The January Legacy: The Watchers Series Book Two: The Watchers, #2

By francisbooth and Francis Booth

My name is Charley and I think I'm a clone.

I think I had a mum but no dad.

Impossible, right?

I mean,  a woman can't have a baby without a man's help.

All babies have to have a genetic mum and a genetic dad.

Yes?

Well, if having a baby without a man is impossible, why is there a word for it?

Parthenogenesis.

I know.

Me neither, until just now.

Parth-en-o-gen-e-sis. Like the Parthenon in Greece, which is a temple to a goddess, and Genesis, like in the bible, meaning birth. So it means a woman having a baby without a man being involved. Okay, you say, but that's just a word. Just because there's a word for something doesn't mean it exists – unicorns don't exist. Or mermaids.

Are you sure?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wu Wei Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227497116

Book preview

One

Max

I ‘ve known about my ‘inherited genetic anomaly’ ever since I was eight. I’d been for yet another test on my lungs – I’d been having them as long as I could remember. Mom was talking about me with another doctor while I waited next door. But this time they had left a file on the desk – my file. I looked at it. There were lots of long, doctory words, but even at the age of eight I was pretty smart and I could understand things like ‘inherited genetic anomaly’, ‘limited life expectancy’ and ‘late teens.’

That’s when I knew mom wasn’t my birth mother – I couldn’t have inherited it from her or she’d have been long dead even then. Ditto my dad – in those days I used to naïvely think I had a dad, silly me. So I always thought I was adopted. I made up a heartstring-tugging backstory for myself, where my real mother died tragically young, after having me while she and my dad were still Romeo and Juliet-style teenagers running away from their disapproving families. In my fantasy, when dad was left with me on his hands he turned his energies into making his fortune. Having made it he then fell prey to a cold, ruthless, conniving gold-digger called Anya who pretended to love him – and the infant me – to get access to his money. She then somehow stole all his dosh and ran off with it, taking me with her. And then she had to keep constantly moving us to stay ahead of him as he pursued us relentlessly across the globe.

Yes, I know it doesn’t make much sense – why would Anya want me if she had the money already? But, I thought, maybe she kept blackmailing him – threatening she would kill me if he didn’t send her more money. Then, after I found out about my ‘anomaly’ I thought, maybe she wanted dad’s money to pay my escalating medical bills. All nonsense of course, but I bet every adopted child has fantasies about their real parents – anything rather than admit that your real mom was a dumb slut who was too thick or too drugged up to avoid getting pregnant at fourteen and couldn’t afford an abortion. Though even the most desperately sad adopted child wouldn’t imagine s/he was a clone with dozens of siblings.

Not that I have dozens of siblings.

Charley doesn’t know how lucky she is.

I DoplGangr-ed myself after Charley did hers. Two of them seemed like they might be my clones. One seventeen, one fourteen. I contacted the seventeen-year-old, though I didn’t mention cloning. She’s called Jeanette (yes, horrors, my birth name is plain Jane). I said I was adopted and I thought she might have the same birth mother. She’s in hospital, undergoing therapy. She sent me a recent photo of her new, bald-headed, chemo-chic look. Of course, as my Identical, she’s ravishingly beautiful even without her previously-magnificent mane, though she’s several whiter shades of pale and her eyes are dark and sunken.

No more than six months, she says, though she thinks they’re lying to her – they’ve always lied to her in the past, she says – and it’s actually more like six weeks. She lives in Canada – I’d love to meet her but I don’t know if I could get there in time. And I’d have to tell Anya why I wanted to go, which would involve admitting I know about my condition, and I swore to myself at the age of eight that I wouldn’t be the first to mention it, she has to tell me. And then she has to explain why she never told me before. Which she’s not going to do.

My other sibling, Jaz, is proving harder to contact. She’s a startlingly beautiful and mature-looking fourteen-year-old – not that I’m startled at her great beauty or maturity, obviously. But I made the mistake of sending her a picture of me as a boy. Given her ravishing looks she has not surprisingly developed a witty and satirical line in devastating putdowns. Even Oscar Wilde would be jealous of her sharp, acid tongue.

f*** off, perv

That was her succinct reply to my note. While one commends her awareness of internet predators hiding behind photos of teenagers, and her conciseness of expression, one regrets her inability to recognise, not to say respect, her elder sister, even when dressed as a boy.

Of course, I could get Anya to approach her Guardian, who is no doubt an Anne of some kind, but again that would mean revealing what I know, and I’m not ready for that. Not yet. Not until my – hopefully – graceful decline has set in and I sadly set sail for the sorrowful sunset of my romantically tragic early demise.

Actually, despite my heroic bravery in public, my stiff upper lip and sang froid, I’m really scared witless. I know only the beautiful die young, but I don’t want to die, and I really wish I could tell Lucy and Charley. Lucy would try to cuddle me better – maybe she’d succeed. It would be worth trying. But if I told them, everything would change between us. They’d tiptoe around the subject, treat me with kid gloves, always be careful what they said to me. And I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t stand the pity. For whatever time I have left, I just want things to stay exactly as they are.

