The Last Changeling

by Chelsea Pitcher

Who had they found?

  I launched myself toward the balcony, learning that my legs worked just fine if they were struggling to catch up with the rest of me. I caught my balance on the wall by the door and pulled the curtain aside. Why was it so dark?

  “Mom, it’s a mistake,” I said, my hands fumbling over the painfully simple latch. It shouldn’t have been locked. It couldn’t have been locked from the outside. I thought of that night in the parking lot after the soccer game, how my car door wouldn’t open.

  “Mom—”

  “Please stop lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Taylor, we went into your bedroom.”

  “What?”

  Flip the latch, flip the latch. Wipe the cold sweat off your hands and flip the latch.

  Finally, I got it. I slid the door open.

  “Your father took the hinges off the door.”

  “What? How could you—”

  “It was an emergency, Taylor! We found her clothes.”

  “I can explain that,” I said. “She came over before prom—”

  “We found blood on the sleeve!”

  “Blood?” I stepped onto the concrete.

  “Your father wouldn’t listen to reason.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said to the darkness. The empty darkness.

  Yes, I was finally on the balcony.

  Alone.

  Alone with the darkness and my mother’s panicked voice.

  “He’s called the police. Honey, I’m sure you have a good explanation. Just keep a clear head and explain to the officers that it was an accident. A mistake. I know it was a mistake.”

  “They’re coming here?”

  “It would be best if you surrendered yourself to them. Don’t make yourself look guilty.”

  Guilty?

  The phone dropped from my hand. I didn’t throw it; I just loosened my grip. I’d loosened my grip on reality and everything was spinning.

  Lora was dead, but I’d just seen her. Now she was gone and I was about to go to jail for her murder. All of this was impossible.

  I closed my eyes. Behind my lids I saw her body, lifeless and bloodied. Laura’s body. Elora’s body.

  How had the girl died? The girl who was and wasn’t the one who’d been living in my bedroom. In my life.

  In my heart.

  I felt my way back into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. I knew I couldn’t lie down and rest. I had to get the hell out of there.

  Get the hell out of hell. That’s a funny one.

  Clearly I was losing my mind. Maybe that was the explanation for all of this. I wasn’t dreaming, I was just insane, and I’d imagined the whole damn thing. Imagined the girl living in my room, a girl whose face I must’ve seen on TV in passing. Anything could happen in this moment. The hotel room could turn into a forest. In fact, wasn’t that a leaf I was sitting on? It was already happening!

  Wait.

  I stood up. I wasn’t going crazy. That was a leaf beneath me, but it hadn’t crumpled under my weight. A magical leaf?

  Sure, that wasn’t the least bit disconcerting.

  I unrolled the leaf and held it in my hand. My brain started registering the words before I’d fully accepted that there was writing:

  “Bane of the darkness, perfect for light,

  Steal him away in the dead of the night.

  Bind him with blood, this young leader of men,

  And bring him to Court before Light’s hallowed reign.”

  “What the hell is this?” I yelled, as if someone might answer me. For all I knew, Mom was still babbling into the phone. But she wouldn’t have the answer to my question. Nobody here would.

  Except me.

  Because I did know the answer to my question.

  It had been dancing on the edges of my subconscious for three weeks. And as I stared at the riddle given to Elora by the Bright Queen, all my confusion fell away. I saw Elora appearing to me in the darkness that first night. I saw her disappearing into the darkness when I’d tried to follow her to the park. She was always one step ahead of me. She was always one step ahead of all of us. And the riddle she’d given to Brad … that may have been her cleverest trick.

  “Oh, God.”

  Bind him with blood …

  “This can’t be happening.”

  Bring him to Court …

  “No, no, no.”

  But in my head, all I could hear was yes.

  I took a breath, my body filling with newfound resolve. In that moment, I was acutely aware of three things: One, Lora was the princess from the story. Two, she’d taken the place of a human girl who was now dead. And three, she’d gotten the answer to the Queen’s riddle wrong.

  I grabbed my bag and left the hotel.

  23

  ElorA

  “Come now, little beastie.” I should have brought a leash. Brad stumbled along, drunk on liquor and magic. Tree trunks, brambles, bushes—all of these things jumped out at him. It seemed that the forest itself was attempting to block his passage.

  That, like the call from Taylor’s mother, struck me as a sign.

  But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Brad was simply out of his wits, and wasn’t I the one who had made him that way? Certainly, I had not asked him to ingest half a bottle of tequila in his hotel room, but the magic … well, who else was to blame for that? I knew that as long as I held those drops of blood in my necklace, he would follow any reasonable command from me. Humans had little concept of the power of blood, or, for that matter, of names. If I’d asked for his middle name, the boy would not have stood a chance.

  He would have cartwheeled through the forest at my command.

  But as I had only his blood, his heart was still his own.

  “Bradley. Do a cartwheel over that log.”

  He lifted his arms, poised to act, and paused. A hint of clarity came back into his eyes. “Why?” he asked, challenging me.

  See?

  “Let us just walk, then.”

