.

Jon Pear scared Madrigal so much that my sister had to participate, thought Mary Lee. My sister didn’t really want to do this. Jon Pear forced her …

No. The sister who visited her at boarding school hadn’t been afraid of her boyfriend. The thought of Jon Pear had brought only smiles to Madrigal’s face.

No wonder Van hates me, thought Mary Lee. No wonder Scarlett is afraid of me.

Jon Pear rested on the back of the car, like a horse trainer lounging against the fence.

She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to beg. Say please, say the magic word.

He wanted power.

He wanted proof that he could give fear and take away fear.

He could start panic and take away panic.

I will stop him, she thought, I will end him. I will never never never let Jon Pear hurt anybody else again!

“Please, Jon Pear,” she begged. “Please don’t leave me here.”

He stomped down on the broken step, breaking it more, and giving her room to pull her foot out. He helped her into the backseat. Very gentlemanly. When she sagged down onto the leather, the soft-as-butter leather, the warm once-alive leather, she felt safe and civilized again.

Jon Pear actually said thank you to Mary Lee when he started the car. “That was great, Madrigal,” he said. “You were great. You were as scared as any of them. Because you knew I’d really drive away. You really knew what to be scared of.”

Jon Pear laughed happily and changed radio stations.

“Wasn’t that a high, Katy?” said Jon Pear. He flashed his marvelous smile at her. The smile had a life and character of its own. He was the sponsor of the smile, but it wasn’t his. He’d just bought it somewhere. “Weren’t you thrilled, Katy? There’s nothing like having your life in danger.”

Katy burst into tears.

They reached a red light in the center of downtown, ten blocks and a million emotional miles from where he had dumped Katy. Theater patrons bustled in their finery, and the late-night restaurant crowd rustled in and out bright-lit doors. The music of pianos and small bands spilled out onto the friendly sidewalks.

Jon Pear took Katy’s hands away from her face as if those were his own, as if Katy had them on loan. Her face was stricken and tear-stained. He chose a tear, lifting it carefully with a bare finger. He looked down onto the tear like somebody telling fortunes, and a wild and boyish smile crossed his face.

He ate the tear.

Mary Lee made herself think of good things. Of parents and warmth, of sunshine and autumn leaves, of laughter and sharing. Once she would also have thought of twins, but there was no beauty in that thought now.

“Tears are the soul,” said Jon Pear. “Tears are pain.”

No, thought Mary Lee, tears are just proof. Just a weird creepy way of showing that you made somebody cry.

She saw there was just something animal about Jon Pear; he was closer to the rat. He was a boy, a high school boy, but a wilding. He was so handsome, so well-packaged! It was hard to tell, beneath the good clothing and the great hair, the shining smile and the fine speech, that he was less, not more.

Subhuman, she thought. That’s what it is.

How much, she thought, as Jon Pear’s car moved through the city and got back on the highway, how much did Mother and Father know? They knew I was in danger. Did they know exactly what Madrigal was up to? Did somebody’s parents call them? Did Madrigal brag? Did they follow her?

Now the two thousand miles her mother and father had chosen seemed like a fine gift. If only it had worked! Mary Lee would have been happier to be lonely and confused all her life, than to know what kind of person Madrigal had really been.

I have to be sure Mother and Father know that I’m really Mary Lee. We have to bury Madrigal, and we have to bury her deep and forever.

And Jon Pear … how do we bury Jon Pear?

Mary Lee made plan after plan. But nothing would really work. Jon Pear would slide out of whatever came and wait a while and then — here or elsewhere — start up again.

Katy and I will go to the police, she thought. The simple solution is always best. We’ll tell the authorities and have Jon Pear imprisoned.

But Jon Pear had been here before. How clever he was! In moments, he had Katy giggling to please him. He had Katy admitting that the night had been a real high. He had Katy pressing her lips together in a one-person kiss, listening to a hint that Jon Pear might ask her out again one day.

It chilled Mary Lee more than the rat.

Katy was cooperating.

Katy wouldn’t tell a soul.

So there would be no police to stop Jon Pear. No principal, no parent, no passerby.

Only Mary Lee.

They took Katy home. She actually said thank-you after she said good-bye. Jon Pear laughed all the way to the high school.

How Mary Lee yearned to be in her own car! Doors locked, wheels pointed toward the safety of home.

There had evidently been some event at the school, for late as it was, people were pouring out of the building, laughing, cheering, and thrusting fists of victory into the air. Boys were whapping each other on the back, and girls were hopping up and down with delight.

How nice to enjoy a sport like basketball, where the worst that can happen is you lose. Whereas Madrigal’s sport …

“Jon Pear,” said Mary Lee, “we’re not going to hurt anybody again. This hobby is over.”

It startled him. “What are you trying to pull?” said Jon Pear suspiciously.

“This is truly bad! You have to stop being so rotten.”

Jon Pear laughed. “Too much fun. You should have seen your face, Madrigal. You were so scared. You were jelly. You were panic. You were gone, girl. And everybody is jealous of me. I do what I want. They want to, too, but they’re timid, see. My plan is to get them all. We’ll have a whole school of people who will do anything to anybody.”

“You will not! They won’t cooperate with you. This school is full of good people! Kind, generous, decent people.”

He was skeptical. “Name one.”

It was easy to name one. Easy to name two. Scarlett and Van were kind, generous, decent people.

“Van,” she told Jon Pear. Just uttering Van’s name made her feel better. “Van is a good person.”

She had made a mistake.

A huge and serious mistake.

