But how could there be?
“Mum, I’m hungry,” she said, flopping down to the ground. “Can I please have a sandwich?”
Isla answered for me. “Of course you can,” she told the wildling, throwing her a wide, all-the-teeth smile. “But first, we have to play a game.”
“A game?”
Isla nodded. “You need to follow your mother.”
“What game are we playing?” the wildling asked, her face angled up at me, full of innocence.
I tried to smile, like Isla, but it was so hard to pretend. So difficult, when she looked so like Luna. “It’s kind of like hide-and-seek,” I said. My voice sound far-off, as though it wasn’t mine.
“Only we have to tie you to a tree while you count to a hundred,” Isla added.
It was time. The people from the committee were visible and coming closer. I thought they might hurt me if I didn’t do it. I thought of Luna, back at the bothy, all alone. What if they hurt her, too?
I could see that the wildling was getting distressed, her face crumpling. She looked so small, so vulnerable. I pressed a hand to my mouth, and instantly Isla was by my side, reassuring me.
“I know how hard this is,” she said. “Remember, everything you see before you is not what it seems.”
I nodded, but when the wildling turned, I had to crouch down to check the burn on the back of her leg to reassure myself that she wasn’t Luna.
And there it was. Four numbers, in a vertical row.
The sight of the numbers sent a fresh chill ripping through me. It was still there. The mark of a wildling.
“Stand against the tree,” I said, straightening. But the wildling looked at me with such fear on her face that I felt my resolve weaken again. It felt unnatural to treat a child this way, my own child, and yet I clung to what Isla had said. She was a wildling. She had to be.
Tentatively, the wildling stood against the tree, her face full of terror. I tried not to look in her eyes as I moved the rope around her, fastening her there.
Isla placed a bundle in my hands. The long, sharp knife from her home, wrapped in a blanket.
The wildling’s eyes fell on the blade and she started to cry. “I love you, Mummy!” she said. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Do it now, Liv!” Mirrin shouted from somewhere in the trees. “Now!”
I raised the knife and willed myself to do what needed to be done. My daughters’ faces flashed in my mind. Saffy. Clover. Luna. I was wrong when I’d wished I’d never had them. Despite everything, no matter how terrible our lives had been, it was all worth it.
I would die for them.
And I would kill for them.
“Please, Mummy!”
I looked down into the wildling’s face, into the terror that was drawn across it. In that instant, something inside me sparked to life, screaming that this was my daughter. My instincts were suddenly loud, stronger than Isla’s whispers behind me and the wind in the trees and the fears that screamed in my head.
I brought down the knife to cut the ropes, but Luna had somehow wiggled her arm free and raised it, catching the nick of the blade before I could stop it in time. Blood flew through the air, landing on my face. I moved the blade to the ropes, cutting her free.
I shouted at her to run. Luna darted through the trees, quickly moving out of sight. I glanced around. Isla stared at me, her mouth open. She reached forward to grab me, but I lunged away. Behind her, I saw villagers starting to head after Luna.
I broke into a run in the opposite direction, drawing them away from her.
V