  He nodded, his eyes clouding over.

  There’s a good boy.

  Did I feel remorse at stealing a human away from his family and his home? Well, to admit that would be to allow remorse for other things. And if I allowed myself remorse for those things …

  I had to be strong. Magic is funny in that way. The moment you lose control, your power slips away.

  I traveled on. I couldn’t help but be grateful that the prom organizers had taken us to such a remote location. The hotel rested on the edge of a forest, much like the one I had traveled through to get to Unity. Or, I should say, the one I had traveled through to stumble upon Unity.

  All of this had happened by chance, hadn’t it?

  “Not long now,” I promised, veering away from the highway. For the first few miles, we had traveled parallel to the speeding cars, to muffle the sound of our footsteps. Now we turned away from the din, into the dark parts of the forest, toward its heart.

  Soon the terrain began to rise. Legs tired more quickly this way. After the first upward mile, I found myself half-carrying Brad. My wings were twitching, begging for use. I knew flight would be beautiful, even while carrying Brad’s weight. I had yearned for it for so long now, it almost seemed unreal that I was so close to returning to the sky’s embrace.

  This is the time. I have waited long enough.

  Still, I led Brad deeper into the woods. Over time, I’d let my glamour slip away from me, but in the dark, with my wings tucked neatly against my back, my little offering was none the wiser. A great nervousness unfurled in my stomach, opening like wings. I could not tell if the feeling was fear or excitement.

  This is the problem with heightened emotions: one feels so like its opposite. To a lover scorned, passion can bleed into fury.

  Is t
hat what Taylor is feeling?

  I had to stop thinking about him.

  I paused, listening to the sound of the forest settling. Branches scraped against each other. The wind whined, and was silenced. A hundred subtler sounds went unnoticed, drowned out by the distant cars and the rain. For a moment I wondered if my efforts to muffle my footsteps would work against me.

  After all, if others could not hear me, I could not hear them. Cold trickled over my neck.

  That was a sign. But I missed it.

  I unfolded my wings.

  “No fucking way.”

  The voice was not mine. Nor was it Brad’s. He was standing to my left, staring dumbly at a branch as if I did not exist. I turned around slowly, willing the voice to be a manifestation of my fear.

  No, no, it cannot be. With the exception of Taylor, this was the absolute last human I wanted to encounter.

  The one who could thwart me.

  She stepped out of the shadows, no longer taking care to quiet her steps. In spite of the three-inch heels, her feet were adorned in slashes of red. Her floor-length gown looked as if the forest had tried to eat it alive. But every scar and tear she wore proudly, and her eyes never left mine.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” asked Alexia Mardsen, reigning Queen of Unity High. But she wasn’t wearing the crown the students had given her.

  She was wearing mine.

  “I wasn’t going to keep it,” she said when she noticed me looking. She held it out for me. Her hand shook, just a little. “I found it outside your room.”

  “How thoughtful of you.” I took the crown and turned it over in my hands. Kylie had spent days creating it. The artistry was beautiful.

  I placed it on my head.

  Alexia gasped. “She’s a demon. She’s a princess. She’s a demon princess!”

  “I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

  She smiled. The movement was stilted, a puppet’s mouth jerking up on the sides. But at least she was keeping up the act.

  Back at the Dark Court, she’d be right at home.

  “What are you doing here, Alexia?”

  “I followed you.”

  “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

  “Then you should’ve been prepared for it.” She was circling now, taking in the sight of me. Sizing up her opponent.

  Her enemy.

  I shuddered at the thought that I might have to hurt her. Even Brad was to remain unharmed.

  “But why did you follow me?” I asked, turning with her so she could not catch me off guard.

  “I saw you leaving with Brad, and I went looking for everybody else. But no one was where they were supposed to be.”

  “What do you mean?” Another shudder ripped through me. Another sign?

  “They weren’t in the room! They weren’t at the dance. They weren’t anywhere.”

  The words scraped my heart, leaving scars.

  Unanswered questions.

  They cannot be in danger.

  “I was hoping you’d lead me to them,” she said. “I thought maybe you were going to have some sort of ritual in the forest. You know, banish Brad from this realm or something.”

  It was startling how accurate her suspicion was. But I didn’t tell her that.

  “They’re not here,” I said. “Surely, you noticed that after the first mile.”

  “I did, but by then I was committed. Besides, once I figured out you were the bad guy, I knew the others were safer away from you.”

  “The bad guy?” I raised my eyebrows. “What made you think I was the bad guy?”

  “Oh, please. Mysterious girl arrives in town and leads Prom King into the forest? He appears to be drugged? I’ve seen this movie.” She chuckled, a sound born more of shock than acceptance. “At least, I thought I had, until the whole wings thing happened. So you’ve got to help me out. What movie is this?”

  I gave her a genuine faerie grin. The kind that stretches the mouth far wider than a mortal’s mouth can stretch.

  She stopped circling.

  “Perhaps the movie where terrible things happen to mortal girls who follow the bad guy into the forest?” I said.

