The Empty Grave of the Twins

Chapter 3: The Twins Who Died Twice

The cellar tunnel led into a long underground hallway lit by yellow bulbs.

Children's drawings lined the walls, but they were not cheerful. Houses without doors. Families with missing faces. Black cars. Tall women with no eyes. Edward passed them with a growing sickness in his stomach, one hand gripping Clara's and the other holding a broken piece of pipe he had picked up near the entrance.

Lily led them quickly. The older boy from the window joined them, his name barely whispered as Samuel. He moved like a child who had learned every creak of the floorboards and every hour of danger.

"They told us your boys died," Samuel said.

Edward's jaw tightened. "They told us the same thing."

"No," Samuel said. "They told us they died here first."

Clara stopped walking. "What does that mean?"

Samuel looked back at her. "When the twins arrived, one of them kept screaming that his mother would come. The Matron said if he didn’t stop, she would put him in the ground twice."

Clara covered her mouth.

Edward's voice shook with fury. "Who brought them here?"

Samuel hesitated too long.

Lily answered. "The man with the black gloves."

Clara's hand went cold in Edward's.

"What?" he asked.

She looked at him, horror rising in her face. "At the funeral. The man from the funeral home. He wore black gloves even indoors."

Edward remembered him. Mr. Voss. Polite. Quiet. Professional. The man who had arranged the closed coffins, claiming the accident had left the boys too badly injured for viewing.

Edward had thanked him.

The thought nearly made him sick.

A door slammed somewhere above them. Footsteps moved across the ceiling. Adult voices. More than one.

Samuel pulled them into a storage room just as two men descended the stairs at the end of the hall. Through the cracked door, Edward saw them pass: both in dark coats, both carrying medical bags.

Behind them walked a tall woman in a gray dress, hair pinned severely, keys hanging at her waist.

Lily pressed herself against Clara, trembling.

"The Matron," she breathed.

The woman stopped outside the storage room.

For a terrible second, Edward was certain she had heard them.

Then she spoke to the men.

"The Blackwood twins leave tonight. The mother is becoming unstable. If she requests exhumation, the entire arrangement fails."

Clara's nails dug into Edward's hand.

One of the men answered, "The buyer wants both?"

"The buyer paid for both."

Edward nearly burst through the door then, but Clara grabbed him with both hands. Her face was wet with silent tears, but she shook her head. Not yet.

The Matron continued, "The girl Lily has been troublesome. If she returns, place her with the river group."

Lily buried her face in Clara's coat.

After the adults left, Samuel opened the storage room door. "They keep the twins in the east dormitory until transport."

Edward's voice was barely human. "Take me there."

They moved faster now.

At the end of the hallway, stairs led to the main floor. The orphanage above was clean, almost beautiful in the cruelest way: polished floors, white beds, folded blankets, framed religious verses on the walls. It looked like a place built to impress visitors who never stayed long enough to hear children crying at night.

Samuel stopped outside a locked door.

"Here."

Edward used the pipe on the lock until it snapped.

Inside were six small beds.

Two boys sat on the far one.

Red-haired Oliver.

Dark-eyed Theo.

Alive.

For one moment, no one moved.

Then Clara made a broken sound.

The twins looked up.

Theo slid off the bed first, the moon locket gone from his neck. Oliver followed, slower, as if he did not trust the vision in front of him.

"Mommy?" Oliver whispered.

Clara fell to her knees, and both boys ran into her arms.

Edward dropped beside them, shaking so hard he could barely hold his sons without hurting them. He kissed their hair, their faces, their small hands. They were thinner. Frightened. Real.

Alive.

Then Theo looked over Edward's shoulder.

His face changed.

"Daddy," he whispered. "Don't let him take us again."

Edward turned.

At the doorway stood Mr. Voss, the funeral director.

And beside him stood Edward's younger brother, Julian.