Changelings

Grace

Grace's chest is covered in red.

Benjamin stands before her with a closed bucket of bleach at his feet and a yellow sponge in his hand. He closes his eyes and breathes her in. He breathes in the metallic stench of red and the intruder's perfume, and the musk that rises from her skin and hair.

He has to fix her. He has to make her virgin white.

He takes off his woolen coat and throws it at Grace's feet. He removes his shoes and turns on the mangled five dollar radio on the table. Bill Withers' Ain't No Sunshine reverberates around the space between them. Benjamin begins humming.

Grace remains standing, chest heaving, throat constricting as red drips down her skin, arms, and plaster dress onto the cold brown tiles. She feels red soak into her skin. It scratches the inside of her mouth until she tastes poison on her tongue. It coils around her teeth like vines and shatters them. She feels it climb deep inside her throat and claw its way towards her heart. 

Benjamin opens the blue bleach bucket. Grace inhales it until her limbs slacken. The bleach corrodes Benjamin's throat and clogs his nose. He hears his heart rattling beneath his rubs and squeezes the sponge until he can't feel his hand.

Grace has to be purified.

He looks at the deep cuts on her naked arms and thighs, the bruises around her eyes and handprint on her cheek. When he closes his eyes, he sees her dressed in black, her claws around Grace's neck, shaking her like a rag doll.

He dips the sponge in the beach bucket and flinches as the bleach slips through the pores on his skin. It drips from the sponge and onto the brown floor as he drags his legs towards Grace.

He takes her small face in his hand, breathes her in one last time, and begins purifying her. The yellow sponge becomes red like wine. Benjamin wants to lick it. Savour it. Swallow it. Consume it like it consumed Grace.

He soaks the sponge in bleach again and continues purifying Grace. He purifies her chest, arms, and face until her winter white skin shines again. He kisses the bruises on her eyes and the handprint on her cheek. He feels the sharp sting of bleach on his lips, but he doesn't care. Grace is back, clean, pure. She wraps her virgin arms around him and pulls him close. Benjamin's eyes begin to water.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "Caroline." Her name burns his tongue. "She desecrated you."

Grace says nothing. She combs his hair with her long fingernails and pulls his head back.

Caroline flashes through her eyes, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Benjamin smells her cheap perfume and tastes salt on his tongue.

Grace lets him go. He falls beside the bucket, breathing hard. He dips the sponge in the bleach with shaking hands and sees her in the liquid: Mary, the girl with honey hair who served him at Coles. Benjamin swirls the sponge in the bleach. Mary wore a crucifix. Her fingernails were trimmed and blue. She smelled sweet like sun-kissed oranges and spoke like the summer breeze.

"Have a lovely day," she had said politely, eyes shining like silver.

Benjamin picks up the sponge and squeezes it. He feels Mary's throat pulsating against his palms. Feels her thighs clam around his legs. Hears her strangled screams. Sees the golden crucifix bounce on her collarbone, as Grace is draped was red.

He takes the sponge from the bleach bucket and starts wiping Grace's feet. They're cold like marble. Cold just like Caroline in the deep freezer.

"Grace," he says. "I have to get rid of her tonight. Cut her in pieces and bury her by the Eyre River."

Grace says nothing. She just stares ahead.

"No one will ever find her there," he continues. "Will they?"

Benjamin falls to his knees and starts washing his feet, like Jesus did, once, a long time ago.

A child staggers along the pathway, his yellow raincoat hanging off his clothes hanger frame. Blood sips out of the deep cut on his knee. When he sees the white shack in the distance, he begins running, until he hits the low window. He reaches out to knock on it, ask for help, a phone maybe, when he sees the blood on the floor and a man on his knees, scrubbing it with a sponge.