Everything about Jon Pear darkened and deepened. He moved back from her, and she saw, for a splintered second, the creature that was beneath his skin. A creature with no compassion, no humanity. A soul as empty as the glass vial in which he had dropped her tear.

“You like him,” said Jon Pear. He was truly shocked. “
You like Van!
”

She had forgotten that Jon Pear loved Madrigal. Trusted Madrigal. Confided in her.

She had betrayed Jon Pear. And in so doing, had betrayed Van. For Jon Pear, who had simply wanted entertainment, now had a greater motive.

The desire to hurt Van flared on Jon Pear like sunspots. It blinded Mary Lee, as if looking Jon Pear’s way required special lenses.

Jon Pear got out of his car and searched the crowds.

Coming through the high school door were Van and Scarlett.

“Why, Van,” said Jon Pear, his smile growing.

“Why, Van,” said Jon Pear, gliding forward like a creature of the water, without legs, without steps.

V
AN STEPPED IN FRONT
of Scarlett.

As if standing first in line ever saved the second person.

But Mary Lee loved him for it. Once I was that close to my sister, she thought. Once Madrigal and I trusted each other and looked out for each other.

When the twins were little, Mother used to say, they’d fall asleep at the exact same moment, the rhythm of their breathing identical. They would eat their cereal in synchrony, each little right hand moving a spoon as the other did. They would run to the schoolbus stop, each skip timed like a choreographed dance number.

Where did you go, Madrigal? asked Mary Lee.

But she could not spend time on a ruined sister. She had to move on. “Leave Van and Scarlett alone,” said Mary Lee. Her voice felt old, as if she had dug it out of some dusty history text.

Jon Pear, of course, never even looked at her, but continued to advance upon Van.

She stepped between them.

“Madrigal, this is my game,” said Jon Pear, never lowering his eyes to hers.

“These are people. They aren’t a game.” She stepped in front of him again.

He was incredulous. Nobody blocked the path of Jon Pear. “What is going on here?” demanded Jon Pear. “Who do you think you are?” His voice was no longer water rippling over the rocks. It was the rock itself, sharp. “I do anything I want.”

“No.”

“Madrigal,” said Jon Pear. “You’re making me angry, Madrigal.”

She shrugged. The pretense of being Madrigal felt as if it had lasted for weeks. Drained her like a wasting disease.

Jon Pear wanted to shove her away. She could feel his yearning to push her trembling on the other side of his own extended hand. He controlled himself, but just barely. The violence in Jon Pear was growing. She felt as if she were standing over a geographic fault line.

Who is Jon Pear?
she thought, staring at his fury.

She knew nothing of his history and nothing of his present. Did not know his address. Did not have his phone number. Jon Pear had never mentioned parents — never quoted them, referred to them, groaned about their rules, hoped for their approval. He had mentioned no sisters or brothers. No dogs, no bedroom, no possession had been worth describing. He seemed to play no sport and, although he attended classes, he seemed not to be enrolled in them.

He was just there.

“If your plan, Madrigal,” said Van quietly, “is to pretend you’re on our side, so you can get us to go along with you, or divide us, you need to know we can see through you. You’re as sick as Jon Pear is.”

She wanted desperately to have Van know who she really was.

“It won’t work, Madrigal,” said Van. “We’ve played too many of your games. We’re not playing this time. We’re going to our car. You are not getting near us. Neither of you. You are not to touch us, nor speak to us. Ever again.”

Mary Lee’s heart was breaking. She flushed in shame, her olive skin turning hot and beautiful.

Jon Pear said, “Madrigal?” She could not tell whether he shook from rage or adoration.

Van and Scarlett took a single stride toward their car, but Jon Pear leaped between them and safety. He spoke to Madrigal, but he stared into the eyes of Van and Scarlett.

“Remember the day we saw somebody drowning, Madrigal?” said Jon Pear. “Remember how you and I stood on the shore and watched? Remember how bright and gaudy the autumn leaves were, drifting down on the water where he went under? Remember how he came to the surface again and signaled us? He knew we were there, Madrigal.”

The miasma of his evil spread like a fishnet. Mary Lee tried to step away, but his voice caught her. She was prisoner of his voice the way she had been prisoner of the broken step.

“The last time he came up, and didn’t have enough strength to call out to us, we waved at him.” Jon Pear’s eyes glittered like diamonds. “You and I, Madrigal. Remember what fun that was, when he went down? He knew we could have done something. And he knew we wouldn’t. That’s the most fun,” Jon Pear confided. “When you
could
do something, but you don’t. And they realize it, the victims. They know you chose to let them drown.”

Scarlett was weeping.

Van continued to appear preppy and perfect, athletic and interesting. But his complexion drained of color, and beneath his tan he was gray. As gray as the skies and the heart that had accompanied Mary Lee on her plane trips.

Mary Lee, too, struggled for air she would never find and reached out with frozen fingers to haul herself to safety, and found only a maple leaf. In a voice that had no sound, only horror, she said,
My sister did that?

Her knees buckled. Half-fainting, Mary Lee ended not unconscious but kneeling in front of Jon Pear, as if begging for mercy.

“I don’t do mercy,” said Jon Pear. “I don’t do anything I could go to jail for, either. I just stand there. Watching. What happens, happens. I love watching it.”

She felt herself folding, growing smaller and smaller. She had nothing inside now but agony. What he was was bad. Not a mirage, not a ghost, not a vampire, but a completely bad person. And either Madrigal had been born the same, or he had taught her to be the same.