The Wheel of the Year Killings

Freya and Ieva were twins. Twins that most people couldn't tell apart just by looking at them, even though they were mirror twins, with Freya having situs inversus while Ieva was the one who had been born normally. Both had white-blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin, and they were both 159 cm tall. The difference was that Ieva was right-handed while Freya was left-handed. Freya was giggling, turning around to look back at the cathedral and the castle. Their graduation had been a performance: getting pinned into their scarlet gowns and putting on the black velvet doctoral tam, then the academic procession, followed by the graduands. "Really, Freya," Teta Ruta told her, "must you walk backwards?" "Yes," Freya said. "Nine years, Teta Ruta. Nine years. We've returned the rented robes and tam, and now we're going back home after the Marquee in the Cathedral and the Festivities on Palace Green." Mateusz and Ruta Lewandowski had surprised them by coming. "I'm sure the hangover tomorrow will have her regretting some of the champagne she drank," Ieva said. "You only had one glass," Freya said. "Because she has more sense than you do," Teta Ruta said, spinning Freya around. "How's Warsaw?" Ieva asked while walking towards Freya and Ieva's place, where they had lived for the last nine years. "Same as always," Teta Ruta said. Mateusz and Ruta Lewandowski lived in Poland. They had spent a day here and there with the two girls in Poland. Ruta was the daughter of their bobutė's sister; they had met when the family was sent to Serbia, even though Poland was only a satellite state of the USSR and Lithuania was part of the USSR. Ruta was a paediatric nurse, and Mateusz worked in the emergency room at the main Warsaw hospital. "We lost another nurse on the ward," Teta Ruta said, looping her arm through Freya's. "Quite a few nurses and doctors are leaving," Dėdė Mateusz admitted, "going to countries with better pay." "Why don't you join everyone in the States?" Ieva asked curiously, moving to stand on Teta Ruta's other side. "Because it will not be forever," Teta Ruta said, looping her arm through Ieva's and squeezing it. "Poland is healing, like Lithuania. With Poland entering the European Union, I'm sure things will get better." "Plus, her mother is scary," Dėdė Mateusz added from behind them. "She already misses Ruta, and she's only a few countries away. I don't think that woman could cope with her moving to another continent." "Hope and in-laws," Ieva said, grinning. "I think hope is a beautiful thing to have. Smaller mercies." "That, and it's getting trickier to spot what's human trafficking and what's an actual job offer," Freya added, leaning against her Teta. "There've been so many reports of people taking advantage of other people's desperation." "We should talk about brighter topics," Teta Ruta said, pulling them closer and scanning around them, as if she were scared someone might grab them if she didn't hold them closely. "This is the only graduation we've been to." "After nine years of study," Ieva said, putting her hand near her ear, almost rubbing it between her fingers, "we first came here to study Anthropology and a BSc in Biological Science, where Onkel Thor and Tante Aurora came to our graduation." "When we first arrived, we thought we had made a mistake," Freya admitted. "Onkel Thor and Tante Aurora gave us some encouraging words to continue our studies. Plus, none of the other students had seen someone as tall as Onkel Thor before." "When we finished Kinesiology and Osteopathy," Ieva added, "Titka Daryna and Dyadko Oleksandr came to our graduation, and some of the others began asking how much family we had and how widespread everyone was." "They didn't believe us when we told them the countries," Freya added. "Titka Daryna cooked for us while she stayed in a nearby hotel. She stayed for a week and we had family dinner every day while they were here." "It was the best," Ieva added. "For the MBiol in Biosciences and Forensic Anthropology, Tante Sofia and onkulis Edgars attended," Freya said. "They stayed for two weeks, and we showed them around Durham while they were here." "By then, most of our twenties had gone, but now we have seven pieces of paper to our name," Ieva added. "That's impressive, girls," Teta Ruta said. "We did nothing but study, though," Ieva said. "We were never really interested in partying." "Bobutė and farfar would have killed us if we wasted time at the Klute," Freya added. "Plus, the money they sent us was for books, food and bills, not drinking until we dropped." "Twenty-seven and giggling," Teta Ruta said. "I approve of the time spent," Dėdė Mateusz said. "I see more accidents coming into the department caused by alcohol than I care to count." "We're looking forward to spending time with Oslo, Kyiv, Ragu and Vilnius," Freya said. "You told us about them before," Teta Ruta said. "Our Burmese cats," Ieva said. "I have Ragu, the red coat, and Vilnius, the cream coat." "I have Oslo, the blue coat, and Kyiv, the lilac coat," Freya added. "They like to sleep with us, along with reminding us to take breaks to feed them, or else they'll come onto our laps and meow in our faces." "Tante Ida demanded we send things to her place every year," Ieva added, nodding. "No, more like