Authors: Brenna Yovanoff
The Replacement (35 page)
The Lady crouched over me, clawing at my jacket, breathing into my face. "What is distracting you from our work, Mr. Doyle?"
My throat was dry and it hurt to talk. "I'm all of it . . . my whole life. All of this is me."
For a second, there was nothing but the sound of my blood as it spilled out of my hand, pattering on the stone.
"Then give me all of it." Her voice was harsh. Her fingers sank into my skin, pressing into the soft place at the base of my throat. "I want the fear, the terror in your eyes when you realize, fully and truly, that you're dying. I want your utter ruin, and I'll keep digging until I get it."
The paring knife was still in my pocket, wrapped in a dish towel. Her face was inches from mine, grinning down at me like a skull.
"I'm done with that," I said. "Done being food, done feeding you. I don't have anything you want."
She stuck her finger in one of the raw wounds at the side of my neck and I breathed out in a long sigh but didn't make a sound, even when she began to dig and tear at the burned place.
"Regret is one of the only true constants in life," she whispered. "Do you regret your bravado yet?" She dug deeper, ripping at my skin. "I can go all the way down. I can peel you open until you're fit to do nothing but scream."
I fumbled for the paring knife, sliding it out of the towel. "No. Not for you."
"You are so gloriously naive. How charming that you still think yourself to be strong."
I wasn't strong. I wasn't trying to be heroic or prove that I was brave, but her voice was arrogant and empty and it didn't scare me. The only thing that scared me now was how hard it was to focus, how numb my hands were. I tightened my grip on the knife, willing my fingers to work. Then, I yanked my hand out of my pocket and sank the blade in her shoulder up to the handle.
For a second, the Lady crouched over me, gaping like a fish. Then she flailed away, falling backward. She landed hard, splashing around in the stagnant water.
I let myself slump toward the open door and the fresh air.
The first thing I saw was the sky, wide and spinning. It was still overcast, but the clouds were breaking up, showing patchy scatterings of stars. And then Tate was there, holding on to me, kissing me, and then I was just lying on the muddy ground, kissing her back.
There was a dark smear on the sleeve of her coat where I'd reached for her.
I grabbed her shoulder with my good hand and tried to sit up. She caught me as I overbalanced. I was light-headed and shivering, missing half my blood, but I was still whole. I was shaking and she just kept holding on to me.
As we sat in the mud, arms around each other, the Morrigan came trotting over to the steps of the crypt, where the Lady lay on her back, staring up into the marbled sky.
The Morrigan looked curiously at the paring knife. Her expression was almost scientific. "You've been injured," she said, bending down to examine the Lady's shoulder. "Will you heal? Does it hurt?"
"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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DAYBREAK
O
n 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.
n 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.
My dad stood on the other side of the table, staring at me. At all of us. "Are you badly hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?" His voice was husky and I smelled the sharp, rusty smell of anxiety.
I shook my head, leaning forward and bracing my good hand on the table. "Some of the blood's not mine."
He nodded and passed a hand over his eyes.
My mom was staring at Natalie, who was awake now, holding Drew around the neck and looking dazedly around the kitchen. My mom went to her, taking Natalie's face in her hands, staring into her eyes.
Then she let Natalie go and turned to me. "You did this? You took her back?"
I didn't answer. It hadn't been me. Or at least, not by myself.
"You went down there just to bring her back?"
I nodded. The next question was going to be,
Why did you do something so incredibly dangerous
? or,
What made an insane risk seem like a good idea
? And I didn't want to talk about that part. The reality of how indifferent I'd been to the world, how much I'd stopped caring in the weeks before meeting the Morrigan was just starting to sink in.
Why did you do something so incredibly dangerous
? or,
What made an insane risk seem like a good idea
? And I didn't want to talk about that part. The reality of how indifferent I'd been to the world, how much I'd stopped caring in the weeks before meeting the Morrigan was just starting to sink in.
I opened my mouth to cut her off, but the truth must have been there on my face because she didn't wait for an answer. She crossed the kitchen and hugged me, wrapping her arms around my neck. "You came back," she whispered. "You could have disappeared forever, but you came back."
It felt weird to be standing in the kitchen, hugging her. She wasn't the kind of person who cried or hugged, but she didn't let go.
"It was a brave thing," she whispered, clutching the back of my jacket. "A very brave thing."
If I was honest with myself, I hadn't been particularly brave. I'd just done the dirty work and the desperate things and then closed my eyes and hoped for something to work out. That wasn't being brave. But it was nice to know that she thought so.
I went up to the bathroom and washed off the worst of the dirt and the blood. There were still claw marks all over my neck and down one side of my face, but the gash in my hand was already closing, the edges drawn together by the power of Janice's green paste. If it kept healing, it would be gone in another few hours.
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