There are two of them, is all I can think.
I wrack my brains, doing everything I can to remember any mention of a sibling, let alone an identical twin, but there’s nothing.
Blank.
Mackenzie turns and gestures toward me, beaming at me with her sunshine smile.
‘Felicity, this is Mr Ledger,’ she says as I gawk. ‘Mr Ledger, this is my sister, Felicity.’
She bounces forward. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she says, immediately going in for a hug. I pat the small of her back softly as she pulls away, her eyes lingering on mine for a moment too long before she turns back and smiles.
‘I think Mr Ledger had a few questions for you?’ says Mackenzie. ‘I could get us all some lemonade?’
I blink, my chest thumping as I draw the first breath I’ve taken in almost a minute. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ I say, gulping my dry throat away.
‘Are you sure?’ says Mackenzie barely hiding her glee at my befuddlement. Brat.
‘I’ll answer anything?’ says Flick, winking before she whispers. ‘Anythingat all.’
‘Stop it,’ laughs Mackenzie, glowing red as she takes her sister’s hand and pulls it back. ‘Come on, let’s leave Mr Ledger alone. Upstairs.’
But before they can make their escape, Harper barrels through an open door from outside, leaping the gap with Willow in hot pursuit, screaming with joy as her sister chases her with a water pistol and I blink and grin as she skids to a halt, her eyes wide as she stops and stares.
‘Whoa,’ she says.
It takes Willow a few more steps to realise what’s going on, but when she finally sees she does a cartoon double-take. If her eyes could extend out of her head and warp into the size of two plates, they would.
‘Mackenzie?’ she says, flicking back and forth between them as her nanny raises her hand and waves, identifying herself.
‘Girls,’ she says. ‘Meet my sister, Flick.’
‘Flick?’ laughs Harper. ‘Like a booger.’
Felicity immediately snorts. ‘You must be Harper,’ she says, kneeling down. ‘Kenzie’s told me all about you.’
‘She has?’ she says, her eyes wide with pride.
‘She told me you have a real-life unicorn,’ she says, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes. ‘But I don’t believe her.’
‘I do!’ shouts Harper, jumping up and down.
‘No way,’ says Felicity.
‘I’ll show you,’ says my littlest as she runs past Red-Two, flying up the stairs, leaving Willow alone and blinking.
‘And this wonderful little lady, is Willow,’ says Mackenzie.
‘The reader,’ nods Felicity. ‘Now I bet that you haven’t read Kingdom’s Retreat.’
Willow’s eyes pop. ‘I have!’ she says. ‘It’s one of my favourites.’
‘No way, mine too,’ says Felicity, but before she can say anything else, Harper comes tumbling back down holding her favourite unicorn, dancing it down the stairs as she giggles and laughs.
‘Can we have two nannies, daddy?’ she says as she circles her, beaming as Felicity claps with joy.
I shake my head, my jaw hurting from the grin that’s been plastered there for a whole minute now.
‘One Mackenzie is enough,’ I say, looking at her and seeing her blush. ‘Come on girls, let’s leave them be and let them catch up.’