“You two are like lemmings. One goes, then the next. If you jumped, she’d go too.”

That was what everyone had told me growing up. That my sister and I were two peas in a pod, puzzle pieces, two halves of a whole. The lemming comparison was uniquely my grandfather. But it got the same message across: my sister and I were alike in every way that mattered, except unlike any other comparison, he acknowledged that I was the leader of our two person gang.

And to their credit, they were right. We were attached at the hip, double trouble, and Mira would do anything I asked of her.

Of course, once people got past our partnership, they couldn’t seem to come up with anything else to say. Not my ability to tie knots, not Mira’s sail mending. We were simply the twins, a ship mascot on any cruiser we came across.

We realized early on that being The Pair was all we were. So we would have to distinguish ourselves. Not from each other, of course, but from everyone else. We would be the twins, double trouble, peas in a pod, whatever they would say. But we would be formidable.

And so, as grandpa had predicted, we became not just The Pair, but The Lemmings. The Twin Sirens. Those girls who jumped and didn’t fly.

So when I grabbed my sister’s hand and pulled her towards the cliff edge with me, she nodded. And we jumped.

We didn’t fly, but the witches of the sea have never been known to soar above the waves. We sank, and joined our fellows, hands forever entwined, in camaraderie and ship rope.