Clover takes off her outfit and pulls on a navy sequined dress. She looks in the mirror at her reflection, hand on her hip, one knee bent in a sassy pose. “This one’s gorgeous. Can we buy it?”
Luna tells her yes, and as she reaches to move the price tag, her fingertips brush Clover’s skin. Instantly she feels the snap of an electric spark, then the punching strike of that pain behind her eyes, deep in the bones of her skull and the grooves of her eye sockets, all the way to the back of her neck. Luna sinks to the floor, gasping with the pain and shock of it. Her vision is like a smashed mirror, and the lights are there, six white lights in a row.
As she lies on the floor she can just make out Clover standing over her. Luna tries to open her mouth to speak, to tell her to get help, but then she notices Clover’s expression.
Her face doesn’t betray a hint of fear or concern at Luna’s state.
It’s a look of satisfaction.
II
“Feeling any better?”
Luna looks up at the shop assistant and nods, grateful. “Yes, thank you.”
“I had dreadful fainting episodes when I was pregnant,” the woman says. “Passed as soon as I gave birth. Hopefully yours’ll be the same.”
Luna gives a weak smile. She’s sitting in a chair in the storeroom clutching a cup of sugary tea that the shop assistant made her. The thunder in her head has retreated to a dull throb at the back of her left eye, but she still feels frighteningly nauseous and dizzy. Clover stands nearby. She looks anxious. Luna looks down at her hand where she touched Clover. She had felt a small electric shock, then the bang of a headache that seemed to roll in out of nowhere. At the time it had been frightening, but now that the pain has diminished she can see her reaction must have frightened Clover.
“I’ll buy you the clothes you liked,” she tells her gently. “Do you want to pick out a new pair of shoes?”
Clover reaches out to take her hand, but Luna draws back, nervous. Clover’s expression changes—she’s hurt, and frightened, but Luna is still too hesitant to touch her.
Back at the Airbnb, Luna slides the ready meals she picked up at the grocery store into the oven and sinks down into the armchair. She still hasn’t contacted the owner about the water damage. There are other, infinitely more terrifying things on her mind. Like why touching Clover seemed to bring on a horrific headache. Like why Clover is a child of seven and a half instead of a grown woman. Whether having Clover back in her life is a good idea or if it’s putting her and her unborn son at risk.
At risk of what? she thinks.
Death, answers a small voice from the corridors of her mind.
She watches Clover carefully, weighing up her thoughts. Is she Clover? A voice tells her that she can’t be. Nothing that Luna has found online can answer why Clover remains a child. Yet she looks and sounds just like Clover.
And there’s the mark on Clover’s hip, the horrible burn with numbers sliced into her flesh.
She checks that Clover is occupied before heading to the bedroom, using her phone to try to take a photograph of the area behind each of her knees. It’s the only way she can see if anything is there, though it’s possible that such a mark would have long since faded.
It’s an awkward area to photograph, especially with a flash. The first three images are blurry, the next too far away. She’s almost about to give up when she sees something in one of the shots of her right leg. A tiny mark.
She zooms into the image. It’s grainy, and very faint, but she can just make out a shape. No, not a shape. With a gasp, she realizes it’s a number.
8
She covers her hand with her mouth, zooming further into the figure on her screen.
All this time, the mark has been there.