The Glass-Eyed Twin
by Läilä Örken
I got Mimi for Christmas.
“Look, darling, a real antique doll! They found her all alone in an old lady’s attic, or so the man at the shop told us,” Daddy said, carefully lowering her into my arms.
Mimi had plump cheeks, and round glass eyes, and long eyelashes that curled upwards, fluffy and ticklish to the touch. And she could only make a single sound.
“Maaa!” she would say, gently and plaintively, and my heart drummed with ache for Mimi, so lonely in a world that had no more use for her.
I kept her with me all the time. We ate together, and slept together, and brushed our hair sitting side by side in front of the brass mirror, and sometimes I would hold Mimi up to the ornate frame to see her reflection, more and more like my own as the time passed.
I told her all the fairy tales I knew by heart, and all the stories I invented in my head, and she listened, her eyes glazed over. And when I picked her up for a kiss, she would say “Maaaa,” as a thank you, I suppose.
The winter was mild and rainy, and the constant downpours meant that Mimi and I could not leave the house. Not that it bothered us. First thing in the morning, I would climb into the cushion-strewn nook of the windowsill behind a heavy velvet curtain, and there we would sit, watching the world outside go by, rain stream onto the pavement, and bronze horse statues on their hind legs gulp down the rainwater as it poured from the sodden rags of clouds overhead.
It was during that winter, as I lounged on the scattered cushions, that I first began to feel as if someone else was in the room: staring at me, breathing down the back of my neck. Sometimes my hair would stand on end, and I would whip around and push the curtain aside, my heart beating fast.
But there was no one around except Mimi. For weeks and weeks, we were alone, when Mummy and Daddy went out for the day, and the maids drank tea and gossiped downstairs.
Sometimes we crept down the staircase towards the servants’ quarters and listened to the Penny Dreadfuls they told each other in the dim light of the kitchen lamp. I would crouch on the stairs, terrified and thrilled at the chilling tales of possessed children: demon spawn that lurked in abandoned houses and latched onto unsuspecting travelers, waiting to feast upon their souls. And I clutched Mimi close to me, so tight that I could feel my pulse in my hands, and then it felt like the heartbeat belonged to Mimi: quick and ragged and ticking.
Then one morning, snow began to fall, thick and flaky, from the crumbling sky. We sat on the windowsill with our faces pressed to the glass, trying to follow the trajectory of each crystal clump, but only seeing endless speckles whisked around in the air, folding themselves into blinding white crust that grew on the pavement, and on the roofs of houses, and the iron fence by the park across the road.
When it was finally over, the world covered in a layer of fluffy, sound-cancelling stuff, Mimi looked outside with such longing in her glass eyes that I jumped off the windowsill and threw on my coat, and we ran into the park and played until I was sodden-through.
I could not get warm that night, my teeth chattering in my head despite all the maids’ efforts. And the next morning I did not get out of bed. Red saucers swam in front of my face, and the sunlight split my head open.
My little room became my prison. They kept me under the blankets as my throat burned and my head ached, and my inflamed legs doubled in size, and I couldn’t even see the sky from my side of the bed—only the fireplace that was no use when I shivered with cold, that burned like a furnace when I shook off the blankets, my mouth parched and dry. Then I had to trust Mimi’s whispered stories from the other side: at least the hallucinations, as the doctor called them, did some good. Days and nights bubbled together in a sickening goo as I lay there, watching the painted blossoms of the wallpaper by the fireplace.
Until I woke up frozen stiff one morning, and found that I could not turn my head, so weak my muscles must have grown. But all the pain had gone. I beamed at the tall ceiling, and the gigantic window, and the pearly sky crisscrossed with dark triangles of bird wings.
Everything was clear and big, the room so spacious that I thought if I spoke, I would hear my own echo. I almost called out for Mummy, but looking at the sky and listening to the church bells outside felt so peaceful that I didn’t bother.
Then Mummy and Daddy came in, hushed and sobbing, and I wanted to talk to them, but they were on the other side of the bed, and I could not see what they were looking at. I went back to staring at the sky when they left, before strange people bustled in with a big lacquered wooden box, and put something inside, and carried it away.
And I was left all alone for another night. No one would come in, or talk to me, or take me in their arms, and I felt so lonely in a world that had no more use for me.
Mummy stumbled into the room, crying, and I became giddy with relief when she scooped me up and held me close. I was going to smile at her, and say I was all better now, but nothing came out of my mouth except a long, plaintive “Maaaaaa.”
