literature

The Doppelganger

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The first time I saw the other girl, I was standing on one side of the high street. Because it was the end of September, and we were in Britain, it was raining, but the main bulk of water had passed before lunch, so all that was left was the kind of rain that's annoying in its intermittency.

I watched her look in both directions and then cross the road, stepping carefully through the pool of mingled rainwater and rainbow engine oil in the bus bay. She was unusual, not just because she wasn't carrying a handbag, or wearing a coat, but because she was dressed in a chain mail and leather dress, and leggings. The second strange thing was that no one else, and this was a busy street, even in the rain, gave her a second glance. Their gazes slid benevolently over her, like she was an endearing, but not unfamiliar, child. Her booted feet crunched over some shattered glass as she approached, and then the third strange thing happened.

As she got to within a few feet of me, she winked out of existence. There was no Cheshire cat fade into invisibility, no dissolving into a billion flakes of matter. She was there, and then she wasn't, like she'd stepped from one Universe into another within a matter of inches.

And she could have been my twin.

                                            ****

Well, I put it down to old exam stress and lack of solid sleep. Which was all well and good. I recognised the dress from some film I'd seen once, and I had an over-active imagination anyway.

Sadly, this theory crumbled when the bloody book appeared on my desk at home.

It was a thick, leather covered tome, like the ones sold at posh castles where they want visitors to "Take home some of the ambience with you." There was a beautiful, swirling pattern embossed on the front, and Celtic knot work running up the spine. The leather looked old, and frayed round the edges, though, like it had been used for a long, long time. The pages inside were like vellum; thick, creamy and skin-soft, rough cut, like it had been homemade.

They were also blank. I went through it again and again, ran my fingers over each surface, turned my hair dryer on it for hours, searched for hidden pockets or messages in the pattern on the cover. I took to carrying it around with me, in case words would suddenly appear on it.

How did I know it was to do with my doppelganger? I didn't. There was no proof. But, I thought, how likely was it that two completely unrelated and un-normal things would happen to me within a few days of each other?

There was something else too, almost indefinable. It was like the old memory of the wood smoke from fires my dad lights in the grate on winter evenings, and wet pine needles, and the scent of blood and roasting venison. Underneath it, there was metal and violence; old, prehistoric violence.

Once or twice, I'd wake up in the hollow of midnight, certain there had been drumming, or harp playing, or slow, mournful singing in a language I didn't understand.

I didn't write anything in the book. Maybe it was because I couldn't bring myself to take a biro to those beautiful pages, or it would have felt like a desecration if I even showed it to anyone else. Maybe I was afraid of what would happen if I put words into it. I'm the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets generation.  

                                            ****

Christmas passed with nothing more than a chilly holiday on the coast of Scotland, where the book lay on a dusty shelf set into the wall, unhandled but unforgotten. There might have been a burst of wet wind and cold soil at one point, but since I was on the beach at the time I can't be sure.

It wasn't until the early evening of the second day we were home and I was beginning to wish we were on Davaar Island again, that I saw the girl.

This time, I was in my room, looking down over the snow covered street. The window was shut, because it might have been nearly the New Year, but it was still windy. Cars had pulled the snow away so that the tarmac was streaked brown, like festering wounds.

She was standing on my side of the road, looking up at my window from under the hood of a coat that would have had PETA on her back in under a second. It was still beautiful, though, some silky lilac-grey coloured fur. She saw me looking out of my lit-up window, and raised one hand. Despite her gorgeous coat, her hands were bare, and red like mine were when they were cold. I stared back, and, almost without thinking, I raised my hand as well and pressed it to the double-glazing like I could touch her hand too.

I'm not sure how long we both stood there, looking into eyes that neither of us could see clearly, but a shout from inside the house shook me out of the mesmerisation. It was my mum, asking if I wanted mulled apple juice. I glanced back outside and there was nothing. Not even two foot shaped patches to say that she had been there.

                                           ****

It was mid-March the last time I saw her. I'd come to associate winter, and rain, and the cold with her appearances, and so it was appropriate that the rain had just stopped, and the weather was beginning to become milder. I was on the way to the library- I'd been reading up on Celtic peoples- when she was suddenly walking along beside me, looking straight ahead, with the look on her face that I would wear if I always knew where I was going and what I was doing. She was wearing trousers, and a thin cotton shirt, a ruddy shade of brown, though it was still chilly enough to raise goose bumps down my arms. We didn't slow until we came to a gap in the parade of shops that led to a small, cramped house. It was really just a short, wide alleyway, but it gave us a bit of shelter from the wind.

It didn't escape my notice that she seemed to know her way round town. We each leaned on the walls in the same position, shoulders back and right foot flat on the wall. I had my back to the flat bricks; she leant her elbows on the windowsill opposite me, where my reflection would have been. Now she was closer, and stationary, I could pick up even more on the similarities between us, and the differences.

We were exactly the same, down to the slant of the lashes and the wave of the hair. I even noticed that our shoulders were the same width apart. I'd always hated my arms, but now I realised that people were telling the truth when they said they didn't look big.

I saw the athleticism in the muscles, which I didn't have, and the confidence in her posture I only displayed occasionally. We were like completely different reflections of each other- her in her leather boots and cotton shirt, me in my manufactured gilet and Uggs.

I asked her who she was, and where she came from, and my voice came back at me from her mouth like a strange echo. She told me who she was, and from where, and when. I stared at her for a long, long moment, and then we stepped forwards at the same time and hugged.

A rush of impressions washed through me, obliterating coherent thought. There was rough bark, sparkling with dew and the sun after the storm. The scent of wet earth and damp fur assailed my nostrils, calling up memories of the Brecon Beacons, and hunting, which I'd never done before. I felt calluses on my palm, from the wooden shaft of a spear, and biting wind. There was the metallic taste of blood on my tongue, and charcoal, and curing skins. The sound of a waterfall filled my ears, mingled with the sound of rain bouncing from pine needles onto stone, and the crackling of a fire.

I blinked my eyes open against the surge of information, and found myself staring into the eyes of my own reflection in the window. This time, I saw something else flicker in the brown depths.

A flash of wolf-eyed green, and the taste of fog and ancient history.
I quite like this. :)
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Bansini's avatar
chamber of secrets generation...<3 . These stories are just lovely. You have no idea how much I have been searching for something like this. No story has ever represented some of my feelings like this series. love it when you say : flash of wolf-eyed green, and the taste of fog and ancient history, cause thats exactly the feeling ive been searching for. Thank you.