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CHAPTER ONE

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

—EDEN PHILLPOTTS, author

It started with her finger.

It was not quite nine a.m. when Tilda realized that the little finger on her right hand was missing.

She knew it was impossible. How could she lose a finger? But the hand that rested on her computer keyboard now had only four fingers attached.

She blinked, unable to comprehend what was so preposterous. Waiting to see that it was a trick of the light. But it wasn't. Her finger was actually gone. Without her knowing, it had...what? Dropped off?

Tilda searched the room for answers. Or, rather, her finger. There was no sign of an injury. No blood. No pain.

Her gaze skimmed over the piles of paperwork she'd been meaning to file, and the prints she had yet to frame, and the camera gear that lay scattered around. Her eyes rested on an empty can of kombucha she had drunk earlier.

Had someone spiked the kombucha?

She'd done acid once back in her early twenties and thought she was stuck in a bubble for six hours. It was a horrendous experience, and it not only put her off hallucinogens for life but also gave her a deep-seated fear of losing her mind. A surge of adrenaline coursed through her limbs now—pure fear. What if she had been drugged and was losing her mind?

She turned her attention to things that were real. Her home office with its pitch-perfect wood floors, earthy colors, and natural light from the large windows. Her gallery wall, where over a dozen of her favorite photographs hung in mismatched wood frames. There were photos of her twins, Holly and Tabitha. Her girls had shared a womb but couldn't be more different. One photograph showed Holly, in all her green-eyed, auburn-haired beauty, head thrown back laughing, and tiny blond Tab, a step back from her spotlight-stealing sister, content in the background. Not that Tabitha was unsure of herself—she had a quiet confidence and was, in fact, the more self-assured of the two.

There was the photo of them both at Angkor Wat. 

Holly dressed for the lead in a school play.

Tabitha as she was awarded the citizenship medal at her high school graduation.

The two girls with their grandmother Frances at their twentieth birthday dinner, nearly a year ago now.

And then there were other images. Tilda's closest friends, Leith and Ali, dancing barefoot in her garden, wineglasses in hand. An average Friday night.

Her dog, Buddy, his large paw across Pirate, the cat, both curled up in front of a winter fire.

Pirate was watching her now from on top of the printer. He seemed normal, and she met his gaze. Pirate had only one eye, but it was steady and all-knowing. From the moment Tilda first saw Pirate four years earlier, she knew he was a cat who had seen things and survived them.

"He'll be a lifer," the woman at the animal shelter had said. "No one wants a damaged cat."

But Tilda knew how it felt to be discarded and alone, so she'd brought him home. On his papers, it said he was wary of all human interaction, but he'd jumped up onto her lap that very night and their three eyes had locked. Tilda's fears, stresses, and worries had all melted away, as if he'd drawn them out of her.

"You're special," she'd whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Pirate had curled up on her lap and fallen asleep, as if relieved that finally someone had seen him.

Even now, he calmed her. She wasn't tripping—the kombucha had been fine. Everything but her hand was normal.

Then what?