‘Mouse said the Witch cut off her hair, dyed it black, barely fed her. And remember how often she’d plaster herself in our clown face paints? To try to look like us. Like Belle. To stop looking like herself.’ The glance that El gives me is almost angry, even though tears track down her cheeks. ‘We never saw it because we believed what we were told to believe. Just like we always did. But maybe Mum wanted us to know that we were so much more special than we thought, than she’d told us we were, and so she mixed the truth with fantasy. Just like she always did.’
‘The odds of us being identical triplets,’ I whisper. ‘That was the one in a hundred thousand.’
El nods. ‘Probably less,’ she says, and her voice is small. Her smile smaller. ‘If twins already run in the family, and your grandfather is your father.’
‘But why? Why would Mum just let the Witch take her? Why would the Witch even want—’
‘Mouse said that the Witch would sleepwalk. Would have night terrors. Mouse would wake up, find her outside on her knees, alone in the cold and the dark, begging to be let back in. No one ever wanted the Witch. No one loved her. No one wanted to make her his wife, and then hang her on his hook until she died. She was never picked. She never belonged. When Gran died, Grandpa kicked the Witch out of the house with nothing. Only allowed her to visit in exchange for her silence. Mouse thought the Witch took her because she needed to have something – to take something – from Mum, from Grandpa. She thought that the Witch needed someone else to know what it felt like. To never be loved, to never belong.’
Her long-nailed finger pointing at the trembling, head-bowed Mouse. THIS is what it is to be a good daughter.
An oval locket swinging from her fist, catching the sun in gold sparks. Mum’s smile as cold as ice. You always want what I have. The Witch thrusting the necklace inside the pocket of her long black dress. And sometimes, I get it.
El looks at me. ‘But I think Mouse was wrong. The Witch paid for that big ugly headstone, you know. Paid to have them both buried together.’ Her eyes flash. ‘Her whole life, she just wanted everyone to suffer more than she did.’
I think of those birth certificates. Third of March, 1962, 14:32 and 14:54.
‘The Witch was the eldest,’ I whisper. I’m shaking: minute tremors that make me want to shudder. ‘She should have been the poison taster.’
The enormity of it all hits me then. What Mum must have gone through. Why, every year on the date of Gran’s death, she would shut herself in her bedroom and not come out again until the next day. All that horror and suffering, and the injustice of being the one blamed for suffering it. The lies she must have told herself. I wonder if she even remembered by the end that Mouse had once belonged to her.
‘Mum just wanted us to be safe,’ El says. ‘Maybe she convinced herself Mouse would be safer. Maybe she was.’
It’s a lie. Because Mum never taught Mouse how to survive. How to hide, how to run. How to feel joy in the dark or fearless in a storm. But I can’t think about that. I can’t think about Mouse being all alone, while I couldn’t even bring myself to believe that she was real.
‘Did Ross know?’
El shakes her head. ‘He always thought Mouse was a family friend or a cousin. She still looked the same as when we were kids; nothing at all like us. I didn’t know. Not until that day on the boat. Mouse told me she was our sister after I told her about my plan to frame Ross for my death.’ A pained smile. ‘You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.’
‘Oh, God.’ I stand up. Almost stagger. Warm wind blows against my face. I close my eyes. Remember running along the boardwalk and into the marshal’s office, the Black Spot crushed inside my hand. Mouse’s eyes, big and black and round. Don’t be scared. I’ll help you, Cat. I’ll save you. The happy hope in her wide smile. The old baggy dress painted with clumsy red roses to match the pinafores El and I wore. You can be me. And I’ll be you. ‘She did it for you, didn’t she? Mouse took those pills for you. Because you were going to go back to Ross.’
El covers her face with her hands. ‘I didn’t believe that she was our sister. Not then. Not when she told me.’ She hunches over and starts to sob. ‘She just kept pulling at me, smiling at me, telling me all she wanted to do was help. All she ever wanted was for me to trust her, to love her like a sister. You know, you must remember, how suffocating it was: her need, her desperation. And so I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t.’
I go down on my knees, grip hold of her hands before they can do any more damage. Already there are bloody scratches on her cheeks and chin to match those on my wrists.
‘She left a note,’ she whispers. ‘Just her name. The one Mum gave her.’ El’s whole body is vibrating like a tuning fork. ‘That was when I knew she’d been telling the truth.’
‘What was her name?’
El’s laugh sounds broken. ‘Iona.’
The fairy princess who was stolen from her mother by an evil hag. Who cut off her wings and imprisoned her in a tower so high that no one even knew she was there.
El’s sobs get louder, harder. I can hardly make out her words. ‘I left her alone after she told me. She listened to me while I talked and talked at her like she wasn’t a person, and
