The figure in the bed is a child of around seven years. Her hair is scraped back from her face, the ends matted with dirt. She is pale, and her lips are dry and chapped. There are dressings on her knees and arms from where she’s been wounded. She is hooked up to an IV and a handful of teddy bears has been tucked into the bed beside her for company. On the chart above her bed, someone has written “CLOVER” in black marker.
“Here are we,” Eilidh says, smiling. But Luna frowns at her, searching her face for explanation. Where is her sister? Who is this child?
“She’s to stay at least one more night for observation,” Eilidh is saying, mistaking Luna’s look for a query regarding her care. “She has a concussion and is a bit dehydrated. And there’s an injury on her hip that the doctors would like to speak with you about.”
“Is she taking me to Mummy?” the girl asks Eilidh in a weak voice.
“I’m sure that’s on the cards,” Eilidh tells her with a smile. “You’ll be home soon enough, sweetheart.”
Ethan gives a heavy sigh and rests his hand on Luna’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says under his breath. He begins to pull out his car keys, because clearly they’ve driven all this way for nothing. They’ve come to collect a grown woman, but there’s been a terrible mix-up and here they are, presented with someone else’s missing child.
He turns to walk out, gesturing for Luna to follow—but she can’t. She turns back toward the girl, staring.
The child looks up, shyly taking in the sight of the woman in front of her.
“How come you have my giraffe?” she asks, sitting straighter.
“You recognize it, Clover?” Eilidh says, encouraged by this exchange.
“It’s Gianni,” she says, itching to get him. “Can I have him please?” Luna finds herself handing over the toy, dumbfounded as the child squeezes it to her cheek. Exactly as Clover used to do. “I missed you, Gianni.”
“I’ve had him a long time,” Luna finds herself saying, but Clover is already talking again, explaining that she set him down just the other day and when she went to cuddle him in bed he was gone.
“I put him right on the bedside table. Didn’t I, Gianni? And then I got dressed and he was gone.”
Eilidh leans over to Clover and glances up at Luna. “Do you recognize your sister, Luna? It’s OK if you need a wee while.”
“You’re called Luna?” the girl asks, narrowing her eyes. Luna nods.
“Well, isn’t that lovely?” Eilidh says. “Two sisters, reunited. As soon as you’re well you’ll be returning home with Luna.”
Luna opens her mouth to say something, but she is overwhelmed with a dozen emotions at once. The girl looks so like Clover, it’s uncanny. Same pale, freckled face, same brown hair that curls at the bottom and those round denim-blue eyes fixed in the same intelligent, challenging stare—just like Luna’s. She has the same nose as Luna, too, a little too wide, and her ears stick out. She’s missing two front teeth, and her left cheek dimples slightly when she talks. Just like Saffy’s.
But she can’t be Clover. She’s more than twenty years too young.
A nurse comes in then, keen to change Clover’s drip. Luna can feel Ethan’s eyes on her, expectant, the air between them filled with questions. She knows he wants her to leave, now that it’s evident that this is all a mistake. But her heart is racing, her instinct shouting every bit as loud as her fear.
Who is she, if not Clover?
LIV, 1998
I
I sat at the kitchen table holding the hand that had slapped Saffy, as though it belonged to someone else.