The changeling in Fraudville
Written by Benjamin Greennagel
Illustrated by Isabella Tallman-Jones
A shapeshifter evades suspicion to remain in their beloved town.
The midday light is low and oppressive as I trek up a hill covered in yellowing grass. From here, the main drag of Fraudville is visible — a strip of archaic shops, a library and a drugstore, clustered around a railroad track that tears through the landscape like a black stitch. Scents of summer creep forward, promising wet grass and honeysuckle.
I toss my hair over my shoulder and fan my neck. This is my first summer as a girl, and it’s hard to figure out what to wear. I’ve always had trouble with human clothing, but summer makes it all the more difficult. I’ve worn the same pink sundress every day for the last month.
At the very top of the hill, I come upon Lorelei’s house and make my way into the backyard, where there is a small garage, anchored to the earth by a thick shroud of dark green ivy. Paint peels off the front door in crisp flecks of white, baked off after years in the brutal summer sun. The window panes rattle when I knock.
Her eyes appear through a curtain, burning with suspicion before she opens the door. “You shouldn’t have come,” she says, glancing over my shoulder. “The town is restless. They suspect you.”
“That’s why I needed to see you,” I answer. “Please, let me in.”
She frowns, then places a lime in my hand. “I’ll put you to work while you’re here.”
It’s somewhat cooler inside, like the dim, damp shelter of an animal’s cave. The table is decorated with yellow cans of coffee stacked on top of each other. A little girl sits nearby, resting her head against the lacey white tablecloth. When she cranes her neck to say hello, her cheek is patterned with the impression of the fabric.
“Make it quick,” says Lorelei, clapping flour off her apron and returning to a large cooking vat on the counter. “I have errands to run.” She begins churning the vat’s contents — a tart and sweet-smelling green substance — with a wooden spoon, stirring it into the consistency of syrup. Her black hair is pulled back out of her face, secured in a tight knot on top of her head.
I grab a grater and take my seat at the counter, where I start shaving off lime zest into a small ceramic bowl. “I was at the grocery store this morning, and someone asked if I was human.”
“Of course they did!” Lorelei cries, clicking her tongue. “From the moment I saw you, I knew what you were. The ears gave it away.” She pinches the tops of her own ears, making them pointy. “You’re better at hiding it, but you still need to be careful.”
She tosses the wooden spoon into a bucket on the floor and starts furiously whipping the green filling with a silver whisk. “You’re not the first changeling in Fraudville. Did you know that? One of you came through years ago. None of the townsfolk ever quite figured out what was actually going on — most folks blamed the devil, naturally — but they did find the source. So they rallied together and chased the poor thing off False Creek Bridge. I believe the changeling survived. But I never saw them again.” She looks firm and resolute, and she grips her whisk until the skin on her knuckles loses its color.
I swallow the urge to cry, then pass her the bowl of lime zest. There is something intriguing, macabre, and downright depressing about learning about other changelings. It’s never good news. “This place is special to me, though. I don’t want to be on my own again.”
Lorelei sighs and her expression softens. “I wish there was more I could do, but I’m on thin ice already,” she says, lowering her voice. Her eyes grow distant, and her gaze falls on something behind me. “I can’t put my sweet Sybil in harm’s way.”
I turn to see that the little girl is still resting her head on the table, but now she is fast asleep. The coffee cans are stacked around her, like a neat tin fortress.
“I know,” I say. “But I don’t know what to do.”
Lorelei palms down her hair, smoothing out a few wiry strands. “I’ve got it,” she says, biting her forefinger, deep in thought. “You need to kill someone.”
“What?!”
“If you want to stay, you’ll have to do what you were born to do — kill someone and replace them.” She brandishes her whisk at me, spraying flecks of key lime over the floor. “Your empathy sets you apart from other changelings, but it will turn around and bite you in the ass if you let it. You have to decide what you’re willing to do. And once you make your mind up, you sure as hell better stick to it.” She grabs a newspaper off the counter and slaps it down in front of me. “You should change before you go. And take something off the clothesline on your way out.”
Lorelei’s right; it’s not favorable to morph into someone who’s still alive. Fraudville is small, and people will talk to you if they recognize you. That’s why I stole my face from a girl who passed through on a train back in February. It’s been tricky to maintain, as I haven’t seen her since then. The greenish hue in my skin grows more vibrant each day. I can’t pass for a human much longer.
I flip through the newspaper until I find a photo of a college basketball game. There’s a boy in the photo who looks to be around my age, playing on the visiting team. The second my eyes land on his picture, my hair shrinks back into my head and my face melts away from the girl I saw riding the train. I reach up to my face, rub the new patch of peach fuzz on my chin, and wipe my brow. This one sweats more easily.
