by Donna Hosie
Unlike his beautiful friend, Owen nods to me, and I nod back. I look for Alfarin and Elinor because I want them to see this, but when I look back, the soldier and the gorgeous French girl have disappeared.
I’ve just seen two angels from Up There for the first time.
“Mitchell, will ye keep up?” calls Elinor.
I stumble forward, and my sneakers immediately catch on the edge of a stone border, half hidden in the grass. My hands break my fall, but I still sprawl across tiny red pebbles and onto someone’s grave.
“Are you okay?” asks Alfarin as he pulls me up by the neck of my shirt. “You have gone very pale, my friend.”
“I haven’t seen the sun in four years, Alfarin,” I mumble. “I’m always pale.”
But as we continue to walk toward my final resting place, I keep my eyes peeled for the two angels.
Either Elinor was lying when she said I wasn’t far from the office, or she has no concept of distance. We’ve been walking for hours and have doubled back at least three times. It’s time to admit we’re hopelessly lost.
I need to see my headstone. If it’s real, I can’t understand how I could have been replaced. Perhaps someone has just stolen my identity, not my life. If that’s the case, I should still be able to change time and stop my death. I can still reclaim what’s really mine. As we continue to walk, more morbid and fantastical theories about my replacement start seeping into my brain. Most involve zombies and body snatchers.
A cute little kid with a thick mop of blond hair runs past us. He can’t be more than three years old, and his chubby little face, with round red cheeks, is half hidden by a navy beanie that’s too big for him. He’s giggling as he tries to outrun a harassed-looking man with round wire-framed glasses. I assume the man is the father. He’s talking into a cell phone as he chases the little boy, and his glasses keep slipping down his long nose. The man ignores us, but the little boy sees me and an enormous grin spreads across his face.
The dad scoops him up under one arm and continues talking on his cell. The little boy waves madly at me with both hands, and I smile and wave back.
Suddenly the little boy starts wriggling and struggling under his father’s arm as they walk farther away from us. “Mitchell!” he cries.
Alfarin, Elinor, and I freeze in our tracks. Elinor grabs my hand.
“Did that little boy just say yer name?” she cries.
“Coincidence,” says Alfarin quickly.
But the little boy is now putting up a fight as his father continues to walk away from us.
“I see Mitchell!” he screams. “I see Mitchell!”
Then he yells something that sends my stomach shooting into my mouth.
“I want M.J.!”
The little boy has burst into tears. The dad abruptly ends his call and sets his son on the ground. The boy continues to wail at a decibel level that sets my teeth on edge.
“Michael James, you will stop this right now,” says the father, wagging his finger an inch from the boy’s streaming button nose. “You can see the photos of M.J. when you get home. Now be quiet, Mommy is coming.”
And then I see her.
A strange rasping, gurgling choke lodges in my throat. I actually clasp my dead heart.
“Oh, no!” squeals Elinor, and she drags me behind a white marble plinth.
“What is happening?” whispers Alfarin as he crouches down beside us.
“I have to see her.”
“Alfarin, sit on Mitchell—now.”
Alfarin, being Alfarin, does exactly what Elinor says. At least he has the decency to roll me onto my stomach before he obliges her and crushes every vertebra in my spine.
“I’m so, so sorry, Mitchell,” whispers Elinor, stroking my cheek with her hand.
“I won’t run to her, Elinor, I promise, but please, let me see her.”
But Elinor is shaking her head; already silent tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“What if she were to see ye, Mitchell?” sobs Elinor. “We aren’t in the past, this is the present. Just imagine what it would do to her if she saw ye.”
Suddenly I feel Alfarin’s weight leaving me. He isn’t my jailer anymore, because now he understands what’s going on.
“Is that woman your mother?” he asks.
I nod because I can’t speak. Elinor scowls at Alfarin, but he just shakes his head at her.
Crawling on all fours, I peek around the hard stone edge of the plinth. Walking across the wet grass is my mom. Her skin is darker than I remember and her thick blond hair is shorter. I don’t recognize her clothes: a red trench coat and tall black boots that reach her knees. She must have bought them after I died.
