Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement

“Ugly,” the Lady whispered. “Monster and filth and traitor.”

“No,” said the Morrigan, stroking her forehead. “No, dearest, no. That’s you.”

All through the graveyard, the blue girls were whispering, giggling their weird, shrill giggles while the Lady coughed and squirmed, bleeding all over the stone.

The Morrigan knelt over her. She touched the handle of the paring knife, running her fingers over the place where it stuck out of the Lady’s shoulder. In her other hand, she held one of the Cutter’s broken claws. It smoked in her palm, giving off a rotten smell that made my stomach turn, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You’re terribly selfish, you know. I’ve loved you so long, and it was never dear or precious to you. I might as well have not loved you at all.”

The Lady lay at her feet, looking up with black, horrified eyes. Her lips were a cold, deathly blue. “How dare you speak to me like that, you foul little beast?” Her voice was ragged.

The Morrigan smiled, showing all her jagged teeth. “You’re nothing but an unsightly ghoul now, your man is gone, and I’ll speak to you however I like.”

“Insubordinate wretch—I should have you punished. I should have you whipped until you beg.”

The Morrigan shook her head. “But you won’t. There’s no one here to do it.”

She considered the claw in her hand. Then, with scary precision, she stuck it in the side of the Lady’s neck. The point punched through the skin and then went in easily, sinking up to the Morrigan’s fist. On the ground, the Lady clutched at her throat, shrieking up at the bare trees. The Morrigan straightened but left the claw where it was.

Around them, the pack of girls were creeping closer. The Lady’s attendants didn’t wait for the grinning crowd of maggots and teeth. They hurried out of the graveyard, away from where the Lady lay crumpled in the mud. Her cries were softer and more pitiful, and the Morrigan watched her with a strange expression, something close to satisfied. I wondered if this was what she’d been dreaming about, like the Lady dreamed of drinking blood.

But when she turned to face me, she didn’t meet my gaze.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at something on the ground. “I’m not the monster, I’m the good one. I’m love, you know.” She was crying in little hitching sobs. “I’m the one who doesn’t hold grudges. I’m supposed to be gracious.”

She came shuffling over to where I sat, still shaking against Tate.

“Tell me you forgive me?”

Tate put her arms around me and I could feel her holding me up. I slumped sideways and rested my head against her shoulder. “For what?”

“For being so ugly and so wicked.”

“I forgive you,” I said, and the words felt pointless and unnecessary. Her teeth didn’t bother me much anymore and the only thing I had to forgive were the marks on Emma’s arms.

The little pink princess came skipping across the graveyard, flapping her star wand and leading Roswell by the hand.

The twins were right behind them. Drew was carrying Natalie, who slept with her head against his shoulder. The white dress was looking pretty dismal, fraying at the bottom and covered in mud. Her hair was snarled and stuck up in back like a fuzzy animal’s. Danny was carrying the revenant, who didn’t snuggle against his shoulder. It didn’t do anything.

“You’re losing blood,” the Morrigan said, examining my hand.

I looked down at myself. The front of my jacket was dark and it was all over everything.

The Morrigan trotted away and came back again with Janice, who took a bottle out of her coat and offered it to me. It was one of the ones from the pharmacy room, brown glass, sealed with wax. “You’ll need to drink this.”

She put the bottle to her mouth and bit the seal. Then she peeled away the wax and held it out. I drank it in gulps. It tasted hot, and I felt breathless and light-headed but better. I felt unbelievably tired.

Janice was already opening another jar, scooping out a lumpy paste and packing it into the cut on my hand. It burned for one excruciating second and then went numb.

I leaned harder against Tate, trying to stop my vision from blurring.

“What does this mean for Gentry?” I asked the Morrigan, glancing over at the Lady, who lay on the ground by the crypt.

The Morrigan sat down next to me. She cupped my hand in both of hers, then folded it closed.

“That the bad things will stop because I don’t steal children and I don’t burn churches.”

“What does that mean for the town, though? Will the town stop being so good?”

The Morrigan shrugged and stood up, looking off toward the trees. “Has it ever been good in your lifetime?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Not since before I was born.”

“Maybe it never was.”

I nodded and looked out at all the headstones in the unconsecrated corner, marking the graves of the replacements who hadn’t lasted and hadn’t been revived by the Morrigan.

“Goodbye,” she said.

When I didn’t say it back, she rested her hand on the top of my head. The weight was strange and gentle. “I love you,” she said. “And when I tell you goodbye, I don’t mean forever or for long. Just that I’m going home now, and so are you.”

She bent and picked up her doll, shaking some of the dirt off it and looking strangely adult. Then she crossed to the entrance to the crypt and stood over the Lady.

The fragile beauty was gone. Her face had turned a pale, chalky yellow and her veins showed black through her skin. Her eyes looked shocked and bloody.

“Ugly, sorry thing.” The Morrigan shook her head.

She waved for the dead girls and they came in a whispering pack, lifting the Lady’s body, dragging her away through the mud in the direction of Orchard and the slag heap.

It came to me in a weak, dreamy way that birds were singing somewhere. The light was changing, getting warmer. The sky was pale and the horizon was starting to glow red. It had been weeks since we’d seen a sunrise.

We didn’t talk, just wound our way back through the headstones toward the street. Roswell and Danny tried once or twice to bicker over little things, but nothing took. Natalie still slept against Drew’s shoulder.

I stumbled into Tate and was startled to find that she was real and solid. She put her arm around me. The pain in my hand was faint. The graveyard seemed almost transparent, like I was dreaming it and dreaming the six of us and the narrow, muddy path.

On Concord Street, the porch light was still on, glowing in the weak dawn light. We climbed the front steps in a little huddle, like we were reluctant to be too far away from each other.

I tried the knob, but it was locked, and I had to lean against the porch railing for a second to stop the world from spinning. Then I pushed myself away and rang the bell.

When Emma opened the door, she took one look at me and threw herself into my arms. I was bloody, covered in mud. It was all over everything, drying on my coat, streaking her face and hands, and she didn’t let go. She looked like she’d been crying for a year.

Inside, my dad was pacing the kitchen, raking his hands through his hair. My mom sat patiently at the table, clasping her hands on the tablecloth like she was waiting for him to stop.

When we gathered in the doorway, they both looked up. My dad’s expression was a mix of shock, confusion, and relief, mostly relief. My mom looked like she was about to pass out, and I was more aware than ever of how gory I was. Emma clutched my arm and beside me, Tate and the twins looked like something out of a war documentary. Roswell was the only one relatively unscathed. His expression was alert and quizzical, like he’d gotten there by accident.