Changeling
In a modest house on the edge of a wood, there lived a family...
‘So one day my mother found this little, tiny turd, just lying there on her doorstep...’
Sebastian struggled under his brother’s weight, wriggling uselessly. His arms were pinned by John’s knees.
‘Let me up! John, please!’
‘Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story? You see because My mother for some reason thought that the turd looked like a baby and she just couldn’t bring herself to flush it like she should have, no, she brought it inside her house and showed it to My father, and guess what? He thought it looked like a baby too! You know what they did next? They put it in a crib! In my room!’
‘There I was, two years old, forced to share my room with a smelly, little turd because my parents thought it was a baby. I can still remember the first time I saw you. They came into my room all happy as pigs in shit to show me this fucking turd they found..You know what I did?’
’You pissed in my face, John. Okay?’Sebastian told him on cue.
‘Now please let me up!’
‘But...you haven’t had your birthday cake yet?’
‘Noooo. Please John! I don’t want any cake!’ Sebastian’s renewed struggles rocked his brother.
‘Shutup! If you wake my parents up you won’t live through the night.’ John lifted a pillow and held it against Sebastian’s face.
He counted to ten then removed it.
‘Ye savvy? Good...Ready for some cake? Ahh stop pretending, there’s no one else here.’
Later that night Sebastian snuck out of the house. John restless in his strange bed, had been unable to get to sleep. It was like this whenever he came home from school. Each year was getting worse. He never felt like he belonged here in this house, in this town and every time he came back to it the feeling increased. His parents were always doting on Sebastian and virtually ignoring him. He didn’t have any friends here any more. It felt like prison, a boring kind of Sunday school prison where you were allowed to do nothing but simply had to endure. It was pretty frustrating if you were fourteen. And something was puzzling him. A new feeling. For the first time ever his yearly ritual of making Sebastian eat one of his turds on his birthday filled him with uncertainty.
Was he ashamed? Did he feel sorry?
He’d never felt anything for the thing that had been left on his parent’s doorstep and been brought up as his brother except resentment and a kind of visceral animosity.
He thought of Sebastian as a thing. Everyone else thought he was “the cutest boy they’d ever seen”..
He’d just turned over in his bed and was blankly staring at the dark bedroom when he saw Sebastian get out of bed and stealthily begin creeping towards the door, glancing right at him. John thought of making a comment but he was curious. When Sebastian was out of the room he got up himself.
Outside the late June night was freezing and gusty. You could smell the dry vegetation, like a premonition of fire. Sebastian was shuffling down the grass, flanked by shrubs in the moonlight, towards the back wall.
John hunched shivering behind the hedge, waiting until Sebastian climbed over before following.
Beyond their back wall there was a steep bank of clay mostly hidden from view by three sprawling trees which reached up from the bottom of the bank. Their branches intermingled at the highest point, proving an effective canopy for the thick undergrowth. John stood looking over the wall, locating Sebastian. As he made his way down through the gloom, bits of moonlight poked through the foliage like irregular shafts of radiant bone.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ John asked silently.
He waited until Sebastian was out of sight, before scrambling over the wall and following as silently as he could. At the bottom he forged through the thicket where he had seen Sebastian go, listening for the younger boy’s progress. After about ten minutes he couldn’t hear Sebastian anymore. Figuring there must be a clearing ahead, he proceeded as quietly as he could. John had never explored this part of the bush behind their house before, he had always just been content with the marsh in the middle of their neighborhood. It had always held more than enough entertainment for him and his friends, when he’d still had some here.
The moonlight was so bright it made everything black and white, John saw the pale grass of the clearing ahead as he approached the end of the bush. A spiral of stones lay on the grass, leading to a mound in the middle. Sebastian stood with his back to John on top of the mound, swaying slowly, seemingly mesmerized by the moon.
A branch snapped on the other side of the clearing, making him flinch.
John laughed at his own reaction.
‘What are you doing faggot?’ he spoke, addressing the swaying figure ahead of him.
‘...ng faggot?’ came the reply, in a rough, thick voice.
John’s blood ran cold instantly. It was a mimicking tone, but not the voice of a small boy. Sebastian started making an eerie cooing noise.
‘Stop fucking around...I know it’s you..’
‘..know it’s you.’
The head turned to face him.
John peed himself.
It wasn’t Sebastian. It had John’s face.
The figure turned and made toward him, face stretching and contorting, seeming to browse different expressions. Happy, sad, angry, irritated, as though testing..or practicing.
John was scrambling backward, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, the bush held him firmly.
‘Fuckfuckfuckfuck...’
The thing’s mouth moved, jaw bouncing with the echo of the k.
‘kkkkkkkk.’
‘Waitwaitwaitwait...’
The thing reached out and grabbed his foot in a firm, warm grip. It’s head tilted, as though considering. It grinned, leaning down.
‘ttttttttt..’
It started dragging him to the clearing.
‘John! You’re still in bed! How’s that any way to spend your holiday? Come and have breakfast at least...’
His mother came to stand by the side of the bed, tugging the duvet off his face.
He pulled the cover back over his head.
‘I’m not John.’
‘Oh really? Then who are you?’
‘I thought I was Sebastian...’
‘Sebastian?..Don’t be silly..I always liked that name, but you were named after your grandfather, Johnathan Percival Huxley!...Did you dream you were called Sebastian?’
She sat on the bedside, hand on his hip, gently stroking.
‘No.’
‘John..’
‘Don’t you remember?’
She laughed.
‘Remember what, darling?’
‘Me! The boy who slept in that bed!’ he sat up, pointing at the bed across from him.
Sobs were wracking his body as he leaned his head on her shoulder, burying his face.
She paused for a moment, idly stroking his head.
‘My poor child..’ she sighed.
She lifted his head away from her shoulder.
‘Look at me. I am your mother. You are my one and only child and I love you with all my heart and soul.’
‘But...’
‘No buts. We all go through some changes at your age. It’s perfectly natural. The first one is always the hardest...the most confusing..You’re lucky, we brought you up with him...before my first change I was a crow! Can you imagine? I lured a young human girl to a clearing in the woods and before you could say calabash I was her!’
