The Replacement

by Brenna Yovanoff

  “We have to hurry,” I whispered, thinking of Emma’s hands when the blue girls had taken her gloves. How they’d started rotting.

  Emma breathed out in a long, slow sigh. She held the wriggling, squirming thing in her lap, looking up at me from the muddy ground. Her eyes were full of tears, like she wanted to put it down.

  “Jesus Christ,” whispered Roswell. He was holding the shovel, standing stiffly by the open grave. “That’s about the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I shook my head, looking down at the thing in Emma’s arms. “It’s just a body someone didn’t want. It’s not any worse than me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE REVENANT

  Roswell closed the casket and we dropped it back into the grave. It thudded in the dirt and I flinched. After a minute, Roswell started to shovel the dirt back in.

  The grave was nearly filled in when my phone started buzzing. Tate. When I didn’t answer, she called twice more, then texted the words: total bullshit, mackie. i’m coming over.

  I turned off the phone and shoved it in my pocket. There was no way to head her off. I could only hope that when my dad opened the door, he would see a distraught, grief-stricken girl and decide she was in need of some counsel. I didn’t have much confidence in that scenario, though. I knew from experience that once Tate got going, she was nearly unstoppable, and my dad was more broken up than I’d ever seen him.

  She’d just have to show up at the house and then do whatever reckless, ill-advised thing she was going to do when she found me gone. It was not a comforting thought.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Roswell said, tamping down the last of the dirt with his shovel.

  Emma was sitting on the muddy ground holding the revenant, but now she stood up.

  I leaned on the handle of my shovel, breathless and dizzy from the steel, soaked from the rain and still too hot. “Go down into the house under the dump hill and take Natalie back.”

  “And they’re not going to have a huge problem with that?”

  I gave him a helpless look. “We need a distraction. Like, an offering or a present. The woman in charge there loves it when people pay their respects to her.”

  “What does she want that we could give her?”

  I thought about that, about how angry she’d gotten at the Morrigan—so angry that she’d flood them out slowly, over years, instead of just punishing them once and getting it over with. “She wants to be able to control everyone—the whole world. She wants to make sure that everyone is so scared of her that they’ll never disobey her, never trick or lie to her.”

  Emma moved closer to me with the revenant against her shoulder, looking uneasy. “Like we’re about to do, you mean?”

  “Pretty much. I guess you could say that people tricking her is her biggest ongoing problem, but I don’t really have a solution for that, and neither do you.”

  Roswell nodded, looking thoughtful. “But we know some people who do.”

  The twins were not happy about being dragged out into the rain in the middle of the night and less happy about being asked to part with the Red Scare, but they showed up at the cemetery in under fifteen minutes. Danny was carrying the polygraph. It had a handle, like an old suitcase, but he held it carefully in both arms.

  The twins could generally be depended on to be completely unshocked by anything. They took the revenant with less self-control than usual.

  “Jesus,” said Danny, staring at the thing in Emma’s arms. “What have you guys been doing? Are you out of your minds?”

  Drew didn’t say anything. After a second, he reached out and touched the revenant’s arm. It twitched irritably and he stepped back.

  I explained the plan, such as it was, and Drew nodded, still watching the revenant with a kind of wary fascination.

  Danny was less accepting. He held up the polygraph. “Okay, I’m all for not letting Natalie Stewart get murdered—that’s not really in question. But why are we giving away our most successful project again?”

  I tried to think how to explain the Lady and her appetite for power and control, but it was Roswell who answered. “We need a convincing present for the woman who has everything.”

  Danny nodded, looking resigned. “Everything except a portable McCarthy-era polygraph, apparently.”

  “Well, come on,” said Drew. “That’s pretty much everyone.”

  The walk to the park seemed longer than it ever had.

  Emma was a trooper about the revenant. She carried it wrapped in Roswell’s coat. It didn’t seem to mind, just rested its head against her shoulder and kept quiet.

