I sigh deeply, my tail giving a half-hearted wag when my lady passes by and gives me a scratch behind my ears. My man had left in his big metal thing what felt like an eternity ago, and without my girl there to play with, I am desperately bored. The lady is sometimes fun to play with, but she seems especially busy today – bustling about the food-place with a purpose that I haven’t seen since my girl had gone away ages ago.
As bored as I am, my ears still perk up when I hear the telltale sound of crunching gravel on the drive, indicating that my man is back in his big metal thing. Oh boy! How exciting. Maybe my man will throw the ball for me since my lady is too distracted. I jump up and place his paws up on the railing to bark out my hello to my man when I see – it’s not just my man, but it’s my girl! My girl! She’s finally back from being away! She was gone for so long; I was getting scared she was never coming back! My lady runs out of the front door with a yell, a happy sound that makes my tongue loll out with joy, and I keep barking at my girl, trying to attract her attention. Look at me! Look at me! I’m here too! I missed you so much!
I run through the house as my lady takes my girl onto the porch. I want to say hello in person! I am so excited to see her! But when I get onto the porch, I realize that something is… off. She isn’t behaving like she normally does, and her scent is strange. Was it just from her being away from so long? Did she not recognize me? She hasn’t gotten down onto her knees to greet me, and she hasn’t said her special nickname for me. Could my lady not see that my girl is acting weird?
I know that humans rely far too heavily on their eyes, I’ve known that for ages – when my man hadn’t noticed the stray cat skulking in the bushes until I had brought my man one of the squalling kittens it had given birth to there, I’d realized that humans are utterly useless to anything not immediately visible. They barely use their eyes, and their other senses may as well be absent, for all they use them. But this is taking it to a new level – the cadence of her voice, even though I can’t understand her words, is all wrong, and she can barely look me in the face. She holds herself too rigid and straight, with none of the careless ease that she normally has. Her face is pale, and the spots decorating her face are just barely out of place; the scar on her ankle that she had gotten two warm seasons ago falling into a gully is conspicuously absent. How can they not see?
She smells like pine forest and sawdust and sweat; this is not, of itself, abnormal, but she also smells of some musky spice that’s foreign to me, and some astringent, almost antiseptic flower that I have never smelled before. She’s quiet, far quieter than she has ever been before, with none of the exuberance that I remember. My hackles rise almost against my will, and I let out a bark that was less excited and more wary, hoping that she will start acting normal again. When all she does is grimace and brush past him, I whine at my lady. Could she still not see that my girl is not acting right? When my lady only kneels down and rubs my head, I whine restlessly.
I know, now, that I’m going to have to keep an eye on my girl. Something has happened to her while she was away. All I can hope is that she’ll snap out of it soon.
I miss my girl.
--
The more the I watch, the more I am convinced that this is not my girl. The girl who is not my girl has the rest of my people fooled – her father, my lady, and the new lady, who, ironically enough, seems the most suspicious out of all of the humans of the girl who is not my girl, even though she has never met my girl before. Sure, when all of the humans are watching, she seems almost herself, except for the pervasive smell that seems stronger in the morning. But she slips up, like any imposter might – little things, like forgetting to stick her finger in the peanut butter jar when my lady has it open, leaping into the pool in a ball and making a great splash when she usually will jump in so smoothly that the water will barely ripple, fiddling with her hair and acting surprised to find it in the style that it is. But I slowly have come to realize that the girl who is not my girl drops all pretense when the rest of my humans are gone.
She becomes like a stranger in those moments, instead of a version of herself that is only slightly left of center. She paces erratically, something she has never done; my girl climbs trees and hangs from them upside down if she’s agitated. Her voice changes from the roughened drawl I’m used to into a clipped, light accent that is completely foreign to me – I’ve never heard a human talk like that, and it scares me. She disappears into nooks and crannies for hours at a time, at all hours of the day, and it sounds, to my more sensitive hearing, like she’s talking to two versions of herself, one thin and strained and one tight and strong. A few times, she breaks into guttural speech that sounds to me like speaking in tongues, nearly yelling her agitation to the sky – my lady seems to notice that, at least, but brushes it off as soon as it happens. The girl who is not my girl refuses her favorite foods, barely eating anything at all, only picking up vegetables and fruits that she had scorned before she had left. And I quickly see that the incident with the yelling is not an aberration; no, my humans are perfectly willing to explain away any bizarreness that the girl who is not my girl displays. Any slips that the girl who is not my girl makes are ignored, or laughed off, or met, at worst, with a raised eyebrow. I want to shake my humans by the scruffs of their neck to make them see what’s happening, but despite all of the clues that I’m leaving for them, they are more willing to ignore what is becoming increasingly, glaringly obvious than they are to face the imposter that is in my girl’s bedroom.
