Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful. Arwen Dayton Elys

when two sperm fertilize the same egg. (I really hope you already know what sperm and eggs are, because I don’t want to be the one who has to tell you.) At some point after this cellular three-way, Mother Nature realizes that something is not right, and the egg splits into two, which in our case meant that it split into me, Evan, and her, Julia. But it’s not quite as simple as that. There are some mixed-up DNA signals with semi-identicals. Some become intersex (boy parts and girl parts), and some have other glitches in the embryo-formation process. We had none of those issues—our problem is that our hearts and livers and several other organs never learned how to grow to full size, even though the rest of us made a go of it.

      I’m taller than you are, Julia helpfully points out as I float toward sleep.

      She’s taller by about an eighth of an inch, by the way. Fifty percent of our DNA is identical—from the egg we both shared.

      And the other fifty percent, from the sperm, is not identical, but it comes from the same person (our father, unless our mom has really been hiding stuff from us). So we’re as closely matched as any boy and girl can be.

      But around our thirteenth birthday, Julia’s organs started lagging behind worse than mine did. At first, for months and months, she was just tired. Then she was just asleep. Then it wasn’t really sleep anymore, and she was in the hospital and the machines were brought in to keep her alive. And now she is on this bed, silent to everyone but me. Vegetative is what they call it, as if she is a stalk of wheat or a spear of asparagus. This sucks so deeply that there aren’t really words. This is as close as I can come:

      That’s me in the middle, drowning.

      I fall asleep next to Julia and I wake up when I hear voices in my own room. At first I think it’s nurses who’ve come to give me a second rectal exam—just to make sure—but that’s not who it is. It’s my mother, and a man—not my father. This man has a different voice entirely, smooth and deep and sort of … stirring, I guess you could say. Except that he’s using it to argue with my mother, and almost immediately I know exactly who the voice belongs to.

      Don’t keep me in suspense! Julia says, startling me. I didn’t think she was awake. Who is it?

      “It’s that weird minister Mom’s been talking to all month. I’ve heard his voice when she’s talking to him on the phone.”

       Oh, yeah. She keeps mentioning things “the Reverend” says. I didn’t even know we were Christian until Mom started having all these Jesus feelings.

      “I’m not sure Reverend Tadd even is Christian,” I whisper to her, still trying to hear what they’re arguing about.

      His name is Reverend Tadd? Julia asks skeptically. Is that his first name or his last name?

      “I don’t know. But I do know that he’s an asshole. The way he speaks—it’s like Jesus was his roommate at summer camp and if you’re lucky he’ll introduce you.”

       How does Mom even know him?

      “She wanted someone to ‘guide her to the right choices’—about us, I guess. I heard her tell Dad. They argued and Dad won, but Mom said she still needed to talk to someone. And talking people out of medical procedures is, like, Reverend Tadd’s thing.”

      “Wait! You look angry.” Our mother’s voice rises suddenly on the other side of the door. “We’ve had beautiful discussions, and I said you could come bless them, but I don’t want you to argue—”

      The door from my room to Julia’s room flies open a moment later, and the man is in the room with us, trailing our mother. He approaches the hospital bed, one hand raised, with a finger directed upward, as if he has a personal, finger-pointing connection straight to heaven and he’s calling in a favor.

      “You!” he says, his eyes locking onto me where I lie next to my sister. I’m not ashamed to say he’s scary, because he is scary; his eyes are wild and his face is screwed up with outrage, but he’s also …

      Much younger and better-looking than I thought he would be, Julia says calmly.

      That’s exactly what I was thinking. The Reverend is young, perhaps only in his late twenties. He has thick, wavy black hair that falls over his forehead, and piercing dark eyes that are alight with passion.

      Before our mother can stop him (which, to be honest, she is making only a very feeble attempt at) he’s on his knees at the side of the bed, his eyes beseeching me. I’m startled by his sudden presence, but it’s hard to be too startled when Julia is with me.

      “You,” he says, bowing his head over his hands briefly, as if to let me and Julia know that he’s not too proud to beg—in fact, that he relishes this opportunity to beg.

      “Reverend,” our mother says, without much force. “It’s been decided. And this is family business.”

      Ignoring her, he looks at me and says, “You know there’s still time.”

      I should be cringing away from him, but I’m so tired of the sympathetic looks from nurses and my parents that his energy fascinates me.

      “Time for what?” I ask him, propping myself up onto my elbows.

      Don’t ask! Julia says. She has understood immediately what sort of man he is. Why would you encourage him?

      “Time for ev-er-y-thing.” (That’s exactly how it sounds.) “You’re a young man now, a person.” He’s gripping the railing of the bed in his zeal. “If you do this thing, Evan Weary, you will become something that’s not meant to be.”

      His voice and his certainty are mesmerizing. I feel as though he has pressed something sharp into my malfunctioning heart. The Reverend Tadd-not-sure-if-it’s-his-first-or-last-name sees that he’s gotten to me, and he follows up immediately.

      “Do you want to turn yourself into a demon? A life-devouring creature?” he asks me, his face getting close enough to mine that his minty breath washes over me. “Is that your goal?”

      Do you know the sensation when you’ve been injured but the pain hasn’t reached you yet? I am having that feeling now. I think it was his use of the word life-devouring.

      I know resistance is called for. “Um … I don’t know if I even believe in demons—” I begin, but he rides right over me.

      “You don’t want to be one! That’s the answer. No good person wants that!”

      I can feel Julia’s outrage that I’m taking these insults lying down. Roll over and kick him in the nuts! she tells me.

      But I don’t have to, because our mother has finally found her courage, and she grabs the Reverend Tadd by his shoulders.

      “You have to leave now,” she tells him, her voice quaveringbut firm. When he doesn’t budge, she puts her hands on her hips and says, “If you don’t leave, I will call the nurses—and security! I mean it, Reverend.”

      He stands up, unrushed, as if he were done anyway and is leaving only because it’s his own choice. He brushes off his pants and stares down at me and Julia, calmer now that he’s succeeded in calling me a demon—or, I guess, a soon-to-be-demon. The full demonification hasn’t happened quite yet, as he has thoughtfully pointed out.

      “Reverend!” our mother says, warning him against further pronouncements.

      Close-lipped, Reverend Tadd walks to the hospital room door, yet before we’re rid of him, he looks back at me and takes another stab. “You don’t have to do this selfish thing,” he says.

      Selfish. It’s the word that’s