“It’s my turn now, Ravenna,” I say to the girl at the bottom of the hole. The girl who looked just like me. The girl who had the same blood running through her veins.
The girl who was good, when I was nothing but bad.
Standing up next to the hole, I turn around and pick up the piece of wood lying on the ground in between the two men, one still unconscious on the right, and one still sobbing into his hands on the left. I hold the wood with the rusty nails protruding from the bottom tightly in my hands and lift it above my head, trying to decide if I should bring it down to the left of me, or to the right.
Either direction will make me feel good, so it’s not like it matters. The one on the left is more deserving, but it’s almost more satisfying to know he’ll go on living out the rest of his days in complete and abject misery. The one on the right gives me pause, but I know he’ll never be able to accept the truth of what happened down here and what I did. It was nice pretending I could be normal for a little while, but I’m finished pretending.
“Ravenna, Ravenna, Ravenna,” my father intones in between sobs.
“Ravenna is dead. Ravenna doesn’t exist,” I say with a smile.
I slowly lift the wood above my head and then quickly slam it down, knowing I made the right decision. Yanking on the wood to pull the bloody nails out of the skull resting against the floor, I open my mouth, finally setting myself free as I lift the wood again and slam the nails home.
T means death, death means T. Remember T. REMEMBER!
“My name is Tatiana Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, and I will never, ever live in a prison again. I finally remember. I’m finally free.”
Epilogue
Summer 2015
“Do you get it now? Does it all make sense?” I ask, my mind exhausted, and my body feeling every bit of its sixty-eight years of age after so many hours talking.
I look back and forth between the two raven-haired beauties sitting on the loveseat across from me, mirror images of each other on the outside, but polar opposites on the inside.
“I’ve been asking you my entire life to talk about what happened when you were eighteen, and this is what you come up with when you’re finally ready to speak? An outrageous, morbid story that is completely preposterous. Honestly, Mother, is it so hard for you to just tell us the truth?”
Faina throws up her hands in irritation, rising from the loveseat and snatching her purse from the floor by her feet, turning her annoyed look to her sister.
“How can you sit there so calmly, Mavra?” she asks.
Mavra shrugs and looks away from her sister. We share a smile and once again I take a quiet moment to look at my forty-year-old twins. Faina meaning light in Russian and Mavra meaning dark, so perfectly named when they were born, long before I learned who they would become.
Shaking her head, Faina walks around the coffee table, bends over, and places a kiss on the side of my cheek, always remembering her manners even when she’s angry. “I’m sorry, Mother, I shouldn’t have spoken so rudely to you. I love you.”
She stands back up to her full height, tugging the hem of her light pink suit jacket back into place and pressing her palm down the side of the matching light pink skirt. She glances down at the watch on her wrist before smoothing her hand against the side of her head, making sure her tight, perfectly pulled-back bun is still intact, and there isn’t one hair out of place.
“I have to be in court in an hour, and I need to prepare. I’ll give you a call later.”
My beautiful Faina, the lawyer, so smart and perfect and good. It’s a wonder she lived to adulthood, and I never smothered her in her sleep as a baby.
Mavra and I watch in silence as she throws the strap of her purse over her shoulder and walks out of the room, her heels clicking down the stairs as she goes. When I hear the front door open and close, I turn away from the stairs, patting the spot next to me on the couch.
Mavra gets up, walks around the coffee table and takes a seat, turning to face me, tucking one leg underneath her.
“Aren’t you going to yell at me as well and tell me my story was absurd?” I ask softly.
She shakes her head back and forth, her long, wild mane of black hair swishing around her shoulders. Reaching between us, she grabs my wrinkled hands covered in age spots and holds them in her own soft, younger ones, covered in dirt and scratches.
“You’ve never lied to me before; why would you start now?” she replies calmly.
My lovely Mavra, the gardener. So trusting and open, never hiding who she is or what she feels, even if society says it’s bad.
I run the tips of my fingers over the new scratches on the tops of her hands and the scars from previous ones.
“Looks like you’ve been fighting with the rosebushes again,” I tell her with a laugh.
She chuckles with me, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “You know I don’t mind the pain. Or the blood.”
“Especially the blood,” I add with a smile.
We sit in silence for a few minutes and I can see it in her eyes that she still has questions.
“Go ahead and ask. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
She ponders for a few seconds, organizing her thoughts before speaking.
“You were never Ravenna?”
I shake my head.
“You were always Tatiana,” she states.
I nod. “I even have the birth certificate to prove it.”
“But Ravenna was real, wasn’t she?” Mavra asks.
“She was. For eighteen years she was as real as you and I. I even have that birth certificate to prove it, but I keep that one hidden,” I reply with a wink.
“You were twins, just like Faina and I.”
I nod again. “Just like you and Faina. One good twin, one bad twin.”
I don’t feel guilty that I gave my twins the same labels my parents gave to Ravenna and me. The difference with my daughters is that they’ve known who they were from the moment they were born. Maybe I was always a little more honest and open with Mavra because she’s so much like me, but I never made them feel like they weren’t equally loved and equally cared for.
