And now this.
III
I heard the girls beginning to talk to each other.
“Are you really called Luna?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“Of course I am.”
“This is really weird.”
“I know. Can you tell what I’m thinking?”
“You’re thinking about dinosaurs.”
“Actually I was thinking about trees.”
“Cheese? Are you hungry?”
“A little.”
“Do you like cheese?”
“Only in sandwiches.”
“Me too.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“Mine too! What about your favorite animal?”
“A narwhal. It’s a whale with a—”
“I know what a narwhal is. It’s my favorite animal, too.”
And so it went on. I sipped at my water, finally gaining enough strength to crawl out of the bathroom into the hallway and then the living room. The girls followed, still chatting. My mind had dredged up the conversation I’d had with Isla and the others about wildlings. She’d said they looked identical to the children they wanted to kill, that the likeness was so incredible that parents were duped, and often grew so confused that they thrust out the wrong child, or both. The only way to tell them apart is by a small mark that the wildling often bears. A mark that the human child doesn’t have.
One of the Lunas had such a mark. The girl that was covered in mud.
I looked up and saw the girls begin to sit down on the floor opposite each other, Luna passing her double a clean T-shirt and leggings to change into. I was now standing behind her, and as the muddied girl straightened a leg to pull the leggings on, I saw the red mark behind her knee. Isla’s words rang in my ears. I leaned forward, telling her to hold on a moment. I needed to check something.
I looked closer, and there it was—four digits etched into tender flesh, flaming red.
1
9
9
8
“What’s wrong?” the girl said. “Did something bite me?”
I couldn’t speak for shock.
“Maybe you scratched it,” Luna said, inspecting the burn. “I’ll get a bandage.”
Ice-cold fear seized me as Luna applied the bandage to the other Luna’s mark. This was something much, much more than I’d ever encountered, something not of this world, and either I had plunged into insanity or I was encountering an actual wildling. And I recalled the warning Isla and the ladies gave me about the little boy who came into my house that night.
Their aim is to wipe out bloodlines.
Luna had brought out one of her toy dinosaurs, much to the imposter’s delight. They played on the floor for a while, exchanging facts about sauropods and theropods, and my heart was racing. What would I do? Who on earth could I turn to, and how would I explain it? Would I call the police? What if they took away the wrong Luna?
“Did you sleep in my bed last night?” the imposter asked Luna.
“You mean my bed,” Luna corrected. “Is your Mummy called Olivia, too?”
“Well, yes, but mostly she gets called Liv.”
The imposter gave a long, deep yawn into the crook of her arm. “Sorry,” she said to Luna. “I got lost last night. I’m so sleepy.”