I guess my mom carried on living.
She’s holding some stringy-looking weeds in her gloved hand. They’re dead flowers. Her eyes look black and tired, but then I realize she’s just wearing a lot of makeup. I can’t remember my mom wearing that much makeup when I was alive. It doesn’t really suit her; it makes her look older.
She is older.
Mom is smiling to herself, though, and I wonder what she’s thinking. Is it me? Is she remembering me? She must be. She’s been here to see my grave, to lay fresh flowers—probably something bright and sweet-smelling, knowing my mom.
The urge to run and hug her nearly overwhelms me. It’s as if an invisible hand is pushing me from inside. It’s a little embarrassing, to be perfectly honest.
She waves at the man holding the little boy. She must know them.
I’m inching like a caterpillar around the corner of the monolith so I don’t lose sight of her. Alfarin and Elinor quietly creep around with me, although Elinor is now holding on to the back of my T-shirt. Her hands feel hot against my skin.
I wish Medusa were here to see this.
“Mommy.”
The little boy squeals and runs to my mom.
My mom.
It hits me with the force of ten Alfarins. Elinor—who is more intuitive than anyone gives her credit for, especially when it comes to family—is now the devil sitting on my back. She’s pinning me to the wet grass to stop me from running to the woman who carried on living.
Because this is what my devil resources file meant by replaced. No one stole my identity or even my soul.
That little boy—my brother—is my living, breathing replacement.
26. M.J.
The screaming voices are back as we are sucked through the flames of time once more. Only this time the rage is coming from me.
She replaced me. I couldn’t have been dead for more than a few months before my mom got herself knocked up.
It’s beyond gross. It’s vile, disgusting. I don’t even know who that man is. Probably just some sperm donor she picked up off the street. I’m amazed she let him hang around long enough to see the end result, but then, maybe he’s the jerk who’s buying her new clothes.
My mom probably has a nice new house and car to go with her brand-new life. The life she continued to live once I was worm bait.
Alfarin, Elinor, and I slam into an alley lined with brick buildings. We’ve gone back four years to July eighteenth. I can’t even remember flicking the red needle over the dial, but here we are, and the Viciseometer is spitting feebly in my hand. I grip it between my fingers.
She even gave my replacement my nickname. I heard the man call that little kid Michael James. He’s another M.J.
“Mitchell,” whispers Elinor. Her long fingers stroke my hand, but I shrug her away. I can’t see properly. The brick walls around us are a blur of crumbling red stone. It’s Alfarin who stops me from punching the ground in despair.
“It is just a word in a file, my friend,” he says. His arms, thick like branches, are wrapped around my chest. “Your mother would not have replaced you in her heart.”
“Bullshit,” I spit. “You saw her, Alfarin, you both saw her. She replaced me with a new version. Dammit, she even gave that brat my name: M.J. That was what she called me when I was alive—she ev
en had it put on my gravestone. It was mine. My one link to being alive, and she just gave it away, gave everything that was mine away like I was something to be recycled. It isn’t just a word in a file, Alfarin. It’s the truth—my mom replaced me the second I was dead.”
“That isn’t true, Mitchell, and ye know it!” cries Elinor. “Yer mom loved ye, she still loves ye. Ye heard that man—they have photos of ye. They kept yer memory alive. Yer little brother knew who ye were.”
But the anger is redwashing away any sensibility I have left. The fire of rejection and humiliation is surging through my veins. It’s so toxic I expect it to kick-start my shriveled heart.
And Septimus knew.
I shrug Alfarin off as if he were made of paper. I slam my hand against the brick wall, again, again, again. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.
I slump onto the ground between two big recycling containers. We’re in an alley near an Italian restaurant Dad and I used to go to once he’d finished work on Capitol Hill. I wonder if my dad has also replaced me with another blond kid with blue eyes. How many more M.J.s are there in this world?
Elinor steps closer to me, but I can’t stomach the thought of looking her in the face, so I continue to gaze at her kneecaps. Skinny jeans make her legs look like sticks.
