actually now that I’ve finished Light Fingers, is this a safe space to say I thought there was gonna be a big reveal where we found out that Clara’s “sister” was actually her Parabolan reflection
The Music Hall Singer was also pregnant, but ended up giving birth in a church after seeking sanctuary there, and the baby didn’t survive. I assumed that Fires had tried its plan with her first, because her Parabolan impossibility would aid the creation of an impossible child, but she managed to escape just before giving birth. The child didn’t survive not because there wasn’t the necessary Parabolan influence, but because for Clara we have to do all sorts of other things as well, like making the Moon-Mother potion, and the Singer had none of that.
If I remember correctly, it’s also implied that the father of her child was a representative of Fires, just like Poor Edward; I assumed this was going to be a bait-and-switch, and that we’d find out the Representative wasn’t actually the father, but the man who had organized her kidnapping in the first place, and he had later fallen in love with her and helped her escape. Hence him visiting the baby’s grave, and raving to us about Fires’ plans after we track him down and, uh, find him at Nightmares 8+, if you will. And then he disappears! We go back to find his townhouse shuttered and empty and no one can say where he is! If he had been the one to help the Singer escape, he was always on borrowed time until Fires found him.
Jasper and Frank, after tracking down the Singer, nearly killed her solely as a warning/retribution from Fires. They had no need for her anymore. Fires says itself in-game that it doesn’t care what happens to the ‘incubator’ after the child is born successfully, and as dubious as its science is, I bet even it would assume the Singer’s body wouldn’t be able to tolerate doing that pregnancy again. And what use would killing her be? They could disappear her like the Representative, but why go through the effort? No one would believe her, and societal pressure would keep an unmarried woman from talking about a bastard child anyway. And after all, they had her “sister”, the original her, to try again with.
Was not permanently killing or disappearing the Singer an opportunity for the Singer to take on Clara’s life? To become the ‘real’ her, here in the Is? I can imagine Fires extending that offer. It’s certainly fucked up enough.
But the thing that had me most convinced was their personalities. Clara is presented from the start as unassertive and in need of protection, while the Music Hall Singer is presented from the start as assertive and deeply protective of her twin. Where Clara is helpless and prone to panic, the Singer is goal-oriented and angry. I can easily see the Singer being who Clara wishes she was.
(I can also see the Singer being who Clara wishes she had. Her ideal self, but also her ideal protector. In a perfect world, someday, she could be that for herself. But right now, it’s what she wants and what she wishes she could be. Would that much wanting be a way to bring that version of her out of the mirror?)
Not to mention, the text implies that you know the Singer well enough that not knowing she had a sister is surprising enough to comment on (“you didn’t even know she had a sister”). How could Clara have never come up in conversation when protecting her is such a huge part of the Singer’s life?
And of course, there’s the fact that they’re identical twins.
