Chapter 2 - Echoes in the Mirror
The restaurant downtown was a staging ground for elite networking—a place where venture capitalists and tech founders sealed multi-million dollar deals over plates of seared diver scallops and vintage Bordeaux. Julian had stopped there to meet a regional director for a final document sign-off before heading to the airfield.
The meeting had taken six minutes. The signature was inked. But as Julian rose to leave, a sudden, sharp pressure in his lower abdomen reminded him of the three espressos he had consumed during the negotiation. He excused himself and pushed through the heavy mahogany door marked GENTLEMEN.
The restroom was a sanctuary of minimalist luxury: charcoal-slate tiles, warm amber sconces, and an overwhelming scent of sandalwood and expensive cedar. It was empty save for a low murmuring sound coming from the far corner near the double sinks.
Julian walked to the nearest basin, unbuttoning his suit jacket just enough to breathe, and turned on the faucet.
Four small figures stood in a neat row before the opposite row of sinks.
At first glance, they looked like an optical illusion. Four little boys, all wearing identical navy-blue blazers, crisp white button-down shirts, and trousers that pooled slightly over worn black sneakers. None of them could have been older than six. They were too quiet, too orderly for children that age, standing side-by-side like miniature boardroom executives waiting for a briefing.
Julian shook water from his hands, paying them no mind. He reached for a linen hand towel, his gaze drifting lazily to the mirror.
In the reflection, the smallest boy—the one on the far left—reached up and pushed a damp lock of sandy-brown hair away from his forehead.
Julian’s breath hitched.
Simultaneously, the second boy did the exact same thing. Then the third. Then the fourth. Four small hands, moving in precise, rhythmic unison.
Then came the second movement: each boy’s fingers drifted from his forehead up to the crown of his head, delivering a tiny, unconscious shake to settle his hair, before their left hands instinctively lifted to graze the back of their necks in a brief, comforting scratch.
Julian froze. The linen towel slipped from his paralyzed fingers, dropping silently onto the slate floor.
He had performed that exact sequence of gestures every single time he was nervous, stressed, or deep in thought, from the time he was a toddler until this very second. His father, Arthur Farrington, used to laugh and tap Julian’s shoulder, saying, “There it is. That’s how you can tell when a Farrington man is cornered—he checks his neck and fixes his crown.”
Arthur had told him it was a genetic tic unique to their bloodline. A quirk passed down from grandfather to father to son.
Julian stared at the four boys in the mirror.
One of them—the one with a slight scuff mark on his left shoe—turned his head and caught Julian’s wide, terrified gaze in the glass.
"Mister," the boy asked, his voice bright and entirely unafraid, "why are you doing what we’re doing?"
Julian’s throat felt as though it had been scrubbed with sand. "I'm... I'm not."
All five of them stood motionless, staring at the reflection.
The same striking gray-blue eyes that stared back at Julian from his own mirror every morning. The same sharply defined, almost stubborn chin line. And, most damning of all, on the left cheek of each boy, right beside the corner of their mouths, a tiny, identical dimple appeared as they processed his confusion.
"I've done that my whole life," Julian whispered, the words dragging out of him like rusted nails.
The smallest of the four smiled up at him, a bright, gap-toothed grin that felt like a physical blow to Julian’s chest. "So have we."
The most confident of the group—the one who had first moved his hair—stepped forward, wiping his hands on his trousers, and extended a small, steady hand.
"I'm Cormac," he announced with preposterous dignity. "That’s Callan, Connor, and Cillian. We’re quadruplets."
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Julian stared down at the small hand offered to him. His vision swam. The amber lights of the restroom seemed to blur and stretch. Quadruplets. Four boys. Identical down to the twitch, the eyes, the chin, the dimple.
"Where..." Julian swallowed hard, his voice cracking. "Where is your mother?"