“This is the day of yer death, isn’t it?”
I nod, which is embarrassing because the sudden movement of my head dislodges the tears I’ve been trying to will away with my hate. I quickly wipe my face with my knuckles and then realize that was a stupid idea, because now I’ve smeared thick blood onto my face.
I can’t even cry without making a mess of it.
In a few minutes, seventeen-year-old Mitchell Johnson will be walking down the opposite street. He is living. He’ll be wearing a pair of brand-new black Nikes and a Juilliard sweatshirt, which is a little pretentious because he doesn’t go to Juilliard—yet. He’ll be chewing a stick of gum that he’s had in his mouth for over an hour, and Radiohead will be slamming into his ears.
And then he will die.
I can remember I was chewing gum, and I can remember the line Thom Yorke was singing before I ran out into the road.
So why the Hell can’t I remember why?
But now everything is going to change.
I’m not going to die. I’m going to reclaim my old life. My mom and my dad and my friends who all carried on living their lives are going to find out they can’t replace me if I never left in the first place.
And then I will make them suffer for thinking they could.
Alfarin and Elinor are talking. Their voices blend in with the noise in my head. I’m trapped in a vacuum of space that is rushing through my eardrums. It’s as if I’m cruising through a wind tunnel at two hundred miles an hour and nothing is making any sense.
I hear Elinor say she’s scared.
Alfarin replies, but the words are muffled.
And then I hear Medusa’s name.
But Medusa left me. She went somewhere I can’t find her.
A wailing police siren shrieks through the sultry summer air. I like this oppressive heat. The sweat starting to pool around the back of my neck feels comforting because I’m used to it. I gaze up at Elinor through half-opened eyes and wonder if she can feel the same sensation. Maybe her nerve endings were damaged beyond repair once Alfarin’s axe sliced through her throat and that’s why she’s constantly grabbing at her neck.
“Did you close your eyes before Alfarin killed you?”
Elinor shudders. “Let’s not talk about that now,” she says softly.
“Alfarin didn’t close his eyes,” I add, looking down the alleyway and into the open, busy avenue beyond. “He looked that villager right in the eyes before he died.”
“Where are you going with this, my friend?” asks Alfarin warily.
“I can’t remember what I was looking at when I died,” I reply, jumping to my feet. “So let’s find out, shall we?”
Elinor screams and pulls me back. “Ye can’t just run out like that.”
“Why the Hell not?”
“Ye are hurting, Mitchell. The three of us should leave this time and go back to searching for Medusa.”
“Why?” I yell. “Medusa doesn’t care about us. If she thought anything of you, or Alfarin, or me, she would have told us what she was doing—but she didn’t. She deserted us as if we were things that could be thrown away. Medusa is no better than my mother.”
“Don’t say that, Mitchell,” sobs Elinor.
I thrust the Viciseometer at Elinor, but she backs away with fear in her eyes. She won’t take it, so I offer it to Alfarin. The thick folds of skin on his pale brow are creased like the crust on a pie. He leans his axe up against the wall and crosses his arms.
“Dammit. Will one of you just take this away from me?” I cry. “This ends for me now. I’m finished screwing with time.”
“You cannot stop your death, Mitchell,” says Alfarin slowly. “Not now.”
“Watch me.”
I make to run out of the alleyway, but Alfarin tackles me.
“Get off me!” I shout as we wrestle on the ground. Another police siren screams past our alleyway.
“It is too late for you, Mitchell,” says Alfarin.
My anger at Alfarin is not the same sickening rage I felt toward him when we returned to the Plaza after Elinor’s death, but it is more impassioned because this is personal. It is my death now. This is my turn.
“You and Elinor and Medusa made your choices!” I yell. “Don’t you dare try to stop me from making mine.”
I stagger to my feet, Alfarin grabs an ankle, and I trip, banging my forehead on the sun-parched tarmac. The ground is sticky.
