"SINGING MAGIC!" croons Catherine, fortissimo.

"You have to be quiet - well, you don't, but I have to be louder than you and the politest way is for you to be quiet."

"You can stay for the singing magic but only if you don't interrupt. If you do Tippy will take you back and you'll have to wait with the babies."

SINGING MAGIC, mouths Catherine silently.

He sings them an illusion of Beka and Kat.

Kat looks a little like Catherine - not exactly, with the pronounced tusky underbite and sparse silver-brown brindle hair and little black eyes and gray skin, but if one is looking it's there. Beka looks mostly just like Rebecca apart from hair color and artwork and pointiness of ears.

Beka feeding Kat, Beka playing with Kat, Beka working with Kat on her back, Beka laughing, Beka smiling, Beka flirting, Kat toddling, Kat walking quite well, Kat flopped on him listening to a song...

"We can take her, right, Michael -"

"Of course we can."

"I love you."

"I love you." 

Macalaurë twitches but keeps singing.

"Mama," whispers Catherine, "who is that -"

"She's like me but - silver with pictures on," Rebecca whispers back.

"Who's the ugly kid."

"That's not nice."

"Who though."

"She's like you but she looks like that."

"I'm not ugly."

"Be nice."

"I'm not."

"Would you like to meet her? I can go get her."

"Yes. Please."

He rows back across. He looks for Kat.

Not with the anesthetists, actually. Building a mud castle.

"Hey! You know the mystery island -"

"Yeah. Is a real island? Not a singing island?"

"It's real, not an illusion. It got here from another world. And in that world there's a - Mama and she has a Kat too."

Gasp.

"Want to get in the boat and go meet them?"

"Boat! Boat boat boat boat."

He picks her up and off they go.

Kat leans way out of the boat to trail her fingers in the water.

He keeps a hand on her to grab her if she topples. "The other world's Mama is married and has more kids, not just a Kat. But the oldest one is a Kat just like you. Well, an alien. But just like you."

"Married Mama!"