The girls on the beach say that Katya killed her twin sister in the womb. They say that Katya has a whole floor of her house to herself, that Katya eats whipped cream from the canister, that Katya never has to go anywhere if she doesn’t want to. It is Katya’s fourteenth birthday, and the girls are convinced that she is wearing a bikini under her shirt. Anne and I sit side by side on a yellow towel and listen to them gossip. We used to know Katya. Now all we know is what the girls whisper. We watch as Katya dances in the water, her back to us. None of us join her. We’re too scared to unfold from our sitting positions and bare bathing suits none of us want to admit to, not if there is a bikini-wearer among us.
Katya emerges from the waves and walks towards Anne and I. Her blue shirt sticks to her stomach and goes down to her thighs. I can’t tell what she has underneath. We make room for her on the towel and she sits and pulls her knees up to her chest. The other girls watch us. Katya keeps her eyes fixed on the waves as if she’s looking for something. I wonder if she really is wearing a bikini underneath, and what’s stopping her from revealing it to us. She should know we’re waiting for her to make us jealous. She should know that we aren’t here because of the cake or even because of our mothers, but because we’re eager for miracles, and she’s the only one who can give them to us.
Katya runs her hand through her blonde hair. When we were younger, the three of us used to tell each other ghost stories in the yard. Katya hadn’t been Katya then, just the girl next door. We used to sit around a lit candle and say what if, what if, what if, trying to summon other worlds. We stopped after Katya moved to the house where she had her own floor and became the girl that devoured her twin in the womb, the girl that might have a bikini under her shirt.
Katya’s parents bring her the birthday cake when the sun begins to set. Katya looks away from the water and back at us, waiting for her to reveal something spectacular. She takes off her shirt. Her bikini is everything we imagined, and we are hers once again. Katya looks at the cake with its delicate frosting, and we can see the hunger in her eyes. It is hers to devour, as is everything.
Katya leans over the candles and blows them out. As they flicker, I catch a glimpse of a blonde girl in the water, her arms reaching towards us. I can’t tell if it’s Katya-from-next-door, or Katya’s devoured twin sister, or just a doorway to another world, closing in the light of the setting sun.
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Noa Covo's work has appeared in Jellyfish Review, Okay Donkey, and trampset. Her micro-chapbook, Bouquet of Fears, was published by Nightingale and Sparrow Press. She can be found on Twitter @covo_noa.