Danny Ferrick studied his reflection in the mirror over the bureau. 'I think they’re getting longer,' he said, touching the curved horns growing from his forehead. He turned to glance at his mother.
'What do you think?'
Julia didn’t want to think about her son’s horns, let alone look at them, although it was impossible to ignore the black protrusions. 'Could be,' she said offhandedly, taking an overlarge New England Patriots shirt from the suitcase on the bed, folding it, and placing in a dresser nearby.
Danny was almost completely unpacked, except for some cargo pants and his toiletries, and she found herself slowing down, stalling, not really wanting to complete the task.
'You’re not even looking.'
Julia slid the drawer closed and reached for the cargo pants. 'I looked, trust me, I just can’t say.'
Danny was suddenly at her side, his hand closed around her wrist, pulling her away from her task. 'Look at me.'
Her heart skipped a beat as she let herself see him again. He looked like something out of a bad dream; completely hairless, with horns sticking from his scalp, skin the color of burgundy wine and yellow, hypnotic eyes. This couldn’t be her child — her baby boy — this was some kind of monster, a demon. But when he spoke, or looked at her in that certain way, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that this was indeed the child she loved.
A changeling. That was what Mr. Doyle had called him. A demon child, left in place of a human baby at birth by mischievous devils. The child she had given birth to was gone, long ago. Mr. Doyle insisted that her biological infant had likely been dead since shortly after his abduction. The weight of that knowledge might have killed her, the sheer black burden of it, if not for the presence of the boy left in his place. A demon child, to be raised as a human. How surprised those monsters would have been to learn that she had done exactly as they planned, and that she did not regret it. She grieved for the infant she had lost, but she loved her son, no matter how he had come to be hers.
She loved him.
Danny Ferrick was a demon, but he would always be her son.
'I’m sorry, baby,' she said, pulling him into her arms and kissing the side of his bald head. His skin felt different now, like the soft leather of an expensive car seat, and she was careful not to scratch herself on his horn. 'I’m being rude to you, even though I don’t want to be.'
He hugged her back, and she could feel a frightening strength in those arms, but also a tenderness that proved she was loved, despite what they had learned about his origins.
'Did I do something wrong?' he asked, gently removing himself from her embrace.
Julia laughed and shook her head. 'If only it were that easy.' She again reached for the pants in the open suitcase and removed them, refolding them. 'I don’t like this, Danny, any of this; your physical change, leaving home, living here.' She turned toward the bureau, feeling his gaze on her.
'But you talked to Mr. Doyle. It’s best that I’m here, to learn about what’s happening to me, what I am. I thought you understood that.'
She pulled open the bottom drawer, where she had put his jeans earlier, and shoved the cargo pants in beside them. 'It’s not that I don’t understand, Danny, I just don’t like it.'
'What’s not to like?' he asked, his voice louder now, his volatile teenage temper rearing its ugly head. 'Look at me, Mom. These people actually want me here.'
She felt him move closer and, for the briefest of moments, actually felt afraid, and this angered her.
'You don’t think I want you at home?' she demanded.
He sighed. 'You know that’s not what I meant. It’s just… with the assholes at school, and the neighbors… you know I’m better off here. It’ll be easier for both of — '
'I didn’t raise my son to become part of some freak show,' she snapped, turning to face him.
Danny chuckled humorlessly and ran a hand over his deep red pate. His fingernails were black now, like the claws of an animal.
'Okay, so I don’t stay here, I come home with you, and then what?'
She didn’t have an answer, so she folded her arms defensively across her chest.
'I go back to Newton and everything’s just fine, is that what you think?' He laughed unhappily. 'How long do you think it will be before the villagers are surrounding the house with torches?'
'Stop,' Julia said. 'Please, stop it.' She closed her eyes, listening to the pounding rhythm of the blood in her temples. She was getting a headache; the kind that usually sent her straight to bed with all the lights out and the curtains drawn, not quite a migraine, but a bad, return to the womb kind of headache, as her ex-husband used to say.
'No, I won’t,' he said defiantly. 'Things are different now — I’m different now.' He pointed to one of the room’s windows with a clawed finger. 'I don’t fit out there anymore.'
She still had her eyes closed, the pain in her head growing with every pulse of her heart.
'Look at me!' Danny roared, and she had no choice but to open her eyes. He stood before her, arms spread, displaying what he had become. 'Look at me and tell me I’m wrong.'
Julia didn’t know what to say. Deep down she knew he was right, but damn it she couldn’t bear to let him go, to release her only child into the care of Arthur Doyle, someone she barely knew — to become part of his… what did he call it? His menagerie.
'What do we actually know about this Mr. Doyle?' she blurted out. 'And the people who live here with him — don’t even get me started on them. I’d just feel better if I knew…'
'He saved the world, ma,' Danny interrupted. 'And I helped.' He touched the front of his Eminem T-shirt with a taloned hand. 'I really don’t think you need anything more by way of character references.'
The world was pretty much back to normal since the bizarre occurrences of almost three weeks before, when a crimson mist had blanketed the region and the dead had crawled from their graves. Julia shivered with the memory, the hair at the back of her neck prickling to attention. It was hard to believe that everything that happened was anything other than a very bad dream, but when she looked at her son, she knew it was real.
'I want to stay here,' Danny said taking a step toward her. 'I need to be here.'
There was a desperation in his voice that made her want to cry, as if the answers to all of his problems were right here, and she was the only obstacle standing in the way of his total fulfillment.
'Danny, please.' She weighed each word carefully. 'Look at this from my perspective.'
'This isn’t about you!' Danny bellowed, and Julia could have sworn she saw sparks of orange flame leap from his eyes. He spun away from her, bounding across the room, and brought his fist down on the mahogany dresser, obliterating the toys.
Julia was horribly torn. Motherly instincts told her to go to her son, to comfort him, but another voice inside her head, more attuned to self-preservation, whispered that it might be wiser to keep her distance. The moment was broken, however, and her quandary solved, when a spectral figure emerged from the ceiling, drifting down to float eerily in the center of the room. The temperature dropped several degrees, and she shivered.
No matter how many times Julia saw the ghost of Dr. Leonard Graves, she couldn’t get used to it.. He was a kind man, and had been a noble example of humanity while he lived, but that was the problem. Dr. Graves was dead.
'Is everything all right?' the specter asked, his gaze shifting from Julia to her son, who now knelt before his demolished dresser.
'Danny?' Graves drifted closer to the boy, and Julia noticed how much warmer it was without him near.
'I’m cool,' Danny said, reaching down to touch the broken dresser. 'My mom and I were just discussing how it would be best for me to go back home with her and live in the basement.'
Julia sighed. 'I said no such thing,' she said wearily, bringing her hands to her temples in an attempt to massage away the throbbing agony in her head.
'It’s completely understandable if you don’t quite trust us yet,' Graves said, turning his focus on her and drifting closer. 'We are quite the unusual bunch.'
'It’s not that I don’t trust you per se… damn it this hurts,' she moaned, and stumbled slightly to one side, sitting down on the end of the bed.
'She called you all a freak show,' Danny said with contempt.
Julia started to deny it, but gave up, the pain inside her skull taking away her strength to defend herself. She
