The Other

by Thomas Tryon

Then he was lost behind the screen of willows, and, her eyes lingering on the spot where he had disappeared, it came to her mind that he was not a human at all, not her grandchild, Holland’s twin, but instead some wild woodland thing, a faun perhaps, carrying a fishing pole in place of pipes.

Holland? Something else again. She had always loved them equally, yet Holland was a child of the earth; still, guarded, bound within himself, fettered by secrets unshared. Craving love but not able to give it; so mysteriously withdrawn. Holland’s very birth—his body struggling, rending the womb, emerging dead. Slapped into angry life by the doctor. Twenty minutes later, when midnight had come and gone, Niles appearing with miraculous ease. Smoothest delivery I ever saw, Dr. Brainard had said, delicately removing the caul. Imagine, born with the caul.

Oh yes, there were the mixed signs, on the cusp, as one says—they should have been more alike; nevertheless, the difference. Holland a Pisces, fish-slippery, now one thing, now another. Niles an Aries, a ram blithely butting at obstacles. Growing side by side, but somehow not together. Strange. Time and again Holland would retreat, Niles pursue, Holland withdraw again, reticent, taciturn, a snail in its shell.

But Niles, she told herself, needed watching; there was a danger lurking. Sometimes it seemed he would actually be hypnotized.