  At the dump hill, I reached to take it from her. “We can’t all go—it just doesn’t make sense. And Mom and Dad are going to be going crazy wondering where we are. I think you should go home.”

  Emma backed away, clutching the revenant and shaking her head. “No. I’m going with you.” There was dirt was smeared all over her face and her neck. She looked like she’d escaped from somewhere.

  I stood looking at her. She’d always been willing to do whatever it took. Always. She’d been going with me my whole life. “You can’t. There’s no reason to, and it might be dangerous.”

  Emma moved very close. “Listen to me.” The thing in her arms began to fidget and whine, and I had a feeling she was squeezing it. “I have spent years making sure you don’t die.”

  “And I never asked you to—you didn’t have to follow around after me, taking care of me. You could have had your own life.”

  “I know. Listen to me. When it’s been a choice between you and anything else, I’ve always picked you. I’m not sure I always made the right choices, but it doesn’t matter. I made them—me. You didn’t do anything to me. I picked you and I am not sorry.”

  We stood in the dark at the base of the hill. Roswell and the twins were standing back, staying out of it. The argument was ours—mine and Emma’s. We’d been talking to each other in the dark for pretty much my whole life. The thing is, you don’t realize how much people lie with their faces when they talk. Emma’s voice was always honest, the realest, truest part of anything she said. It was scary to hear how much she meant it.

  I looked down at her and said, “Please, Tate is on her way to our house—she might already be there—and I don’t know what she’ll do when she finds out we’re gone. I think she’ll come looking for us, and you have to stop her. Keep her away from the park, away from the cemetery. If she gets involved, it’s going to be a disaster.”

  Emma didn’t say anything, but after a second she nodded and let Roswell take the revenant.

  “Emma,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She went on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek. “Just come home, okay?”

  Then she turned and started toward Welsh Street. I watched her walk away through the playground with her head down, not looking back. I knew she was crying, but there was nothing I could do except keep moving forward. We jumped the fence, and I led the way to the base of the dump hill and used the paring knife to open the door to the House of Misery.

  In the entryway, the boy with the footman’s uniform asked for my card and I told him I didn’t have one. He gave me a disapproving look and I told him he could fuck right off.

  Behind me, the twins were staring around the hallway incredulously. Roswell seemed beyond comment, which wasn’t that surprising, considering the fact that he was holding a squirming, rotting baby that had been dead an hour ago.

  “It’s very ill mannered to bring guests without an invitation,” the boy in uniform said.

  ”We have a present,” I told him. “It’s rare and valuable, and she doesn’t know it yet, but she wants it bad.”

  The boy nodded and started away down the hall into the House of Misery, but he didn’t lead us back to the reading room. Instead, he showed us down a wide gallery and through a pair of double doors.

  “She will receive you in the formal parlor.”

  The room was fancier than the Lady’s readi
ng room, with an intricate rug and painted vases in niches along the walls. There were bronze sculptures of soaring birds and shepherdesses placed on tables around the room. The Lady was reclining on a long dark-colored sofa. When we stopped in the doorway, she looked up and smiled like she’d been expecting us.

  Danny and I stepped into the room, while Roswell and Drew hung back in the doorway, with Drew slightly in front so he was shielding the revenant from view.

  “Mr. Doyle,” the Lady said. “It is so lovely to see you again. To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  I kept my expression neutral and pleasant. “I was thinking about some of the things you said before. I was pretty unfair—I know that—and I wanted to bring you a present.”

  The Lady smiled at me expectantly. Then she looked past me and the smile disappeared. “Send them out,” she said, looking thunderous. “Out, now!”

  My first thought was that she’d seen the revenant, and it took me a second to realize that she was talking about Drew and Danny. I stared at her, shaking my head. “They can’t both go. They’re the reason we’re here.”

  “You brought unnatural monsters into my house? How dare you? How dare you presume to defile my house!”