“You pushed Ravenna into the lake on the day of your fifth birthday. They never loved you, and they always made you feel like you didn’t belong. Even at five years old you knew she was the good one, you were the bad one, and they’d never see you any other way, so you proved them right,” she says.
I don’t say a word, letting her work through it on her own.
“You failed, though. Someone jumped in and saved her. Who was it?” she asks.
“Remember the part of the story when I met Beatrice Michaels?”
Mavra nods, and the confusion on her face disappears.
“That’s right,” she announces happily. “She told you she knew you’d come back and finish what you started. She said her husband pulled that little body from the lake and rescued her. So Nolan’s father saved Ravenna, knew everything, and he told his wife. Even with her being so sick and all those years that had passed, she still remembered. But wait, how did no one else know there were twins? You lived there for five years. Certainly someone who worked there saw both of you.”
I shake my head. “My parents knew the moment I came out of the womb. Even though Tanner saw with his own two eyes that my mother and his brother had an affair, for nine months he still held out hope that the twins she would give birth to would be his. Ravenna came out first, peaceful and cooing, looking just like our mother and they both sighed in relief. I joined them two minutes later, angry and screaming, with a crescent moon-shaped birthmark the size of a fifty-cent piece on my upper thigh, perfectly matching the one that Tobias had in the exact same spot.”
Mavra’s eyes widen in shock, but I continue, even though I know she still has questions.
“My father wanted to get rid of me immediately. Maybe he wanted to kill me, maybe he wanted to give me away, but my mother wouldn’t allow it,” I explain. “We were b
oth tiny, innocent babies, and she told him there was no way for them to know right then how we would turn out. ‘Just give it time, Tanner, please,’ she begged. He agreed, but he refused to let anyone know there were two of us, just in case. Ravenna and I were never allowed downstairs at the same time. We could never go outside and play together…only one at a time, just in case…”
Mavra closes her eyes and bows her head, processing what I just told her.
“Even though he promised, Tanner could never look at me without thinking about his brother, and, of course, my mother’s betrayal. I never even had a chance. It only took five years for me to prove him right.”
Mavra lifts her head back up. “So he sent you away with a horrible man the day after you pushed Ravenna in the lake. That day you looked at the photo of Tanner, your mother, and a five-year-old girl that was on the mantel, you could remember the photo being taken back then, but all you remembered was screaming and begging and being pulled away, not posing for the family picture.”
My head bobs in confirmation.
“My mother forgot to cancel the family photo session that day. She’d been too upset and distraught after Ravenna was pulled from the lake and given mouth-to-mouth. My memories the day I saw that photo when I was eighteen were correct,” I inform her. “Dr. Thomas was dragging me away, kicking and screaming, when they stood for the photo. Ravenna wasn’t looking at the camera when the flash went off because she was watching me go.”
Mavra bites her bottom lip, her face scrunching up as she thinks.
“Nolan’s father told his wife about the two of you. Why didn’t he tell anyone else? He worked there for years and suddenly found out there were two daughters instead of one and he never told anyone?” she asks.
“Tanner was very good at threatening people to keep his secrets. If Mr. Michaels didn’t keep his mouth shut, he’d no longer have a roof over his head or a paycheck to feed his family,” I tell her. “There was nothing Mr. Michaels could do but follow his orders and keep his secrets. Beatrice had already started to get sick off and on by that point, and he had a seven-year-old son to think of. He couldn’t lose his job or his home.”
Mavra turns away from me to stare in silence at the fireplace across the room. I let the ticking of the old grandfather clock downstairs soothe me with its rhythmic sound.
“Did you fake your memory loss that entire time?” she asks.
I laugh and shake my head.
“I was a good actress, Mavra, but not that good. When Dr. Thomas died of a heart attack, enabling me to finally get away from him, I went straight to the prison. I’d been planning that reunion ever since the day they sent me away. I showed up on their doorstep with a forged letter from Dr. Thomas announcing I’d finally been cured,” I explain. “Ravenna was standing right there in the hallway and they had no choice but to tell her the truth that she’d forgotten after thirteen years—that she had a twin sister who’d been sent away when we were five.”
Mavra narrows her eyes in concentration for a few moments before turning her head to look at me.
“Did you kill Dr. Thomas?”
I shake my head. “Technically, no, but I certainly didn’t do anything to try and save him.”
Standing above the man who tormented me for the last thirteen years, I smile as he clutches his hands to his chest, his eyes filled with fear and pain from the heart attack I assume he’s having.
“Please…call…ambulance…” he stammers, gasping for air.
I walk into the hallway without a word, leaving him on my bedroom floor, where he collapsed before he could take me to the examination room for my daily round of suffering. My eyes never leave his as I lift the receiver of the phone that hangs on the hallway wall and dial 0. I keep my face blank, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line through one ear and Dr. Thomas wheezing through the other. I want to laugh at the look of relief in his eyes as he watches me through the doorway, assuming I’m stupid enough to help him.
