The Twin They Erased novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Brother

I dressed in the dark, found my shoes and went down the loft ladder with my hair standing up.

Eamon came down behind me, buttoning his shirt.

"Who is that?" he said quietly.

"I think it's my brother."

I went out through the barn door into the grey light.

He was standing in the yard beside his dusty car with his hands at his sides.

He was taller than I remembered.

He had our father's jaw, and our mother's grey eyes, and he looked as if he had not slept in a week.

He stared at my face, and then at the stitches over my eyebrow.

He took a breath and let it out.

"Say something only Willa would know," he said.

My throat closed.

"You buried my goldfish in Mom's rose bed," I said. "And you told me it swam to the lake."

His face crumpled.

He crossed the yard and caught me in both arms, hard, lifting me off the gravel.

"I'm sorry," he said into my hair. "I'm so sorry. They told me you were dead."

"I know."

"I was twenty. I was at school. Aunt Odile called and said it was pneumonia and it was quick and there would be no viewing."

"You didn't ask to see the grave?"

He stopped.

"No," he said, in a different voice. "I didn't."

I held on to him, because he was real.

He smelled of car heater and coffee, and he was shaking.

When he finally set me down he kept his hands on my shoulders and looked at me again.

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