The Favourite - horror

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Same face, same voice, same height. But Kaya was always the favourite. Born four minutes earlier, she never let me forget it. But I knew who she really was – I had evidence.

The first in a series of juvenile crimes against me. Age seven she took my favourite doll, Mandy Moll, and cut her hair with the kitchen scissors. Dad captured the moment with his digital camera. Did he try to stop her? No. Was she ever punished? No.

To add insult to injury, the picture was printed out and stuck on the fridge. It stayed there til I left home at 17 and took it, along with Mandy Moll. Reminders. Motivators. I became a hairdresser to spite my bad-spirited sister.

The meanness continued throughout childhood. Kaya was jealous of my piano certificates, so she ripped them. She tripped me over in the park. She threw my school wildlife project into the canal behind the house. No one ever told her off. When I asked why she was so horrible to me all the time they said she wasn’t, I was just making up stories. But I had proof. I stopped talking to her or about her at fourteen.

We had all the same clothes and all the same toys. But we went to different schools. My parents’ attempt to keep us out of each other’s way. We had different friends, separate birthday parties, never shared a room. That’s how bad it was.

At twenty-seven I finally gave in to Mum’s badgering and went home for a weekend.

“Will Kaya be there?”

“I sincerely hope not,” Mum giggled.

I pulled up to the house at dusk. Grabbed my holdall from the passenger seat and rang the bell.

“Anwen! It’s so good to see you.” Mum flung her arms around me.

Ten years since I’d set foot in their house. Or seen them in person. Kaya was long gone. I took no interest in where she was, and hoped they wouldn’t tell me.

“Pop your things upstairs Love, we’ve put you in the room on the left,” said Dad, peering round the kitchen doorway.

The room on the left. Kaya’s old room. I swallowed hard and mounted the stairs.

I dumped my bag on the floor. It was as if they had frozen the room in time. Same moon and stars duvet cover. Same shelf of porcelain animals. Same bookcase full of Roald Dahl and Terry Pratchett. I hated that she copied my taste in everything.

I opened my bag and pulled out the photo. There she was, smiling as she massacred Mandy Moll’s beautiful blonde curls. By the time the shutter clicked, half the doll’s hair was lying lifeless on the kitchen tiles.

Bile rose in my throat. Tension from my shoulders juddered down my arms into my stomach.

I dropped the picture and grabbed the duvet, flinging it down and stamping on those moons and stars. The waist-high bookcase was next, crashing down with a satisfactory bang. I lifted it up exposing the dumped-out paperbacks, kicking them across the floor.

Hurried footsteps came up the stairs to interrupt my act of retribution.

“Anwen!”

I swept a violent arm across the shelf of porcelain animals, knocking every last one over. They crashed against the wall, the window ledge and the toppled bookshelves, losing heads, wings, legs, tails.

I spun to glare at the door as Dad appeared, red-faced and panting. He stepped in, grabbing my shoulders, pulling me into a tight embrace.

“I hate her!” tears streamed down my cheeks onto his shirt.

His grip relaxed a little and I struggled free, bending down to pick up the photo. I shoved it in his sweaty face. “Why was she never punished for this?”

Dad stepped back, taking the picture.

“Oh Anwen. We thought you were over this.” He rubbed his eyes and turned the photograph towards me. “That’s you, that’s you in the kitchen in 1998. You were seven years old, and you decided to be a hairdresser. Mandy Moll was your first client. You were so proud we put the picture on the fridge.”

“No, no, Kaya did that! I became a hairdresser to get back at her. Why have you put me in her room? What have you done with my room?”

“This is your room. It’s always been your room. You often refused to sleep in here because of Kaya, but we thought your imaginary twin was just a phase. Doctor Hale convinced us you’d outgrown this a long time ago. When you stopped talking to her.”

The world spun, my knees buckled, and I fell amongst the broken mess.

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