Never-Contented Things

by Sarah Porter

  “You see, Xand? Love is truth. Love is all that matters. So if you want to know which of us is the true Alexandra, protect your heart. Choose the one who loves you.”

  Xand gawks at her, blank-eyed and mesmerized. “You’re right. Oh, Lexi…”

  “Is that me, do you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Alexander. Is it really?” She kisses his throat, a soft acknowledgment. Where her slim hand rests on his chest, I notice that her red-and-gold nails are at least an inch longer than they were only moments ago.

  I have to do something, and there isn’t much time. I rush her, meaning to throw her to the ground, to give Xand the barest chance of breaking free of her spell.

  A tiny flick of her hand, almost too quick to see, and I’m stumbling backward with a sharp pain in my sternum. Her gaze never left his face, and he doesn’t seem to see me anymore at all. Overpowering her isn’t an option, then.

  It’s taken me this long to notice that the riders have stopped pursuing me, presumably because they want my full attention on what’s happening here. Only a few white streaks like jet trails linger in the sky.

  “Do you know what I learned from Joshua Korensky, Alexander?” Her voice is changing, barely resembling mine anymore, its tones hollowed out and only a weary sibilance remaining. “Joshua taught me something interesting.”

  Xand opens his mouth in surprise, then closes it again. “What?”

  “He said that one heart is all you’re ever going to get.”

  And then the hand on Xand’s chest snakes around to rest on his back. Xand gives a little anxious jerk—he knows, on some suppressed level he knows what she means to do—but he doesn’t have the presence of mind to tear himself away. I just have time to see an unnaturally long, sharp, gold-tipped nail sprouting at terrific speed from the false Lexi’s forefinger. A scream of warning drives up from my throat just as my double slides her nail, with a casual pop, straight between Xand’s ribs.

  Xand gasps, his eyes rolling back, and the double wriggles its finger: twisting the nail, opening a wider hole.

  A moment later the nail glides back out, and Xand’s heart is skewered on the tip like a bloody peach. My mind rebels, rejects everything I’m witnessing with my own eyes. Something in me insists that it’s all a hallucination, and that they’ve tainted my perceptions to the point where I can’t trust anything I’m seeing.

  “I had no idea,” my double muses, “that it worked like that. For all I knew, you might have a limitless supply.”

  Xand falls, a slow, simple folding-up. Apart from a ruby blot on his shirt, there isn’t any visible blood, and I could almost convince myself that it’s all another trick, a hideous sleight of hand. That Xand will be just fine, oh, in an hour or two.

  But then I see the way the false Lexi is smiling at me: an It’s all for you look, and I know I’m doing the same thing my mom did: closing my mind against an intolerable reality.

  “You see, Alexandra? Ksenia’s changeling was made just to die in your arms, and apart from that she was worthless. Nothing but rotten wood and old straw, dressed up so prettily. But not me. I was designed especially for this occasion, as a weapon to wound you. I’m strong and I’m fast, and I’ve never had a heart at all. Until now, that is.”

  She stands over Xand’s unbreathing body, his beautiful, pale profile framed by the lush green grass, and holds his heart up where she can admire it.

  I try to speak and feel my words bursting into silence.

  “You murdered him, you know, Alexandra. This only happened because you tried to interfere with your betters. Joshua agreed that we had to show you what a terrible mistake it would be, to try to claim things that don’t belong to you.”

  By things she means people, and for a sliver of a moment I’m consumed by outrage that she would dare to describe Ksenia and Olivia that way. Then the rest of her statement strikes home.

  “Josh agreed to this?” Even after our appalling conversation by the oak, after everything Josh said himself, it’s still so hard for me to believe the worst of him.

  “He said Xand deserved to die. And that you needed to see for yourself what you’ve done.” Another of her sly smiles. “He thought it would encourage you to take responsibility. Don’t worry, though. I’ll tidy up before Xand’s family sees him. This isn’t meant for them.”

  Then she bends. With her heart-free hand, without the slightest appearance of effort, she grasps Xand by one elbow and heaves him up over her shoulder. Even his spilled blood lifts up from the grass, scrolling after his corpse like crimson ribbons. Not a trace of him remains behind.

