Hayley and Anna were not like most twins.
Most twins, growing up, create their own language that no one else can understand. Hayley and Anna skipped "Twin" and progressed quickly to grammarically correct English and the beginnings of Spanish, for Hayley, and French, for Anna.
Most twins were dressed the same by their parents. Kit never stood for that. From the beginning, Hayley had the jeans and T-shirts, while Anna wore brightly colored dresses. Neither had pink. Ever.
They were otherwise identical for the first two years of their lives, at which point Anna started screaming whenever a scissors got near her hair. Thus, it grew long, while Hayley submitted to chin-length hair. She got her ears pierced at the age of four, though Anna, panicking, steadfastly refused for another two years.
It took the twins the better part of their third year alive to really become different, though. That was when they started learning to read. Hayley, the elder by several minutes, dove into Spanish lessons, read all about cars, and finally settled on fiction. Anna, meanwhile, held no stock with the fake and the electronic; she borrowed a set of textbooks from the school and slowly went through them, casting aside the literature book altogether.
This was a trying time for their mother, who was still learning to manage a pet store. A typical evening went like this:
"Mom?"
"Yes, dear?"
"I don't know why they want me to find x. It's stupid."
"Mm. But, you see, sometimes in life you won't know a certain number and you'll want to find it. That's x. Equations are very important. Give me that calculator."
A few minutes pass in silence while Anna, bereft of a calculator, attempts one hundred twenty divided by three in her head. Then -
"Mom!"
Down went the pencil. "Yes, Hayley, dear?"
"I don't like this Shakespeare guy! He uses big words! Where's the dictionary? I need to know what a 'cur' is!"
"Dictionary...er...did you look on the bookshelf?"
"Of course not. Who would expect to find a book on a bookshelf?"
Without waiting for an answer, Hayley storms off to check the bookshelf. Anna patiently writes "x = 40" on her paper and moves on to the next equation. An hour passes in companionable silence before Hayley interrupts again.
"I've given up," she announces. "I don't like Shakespeare."
"Well, you've just turned three. Give it a few years."
"Can I read the Bible?"
"You can try. You'll hate it. Another thing you'd best read when you're older. Just...go to the juvenile section of the library next time, all right?"
"But it's boring!"
And off Hayley goes to find something interesting to read.
When the twins turned five, Kit, desperate, taught them to do taxes. Anna found balancing checkbooks and filling out forms exciting, and did it eagerly, while Hayley, having reluctantly read her way through the juvenile fiction, dove into the adult nonfiction for a few months, reading about money management and organization, two things that her mother couldn't stand. In September, they were almost immediately skipped out of kindergarten and into first grade, then into second grade. It was not very challenging, but at least the other kids knew how to read.
Home life settled down. Kit, impressed with her daughters, granted them a chemistry lab and a full set of chemicals. After a few weeks of turning fire exciting colors, the first explosion occurred.
The first of very, very many.
The problem with the twins, as far as their teachers, principal, and counselor could see, was that they'd been born to two relatively intelligent people, and even though they only saw their father every other weekend, they picked up on his near-genius. Living with their mother didn't help. She didn't impart knowledge so much as desperately force it into them so that they could be more of a help around the house.
But intelligence wasn't the frightening thing. It was the way they had a knack for predicting things. It wasn't so much telling the future as being in the right place at the right time, all the time. When a kid fell off the slide at recess, Hayley happened to have a Band-Aid in her pocket, and happened to be nearby playing hopscotch, which she never played if she could help it. When a snowstorm cancelled school for three days, it was Anna who told her classmates not to bother with their homework - even though she usually was the first to whack them on the head when they weren't prepared for class. Yes, she took learning seriously - so who could explain the sudden disregard for homework?
And when the boys made a plan to cut Anna's hair - just as a joke, though they knew her hatred of scissors - she stayed home from school on the day they were going to try it, and then came early the next day and stole all their scissors from their desks, so that they got in trouble for not having them.
That was, for her teacher, Ms. Anders, the last straw. She went to the counselor.
"John," she whimpered. "You've got to see those twins. There's something wrong with them."
