Many people have asked me if it’s strange to be a twin. I’d say it is far more peculiar to be a single twin. I was Toby’s alter and his double, and we created shelters for each other in the physical world. In life he’d been shy, and his death before he’d seen a day of combat was a quiet end to an innocent young life.

And yet in death Toby isn’t ready to go, or to let me go. We used to predict our futures on scraps of paper in the downstairs coat cupboard. When I stare into the eyes of his photograph, which is safely tucked inside my scrapbook, I can hear his whisper in my head, confiding his dreams to spy for the Union and regaling me with stories of Nathan Hale and how wars are won through ciphers and invisible ink. “A spy sees everyone, but is seen by no one,” he loved to say. “Remember that, Jennie.”

Other times, like now, he keeps silent, but I sense him. He guards me in spirit just he as did in the physical world. He has brought me closer to the other side, and I know that I’m changed.

“Please, a tiny sign,” I whisper, my hands clasping the cup like a chalice, “if Will is really dead and gone.”

“Who’s there?” Mavis has rushed into the room with armloads of my clothing. Her gaze jumps around the darkest corners of the room.

“Nobody. I was…praying,” I fib, hiding the cup from sight, and then we’re both self-conscious. Mavis makes a business of hanging my dresses in the single cupboard and folding some of my personal items into its top drawer. As I pace the room, worrying the frayed sleeve of my dressing gown between my fingers, I catch sight of myself in the window’s dark reflection. My hair springs wild from my head, and there is a stunned look in my eyes, as if I am not quite available to receive the news that I’m dreading to hear.