The twins were born on a moonless night.

Their mother shuddered from her bed, blood pooling beneath her sweat-slicked legs. Her arms shook as she reached for those pale swaths held in the midwife’s arms. They did not cry. The babies simply stared with their eyes wide open. They were the color of freshly cut grass. She was reminded of her parents’ cottage, blades of grass staining her knees. She sank into the memory. The midwife held the babies away from her, her mouth producing syllables that did not quite reach the mother’s ears.

The mother cocked her head to the side straining to catch the words, but they failed her. Could she be singing? But no, the midwife looked horrified. A silver cross glittered against her stained shirt. Ah. She was speaking a prayer. The woman held out her hands once more. “Please,” she croaked. “Let me see them.”

The babies slid their cold eyes at their mother at the same time. They blinked once, baring their teeth. The mother bit back her own horrified scream. Elongated teeth flashed from their mouths as they turned their heads away. As soon as their gaze had turned, their mother’s heart sputtered out, and she sank into the pillows with a mournful sigh. The midwife’s eyes doubled in size. She laid the babies in their crib and fled the house, murmuring incantations as she moved from room to room.

Their father came home the next morning smelling of sweat with whisky on his breath. He peered into their cribs. The babies only stared up at him in that way of theirs, unrelenting. He trekked downstairs without speaking a word and disappeared into the night. The babies lay there in the night staring up at the ceiling. They counted each other’s breaths in the dark. Their chests rose and fell slowly in unison. They did not wonder if anyone was coming back - they knew that no one was.

The stench of their mother’s body became so overwhelming after several days that the neighbors finally made the journey into the house and found the children sitting on the floor, their faces smeared with strawberry jelly. The neighbors did not look too closely at the body that rotted several feet away. A kindly neighbor made the arrangements. Another purchased Sunday clothes for the children and trimmed their lengthy white hair. The children did not speak to anyone and they refused to let go of each other’s hands.

The guests knew of the twins only one thing - their mother had sewn into their blankets their names before her death. Soren, for the girl. Saide, for the boy. They wore these blankets seated on the couch of their parent's home, a plate of cake discarded on each of their laps. The neighbors were in awe. The young children had only been babies some days ago. No one could rationalize the disappearance of the real babies, had there been any babies at all. They suspected abuse, but the neighbors were too afraid to say so. Saide played with a small yarn ball that he had found in his mother’s crafts room during play. Soren stared at each guest that dared come close enough. The guests moved away, their shoulders stiff, and talked around the twins rather than to them.

They discussed ownership of the house. Who would pay the bills? Who would take care of it? Certainly, someone had to do something, as the smell of their mother’s pale-fleshed corpse had not been erased and had buried itself in the foundation of the house. Every room stank of death and blood and birth, and with each turn of the head, the smell became so overwhelming the stomach churned with half-rotten food. They looked to the children as if they could provide an answer. Perhaps a relative living somewhere far away would be willing to uproot their life. It was strange - the family pictures had been scratched out of their frames, so no one could discern which family they belonged to.

Saide continued to play with the yarn ball, tossing it up and up into the air. Soren placed a pale hand on his shoulder and angled her head as she watched her house guests. This won’t do, the guests said. And so, they appointed a woman, who was young and single and had just earned her degree from a college far away, to stay with the twins and be their ward. She stayed behind after each of the guests had left, their footprints staining the floorboards, and began to change things.

She changed their mother’s rugs and her curtains. She gutted the kitchen and replaced the fountain in the backyard with a treehouse that the kids did not go near. Their father’s workroom was turned into a makeshift art studio. They watched her from doorways and from shadows as she worked, sleeves rolled up on her tanned arms and sweat beading on her brow. She always kept her tangle of brown locks away from her face and always wore the same shade of lipstick no matter where she was going. She smiled at the children whenever they sat down for dinner. Even when the twins did not eat. Even when she would find them in the backyard, bits of animal flesh caught between their teeth, blood staining the front of their new clothes.

In two months, the children had grown into pre-adolescents. Their skin remained clear like porcelain, and their eyes grew brighter, but their mouths remained closed. By this time the woman in charge of them had grown rather tired and spent her days resting on the couch, ordering the children to bring her this and that. They obeyed, of course, Saide most of all. He was quite attached to the woman. He sat inside her closet most nights to listen to the way she breathed. He sat at her feet as she worked over the stove, humming from deep within her throat. He imagined sinking his teeth into it and pulling.

It was what he contemplated now as he stood above her bed, watching her sleeping form. Her hair spilled across the white pillowcase - like reeds in the river. He’d read that in a poem once - and she was beautiful. He could not conceptualize it, but looking at her was pleasant. Warm, even. He leaned down until his nose was nearly brushing the column of her throat, long and delicate and alive. He did not react to his sister’s presence appearing beside him. She pressed a reassuring hand to his shoulder as she always did and spoke in the whisper of a voice that kept the adults away from her. It was a sound that only he could truly hear. It was a promise.

He sank into her touch. Tomorrow. He would wait. He waited through his bath, sinking into the cold water and relishing in the bumps that appeared along his skin. He waited through dressing in the suit that the woman gifted him for church, and though they had never gone, he still wore it on Sundays when they all went out to the garden and watched the sky. He waited through breakfast, watching the bob of the woman’s throat as she swallowed. He waited through lunch, and he waited through dinner. As always, Soren was beside him. Her every breath was his own.

The sun sunk deep below the horizon and through the darkened hallway Saide crept. Soren kept a respectful distance, the hem of her black dress a whisper against the floor. The woman was sleeping on her back again, her red lips parted slightly. Saide stopped on one side of the bed, Soren on the other. Their eyes met in the darkness, green on irreverent green, and Soren nodded. Saide’s stomach growled as he placed his knee gently on the side of the bed. The woman stirred but did not awaken. Soren mimicked the action. Her long white hair brushed the woman’s face as they leaned over her.

They loved her in their own way, perhaps. In a cold, obligatory way. They did not even remember her name. They did not remember if she was their mother. But she could not be - her body felt wrong. Her scent felt wrong. But they needed to know. Did her blood taste like their mother's? They had gotten a taste, just one, as her body had cooled on the bed. She was posed just as this woman was, sweat sliding down her temple. Saide pressed a gentle finger along the woman’s pulse. He shuddered at the heartbeat.

The woman’s eyes popped open, one and then the other, and she looked at the children with a frozen smile. It softened her face. She let her arms fall open as she gazed at them. “Would you like to sleep here?”

The twins glanced at each other. They nodded. They peeled back the covers and slid in place beside the woman. She wrapped her arms around them and pulled them close, burying them into her neck. She bore the stench of blood and death and rot. Saide pressed his nose against her neck. Soren simply pressed a singular finger against the bulging vein that she found there, tracing it idly. The woman stared up at the ceiling. She began trembling as she held them, salty tears streaking down her face.

She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Have you come to kill me?”

Saide sighed against her. Soren did not reply. The woman continued to shake, her grip tightening, drawing them closer to the expanse of her neck. Saide reached and wrapped his hand around it, squeezing. The woman sputtered softly, her body jerking. Saide’s grip did not falter as he rose to his knees. Soren watched him from where she lay, her finger stilled on the throbbing vein. She pushed and pushed until her nail pierced the skin, moving through flesh and muscle until blood began to flow from the wound.