So John Tyler, the Prying Psycho to his older students, took the now six-year-old girls into his office during recess. He'd barely opened his mouth when Hayley interrupted.
"Mr. Tyler, if you want to ask my sister about the scissors, it's because the boys wanted to cut her hair. It was a preemptive attack. Americans are good at that, aren't they?"
"Er. Yes. Well. Anna, dear, can you tell me how you knew what the boys were planning?"
She shrugged. "They cut Mary Anne's hair last week, all wrong, and got in trouble - but boys are idiots, and they wanted to try it with mine. I saw them on Monday, whispering and watching me, so I made an educated guess."
Logic. It made sense. But something in Anna's calm eyes spoke of more than logic. John didn't press it. These kids gave him the creeps. He sent them back to class, and later told Ms. Anders the story. She also remained unconvinced.
"Those girls grew up too fast," she said. "I'll just be glad when they're out of my class. Maybe I can convince Ashley that they're ready to skip another grade..." Ashley was the principal of the school, very old-fashioned, and both Ms. Anders and John knew that there was no way she would further separate the twins from kids their own age.
To Hayley and Anna, it didn't matter. They had their books, and they didn't really need anything else but each other.
That was one thing they had in common with most twins, the odd telepathy and closeness. But they had to to such a degree that if Anna tripped, Hayley also did, and they both came in searching for Band-Aids and antibiotics.
* * *
Emory, Alicia, Nick, and Randy were old friends. They grew up on the same street, and their parents played cards together every Friday night, leaving them to play.
Emory was a rebel from the first. He suggested that they build a treehouse, and then, when his father said no, proceeded to ask his mother, obtain permission, and do the work during one of his father's business trips. Thus made the slightly more nervous Alicia make a decision: either grow up and stop whining, or lose her best friends.
She stopped whining.
But they were happy together, until seventh grade, when Emory tried his first cigarette, Alicia drank her first beer, Nick got hooked on marijuana, and Randy, refusing to be corrupted, left them in favor of the unpopular kids. He came crawling back, bored out of his skull, in eighth grade, complete with some karate experience and lockpicking skills.
The Friday night card games continued, and their parents remained oblivious to their children's antics.
Then high school came, and the four were introduced to the two girls who would join their group: Kelly, whose addiction to TV made for many an amusing afternoon of drag-Kel-off-to-a-place-with-no-television, and Jenna, who had been raised to be a good girl, but was more than willing to join a gang. She was determined not to turn out like her sister, a mysterious entity who had apparently made some bad choices in life.
Two weeks into their freshman year, both newbies had been hazed and accepted, and life went on. Kelly's flirting with Nick eventually caught his eye, though her attempts drew many whispered comments and muffled giggles from the girls on how slowly boys grew up. Jenna stood on one side, watching with sardonic eyes and refusing all but the harmless pranks, and all mentions of alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. They still liked her, though. She was, after all, quite brilliant, and a supposed teacher's pet, perfect for getting out of trouble.
One such occasion in early October drew their attention to Josh, who had been spray-painting the wall in a fit of anger at his math teacher, for giving him detention for his bad algebra grades. The gang wanted to move past him with only the briefest of comments, but Jenna tugged on Emory's sleeve.
"Teacher," she hissed.
"Run," he hissed back. Nick ducked around the corner, Kelly and Alicia at his heels, although Jenna dragged Emory back, and Randy stuck around because he never got in trouble for anything.
"Teacher," Jenna snapped at Josh.
"I know, I know," he said. "One more letter."
She inspected the wall. "You spelled this wrong," she said, pointing to an obscene word, and let go, leaving Emory free to run.
He didn't.
The teacher, who none of them had or knew about, stopped several yards away and peered at them, obviously trying to figure out if they were supposed to be their. She was quite old, which might have had something to do with it. Jenna flounced over to her, trailing Emory and Randy in her wake.
"Hello," the girl said cheerfully. "Nick Andrews and Kelly Marshall are snogging behind the shed." She pointed to the rundown building that housed the school's athletic equipment.
"Snogging?" the teacher said faintly, then louder, in the direction of the shed, "NO COURTING ON CAMPUS! I'm coming, and if you're still there..." She walked rapidly toward the shed, completely ignoring Josh, who tucked the can into his backpack, flashed Jenna a grateful smile, and ran off. Nick, Kelly, and Alicia joined the rest of their gang, grinning.
