The Replacement

  The Morrigan stood up, raising the stick like a sword or a scepter. “There is nothing you can do for that child. My sister is a wicked beast of a woman, and you’ll only come to harm if you cross her.”

  “You’re talking about killing a kid. Someone’s daughter.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Someone’s sister.”

  “And it’s only a small thing in the grand design of the world. One very small thing, every seven years. What a trivial cost to pay for health and prosperity.”

  Janice had come wandering over and she sat down next to me, sticking her feet in the pool. “The town needs this, Mackie. We all need this.”

  “So, you all line up in the graveyard and burn your sage and kill kids? That’s great. That’s just really amazing.”

  “It’s not us doing it.”

  I could feel my throat get tight, almost like I was going to laugh, but not in a way where everything is so cheerful and humorous. “You’re letting it happen.”

  Janice sighed, putting her hand on my arm. “You aren’t thinking about this in a rational way. Everyone benefits. Us, the House of Misery, the locals and the town.”

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t benefit the town. It hurts and it terrorizes them. How can they be happy when someone’s taking their kids?”

  The Morrigan nodded eagerly. “That’s why we have music. The Lady punishes the town, but we make them happy again.”

  “And it never occurred to you not to make them miserable in the first place?”

  Janice shook her head. “You don’t understand, this is just what we do.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Well, it’s not what I do.”

  The Morrigan reached for me, clutching at my wrist. Her hand was wet from splashing around in the water, but it was still warm. “Oh, don’t be hateful. You know the course of events as well as we do. You know the way this has to end.”

  “Yeah, I do.” I peeled her fingers off my arm and stood up. “I leave.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  NORMAL ENOUGH

  I climbed out of the ravine onto Orchard and started toward home. I felt angry and disgusted or else disgusting. I wasn’t about to be involved with something so ugly—I couldn’t be. But the House of Mayhem was still where I came from and how I’d wound up in Gentry in the first place. If I wanted to be healthy, I had to work for the Morrigan, but the thought gave me a sick feeling.

  I wanted to talk to Emma, but I didn’t want to talk about any of the things that were actually bothering me, and anyway, she wouldn’t be up. When I checked my phone, it was two forty-five. It was still raining, but what else was new.

  A car was coming down the street toward me, the yellow beam of its headlights glowing out of the rain. It pulled over so abruptly the front passenger tire skimmed the curb and ricocheted off.

  Tate got out and crossed the street, leaving the Buick parked crookedly in the bike lane.

  “Hey,” she called, splashing through the gutter and onto the sidewalk.

  I stopped and waited.

  When she reached me, she stood with her hands on her hips. She’d put the hazards on and they pulsed behind her in the drizzle, flashing on and off like a flat orange heartbeat. “I have your bass.”

  I wanted to ask what she was doing out so late, driving around by herself. “Do you know what time it is?”

  She squinted up at me. “Yes, as a matter of fact. It’s the middle of the goddamn night. What the hell happened to you?”

  I shrugged and tried to look unreadable.

  “You didn’t fake that,” she said. “That, what happened in the car, that was real.”

  I nodded.

  She scraped her wet hair away from her forehead. “Well, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  She turned and looked off over the subdivision and the road, shaking her head. “Look, what’s wrong with you?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I had a feeling that even if I managed to answer without using specifics, she’d just rephrase the question and ask me again, so I skipped to the most basic part of it. “Has there ever been something about yourself—or about your life—that you just really hate?”

  She laughed, a sharp little bark of a laugh. “God, where do I start?” She was still looking up at me, sort of smiling, and then her face changed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just, your eyes are really dark.” Her expression was thoughtful and a little worried, like she wasn’t condemning or judging me, just looking.

  I took a deep breath and put my hand on her arm. “I want to talk to you about Natalie.” I steered her toward the edge of Mrs. Feely’s lawn. “Here, sit down.”

  She looked unconvinced, but she settled herself on the ground and I sat next to her.

  “Can I ask you something first?” I said.

  She nodded and yanked up a handful of dead grass, watching me sideways. She’d stopped smiling.

  “What would you do if I told you that someone took your sister—that you’re right, and this is a shitty town that lets terrible, screwed-up things happen? Would that make any difference? Would it help?”

  The rain was striking up from the road in tiny splatters, catching the glare from Tate’s hazards. Down at the intersection, the traffic light turned red and the pavement suddenly looked bloody. I had an idea that it had been raining my whole life.

  Tate didn’t answer, just pulled up another handful of grass. Her expression was stony.

  “What are you thinking?” I sounded like I was whispering, even though I didn’t want to be.

  “Nothing.” She said it in a really miserable way, looking tough and helpless at the same time. “I just thought, you’re right. It doesn’t matter. Whether you know something or not—it wouldn’t matter because it already happened. No one could have saved her.”

