CHAPTER ONE
I
took one look at my twin sister and knew that she was dead. I didn't
need to take a pulse, check for breathing, or feel her chest to know
that she was dead. A trained physician could not tell me more than
what I already knew. In my very special way, I knew better than
anyone that she was dead.
The
connection between twins is well known, and I learned too late that
Selena and I had a connection that was remarkable even among twins.
We were fraternal twins, she being girl and I a boy, but the bond had
been there regardless. Looking down at Selena and not sensing her
presence shocked me to my very foundation.
Scanning
around me, I marveled that I was able to find her body at all. It was
located 50 miles out of the nearest town in a remote area in Oregon
that could only be accessed by traveling a series of dirt roads. Her
body was nearly 150 yards from the dirt road in a gully gouged out
from the run off of melting snow. The gully was dry now.
By
the way her body lay, it looked like she had crawled into the gully
to hide from whoever killed her. She was on her back facing up,
partially hidden behind a large rock. Several bullet punctured her
chest.
Casting
around the area, I found footprints that told the story. The steep
walls of the gully distinctly showed where Selena had slid down the
steep embankment, and then tried to hide behind a large rock at the
bottom of the gully. Looking around, I was able to find the
footprints of someone else who had stood along the side of the gully.
There was no need for this person to go down into the gully. My
sister was trapped. All the murderer had to do was pull the trigger.
Looking
down at my sister again, I reached out and tried again to sense her
presence, desperate for a spark of life. Nothing. We had always been
able to sense when the other twin was near, Selena being much more
capable of sensing my presence than I of her. The loss of my sister
crashed down on me at that instance. Kneeling down, I began to brush
loose dirt off of her. Whoever had killed my sister had begun to kick
dirt on her, but probably gave it up realizing how impossible it was
for anyone to find her in such a remote area. The killer had walked
away leaving my sister exposed to the elements and whatever animals
were in the area. The grief was overwhelming and I laid my head on
her shoulder and began to cry.
I
don't know how long I lay there. The sadness was so great, the loss
so monumental. One thing was for sure, life didn’t seem worth
living without my sister.
I
knew that I should begin to look for Selena’s necklace with the
crystal on it, the one our mother had given her, but I was too
exhausted. Somewhere along the way, the overwhelming tiredness from
my grief and the terrifying events of the last two days overtook me
and I dozed, my head still resting on my sister's shoulder. I dreamed
of the events that had happened beginning the previous morning.
CHAPTER TWO
"Good morning sunshine!" I yelled mid-jump sailing across the room. My flight path was taking me to the empty side of Selena's bed. Very few people could guess that we were twins. Selena being a girl and me a boy was the first strike, but it didn't stop there. Selena was athletically built, but small and thin with straight blonde hair. I am not small nor am I thin and my hair is brown and very wavy. I'm right handed, she's left handed. And the list goes on.
It is a matter of personal pride that when I bounce on Selena's bed, I can usually launch her several feet into the air and onto the carpeted floor. The "Wheaties" I ate for breakfast must have kicked in that morning because Selena literally flew off the bed, landing in a tangled heap on the floor. It could very well have been the greatest sister-launching of all time. Even though I was howling with laughter at how high I had catapulted Selena, I watched carefully because she was ferocious in our little brother-sister skirmishes. Any minute I expected her to explode off of the ground in full-frontal attack mode. Most people are a little intimidated by my size, but Selena never was.
Besides, Selena knew my greatest weakness.
I have one fatal flaw that evens the playing field with regards to my sister. And it is a great source of shame.
You see, I'm ticklish. And not just "kind of ticklish" or a "little ticklish". I'm the sort of ticklish that when I'm tickled, all my strength seems to disappear and I am left nearly defenseless trying to ward off a finger to the ribs, knees, or armpits. Or worse, the feet. Selena's greatest attack method was to wrap herself around one of my legs and start tickling my immobilized foot. No matter how hard I kicked or fought back, she would not let go. I would quickly and immediately concede to whatever her demands were to get her to stop the tickle torture.
But today was different. I knew that I had launched Selena higher than ever before, but she is so tough that I expected that she’d just be angry that I had managed such a feat. Instead, she lay motionless on the floor in a heap. Knowing that she was faking it, I kept my distance.
“You’re not fooling anyone” I said bravely from safety of the bed. No movement came from the heap on the floor.
“Seriously, I don’t believe you’re hurt. You can stop faking now, Selena.” A small amount of doubt was entering my mind. What if I had launched her too far? Maybe she had hit her head or something. Still, she was mighty sly.
No. She had to be faking.
