The Last Changeling

by Chelsea Pitcher

  “I do not,” Lora replied, eyeing me as well. I blinked back at her, unprepared for the sudden onslaught of sunlight. “But I have to tell you,” she continued, “I’m developing an aversion to crowds.”

  Kylie laughed. Keegan snuck up behind her and put his hands over her eyes.

  “Don’t!” She sped away, nearly running into a pack of Unity’s elite. Alexia Mardsen towered above the pack, surrounded by a halo of cigarette smoke.

  For a moment Kylie froze. Then, lifting her head, she looked into the eyes of Unity’s queen bee and glared.

  Alexia took a long, exaggerated drag on her cigarette and exhaled. I couldn’t help but watch the movement of her lips. The girl made our cheerleaders look like band geeks. With her pale brown skin and black, wavy hair, it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn she’d descended from the Amazons. To date, I’d heard she was part Black, part Puerto Rican, and part Japanese, but I couldn’t have said for certain. Anytime someone asked her what she “was,” she made up a different answer to toy with them.

  The only labels she liked were on her clothing.

  “Just passing through?” she said to Kylie, stubbing her cigarette out on a tree.

  Kylie held her gaze before moving on. Keegan hissed dramatically.

  Alexia just smiled, like they were entertaining her.

  “What was all that?” Lora asked when we’d gained a good distance from the pack.

  “Party politics,” Keegan said. “We have a long-standing rivalry with the Populari.”

  Kylie giggled, returning her attention to us. “One of the many reasons we don’t go shopping in crowded malls.” She flashed a mischievous smile. “We have better places to be.”

  “Siberia?” Keegan offered.

  “Thrift store shopping—”

  “Spelunking—”

  “In Old Town.”

  “Yes,” Keegan said stuffily, “rejected rags from the seventies look just like the fall line from Dolce and Gabbana.” He stuck out his hip in a surprisingly good impression of Alexia.

  “Ignore the nonbeliever.” Kylie linked arms with Lora. “It totally works if you have imagination. And if we don’t find what we want, we just make it.” She ran her fingers over her skirt.

  “You made this?” Lora asked.

  “She makes everything,” Keegan said. “She’s a witch! Burn her!”

  Kylie laughed. “So you wanna come?”

  “I’d love to,” Lora said. “Lend me a minute?”

  “Sure.” Kylie nudged me in the side before leading Keegan away.

  “You don’t have to ask me,” I said, watching the twins race along the walkway. I really didn’t want to spend the evening without Lora; I still had the acute fear that she was going to disappear. But I knew I’d reach a new level of psycho if I insisted on tagging along.

  “I know,” Lora said. “We just haven’t discussed—”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t want to overstay.”

  “You won’t.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I clenched my jeans in my fists, hating that I could never find the right words. I couldn’t tell her she could stay forever. Was that even a promise I could make? But I couldn’t put a time limit on her visit either. “What I mean is, you could never overstay.” My gaze traveled to the oak branch arching above her head, curling like a claw toward her hair. “I want you to be safe—”

  “It’s not your responsibility.”

  “Lora. You’re not inconveniencing me.”

  It seemed, for once, that I’d said the right thing. She nodded, reaching up and grabbing the branch. It looked like she was shaking hands with the tree. I remembered I used to do that sort of thing, back when I was a kid and the guys wouldn’t have mocked the shit out of me for it.

  “Have fun,” I said, when what I really wanted to do was stay and watch her move like a memory of my former self.

  “Thank you.” She hesitated, like she was waiting for something. Then she gave a tiny bow of her head and chased Kylie and Keegan across the lawn.

  Weird day.

  But I had no idea how weird it was about to get, because the minute my friends were gone, Alexia beckoned to me.

  Me.

  The guy she hadn’t noticed in four years. Now she was staring at me with the calculated expression of an owl about to swallow a mouse. And she was alone.

  I ambled over.

  “Yeah?” I said, looking around for hidden cameras.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “Is there some new hazing ritual I should know about?”

  “Excuse me?” It was, for the moment, the best I could manage.

  “Oh please.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you have to feign innocence?”

  Do you have to talk like you’re better than everyone else? I thought, fully empathetic to Kylie’s contempt. Being a haughty, self-entitled beauty queen was bad enough. But Alexia wielded her words like a weapon, cutting down anyone who challenged her.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  Alexia pulled a gold Zippo from the pocket of her skin-tight jeans. She flicked the flame in my face. “I want to know what your game is,” she said, lighting a new cigarette. “One minute you’re playing lapdog to Brad Dickson, and the next you’re playing civil rights in the basement. Something about that doesn’t add up.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What’s the bet, Taylor? Fifty bucks if you get Keegan to profess his undying love to you?” She pushed me with her palm. “A hundred if you can turn Kylie straight?”

  Her voice drilled into my brain. I stumbled back, trying to escape it. “You’re kidding, right? You think I’m friends with them because of a bet?”

  “I don’t think you’re friends with anyone,” she said with a sly little smirk. “You haven’t had friends in years.”

  Gee, Alexia. Tell me what you really think.

