Dani and Danny Damn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 1

Dr. Wimblebottom held the door open and waited. The twins did not step through. Danny wanted to trust the old healer. Dani wanted to run down the road and never look back. Their shared feet stayed planted on the crooked step, one leg tugging forward, the other bracing back. "He killed three people," Dani whispered. "He said so himself." "He saved the other three," Danny hissed. "Nobody else even tries." The doctor tapped his crooked bow tie. "Take your time, my knotted darlings. But the offer stands only while I stand." Then boots crunched on the path behind them. A man in a white coat came marching up, glasses fogged, a stethoscope swinging on his chest. He carried a leather bag and wore the smile of someone who had waited a long time to be useful. "Dr. Marcus Cavanaugh," he announced, thrusting out a hand. "I heard there were patients out this way. Real patients. Complicated ones." He looked at the twins the way a hungry man looks at bread. Wimblebottom's face soured. "The dentist. Come to count our teeth?" "I am a doctor," Cavanaugh said, too fast. "I read the same books you did. And I would never, ever have lost three on the table." He knelt to the twins' level. "Let me examine you. A second opinion. I promise I won't cut anyone open today." Dani felt the pull change. Here was a way out of the frozen step. "Yes," Dani said. "Look at us first." Danny didn't fight it. A second opinion cost nothing. Cavanaugh sat them at a little blue and green table beside the cottage. He pressed his cold stethoscope to their chest and listened. His confident smile slowly cracked. He moved the disc left, then right, then went pale. "One heart," he murmured. "You share one heart." He sat back. His hands shook. "I thought— I told everyone I could handle anything. But this. No dentist can do this. No book taught me this." "Can you separate us?" Dani asked. Cavanaugh closed his bag. He wouldn't meet their eyes. "No. I lied about being ready. I'm sorry." He stood and walked back down the path, shrinking as he went. The twins sat still. The lie they'd hoped to lean on was gone. Wimblebottom crouched beside the table, gentle now. "One heart," he repeated softly. "That is why my three did not all wake. I cannot split a single heart between two chests. Neither could he. Neither can any knife." Dani's fear and Danny's hope met in the same cold place. Trusting Wimblebottom would not save them both. Fleeing would not either. "Then we need someone who does more than cut," Danny said. Dani nodded, for once agreeing. "Someone who can grow a heart. Not just take one." Wimblebottom's eyes widened. "There are stories," he said slowly, "of a healer down the left road." The twins rose together. This time, both feet turned the same way.