From Fraidy Cat Quarterly: Volume 4
It had been a month, more or less, since Louisa had been abducted. It was hard to keep track of time up here while the aliens poked and prodded her with their long boneless limbs.
She had tried to escape, of course. She had fought until they restrained her, screamed and bitten until they muzzled her, spat and pissed on them until they stopped touching her directly. None of it stopped their experiments. They didn’ respond to English, or broken Spanish. They tested her and observed, faceless. Could she eat spoons? Grass? Raw meat? (This she had devoured out of desperate hunger.) They took her blood, her hair, her skin. They made her run to exhaustion, and didn’ seem to understand sleep. They filled her small, amorphous holding cell with air, with water, with vacuum.
Then they beamed her back down to Earth.
Louisa jolted awake midair and held her breath, afraid it was just another test and any moment she would rise back to the ship.
She blinked bleary eyes against the vast space around her, moon blurring into moons. Her heart was pounding as she saw herself rising…she must be dissociating. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, waiting to see if it was real.
The light of the beam vanished and she fell. Her eyes flew open as she hit a bed. Her bed, though the silk pillowcase against her cheek was unfamiliar. She jumped up and flung on the lights, squinting against the yellow of her walls, brighter than she remembered. She was alone for the first time in a month. David must be on a night shift or out looking for her.
Her favorite pajamas were missing, so she donned David’s undershirt and loose boxers for comfort. Dressed, she felt more human than she had in weeks.
She ran down the hall, which seemed longer than she remembered, and then she was quietly opening the door to the children’s room.
They were asleep, two lumps under blankets. Louisa tiptoed in and lifted little Connie to Zach’s bed, so she could cuddle them both.
They murmured in sleep, but didn’ wake. She dared not turn on the light. Zach’s hair had grown long this past month. Little Connie’s cheeks were pudgier.
Louisa squeezed them both as tight as she dared, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, still not really believing she was actually here, actually safe.
She heard the door downstairs unlock and tensed, but it must be David arriving home.
She listened as he walked up the stairs to their room, and then down the hall to the children’s. He would understand that she couldn’ bear to leave them.
He opened the door, hall light falling across them all.
“Louisa? What are you doing here?” David sounded bemused, nowhere near the surprised excitement she had anticipated. He should be weeping with joy at seeing her safe, but he stood casually in his scrubs and a mustache he hadn’ had when she was taken.
“Nice mustache.” She matched his casual tone, expecting him to break into exuberant relief any moment.
Instead, he twirled its edges. “I know you love it.”
Had the aliens done something so he wouldn’ miss her?
Louisa glanced down at little Connieexcept the smaller child was Zach. Zach, looking years younger.
She recoiled, waking him as none of her tender movements had.
“Mama…?” He shrank away from her, sixth sense he had yet to outgrow telling him something was deeply wrong.
Had she gone back in time? But David had never had a mustache, and…she turned towards the other child. Little Connie…who was big. Not her cute five-year-old self but at least seven.
These weren’ her children.
Zach began to cry. “What’s wrong with Mama?”
“Hey, now.” David was beside them, reaching to take Zach. “Your Mama just had a nightmare, right?” He wrinkled his nose. “And needs a shower.”
“Right,” Louisa echoed weakly, struggling to the bathroom.
She did strip and step under the water, trying to wash off the wrongness. None of her usual products were there to lather with. Her mind whirled. What if she really had seen herself rising in the tractor beam?
The two moons…she ran to the window, slipping across the tiles. There they were. Two moons.
This wasn’ her world. The aliens had swapped her out for some other Louisa.
“Honey?” David tapped on the bathroom door. “Can I come in?”
Louisa shrank back from his voice. She couldn’ bear for her not-husband to see her naked, vulnerable.
How could she explain? He would never believe all she had endured, when she hadn’ even been missing here. They were practical people. She wouldn’ have believed if it hadn’ happened to her.
And then…what if he did believe? She would be studied by Earth’s scientists as she had been by the aliens. And there was no way for them to send her backhumankind had no knowledge of other universes. She would never see her real family again. And if this family knew…not-David would devote himself to trying to find his own Louisa. She herself would have no right to see Connie and Zach, let alone raise them. And she had thought powerlessness was being trapped on the ship.
The only scenario where she didn’ lose everything was pretending to belong in this not-life. Pretending to love her not-family.
“Please just give me a few minutes, honey,” called Louisa through the door to not-David, trying to keep her voice steady. “You were right. A nightmare.”
And somewhere impossibly far away, a month ago when she had been taken, the replacement Louisa flung into her own life would have made the same decision. Her own David would never know she was gone.
©️L.R. McGary
L. R. McGary is from Massachusetts, USA, but has lived and taught English in the Czech Republic, Austria, Spain and Italy. She grew up reading and loving science fiction and fantasy, and has known she wanted to write her own since her first novel attempt in eighth grade (age 12). In her spare time, she hikes, kayaks, plays with the family dog, makes ceramics, and occasionally gardens. She holds a BFA in Writing from Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York, USA.