Changeling

by Matt Wesolowski

  But let’s look now at Wendy Morris. She seemed like the perfect candidate, yet Sorrel seemed to hold back when they first met. A part of me wonders if she was the only friend he’s ever had? Perhaps. But Sorrel had another use for Wendy. He brought her to Wentshire Forest as an alibi, as someone who would vouch for him. After all, he knew her intimately; he knew how he could bend her to his will. People like Sorrel do not see love, companionship, friendship, only opportunities to get what they want.

  And what about Maryanne Manon? By the time he encountered her, he was almost fully-fledged, nearly a complete monster. Yet Sorrel underestimated Maryanne.

  That was his mistake. And I think he knew it. When she followed him from Shrewsbury to Prestatyn, I think that was the moment he realised. So he destroyed her reputation, he told stories and people believed him. Maryanne became ‘Mad Mary’.

  Sorrel then found Sonia. Young, naïve, vulnerable, she was the perfect victim. Sorrel got her pregnant before Maryanne could warn her or expose what he was.

  Now let’s fast forward to Christmas Eve, 1988, Sorrel Marsden decided he was done with Sonia and Alfie for good. Alfie would disappear; Sorrel would be the figure of sympathy and Sonia would be buried by her reputation. Unlike Maryanne, she would never come after him.

  I wish Sorrel was here to answer all this. I wish there was some pushback to this story I’ve put together. But he’s not, so all I can do is present what I see in front of me: that Sorrel Marsden did not care, he did not love, and he thought only about himself. That was the difference between him and Sonia.

  Sonia Lewis gave up everything she had; first for Sorrel then for Alfie. She believed that if Sorrel got his way, he would have had full custody. She never imagined Sorrel would go as far as getting rid of their son. So she gave him up so he wouldn’t be raised by someone like Sorrel. So that he wouldn’t grow up with a sly and controlling demon as a role model. Sonia could see Alfie was already on his way to becoming like his father – tapping and manipulating. And his behaviour at school indicated that he was becoming seriously unstable.

  From Sorrel’s perspective though, Alfie was just a hindrance. So he doped up his son on Sonia’s medication, put him in the back seat of his car and drove in the middle of the night to Wentshire Forest, where he intended to dispose of the child.

  If Sorrel was still here, I would put it all to him directly. I would ask him what he was doing in the forest when he got out of the car and left his son sleeping. He says he was looking at the engine, but Maryanne didn’t see him there. I wonder if we’ll ever know where he went, and what he did during those few minutes.

  If Sorrel was still on the end of the phone I would then put it to him that he hampered the search for Alfie. It was him who drove the truck from the Great Escapes site. It was him who tampered with the lights on the building site, not the fairies in the wood.

  I would also put it to him that he then employed all of his storytelling and manipulation skills. He knew the press would eat up the story of a missing child and his desperate father, so he gave them everything they wanted. To what end, though? Maybe he couldn’t help himself. Maybe all he ever wanted was to be seen, to be important.

  If Sorrel was still on the other end of the line, I would tell him this: More than anything, Sorrel, I feel sorry for you. Whatever made you this way, I’m sorry it happened. And if I could offer you any advice, it would be to seek some help. Find out about yourself. Begin the journey through the forest to face your own monsters.

  I could sit here and reflect and speculate. But I won’t. Instead I feel that it’s time to do something I’ve been waiting to do ever since I last saw Maryanne. I reach into my bag and pull out a letter. Looping, spidery handwriting on the front.

  ‘The End’ it reads.

  I sit there and I read.

  This series has been unlike my others. I have dropped all the episodes at once. All of them in one fell swoop – before I vanish. Again.

  They took me a long time to edit. It’s because I want this series to sound perfect.

  There is plenty more I could have said to Sorrel Marsden. It was like any conversation when emotions get heated. No one is as articulate as they could be. There’s always something we wish we could have said.

  But I’m sure of one thing: Sorrel genuinely has no knowledge of what happened to his son in 1988.

  But I do. Now.

  And I wonder if I should have told Sorrel. I wonder if he deserved to know.

  Because there is another story I could have told him. A story I’ve discovered since he left. Since I read a letter. A letter from a friend.

  It’s a story about a traumatised seven-year-old boy who apparently went ‘missing’ in a forest. Whose father gave up on him.

  Should I have told Sorrel about the people who didn’t give up? The people who made sure the boy found a new family – people who would love him, despite what he’d been through. A family who would nurture, who would patiently coax that little boy out of his own darkness and give him the life he would never have had. Should I have told Sorrel that, despite all their efforts, that darkness would always be with that boy, and the man he would become, buried somewhere inside, waiting for him to turn and face it … to walk back in among the trees?

  I wonder if Sorrel Marsden would even have cared.

  As for stories. Maybe it’s that one that has been our sixth?

