The Second Copy

I was eight when we moved to my grandmother’s old house in the countryside, a sprawling structure with creaking floorboards and a cellar that smelled of damp earth. My cousin Leah lived next door with her two boys, Marcus, who was five, and little Joel, who had just turned two. We were close, spending our summer days chasing fireflies and playing hide-and-seek in the overgrown garden.

One sweltering July night, a fierce storm knocked out the power. The house fell into a thick, suffocating darkness, the kind that seemed to press against your skin. Leah decided to bring her sleeping sons down to the living room where the wide windows let in the cool night breeze. She carried Joel first, his small body limp and sweaty against her shoulder. She laid him on the old sofa, then turned to go back upstairs for Marcus.

As she reached the stairs, she heard Marcus’s voice, high and clear, coming from the bedroom. He was giggling, talking in that singsong way children do when they’re playing with a friend. Her blood went cold. There was no one else in the house. She pressed herself against the wall, straining to hear. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Marcus said. ‘And then we can go to the cellar tomorrow. But don’t tell Mommy.’ There was a pause, then another voice, one that made Leah’s heart stutter. It was my voice, my childlike voice, but wrong somehow, like it was coming from a deep well. ‘I promise. It’ll be our secret.’

Leah stood frozen, her breath held. She heard Marcus laugh again, then a soft thump, as if someone had jumped off the bed. The door was ajar, and she forced herself to look through the gap. The room was bathed in the faint blue light of the night outside. Marcus was sitting up in bed, his face turned toward the window, talking animatedly to nothing. And next to him, clearly visible in the moonlight, was a shape huddled at the foot of the bed. It was small, like a child, but its features were murky, like a photograph left out in the rain. It turned its head, and for a moment, Leah saw its face, or the suggestion of a face, and it was my face, but my eyes were black and empty.

Leah stumbled back, a scream caught in her throat. She fled down the stairs, grabbed Joel, and ran to our house, pounding on the door until my mother opened it. She was shaking, tears streaming down her face. ‘There’s something in the house,’ she gasped. ‘It was talking to Marcus. It looked like Anna.’ My mother tried to calm her, but I was standing at the top of the stairs, watching. I remember the fear in Leah’s eyes when she saw me. She looked at me as if I were the monster.

That night, after my father and uncle searched the house and found nothing, Leah kept Marcus in her room, refusing to let him out of her sight. In the morning, she asked him, her voice brittle, ‘Who were you talking to last night, baby?’ Marcus looked up with his big innocent eyes and said, ‘Anna and Uncle Carlo.’ Carlo was my older cousin, who had died the year before in a car accident. Leah went pale. I was playing in the yard, and she called me over. ‘Did you come into our house last night?’ she asked. I shook my head. ‘No, I was asleep.’ She looked at me for a long moment, then back at Marcus. ‘And Carlo? You know he’s gone, right?’ Marcus shrugged. ‘He was there. He said we could play in the cellar.’

That was the first time I knew something was wrong. But it wasn’t until a week later that I understood. My mother sent me to the cellar to fetch a jar of preserves. The cellar was a dark, cramped space with a low ceiling and a dirt floor. I descended the wooden steps, the air growing cooler and mustier. As I reached the bottom, I heard a sound, a soft humming, coming from the far corner. I froze. The humming stopped, and then a voice said, ‘Hello, Anna.’ It was my own voice. I turned and saw myself standing there in the shadows, a perfect copy of me, but with eyes that were too wide and a smile that was too sharp. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The copy took a step forward, and I felt a cold breeze wash over me. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ it said. ‘I knew you’d come.’

I stumbled backward, scrambling up the steps, slamming the cellar door shut. I ran to my mother, hysterical, but when I told her, she just looked at me with a worried frown. ‘There’s no one down there, honey. You just imagined it.’ But I knew what I saw. I refused to go near the cellar again.

Days passed, and the strange occurrences increased. I would find my toys moved, as if someone else had been playing with them. My mother would hear two sets of footsteps in my room at night. I would wake up with scratches on my arms. And always, I felt a presence, a weight on my chest, as if something was trying to take root inside me.

One evening, my father came home with a strange look on his face. He pulled my mother aside, and I overheard him say, ‘There’s another girl at the market, claiming to be Anna.’ My mother’s face went white. ‘She spoke to me,’ my father said. ‘I thought it was a prank. But she knew things, things about our family, about our house. She even knew about the time Anna got lost in the woods for a whole day.’

My parents drove to the town square, and I went with them, my heart thudding in my chest. And there, under the lone oak tree, stood another girl, my spitting image. She wore the same dress I was wearing, had the same hair. She smiled when she saw me, and her smile was full of teeth. ‘Hello, Anna,’ she said. ‘I’ve been so lonely without you.’

My parents stood frozen. A passerby had stopped, his eyes darting between us. ‘Is that her twin?’ he asked. My mother shook her head weakly, ‘No. She has no twin.’

The copy took a step toward me. ‘Remember the promise we made in the cellar?’ she said. ‘You promised to trade places with me.’ My blood ran cold. I remembered the time I was lost in the woods, the day I wandered alone for hours, hearing a voice calling my name from the trees. I had found a clearing with a mirror-like pool, and I had seen a girl looking up at me from the water. She had asked me to play, and I had agreed. In that moment, I had sealed a bond.

Now, my copy stood before me, and I knew she was here to collect. I turned to run, but she grabbed my wrist. Her hand was ice-cold, and I felt a pull, as if she was trying to yank my soul from my body. ‘It’s time,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve been borrowed, and I want me back.’ My parents tried to separate us, but it was like trying to pull apart two magnets.

In the chaos, my copy vanished. But I knew she was still with me, inside me. From that day on, I would sometimes see her reflection in mirrors, watching me. I would hear her voice in my head, whispering secrets. And I learned her name, the name she had stolen from me: Anna.

Years passed. I moved away, changed my name, tried to forget. But she followed. I saw her in the corner of my eye, wearing my face. And I know, one day, she’ll find a way to take my place completely. I’ve already seen it happen. The last time I looked in a mirror, the reflection smiled first.