I stand in front of it. My image ripples a tiny bit, or maybe that’s my eyes. I raise my hand. My reflection raises hers. But it’s like there’s a half-second lag, like a livestream glitching.
The me in the mirror blinks after I do.
Smiles after I do.
It’s the same smile, just a breath behind.
“Okay.” Asher gently squeezes my shoulder. “That’s not unnerving at all.”
“No, not a bit.”
He tilts his head, catching a different angle. “Is it some weird trick glass?”
“I have no idea, and I’m too tired for any more mind-bendy moments.”
We cross the hall, peeking into the two bedrooms opposite the main bedroom. Both are decorated in varying degrees of pink. Each has a princess bed with a canopy, and sheer white drapes. In the first one, there is an army of teddies and coloring books. In the next, there are stuffed sock monkeys and what looks to be the complete collection of Percy Jackson novels.
The next bedroom is finished in gray and a pretty plum color. The princess bed has been replaced by a cool four-poster, and there is a matching dresser and desk. There are clothes stacked over the back of the desk chair.
I pick up a couple of the tops and check them out. “I dig some of this girl’s style choices.”
“Yeah, I guess you would. Um, Poppy…” Asher walks over from beside the bed and extends his hand, offering me a framed photo.
I can’t breathe.
My gaze dances from face to face, searching for some point of recognition. There’s a man with chestnut-brown hair and laugh lines. There’s a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes who looks too much like me not to be family. The two smaller girls each have dark hair and hazel eyes like their dad, and then in the center?—
My stomach drops, clean and sharp. It’s not a dramatic moment. It’s the opposite. It’s quiet, precise.
The girl standing in the center of the family is me.
Not someone who looks like me, but actually me.
Younger, of course, but it’s unmistakable. She has her honey-blonde hair in a loose braid, and a constellation of freckles across the top of her cheeks you only see in sunlight. The rose gold pendant she wears holds the script of a name that my fingers find at my throat.
“Poppy,” Asher whispers. “This is it.”
I nod because I can’t make words. My chest is a drum. My blood is loud in my ears. The me in the photo doesn’t have the same sad look I often see when I look in the mirror.
She looks content.
She looks like she belongs exactly where she is.
My eyes blur. I blink them clear, my hands bracketing the photo on either side. My fingertip hovers over the curve of my cheek in the picture.
Asher’s hand finds my shoulder, steady and warm. “We’re going to figure this out, baby girl. Whatever it is, we’ve got this.”
The certainty of his words makes something in me unclench. I don’t look away from the photograph. I don’t think I can. Inthe picture, I have a family. A mother. A father. And two younger sisters.
“Where are they, Ash? What happened to them?”
Asher backs me up until my butt bumps the bed. Then he climbs onto the mattress from the other side and lifts the puffy gray and purple comforter. “We’ll figure it out. I bet there are dozens of clues in this house. We’ll get some sleep and then we’ll dig in first thing.”
He tugs me to lie down, and then he covers me with the blanket. “Whoever Blue Eyes was, he was telling the truth. He knows who you are, and he gave you a gift—a starting point. Tomorrow, we’ll take it from there.”
I set the framed picture on the bedside table facing me and wriggle backward until Asher’s arm drapes over my hip.
“Hey, house, can you get the lights, please?” he asks. “We’ve had enough for one night.”