  “Mortal girls?” She touched her lips, clearly disturbed by the word. “Oh, God, are you a vampire? Tell me you’re not a vampire.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Good. I hate the smell of garlic.”

  I stepped closer. Alexia inhaled sharply, like she wanted to move back. But she didn’t, and I respected her for that. “You’re either very stupid or very brave, you know that?” I told her.

  “Thanks,” she said, but she was shaking. When she dropped her hand from her lips, I saw the blood blossoming there.

  She’d bitten herself.

  “Are you afraid of me?” I asked, reaching up and touching the blood. She froze, not even breathing, as my fingers trailed her skin.

  She shook her head, barely. The blood smeared on her lips.

  “You should be afraid of me.” I let my pupils overtake the color in my eyes. “I could kill you in an instant. Make a palace of your bones. I could destroy everything you love right in front of you, and—”

  “Stop.” She stumbled back, trying to tear her eyes away from mine. My gaze was strong when I wanted it to be. Hypnotic.

  I blinked, and I waited for her to run away.

  Yet even backed against a tree, with me closing in, Alexia did not break. “You swear to me you haven’t taken Kylie?”

  “Where would I have taken her? You’ve watched me the whole time.”

  “Not the whole time.” She shook her head. “Everyone got away from me.” She seemed to be remembering, or trying to remember, something that was dancing on the edges of her mind.

  I caught her eye again. “You have to go back. Back to where the mortals are. I didn’t take them. They won’t be harmed tonight.”

  A voice pierced the darkness. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

  24

  TayloR

  When I pulled into the parking lot of Whittleton Cemetery, all of the spots were empty. The clock on the dash read 12:38 a.m. Technically, it was Sunday morning. It helped me to think I was sticking to my Sunday routine, since everything else in my life was starting to feel like a nightmare.

  Says the guy heading to the graveyard.

  Still, the place didn’t scare me. I’d been there a hundred times. And even though the faeries of the Dark Court were apparently very real, that didn’t mean other things were out to get me.

  That’s what I told myself as I opened the big metal gate. It didn’t even bother me that Eddie, the night guard, wasn’t sitting in his post. Yes, this place was so fancy they had a security guard working nights.

  Graveyard shift at the graveyard.

  These kinds of thoughts kept my spirits up.

  Spirits. Get it? A definite chill was creeping down my neck. I followed the little stone paths like I always did, between the gargoyles that kept evil out and the angels that kept goodness in. A breeze drifted past me, cool and potentially soothing, but it carried the scent of death. Maybe this doesn’t seem strange, to smell death at a cemetery, but usually it just smelled like grass and flowers.

  Tonight it should have smelled like spring.

  But it didn’t.

  It smelled like autumn.

  Like leaves drying.

  Like decay.

  Stop.

  I’d been here a hundred times, but never at this hour. Why were things different now? What was it about the human mind that feared the dead coming back to life?

  Dead is dead. The soul leaves. There’s nothing in there to come back to life.

  I knelt before Aaron’s grave. Instinctively my hand fumbled for that patch of dirt, the one I kneaded nervously wh
enever I visited, as if I could somehow reach his hand that way. Even in the cool midnight air, the dirt felt warm, like maybe he was reaching for me too. But thoughts like this, however comforting, would do me no good this time. I couldn’t hold on to the idea that he was lingering in the land of the living.

  I had to let go.

  Words poured from my mouth, the way they always did here, but this time they had a greater meaning. “Aaron, I want you to know I’m sorry. I know I’ve said it a million times, but I am. Dad’s sorry too, he told me. Can you believe that?” I paused, looking at the ground, the distant trees, anything. “You probably don’t believe it. But it’s the truth.” I squeezed the dirt so tight. “I love you, Aaron. I’ll never stop loving you and I’ll never forget any of it.”

  That wasn’t entirely the truth. Some memories were as clear as yesterday; others were fuzzy, like they’d happened in a dream. But it was okay to say it. Some lies were okay, if they were what you really wanted. And if he could hear me, I wanted him to believe that his memory would never fade in me.

  I wanted to give that to him.

  “I have to go away now,” I said, still squeezing the dirt, squeezing like I had the power to give life to it. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. But that’s okay too. Adventures are like that. You might never come back, but you have to go because it’s what you’re meant to do. I have to go, and you … ” I bent over, touching my hands to my lips. “I don’t want you to be afraid.” Tears spilled over my hands, blending with the dirt. “No matter where I go, I’ll still be with you. No matter what happens, I’ll always be your brother.”

  I stopped, tilting my head. I thought I’d heard a car door shutting in the parking lot. For a minute, everything was quiet. Then, from the other direction, I heard an impossible sound: the not-so-distant sound of a kid crying.

  It sounded so much like Aaron, I couldn’t breathe for about three seconds. Who would let their kid wander around the graveyard in the middle of the night?

  Who would let their brother climb to the top of a fifty-foot tree?

  “Are you okay?” I called, and the crying stopped. I almost convinced myself that I’d imagined the whole thing. It would have been so easy to return to the parking lot and see who’d arrived.