Chapter 4: The Changeling I Call Sister

Alex lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom while the events of the night replayed in an endless loop. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that thing in the mirror—his own face, but wrong, hungry, patient. And worse, he saw Clara's expression when she'd asked Am I? with such raw uncertainty that it had cut through him like broken glass.

The house had settled into its normal rhythms after the mirror incident. His parents had swept up the larger shards, muttering about teenage clumsiness and old furniture. Clara had helped, playing her role perfectly—concerned but not overly dramatic, helpful but not suspiciously eager.

Just like she'd been playing her role for three years.

Now, as gray morning light filtered through his blinds, Alex could hear the familiar sounds of his family's Sunday routine. His father's shower running. His mother's footsteps in the kitchen, the clink of coffee mugs and cereal bowls. And underneath it all, Clara's voice humming something—a song he recognized but couldn't quite place.

The melody stopped him cold. It was "Blackbird" by The Beatles, the same song his real sister used to hum while getting ready for school. She'd learned it in her sophomore guitar class and had been obsessed with it for months, humming it constantly until their parents had begged her to pick a new song.

But that had been four years ago. Before the replacement. Before this Echo had crossed over.

So how did she know Clara's old habits? How perfectly had she absorbed not just his sister's recent memories, but her entire history?

Alex forced himself out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom, avoiding his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror out of instinct. When he came downstairs, Clara was already at the kitchen table, scrolling through her phone while eating cereal. She looked up when he entered, and her smile was so genuinely warm, so naturally Clara-like, that for a moment he almost forgot what he'd learned.

"Morning, birthday boy," she said, the same teasing affection she'd always used. "How are you feeling? You were pretty shaken up last night."

Their parents weren't in the kitchen—he could hear his father still in the shower, his mother doing laundry in the basement. They were alone, but Clara was still performing, still being the perfect sister. Was it for his benefit, or had the act become so ingrained that she couldn't turn it off?

"I'm fine," Alex said carefully, pouring himself orange juice with hands that only trembled slightly.

"You sure? You look like you didn't sleep." Clara's brow furrowed with what appeared to be genuine concern. "Maybe you should stay home from school tomorrow. You know, after the shock and everything."

There it was again—that perfect mimicry of sisterly care. But now Alex could see the subtle wrongness underneath. The way her expression was just a fraction too symmetrical, her concern just a degree too measured. It was like watching a master artist's forgery—flawless to the casual observer, but wrong in ways that made his skin crawl once he knew what to look for.

"I said I'm fine," he repeated, more sharply than he'd intended.

Clara's face shifted, and Alex caught something flickering behind her eyes—irritation? Calculation? It was gone so quickly he might have imagined it, replaced by hurt surprise.

"Okay, okay. No need to bite my head off." She held up her hands in mock surrender, and the gesture was so perfectly Clara that Alex felt dizzy. "I'm just worried about my little brother."

But the real Clara had never called him "little brother." She'd used his name, or "dork," or "hey you," but never that particular phrase. It was a small thing, barely noticeable, but it felt like a crack in her perfect facade.

"Since when do you call me that?" he asked.

Clara paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth. "Call you what?"

"Little brother. You've said it twice now. You never used to."

The pause stretched just a beat too long. "I don't know what you mean. I've always called you that."

But she hadn't. Alex was certain of it. The real Clara had teased him about being younger, sure, but she'd never used that specific phrase. It was too formal, too distant. Too much like something an outsider might think a sister would say.

"No, you haven't." Alex sat down across from her, studying her face. "You used to call me Alex, or dork when you were being annoying. Sometimes 'hey you' when you couldn't be bothered to use my name. But never little brother."

Clara's smile didn't waver, but something cold flickered in her eyes. "I think you're remembering wrong. People change their speech patterns, you know. It's called growing up."

The dismissal was smooth, practiced, but Alex caught the slight edge to her voice. He was making her uncomfortable, forcing her to improvise, and the cracks in her performance were starting to show.

"What about the humming?" he pressed. "You were humming 'Blackbird' this morning. You haven't hummed that song since sophomore year."

"Maybe I was feeling nostalgic." Clara's spoon clinked against her bowl as she set it down. "Alex, what's this about? Are you still freaked out from last night? Because I told you, it was just an accident with the mirror—"

"Was it?" Alex leaned forward, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "Because you seemed to know exactly what to do. You had that compact ready, you knew how to trap it in a loop. That's not the kind of knowledge someone picks up by accident."

Clara went very still. The kitchen was quiet except for the distant sound of the washing machine and his father's off-key singing from upstairs. When she spoke, her voice was carefully neutral.

"I read about it online once. Urban legends, you know? I thought it was just silly internet stuff, but when I saw that thing in the mirror..." She shrugged, but the gesture looked forced. "Desperate times, desperate measures."

It was a reasonable explanation. A perfect cover story. But Alex had spent seventeen years learning to read his sister's tells, and this wasn't how Clara acted when she was telling the truth. The real Clara would have been more animated, more eager to share the details of her research. She would have pulled out her phone to show him the websites, excited to prove her point.

This Clara was being too careful, too controlled.

"Show me," Alex said suddenly.

"Show you what?"

"The website where you learned about trapping Echoes in mirrors. Pull it up right now."

Clara's hand moved toward her phone, then stopped. "I don't remember the exact site. It was just random browsing, you know how it is. You click one link and end up somewhere completely different..."

Another tell. The real Clara had an excellent memory for online research. She could quote Wikipedia articles she'd read months ago, could navigate back to obscure forum posts through pure determination. She would never have been so vague about her sources, especially not about something as important as what had happened last night.

