Mia

A book lays in my sister’s place. Sometimes she’s gone for hours because she is reading, gardening, or sewing and lost track of time. Always missing in action. This time it’s different. Thirty-four hours since she went up to her room to read. Books are her safe place, where she can forget that she lives in my shadow. I don’t mean to outshine her, but even now the sunlight through the window casts my long silhouette over the Mia shaped indent in the bed. My lip goes between my teeth as I stifle a scream that turns into a sob.

 No one has moved a thing since she left. Not even this book, the jacket I’m sure was once a glorious royal blue is dull from age. The title “Finding me” written in golden cursive that surely once glittered is now antique looking. Finding Me. That’s exactly how I feel, like I must find myself. Or rather, the other half of me. I hear dad on the phone with the police again. He keeps calling, hoping there will be an answer to the question we all share: Where is Mia? 

The town has been on high alert since two weeks back, a young girl went missing and still hasn’t been found. Danielle, her last name slips my mind. She is about ten, two years our junior, and I remember chatting with her exactly once. “Wow, are you twins?” She had asked the same question we have heard a million times. 

“No, this is my clone,” I replied with a sly smile. She laughed and called me the funny one. Born first, I am the original, while my twin Mia is always my mirror. We share a face that is bright and beautiful, rosy lips often in a smile. Yet I am the funny one, smart one, and interesting one. Mia is all the things I am but in a different way. She is always making sarcastic comments I find funny, but most do not. She is cunning and bright in her own quiet way, her nose always in a book. But I am always first. First to crawl, first to walk, and first to smile a real smile. I never could help it. Still, I recall the expression of years of frustration and loathing etched on Mia’s face. 

My hands reach out to the book, careful not to disturb Mia’s spot on the bed. I simply want something of hers, something to take my mind off this nightmare. The soft cloth binding flops in my hands. It looks like an antique book. The first chapter is titled ‘In the Window’. I sit on the edge of her bed, careful not to disturb the blankets, and scan the words.

 ‘First there is one crow, with onyx wings and inky eyes, it's the only one who knows. Then there were two, each delighting me so.’ The words in the book seem to echo in the silence. I scan down to the next paragraph.

‘I feed them and more come. Not a couple, or a group, or even some. You know the name. Don’t make me say it.’’ I slam the book shut and toss it across the room. A violent heave forms in my abdomen and comes lurching out of my throat.

What is this? I fling her window open. Cool wind whips the hair from my face and I shake my head. I’m so stupid. It’s just a book. One of a hundred my sister has stacked on shelves and piles in her room. Yet as I glance down at the tiny clovers growing below her window - crushed and wilted at an odd angle I know something is wrong. It’s a footprint, meaning someone has come in or gone out this window. My cheeks flush and my heart pounds.

Someone took her. The same person that took that poor girl Danielle? The same one that killed Mrs. Miller in that awful way? My mouth opens to say something, but what, and to whom? A footprint is not evidence of anything. Goosebumps spread over my arms and bristle the hairs on my neck. I glance at the book thrown on the floor. A sudden need to read more rushes through me. 

The next chapter, ‘Roses’, catches my attention. A vase of fully bloomed mahogany roses sits on Mia’s nightstand. She planted the bush herself. A knot tightens in my belly, but I read on. 

‘Crimson petals satin and soft, carry secrets buried and lost.’ My eyes wander back over to the flowers delicately placed so that they would face Mia as she slept. Unease grinds my teeth together as my eyes scan further down the page. I notice a thin pencil mark underlining the next line. 

‘It starts when crimson hits the ground with a splatter. I squeeze it tight, the thorns don’t matter.’ Splatter like blood? Like poor Boots. My heart races, sure something terrible has happened to my sister. I flip to the next short story, not spotting any more underlined passages in the first. 

I hear mom start a new round of sobs from the other room and I have to know. Something deep in my very soul is telling me this is important. I flip to the next chapter. 

‘The Magician’ it’s titled and I tilt my head, curious at the meaning. 

‘There’s magic performed just for me. I am the only fan it needs.’ A puff of frustration escapes my nose. This story is just a story. Nothing more. I flip the page and freeze as my eyes catch a lightly underlined passage. 

