Instead, Sam looked like a paper doll that had been attacked with a giant hole-punch.
Though everyone was dying for an explanation, we had elected to give the girls a moment to themselves, and stared in amazement from a respectful distance.
Enoch, however, paid them no such courtesy. “Excuse me,” he said, crowding into their personal space, “but could you please explain how it is that you’re alive?”
“It’s nothing serious,” Sam said. “Although my dress may not survive.”
“Nothing serious?!” said Enoch. “I can see clear through you!”
“It does smart a little,” she admitted, “but it’ll fill in in a day or so. Things like this always do.”
Enoch laughed dementedly. “
“In the name of all that’s peculiar,” Millard said quietly. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“She’s one of us,” I said.
* * *
We had questions. Lots of questions. As Esme’s tears began to fade, we worked up the courage to ask them.
Did Sam realize she was peculiar?
She knew she was different, she said, but had never heard the term
Had she ever lived in a loop?
She had not (“A what?”), which meant she was just as old as she appeared to be. Twelve, she said.
Had no ymbryne ever come to find her?
“Someone came once,” she answered. “There were others like me, but to join them I would’ve had to leave Esme behind.”
“Esme can’t …
“I can count backward from one hundred in a duck voice,” Esme volunteered through her sniffles, and then began to demonstrate, quacking: “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight …”
Before she could get any further, Esme was interrupted by a siren, this one high-pitched and moving fast in our direction. An ambulance careened into the alley and raced toward us, its headlights blacked out so that only
