The Twin They Erased novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Front Hall

The house on Lake Street had every window lit.

It was a tall white house behind an iron fence, with a porch the width of the front and a lawn that ran down to the water.

I had last seen it from the back seat of my aunt's car, at twelve, with my face against the glass.

Jonas rang the bell, and I stood a step behind him in my school uniform and a borrowed coat.

The housemaid opened the door.

She was a small grey woman in an apron, and she looked at my face and put her hand flat against her mouth.

She did not say my name.

She only stepped back and let us in, and her eyes went to the stairs.

"Who is it?" said a soft voice from the dining room.

My aunt came out into the front hall with her napkin in her hand.

She wore a navy suit and pearl earrings, and her silver hair was cut in a neat bob.

She had not aged much in seven years.

She stopped halfway across the rug, and the napkin fell.

"Willa," she said.

I said nothing.

"Oh, my darling girl."

She crossed the hall and put both arms around me, and her perfume closed over my head.

She was crying, real tears, which ran down onto my collar.

The cook stood in the kitchen doorway with a spoon, and the nurse had come out onto the landing above us.

Everybody in that house was watching my aunt hold me.

"I was told you were dead," Odile said, and her voice broke on the last word.

"I buried you in my heart, Willa. I stood at a grave."

"Which grave?" Jonas said.

Her eyes came up over my shoulder to him.

"Jonas. You look dreadful."

"Which grave, Aunt Odile?"

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