  And it’s me that has been Scott King.

  This episode is dedicated to the King family, who took on a broken boy and made him whole.

  And this episode is our last. For now at least.

  Epilogue

  Dear Scott,

  I’m sorry. I know you’ve told me over and over not to say that so much. You’ve told me that I shouldn’t be so harsh on myself; but I do need to apologise to you.

  I need to say sorry for keeping you waiting this long. I want to apologise for never knowing when to tell you this story, for never knowing when the time was right.

  Sometimes people have to find their own way out of the woods. I want to help you find yours. And, again, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do this face-to-face. I’m sorry it took a letter.

  I started doing this long ago – leading you out of the woods. You don’t remember it, and you may never. I don’t hold that against you. I’m glad you don’t remember. Some memories are best left hidden inside.

  You see, I took you from those woods.

  Physically.

  I found you there, asleep in your seat in the back of your father’s car. You were seven, but you looked like a little baby: head down, eyes closed. I felt my heart break for you.

  It was the sight of you that helped me that night, in that dark wood, between those trees. It was you – your face. Where your father had gone, I didn’t know. I also didn’t know for sure what he was doing in those woods, or when he would be coming back. But when I saw the axe, the rubber gloves, the bin bags, I was certain that it was something monstrous. And I was terrified. I had been scared of what you would become if you were brought up by Sorrel. Now I was scared that you wouldn’t survive the night.

  So I took you.

  I drove you somewhere safe. I felt your mother’s heartbreak with every mile that passed. She thought she was giving you up to save you from a future as Sorrel Marsden’s son. She still does. I know different: we were saving your life. We did save your life.

  As I drove and you slept on in the back seat of my car, my tears blurred the rising sun before me. And I decided then that I would keep this part of the secret to myself. Sonia would never know what Sorrel really had planned for you that night.

  And I knew it was the right thing to do.

  I enclose an address with this letter. You won’t recognise it, because you weren’t there long. It’s the place we drove to on Christmas morning, 1988. It’s the place where I kept you hidden. No one but me knew where it was. Not even Sonia, your mother. But she did know you were safe. I made sure she knew that.

  And
in those few days you were there, you changed. From being an annoyance, some inconvenience that was to be disposed of in the most heinous of ways, you went to being a gift. A Christmas gift for a couple I knew, two people who deserved something beautiful in their lives.

  I’ve followed your life ever since. Keeping my distance, so that our secret – mine and Sonia’s, and now yours – was kept safe, but making sure that you were safe, too. I’ve also made it my business to keep Sonia informed. Did you realise she knew who you were, Alfie – or should I say Scott? I know she wouldn’t have told you, but did she give herself away? I wouldn’t blame her if she did.

  Go back to that safe place again. Retrace our journey, and see where you were transformed from Alfie to Scott. And then go home, see your mum and dad, and talk to them.

  Tell them six stories.

  They’ll tell you one.

  It has a happy ending.

  All my love,

  Maryanne xx

  When you get to your destination, you park up. Maryanne’s right. You don’t recall it.

  Or do you? Is there some long-lost image of this place in the back of your mind? This modest house set far back from the road. Tall hedges, a locked gate. All to keep whoever lives here safe.

  A safe house.

  There’s a little sign with the safe house’s name on the front gate: ‘The Court’.

  The last part of the jigsaw slots into place. This was where you stayed for those few days before you were taken to the Kings – the people you now call Mum and Dad.

  This was Maryanne’s ‘royal court’ – the message she was sending to Sonia, telling her her little Alfie had become a king. A King.

  You hear a sound. It’s a familiar one; a rhythm that has flowed through your life, a sound you’ve never really stopped to listen to until now.

  A tapping.

  You didn’t even know you’re doing it; the pads of your fingers on the underside of the steering wheel. It’s a sound that soothes you. The movement of your fingers brings you peace. You do it all the time; on desks and chairs. In fact, any surface becomes a drum on which you tap your life’s rhythm.

  You’ve never understood this habit of yours. Now you do.

  You changed after being taken to this house on Christmas morning all those years ago. It took time, but you became a different child. One who didn’t remember. Who wouldn’t remember. And then who couldn’t remember.

  The thing is, though, unlike the old cassettes you used to listen to as you grew up with your new family, you couldn’t just record over that darkness; you couldn’t be someone else entirely. Because that darkness is part of you. You know that it’s still there, somewhere deep inside.

  You can feel it shift now. And after years of sleep it’s finally woken. And it’s finally time for you to face it.

  You’re not scared of it anymore. You can walk between the trees.

  You can face your monsters after all.

  You turn your car around and head home.

  You don’t need to look back.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  All books are a difficult write; they are all-consuming and they are personal. This one, however, has an added poignancy that added a layer of emotional difficulty to the process of writing it.