  I glanced back at the twins. Their resemblance had never seemed shocking or even very unusual. Or at least, they’d always seemed a lot more normal than I was. Apparently, freakishness was a little different for everyone.

  I moved toward the Lady and held up my hands. “Wait, if Drew goes, can Danny stay and show you the present? One of them has to stay and show you how it works.”

  The Lady watched me, her expression wary. “Very well. You, with the gift. You can stay. Make the other wait in the hall.”

  Drew and Roswell beat a precipitous retreat and the Lady turned her attention back to me. “What gift do you have for me?”

  “I wanted to bring you something that would help you. You were talking about how the Morrigan lied to you, and up in town, they have a solution for that. This would keep anyone from lying to you ever again.”

  The Lady smiled and her eyes were hungry. “That would be a precious gift indeed.” She barely glanced at me. Her gaze was on Danny and the suitcase. “But it looks so ordinary.”

  He was kneeling on the floor, opening the suitcase. “That’s part of how it works. No one knows you’ve got it until it’s too late.”

  I began to back toward the door. “While you’re seeing how it works, do you mind if I check on my friends?”

  The Lady didn’t even look up. Her eyes were fixed lovingly, greedily on Danny’s hands as he undid the clasps and opened the Red Scare.

  Roswell and Drew were waiting in the hall, looking out of place and nervous. I didn’t want to leave Danny, but we needed to find Natalie.

  We started back toward the entrance, then I retraced the way to the Lady’s reading room. I had an idea that even though the burrow under the park was big and sprawling, there weren’t nearly as many people living there as there were in the House of Mayhem.

  We found the room without much trouble and without seeing anyone. The fire was out and some of the wall lamps had been shut off.

  At first, I didn’t see her. The House of Misery didn’t seem to be as big as the House of Mayhem, but it was just as convoluted, and if they’d taken her someplace else, I didn’t know how we’d find her. But Natalie was there. She’d dragged her pillow under one of the low tables and sat staring into her birdcage. Her hair was messed up, the bows untied. She’d taken off the button boots and one sock.

  I crouched next to her and went to pick her up, but she turned away, covering her face. When she raised her hands, I got a good look at her arm. A raw, oozing seam circled her wrist, red at the edges and nearly black at the center. Around it, the discoloration feathered out, spreading under the skin, working its way in the direction of her shoulder.

  “Roz,” I said in a low voice, trying to sound calm and conversational so that I wouldn’t scare her. “Take the charm off the revenant, now.”

  Roswell came up behind me. “But what about the plan? Isn’t the whole point to have it look real?”

  “Take it off, now!”

  “Okay,” he said. “Sure. It’s your show.” There was a sharp ripping sound as he snapped the ribbon. Then he yelped and there was a heavy thump. “Oh, Jesus!”

  I twisted around, but I already knew what I’d see. Roswell had dropped the revenant on the carpet, and there was nothing remotely human about it anymore. It was still moving, writhing on its back, but its skin was so gray it was nearly colorless. It squirmed over onto its hands and knees and raised its head to look at me. Its irises were a dirty yellow and so were its teeth.

  From under the table, Natalie made a thin high-pitched noise, like a caught rabbit, and Roswell dove for the revenant. He threw his jacket over it and scooped it back up, keeping its face hidden, but Natalie was already working her way farther under the table, hiding her own face, trying to wedge herself into the corner.

  “Natalie,” I said, but she wouldn’t look at me. “Natalie, it’s okay. Come out from there.” I didn’t want to grab her, but it looked like I might have to.

  Then Drew sat down next to me and took out a quarter. “You like magic tricks, right, Nat?” He walked the quarter over his knuckles.

  When she peered out between her fingers, he made the quarter dance along the edge of his hand and said, “I used to be your neighbor. Do you remember?”

  She didn’t answer, but after a second, she nodded.

  I knelt on the floor and started working at the knot that fastened her to the chair. Roswell was trying to keep the revenant covered, but it didn’t want to stay under his jacket.

