She Who Conqueres True Love

Blood covered my pale skin. Standing in the light of the silver moon, I let the blood slide over my naked form. I was changed. I was new. I quaked in my skin as the change overcame me.

Keres, the word on the lips of the elders as they chanted my name. A spring of new beginnings, a cave of unfathomable ends. And blood. I licked my lips, gratitude filling my heart even as I departed.

The elders stared back, sagging skin clothed in blood and age, their faces a mold of pain and pleasure.

Then there were my birth kin. Most had left the nest, but a few remained, lying among the unmoving bodies of their prey. Human males and females they had lured back to the nest, eager to begin the next generation.

The newcomers were held by love and adoration, deception forming their chains. Those with child were sequestered and kept safe.

Moans and cries from the human women echoed throughout the cavern walls. Some would endure to the end of their term, but humans were fragile and far too many would be overtaken by the creature that tore its way out of them. The few that survived birth would be taken once more by their doppler partners.

I listened intently to the harmonious screams followed by the occasional cry of a newborn and smiled.

“Have you one in mind?” My Yaga asked, her voice creaking and echoing off the cavern walls.

Yaga was ancient, a mother and brood master who had taken hundreds of human studs to nurture our thriving community.

I nodded. “He likes blondes.”

Yaga brushed her grey, wrinkled fingers through my blonde curls.

“It matters little what he likes, my dear, but whom. What of his love’s eyes?”

Oh, that. I had nearly forgotten. I ducked my head into the ever-moving pool of blood, opening my eyes briefly. The once obsidian jewels that granted me sight sought a new form. Something strange and beautiful. Something that mimicked her.

I leaned into the pressure, allowing myself to ripple beneath it. I would become her. In order to lure him out, to possess him, to have him even.

...

The sun was high in the sky when I found them. The woman was all blonde curls, blue eyes, and freckles where the sun kissed her shoulders and cheeks. They walked together by the river bend. He whispered in her ear, and she threw her head back in laughter. Unadulterated love.

True love.

A shudder of anticipation rang through me, and it was all I could do not to salivate as I watched them.

He held her close, his arm around her shoulder, her hand clasping his. Their love was fragrant, I realized. It smelled of spring cherry blossoms and sounded like a babbling brook.

Her smile was trusting and honest as she gazed at him. His grin promised a future filled with that blissful cherry scent.

I spent days watching like that. Practicing her laugh, mimicking her smile. Desperately trying to perfect every detail. My Yaga’s words running through my mind.

It matters who he loves.

One morning he approached the riverbend alone, unperturbed. I wondered where his woman had gone, then realized I didn’t care.

Now was my chance.

I softened my gaze and smiled cheerfully.

“Beth!” he exclaimed, his grin matching mine as he took me into his arms. “I thought you were helping your mother with the herbs.”

“You know I cannot stay away from you for long.” I adopted her lilt, just as… Beth? Yes, Beth might have done.

But he pulled away, frowning.

“You shouldn’t leave your mother to do all that work by herself. Come, I’ll escort you back, perhaps the two of you can put your heads together and find some use for me.”

My hand flew up to rest on his chest.

“Nonsense, come. I wish for you to make me laugh.”

He relaxed, drawing me close and smelling my hair, then stiffened.

“What is it?” I asked in Beth’s high-pitched, singsong voice.

“You smell…” He cleared his throat, realizing his rudeness. “Sorry. Do you hear that?”

I listened for a moment before firmly shaking my head.

“The birds… they’ve stopped singing.” He frowned. “A bad omen.” He took my hands, looking earnestly into my eyes. “Go home, I’ll come find you tomorrow.”

I hid my frustration behind the sweetest smile I could muster and lightly kissed his cheek. “Until tomorrow?”

“Till tomorrow, my meadow,” he whispered. Though his words echoed a deep longing, his face was solemn.

...

“You are still coming to my cousin’s wedding, yes?” Beth smiled in the sunlight.

From the trees, I watched him kiss her, seeming to savor her scent.

“My dear, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He sighed. “What on earth would I do without you?”

Beth giggled and put her palm to his chest.

“Wander around in the woods like a lost puppy, I suppose.” Beth smiled pleasantly at her joke, but he did not laugh. “What ails you, my love?”

He shook his head. I cocked my head, listening from my hiding place among the trees.

“Samuel hasn’t been seen in days, and Anne’s father is in a rage after finding her bed empty this morning.”

Beth frowned. “Yes, I heard. Lovers’ quarrel, perhaps?”

“For Anne, perhaps. But Samuel… you know him.” He inclined his head, and Beth blushed.

“Yes, well, Samuel and I are history. You know that.”

“But does he? Perhaps he left for the next village.”

Beth hugged him tighter and sighed. “I do hope he is well, but I am happy to remain here for the rest of my life. So long as you remain, that is.”

This time his smile remained.

“Wherever you are, my love, that is where I shall stay.”

Watching them, a thought occurred to me. Perhaps I need not take up the ever-blooming mantle of this beautiful woman. I needed the man; the woman was… inconsequential in a way. A plan took shape.

The goal was not to replace true love but rather to conquer it.

