If I ever had twin children I think that I would name them Rend and Tear
so that they would go through life with the guilty smiling knowledge of what they’d done to my body.
Their names would make little old ladies in the line at the grocery store uncomfortable.
“Oh how precious!” they would say, and then the little girl, with her brown hair, she would smile, and the old lady would ask her name and she’d tell her and the old lady would get those pink spots on her cheeks like people do when they are shocked.
She would look at me, and her mouth would be a little open, and I would smile very sweetly and pop a grape in it, because that is the face that my little son makes when he wants a grape, and so I would know without her asking.
Do you see how kind I could be?
No? You think me a horrid beastie of a woman? Oh yes, I would be a horrid beastie, and I would not comb their hair, these dream-twins. They would have long tangles and snarls tumbling down their backs, and they would have red-punch-moustachios, and they would have only one shoe each, and they would be delicious and wicked.
And the witches, they wouldn’t ever come for my babies, because they would be so veryveryvery bad. I'd have iron under their pillows, because the faeries, they like wicked children, but otherwise they would be safe, and especially, they would be safe from the gypsies.
The gypsies hate wicked children, they only like wicked women. I would be horrid, though, and not wicked, so that they'd be kept all safe and happy.
And we would live in a little cottage at the end of the road, and I'dkeep a sheep, but not a goat, because they have those nasty eyes. And the funny little men, they’d come and sit on the porch with me and try to make me marry them “for the sake of the wee ones” but I'd know that it is for the sake of THEIR wee ones and say no, with SUCH a haughty voice, and the men would slink away with their coats in their arms and sugar from the tea cakes on their lips and they would wonder if I could ever have tasted so sweet as those cakes and they would never know.
I would not marry them, because I would have a fine strong and handsome lad, and his name would be something simple and strong, and he would be strong, but clever, not simple. Those would be his wicked children, and he'd have a callous on his thumb that he'd rub my nose with before he cooks my dinner, and he would have a fine strong voice that sounds like nothing whatsoever could ever go possibly wrong.
That is how it would be.