An Eye For An Eye

The Tragedy of Tasia & Tavena Lovat

Part 1

She had barely drawn breath when she noticed the doll lying by the fireplace. She crawled over and grabbed the only remnant of her sister she had left. It took her about a minute to realize that she was sobbing, hugging the doll tightly, the key pressing into her palm. She didn't see the dolls expression change into a cruel grin, when she did look down at it, the expression had gone back to normal.

On hearing the sobs, their mother, or rather her mother hurried into the room to find Tavena sitting in front of that rather odd tiny door, curled up, sobbing violently, with the doll Tasia had adored so much in her arms.

'What ever is the matter?' the woman asked, 'where's Tasia?' Tavena looked up, an expression of pure misery and tragedy passed across the twin's face.

'Mother,' the little girl began, trembling and having to make an effort to keep her voice steady, 'Tasia's gone, and she's not coming back'.

A little white girl looked over at her little white friend. The two little white girls hurried over to the group of little white children they had been playing with. It was time for their picnic.

Once the adults began discussing politics and failed to pay attention to them, the group of children huddled together and started their own discussion in low voices.

'Hey, you know that haunted house, right?' said a blond girl.

'Yes,' replied a boy, 'it's full of spooky things!'

'No it's not,' responded another girl with brown hair in pig tales, 'people have lived in it!'

'Yes,' added another boy, 'if it was obviously spooky, no one would buy that house!'

'It's seems quite ordinary from the outside,' the blond girl told them, 'but people disappear, children vanish and never come back,' There was silence for a moment before she continued: 'but about no one buying, that's what I wanted to mention, a family of negroes moved in.'

'Really?' asked the first boy, wrinkling his nose in something which wasn't far from disgust.

'A women and twin daughters,' the blond girl replied, 'but how they have money, never mind the nerve . . .' She didn't finish because the adults were approaching.

'That was lovely,' said one of the mothers, 'we should come out for picnics more often.'

The twins' names were Tasia and Tavena Lovat, Tavena being the older by about 2 minutes. Although they were twins, there were clear differences between them as well as clear similarities. Tasia was the more sensitive one who required slightly more attention while Tavena was less sensitive and needed less attention. Tavena had always got on better with her mom than her dad, Tasia was the opposite. It is clear, therefore, the two children reacted slightly differently when their father died.

Their father had been one of the unusual black people at the time that had been very successful and so had left behind quite a large sum of money. Quite a lot of this money was used to buy The Pink Palace (although for some reason or another, the house was unusually cheap), and most of the rest of it was used to fix it up for, although it had be owned, it hadn't been lived in for some time.

The twins would soon be going to the same school which would be a new experience for them, and they weren't sure what they thought about the idea; they had always gone to separate schools before; this had been their father's idea, he thought that they were more likely to make friends with the other children if they went to different schools. The fact that they had never been to the same school may explain some of their differences.

Zalira Lovat, the girls' mother became very busy in a short space of time with all the modifications to the house. Of course, this was to be expected but what bothered the twins, especially Tasia, was that after the house had been fixed up, their mother remained busy and perhaps became more busy then she had been while dealing with the house. It soon became clear that she was going to remain this busy for quite some time.

'Let's go outside, Tavena!' Tasia whispered excitedly, as if she was afraid their mother would hear them despite the fact she had left the house a few minutes earlier.

'It's raining, Tasia,' her sister replied.

'Only a bit,' Tasia responded uncertainly.

'Enough for you to get your dress wet,'

'I don't care,' she replied quietly but stubbornly.

'And muddy,'

'I don't care about that either,' Tasia told her. Tavena sighed, she wanted to go outside too but she knew that their mother would be annoyed when she got back if they went out in this weather. Tavena knew that if she admitted her thoughts to her sister, she would be persuaded to go out so she resorted to the only thing she could think of.

'I'm older than you, Tasia, so I'm in charge while Mother's out,' she stated. She knew this would probably cause a bad reaction but not as bad as it did.

'Only by two minutes!' Tasia shouted, (it was her usual reaction but she had never said it so angrily before), 'I hate it here!' she continued, 'I don't want to live here! I want an other home!' Tavena was so shocked by her reaction that she didn't think to prevent her running outside.

Tasia didn't come back inside until their mother returned and dragged her back into the hated house, scolding her for how muddy she was. When they arrived back at the house, Tavena noticed that her sister was concealing something bulgy under her cardigan but quickly forgot about it when their mother started scolding her for not preventing Tasia from going outside.

'It wasn't at least completely my fault,' Tavena tried to explain without sounding too annoyed, 'I tried to stop her, but she ran out anyway.' As soon as she'd said it, she wished she hadn't, Tasia glared at her while their mother became less angry with Tavena because she was being honest and had been being good but this made her more angry with Tasia for not listening to her twin.

'You're going to bed without any supper, Tasia,' This would've been bad enough if Tasia had had her lunch but she had been too miserable to, 'Tavena, I bought this for you while I was out,' Zalira handed Tavena a lovely china doll. She had bought something was Tasia as well but since she had not behaved, she didn't want to give it to her now. Tasia glared at her mother, feeling as if their mother was being deliberately cruel. 'Tasia, I told you to . . .'

'I hate you!' Tasia screamed through tears, 'I would prefer a step-mother to you!'

'Maybe you should be a better girl and be careful what you wish for!' Zalira retorted. Tasia stormed upstairs. Tavena couldn't understand what had raised such a colossal argument. It was almost as if their mother and Tasia were indirectly arguing about something that Tavena wasn't aware of.

'I wish I had an other mother, I really do!' Tasia said to herself as she went, holding more tightly to the bulge in her cardigan.