“Are you sure this is gonna work, Matthew?” I can’t believe this scheme started with me lying face down in the creek bed. The creek smells of sweet earth, so I guess my predicament could be worse. If I laid in a pile of scat, I’ll never let Matthew hear the end of it. “I think you cleaned the man’s clock.”
“We have no choice, Mills,” my twin brother says, glancing over his shoulder before dropping his volume to a whisper. “You heard the bulldozers this morning. What happens if you bump into a construction worker, and they discover what we are? It’s not like you can hide it.”
“I’ll stay inside the treehouse while they work. They won’t bust the door down,” I say with a shrug.
“Yes, they will. That mining company thinks they own our forest. If they cut down our tree and tear the treehouse down around you, where will you live?”
“Why can’t I live in your apartment?” I ask, even though I know the answer before the last word leaves my lips. The modern world can’t see my glowing red eyes, feathery antennae, or black wings. They will be afraid of the monster.
I display Daddy’s genes, and Matthew doesn’t. Fraternal twins—one human and one moth.
Before he met Momma, Daddy haunted the workers of the TNT munition factory for fun. The workers would drive their sweethearts into the woods to steal a kiss under the guise of stargazing or some nonsense. Daddy flew overhead or even landed on cars to scare the lovebirds away from his home. Little did he know his pranks would explode into monster lore and turn our tiny town into a tourist destination. Humans from hundreds of miles away visit, hoping to see my Daddy—the Mothman monster. They never will. A semi-truck hit him and our human mother in an accident just after Matthew and I turned eighteen. Our parents and the truck driver perished in the accident, so Matthew could bring our parent’s bodies home before the authorities found our parents. They rest at the base of our treehouse, under the heart they carved on the trunk.
“I know it’s not fair—”
“Not fair is we’re twins, and you are entirely human! Not fair is you can have a job at the hospital, a home in a neighborhood, and a social life! For once, I’d like to interact with a member of the human race other than you!”
“You got your wish, Mills,” he says, nodding his chin at the man in my arms. “Turn his chin. He can’t see your face if he comes to.”
I fluff my sky-high brown hair over my antennae. It crunches as the bonds of hairspray break under my fingers. My hearing dampens as the sensitive organs embed themselves in whorls of glue-coated curls. If someone isn’t expecting moth antennae, they would assume black streaks, or a feathery headband top my head.
The stranger doesn’t react when I wave my hand at the end of his nose. His long, skinny frame lays lifeless in my embrace. Red stains bloom on the shoulder of his white t-shirt. I reach for his thin legs, encased in khaki cargo pants, until his warning rings in my mind. What if he’s the one with the spinal cord break? What if we killed him?
There’s only one way to know…and I can’t detect a pulse on the side of his neck. Where is the right spot to listen for a pulse? Why didn’t I pay more attention to Momma’s first aid classes in our homeschool? I slowly lower my head onto his chest.
The thudding of his heartbeat is steady and strong. My arms encircle his shoulders and scoot him onto my lap. I lay against him longer than I should, hypnotized by the comforting rhythm. From this angle, I can watch his nostrils flare with each labored exhale. Soft, brown strands of fringe dance in his breath until they tangle in the snarl of metal on his face. Did we break his glasses? When we ransom him, we must add a new pair of glasses to our demands. It’s the least we can do…
“He’s alive but unconscious,” I whisper. My fingers work the errant hair from his broken glasses and pick shards of the shattered lenses from his cheeks.
“Well done, Millie May, we got’em!” Matthew dances in a circle. He swings his bat as if hitting home runs in several directions. The whistle of the bat grates on my nerves. He hit theman too hard. Why did I go along with this scheme? We could have killed someone!
“He needs medical care,” I reply from where I lay across our victim.
Matthew quirks an eyebrow at me. What’s his problem?
Oh crap on a cracker! I retract my hand where I held the man’s face as if he’s on fire…nope that’s just my flaming face. I sit upright and glare at Matthew, daring him to say something. While it’s okay for Matthew to tell me all the juicy details of his dating life, he must know I also long for a romantic partner.
“It’s not like I molested the man. I checked for a heartbeat!” I state the obvious to save face. The stranger’s expression crinkles with pain, but he doesn’t wake when I bend his legs. Not paralyzed. No spinal injury.
“Good thinking,” he says, holding a chuckle behind his lips. He doesn’t test me. It wouldn’t be the first time I wrestled that bat from his hands and chased him with it. Momma and Daddy raised us to be as untamed as forest creatures.
“I’m flying him home—”
“Our plan was to tie him up in my apartment. We can’t risk your safety or your secrecy on this man. His injuries would be for nothing. We must ransom him for the deed to our forest! He will fight to escape when he wakes,” he says with his fists grinding against his hips. He looks like Momma when she would punish us for fighting.
“I don’t think he will—and don’t ask me why. What was he carrying when he approached you?”
“A backpack and a butterfly net big enough to ensnare you,” he snaps. “He’s a bug-collecting freak—the exact type of weirdo who would love to get his hands on you.”
“I can’t judge someone for being different,” I say while smoothing the stranger’s hair back. “You don’t think he came with the mining company then? Can we let him go if he’s a harmless bug-collector?”
“No bug-collector is harmless to us. Don’t you remember what Momma and Dad hammered that into our heads? I don’t know the deal with this guy, even after spying on him for weeks. Everywhere he goes, the bulldozers follow. Does he direct the demolition crews, or is it by coincidence?”
“Correlation doesn’t mean causation,” I say with a huff.
“Where did you learn that? Oh Mills, stay off those political websites! They don’t represent real life—not in towns like ours!”
“How would I know about our town, Matthew? When was I allowed to visitourtown? Is this the same town that would run in fright at the sight of my hideous face? Or the town who would sell my body to science? Don’t you dare shrink my cage or I may burst out. The TV shows I watch and the websites I visit are my only contact with the world. My one source of emotional connection and joy comes from blinking screens. You don’t get to stand there and tell me where I can visit on the internet after you abandoned me for the real world!” My voice is broken by sobs and sniffles.
