The Lighthouse Witches(81)

“Cheese? Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

“Do you like cheese?”

“Only in sandwiches.”

“Me too.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“Mine too! What about your favorite animal?”

“A narwhal. It’s a whale with a—”

“I know what a narwhal is. It’s my favorite animal, too.”

And so it went on. I sipped at my water, finally gaining enough strength to crawl out of the bathroom into the hallway and then the living room. The girls followed, still chatting. My mind had dredged up the conversation I’d had with Isla and the others about wildlings. She’d said they looked identical to the children they wanted to kill, that the likeness was so incredible that parents were duped, and often grew so confused that they thrust out the wrong child, or both. The only way to tell them apart is by a small mark that the wildling often bears. A mark that the human child doesn’t have.

One of the Lunas had such a mark. The girl that was covered in mud.

I looked up and saw the girls begin to sit down on the floor opposite each other, Luna passing her double a clean T-shirt and leggings to change into. I was now standing behind her, and as the muddied girl straightened a leg to pull the leggings on, I saw the red mark behind her knee. Isla’s words rang in my ears. I leaned forward, telling her to hold on a moment. I needed to check something.

I looked closer, and there it was—four digits etched into tender flesh, flaming red.

1

9

9

8



“What’s wrong?” the girl said. “Did something bite me?”

I couldn’t speak for shock.

“Maybe you scratched it,” Luna said, inspecting the burn. “I’ll get a bandage.”

Ice-cold fear seized me as Luna applied the bandage to the other Luna’s mark. This was something much, much more than I’d ever encountered, something not of this world, and either I had plunged into insanity or I was encountering an actual wildling. And I recalled the warning Isla and the ladies gave me about the little boy who came into my house that night.

Their aim is to wipe out bloodlines.

Luna had brought out one of her toy dinosaurs, much to the imposter’s delight. They played on the floor for a while, exchanging facts about sauropods and theropods, and my heart was racing. What would I do? Who on earth could I turn to, and how would I explain it? Would I call the police? What if they took away the wrong Luna?

“Did you sleep in my bed last night?” the imposter asked Luna.

“You mean my bed,” Luna corrected. “Is your Mummy called Olivia, too?”

“Well, yes, but mostly she gets called Liv.”

The imposter gave a long, deep yawn into the crook of her arm. “Sorry,” she said to Luna. “I got lost last night. I’m so sleepy.”

“Do you want to have a nap?” Luna said. “My bed’s really comfy.”

“You mean my bed, silly,” the imposter said. She went to say something else but it was stifled by a yawn. “Maybe just a little nap. Oh! I just remembered where I put it!”

“Put what?” Luna asked.

The imposter jumped up and pulled one of the armchairs forward, then reached down and held something in the air. “I found it! Look, Mummy!”

“You found T-Rex!” Luna shouted.

“I was playing with him here yesterday,” the imposter said. Then, “Do you mind if I take him for a little nap?”

Luna nodded, and I watched, hollowed out with horror, as the imposter went into Luna’s bedroom and climbed into bed, the T-Rex clutched to her chest.

Luna came back into the living room and sat next to me. “Who is that girl, Mummy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Have you ever seen her before?”

Luna shook her head. “She looks just like me. She talks like me, too.”



* * *



—

    “And that’s when I came here,” I now told Isla. “I took Luna, put her in the car, and drove her here.”

Isla nodded. Then she smiled warmly at Luna in the kitchen. “Darling, why don’t you go next door and watch TV? There’ll be cartoons on now. I’ll bring you a nice hot chocolate if you hasten. Off ye go.”

Luna looked at me for assurance and I nodded. When Isla was sure Luna was out of the room, she leaned forward.

“Where’s the other one? The other girl?”

“I left her at the bothy,” I said weakly. “I didn’t know what to do . . .”

Isla looked frustrated. “You need to go back. It might already have left . . .”

I nodded, reluctantly. I felt like I wanted to be sick.

“You know it’s a wildling.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and clasped my hands to my head. I didn’t want to agree with her. I wanted to curl into a ball and disappear.

Isla leaned forward and took my hands.

“If you don’t act now, you’ll never see any of your daughters again. Luna included.”

Her voice and eyes were hard.

“What do you mean?”

“You think it’s a coincidence that Saffy and Clover are missing, and now this?” She rose from her chair and pulled a long, thin knife off the chimney mantel, weighing it in her hands. “You have to act. If you do what I tell you, you’ll be safe.”