Charley

––––––––

This is one of those rare evenings when Lucy isn’t here. Maxie is sitting on the almost-unused spare bed in my room, wearing a long red silk robe with embroidered golden dragons on it, red nails and matching red lipstick, with rose-coloured rouge and green eye-shadow. He calls it his M. Butterfly look – I’m not even going to try to explain that, you’ll have to google it. It’s pretty grotesque and he looks a bit sad – I think he’s wearing the bizarre clothes as a kind of disguise to hide his feelings, whatever they are. Maybe he’ll tell me.

Sweetly, he knocked before he came into my room. I’m wearing quite a short nightie, but I have pants on underneath, so I’m quite modestly dressed. It reminds me of Nan – whenever she wanted to say I was being too cautious, too unadventurous, which was often, she’d say, ‘you’re all nightie and knickers, Lemon. Take a risk once in a while. Go commando.’

Max picked up the existence of something between Kayla and me a while ago, even before Charlize’s funeral – probably when we were in the Sanctum, the way she held on for half a second too long when she was holding my arms from behind to show me how to thrust. ‘So, Charley Farley, you and Kicking Kayla? An item, are we? Do tell?’

‘Nothing to tell, Maxie.’

‘Pants on fire. Big pants in your case, as I can see. You’ll never go to heaven.’

‘Not much, anyway.’

‘There’s no need to be shy, dear, it’s just us two chickens.’

‘Well...’

‘See. I knew it. Have you...?’

‘Maxie! I have not. We have not.’

‘Not even...?’

‘Not even.’

‘You’re such a scaredy-mouse, Charley Miller.’

‘I’m not scared. I’m just...’

‘Terrified.’

‘Cautious, Maxie. Mindful.’

‘The sight of her manly muscles, gleaming and glimmering with glistening sweat doesn’t make you go all droopy? Her rippling six-pack?’

‘Well...’

‘I don’t suppose anything gets you hot, Charley, you’re such a cold fish.’

‘I’m not a cold fish...’

‘Just joshing, Lemon tart.’

‘And I’m not a tart. Pots and kettles, especially the way you’re dressed.’

‘Sorry, Lemony Snicket.’

‘And, would you mind dropping the Lemon? It reminds me of Nan.’

‘Ah. Forgive my fond, foolish faux pas, Charley.’

‘Forgiven.’

‘But – Charley – you have to promise I’ll be the first to know if things with Kayla turn steamy.’

‘They won’t. Not in the foreseeable, anyway.’

‘But you have your whole life ahead of you.’

‘I do, Max.’

‘Unlike some of us.’

‘What do you mean, Maxie?’

‘The flame that burns brightest burns fastest. And my flame is blazing like the sun – dazzling all who come within its radiant radius.’

‘Your... what?’

‘My candle may be untimely extinguished.’

‘Candle?’

‘The gods take the soonest those whom they love the best.’

‘What gods?’

‘Oh, Charley, you’re so prosaic. Okay then, I’m dying. Or I will be soon.’

‘Max...?’

‘Inherited genetic anomaly. My pathetically small Plain Jane Strain has a fatal flaw. All five of us. Three down, two to go.’

‘Three down?’

‘My mother died ages ago. My eldest sister died a while ago, and the one just above me went yesterday.’

‘Yesterday? How did you know?’

‘We got in touch recently. She’d been dying for a while. I thought she had at least a few weeks yet, but apparently not. She was very heroic. Not so my younger sister, who’s apparently a right little cow. Ravishingly beautiful though, obviously.’

‘You knew about the anomaly?’

‘All along. Wait... You knew too?’

‘I...’

‘You knew?’

‘Well...’

‘I’ll wager the perfidious, prying Perdita told you.’

‘Max...’

‘And you weren’t going to tell me? You thought I didn’t know and you weren’t going to tell me?’

‘How could we?’

‘Friends confide in each other, Charley.’

‘Friends protect each other. Try to make each other happy.’

‘You thought I’d be happier not knowing?’

‘Actually, I did want to tell you, but Perdita overruled me.’

‘And she is more important to you than me.’

‘No, Max, of course not. No one’s more important to me then you are.’

‘Oh, Charley. Do you think Lucy would mind if we had a cuddle? No shenanigans, no funny business, just a chaste, consoling cuddle.’

‘Yes, I think she’d kill me, but I won’t tell her if you don’t. Because friends only tell each other what it’s best for them to know.’

‘So, you didn’t tell Lucy about my impending demise?’

‘Of course not, Max. She’d fall apart. You’re everything to her.’

‘But a girly cuddle wouldn’t count as infidelity would it?’

‘No, Max. It would just be a sisterly act.’

‘You would know better than me about being sisterly.’