  Two days ago, I would have paid money to hear her say that, to have her drop it and just start accepting the situation for what it was so she could let it go and move on. Now, everything had changed. If the Morrigan was right, then Natalie was still alive, at least until Friday at dawn, and I was a world away from knowing what to do about it.

  When I reached for Tate’s hand, she let me take it.

  “I just want to know how it happened. How something like that could happen.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just held on, smoothing my thumb over the back of her hand. “It isn’t personal or malicious. It’s just something that happens. Other people have hurricanes and earthquakes.”

  She nodded, staring at the street. She had an expression I recognized, like she was holding her breath. With my free hand, I reached across and touched her hair. It was softer than it looked. I brushed her bangs away from her face and she closed her eyes.

  “This whole place is so full of hypocrites, it’s unbelievable. They’re so good at the charitable casseroles and the funerals, but they never do anything to stop it. They just say, ‘How sad.’”

  I let go of her hand and put my arm around her. I wondered if she was going to start crying. Emma cried at everything, even animated movies and greeting card commercials, but Tate wasn’t like that. She felt smaller than I’d expected and softer. I pulled her against me, running my hand up and down her arm.

  “I did believe you. Right from the beginning.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that, then? I mean, you could have just said that.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder, and for a second it was pretty much all I’d ever wanted out of life. Then I felt a sharp, burning pain through my shirt. I held my breath and tried not to ruin the moment by pulling away.

  She leaned against me and her voice was very soft. “I wasn’t trying to blame you. I just thought you might know what happened was all. It’s not because of you. I know that.”

  I nodded, clenching my teeth against the stabbing pain in my collarbone. She should be blaming me. Now was when she should be throwing a fit, demanding to know everything I knew bec
ause I finally knew something definitive and damning. And she had no idea.

  She moved and the pain jolted along my shoulder and down my chest like an electric shock, those paddles, how the EMT yells clear. I gasped and let her go.

  She leaned away from me fast, looking at the ground. There was a metal ball chain around her neck, tucked down inside her shirt. I wanted to explain, but the words were pretty much nonexistent. I stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Her voice sounded hoarse.

  “Nowhere. Let’s go for a walk.” I reached down, offering my hand. “I don’t think I can get back in your car. Feel like walking me home?”

  Once she got to her feet, she tried to pull away, but I held on. For a second, we were standing by the side of the road, holding hands. Then she yanked her hand away in a hard jerk, like she couldn’t stand still long enough to let me touch her.

  We walked down Welsh Street, toward the church, not talking much. At the churchyard, we stopped, standing out on the sidewalk.

  Tate nodded toward the little cemetery. “They put the body in there. I can show you if you want.”

  I shook my head. “That’s okay.”

  “I promise I’m not going to do anything all girly and emotional-baggage-y.”

  “I can’t go in the cemetery.”

  The look she gave me was spectacularly unimpressed. “What are you talking about? Your dad is the minister. You can go wherever you want.”

  “It’s complicated,” I said. “It’s just . . . this thing.”

  She looked at me for a long time, like she was considering all the different things she could say.

  Then she started for the edge of the property line. “Okay, we’ll go around and look from the side.”

  She led me around the building and up to the fence, where a bed of orange flowers were turning brown.

  “There,” she said, pointing over the fence. “They just put the headstone up. The little white one, back against the wall.”

  She was pointing past the anonymous headstones and the crypt to the unconsecrated section, where early parishioners used to put anyone they thought was unclean. In the dark, only the marble markers showed with any clarity. They glowed palely from the shadows, while the granite ones were only faint outlines. The stone Tate was pointing to sat square and straight, but most of the others were starting to lean.

  There were other plots in other places in the cemetery. Consecrated places. But the thing that wasn’t Natalie had been buried with the outcasts because it belonged there, which meant the unholy ground was exactly what the Morrigan had said it was—just another way for the town to play along, to be involved. Something they all agreed to, without having to say it.

  Tate stood looking up at me and I knew suddenly that she wasn’t the kind of girl who ever looked away. She could take your skin off if you let her look long enough.

  I closed my eyes. “I wish I could do something. I don’t know how to help you.”

  Tate moved closer, and her voice was low and breathless, like she was telling me an awful secret. “You know what did it? What made me absolutely sure? It wasn’t how big her teeth seemed suddenly or the way her eyes got strange. I mean yeah, those things mattered, but they didn’t prove anything. It was her pajamas. These pink footie ones with bears on them—she used to wear them all the time, and then, a couple months before she died, I couldn’t find them anymore, but you know what? It didn’t matter because she never asked for them anymore, and she didn’t like picture books and she didn’t like toys. And I’d tell myself it was just because she was sick, but that’s not the real truth because at night, when you think all those things you can’t stand to think about during the day? At night, the real truth was, she wasn’t my sister.”

  I stood in the wilted border, leaning on the fence. Beside me, Tate looked small and sad. Her mouth was meaner than I’d seen it in a while. For the first time since that afternoon under the oak tree, she wasn’t looking at me like she expected something.