  She exhaled slowly, smoke circling her head. “You’ve been moping around since sophomore year, playing the part of the loner, and suddenly you decide to join the soccer team? Methinks you’ve grown tired of eating alone on your little swings.”

  My guts twisted. I didn’t know what was worse: the fact that Alexia knew I’d been eating alone, or the fact that she was right about me. After two years of being totally and completely alone, at school and at home, I had wanted to make friends with the guys on the team. I just hadn’t realized I’d be risking my soul in the process.

  And I wasn’t Brad’s lapdog.

  I’d never be Brad’s lapdog.

  “Look, you can think whatever you want,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I joined the soccer team because I’m good at it.”

  “Yes, you are,” Alexia drawled, in a way that implied she wasn’t talking about sports. “Once you settled in with the gorillas, I thought I knew what your game was. Then you go and get tangled up with the basement brigade—”

  “I like them.”

  “The redhead, maybe. You don’t exactly have closet-case written across your forehead. But you’re much too smart to go after Kylie and risk the backlash—”

  “I wouldn’t care,” I said, standing at my full height in an attempt to gain back some of my pride. I was furious at her callous dismissal of my friends. “You know why?”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “They’re cooler than you,” I said.

  Something flickered across her eyes then, something like fear. She recovered quickly. “Fine. Plead ignorance. But you need to understand something, Little Boy Blue.” She stepped closer. “Important things are happening at Unity. You can’t keep jumping between the carriage and the Camaro without getting crushed beneath the wheels. My suggestion? Pick a side.”

  –––––

  When
night rolled around, I flopped onto my futon, ready to just listen to Lora’s voice. I didn’t even care what she talked about. Circus clowns, dragons. Prehistoric tap-dancing lizards. Her voice was so soothing (not to mention sexy), it wouldn’t matter.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t appear to be in a talking mood at the moment. She was sitting cross-legged on my bed, staring so hard at her homework that I doubted she was really absorbing anything. Maybe her time with the twins had made her realize I wasn’t all that interesting. Or maybe she was just waiting for me to talk to her.

  I never could tell, with girls.

  I decided to risk it.

  “I hate Mr. Gantoni!” I growled, knocking my history book to the floor.

  Lora looked over, her lips curling. “Hate seems a bit strong.”

  “Okay, I don’t hate him. But why am I taking AP History if it’s still going to put me to sleep? These are college level classes. You’d think a course on Medieval History would be interesting.”

  “And yet … ”

  “And yet he makes the Middle Ages so boring.”

  “An amazing feat.”

  “I used to think it was this wonderful era, you know? Like something I’d want to be a part of. Knights fighting honorably. Monarchs looking after their people. Chivalry.” I turned onto my side. “It’s all bullshit. These fat, disgusting kings gorged themselves to death while the rest of the world starved.”

  Wait, how is that different from today?

  “It was a very dark period of time,” Lora agreed, tucking her pages into her binder. “But there were other things.”

  “What things? The search for the Holy Grail was a bloody crusade. People spent all their time thinking about an afterlife because they were poor and miserable. Tell me one good thing about the Middle Ages.”

  “Faeries.”

  Okay, so she did want to talk.

  “Faeries?” I repeated, feeling more than a little weird saying it. But it wasn’t like I cared about faeries. I just liked the sound of her voice.

  That’s all.

  “I thought you were going to tell me about yourself,” I teased, looking away so she didn’t feel embarrassed.

  “I am.” She looked up. I could feel her eyes on me and I turned, letting her catch me in her gaze. Letting her hold me. “I will,” she added.

  “When?” I said without missing a beat.

  “Possibly tonight.”

  “Is that a promise?” I pressed.

  “Yes.” She paused. “Possibly.”

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it. She looked so vulnerable right then; I needed her to know I’d never take advantage of that. “But first … the Middle Ages!” I announced, like the ringleader of a circus. “And, you know, faeries,” I said with less enthusiasm.

  Lora laughed. “The Middle Ages are teeming with fantastically devilish fables about faerie kind. Poets warned of them, priests scorned them, and for the most part, humanity feared them.”

  She patted the spot beside her. I couldn’t get over there fast enough.

  “Let me guess,” I said, reclining on my elbows, hoping she’d get comfortable beside me. “The history book got it all wrong and faeries were the heroes of the Middle Ages.”

  She smiled slyly, lying back on the bed. “Oh, it would be nice to say the faeries were benevolent. Surely, they did not kill babies or dance with a red devil on moonless nights. But they were not innocent, not by the time the green world had been taken over by stone and steel. Maybe they got a little angry watching humanity gnaw away at the fabric of their world. The truth is,” she said, pointing a finger at me, “they bit back.”

  I made a biting sound and she laughed. I wished I could take her finger between my teeth. I’d never wanted to taste someone so badly.

  “It started with one faerie,” she said, switching off the lamp on the bedside table.

  A little mood lighting?

