Gemini zodiac symbol on the upper arm

The gate at Hollin Court came down on Tuesday, though nobody was hurt, so you needn't fret. Mrs Ashdown wants the pair of them standing again before the wisteria flowers. I have the pillars laid out on sacking in the orangery, and I keep turning the bars over in my hands like a fool, because they are the very shape of us. Two upright posts, two hooked ends curling away from each other, one a little more worn than the other. Father carved them the year we were born, he always said, though the date on the plinth tells a different story.

I cleaned the lower bar with a wire brush and a bucket of vinegar, and under the green there was a line of letters I had never seen. Small, cut by a hand that was not quite steady. It reads N and nothing else. I thought at first it was a mason's mark, then I wondered if it was yours, scratched there the summer you were sixteen and swore you would never lift a chisel again.

Mrs Ashdown came out with lemonade while I was puzzling over it and asked what I had found. I told her it was nothing, just a mason's fancy. She laughed and said the twins had always guarded that gate, and that her grandfather swore one post sat heavier in the ground than the other. I did not tell her the lighter post was yours, the one you carved before you ran off to sea.

I have left this letter unfinished on the bench. The gate goes back up on Friday. Come home if you can, and bring your chisel.