When I was five, my twin sister walked into the trees behind our house and never came back. The police told my parents her body had been found, but I never saw a grave, never saw a coffin. Only decades of silence and the lingering sense that the story had never truly ended.
My name is Dorothy. I’m seventy-three years old, and my life has always carried an empty space shaped like a little girl named Ella.
Ella was my twin. We were five when she disappeared.
We weren’t the kind of twins who were simply “born on the same day.” We were the kind who shared everything—our bed, our secrets, our thoughts. If she cried, I cried. If I laughed, she laughed even harder. She was always the brave one. I followed wherever she led.
The day she vanished, our parents were at work, and we were staying with our grandmother.
I was sick. Burning with fever, my throat raw and aching. Grandma sat beside my bed pressing a cool washcloth to my forehead.
“Just rest, baby,” she said softly. “Ella will play quietly.”
Ella was in the corner with her red rubber ball, bouncing it gently against the wall while humming to herself. I remember the dull thump of the ball and the rain beginning to fall outside.
Then everything went blank.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up, something felt wrong about the house.
Too quiet.
No ball. No humming.
“Grandma?” I called.
She hurried into the room, her hair messy, her expression tight.
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