Chapter 10
Family Ties
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Ariel POV
We can’t find Jarad anywhere. I have tried to ‘see’ him but I’ve never been able to before. Lei has tried to hear him, but he his mind was still closed. This does not look good but I have faith.
We have stopped at Leira’s place so we can come up with a game plan. Lei wants to tell Griff about us and what is going on, but I can’t see how he will react so I don’t want to involve him yet. As bad as we think this thing is, we don’t know who will be involved. Leira is pacing as she always does when working on a problem. I want her to stop as she is making me dizzy, but if she sits then she will start bouncing her leg or tapping the table or something equally annoying. Whoa, even though I know it’s there, I can’t fight off the negative feelings.
“This will effect him too, A. I can feel it, he should be warned and he could help.” Lei’s words pull me out of my thoughts.
“Help with what?” Uncle’s deep baritone voice booms from the doorway. I don’t know how long he has been there, or how much he heard.
Uncle’s heavyset frame enters the room and is soon followed by a small stooped gangly looking man with greasy black hair. I don’t know what it is about him but I am drawn into his bright grey stormy eyes.
“Warn who? Help with what? What have you girls been up to now?” His dark bushy eyebrows lower fiercely as he looks to his daughter.
“Nothing father, we have just been looking for Griff to warn him that Aaron is looking for him to… in a bad way.” She lies smoothly.
“Well get to it. I have had enough fighting for the day. Tell them both that they will spend a day in the stocks if caught fighting!”
“Yes, Father.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
With that we run.
Uncle doesn’t like to see us so close together it makes it harder to understand the obvious.
Leira and I are almost identical, when we stand side-by-side it making it harder for him to understand the obvious. We are both stand at 5”8, but Leira is the more athletic of us and it shows in the toned muscles of her body. My own physique can only be described as soft, when compared to hers.
Our hair is so black that in when the sun is at the right angle, it almost appears blue. Long enough at the front to gently brushing her chin, Leira’s bob cut then curves sharply up exposing the clipped back of her neck. Mine is quite boring in comparison it is the same length all the way round falling just below my ears. We try to look as different as possible but there is only so much we can do.
Straight nosed with high cheekbones our faces are identical, the bow lips of my mouth are mirrored exactly on hers all perfect copies expect for the eyes. Bright, large and clear my eyes are a deep rich blue, the only hint of my father that shows on my face. Leira’s eyes while still holding the rich, bright colour are so blue they look purple, her mothers eyes… our mother’s eyes.
Lei told me he used to think about us a lot, trying to figure it all out. How we can be so alike yet fathered by two different couples, but that is where his thinking goes wrong. By our law my sister and I should be dead, we are what others consider unnatural.
Like so many before and after us, my sister and I would be considered unnatural due to our birth. Some believe twins bring bad luck others think that dividing the food needed to nurture one life, weakens the lives of both; ignorant beliefs for ignorant minds
It is the custom on the night of the Mother Moon ceremony under the golden glow of the full yellow moon all the pregnant mothers due to deliver in the next month go to live in the nursery house. There they will stay away from their husbands until judgment on Blood Moon night.
On the night we were born there was a huge storm, that is not uncommon in the winter but it was also the night Sofi’s mother went into labour. With the rising water levels and so many women going into labour on the same night no one was there to witness my birth except my mother’s sister, Hetti.
As if knowing already the danger we were in I did not cry right away like most babies do. Mother was ecstatic to have a healthy child but soon felt the need to push again. Hetti soon realized what was happening and bundled me up and ran from the room, returning just before Sire walked through the door to help with Leira’s birth. Though no one had seen my birth mother cried for me as she didn’t know how to explain the extra baby, but Hetti had a plan.
When the room was empty again, Hetti began to explain. The baby she had given birth to the week before had died during the night but in all the confusion nobody knew yet. She had been a sickly child and had died of natural causes but this was the third child Hetti had lost. She suggested and mother agreed that she will claim me as her dead child and mother would keep Leira. So my aunt became my mother and my sister became my cousin, aunt Mera (mother) explain it all to us when we were nine from her deathbed.
She didn’t want to die without us knowing the truth.
What they hadn’t counted on was on us being identical. But then mother and Hetti always did look alike and we both take after mother’s side of the family.
That is why my ‘Uncle’ hated us both so much, we remind him too much of mother.