  The cruelty of it stuns me. Will Xand’s family ever know what happened to him? Though if they knew, they wouldn’t be able to comprehend it; all they would see is that I’ve murdered him, just as my double said.

  Still, I move forward to stop her, although I know perfectly well that stopping her isn’t something I can do. My hands reach forward as if I could pull Xand away from her, and she leaps airily, landing a dozen feet back. And then I hear something: a stifled rustling, a torrent of whispers, coming from farther up.

  They’re here, they’re all around us; maybe they’ve been watching this whole time, only veiled in invisibility, and only seen fit to reveal themselves now.

  Cloud-horses perch awkwardly on the crests of the trees, their legs drawn together like the stems of some wispy bouquet. I see Unselle on the garage roof, her frothing hair and dress blurring into the cumulus-dotted sky behind her. Her horse’s hooves drum anxiously at the shingles, and she actually lifts a pale hand to wave to me, smiling sweetly. The sight of her brings back the sickening, ashy sensation of her breath against my ear, her lips disgorging a stream of Ksenia’s voice. I have never before in my life felt such acute loathing for anything or anyone as I do for her; she affects me like decay incarnate, like rotten meat dressed up in snowy frills.

  By the time I can pull my gaze away from her, my double is gone, and Xand’s corpse with her. And yet, to my disbelief, I see Xand himself—could his death have been an illusion after all?—walking toward me in a dappling of leaf shadow. His smile beams toward me, warm and bright and eager. He looks even more handsome than usual, with his chiseled face and green eyes, his dark hair waving over his pale forehead.

  Of course Xand’s murder was no illusion. I know exactly what it is stalking me across this shimmering lawn. Not him, I’m thinking, it’s not him, when he seizes hold of me and kisses me fiercely on the lips.

  Being kissed against my will by Xand would be bad enough; coming from this pseudohuman thing, this replica, it’s so revolting that I gag and shove him away with both arms. To no effect; I might as well be shoving stone, and the false Xand keeps me bound tight in his embrace.

  “No one else will care that Alexander is dead,” the creature whispers in my ear. “No one else will even notice. Why should you?”

  “You will let go of me, now,” I snarl back. “I don’t belong to any of you.”

  A wave of giggling comes from the treetops.

  “Are you sure that’s true? You’re bound to someone who belongs to us. She was properly introduced, she pledged herself to our Joshua, she ate our food. And you pledged yourself to her, such a lovely promise, such sweet words. Prince hadn’t even made me yet, but oh, I was already listening! We all were. You’re real enough that I still love you, no matter what. And after that, we knew … we only had to wait to claim you. You see?” His hands start wandering, greedy to take in more of my form. “So why not start with me?”

  “Ksenia doesn’t belong to you, though. She defied all of you when she warned me not to eat anything, and when she told me to run. She protected me and my future without caring what you might do to her because of it. She proved that her mind is still free, and her mind is all that matters. And since she isn’t yours, then whatever I said to her—it just isn’t relevant.”

  It’s quick, subtle, almost undetectable. But for the first time, I swear I see a flicker of discomfo
rt on his face. He tries to cover it with a sneer and releases me with a little push.

  Even the watchers in the trees stop snickering, and there’s an audible note of consternation in their sudden quiet.

  “Don’t be like that, Alexandra,” the false Xand says. A brilliant, entirely empty smile rises on his face like an artificial sun. “I brought you a present. See?”

  I’m ready to tell him that there is nothing I would accept from him, not under any circumstances, when I see what it is, and my thoughts turn in a silent revolution. My hand stretches out before I have time to consider what I’m doing. Because pinched between the not-Xand’s fingertips is the black felt brim of Ksenia’s bowler hat, unmistakably hers, with the same scuffs, the same slight sheen on the crown. It was already battered when she found it at the thrift store, and then she wore it constantly.

