One thing doesn’t fit, however.
“There was no record of Seamus McDonough ever having a twin,” I remind them. No hospital records. No pictures. Nothing. It isn’t that I doubt the sincerity of Sheila’s words. It is clear as day that the man who sits before me is Seamus’s twin. A doppelgänger, even the best one, wouldn’t have been able to fool my father. Plus, doppelgängers are similar, but rarely, if ever, exact carbon copies.
Remus sneers at my words and pushes his unfinished plate away. “Of course not.” He wipes his mouth with the linen napkin. “They fixed everything so we didn’t exist. If we did, it meant a power struggle between two heirs, and they couldn’t have that. Not again.”
Huh?
The confusion must show on my face.
“The McDonoughs have a dark, dirty secret,” Sheila sneers. “For a little over a hundred years, they’ve killed the second-born twin of every McDonough leader.”
Even Oppenheimer couldn’t have constructed a bigger bomb than the one Sheila just unleashes on me.
“As time grew, however, they realized that those forgotten twins could be utilized in different manners. Just like my poor Marianne.” Sympathy plays gracefully across Sheila’s face. It is fake, though. The words don’t match the expression appropriately. It doesn’t reflect in her eyes or in her posture. Unfortunately, Marianne is eating it up like a starving child.
“My mother wasn’t a twin.”
Someone would have known this fact. Someone would have told me if my mother had a twin running around in the world.
“Not in the traditional sense, no,” Sheila explains. “Marianne and your mother were fraternal twins. Up until they were born, there had only ever been identical twins born.”
“If they weren’t identical,” I ask, “why give Marianne up? Just because she was second-born?”
This family is growing more messed up by the second.
“I never gave my child away!” Sheila screams, her face contorting in anger, hand clenched tightly around her wineglass. Remus leans in and pats her on her arm, calming her with a few whispered words. Once she is settled, she continues. “Your great-grandmother came to me that day with Seamus and took her from my arms. I begged. Pleaded. But they said it had to be this way. That twins, identical or not, would never be allowed to grow together. They. Stole. Her. From. Me.”
“You see, the McDonoughs have a rule about succession,” Remus interjects, allowing Sheila to pull herself back together. “There can’t be any contestation for the throne.”
“That makes no sense.” I shake my head. “One twin would always be older, even if only by a few minutes. That makes them the firstborn and secure in their right to inherit.”
Remus smiles sadly, and for a moment, he is almost human to me. His green eyes are burdened with sorrow and rejection. I can only imagine how it must feel to be the forgotten brother. The unloved brother. The brother who is cast out and tossed aside.
“I can see you haven’t done much research into your heritage.” He shakes his head in disappointment. “The McDonough roots can be traced back as far as the fifth century. They were one of the most powerful clans in Ireland and shaped a lot of how the country developed over time. The first set of twins to be recorded was in 1458, and for a hundred years, there never appeared to be a problem.”
“Until you look beneath the surface,” Marianne spits bitterly from her seat.
“Yes.” Remus nods in agreement. “Viability of both fetuses back then was slim. Usually only one survived childbirth. In the rare cases when both twins survived, there never seemed to be any issues in succession of clan power, until you discover that at least one twin died under mysterious circumstances ninety percent of the time.”
“Most circumstances appeared to be accidental,” Marianne chimes in. “Other times, they were murdered by a rival clan or in a dark alley somewhere.”
“Always the second-born?” I am curious and unable to stop myself from wanting to learn more.
Remus smirks. “No one can be sure,” he admits. “There was never a set pattern. Sometimes it was the firstborn. Other times it was the second. But who’s to say the second-born didn’t become the first?”
How veryMan in the Iron Mask.
“That’s not uncommon in history,” I point out. “Brothers killed brothers for power all the time. History is littered with power struggles among siblings. That is nothing new.”
“No, it isn’t,” Remus agrees. “But in 1569, two brothers waged the bloodiest war against one another, splitting the clan straight down the middle. And later, the country.”
“It nearly cost the McDonough clan everything,” Sheila murmurs. “More than half the clan was killed in the brothers’ feud, and the aftermath nearly ended the clan altogether.”
“Who won the war?”
“Both brothers declared a cease-fire,” Kellan, who has been silently listening up to this point, speaks up. “When they realized how much the war was costing them and how the destruction of their clan was imminent, they agreed to terms brought to the table.”
“Terms about killing babies.” Yeah, that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.