“You cannot change your death, Mitchell,” says Alfarin. “Your death is what links us all together. If you aren’t in Hell to steal the Viciseometer in the first place, none of us will ever travel back. I won’t be there to appear after death to my clan—to give them the peace of knowing I am in a better place. If we don’t go back to the Great Fire, Elinor will burn to death in agony. Is that what you want?”
As Alfarin speaks, the rushing noise in my head slows enough for me to register the whimpering and sniffling that are coming from Elinor.
My back is toward the open street. I don’t have much time for good-byes. When I run out and grab the other Mitchell, I know that this dead form will disappear. Everything that has happened to me in the last four years will be wiped clean. I won’t be starting again, I’ll just be continuing where I left off. I’ll get to hear the rest of the Radiohead song, spit out the gum, and go eat lasagna with my dad.
Life will be normal. My life will be normal.
And Medusa, Alfarin, and Elinor won’t be memories, because I’ll never know they existed.
“Don’t do it, Mitchell,” begs Elinor.
“Medusa will become The Devil’s intern if I’m not there,” I whisper. “She could still find out about the Viciseometer. The three of you can still change time without me. You don’t need me—you’ve never needed me. You’re all smarter than me.”
My feet are slowly taking me away from Alfarin and Elinor. Neither is making a move to stop me, although Elinor is so upset, I’m surprised she’s still standing.
“Medusa would take the Viciseometer and go straight to where she is now, Mitchell,” calls Alfarin, “and we would never be able to find her or bring her back because she would do it alone. With you, we still have a chance to save Medusa.”
I swear I can hear the lyrics of “Creep” in my head. They’re eating into my dead soul.
“And what about yer brother, Mitchell?” adds Elinor. “If ye do this, ye end his life as well. He won’t exist anymore. He’ll never have existed.”
“That’s low, Elinor!” I cry. “My mother’s choices are not my problem.”
“You’re angry, my friend,” says Alfarin. “Do you think for one moment that Elinor and I don’t understand the rage you feel? Death isn’t fair—and perhaps yo
u were unlucky to be sent to Hell—but I will give thanks for the rest of my existence that I found you, and Elinor, and Medusa in the fire and heat.”
“Do ye regret finding us?” Elinor asks.
“Of course I don’t!” I shout.
“Medusa needs you,” says Alfarin. “She left because she was trying to protect you; she was trying to protect all of us.”
“Alfarin is right!” cries Elinor. “Medusa must have known the Skin-Walkers were coming after her, but we can still save her, Mitchell.”
“Think back to the cathedral caves,” pleads Alfarin as I continue to back away. “We saw that man being led by the wolves. Do you want Medusa to suffer that fate?”
The pain I feel at my mother’s betrayal is nothing to the loss I feel, the gaping chasm that fills my chest, at the disappearance of Medusa. I can still taste her mouth on mine. Her hot tears against my skin.
“I was too young to die! It isn’t fair!”
“We were all too young,” shouts Elinor, “and it isn’t fair, Mitchell, but if ye leave us now, everything changes.”
She collapses against Alfarin’s broad chest, and everyone’s guilt and pain threatens to crush me into the ground.
A fire engine wails in the distance. The sound of an emergency is the sound track of this city, of this country. They’ll be coming for the real me in seconds if I don’t act now.
But I am the real me, and now that other Mitchell, the one who is still alive, feels like the impostor.
I reach the edge of the alleyway. A young busboy strolls out of the Italian restaurant carrying several cardboard boxes. He stops, takes one look at me, looks back up the alley, sees Alfarin and his glinting axe, and runs yelling back through the kitchen door.
I’m out of time. I have to do this now.
Alfarin and Elinor are rooted to the spot, and the big man has his arms around his princess. My arms feel so empty without Medusa. My mom won’t feel this way; she has little M.J. in hers.
I was perfectly happy being the only child when I was alive. Mom and Dad were so busy with their careers that I was glad to have their undivided attention once they had time. But now I have a little brother, and regardless of how this ends, I’ll never get to take him to Little League, or the movies, or out for ice cream, or do the other things that big brothers do with their little hero-worshipping shadows.
