The Cursed Kingdom

TWENTY-FOUR

~ THE TWINS ~

My eyes fluttered open and I immediately groaned and closed them again, my one hand coming up to cradle my head that felt as if it or the entire world was spinning while the other apprehensively propped my body up into a sitting position.

I came to a sudden pause when I felt and heard a distinct crunching noise along with something poking me quite painfully on the tip of my thumb, something thin and sharp, yet not sharp enough to cut skin, sticking out of a coarse burlap-like cloth.

My finger tips grazed over it, despite them having memorized it already and so long ago. But I needed to confirmation that what I was feeling was true and my eyes flashed open at the unmistakable and very familiar lump on the left side of the straw mattress, a mistake in the lining that had always bothered me but could never be fixed, not even by my mother's deft hands.

Blinking rapidly and quite anxiously, I tried to force my eyes to see straight, squinting when I was met with so little light that I could barely make out my nose. I was about to cry out in frustration before finally my eyes began to adjust. Like thick curtains on a stage parting for a theatre performance, the darkness seemed to leave my eyesight from the inside and spread outward to reveal what my fingertips already knew, my heart swelling with nostalgia.

My eyes quickly scanned over the familiar space, my body suddenly shooting upright with my legs crossed over each other. It felt as if I was a child again and if it weren't for the weight of my breasts on my chest or the prickle of growing leg hair telling me to shave my legs, I would've mistakenly believed so. I would've happily believed so.

My childhood home was exactly as I remembered—the ancient rocking chair in the corner with a bucket full of multicolored yarn and string beside it, the cracked floorboards with loose nails, the smell of burning cedar emerging out of the brick fireplace in the center of the wall across from the rotting wood door, and my bed, which I was seated on, giving the same amount of comfort as a slab of cement would've. Not one dent or crack out of place, everything was exactly the same. Every single thing.

A single beam of daylight shone through the hole in the ceiling in the right corner, the cottage's only source for telling the time or getting some light because of its unfortunate lack of windows. The fireplace helped only a little but it could barely do its job in keeping the cottage warm, most of its heat escaping through the chimney, let alone assist in a way it wasn't built for.

Looking down at my hands with my eyes now completely adjusted to the dim lighting, I realized the only thing truly different within my childhood cottage was me. Dressed in a royal blue silk nightgown with soft, pampered hands and rounded fingernails, I was nothing like the little girl who'd grown up there, one so unfortunate yet full of so many dreams that she put the number of stars in the sky to shame.

Although my appearance and living conditions had improved immensely, I longed to go back so I could possess that level of naivety again even for just a moment and be able to have dreams and not feel stupid for having them.

A sound broke past the crackling of wood and the wind blowing through the hole in the ceiling, so faint and utterly eerie that it made my whole body go rigid within less than a second.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose and my whole body went cold. My breathing paused and my ears strained, my heart pounding against my skull as I tried to register the noise.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion when I was finally able to hear it more clearly to where I could identify what the noise was: a woman crying, which seemed to get unmistakeable louder and louder as if all the other noises around me were fading away to where I could only hear her. Her cries were heart wrenching to listen to and her voice echoed throughout the old cottage unlike any noise had before.