  I wanted to hold on to her, but everything was wrong—the time and the place and the way she jerked and fidgeted, like she couldn’t stand to be touched, so I settled for pressing my forehead against the top of the fence. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  “So, tell me.”

  “I like you.” When I said it out loud, the admission felt hopeless—inescapable, like I’d hit on something that until now, I just hadn’t had the words for. But it felt that way because it was true.

  Her laugh was incredulous. “You what?”

  I looked at the ground and the dark, drizzling sky and pretty much anyplace that wasn’t her. “I like you. A lot.” When I finally glanced at her, my face was hot and it was hard to keep looking.

  She squinted up at me. Then she crossed her arms. “This is a really inappropriate place to be having this conversation.”

  “I know. I like you anyway.”

  Saying it a third time was like breaking some kind of spell. Her face went soft and far away. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

  “I don’t say anything I don’t mean.” I leaned closer, smelling the metallic smell again. “Take your necklace off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t, I can’t kiss you.”

  She stood looking up at me. Then she reached back and undid the clasp. Her mouth was open a little. She shoved the necklace into her pocket and I put my hand on her cheek. Then I leaned in before I could think about it long enough to chicken out.

  I’d never expected much from Tate. Long, bored looks, maybe. A couple rounds of vicious-clever ball breaking that I had no comebacks to. Maybe get my ass handed to me a few times at pool or darts or cards. Instead, here I was, kissing her behind the church. Her mouth was warm and I was surprised by how good it felt not to breathe.

  She had her arms around my neck, then she was grabbing at the back of my shirt, fumbling behind her for the sloping ground, and we sat down. She was holding on to me, pushing me flat on the grass. Above her, the sky was wide and full of water. Against the fence, a huge oak tree spread its branches over the corner of the churchyard. The leaves that were left were wet, covered in tiny drops, and each one caught the light from the street in a collection of little starbursts.

  Tate brushed my cheek with her fingers, like maybe she was brushing off the bright spots of light. But it was just the rain.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the glittering tree, then turned back, smiling a smile that was sly and sort of tender. She was on top of me, straddling me. It’s strange when you’re not happy for a long, long time and then suddenly, you are.

  She leaned down and I could taste ChapStick, smell iron and shampoo and under it, that crisp, clean smell.

  We lay in the grass beside the cemetery fence, kissing and shivering. Her teeth started to chatter and I pulled her against me, which made me feel like a superhero for no apparent reason. She was clinging to the collar of my jacket like I’d just done something outstanding.

  She put her hand on my chest, moving her fingers so that I got chills all over.

  I pulled her closer, holding her so her head was tucked under my chin. “I’m not normal, Tate.”

  “I know.” Her hand was working its way under my shirt, then touching my skin, sliding over my chest and my stomach, down into my jeans. “Does this feel good?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded.

  “You’re normal enough.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CONFESSION

  I got through school in a daze the next day. I was running on very little sleep, but the analeptic made things manageable. Roswell wanted to know what had made Tate so upset, and I told him a completely worthless story about feeling carsick, which he didn’t believe, but he left me alone after that.

  I’d spent the morning preparing myself for another encounter with Tate, but she wasn’t at school. It was the first day she’d missed since before the funeral, and on the surface, it was way overdue. Even so, I c
ouldn’t help thinking that after telling me all that stuff about her sister, or maybe because I’d kissed her, she was avoiding me.

  The idea was more relieving than I would have expected. In the last few days, my life had gotten kind of unmanageable and Tate was a complication I didn’t know how to handle. Still, throughout the day, during lectures and homework reviews, I caught myself going back to kissing her.

  By the time I got home, all I wanted was to do was sit down in front of the TV and turn off my brain.

  When I walked in the front door, Emma was laughing. She came out of the living room as I was scraping my shoes and peeling off my wet jacket. She smiled in that wide, helpless way, like even if she wanted to, she couldn’t stop—it was just that funny. She was wearing a floppy black rain hat.

  “It’s Janice’s,” she said, yanking the hat off and trying to flatten down her hair. “We were just messing around.” She reached for me with a worried expression, catching my face between her hands and pulling me down to look at her. “You look exhausted. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nodded and was a little suprised to realize that I was telling the truth. The only reason I was exhausted was because I’d been out all night. “Just tired.”

  Emma gave me a doubtful look and walked out again. I got an apple from the kitchen, then went into the family room to see what the deal with Janice was.

  She was on the couch, leafing through a textbook. Her hair was down around her face and she was back to looking kind of plain and unfortunate.

  “What are you doing here?” I said. “I gave you what you wanted, so quit harassing Emma.”

  Janice flipped to the index, then back through the chapters. “I’m not harassing Emma. We’re doing homework. And not to be pedantic, but she came to me. I wasn’t out looking for pretty musicians, I was just attending classes.”

  I sat down across from her and watched as she made notes in a little leather-bound book. “Why is someone like you even going to school? I mean, what’s the point?”