I glare. “You don’t have the ick at the fact it made itself look like you?”
Opal shrugs. “I’m curious.”
The creature reappears, still looking like Opal. It swiftly transforms to look like me, as if I’m staring into a mirror. Then it tosses the stone back at me. It lands at my feet, an unmistakable challenge.
“What is it?” Leanna asks, aghast.
“You can see it?” I press. Aunt Leanna can’t see through Glamour like Opal and I can.
“Yes,” she answers. “It… looks like you.”
My double looks to Leanna when she speaks. The expression on ‘my’ face looks odd to me. Not fully human. It moves a tad closer to Leanna, and then switches once again.
Into the image of a man. One I don’t know and have never met. Opal instantly straightens and Leanna lets out a mournful sound before pulling Marley away from the water. I examine her face and I can see years of sadness lined on it, that have never been visible before.
“How can it do this?” Leanna demands, looking desperately to her youngest sister.
Opal shakes her head slightly and stares back at the creature, at the image of the human it’s pretending to be. “I don’t know this magic.”
The Stranger moves into the creature’s eyeline and it instantly vanishes, as if terrified. It seems to become the water, disappearing like a snowflake melting inside of a warm palm. I eye the Stranger’s back, wondering what it is about him that scared this frightening creature so much.
“What are you?” I ask him, my voice low.
He throws me a glance but doesn’t answer.
“That’s what I saw,” Marley confirms. “It must’ve been pretending to be Grandpa.”
I wince at the deep and sincere disappointment in his voice. I forget to ask about who the man was and move towards my cousin instead. I bump shoulders with him, not wanting to show too much affection in front of the adults. I know how he feels, though.
“That must be what Portia has the Fae looking for,” I say.
“Mimicry is a kind of trickery I’ve never known anyone to master,” Opal says contemplatively. “It would be useful to her, for sure.”
She moves straight to Leanna and briefly hugs her. It’s a quick, tight, Opal hug. She doesn’t like physical contact for too long. Leanna is clearly grateful for it, quickly wiping her eyes and setting off towards the house once more. I turn back to Opal and the Stranger, but they’re looking at each other as if Marley and I do not exist. The Stranger draws a satin teal pocket square from his pinstriped suit and hands it to my aunt, with an air of importance.
“You’ll be needing it,” he says.
Opal’s face gives nothing away, but she accepts the small scrap of fabric and ties it around her wrist. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Before I can question the frankly odd interaction, the Stranger is gone. Opal gives Marley a squeeze and they set off for the house as well.
“Come on,” Opal calls back to me. “Stay where I can see you.”
I lock eyes with Marley, silently warning him that I will be heading out after bedtime again. He sighs and acknowledges it with a tiny nod. I begin to follow behind the two of them when I spot Alona.
She looks distraught, stumbling towards the moonlit side of the loch with great distress.
“Alona!”
I call her name, the concern in my voice causing Opal and Marley to spin around. I run towards the Dryad, ready to fight for whatever she needs.
“It’s my Druid,” she says, in a splintery voice. “He’s gone. And his home has been destroyed.”
I look without hesitation to Opal, who is taking in Alona’s unearthly appearance and her tormented state. “Where?”
While I’m frustrated with my aunt about a lot of things, I’m grateful to her in this moment. She trusts, she asks the right questions, and she’s on our side.
“Take us, let us see,” I tell Alona.
She groans out another anguished noise but turns to the path by the water.
We follow.
*
The Druid’s cottage is a saddening sight.
What must’ve once been a cosy little haven is now ransacked and tattered. Papers ripped and shredded all over the room, the fire deliberately doused out and the fabric on the chair destroyed with what looks like a blade. Alona is inconsolable. Marley and I stay with her, flanking her, while Opal searches the little house.
“He’s gone,” Alona bleats, reaching out towards the destroyed furniture and shattered objects. “They’ve taken him.”
“Who?” Marley asks but he answers his own question within seconds. “The Fae?”
“On Portia’s orders, no doubt,” I add. “But why him? Does she think he knows about that creature? Or about us?”
“What creature?” Alona asks, bemusement mixing with worry.
“Some weird shapeshifter in the loch,” Marley tells her. “We think Portia’s looking for it.”