"What did you say to her?" Alicia asked.
"Snogging?" Randy said, his eyes wide.
"It's like making out," Jenna explained. "Only slightly more serious, and it's British. My...sister used to say it."
"Snogging." Emory's voice held no emotion whatsoever.
Kelly giggled and grabbed the front of Nick's shirt. "C'mon, Nicky, let's snog."
"Oh, my eyes," Randy said faintly as they kissed. He averted his eyes. "Em, did you see what that kid wrote? Sheer brilliance. I want to recruit him."
"No," Emory replied immediately. "Absolutely not. We're growing up, you realize. Bad enough we've got two new girls to turn heads. We don't need another hormonally-induced morons." Emory had, after much deliberation, decided to skip hormones altogether.
Jenna blinked. "But he's obviously got a way to get the paint, Em. I mean, he only got in trouble yesterday. He hasn't even had the detention yet."
"You and your gossip never fail to amaze me," Emory said dryly. "We'll watch him."
So they watched, but in the hectic whirlwind of parties and schoolwork, they lost interest. Other newbies came and went, the year ended, and thoughts of Josh returned to Jenna.
They needed a seventh. All the other cliques had seven. She'd counted. He wasn't ganged up, and they needed another to be proper, at least in this school...
So, in September of sophomore year, she brought up the subject again.
Emory refused.
"We never had any luck," he pointed out. "Six is perfect. No, don't try that lucky-number-nonsense with me, Jen. He would be horrible. He's a model student. And don't you dare have a crush on him - you swore no hormones, and anyway, you're too young."
She stormed off to do her homework. He always treated her like that with outsider-boys. Just because she'd skipped a grade, and was only fourteen at the start of their second year of high school, didn't mean she was useless and utterly prone to falling in love with the wrong boys. Or any boys.
Besides, hormones just had a way of sneaking up on you, sometimes.
On her birthday, October first of the year 2015, she wished, somewhat half-heartedly, that Emory would Just Grow Up.
Amazingly, he did.
He developed a very sudden crush on a girl who turned out to work with Josh's sister, and, in what he steadfastly called "for the good of my uncontrollably raging hormones," he agreed to try to talk Josh into it.
And it worked.
Jenna was ecstatic, as was Em, although he soon fell out of love with his first, and as far as anyone knew, only crush.
* * *
Kit had grown up about ten years earlier than her sister, fifteen earlier than her daughters. And she hadn't had it quite so easy.
Sure, she had friends. Friends with morals. Friends who liked her, and talked to her, but for the most part seemed more attached to each other. Kit stood to one side, watching, amused that they thought they knew her.
Oh, how little they knew.
Even in high school, they treated her like a child, and she did nothing to discourage them. Her habit of holding grudges became legendary, and though she did seem to get mad regularly, she rarely really cared. More often, it was a mask, as writing was a mask.
She fell for Jay shortly after The Incident. It was only her second crush on a person she could see in real places, rather than movies and TV, but at least he was in her year, and liked her.
And God, was he hot.
Kit never expected the relationship to go anywhere.
But The Incident changed everything. Suddenly, her friends, the ones who had been there, at least, grew up. Their eyes took on the haunted dullness, the weary glow, deep inside. Each found something different to throw themselves into. For Amy, it was her own writing, for Shannon, her schoolwork. Mari took to scribbling out depressing poetry more often than she'd ever done before. Kristen suddenly found the company of the clothing-obsessed preferable to those who shared the horror. Liza threw herself desperately into history class, then psychology. Hannah, furious, read mystery books by the dozen.
Kit just hugged Jay and pretended that nothing was wrong, though after a few months, she told him. Then she felt bound to him, and in the summer after the first year of college, married him.
She thought she'd grown up. She hadn't.
That didn't come until later, when she'd left him - or had he left her? - and was struggling to raise twin girls by herself. The real world hit her, and for a few blissful years, she forgot The Incident.
They all did, at one point or another.
But for all of them, there was a time they'd wake screaming, and feel like children again. The nightmare never truly ended.