Lucy was 7, bright, curious, and endlessly talkative. She adjusted quickly, more quickly than he expected. Their new house was a modest two-story home with peeling white paint and creaky floors, but to her, it was a palace compared to their cramped city apartment.
On their first night, she ran from room to room, announcing which corner would be for her books, which wall needed fairy lights, and how the attic was “definitely haunted but in a fun way.”
Kevin laughed, grateful for her enthusiasm. He needed her optimism more than ever. The move was as much an escape as it was a new beginning. Lucy’s mother, Sarah, had left them years earlier, when Lucy was just a toddler.
The official word was that she “wasn’t ready for family life.” In truth, Sarah had slipped out of their lives without much explanation, and Kevin had raised Lucy on his own ever since.
He thought he had put that part of his life behind him. Until the day he saw the girl in the library.
It was a rainy Thursday afternoon, a week after they’d settled in. Kevin had taken Lucy to the town library to get her a card. The place smelled of paper and polish, with tall windows that let in gray light. Lucy disappeared almost immediately into the children’s section, leaving him to browse biographies near the circulation desk.
That’s when he noticed her.
A girl, his daughter’s mirror image, walked down the aisle between the shelves. She had the same dark hair that curled just at the ends, the same wide, gray eyes, even the same small scar on her chin from what looked like an old fall. For a heartbeat, Kevin thought it was Lucy. His chest tightened in panic.