‘I really would, Max.’

‘So, no kissing, or at least no tongues. No petting. Hands outside the clothes, knees and teeth together at all times.’

‘Max, you’ve become an old prude.’

‘Well at least I won’t live long enough to become an old prune.’

‘Oh, Max. Come here.’

‘Lemon squeezy. Easy peasy. Let’s get cheesy.’

‘Max!’

‘Sorry, Charley.’

‘But, Max, about Nan... She used to cuddle me when I was little. Even when I was not so little. But...’

‘She was evil, Charley. And insane. You should have seen her face when she was torturing me.’

‘I know, I know. Still...’

‘You miss her.’

‘I do, Max.’

He snuggles up to me, his head on my chest. I put my arms round him.

I stroke his hair.

Tenderly.

Lovingly.

As I hold him tight, he looks up at me with his slow smile. I lean my face towards him. My mouth is open, my knees and teeth are nowhere near together. I hold the back of his head and pull him gently towards me. As our lips meet I close my eyes and run my fingers through his soft, luxuriant hair. My other hand slowly starts to move inside his robe. I feel the bare skin of his smooth, hairless chest with my fingertips. I touch his lips softly with my tongue, tasting his lipstick – strawberry, I think – then my tongue moves slowly, hesitantly into his mouth.

Suddenly, Max pulls back. ‘Oooh... no sucking lemons, it’ll make my lips pucker and ruin my make-up,’ he giggles. Then he turns his back to me, curls up into a foetal position and pushes himself into me. I put my arms around him – two spoons in a drawer, just like I saw him with Lucy at the Sanctum – and hold on tight. His shoulders are shaking slightly. I think he’s crying. I stroke his hair, softly.

Tenderly.

Lovingly.

‘I love you, Maxie.’

‘I love you, Lemon-drops-away-above-the-chimney-tops.’

‘Night, Maxie.’

‘Night, Charley.’

Lucy

I wanted to give Maxie a present. And what better present than a whole new family. Charley spends lots of time with the Charlottes online but Maxie doesn’t seem at all bothered about finding and meeting his sisters. I think it’s because he’s such an individualist – a rare and fabulous creature unlike any other, as he says. He wants to be unique, not a clone. I think he literally can’t imagine finding another person like himself. And nor can I, frankly. So I thought, if I DoplGangr-ed him and researched his lineage I could offer it to him to follow up if he wanted, to make contact with his extended family. Or not, whichever he decided.

But it wasn’t like that.

He seems to only have two siblings and no birth mother – no living birth mother, anyway. His elder sister is dying, according to her family’s Facebook page. She has a rare, inherited genetic disease. She has – ostensibly – adoptive parents who are sticking by their brave daughter and won’t give up hoping for a cure.

Subtext – there is no cure.

Hidden subtext – if it is genetic, Max has it too, as does his younger sibling. If the elder sister is dying at seventeen, maybe Maxie’s mother died at a similar age, having had only three children. Or if there were any more, they’re already dead.

Max and I have maybe two years together.

I’m not going to tell him – he loves life so much, it would be too cruel. And I’m not going to tell anyone else. This is a burden I will bear alone, for the love of my own special, unique, Maxie.

Max

After our elder sister died, leaving just the two of us, I decided to try again to contact my sibling Jaz, even though she had accused me of being a perv. I sent an email.

I’m your sister. Look at the photo. We have the same mother. She died. We also had an elder sister. She just died too.

Max

Jaz is obviously paranoid and not looking at the photo properly. Or she’s stupid, which she can’t be, since she has my DNA.

My mums in the police. She’ll put you in perv prison. You wont like it. They beat up the

nonces.

I’m getting cross now.

Okay, sis. Here’s a PDF of my DNA profile. If your mum is in the police, get her to check it against yours.

Max

I’m pretty sure her mum is not in the police but since Jaz apparently dresses and talks like a slacker/hacker – she’s obviously channelling Lisbeth Salander but she’s far too beautiful to pull it off – she may have access to the technology. A week later it turns out I was right.

Okay. You blew my mind. Either we are identical twins or you somehow got hold of my DNA. In which case you’re definitely going to perv prison.

I reply straight away.

Oh no I’m not, sweetie. If that blew your mind, try this. Here’s another PDF. Check it against your mum’s DNA. Then look at the attached photo.

Max

I’m taking a calculated risk. I’m assuming that her Guardian – the woman she probably calls mum – is from the Anne Strain, like Charley’s and mine. I’ve sent her Anya’s DNA and I attached to the email an old photo of Anya from before the plastic surgery she had when we were on the run. If I’m right, she should look identical to Jaz’s so-called mum but younger. I am right. A few days later Jaz replies.

So you want me to believe that we are identical twins and our mums are identical twins. This is a scam and you’re going to jail.

God, she’s more paranoid than Anya.

Okay, sis. Here’s a video of me,