I thought of the little boy I’d discovered in the cave. And all the children who’d gone missing on Lòn Haven. The wildlings. Most likely, they’d simply gone into the cave to explore. Then they’d fallen out the other side to another time. A day in the past, a century in the future.
The wildlings that people had murdered were their own children. They just didn’t understand how. The stories that had been passed down year upon year had given the people of Lòn Haven a way to make sense of what they saw: whenever a child disappeared, the stories of wildlings and witches provided a way of making connections between past and present.
But I’ve learned to be wary of easy connections. The best way to tell a false narrative, I think, is to consider how neatly cause and effect have been fastened together.
While I was in the hospital, they told me the cancer had spread to my liver and stomach. All they can do is extend my time. Is it weird that I found this ironic? I said yes to chemo, of course. I’ve been allowed to have it at Cassie’s home.
So you see, I kept my promise. I saw someone.
Finn tells me that Cassie had managed to track you down. He tells me, Luna, that you’ve just had your son, Charlie, and that Saffy and Clover are both with you. I can’t tell you how happy I was when he broke this news to me. He says you’re heading to Lòn Haven, even as I write. I know the ferries have had to be canceled on account of the winter weather; I’ve been thinking of that night the four of us had to sleep in my old Renault 5, the wind shaking the roof and the rain beating against the glass. I hated it at the time, and now I’d give anything to go back and spend one more second with you all.
Forgiveness is a kind of time travel, only better, because it sutures the wounds of the past with the wisdom of the present in the same moment as it promises a better future. I’ve traveled forward in time. I don’t know how. I’m only glad that I lived.
But I’m not sure if I’ll make it, Luna. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hang on long enough to see you one last time. I’m going to try. But if not, if I slip away before I get the chance to hold you again, I wanted to write down the story of what really happened on Lòn Haven.
As you’ll see, cause and effect in this tale do not fit easily together. The pieces are odd and misshaped because truth is messy and porous.
I want you to know that I never abandoned you. I want you to know that I’m sorry for being deceived, even enough to take you into the woods. I think that everything I’ve done in my life has been pulling me back to you.
Right now, I’m sitting in Cassie’s living room watching cars move along the road at the bottom of the field, and every time I see someone my heart leaps. Snow has whitened the hills; already night has drawn a black curtain over the horizon. I’m wondering if you’ve chosen not to come. If you’ve decided that the years between us are too many, the trauma too great to put aside.
I’ll understand that, Luna. It will never make me stop loving you.
But now I see a woman walking up the garden path. There’s a baby strapped to her chest, and by her side is a little girl with red hair that dances in the wind. I feel a flash of recognition.
“Easy, Liv,” Finn says as I get up from my seat. “You need to rest.”
But I pull myself up, and he puts an arm around my waist to help me.
“It’s them,” I tell him, breathless. “It’s my daughters.”
LUNA, NOW
“We’re here, Charlie,” Luna tells her son, unclipping his seat belt and holding his hand as he jumps out.
“I’ll take the flowers, Mummy,” Charlie says.
She’s pregnant again, and on medication for the migraines that returned with a vengeance at the start of her second trimester. Luna only learned what they were when Ethan happened to mention them to one of his Pilates clients. She’d felt stupid, thinking that somehow Clover had been causing them. But then, she’d never had a migraine before she was pregnant, so how was she to know?