She does things wrong, rides her horse in an unfamiliar manner, drinks through a straw instead of glugging the juice down like she would have before my girl left. Her room is immaculately straight, with no blankets left down for me to burrow into, no boots strewn across the floorboards for me to sniff and get my nose stuck in while my girl laughs and helps to free me. Nothing is getting through to my family, and I’m getting desperate. I find myself wondering if she’ll even bleed like my girl would have, or if the girl who is not my girl is not a human at all. The resemblances are uncanny, terrifying even, but I can still see that something is just not right about the girl who is not my girl. I keep my distance from her – I’m scared that if I get too close to her, like the other humans have, that I’ll forget that she isn’t who she says she is. I watch her bedroom door at night from the hallway, praying that she will stay in her room and not disturb the others. I worry that she can change them, to be like her – humans that are not my humans, other strangers in my home.
A few weeks into my surveillance, my lady realizes – finally – that something is desperately wrong. I can smell the salt of her tears as she confronts the girl who is not my girl, and I watch slyly from the corner of the room. Finally, this is it – someone else knows what’s going on; someone will be able to rid our house of this imposter and find my girl. But to my dismay, before my lady can say anything to the girl who is not my girl, my man rushes in through the door, smelling of dirt and horse and summer sun. He interrupts my lady, and the girl who is not my girl freezes as his hand lands on her shoulder. He seems angry – but not like he’s realized what my lady has realized, sadly. And then – my lady hugs the girl who is not my girl. I want to howl – the girl who is not my girl has tricked my lady, somehow, into thinking she is not a threat.
I realize that this is likely why my man has not said anything. He can’t be fooled, after all of this time, so she must have gotten to him when I wasn’t watching. And the worst part is that, despite knowing that the imposter is not my girl, neither of them are doing anything to find my girl. And when my lady closes herself into the food-place, I figure out something even more dire – the girl who is not my girl is dividing my humans, keeping them in opposition. Why? I dread finding out the answer.
--
A few more days pass, and my lady leashes me up. I think that we must be taking a walk, but when the girl who is not my girl emerges from the house behind us holding onto two bags and places them gently into the rear of the great metal thing that my man drives, I realize that we are going on a trip. I don’t know where, and I’m suddenly more afraid than I ever have been. My girl left and came back different. Are we going to the place where that happened? Are all of my humans going to come back as people who are not my people? Will I be replaced by some sort of facsimile of myself? I’m terrified. I cower, I whine, I roll over onto my belly to get my lady to stop, but she just groans and picks me up, placing me onto the seat next to the girl who is not my girl. The girl who is not my girl smiles at me uneasily, reaching over to scratch behind my ears. I growl at her and she swiftly retracts her hand – a momentary victory, at best, as my lady turns around and glares at me. My man hops onto his seat, and the great metal thing rumbles to life.
We drive for an eternity, finally stopping in a place more bustling with activity than any I’ve seen before. There are families here, hundreds of them, with dogs and cats of their own, all of their animals looking just as uncomfortable as I feel. I feel convinced – this is where the exchange must have happened. I look around, beginning to bark, trying to seek a way to get my humans out of this hellish place, but my lady just holds more tightly onto my leash. Can’t she see that I’m trying to save them?!
We walk into the gaping maw of the beast, me lagging behind as far as I can. I bark my displeasure, but my lady simply shushes me as the girl who is not my girl uneasily stares at me, only looking away once the new lady appears in front of us. Not the new lady, too! How could the girl who is not my girl have gotten everyone in one place so easily? I have been hoping to have an ally in the new lady, but if she was here, all hope is lost. She leans down to pet me, and I growl, barking and snapping at her manicured fingers in my rage against what was happening – if she refuses to see what’s happening all around us, then I need to find some sort of way to get out and save them before they can damn themselves.
I spend the next few hours sniffing out the best escape as we wander through the labyrinthine passages. The new lady talks and talks, but no one really seems to be listening; the girl who is not my girl is restlessly looking around. And then, I smell something familiar. Something that has been missing for too long – my girl. I take off running, the girl who is not my girl hanging onto my leash for dear life as I barrel down the hall.
There she is – my girl. She’s behind a swiftly-closing door, next to a strange man in all black. I bark at her, trying to get her attention – and she looks up at me, yelling my name, and I break free from the girl who is not my girl, leap over every obstacle in my way, and plant myself at her feet and in her arms. As the doors finally close, I look back at the girl who is not my girl – and I wonder, who the hell is she?
I get my answer only hours later. She is my girl’s twin. She is Annie James, the counterpart to my Hallie Parker. She is terrifying and different and foreign, yet she is the looking glass reflection of my girl. And my girl? Loves her.