  My first instinct is that she must have sent it to me, as a kind of message. And even once I cast away that thought—I can’t imagine that she would have used this creature as an emissary—I still can’t stand to see him holding it. They will touch nothing of hers, and nothing of who she is, not if I can help it.

  I seize the hat and pull it close against me, and he grins. A hundred smiles break out around me in a palpable wave, and I shiver as I sense their excitement. Did I just make a mistake?

  “Be careful how you hold that thing, baby. It’s tricky. It could be dangerous, especially if it gets hungry. Keep the brim up, okay? Unless you want to find out what it can do, of course.”

  He turns and walks toward the house, and I’m just processing that—this vile thing means to take Xand’s place, impose itself on Xand’s family, and if I try to warn them there’s not the faintest chance they’ll listen to me—when a windy rustling floods the yard.

  They’ve all vanished. The cloud-horses, the creatures on their backs; I can’t see the snowy trails their departure left before. Some of the highest branches are pitching, though, as if they had been relieved of a burden. They even left the entirety of this block intact, without a touch of visible destruction.

  The scene looks disconcertingly normal now. Just that false Xand strolling toward a two-story white house with black shutters, a random middle-aged neighbor getting in her car. From the glance she jabs at me, I realize that to her I’m the most jarring element on view: a pajama-clad black girl holding a bowler hat, standing barefoot on the grass for no apparent reason.

  But given how those creatures seem to have the trick of slipping in and out of visibility, I can’t assume that all of them are truly gone. There must be at least one of them hovering nearby, waiting to see what I’ll do. And as for that, well, there’s only one viable option: to run back the way I came, to reach the graveyard, and to follow Kay’s instructions. That is, if the way hasn’t been closed to me. If I still can.

  The imitation Xand stops, almost at the front door. I have to admit he’s an impeccable copy, without any of the telling, off-key elements I noticed in the false Marissa: no lilac phosphorescence, nothing blatantly evil in his expression. Even though I know the truth, I still feel a shiver of temptation to believe that Xand never died and that this is truly him. That’s how these mimics work; they play on our denial, and on our longing for those we’ve lost, until we’re willing to overlook the aching disharmony between the true one we love and the false one we see.

  He meets my gaze, and with that the illusion fails, because his look transmits a shock; something calculating, chill, predatory.

  “You know, Prince will hurt you all he can for thinking you can steal Ksenia. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you to try, because that’s how he’ll catch you too. A bite of our food is all that’s left, you know, it’s the last thing we need, and you’ll get hungry. Alexandra, you’ll be so much happier if you just forget everything you saw there, and belong to me. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll tell Prince you’re all mine, and that he shouldn’t bother your family.”

  “You’re a walking lie,” I point out—though everything he just said gets to me much more than it should. My knees quake and my head chimes again with that unearthly resonance, that singing echo. “Every hair on your head is a lie. It would be absurd for me to listen to you.”

  “There are lies that have some truth in them,” the pseudo-Xand fires back. “Are you sure I’m not one of them?”

  I’m not sure; I’ve consistently gotten the sense that these imitations are—how should I describe it?—seeded by their originals. Even that spidery Ksenia had a touch of genuine Ksenia-ness about her, and this creature conveys a trace of something truly like Xand. The resemblance comes from something deeper than just their matching features.

  “I know I’m not whole-him,” the fake continues, “but I have enough of him in me that I’m in love with you, Alexandra. They let me have that much. Enough that I want you more than anything, and now that Alexander’s out of the way…”

  A wave of revulsion crashes through me at that. I left the real Xand, and yet this nothingness, this deceit wrapped up in Xand’s appearance, thinks that somehow I’m his for the picking? That coldly and calmly exploiting Xand’s death is an easy way to win my heart? I spin on my heel so quickly that I almost drop the hat.

  “Watch how you hold that thing!” he shouts after me. “I’ll call you later!” Just like Xand himself, he doesn’t seem to comprehend that I’ve rejected him. And I’m not about to waste any more time explaining what should be so very obvious.

  I know I’ll mourn the real Xand for a long, long time. I still loved him, even if it wasn’t in the way he wanted—maybe it was never in the way he wanted, even if I didn’t recognize that at the time.