  With the moonlight filtering in, and the breeze playing with her sleeve, the room felt romantic. Before I met Lora, I hadn’t given much thought to romance. But she made me want to do all the cheesy things guys did in movies: sprinkle rose petals, sweep her off her feet, literally. Now that she was lying so close, my desire to feel her skin was stronger than ever.

  “Her name was Virayla, and she lingered on the edges of the human world, studying humanity.” Lora touched a strand of my hair.

  More. Now. Yes. One touch and I wanted her more than anything. But satisfaction doesn’t work that way, does it? We have to wait until we’re aching for it.

  “Why did she study humanity?” I asked.

  “Because humanity had to be dealt with,” she said, and smiled wickedly.

  My blood rushed down, down, down. “Dealt with?”

  “Well, the humans were dealing with them. It was kill or be killed, and the faeries didn’t want to die. Would you?” Even in the dim light, her eyes were bright. Her skin looked so soft. I wanted to touch every part of her, and that just made me ache even more.

  “I, um … no.”

  “Neither do I.” She lowered her eyes. It was shocking, how she could sound playful one instant and devastated the next. I wanted to hold her, just to show her it was going to be all right.

  “Hey,” I murmured.

  “Neither did they,” she continued, and the sadness slipped off of her like rain. But this time, her smile didn’t fool me. I knew she was building up walls around her, and I was determined to get inside.

  Figuratively speaking.

  “She killed the humans, didn’t she?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as she did. “Virayla, I mean.”

  Lora shook her head. “She could not simply take their lives. To do so would have gone against her nature.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” I wanted to keep her talking, to watch her tongue as it flicked against her lips. I could almost feel that tongue sliding up my neck, lips circling my earlobe, though I’d never actually been kissed that way. She invoked all kinds of fantasies that, one week ago, would have embarrassed me. With Lora it felt safe, like she wouldn’t hate me if she knew what I was thinking.

  When her lips started to move again, my body stood at attention. I shifted onto my stomach to hide any indecency, but the movement caused her to roll closer to me.

  “It means that, because the faeries are spirits of the earth, and the earth is their body, to malevolently harm any of the earth’s creatures would be to harm themselves. Therefore, to exact physical violence against humankind would be akin to taking a knife and cutting out a piece of one’s heart.”

  “So, even if humans killed them, they couldn’t fight back?”

  “Quite literally put, they could not forcibly take unwilling lives. But if a mortal entered into battle willingly … ”

  “All bets were off.”

  “Exactly.” She grinned, leaning into me. “Though it rarely came to that. For soon Virayla realized something startling: because of the poor quality of the average human life, a great number of them were willing to risk death to experience the ecstasies of Faerie.”

  “Risk death?”

  Keep talking. Keep looking at me like that.

  “Happily,” she said. “It seems that plummeting to one’s death was agreeable to a mortal if preceded by a rapturous kiss from a tree-dwelling nymph. The rocks strewn about the river didn’t seem so bad when one was mesmerized by the voice of a singing naiad. When given the opportunity, long-suffering humans tripped all over themselves to get a taste of Faerie. In Faerie, for one lovely night, they could fill themselves with earthly delights.

  “One by one, the faeries joined Virayla’s cause. Wood nymphs, beguiled by the promises of mortal knights but horrified by their inclinations toward violence, began luring them away from their homes and into the forest to revel in one joyous night. And these ensorcelled knights, sick with
the memory of their faerie lovers, forgot their families, forgot their kings. They withered away.”

  I know the feeling, I thought. And maybe she knew, because she caught my eye when she said, “Kelpies and naiads rose from rivers and lakes, appearing to fishermen and sailors under the deceptive cover of the waning moon. They came draped in sea plants, their skin glistening green and blue, and led the men who dared intrude upon their homes into watery graves.”

  “What about Virayla?” I asked, turning onto my side again. One quick movement and her leg would be hooked through mine. And we wouldn’t even have to do anything; we could just lie like that. Linked. Close.

  “Oh, Virayla was the worst of them,” she said, and her gaze traveled down. For a second, I thought she’d figured out what I was thinking. Then I realized she was avoiding me.

  “Lora?”

  “She’d lure them with music,” she said. “Make them dance until their limbs were broken and bloodied. She’d craft furniture from their bones and invite their families to a tea party in the woods. It wasn’t until the party was over that they would realize they’d been sitting upon the remnants of their loved ones’ bodies, drinking blood from little cups. She called it Tea Party Justice.”

  “Good God.” I slapped my hand over my mouth, not sure if I should laugh or throw up. “That’s … demented.”

  “Indeed. But you have to understand: the more humans she killed, the more likely she was to survive. And, for a time, it seemed she might succeed.”

  “But she didn’t?”

  “No, she did not. You see, another group of faeries was rising, a group determined to thwart Virayla’s plans.”

  “Why?” I was hanging on her every word. Hell, I was hanging on her every movement.

  “They thought she was wrong. You see, all faeries believe the earth has to be protected. The earth is their body; without it, they would cease to be. But while the faeries of the burgeoning Dark Court believed humans should be eradicated because they were destroying the earth, the soon-to-be Bright Court believed that, because humans were part of the earth, they had to be protected.”