“Whatever you do, don’t laugh.” I said trying to get a reaction out of her. I couldn’t even detect her breathing. Maybe something had gone awry with my plan.
Still on edge, I moved a little closer trying to determine if she was breathing or not. Her body seemed unnaturally still and was crumpled in an odd way. More fear entered my mind and a little knot formed in my stomach. Maybe I had finally injured her in a bad way. Still, there was a nagging doubt that she was faking the whole thing, just reeling me in like a fat trout on a line. What bothered me the most was that she was so motionless. Normally, Selena was a bundle of energy and couldn’t stay still for more than a moment or two.
And then her foot twitched unnaturally, freakishly. A spasm of some sort. A shot of fear ran through my spine.
Determining that something was actually wrong, I knelt down next to her with the intent of trying to detect some movement in her chest to see if she was actually breathing. I sat about ten seconds and saw absolutely no motion. Now I was scared.
“Selena, are you all rig….” I began.
Instantly, I found myself in an epic struggle with the Tasmanian Devil. Faster than I could believe, Selena went from motionless to a blur of angry energy intent on my destruction. And remember, she knew my humiliating weakness.
Feinting towards my right leg, she then spun and shot for my left leg instead. Trying to jump back out of the way, I tripped on some blankets that had fallen to the floor and I found myself laying on my back with a she-tiger wrapped around my leg removing my slipper and preparing for torture.
"Noooo! OK, ok, you win!" Better to concede early than endure the horrible torture.
"You're dead meat, Marcus Brent Harmon!" as she pulled off the slipper and threw it across the room. "I was planning on sleeping in a little this morning, you moron!"
"Noooo! I give, I give!" I shouted. As light as Selena was, I was literally kicking my leg through the air with her clinging to it like a demented panther with super glue on it's paws. As desperate as I was to fling her off, she was even more determined to hold on and punish me for my actions.
"You're not getting off that easy, sonny-boy!" Using her fingernails, she raked the bottom of my foot from heel to toe.
"Nooooooooo! Stop! Aaaahhh, seriously Selena stop! I give, I give!" I was desperate now, and not above begging.
"Dishes for the week?" she asked?
"What? For a week? No wa... aaaaay ahhhhh, ahhhhh!" I shrieked in my falsetto voice with manly courage.
"Stop doing that! No, no, no! OK, ok! Dishes for the week! Just please let go!" I hollered, all shreds of dignity and manliness thrown out the window. I contemplated calling for grandma, but she generally took Selena's side.
"Atta-a boy. I knew you could do it. By the way, Marcus, you squeal like a girl" she said, releasing me from the torturous tickle grip.
"Shut up! I do not!" was my brilliant reply. It was difficult to come up with something clever when I had been humiliated by my sister who wasn't even half my size. Besides, I had no intentions of doing the dishes for a week. I would just deny it if Selena told grandma that we had a new “arrangement” for doing the dishes.
"And what would Becky Newsome say if she knew that her big football stud was actually a girly-man?" Warning alarms began to go off. Selena was up to something.
"No worries. Who do you think she'll believe? You or ‘Marcus the Love Machine’?" I stretched to word "love" out for several seconds for emphasis.
Grabbing her phone off of her nightstand, Selena placed the ear-buds into her ears.
"Let me show you something", she said. “Just in case you plan to go back on your word.”
"More of that Celine Deon crap?" I asked while she played with some of the buttons on the phone. I actually had a secret crush of Celine Deon, but why muddy the waters when my manhood was on such shaky ground already? And how did she know I had no plans of washing dishes that week?
Selena held the ear-buds out to me. After I had the ear-buds in place, Selena pushed play and I heard a familiar voice and saw myself in a desperate struggle with the she-devil. "What? For a week? No wa... aaaaay ahhhhh, ahhhhh! Stop doing that! No, no, no! OK, ok! Dishes for the week! Just please let go!"
She had recorded the whole fight, girlie squeals and all. Somehow she knew an attack was coming and she had set me up to do her chores.
"You set me up!" I yelled. Selena quickly yanked the ear-buds off my head and ran to the bathroom, taking her phone with her. I followed as fast as I could but found the door slammed in my face and locked.
"Give me the phone right now you little creep!" I yelled.
"Dude, you're not even a challenge anymore. Like shooting carp in a barrel.” She said from behind the door.
"You little weasel! You set me up! Somehow you knew what I was going to do and set me up!" I was tempted to bust through the door, but knew grandma would likely shoot me if I did. With my size, I tended to go through more than my share of furniture.
I heard the sound of a drawer opening, then Selena's taunting voice. "Well, would you look at this? Your cell phone is in here with Becky's phone number. I wonder how it got in here? I might just give her a call and let her hear my favorite recording."