  But you don’t have to love someone perfectly for their loss to tear through you.

  Now is not the time to let myself dissolve into grief.

  nothing of great matter to her

  I turn to run, though by now my naked feet feel raw.

  And that’s when a silver car squeals into Xand’s driveway, so fast that it nearly rear-ends his parents’ SUV.

  My mom, her gaze bright with longing, her usual composure replaced by a disordered blend of fear and outrage. Of course she would look for me here. Why won’t she understand the desperate necessity of getting far away, of saving whatever she can?

  There’s a line of woods behind Xand’s house, and I could run for it again, if only it weren’t for her car’s other passenger. He’s on the car’s roof, and I’m nearly positive she has no idea what’s up there. A cloud-horse, its legs splayed slightly, hooves skidding awkwardly on the metallic surface. And on the horse, a rider.

  Joshua Korensky.

  “Hey, Lexi,” he says, far too casually for someone who’s helped leave a trail of corpses scattered through our town. This is what they’ve done to him: he can’t feel the reality of other people anymore. It’s as if they’ve severed the nerves that reach to connect with all the rest of humanity, that receive living waves of emotion. Xand was a friend of his, but if Josh knows Xand is dead—if he authorized Xand’s murder, the way my double said—then he clearly doesn’t care in the slightest.

  Josh notices the hat, still brim-up in my hands, its black bowl turned to the sky. “Ugh. You know that thing is dangerous, right? You should give it to me.”

  “I’ll give it back to Ksenia,” I snap. “Just as soon as I see her. And anyway, it’s a hat. How can it be dangerous?”

  “It’s not just a hat anymore, though. Not after everything. It’s like a gun that shoots changes instead of bullets, Lexi. And you don’t even know what it’s loaded with.” He reaches for it again, and I ignore him.

  If it’s really some kind of weapon, then obviously surrendering it would be ridiculous.

  Why hasn’t my mother leapt out of her car yet? I can see her leaning over behind the window, clearly tugging hard at the handle. The door doesn’t seem to be yielding, and her face is tense with suppressed fear. I can’t bear it, and I run to open the door from the outside.

  “That won’t w
ork, Lexi,” Josh says. He’s looming over me, his hair a slanting cascade as he bends above my head. “I’m keeping her in there for now, okay? She’ll just be in the way.”

  I try to stay calm. “You will let her out this instant.” My mom is banging on the glass, gesturing to me, but Josh is right; I’m yanking on the door, and it doesn’t budge.

  “Yeah, no. I really won’t. Trying to smash the windows won’t work, either. Jesus, Lexi, do you even get that all of this is your fault? You’re messing with Prince, which you should seriously know better than to even think of doing. You’ve made yourself into a problem, when you could have just left us alone. So what do you expect us to do? Just take it, because you feel so righteous about dishing it out? It doesn’t work like that.”

  Us. So he sees himself as truly one of them, now. I used to be ready to share the responsibility for the disaster that’s overtaken us. But while Josh keeps talking, I feel that change.

  Yes, I said things that set Josh off, and he was fragile and hurt and desperate beyond my comprehension. He’s suffered so much loss that the thought of losing Ksenia too was enough to unbalance him. And I shouldn’t have spoken for Ksenia. I’ll own that much. But Josh’s descent into cruelty, and the fact that he thought kidnapping Ksenia to another world was a reasonable response to his pain: those acts are not mine, and I refuse to take on the faintest breath of guilt.

  “So why don’t we just ask Ksenia what she wants?” I say. The words fill me with lightness, with a sense of liberation. “We’ll go together. If she says she wants to stay in that nothing of a place forever, I’ll respect that.”

  That doesn’t address the problem of the stolen children, of course, or of Xand. I can’t avoid the dreadful recognition, either, that it will be almost impossible for Ksenia to bring herself to the point of abandoning him, no matter how utterly he deserves it. It does nothing to help the dead, or ease the grief of their families. But it strikes me as being a proposal that Josh will find hard to ignore. Even now, after all that’s happened, his love for her remains his justification for everything.