Isla poured each of us a glass and held it up in a toast. “To protecting the ones we love,” she said.
We toasted, and I drank.
“I’ve told the ladies about the child you saw,” Isla said, turning to me. “We’re all persuaded that this isn’t a child from the island. Not a human child, at any rate.”
I looked from Isla to Ling, who sat next to me. Had I heard her right? “I don’t follow.”
“We’ve each of us studied the sketch you provided of the little boy,” Greer said gently. “And he’s definitely not one of the children from the island.”
“Perhaps he’s a tourist,” I said. “He didn’t speak English. There could be a family staying on the island. Or perhaps they sailed here.”
“I’ve already asked,” Ruqayya said. “My neighbor Allie works at the tourist office. Nobody has reported a missing child. Not for years, now.”
It didn’t make sense. I had seen him, touched him. He’d been inside my home.
“Remember I told you about the history of this place?” Isla said. “About the witches who were burned near the Longing?”
I turned to her. “Yes?”
“I told you about how the witches put a curse on the island,” she said, tilting her head. “This child you saw—we believe he’s part of that curse.”
A finger of ice crept up my spine. I’d read the situation wrong; this wasn’t about helping find a little boy who was lost. They were pulling back the curtain on a world I didn’t know, a world of whispers and fear, inviting me in.
I set down my drink, my mind racing. “You remember I told you my brother went missing?” Isla said. “Right before he disappeared, my mother had an encounter exactly like yours. She heard something at the door, and when she opened it, she found a little boy looking up at her. She assumed he was lost, and she said she noticed he looked like he’d had a fall, for he was covered in dirt. She said she tried to bring him inside, but as soon as she turned around again the child was gone. Not a week later, my brother went missing.”
I looked around at the women in the room. Did they all believe in this?
“What are you saying?” I said lightly.
“I told you my brother went missing,” Isla said. “But that wasn’t the whole truth. What actually happened was, he went missing, but another boy was found a year later. A child who looked exactly like my brother.”
“Not a child,” Ruqayya added. “A wildling. One of the fae in human form.”
“One of the fae,” I repeated, confirming I’d heard her correctly.
“Remember, I told you about the curse,” Isla said.
I gave a nervous laugh. “You can’t reasonably expect me to believe . . .”
“My mother didn’t believe it, either,” Isla cut in, undeterred. “She’d been born and raised here on the island so she’d heard the tales of wildlings, and she knew what to do if she saw one. And then, when a boy appeared, in every way similar to my brother save the mark on his neck of a set of numbers, she couldn’t believe it.”
I was confused. They’d found her brother. So what if he had a mark on his neck? “OK. So what did your mother do?”
“It wasn’t just the mark,” Isla said. “They knew he was different. A parent knows their own child, right? My father told her that she knew in her heart of hearts that the boy wasn’t Jamie. He had the mark. Beneath the disguise of blood, bone, and flesh, he was faery in disguise, sent to kill every member of our family until the bloodline was destroyed.”
I’d heard enough. I made to get up, but Ling squeezed my hand. “Wait until you hear what happened,” she said, a little forceful.