  When I got the ribbon loose, Drew leaned under the table, never looking away from Natalie, even when the revenant started to whine and struggle behind him. “We’re going to take you home now, and you need to cover your eyes.”

  For a second, Natalie didn’t move, but when he said it again, she dropped the bird and put her hands over her eyes. He picked her up, holding her close against his shoulder. He kept her turned away while Roswell unwrapped the squirming body, trying to keep it from clutching and pawing at him.

  “This is bad,” he whispered, knotting the ribbon around the revenant’s waist, peeling its hands off every time it reached for him. “We’re going to hell for sure. This is so bad.”

  “You haven’t begun to appreciate how bad things can get,” said a hoarse voice behind us.

  Someone was standing in the doorway, so still and so backlit that at first I couldn’t make out his face. His arms were folded over his chest and he was nothing but a shadow except for the flicker of his eyes.

  “Forgive me being so bold as to say so, but we’re in a world of trouble, aren’t we?” He stepped into the room and I saw his face. It was the Cutter. He looked exactly like he had when he’d shown me out except that now he was wearing black gloves. They were heavy, with short steel claws sewn into the fingertips.

  Natalie had her arms around Drew’s neck, clutching at him, and I tried not to stagger as the Cutter moved toward me and the first clouds of iron seeped into the room.

  “Would you care to explain what you are doing in the Lady’s private quarters with two trespassers and a corpse?”

  Roswell stood up, looking resolute and not half as scared as I felt. He was taller than the Cutter but young looking, without any of the qualities it took to be cruel. “What are you supposed to be, like some kind of boogeyman?”

  The Cutter smiled. “I prefer to think of myself as a demon, personally. But it makes no difference in the greater scheme of things. I’m content to be called nightmare and monster and goblin, so long as they call me something.”

  I took another step back, trying to get away from the smell. “But that’s not what the Lady wants—she doesn’t like being named.”

  “The Lady has no vision. No perspective. She can’t stand the idea of being anything but a god. She aches for a life that doesn’t
exist. We’ll never be the race we were, so it’s time to be something else.”

  I took a deep breath and felt it burn all the way down my throat. “What are you going to do?”

  The Cutter watched my face. His expression was polite—mildly interested, even. Then he grinned, showing raw, swollen gums, and swung his fist into one of the bell jars on the mantel.

  It shattered, spraying the room with slivers of glass. The sound was very loud.

  Roswell jumped back, and Drew tried to shield Natalie, covering her face with his hand.

  The Cutter kicked aside what was left of the broken jar and stepped over it. “This is not a negotiation. We are not bargaining. If you refuse to hand over that sweet little lamb, I’ll systematically collect everyone you’ve ever cared about and start cutting pieces off them until you agree. Understand that I have no reservations about this.”

  I backed up, stumbling between armchairs and low tables, away from him.

  He followed me. “You thought you could just come in here and trade us a child for a piece of worthless meat?” Behind him, the bell jar lay in pieces all over the floor. “We know that trick, cousin. We invented it.”

  “But you didn’t recognize it when the Morrigan came for my mom. She left a revenant in her place and guess what? The Lady bought it. The Lady didn’t catch her because she couldn’t tell the difference—you couldn’t tell the difference.” I was almost shouting by the time he reached me.

  He caught me by the front of my jacket, slamming me against the wall. Next to my head, a shadow box full of beetles fell and splintered on the floor. He twisted my collar, pinning me so that my back was against the wall.

  Behind him, Roswell was a tall, indistinct shape, moving toward us.

  The Cutter leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine. “Fool me once,” he whispered, “shame on you.” He pressed the bridge of his nose against mine, his breath burning the back of my throat. His voice was rough and furious. “Fool me twice, and I will cut out your fucking throat.”

  “Hey,” Roswell shouted, yanking at the Cutter’s coat “Hey, let go of him!”