Page 91 of Memories of the Lost

“A lot of Green Man stuff,” Liam said. And to Tillie: “It’s a big thing around here.”

“I’m going to look them up right now,” Paula said. “If that’s okay.”

Tillie nodded. She kept looking at Sage, her nose and the exact line of her ears. “I don’t rememberyou, exactly,” she said by way of apology, “but I’ve been drawing you ever since I was very small. You were my imaginary friend, Sunny.”

Sage closed her eyes, and she clutched Tillie’s hand. “Imaginary.”

“I’m sorry.”

Paula, on her phone, said, “What’s your last name?”

“Morrisey.”

Paula typed it into her phone. “Oh, here you are. These are great! They could illustrate my songs, couldn’t they?”

Tillie felt that part of her was a hundred million miles away, but she wanted to be at least polite. She nodded.

They all fell silent for a long moment. The air felt heavy. So many things to take in.

Clare said, “So, what do you remember, dear?”

Tillie took a breath. “Nothing, really. I didn’t remember anything before—” She paused, and it seemed like a lot to explain. “Let me start at the end. My mother died five months ago, and I started getting these headaches. And then, a week ago, I saw a painting that must havetriggered memories. It’s a house with a porch and two girls and a big cat. Giant.” She pointed to the cat sitting by the Aga, cleaning his face. “Like that cat.”

Levi, who had been quiet, said, “I told her he’s from the local clan.”

Clare smiled, a little sadly. “We had one when you were little. He was called Joey, and you were very attached.”

Tillie closed her eyes. A whisper came alive, and she thought of the dream she’d had of him. “Joey. I remember him stretching from my chin to my knees, with a very soft purr. He was so big.”

“He was a normal cat,” Clare said gently. “You were just small.”

“Ah. Of course.” She realized that Liam, too, was very quiet.

“When you started remembering, what happened?” Clare’s voice was soft, so it didn’t feel like she was being pushy. “How did it all lead youhere?”

“I tracked down the painter, and she told me she painted around here. Would that porch be around here somewhere? I wanted to find it.”

“It might have been the Beach Lane house,” Clare said. “That’s where we were living when ...” Her throat closed. “You went missing.”

“But what happened?” Tillie asked. “When? How old was I?”

“You don’t know any of this?”

“No. My mother—” She hesitated, but how could she change that? What could she say? “She said I had a head injury.” She drew her fingers through the white streak, illustrating. “I don’t remember that at all. Or anything before it. I did have a broken rib, which I only know about because I had an X-ray once for something else, and they saw the scar.”

Sage said, “We were playing in the woods, and I lost you. We all started looking, but—” She swallowed. “We didn’t find you, only a sock by the river. They thought you might have fallen into the river and been swept out to sea, or maybe eaten by animals.”

Tillie stared, trying to imagine how that was for them. “What a horrible story,” she said, but it was awful in the way that hearing a story on the news was. She wanted to feel more of a connection—to the history, to the people looking at her with such longing—but she didn’t.

Not even to Sage. She should have felt some connection to her actual twin, shouldn’t she? “But how did my mother find me? Take me to America? I just don’t get it.”

“We have no idea,” Sage said.

“Who is your mother?” Clare asked. “What’s her name?”

“Arlette Morrisey.”

Clare covered her mouth, the other arm bent over her belly. “Arlette,” she echoed. “Oh my God.”