Whispering sister

A street lady named Cloris was known to babble as she pushed her crammed shopping carts through the streets of Lewiston, Maine. Occasionally, she would stop a stranger and begin to rave about her sister -- her horrible, horrible sister who whispered hateful things into her ear.

The woman was wrinkled and her eyes were large and wild. She frightened and appalled many, especially when she raved about her whispering sister. A simple check of court documents showed that she had no siblings at all -- no evil sister to whisper into her ear and to drive her to madness.

The street lady froze to death in the streets one winter and because her death was unattended, an autopsy was ordered. Forensic physicians made a shocking discovery. When Cloris was born some 58 years back, she had developed inside her mother's womb with a twin. But as she neared birth, the infant Cloris absorbed the twin fetus into her body and only one baby was born.

The autopsy revealed tiny fragments of that unborn twin in Cloris' brain -- one tiny hand attached to a tiny arm, an eye that never fully developed and just the beginnings of a fetal mouth.

Were the voices that drove Cloris to madness and left her raving in the streets whispered by her unborn twin sister after all?