James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

After the performance, which enjoyed a certain success, Flo­riane came to visit me in the wardrobe less often at night, since, according to her, sleeping on the floor could hurt her back, which a dancer couldn’t afford. I had suggested joining her in her bed, which was big enough for two, but she had flatly refused. That bed, she had made clear, was her reserved space, and she didn’t have to share it. She had repeated to me that she was quite generous in offering me the wardrobe. I had gone back to shut myself up noiselessly in the darkness, to stir up the accumulated dust in the closet, which drew shapes like dead insects on the walls. On the floor, among the cushions, the toys were piled up. My sister would now store them here as she lost interest in them. Now almost a teenager, she no longer knew what to do with these objects. So I had to cohabitate with these baubles pell-mell in an already small space, where I endured the stoic looks of dozens of dolls reminding me cruelly of our shared past.

And yet, Floriane would still sometimes show me kindness, especially when loneliness weighed heavy on her and she felt the need to confide in someone. She would join me in the wardrobe like before, clearing herself a space between the abandoned objects. Then she would apologize while her tears poured out, my hands fondly smoothing her silky hair. I knew she liked the tingling sensations I inspired in her when I embraced her, that she enjoyed the fleeting contact of my lips when they brushed her skin. It was the same for me, and I hated to go too long without those embraces, which were the only thing that had the power to move me. The rest of the time, I was plunged into an icy lethargy, which evoked in me the image of a dying man caught prisoner in a frozen river from which, despite his efforts, he is unable to escape.

On our fourteenth birthday, Floriane gave me a birthday present for the first time. Touched, I opened the package, which was pierced with holes and on which she had written ‘For my only sister’. I understood the purpose of the apertures when I discovered the kitten inside, which made its way curiously out from its prison. My twin set up a bed for it in the wardrobe, whose door she left ajar. The feline ruffled its fur at my touch, refused to let me come near it. Floriane argued that it would get used to me quickly, that from then on I would have a faithful companion to distract me during the day while she attended her classes. Yet the animal was constantly terrified of me and would curl up under my sister’s bed every time I tried to pet it. It spent every night with her, nestled in the warm covers, purring. Bitterly, I would sometimes come out silently to watch them sleeping from my perch on the dressing table, while the kitten would half open its eyes suspiciously, on watch. After spying on them for a moment, I would return to my assigned space, where I would swing upside down on the rod, a stuffed animal in my arms. Sometimes I would catch myself laughing despite myself as I rocked. My fingers would then caress Olga’s torn ears, sink into the orifices formed by her missing eyes.

I had had to beg Floriane to keep her from getting rid of this toy, of which I was especially fond, when she was re­doing her room. It all had a much too childish look to it, she had explained to me. So she had had it completely repainted and had gotten new furniture. Not to mention the posters she had stuck on the walls, depicting various stars. We would still dance sometimes, but she was distancing herself from ballet in favor of more current choreo­graphies, in which I found little aesthetic interest. Nonetheless, her reputation was growing, and she had even been hired by a modern dance troupe to participate in a prestigious show.

Enviously I watched her perform the series of complicated movements with that grace that never left her. Yet her presentation lacked an ethereal lightness that I mastered much better than her, a lightness that I would have been honored to deploy before an audience, if I only had the opportunity. Alas, I remained in the shadows, contenting myself with helping my twin improve her movements. Swollen with pride, she would flaunt her body to me, that body that I considered perfect, simultaneously slender and solid, with discreet but sensual curves.

In the dance troupe she met Hector, a dancer around ten years older than her. He had spotted my sister quickly and would practice with her for hours. Floriane would tell me in detail about their budding love, their outings in the city, their daring embraces. Obsessed by her passion, she didn’t seem to understand the pain it caused me, how I dreaded more each time to hear her secrets, which became increasingly explicit. I ended by closing myself up in the closet, where I threw myself against the walls. Furiously I would move the toys that were piled up there before hurling them against the walls. I would fall asleep a moment later, dizzy, with a great vertigo in my head that continuously sought to suck me up, to drag me into a permanent fog.

After two years of going out, Floriane decided to move in with Hector into an apartment downtown. She fixed her moving date for May and excitedly shared the news with me. She didn’t seem to understand the coldness this announcement provoked in me, why I scowled before going to take refuge in the closet. From that moment on, I stopped obeying the rules she had always imposed on me, stopped returning to my hiding place every time she asked me to. On the contrary, I never missed a chance to disobey her, to startle her, especially at night when she struggled against insomnia. I would make a point of moving the objects in her room, as I’d often done with the toys in the wardrobe. I would switch her clothes and personal effects around, would take down one of the posters that decorated the walls, would hide insects I’d found in the wardrobe under her pillow. I also took a certain pleasure in tormenting the feline, which I would poke with hairpins.

Sometimes, I would make my way through the darkened room, my favorite stuffed toy held out at arm’s length, and I would bring it close to Floriane’s face. Her features contorted, she would beg me to stop. I would then exhaust myself in entreaties, kneeling on the floor, hoping that my insistence could keep her from putting her plan into execution.

During the days, distressed, I would hide the torn-out eyes of her old dolls, and she would cry out in terror when she discovered them. The only breaks I took were to dance among the boxes cluttering my twin’s room, perched on the piled cardboard boxes, which I tried to make topple over, my plush toy in my arms. Only Olga escaped this methodical carnage, which I was careful to carry out in our parents’ absence.

Hidden in the half-open wardrobe, I would revel at seeing our father, still dressed in his veterinarian’s smock, looking with bewilderment at my sister, whose drawn features gave her face a pallid appearance. Out of his depth when faced with her anxiety, which was as sudden as it was inexplicable, he considered having her seen by a doctor. By his side, our mother, not quick to show her emotions, clenched her hands with their long, manicured nails. In order not to make things worse for herself, Floriane kept quiet about my misdeeds, for she didn’t wish to increase our parents’ worry, or, worse, raise concerns about her psychological balance.

Unfortunately for me, her nerves more and more tense, she moved her departure date up by a week. She left me without even a goodbye, her cat in her arms, abandoning me to loneliness. Deprived of all point of reference, the days ran together, identical, bringing only their set of fears and echoes that writhed on the walls like the slow streaming of blood. In Floriane’s absence I wandered aimlessly in the room, which had been converted to a guest room, unused since her departure. I didn’t recognize anything of her in this impersonal space, except my faithful Olga, whom I had managed to hide while our parents redecorated the room. It was just the two of us in the closet, which had been cleared of the other toys that cluttered it, just the two of us to swing on the rod, like the sickly needles of a defective clock.