“Look, darling, a real antique doll! They found her all alone in an old lady’s attic, or so the man at the shop told us,” Daddy said, carefully lowering her into my arms.
Mimi had plump cheeks, and round glass eyes, and long eyelashes that curled upwards, fluffy and ticklish to the touch. And she could only make a single sound.
“Maaa!” she would say, gently and plaintively, and my heart drummed with ache for Mimi, so lonely in a world that had no more use for her.
I kept her with me all the time. We ate together, and slept together, and brushed our hair sitting side by side in front of the brass mirror, and sometimes I would hold Mimi up to the ornate frame to see her reflection, more and more like my own as the time passed.
I told her all the fairy tales I knew by heart, and all the stories I invented in my head, and she listened, her eyes glazed over. And when I picked her up for a kiss, she would say “Maaaa,” as a thank you, I suppose.
The winter was mild and rainy, and the constant downpours meant that Mimi and I could not leave the house. Not that it bothered us. First thing in the morning, I would climb into the cushion-strewn nook of the windowsill behind a heavy velvet curtain, and there we would sit, watching the world outside go by, rain stream onto the pavement, and bronze horse statues on their hind legs gulp down the rainwater as it poured from the sodden rags of clouds overhead.
It was during that winter, as I lounged on the scattered cushions, that I first began to feel as if someone else was in the room: staring at me, breathing down the back of my neck. Sometimes my hair would stand on end, and I would whip around and push the curtain aside, my heart beating fast.
But there was no one around except Mimi. For weeks and weeks, we were alone, when Mummy and Daddy went out for the day, and the maids drank tea and gossiped downstairs.
Sometimes we crept down the staircase towards the servants’ quarters and listened to the Penny Dreadfuls they told each other in the dim light of the kitchen lamp. I would crouch on the stairs, terrified and thrilled at the chilling tales of possessed children: demon spawn that lurked in abandoned houses and latched onto unsuspecting travelers, waiting to feast upon their souls. And I clutched Mimi close to me, so tight that I could feel my pulse in my hands, and then it felt like the heartbeat belonged to Mimi: quick and ragged and ticking.
Then one morning, snow began to fall, thick and flaky, from the crumbling sky. We sat on the windowsill with our faces pressed to the glass, trying to follow the trajectory of each crystal clump, but only seeing endless speckles whisked around in the air, folding themselves into blinding white crust that grew on the pavement, and on the roofs of houses, and the iron fence by the park across the road.
When it was finally over, the world covered in a layer of fluffy, sound-cancelling stuff, Mimi looked outside with such longing in her glass eyes that I jumped off the windowsill and threw on my coat, and we ran into the park and played until I was sodden-through.
I could not get warm that night, my teeth chattering in my head despite all the maids’ efforts. And the next morning I did not get out of bed. Red saucers swam in front of my face, and the sunlight split my head open.
My little room became my prison. They kept me under the blankets as my throat burned and my head ached, and my inflamed legs doubled in size, and I couldn’t even see the sky from my side of the bed—only the fireplace that was no use when I shivered with cold, that burned like a furnace when I shook off the blankets, my mouth parched and dry. Then I had to trust Mimi’s whispered stories from the other side: at least the hallucinations, as the doctor called them, did some good. Days and nights bubbled together in a sickening goo as I lay there, watching the painted blossoms of the wallpaper by the fireplace.
Until I woke up frozen stiff one morning, and found that I could not turn my head, so weak my muscles must have grown. But all the pain had gone. I beamed at the tall ceiling, and the gigantic window, and the pearly sky crisscrossed with dark triangles of bird wings.
Everything was clear and big, the room so spacious that I thought if I spoke, I would hear my own echo. I almost called out for Mummy, but looking at the sky and listening to the church bells outside felt so peaceful that I didn’t bother.
Then Mummy and Daddy came in, hushed and sobbing, and I wanted to talk to them, but they were on the other side of the bed, and I could not see what they were looking at. I went back to staring at the sky when they left, before strange people bustled in with a big lacquered wooden box, and put something inside, and carried it away.
And I was left all alone for another night. No one would come in, or talk to me, or take me in their arms, and I felt so lonely in a world that had no more use for me.
Mummy stumbled into the room, crying, and I became giddy with relief when she scooped me up and held me close. I was going to smile at her, and say I was all better now, but nothing came out of my mouth except a long, plaintive “Maaaaaa.”
Läilä Örken has a PhD in law and works in the field of international relations. In the evenings, she writes fiction and is working on a novel. Her stories appear in the Eunoia Review, Hobart, Bright Flash Literary Review, Grim & Gilded, and elsewhere.