"You're lying," Alex said quietly.

"I'm not—"

"You're lying, and you're not even good at it." The words came out harsher than he'd intended, but he was past caring about her feelings. "The real Clara was a terrible liar. She'd get flustered and over-explain everything. But you're too smooth, too prepared. You've got an answer for everything."

Clara's mask slipped for just a moment, and Alex saw something alien looking out through his sister's familiar features. Something calculating and cold, weighing its options.

Then the mask snapped back into place, and she was Clara again—hurt, confused, worried about her brother's mental state.

"Alex, you're scaring me. Maybe we should talk to Mom and Dad about getting you some help. This obsession with mirrors and conspiracies, it's not healthy—"

"Don't." Alex's voice was sharp enough to cut glass. "Don't you dare try to gaslight me. I know what I saw last night, and I know what you told me afterward. You admitted you weren't really Clara."

"I was in shock. I said a lot of things that didn't make sense—"

"You said you were an Echo. You said the real Clara has been trapped in the Glass Realm for three years." Alex leaned across the table, his eyes boring into hers. "Were you lying then, or are you lying now?"

Clara opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. For a long moment, they stared at each other across the breakfast table—brother and sister, or something pretending to be sister, locked in a battle of wills that felt like it could determine the fate of his entire family.

Finally, Clara sighed. The sound was heavy, tired, and for the first time since he'd known her, completely without pretense.

"Both," she said quietly. "I was telling the truth last night, but I'm lying now. I have to lie now, Alex. It's the only way this works."

The admission hit him like a physical blow, even though he'd been expecting it. Hearing her confirm his suspicions was somehow worse than not knowing for certain.

"So you really aren't Clara."

"No, I'm not." She looked down at her hands, clasped on the table between them. "But I'm all the Clara your parents have left. All the Clara you have left."

"That's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?" Clara looked up at him, and there was something desperate in her expression now. "I have all her memories, Alex. Every birthday party, every scraped knee, every bedtime story. I remember teaching you to tie your shoes when you were five. I remember staying up with you when you had nightmares about monsters under your bed. I remember being proud of you when you made honor roll, and worried about you when you started high school."

She reached across the table, her fingers brushing his. "I know you hate mushrooms on pizza but you'll eat them if they're mixed into spaghetti sauce. I know you're afraid of needles but you pretend you're not because you think it's babyish. I know you have a crush on Emma Richardson but you're too nervous to ask her out."

Alex jerked his hand away. "Those are Clara's memories. Not yours."

"What's the difference?" Clara's voice was pleading now, all pretense abandoned. "If I remember loving you, if I remember caring about you, if I act on those feelings—what's the difference between that and the 'real' thing?"

"The difference is that my real sister is trapped somewhere, probably suffering, while you get to live her life." Alex's voice was cold, harder than he'd ever heard it sound. "You're wearing her face like a mask, and you're asking me to pretend that's okay."

Clara flinched as if he'd slapped her. "I never asked for this. I didn't choose to be created, didn't choose to replace her. I just... exist. And now that I do exist, I'm trying to make the best of an impossible situation."

"By lying to everyone who loves her."

"By protecting everyone who loves her!" Clara's voice rose, then immediately dropped back to a whisper as she remembered their parents were still in the house. "Do you think your parents could handle the truth? Do you think knowing what really happened to Clara would make them happier?"

Alex thought of his mother's forced cheerfulness during birthday preparations, his father's confused looks when Clara acted just slightly off. They sensed something was wrong, but they'd convinced themselves it was normal teenage development rather than face the alternative.

"They deserve to know," he said, but the words felt hollow.

"They deserve to be happy. They deserve to feel like their family is whole and safe." Clara leaned forward, her eyes intense. "I can give them that, Alex. I can be the daughter they need, even if I'm not the daughter they had. Isn't that worth something?"

Before Alex could answer, he heard his mother's footsteps on the basement stairs. Clara immediately straightened, her expression smoothing back into casual normalcy. By the time their mother entered the kitchen, she was just a teenage girl finishing her breakfast, maybe a little concerned about her younger brother's quiet mood.

"Morning, sweetheart," their mother said, ruffling Alex's hair as she passed. "How are you feeling after last night?"

"He's okay," Clara answered for him, shooting him a meaningful look. "Just tired. I was telling him he should maybe take it easy today."

Their mother nodded absently, already moving on to the mundane concerns of a Sunday morning—grocery lists and laundry and whether they needed to call someone about the broken mirror.

Normal family life, built on a foundation of lies.

Alex watched Clara perform her role, noting the subtle ways she guided the conversation, deflected potential complications, maintained the illusion of normalcy that kept their parents functional. She was good at it—better than good. She'd had three years to perfect the act, and it showed.

But now that he knew what to look for, he could see the performance underneath. The way her smiles were just a fraction too symmetrical. The way she paused, just briefly, before responding to their mother's casual questions about school and friends. The way she seemed to be constantly calculating, always thinking one step ahead.

She was an actor playing a role. A very good actor, but an actor nonetheless.

And somewhere, in some hellish mirror dimension, his real sister was paying the price for that performance.

As his mother bustled around the kitchen and Clara continued her flawless impersonation of a normal teenager, Alex made a decision that would change everything.

He was going to find a way to save Clara. The real Clara.

Even if it meant destroying the carefully constructed lie that held his family together.

Even if it meant confronting whatever impossible powers had created the Echo sitting across from him.

Even if it meant risking everything he thought he knew about reality itself.

His sister was out there somewhere, trapped and waiting.

And Alex wasn't going to abandon her to save everyone's comfortable illusions.

Not anymore.