once a season." "She did?" Teta Ruta asked. "I remember the conversation," Freya said. "'You're not going to carry that much around Europe.' Just in case we started to study in a different country, she didn't want us dragging a house full of stuff we couldn't let go of. Presents from family, things we collected while visiting every now and then, and the books." "So many books," Ieva said. "She's always emailing us when she gets everything. I don't know where she stores it, though." "She always emails us to check up on us," Freya added. "Between her job—she is a top doctor—along with having a PhD of her own in paediatric medicine and development…" "Another doctor in the family," Dėdė Mateusz added. "There's a few," Ieva admitted. "She married Onkel Riccardo," Freya said, gently smiling. "That man's family is as big as ours." "But learning to cook made everything worth it," Ieva said. "Onkel Riccardo's parents had us call them Nonna and Nonno," Freya added. "What about your parents?" Dėdė Mateusz asked. Ieva and Freya looked at each other. They did not know how to answer that, or if they should. They hadn't lived with their parents since they were two years old, and that meant they bounced between their grandparents' houses, along with some aunts and uncles in their school district. That was where they picked up Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian and Estonian, along with Italian from Onkel Riccardo's family. "They weren't in the picture," Freya admitted. "We had our cousins for friends," Ieva said, hoping they would go along with her change in topic. "Like Astrid, Solveig, Remo, Luca and Niccolo." "They're all older than us," Freya added. "All animal mad. Their parents might be doctors, but their children are veterinarians or studying to become veterinarians." "And where do they work?" Teta Ruta asked. "They opened their own practices," Ieva admitted, "and we can only find jobs where they've opened their practices." "Which, at this point in time, includes New York, Washington and Miami, from our last email," Freya added. Their practices were added to the Viken Management Services Organisation, which had been established to support any family member building their own business, with the income split between managing the building and equipment of each business. Astrid, Remo and Solveig had also started Kaukas Veterinary Animal Health Inc., which allowed veterinarians to buy shares in everything else that went into a veterinary practice. "You have Kaukas New York Veterinary Practice, Kaukas Miami Veterinary Practice and Kaukas New York Washington Practice," Ieva said. "We should never doubt the Monti family," Freya added, giggling into her hand. "Or the Viken," Ieva added. "That's a lot to remember," Dėdė Mateusz admitted. "It is, but it's no worse than when Freya had me learn how to extract DNA from cementum," Ieva admitted, pointing towards her sister, "when it's clear that pulp is much faster to process and can last just as long as cementum can." "You also had me learn how to use pulp," Freya shot back. "It might be faster, but cementum offers a cleaner yield of DNA. And it can last much longer than pulp, even under more stressful environments." "I can tell you didn't write the same thesis," Teta Ruta said. "Pretty much. We might be twins, but that doesn't mean we agree with everything the other person is doing," Ieva said. "It also made our viva easier, since we are more passionate about our own method than the other." "It also made asking different labs to test our methods more interesting, to say the least," Freya added, remembering calling different labs and sending through their theses to test their methods. "Some of the labs are still using one method or the other, depending on what they find," Ieva added. "It can also be added as evidence during a trial. We might have written the first thesis and paper on it, but I'm sure other labs are now doing tests with what they can use the methods for." "And more cold cases are being solved because of it," Freya added, waving her hand. "Here's home," Ieva said, pulling her arm from Teta Ruta's and going up the stairs to unlock the front door. "You want to come in?" Freya asked. "We have tiramisu in the fridge." "No, I think we'll hail a taxi and go back to our hotel for the night," Dėdė Mateusz said. "Dobranoc," Freya and Ieva said. Vilnius and Ragu immediately came towards Ieva, winding around her ankles when they walked into the house. Oslo and Kyiv weren't far behind, putting their paws against Freya's knees. Oslo waved her paw at Freya's hand, and she just grinned. "Dinner time," Freya said. All four cats quickly made their way towards the kitchen and towards their own bowls. Vilnius, Ragu, Oslo and Kyiv had been gifted to them by their Onkel Aksel when they were eighteen, before they left for Durham University. It had made the first year easier, since, like they had told Teta Ruta and Dėdė Mateusz, when they first arrived, they had thought they had made a mistake when they saw the university. "Tomorrow, we start applying for our PhD in Forensic Anthropology," Ieva said, looking around the place they'd been living in for nine years. "Another three to nine years," Freya said, putting Oslo and Kyiv's food down, with Ieva following for Vilnius and Ragu. "I doubt it'll take that