They are not my babies, she thought. They are that woman’s, that horrible woman from the hospital, from the dream. Who wasn’t there. Was she? She must have been there, all along, because now she’s with the police. What is happening to me?

Doctor Summer bent forward to write on the paper on her clipboard. Eventually the pen stopped moving and she smiled at Lauren. Lauren felt very tired.

“We’re going to bring the babies here so that you can be with them.”

“OK. Good,” she said, thinking, no, don’t bring them here.

In trying to control her facial expression, to hide the panic she felt expanding in her chest, her eye began to twitch involuntarily and she pressed her fingertips to it to make it stop. I don’t want to see them, she thought. We need to find the real babies, my Morgan and my Riley. She’s put them inside the bodies of the other ones, the ones from the river. They won’t like being eels, being those fishy creatures. They won’t know how to swim, how to breathe underwater. And, if the woman who took them is with the police, they’ll be all alone. Lost, calling out for their mother.

The doctor was frowning at her. Lauren was sure she hadn’t spoken out loud. Almost completely sure.

I think she lives in the river, that woman.

Don’t say that. Did I say that?

The doctor put down her clipboard and leaned towards Lauren, her hands clasped together. “Let’s keep an open mind,” she said. “We’ll give you all the support you need—the staff here are very experienced with mums and babies. When the boys arrive we’ll make sure you’re all happy and we’ll go from there.”

Lauren swallowed. Her throat felt tight. She needed to keep it together, because she needed to get out of here as quickly as possible and put things right. There might be a deal to be made, with the woman, but she’d do anything. Anything except let it go on—anything except let her keep them. She intended to force the woman to change them back, and she would do whatever it took.

“Relax, Lauren. You’re safe here with us.”

The doctor placed a hand on top of both of hers, where she was gripping them tightly together in her lap. She tried to take long, slow breaths. The doctor spoke softly, and Lauren held her gaze, attempting to seem calm.

“I know that at the moment it’s difficult for you to tell the difference between what is real and what is a symptom of your illness.”