When my call is answered and I speak, I watch the expression in his face quickly change from hope that help would be on the way to wide-eyed panic.
“Yes, Operator? Could you please connect me to the taxi service?”
When I’m passed through and rattle off the address for the taxi that will arrive within fifteen minutes to take me to the bus station, I can’t help but laugh as I hang up and walk back to Dr. Thomas’s side.
Crouching down next to him, I chuckle again as his face turns an alarming shade of red and sweat drips down his forehead. Placing one palm against the left side of his breastbone, I feel the thump of his heart through my hand, the seconds in between beats growing longer and longer.
“Don’t be a chicken, Dr. Thomas. You knew this day would come. You should have spent more time being afraid of me, instead of hurting me.”
The memory of the day I finally got away from Dr. Thomas quickly fades when Mavra speaks again.
“You spent the next two weeks learning everything you could about Ravenna,” she states slowly, parts of the story finally clicking into place. “You already knew a lot about the prison and their lives since you were taken away, but you needed to know more about your twin. Her favorite color, her likes and dislikes, her daily activities…you pretended to be her friend so she’d give you the rest of the information you needed because…”
She trails off, looking at me imploringly to finish the thought.
“Because my plan had always been to come back and take what was rightfully mine,” I continue for her. “Get rid of the good, perfect sister and take her place. It was my turn to have loving parents and a good life. When she was out of the picture, I would slide right into her life and announce to my mother and Tanner that Tatiana left in the middle of the night and things could go back to the way they were. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite according to my plan.”
What a stupid, stupid girl. I can’t believe how easy it was to get her to climb down into the hole to look for bones that aren’t even there. As I stare at her body floating at the top of the water that quickly filled the hole from the storm raging outside, I can’t help but smile.
Watching her splash and struggle as the water continued to rise above her head was entertaining. Listening to her gurgled screams for help when the water poured into her mouth as she sank was music to my ears.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”
Tanner’s voice fills the room as he rushes to the edge of the hole and looks down at Ravenna, floating lifelessly in the water that has begun to recede.
“NO! NO, RAVENNA! MY BABY, OH NO!”
I watch as he sobs for the daughter he loved more than me, pushing myself up from the floor to stand next to him.
His head whips around, and his misery suddenly turns to fury.
“I should have killed you when you were born!” he screams, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. “You’re a monster! You’re the devil! I WON’T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS!”
“Tanner came back to the prison early,” I tell Mavra, pushing aside the memory of what happened that night in the basement. “My plan was to hide the body so they’d never know. It would have worked, too, if he hadn’t forgotten his wallet at home. He left my mother at the restaurant and hurried home to grab it. He saw the basement door open and came down to investigate.”
Mavra nods, continuing where I left off.
“And that explains the flashback you had when you came out of hiding, overhearing Tanner and Ike fighting about filling in the hole,” she announces with a smile, pleased with herself that she’s able to put it all together. “Tanner threatened to kill you, and you ran out of the basement and hid until you could come up with another plan.”
I nod. “It might have worked if Ike hadn’t seen me in the hallway. When I showed up at the prison two weeks earlier, Tanner put him in charge of keeping an eye on me. He didn’t know what I’d done to Ravenna, but he knew something was up. When I ran out the front door, he
yelled down to Tanner and told him I was running away. Tanner chased me into the woods and hit me over the head with a rock. He thought he’d killed me and it was all over.”
Mavra crosses her arms and cocks her head to the side. “But Nolan was in the woods and carried you back to the prison. When you woke up confused and missing memories, Tanner decided to pretend you were Ravenna. Without even knowing your plan, he put it into action, telling your mother that Tatiana tried to hurt Ravenna and then ran away. He figured if they just kept telling you that you were Ravenna, you’d be too confused to question it, but your mother knew something wasn’t right.”
She pauses for a moment, looking at me in confusion. “But what ever happened to Ike? No one saw him again after that night?”
“Tanner liked to think I was the monster in the family, but he had his own evil lurking inside of him,” I tell her with a sigh. “After he hit me over the head, he turned to go back to the prison and found Ike watching him. He couldn’t let anyone know what had happened, so he killed him. He took the rock that was still in his hand, covered in my blood and he bashed Ike’s head in.”
Mavra shakes her head in awe and lets out a deep sigh.
“Why do you still keep the newspaper article about that last night hanging on the fridge?” she asks.
“Are you kidding me?” I reply with a laugh. “I’m quite proud of that article. Do you have any idea how hard it was to come up with a believable story so quickly?”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes good-naturedly.
“I really have no idea how you did it. Not only did you have to hide the dead body of your twin sister at the bottom of the hole, you also had to explain the dead body on the floor filled with nail holes and gushing blood.”
I take a moment to go back in time and remember that night. I wasn’t scared or remorseful; I was just happy that I could finally breathe. I always knew I’d made the right decision that night, even if I had a moment of hesitation. I knew when Nolan woke up and learned the truth, he would never understand and never be able to accept who I was.