I Ended My Pregnancy in College—Years Later, Two Little Girls Appeared at My Window Every Night Crying, “Mom, Why Didn’t You Let Us Live?”

Chapter 4

The two red lines appeared in the little window of the pregnancy test, and I screamed so loudly that the woman at the pharmacy counter dropped her newspaper.

I did not care. I ran out into the sun, holding the stick like it was a winning lottery ticket, and I ran all the way home.

“David! David! Come and see!”

He rushed out of the kitchen, panicked. “Elizabeth, what is it? Are you hurt?”

I shoved the test strip into his hands, crying and laughing at the same time. “Look! It worked! David, I am pregnant!”

David stared at the two red lines. And then—for the first time in months—his face broke open into a wide, beautiful smile. He lifted me off the ground and spun me around, laughing like a child. “Oh, thank God! Thank God! Our baby is finally coming!”

We cried together in the kitchen. We thanked God together. We called his mother, who rejoiced loudly enough to be heard even without the phone held to her ear. For the first time since my confession, David held me the way he used to—like I was precious, like I was his.

And the best part?

The girls were gone.

No cold air at night. No glowing figures at the foot of the bed. No thin, hollow voices asking why I had denied them life. The bedroom was warm again. I slept like a baby, and I thanked God every morning for the mercy He had shown me.

Nine months passed like a gentle river.

But it was not always gentle. There were nights when the baby in my womb kicked so hard I could see the shape of a small foot pushing against my skin, and I would freeze, half expecting to look down and see a tiny face staring back. I kept the nursery door closed for the first five months. David thought I was being superstitious. He bought a crib and painted the walls pink, humming songs I had never heard him sing. I watched him from the doorway, and I felt a love so fierce it frightened me—because I knew, in the quiet of my heart, that I was not sure whether I was waiting to meet my children or my accusers.

The labor started at midnight, sudden and fierce, and David drove through the dark streets like a man possessed. In the delivery room, the nurses shouted “Push, Elizabeth! Push!” and I pushed until my veins stood out and my vision blurred with tears.

The first cry split the air. *Waa! Waa!* A nurse held up a tiny, squirming creature, and the doctor’s voice came through the fog: “Hold on, Mrs. David! Don’t relax yet! There is another baby inside your womb!”

I pushed again, with everything I had left, and the second cry joined the first.

“Congratulations!” the doctor beamed, lifting both babies. “It is a double blessing! You have given birth to beautiful identical twin girls!”

The room burst into joy. Nurses laughed. David, waiting outside, pushed past the door and rushed to my side, his eyes shining.

But I did not feel joy.

When they cleaned the babies and laid them on the small bed beside me, my blood turned to ice. My heart began to pound so hard I could hear it in my ears.

They were two girls.

Completely identical.

With the exact same faces as the spirits that had stood weeping at my window.

I could not breathe. I grabbed David’s hand, my fingers digging into his skin, and I whispered in a voice that shook: “David, look at them. Look at their faces. They look exactly like those girls from my hostel days. David—hope it’s not those two demons coming into this world to ruin my life?”

David’s smile vanished. His eyes went hard, and he snatched his hand out of my grip. He glanced at the nurses, checking if they had heard me, and then he bent down and hissed in my ear:

“Elizabeth, what is wrong with you?! How can you call your own innocent newborn babies demons? I have told you—dead such statements about those twins. They are powerless. It’s just your imagination! Stop this nonsense before people think you are losing your mind.”

I closed my mouth immediately.

But the fear did not close with it.

I lay there in that hospital bed, staring at the two little girls sleeping peacefully beside me, and a terrible thought churned inside me: I had drunk the herbs. I had forced the pregnancy. I had disobeyed them. And now these children had their faces—their exact faces.

We named them Julia and Junia. We brought them home to a house full of joy, a mother-in-law who fussed over them, a husband who had never looked prouder.

I watched my daughters grow. I watched their tiny hands grasp at toys, their small mouths smile at me, their eyes track the light. And every day, I searched those little faces for a sign of the ghosts I had once seen.

There was none.

Julia giggled. Junia reached for me. They were just babies. Sweet, ordinary, beautiful babies.

I let myself hope.

But some nights—when the house was dark and David was asleep and the girls were dreaming in their cribs—I would lie awake, listening to the silence, and I would think about the deal I had made with a bitter cup of village medicine.

And I would wonder: *If those spirits are truly gone, why can’t I shake the feeling that they are not finished with me yet?*