‘They ask me to come up and go in this tight space. Wait and see if it works, only I can escape. So I step in without an ounce of fear. With the utter of a magic word, I disappear.’ She only underlined two words, but those words hold the weight of the world. I pace, sure I should be doing something, but I’m not sure what. This book is the answer somehow. I skip to the next story titled ‘The Blue House.’ My brow furrows. There is a blue house, The Millers, down the hill. I can just barely make out their roof if I peer out the window. This can’t be a coincidence. That is where that Miller boy lives. What is his name? John or Jeremy? He is seven years our senior and has been away for the last few years. Did he come back when his mom died? I rack my brain trying to remember if I had seen or heard anything at all. I think I did. Mom had said something about someone moving back in. 

Still traumatized, I recall when we found our beloved kitty, Boots, skinned and beheaded in the driveway of his house. The only reason we knew it was him was his rainbow collar, soaked in blood. My sister cried for days. She even placed roses on his grave. After that, every time a neighborhood pet went missing, everyone would suspect, but they never found any more bodies. The Miller boy is a malnourished ghost of a man. He always dresses in all black and keeps to himself, an odd one everyone agrees. He denied killing Boots or any others, but who else? He had been gone for a few years but maybe he moved back after his mother died that horrible death. I wonder if he killed her, too. 

I shake the awful thoughts away and spy a pair of scissors, sharp and open, on my sister’s dresser. She loved sewing, and she’d certainly yell at me for using these but—desperate times. I slide them into one pocket and the book in another. Then I make my way to the window. My heart is screaming at me to run, run to the blue house at the bottom of the hill.

So I do

I hop out the window, careful to miss the already crushed clovers, and start a frantic dash to the house. I don’t know this house well. No one, especially us, wanted to be near that Miller boy. The house itself has an ominous feel. It’s the same size as ours, but the lack of upkeep is apparent. Weeds grow as high as my waist in some parts and the yard is littered with rusted tools and other things most people would throw away. I pull out the book and read.

 ‘I have a favorite doll. She has brown yarn hair and her body is full of billowy cotton. She and I live in the blue house here at the hills’ bottom. Here I can whisper my thoughts and feelings, she tells no one. She is my best friend, we’ll always have fun.’ A sadness seeps through my terror as if I were peeking into a world I had no business seeing. I scan the next few paragraphs, prattling on about this doll, then stop at the underlined passage.

‘But her plush body is becoming worn by time. One arm fell off, and I had to sew one button for an eye. Stink and rot set in, but I won’t let her go—she’s mine. She’s unable to scream, unable to cry.’ Dread wraps my stomach in a vice grip, its teeth sinking into my very core. 

I scan the house, its paint peeling around the edges, and spot a window. It’s old and cracked, a hole duct taped over with cardboard. I’m afraid again, but not for my sister. It’s myself I worry about. If my sister is not here and this book is just that—a book, then the trouble I’ll be in will be the worst I’ve ever faced. I will face it though, because I’m sure. As sure as the sky is blue, my sister is in trouble. I fear she’s hidden away, unable to cry or scream. I must save her. 

My fingers go tightly around the scissors, then I raise and stab them into the poor excuse for a fix. The cardboard rips and tears away and the jagged edges of the window are free. Quickly I unlock it. It slides up, a plume of dust making me stifle a cough. This window is smaller than mine or Mia’s. A grown person couldn’t fit through, but a child can. 

I lift my leg and hoist myself through feet first. I land on the other side with a crunch and freeze to make sure no one heard. The house is quiet, not even the hum of air conditioning drones through its vents. I regain my composure and cringe at the sight before me. Everything looks worn. A thin layer of dust and cobwebs rests on the furniture and walls. Piles of newspapers, magazines, pails, boxes and buckets all sit titled dangerously to one side. This place is a maze set up to make the loudest commotion possible if I take one wrong step. I question if someone hasn’t abandoned this house years ago.

‘The Door to the Stairs’ is the next chapter, and it’s all I need to know before carefully snaking my way through the many teetering piles of trash. I finally reach a hallway of rooms and one small door that seems to lead somewhere else all together. The door at the end of the hall is more brown than white, its paint worn down from years of abuse. I open it to find stairs leading into darkness. I don’t have time to read the whole chapter. Each second I linger feels like it might be the last my sister has. I scan the page for an underlined line and find,

‘Down the stairs, thump thump thump, boom goes her heart pump pump pump. Soon she’ll be silent.’ A fresh wave of panic and urgency speeds my steps as I dog ear the page and pocket the book. I grab out the scissors, ready to cut down anything in my way. As quick as I can without falling, I feel my way down the old wooden steps. An awful odor mixes with the dust, making me gag and cough. The stairs creak and crack loudly at my weight on them, my silence from earlier forgotten. I almost stumble when I reach the end, my foot hitting the floor with a skid. The light from the house above isn’t strong enough to make it down here, and it’s utterly black. I reach along the wall, my hands touching a thick layer of dust on the rough surface. My fingers find a switch and I flip it. A small overhead lamp flickers to life. 

