Chapter Thirty-Two
I got the letter on September the first. I remember that because it was the day after our thirteenth birthday. My thirteenth birthday. The first one I wouldn’t share with my twin sister, Scarlet.
I woke up and made my way down the winding stairs of my aunt Phoebe’s house, breathing in the smell of bacon cooking as I went. The early morning sun was already warming the air. It could have been a good day.
As I emerged from the shadow of the stairs and into the sunlit hallway, I noticed it. An envelope lying on the stone floor.
For a moment I thought it might be a belated birthday card – the only card I’d had that year was from my aunt, and looking at the single, lonely name written at the top had hurt more than I could say – but as I picked the envelope up it felt more like a letter.
Scarlet had always liked to send me secret messages, but she sealed her letters so haphazardly that you could probably have opened hers just by breathing on them. This one was closed tightly and sealed with wax. I turned it over and saw that it was addressed to my aunt. I ought to open it, I thought. Aunt Phoebe didn’t object to me reading her post. In fact, it was usually necessary; she just let it pile up in the hallway if I didn’t.
I went into the kitchen and sat down on one of the rickety chairs. I took a closer look at the seal on the envelope – it was black, with a raised imprint of a bird on top of an oak tree. The words ‘Rookwood School’ were stamped underneath in dark-coloured ink.
Rookwood School. Scarlet’s school. Why were they writing to Aunt Phoebe?
I slid a butter knife from the drawer along the envelope.
Mrs Phoebe Gregory
Blackbird Cottage
Bramley Hollow
30th August, 1935
Dear Mrs Gregory,
As you are the guardian of Ivy Grey, I am writing to inform you that in light of recent unfortunate circumstances a place has become available at our school, and your niece will take it. Her parents have fully paid the fees and she is due to start as soon as possible. A teacher will be sent to collect her and the details will be explained upon her arrival.
Regards,
Edgar Bartholomew (Headmaster)
I threw the letter down as if it had singed my fingers. Could they really be referring to my sister’s death as ‘unfortunate circumstances’?
I sat and stared at it, questions racing through my head. For some reason, Rookwood School wanted me – the twin who wasn’t good enough. Surely there were hundreds of other girls they could give the place to. Why me?
It was then that I noticed that the smell of bacon cooking had turned into the smell of bacon burning. I jumped up and ran to the iron stove, waving the smoke away from my face. It was too late; the bacon was already cremated.
Aunt Phoebe must have wandered off somewhere in the middle of cooking. This was a common occurrence. I glanced out of the kitchen window and spotted her sitting on the bench in the garden, her hands folded neatly in her lap and a faraway expression on her face. Aunt Phoebe’s husband had died in the Great War, leaving behind only a study full of books and a small pension for my aunt. She hadn’t been quite the same since.
I grabbed the letter and went outside. My aunt didn’t look around even though my footsteps crunching on the gravel betrayed my presence. She was watching the goldfish in the pond. Little ripples curled as they bobbed to the surface and then darted away, their golden scales glinting in the sun.
“Aunt Phoebe?”
“Oh, Ivy,” she replied, blinking up at me, and then returning her gaze to the water. “I didn’t see you there, dear.”
“You got a letter from—” I started, but my aunt interrupted, seemingly unaware that I had spoken.
“Scarlet loved the fish, didn’t she? I remember when you were little, she used to kneel by the pond and make faces at her reflection. She always said that it was like another twin, only even wetter than you.”
I gave a weak smile. Typical Scarlet. She made fun of everyone, and me the most, but I never thought anything of it. Or tried not to, anyway.
Scarlet and I were mirror twins. Before we were born, our mother thought she was having only one baby, but then I arrived – a slightly smaller and weaker version of my sister, but a perfect mirror image. Our birthmarks were the same but on opposite sides. I was left-handed while Scarlet was right-handed. Our family doctor had once told me that our hearts might be reversed too. I was like Scarlet’s reflection come to life.
I sat beside Aunt Phoebe on the bench. It wasn’t surprising that my aunt’s thoughts were of Scarlet. She had always been everyone’s favourite, bold and brash and outgoing. I was just Ivy. Shy, clingy Ivy. I could have been Scarlet’s reflection, but I might as well have been her shadow.
“Oh goodness, I am sorry,” Aunt Phoebe said. “I was just reminded of her.”
“I understand,” I said.
But I didn’t. I didn’t understand why Scarlet had died. I didn’t understand how someone so full to the brim with life could be gone. I didn’t understand why God, if he was up there, would give me a twin only to take her away again.
Or that somehow the world was still carrying on.
“You got a letter,” I repeated, waving it at her.
Aunt
