freckles, pert little nose, and the rosebud pout Anne so loved, she looked the way their nine-year-old girl should; as if sheâd not aged a day.
But Madrigal wasnât right, after she came home, though Anne couldnât quite put her finger on why.
âJust her size? Thatâs all?â she asked, digging but not too hard, afraid he might begin to question her sanity. Afraid of the avalanche such small pebbles might start. If her husband was honest, he knew it too, that their youngest wasnât as sheâd been, but Brian wasnât honest, at least not in his heart.
It was why heâd stayed married to her long after heâd stopped loving her; Anne knew it and he didnât. She thought it probably meant he was kind. It was all equal to her: with him there, the bills got paid, with enough left over to put some savings by; heâd kept Jason fed and cared for when she couldnât bear to get out of bed; and there was a warm body beside her at night when she needed it. After the loss of Madrigal, so much had changed in their lives that these small things were what she clung to when she felt most adrift, on the days when her imagination went hyper and she saw all manner of terrible acts being repeatedly visited on her daughter. Acts that made her long for the child to be dead, killed outright, and not kept alive to suffer the deeds Anne conceived.
Time had passed; Jason left home for university. She and Brian shuffled the cards of their lives, papered over the great gaping hole. Just when she thought that some scar tissue might grow, that they might move on, Madrigal came back.
âCanât you just be happy, Annie?â Brianâs eyes were sad. âCanât you just accept we were given a tremendous gift, and we should be grateful?â
Anne nodded slowly, let him think he was right. âOf course, love. I just meant ⦠I donât know what I meant. Iâm getting used to seeing her; thatâs all. I canât stop watching because I think sheâll be taken away again.â
âNo, Annie. Sheâs here to stay. God gave her back to us.â
She smiled, though his religious belief riled, and when she peered through the kitchen window once more, every single thing she spotted was something that was off . Something about the way the girl moved; if Anne squinted, she seemed to see a ghostly outline around her daughter. A shadow-shape that was slightly larger than Madrigal and a split second slower, as if just out of synch so that when she swung about, ran, jumped, and skipped, there was the blur like a butterflyâs wing in her wake, but only for the slenderest of moments. The hair seemed too dark, sucking in light but not sending it back, and it didnât matter how often Anne washed the girlâs locks, they still came up oily. And the little girlâs smile seemed simultaneously too quick and too slow, as if it also carried its own spectre, leaving a short-lived smear as it slid into place.
But Anne knew she couldnât tell anyone that. Madrigal looked like the child theyâd lost, the child whose face had appeared on the flyers theyâd pasted to poles and sticky-taped in shop windows, the face that had graced the front pages of a dozen newspapers ever so briefly, and flashed even more briefly across television screens while the tragedy was fresh. And the child was fine, seemed fine, but for the few times Anne had found her by the front door in the middle of the night, sleepwalking. She didnât wake when shepherded back to bed, and didnât remember the episode in the morning, just laughed and made a joke about how lucky she was that her mother kept such a good watch over her. That hurt, a tiny bit. Anne felt it stab at the raw ball of guilt which had surfaced when Madrigal first disappeared, the reminder that sheâd not kept her daughter safe. But she could discern no intent in the comment, no sharp edge to the grin, nor
But Madrigal wasnât right, after she came home, though Anne couldnât quite put her finger on why.
âJust her size? Thatâs all?â she asked, digging but not too hard, afraid he might begin to question her sanity. Afraid of the avalanche such small pebbles might start. If her husband was honest, he knew it too, that their youngest wasnât as sheâd been, but Brian wasnât honest, at least not in his heart.
It was why heâd stayed married to her long after heâd stopped loving her; Anne knew it and he didnât. She thought it probably meant he was kind. It was all equal to her: with him there, the bills got paid, with enough left over to put some savings by; heâd kept Jason fed and cared for when she couldnât bear to get out of bed; and there was a warm body beside her at night when she needed it. After the loss of Madrigal, so much had changed in their lives that these small things were what she clung to when she felt most adrift, on the days when her imagination went hyper and she saw all manner of terrible acts being repeatedly visited on her daughter. Acts that made her long for the child to be dead, killed outright, and not kept alive to suffer the deeds Anne conceived.
Time had passed; Jason left home for university. She and Brian shuffled the cards of their lives, papered over the great gaping hole. Just when she thought that some scar tissue might grow, that they might move on, Madrigal came back.
âCanât you just be happy, Annie?â Brianâs eyes were sad. âCanât you just accept we were given a tremendous gift, and we should be grateful?â
Anne nodded slowly, let him think he was right. âOf course, love. I just meant ⦠I donât know what I meant. Iâm getting used to seeing her; thatâs all. I canât stop watching because I think sheâll be taken away again.â
âNo, Annie. Sheâs here to stay. God gave her back to us.â
She smiled, though his religious belief riled, and when she peered through the kitchen window once more, every single thing she spotted was something that was off . Something about the way the girl moved; if Anne squinted, she seemed to see a ghostly outline around her daughter. A shadow-shape that was slightly larger than Madrigal and a split second slower, as if just out of synch so that when she swung about, ran, jumped, and skipped, there was the blur like a butterflyâs wing in her wake, but only for the slenderest of moments. The hair seemed too dark, sucking in light but not sending it back, and it didnât matter how often Anne washed the girlâs locks, they still came up oily. And the little girlâs smile seemed simultaneously too quick and too slow, as if it also carried its own spectre, leaving a short-lived smear as it slid into place.
But Anne knew she couldnât tell anyone that. Madrigal looked like the child theyâd lost, the child whose face had appeared on the flyers theyâd pasted to poles and sticky-taped in shop windows, the face that had graced the front pages of a dozen newspapers ever so briefly, and flashed even more briefly across television screens while the tragedy was fresh. And the child was fine, seemed fine, but for the few times Anne had found her by the front door in the middle of the night, sleepwalking. She didnât wake when shepherded back to bed, and didnât remember the episode in the morning, just laughed and made a joke about how lucky she was that her mother kept such a good watch over her. That hurt, a tiny bit. Anne felt it stab at the raw ball of guilt which had surfaced when Madrigal first disappeared, the reminder that sheâd not kept her daughter safe. But she could discern no intent in the comment, no sharp edge to the grin, nor
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