  Rather than approaching this novel in my usual slapdash style – hacking at an idea with a blunt instrument – the themes in Changeling had to be handled with sensitivity and respect, and I can only hope my clumsy hands managed it.

  A lot of the incidents in the book concern domestic abuse and coercive control, and they were based on real events and real people. Reality is, after all, where we find our scariest monsters. Changeling came about after four people close to me related their individual experiences. Each of these people endured, to various degrees, abuse and control from partners in their past relationships. These people were a mix of male and female, as were their abusers. It pained me to discover that these people’s experiences only came to light when they decided to talk about them, long after the abuse was over and their abusers were out of the picture. The character of Sorrel Marsden – superficially charming and utterly incapable of love – is an amalgamation of these abusers.

  What astounded me is how, even after years of abuse, these victims, these people who I hold dear, could still find an element of blame in themselves. Unfortunately for victims of people like Sorrel Marsden, this is not uncommon. Monsters like Sorrel Marsden are cowards; they hide in the darkness. One of my motivations for writing Changeling was to thrust these cowards into the light and expose them for what they really are.

  I want to leave readers of this book with a message that was put to me by someone who experienced a monster first-hand, someone who put it more eloquently than I ever could:

  ‘It can happen to you. It can happen to someone close to you. Look out for signs that someone you care about is having a bad time. Asking someone if they’re OK might be all it takes. I wish someone had asked me if I was OK.’

  —Matt Wesolowski

  Autumn 2018

  National Centre for Domestic Violence

  http://www.ncdv.org.uk

  Free, fast emergency injunction service for survivors of domestic violence, regardless of their financial circumstances, race, gender or sexual orientation.

  Helpline: 0800 970 2070 (lines open 24 hours)

  Coercive Control

  http://rightsofwomen.org.uk/get-information/violence-against-women-and-international-law/coercive-control-and-the-law/

  Information on coercive control, which is when a person with whom you are personally connected repeatedly behaves in a way that makes you feel controlled, dependent, isolated or scared.

  Disrespect Nobody

  https://www.disrespectnobody.co.uk/

  For young people who need advice on what is OK behaviour in a relationship.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to sincerely thank everyone who has supported the writing of this book:

  My family, who have not yet given up on me; and my friends, especially Ben and Bryn – your company at MFA Bowling was an invaluable distraction from the emotional intensity of writing Changeling. Rock Night may be gone, but it will live inside us forever.

  My fellow writers, who still have to suffer my company at events and do so with such good grace. A special shout-out goes to you, Luca Veste, for your support and encouragement this year.

  Every single person who has stopped me for a chat, asked for a signature, a photo, or just sent a tweet. Your requests mean so much to me and I appreciate every single one.

  Anne Cater and the book bloggers, many of whom I’ve now met in person. I cannot even begin to articulate the love I have for you all or how vital your influence and your dedication is to me. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re not important, because you are to me and always will be.

  Helen and James at Forum Books in Corbridge; you are amazing people as well as formidable booksellers.

  My agent, Sandra Sawicka; your encouragement, kind words and hard work on my behalf are hugely appreciated. I never thought I’d find an agent who gets me like you do.

  The Orenda team: Mark Swan, for your formidable and frankly quite terrifying level of skill in creating front covers. West Camel and Karen, for your unending patience and continued belief in me. It means the world and I will never take it for granted. Without you, I’d be nowhere.

  Sarah Farmer, your devotion and support means everything to me. To have you by my side is such a privilege.

  My boy, Harry; I am so proud to call myself your dad. You are behind everything I do.

  This book has one foot in reality so I want to extend my gratitude to everyone who told me their stories. Your bravery after what you went through is more than anyone can ever know.

  And lastly you, dear reader, for coming on this strange journey with me and getting this far.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Matt Wesolowski is an author from Newcastle upon T
yne in the UK. He is an English tutor for young people in care. Matt started his writing career in horror, and his short horror fiction has been published in numerous UK- and US-based anthologies such as Midnight Movie Creature, Selfies from the End of the World, Cold Iron and many more. His novella, The Black Land, a horror set on the Northumberland coast, was published in 2013. Matt was a winner of the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in 2015. His debut thriller, Six Stories, was an Amazon bestseller in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia, and a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick, and TV rights were sold to a major Hollywood studio. A prequel, Hydra, was published in 2018 and became an international bestseller.

  Follow Matt on Twitter @ConcreteKraken.

  Copyright

  Orenda Books

  16 Carson Road

  West Dulwich

  London SE21 8HU

  www.orendabooks.co.uk

  First published in the United Kingdom by Orenda Books, 2019

  Copyright © Matt Wesolowski, 2019

  Matt Wesolowski has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–1–912374–57–1

  eISBN 978–1–912374–58–8