"She-Devil!" I yelled. "Give me back my phone!" I was getting desperate. It was not out of the realm of possibility that Selena would indeed call Becky and play the recording over the phone. I was in trouble.
"How about dishes for two days? Is that a deal?" I asked.
"I bet Becky is going to be speed dial number one. Well, what do you know? She is!" She was going to do it. I could tell. It's a twin thing.
"Fine! You win! I'll do dishes for a week!" The thought of Becky hearing that recording was intolerable. I worked hard at my manly-man persona, and this would ruin things for certain if anyone at Mountain View High School found out about my non-manly deficiency.
"I want to hear you tell Grandma that you switched chores with me and that you'll be doing dishes for this week. You're not worming your way out of this one." Selena said from behind the bathroom door.
Plan one thwarted.
“Grandma, Selena and I will be switching chores for awhile. Is that OK?” I hollered down the stairs.
Grandma appeared around the corner and I swear she had a trace of a smile at the edges of her mouth. Grandma was short in stature and had graying hair that still had a touch of dark brown throughout.
“That's fine, Marcus. As long as they get done I don't care who does what. I'll be leaving for Seattle in a few minutes. I don't want to come home to a dirty house, you hear?” Grandma replied and started downstairs. There was no way that grandma would come home to a dirty house. She was all the family Selena and I had, and we loved her more than anything.
"And don't plan on spending your evenings at Paul's house to get out of dishes, either." Selena said from behind the door.
Jeez! How did she do it? Plan Two thwarted. Typical of me, there was no Plan Three. Two plans was my limit. After that were just different forms of begging.
“When you complete washing dishes for a week, then I give you this recording and you can do with it as you please. Maybe we'll forget what a girly-man you've become.” said Selena.
I could hear the shower turn on, and I knew that this little episode was over and that I was destined for dishpan hands for awhile. What had started as a lovely game of “Launch the Sister” had ended in a very horrible manner for the launcher instead of the launchee.
I returned to my room and picked up my guitar. It's old, but it is my favorite possession. It's an "Ovation" six string guitar, and it seemed to fit my hands like it was a part of my body. Playing the "Ovation" was my way of relaxing and thinking. Selena once told me that she knew what I was thinking about just by what I played. When I'm contemplating something, I love playing what is in my head, freestyle. The music just seems to flow out of me. Sometimes Selena would listen then try to guess what I was thinking. I suspect that the times that she was wrong were faked so as to not freak me out. She was just too accurate sometimes.
While I was playing, I began to think about my little sister. We barely knew our parents. They were both killed in a car accident when we were only five. Our parents had taken a night out together without us twins and had been killed by a drunk driver. Ironically, the driver lived while they did not. We were raised by our only surviving grandparents. Grandma Torrey and Grandpa Dan were my dad's parents. Grandpa Dan had died of a heart attack several years before leaving us alone with Grandma Torrey. Mom's parents had died before we were born.
I wouldn't admit this to anyone, but Selena was the strong one out of the both of us. I think I relied more on her emotionally than she did me. She just seemed to know exactly what to tell me when I doubted myself or when I got down. Lately, though, she had been extremely introspective and contemplative. When I would ask what was wrong, she would put on a different face and tell me that everything was fine. I might not have been as good at reading her mind as she was at reading mine, but I knew instinctively that this was a lie. Something was bugging her big time. I admit I was kind of hurt that she wouldn't share with me what was going on.
Selena came into my room wearing a bathrobe and drying her hair with a towel. She sat at the end of my bed and listen to me play for a couple of seconds.
"Stop worrying about me, Marcus. I've just had something on my mind these last couple of weeks" she said.
"Maybe I was thinking about something else. Has that ever occurred to you?" I asked.
She snorted through her nose. It was a little habit she had gotten from our dad. “Yeah, right. You can’t hide anything from me and you know it.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t hide anyth…” I let the sentence die. Who was I fooling?
Selena laughed, both of us knowing how foolish that sentence sounded.
“Still, if there is something I can help you with? I could hit someone in the face for you.” I said hopefully.
She seemed to waiver, but then shook her head. "Please trust me on this" she said. Selena stood and gave me a big bear hug. Although we are as close sibling could possibly be, we're not big into hugs or kisses or other physical displays of emotions. Selena's actions had caught me off guard. Worse, I was getting poked by the crystal that mom had given her that she always carried on a chain around her neck. It was her most prized possession.
Selena looked up at me. "You know I love you, right?" she said after releasing me. "Please, Marcus, I need you to trust me.”
