Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement

I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to do something that took a lot of energy. I needed to jump around the room or laugh uncontrollably or find Emma and hug her until she started laughing too and we both couldn’t breathe and had to sit down on the floor. I wanted to do handstands or backflips, but there wasn’t enough space. I wanted to run. I turned off the light and went out into the hall.

“Emma.” I leaned my forehead against her door, then when she didn’t answer, I pushed it open. “Emma, what is this stuff? It’s amazing .”

But Emma wasn’t in her room or anywhere I could find her.

For the first time since my encounter with the guitar player the night before, the voice in my head had faded. Maybe dying wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Maybe there was a way to have a real, actual life, to be normal. Something in me didn’t really believe it. That small piece of me stood apart and watched with deep suspicion as I studied a tiny bottle that was too good to be true. But the rest of me didn’t care. There was too much pleasure in feeling free.

When I heard Roswell’s car in the driveway, I bolted downstairs. On the front porch, I was hit by a barrage of smells: the raw vegetable reek of carved pumpkins, and the scorched smell of burning leaves, and faint but there, the swampy odor of the dry lake bed out on County Road 12. The night was deep and vibrant and ferociously alive.

Three blocks away, I heard Mrs. Carson-Scott calling her cat inside and that was normal. Then I heard the faint jangle of the bell on its collar and the rustle as it crept through the bushes. Even the cars on Benthaven sounded like they were right there in front of me.

Forget Tate. Forget dead kids and bloody lockers and the deep, pulsing ache I got whenever I thought about my family or my future. This was my life, right here.

And I wanted it.

At Stephanie Beecham’s, the street was full of car doors slamming. The noise of voices was steady as people filed up to the house and around back. They were mostly in costumes, even though Halloween wasn’t until Tuesday.

The whole neighborhood was decorated for the season. There were paper skeletons in the windows and jack-o’lanterns on all the porches. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle. In Stephanie’s front yard, someone had staked a burlap scarecrow of Gentry’s own monster of legend, the Dirt Witch. Its hair was made of wire and twine, and someone had drawn a snarling face on the burlap in marker. It loomed off to the side of the porch looking huge and sinister.

Roswell and I walked up the driveway without talking. He didn’t have a costume exactly, but he was wearing a pair of pointy plastic teeth that fitted over his real ones. He kept giving me strange sideways looks.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You didn’t—ow!” He touched his lip and then his new plastic teeth. “You didn’t open the window. You know how long it’s been since you didn’t open the window in my car?”

And I realized that was true. I was fine, even after fifteen minutes in the car. “Is that a problem?”

“No. But it’s weird.”

I nodded and we stood at the top of the driveway, looking at each other. Behind us, someone was shouting the words to the school fight song, high and off-key.

We headed for the open side gate and started around to the back of the house.

The back door opened into a big, brightly lit kitchen, where too many things were shaped or painted like cows.

And there was Tate. Because she was everywhere, creeping in at the edges, getting all tangled up in my life, and she couldn’t leave it alone. She smiled when she saw me, but it was a fierce, triumphant smile, like she’d just beaten me at some kind of game.

She was leaning against the counter between Drew and Danny. She wasn’t wearing a costume either, but she had on this bizarre sort of headband. Two shining stars stuck up from it, swaying back and forth on long stalks. They were raining glitter everywhere.

I took a deep breath and tried to act normal, sliding past her on my way to the refrigerator. I got a can of Natty Light off the shelf on the door and retreated across the kitchen.

Danny was at the sink, knocking around with measuring spoons and bottles, doctoring up some kind of mixed drink. He had on a store-bought skeleton costume with a gray zip-front hoodie over it, like the title character in the movie Donnie Darko . Drew was dressed like Frank the Rabbit of the same film, but his mask was off and lying on the counter.

When he was done adding sloe gin and grenadine, Danny shoved the glass across the counter at Drew. “Try that and tell me what it needs.”

Drew took a sip, then coughed and set the glass down. “That’s awful.”

Danny scowled and tossed a dripping tablespoon at him. “ You’re awful. I’m looking for constructive feedback, asshole. What does it need?”

Drew threw the tablespoon back. “It needs to be taken out and shot.”

“Make your own damn drink, Mr. Mixology.”

They punched each other in a friendly way, then Danny slipped the bunny mask over Drew’s head and they started for the living room. As they walked out, Drew reached over and yanked Danny’s hood down over his face.

Roswell had already made a timely exit—probably to see where Stephanie was. I was alone with Tate, not sure whether to start planning my escape because as unappealing as the idea of talking about her dead sister was, I was pretty sure she was just going to follow me, and it might be smarter to get the conversation over with while no one else was around.

I could see the shape of her, the curve of her body under the T-shirt. I knew I should stay back, but suddenly, all I wanted was to touch her. I crossed the kitchen and stood next to her so at least we wouldn’t be shouting our secrets at each other across a room. Her mouth was set in a hard, cynical smile, and nothing good could come of it. Her hair smelled like grapefruit and something light and fluttery that seemed out of place on her, but it was nice.

“What are you supposed to be?” I asked, reaching over to flick one of her antennae.

“Oh, I don’t know—I’m a robotic praying mantis. I’m a Martian. I’m aluminum foil. What are you supposed to be?”

I set down my beer and pressed my hands flat on the counter. I’m not me—I’m someone else.

I’m a normal, ordinary person, born to a normal, biological family, with brown eyes and fingernails that don’t turn blue just because the cafeteria ladies used steel trays for the french fries instead of aluminum.

But I didn’t say anything. Her eyes were hard and mysterious. She reached for Danny’s failed drink without looking away from my face.

I dropped my chin and watched the floor. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Like I’m stupid and pathetic and you hate me?

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing.” I glanced up and gave her a helpless look. “Just, what are you even doing here?”

There was a fast, pop-y track playing on the stereo—you know the one—how everything will be all right and you just have to be yourself and try your hardest and it’ll work out and all that other bullshit. In the next room, girls were dancing together, singing along.

“The amazing thing about this song,” Tate said, in a voice that sounded aggressively cheerful, like she wasn’t changing the subject completely. “The amazing thing about this song is that it contains absolutely no irony.”