It started with her finger.
It was not quite 9am when Tilda realised the little finger on her right hand was missing.
She knew it was impossible. How could she lose a finger and not know?
But the hand that rested on her computer keyboard now had only four fingers.
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 gone.
Without her knowing, it had … what? Dropped off ?
Tilda searched the room for answers. Or her finger.
Her gaze skimmed over the piles of paperwork she’d been meaning to file, and the prints she was yet to frame, and the camera gear that lay scattered around, and 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 about six hours. It was a horrendous experience and 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 was drugged and had lost her mind?
At least she could explain that.
Breathe.
She turned her attention to things that were real. Her home office with pitch-perfect timber flooring, earthy colours and natural light from the large windows. Her photo wall, where over a dozen of her favourite photographs hung haphazardly in wood frames. The photos of her twins, Holly and Tabitha. Her girls were born from one shared womb but couldn’t have been more different. One photograph showed Holly, in all her auburn-haired beauty, head thrown back laughing, and tiny blonde 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.
One of 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 other images. Tilda’s closest friends, Leith and Ali, dancing barefoot in her garden, wine glasses in hand. An average Friday night…
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