December 20th, 1949.

Ramona shivers in her sleep. The child couldn't tell you why she neither dreams in the vivid colors of the waking world, nor the crisp black-and-white of the picture shows she adores. Her sleep-worlds are painted in soft muted shades of sepia.

She escapes the cold today, by dreaming up her own magical summer. As she wanders through her amber creation, her mouth curves into a serene smile.

Fast-paced whispering drags at her and recognizing the voice her eyes snap open. The sudden chill is a crushing blow; she is surprised that her exhalation carries no trace of frost.

"Quick Ramona, wake up! Danger comes." She stares uncomprehending, into shocking green eyes strangely like her own vibrant blue. Aaron’s whole face is a boyish mirror of her own.

"I don't understand, what danger?” Her voice is tight, restrained. His alarm infects her drowsy mind.

"I don't know! The sense of it is all around you. Like the smell of lightning before a storm. I can’t tell where it will strike, only that it will."

"But why? What’s gonna happen?" Ramona trembles despite the thick blankets, and pulls the quilt tight around her shoulders. She pictures herself drowned, electrocuted, wasting away from polio. Aaron's eyes flick to the doorway.

"I'm sorry. She comes," In the time it takes her to blink, he’s gone.

She sees him often, but in all her eight years, her twin has only spoken a handful of times. She talks for both of them, filling the silence with her joys, fears, and secrets. He listens looking somber, an avid if quiet audience, and her only friend.

She’s tried to remember the first time she saw him, but he was always there, this brother who never lived. Her mother has told her about him, over and over, the tiny blue boy who followed her from the womb, yet never took a breath.

In a rare flash of bravery, she once told her mama about Aaron's visits, hoping to give comfort, the brutal slap that followed stunned her into permanent silence about him, or anything unconventional. She’d said,

“Don’t be crazy. Don’t you give your daddy the excuse.”

It was the first time Ramona had ever seen her mama terrified; they never mentioned Aaron again.

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