When he opened the shoe box, he realised that the shoe box was the one that Babsie put all the photos in that she hadn't gotten around to putting into the album. He decided to put them into the album himself.
There were lots of photos of Babsie with the different celebrities she had met and, more often than not, interviewed. There were photos of her friends, and her family. Isaac looked at each one carefully. Smiling at any captured antics.
Then he came across a photo of twins: Babsie and Psy, Esme and Carmen, Rogue and Storm, Cyke and Lockie, Libby and Joy, and Wolvie and Gambit. He stared at this photo for a good moment - there were lots of twins in their family. Most identical. In fact, as he recalled, Babsie and Rita's mothers were twins too. He wondered if they had been identical... probably, Babsie and Rita looked more like sisters than cousins.
Then the smile drained from his face and he dropped the photo. As it fluttered onto the quilt, Isaac leapt off the bed, got on his hands and knees and stuck his hand under the bed. Mrs Masters had given him a box Babsie some years ago. It had some family stuff in there, but Babsie wasn't interested. He pulled it out and opened it.
There were some things that Isaac assumed to be family heirlooms, some papers, books he assumed to be diaries and such. But more importantly, there were photos. He went through the box quickly, pulling out all the photos and trying to be careful at the same time. Then he started going through them briefly, pausing only once at a photo of Babsie and Rita's mothers. Yes, they were identical - he didn't know who was who though.
At last he found what he had been looking for. Another photo of twins, but ones he hadn't seen before. And yet, though they too were identical, Isaac couldn't remember seeing a pair look so different. One had a small, pleasant smile for the camera, the other an insolent smirk. And that was only the beginning! And as he studied it, he felt he had truly found the real-life definition of an evil twin.
There was someone Isaac had to talk to. He picked up the bedroom extension and dialed Harry's phone number.
**********
It was a few days later that Taylor found out what Isaac had learned from Rita, who had just spoken to him. He stared at her in utter amazement at her report.
"Let me get this straight, once upon a time," he paused as Rita giggled, "there was a girl named Babsie, who's father left her mother not long after an announcement that she was dying on cancer. A few years later, she starts dating a guy named Shane. Shane, for some demented reason gets together with a few of his friends and gang rapes her."
Rita nodded.
"Babsie dobs everyone in, except this one guy - Harry. About twenty years later, Shane turns up, beats up Babsie in some weird revenge thing, and, in the process, says something about her not dobbing in her uncle. Babsie has absolutely no idea what the heck he's talking about because Mr Masters wasn't there - and he wouldn't do anything of the sort anyway."
"I should hope not."
Taylor smiled at her.
"But as it turns out, Harry didn't rape her either. It was his," Taylor chortled, "his evil twin Larry. But Babsie had thought it was Harry because she didn't even know that he had a twin. And of course, y'know, evil twin, good twin, you can hardly expect them to get along, right?"
Rita giggled briefly.
"It's a shame Babsie's in a coma still," she said soberly. "Everyone else knows what really happened now, but she's the one that needs to know."
Taylor nodded and gave her a hug.
"So," she continued, giving her husband a sly grin. "Feeling inspired?"
"Umm, yep," he grinned back.
"Go on," she said, waving a hand at him.
Taylor grinned wider and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Oh and Tay?" she said as he started to leave. "Don't forget Avie is a fan."
"I won't!" Taylor laughed.