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ALECWAS NOTHING CLOSE TO NORMAL. In his village, he was an outsider for many reasons.
Firstly, he and his sister were twins, a highly unusual occurrence where they lived, especially considering their mother had survived childbirth. Secondly, Alec, his sister, Jane, and their mother, Amelia, lived just outside the village in a tiny one-room cottage amidst the woods.
Amelia was an unusual woman. She was foreign, a Greek immigrant who married Jane and Alec's father when she was only a few years older than the twelve year old twins. Amelia had met Samuel, the blacksmith, when he stopped in her hometown during his trading route, shipping coal throughout the Mediterranean. The couple fell in love and quickly married before settling down in a small English village, where she fell pregnant soon enough. It was a surprise to both and the village they lived in when she not only survived childbirth, but she birthed two healthy babies in the dead of winter. A boy and a girl. Twins.
They were nearly identical with matching eyes, noses, lips, even with the exception of their hair colors —his sister shared the golden hair of their mother—and height. Despite being older than Jane by a few minutes, Alec was unfortunately half a head shorter than her as their twelfth year loomed. It frustrated him to no end, but his mother assured him that one day soon, he would grow big and strong and handsome like their father.
For a time, the small family were relatively happy. Unfortunately, Samuel lived only long enough for the twin's second birthday before consumption took him.
As any peasant in the little English village he lived in, he was poor, but he certainly wasn't uneducated. Amelia was strict in ensuring her two children were literate and clever. Being a widow meant she had to provide for her family, so she liked to sew clothing to sell or trade goods for.
One late afternoon in the bosom of autumn, Jane and Alec strolled through the nearby woods, scouring for the herbs and plants their mother needed.
"Oh, Alec, look," Jane held up a dried up, nearly shriveled rose. "Do you think mother will like it?"
Alec wrinkled his nose. "It's a bit...ugly, don't you think?"
"Roses are beautiful," Jane insisted as she held the rose in her palm. She looked at her brother pointedly. "Please help me."
He glanced around the woods, paranoid of being caught. They were not supposed to do what Jane was pleading for, but no one appeared to be anywhere near. Alec sighed and walked over to his sister.