Then I see him. A boy with dirty blonde hair matted with streaks of burgundy, dirt mixed with old blood, lies on a makeshift metal table. That awful stench is of iron and rot, similar to the smell of Boots after we found him. The boy's arms, stained red, hang lifelessly from the table. I cover my mouth to suppress a scream. Then I see a girl slumped against the wall with her hands bound behind her back. She has long, brown, oily hair obstructing her face. I recognize her yellow sundress, though it’s now grimy and ripped, from police bulletins. It’s Daniella, the missing girl. She’s been gone for two weeks! Has she been here the whole time? So many questions swirl in my head.

 “Daniela, please, where’s my sister?” I plead. “Have you seen Mia? She looks just like me.” I say as I reach out my hands. Quickly I grab her shoulder and recoil as her head lolls to the side. I gasp at the image before me. A glossy black button is sewn over her right eye. Her lips are stitched together and dried blood stains her chin down the front of her dress. The arm I grabbed flops lifelessly as I notice it too is sewn on. 

“It is you that looks like her,” I hear a voice say before a pain rips through my skull. My world goes black.

*****************

Pain and dizziness wash through my body. I feel something sticky and wet on my head, but when I go to wipe it, I realize my hands are clasped to a table. The same table, I saw the boy tied down. 

“It’s a shame how I found you. We all had such high hopes that you’d come back to us alive.” A voice, cold and full of malice, says. My head is swirling and nothing makes sense. I look around, but the person speaking is behind me in the shadows. “I suppose I’ll have to find you now. Maybe I’ll give it another day.” 

“Who are you? What have you done with my sister?” I cry. A cruel laugh rings out, echoing through this small room. I crank my neck wildly, trying to glimpse my captor. Instead, I see the body of a boy, no a man, thin and wiry as a boy. Multiple lines of thin stitching line various joints and decorate his torso. His stomach is cut open and his intestines hang out of his gray rotting corpse. The Miller boy? Joseph or Jared, or maybe just J? I let out a gasp as the lunch I had earlier burns its way up my throat. I swallow bile back hard as sobs break free instead. 

“You didn’t finish the book,” the voice says as I hear the rustling of pages. “The last one is the best,” the cold voice whispers, the heat of the stranger’s body radiates near my ear. 

I see a shadowed hand place the book on a shelf in front of me as a metal knife and pain stab through my chest. My heart is pounding and my blood is pooling as my eyes drift to the last page of the book. ‘Mirror’ is the title, written in haphazard letters that seem carved into the book with a knife.

‘Here is my mirror, perfect and free. There is my reflection, but it looks nothing like me. She does everything right. I am darkness and she is light. My reflection goes first, and I last. I’m hidden in the shadow she casts. I’ll shatter this mirror that holds the girl I can’t be. Then I can be her and she can be me.’ 

My head is foggy, and I taste blood in the back of my throat. Something in my mind clicks and words I read came back to me: ‘You know the name. It starts when crimson hits the ground with a splatter. I disappear. Unable to scream, unable to cry. Soon she’ll be silent. Then I can be her and she can be me.’ 

I remember the book's cover and now I realize What I mistook for age was simply homemade. A swatch of fabric for a jacket. Gold paint instead of print. Hand sewn pages into cloth. I hadn’t even noticed no author was listed. Yet now the slight breeze coming in from the door I left open flips the last page. The letters M I A, each scrawled in handwriting I know as well as my own. It was never a book.

“It was you? B-Boots, Mrs. Miller, the Miller boy? Da-Daniella,” I choke on the words, along with my blood. 

“They'll never suspect, then they can be next.” She laughs, a hollow sound that pools tears in my eyes. “You can be me and I can be you.” A voice I know now is my sister’s, whispers in my ear. She pulls the knife out of my chest and for a moment, I catch her image in its silver blade. Her face is bright and beautiful, her rosy lips plastered in a smile. She looks like me, or rather is it I that looks like her.

A smile lifts my blood stained lips. I delight in the fact I get to be first one last time—when I die.