long," Ieva said. "Where are you thinking of applying?" Freya asked, leaning against the bench near the washing machine. "Scotland, Ireland, France or Wales," Ieva admitted. They had been doing research into their next PhD while they were fixing the things they had been asked to fix in their thesis. "You?" "Italy, Spain, France, America," Freya said, looking at Ieva. "If we don't get France, we won't be studying together." "I know," Ieva said. Freya looked around the kitchen, at the small little trinkets. They knew whose was whose. She could see the living room, and she looked at the four cats who had spent all nine years together. Now they might not be together, but that was something they knew was going to happen. "We can always message each other and email," Ieva said, walking to stand next to Freya. "We can't be together forever. We were going to have to go our separate ways one day." "Twenty-seven years together," Freya admitted, putting her arm around Ieva's shoulder. "It's going to feel weird not being around you." "Bedtime," Ieva said. "I'm sure we'll find out where we're going soon, but let's not worry about it until it happens." "Yeah, we don't know how long Teta Ruta and Dėdė Mateusz are going to stay in Durham," Freya said, pushing herself up before yawning. "We owe them a tour, after all. They gave us one of Warsaw." "That they did," Ieva said. "Buonanotte." "Buonanotte," Freya replied, leaving the kitchen. Oslo and Kyiv were on her heels, following her to her bed, like they had done for the last nine years and like they would do for the rest of their lives. However long, she was blessed to have them. — Freya and Ieva had applied to a few places; they had shown Dėdė Mateusz and Teta Ruta around Durham, sent them off with a few trinkets to show their children, and now it was the waiting game. Ieva was checking her email while Freya was drawing detailed pictures of skeletons. Both male and female. It was just something she enjoyed doing, since she had learnt about injuries better if she could draw them, and she had drawn all sorts of injuries to the bone. "More bone pictures?" Ieva asked, going through her email. Freya looked at her when she didn't add anything else. She would usually tease her for learning injuries by drawing, because it helped her memory file things away. Ieva learnt a language by learning the culture's food, while Freya joined her so she could have someone to talk through the language with. It was the only reason the language they spoke matched. "Dundee," Ieva said, looking at Freya with a grin. She stood up and walked over to her to give her a hug. "I got accepted into the Dundee project. You know what that means?" "Celtic country?" Freya asked. "There are a lot of different countries that are Celtic," Ieva said, waving her hand. "It's also the part of the country that Rome didn't try to take over, and now I can learn more about their culture and their crimes." "Scotland Yard," Freya said, "and Sherlock Holmes… to a point. One of them was set in Scotland." "The Hounds of something," Ieva agreed, hugging her tighter. "The religious conflict," Freya said, remembering the problem between Catholics and Protestants. "You know that won't be a problem," Ieva said, waving her hand. "We've just gone with our grandparents' faith. We've never fit into one neat box. But if our grandparents can work through their differences, then I can respect the faith of my fellow students." "Are you going to wait to see if you got anything else?" Freya asked, looking at their shared computer. "I think I'll accept it. It'll be interesting to learn about the different people who lived in Scotland," Ieva said, looking at her acceptance email. "I'll even be able to work on my DNA method while I do so." "Just remember my method is available as well," Freya teased. "I will," Ieva said, huffing. "If I had to learn, then I might as well put it to some use when it's necessary." "Good girl," Freya said. "Now check your email," Ieva said, pushing her towards the computer. Freya looked around the room. None of the cats were in the living room, but that just meant they were sleeping on their beds. They were getting older and sleeping more. She'd just let them sleep. Freya signed out of Ieva's email before logging into her own, and then she also paused. The first email on her list was from the Franklin Institute in Washington. She was being accepted as Dr Cervantes' graduate student. Dr Cervantes was famous in Forensic Anthropology circles. Freya had learnt about her from another student in her Forensic Anthropology classes; he had also been accepted as a graduate student at the Franklin Institute. She had read about the case Dr Cervantes had solved with the FBI the previous year, how she had figured out how the victim died just from her bones. Freya had sent her application off, but she hadn't thought she would get in. "Freya," Ieva asked, walking up behind her. When she read the email, her face lit up. "Oh my god, you got in! You're going to be close to the family again. They'll never let you leave again." "I'll be working with Dr Cervantes," Freya said, accepting Ieva's hug and putting her hands on her arms. "That deserves a celebration," Ieva said, hugging her tighter. "I'm thinking we should make Bløtkake, a celebration cake for a celebration."