Lorelei’s hilltop is circled with flowering crape myrtles and bright green dogwoods. An entire wardrobe is strung from a clothesline that runs through the backyard: vests, plaid caps, jodhpurs, and trousers flap in the wind. I slip off the sundress I had been wearing and change into something more boyish.
The railroad runs along the bottom of the hill, and I follow it back into town, balancing on one of the thin, steel bars until it leads me to Mainstreet. Magnolia petals drop from their trees like fat, heavy snowflakes, scattering across the sidewalk in a constellation of pink and white. A singular sense of adoration unfurls inside of me, blossoming from my stomach and out into my fingertips as I trace the outline of each building.
A rhythm connects these narrow, brick storefronts, and it crescendos into a mesmerizing ensemble every summer. There’s the thrumming bass of air conditioners, the shuffle of bare feet as they dance across a scorching sidewalk, the syncopated locking of doors one hour before sunset every night. It’s a quiet cacophony that is so distinct, I’m sure I would recognize it anywhere. I wish I could live in this noise, surrendering myself to the patchwork of sounds. The music softens as I reach the end of the street.
“What’s on your mind?”
A pickup truck has pulled onto the sidewalk in front of me, blocking my path. The driver, a man about twice my age, watches me with anxious eyes.
I don’t answer. I am trying to remember the photo of the boy from the basketball game. Does he know this man? Or is this just a friendly stranger?
“I’m Martin,” says the driver, extending a hand for me to shake.
So he is a stranger. Southern gentility never ceases to confuse me.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around,” he continues, his eyes flickering down to my shoes and back up to my face. He shrugs. “I’m new here. Just trying to get the lay of the land.”
This strikes me as odd, but I remember a similar encounter I had last summer, shortly after I arrived in Fraudville. I was helping Lorelei hang her laundry when a strange man trudged out of the woods. He had been on a hike and felt overheated, so she invited him inside and gave him a jug of iced tea. Is it so easy to make friends in this place?
Then I remember the changeling who was chased off False Creek Bridge, and I decide that no conversation is worth the risk. Without bothering to respond, I turn around to walk back toward the shops.
The truck door slams, and before I have a chance to look, a calloused palm slams down over my mouth, and two thick forearms bind around my torso, tightening and pulling me backward. My muffled scream is knocked out of me as I’m launched into the passenger seat. As soon as the door closes, it’s locked, and Martin is jumping back into the driver’s seat. A long, high-pitch shriek comes from beneath the tires as we reverse off the sidewalk and speed down the street.
“Why’d you try to run away?” Martin says, glaring down the road.
I cannot breathe. My face is flushed. My ears are transfiguring.
He uses one hand to grip my wrist. “You’re not human, are you?” he says, grinning. “That’s okay with me.” Then he laughs through his teeth — a deep, belly laugh that turns into a sort of growl. When he looks at me, I feel his sick fascination — the magnetic pull of something alluring, something alien. I feel his coarse stubble, his furrowed brow line, his blocky nose. I feel the face of the boy from the newspaper melt away.
He’s screaming now, staring in terror as my transfiguration completes. The truck jerks, swerving off the pavement and into a rocky meadow. His hand is still locked around my wrist, while I am sinking into my seat like I am made of stone. Shadows swallow us. Magnolia branches stretch across the windshield, baring our way into the woods with a horrible crunch. The seatbelt pins me down, the truck jolts to a halt, and I’m smothered by my airbag.
Martin’s airbag doesn’t go off. He smacks his face against the steering wheel and slumps forward, his head lolling to the side.
Warmth spreads through my limbs. I rip off my seatbelt and fight my way out of the truck. My body is strange — I’ve never been this old before. My fingers ache from somewhere deep in my joints. I never fathomed that my arms would be this hairy. I’m not sure what my intention is when I throw open the driver’s door. Martin is too heavy for me to lift, so I pull on his arms until he slides out of his seat and lands on the tangled forest floor with a deep thud. I could drive him to a hospital, but what then? Would I walk into the waiting room and explain that my doppelgänger is waiting in the totaled truck out front?
My legs move slowly as if my feet are ten-pound weights, but I manage to climb over his body and settle in behind the wheel. There’s a lump in the seat. I reach underneath myself and retrieve a fat leather wallet, containing an ID with his home address.
But when I look in the rearview mirror and see his eyes staring back at me, one overwhelming sensation
takes over: repulsion. Repulsion at this face, this coarse stubble and blocky nose, this dripping, baritone drawl. Everything I have become … will protect me. This is how I can survive.
Lorelei will be thrilled.
The engine sputters and squeals as I back out of the trees. When the tires finally make contact with the pavement, I grip the rearview mirror, yanking desperately until it slides out of place. I muster a faint glimmer of gratitude as I envision myself claiming a place in one of the narrow brick shops. The music drags me back into town.