Beth was simple to learn. I watched her rise early at her mother’s cottage and followed her to the schoolhouse, where she helped with the children.

Human children were funny little things. I followed Beth home, wondering if in another life we might have been friends. Sisters, even?

I pictured Beth in the nest, Yaga crooning over her freckles, the two of us dancing in moonlight and lapping up our victims’ blood.

Nostalgia for a girlhood I would never have overcame me.

Friends.

Lovers.

I had known lovers, sterile encounters with other dopplers. But a friend…

I wondered what that would be like. In the nest, everyone confided in the elders or simply held their tongues. Everything we did was for the good of the colony. For the nest.

I had never given children much thought. I could not remember my mother, though Yaga said she was human and survived two more breeding cycles. Beyond that, Yaga would not speak of her.

I did not know my siblings either, or my father for that matter. The elders raised the children. Those of breeding age had responsibilities away from home.

Did I resemble either parent? Most dopplers looked alike: grey, sagging skin, short stature, razor-edged teeth.

Still, in my mind’s eye I pictured the woman who gave me life: brown hair, tan skin, full lips, a gentle smile. Then I pictured her lying cold on the nest’s stone floor, her broken, bloodied body still.

I reached for something, anything. Sympathy? Grief? Nothing. She was a human who served her purpose.

Evening had fallen when someone cleared their throat behind me.

I turned slowly.

Beth.

She was shaking even as she held a dagger to my throat.

“You’ve been following me!” Beth slurred, blinking rapidly.

Events slowed as I took in the scene.

Beth swayed, sweat beading her brow.

“You are fatigued.” For all my planning, I had not expected her to approach me, much less in such a state.

She pulled a flask from her pocket and drank. Its pungent smell made me gag, my face, her face, wrinkling in disgust.

“I know… I… you’ve been watching us.” Beth pocketed the uncapped flask.

The drink had given her courage but robbed her of coordination. I relaxed. Cards on the table, then.

“Studying,” I said politely.

“What?”

“I’ve been studying you.” I pointed to the drunk woman. As if to emphasize my words, I rearranged my freckles to mimic hers exactly.

“Why?” Beth’s voice cracked in the way of a woman who already knew the answer to the question she asked.

I reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek, surprised when she let me. “It is my way.”

“Did you kill Samuel and Anne? Tell me or I swear I’ll-.” She swallowed her cry.

“I did not touch them,” I answered honestly.

She relaxed slightly but kept her dagger raised. “Why do you study me? Why do you follow me?”

I smiled, to my surprise genuinely.

“You have something I can never possess. It smells of cherries and sounds like a laughing brook. Love, in its truest form. Beautiful and rare, and you have found it.”

Beth lowered her dagger, her expression softening at the thought of her love.

“Indeed, a blessing that few come upon, and even fewer get to keep.”

I returned her knowing smile. “Yes, I envy you.”

Beth looked at me with pity and kindness.

“You did not have to follow me to make a friend of me…?”

“Keres,” I replied in her warm tone. “My name is Keres.” I stumbled deliberately, feigning nervousness.

“Well, Keres, I do not presume to know your people’s ways, but if it is love you seek, I will help you.”

Tears pricked my eyes; I blinked them away.

“Truly?”

“So long as we might be friends.”

This time I stumbled for real. “I-. But you’re a human, and-. Why?”

Beth laughed softly. “Well, perhaps I am just that drunk! Besides,” she gave me a knowing look, “my mother would like to meet you. She sniffed you out in the first place.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh?”

Beth brightened and took my hand. Her mother’s cottage was warm, a sort of nest of its own, with a crackling hearth and dried herbs hanging throughout.

Beth’s mother resembled her: blonde curls streaked with grey, bright blue eyes, and a body marked by age.

That was what I recognized first.

But the second thing was her scent.

Blood and moonlight swirled beneath her skin with grief and rage. Her lips pressed together as our eyes met. Something clicked. Tears pricked my eyes.

I knew her.

I. Knew. This. Woman.

“Beth? Some privacy.”

Beth nodded at her mother, winked at me, and went out back.

“What are you doing here? Why are you here? Right under Yaga’s nose?” My chest wrenched. I was crying, rage, horror, and regret tangled together.

Her gaze was unflinching. She was younger than I had assumed; something other than years had aged her. Multiple somethings.

“I know your purpose here, daughter. In the spirit of family, I will give you this chance to return to that den of monsters you call home.”

“How did you know?” I whispered.

She smirked. “Oh, please. I spent nearly three years in that cesspool. The scent of blood never leaves you. Besides, you’ve none of your father’s mannerisms. You’ve studied Beth, but when you falter… all me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Does Beth know?”

My mother raised an eyebrow. “No, things like that are best left unsaid.” The woman shivered.

We both looked toward the door Beth had gone through.

“Do you love her?” I don’t know why I asked. I suppose I just needed to know.

My mother smiled with a gentle passion. “More than you can imagine.”

“And me? My brothers?”

My mother swallowed, her expression hardening as she looked at me.

“I wouldn’t call it hate but…”

“Keres.” I supplied, realizing I had never introduced myself.

She nodded. “Keres, you should not exist. There are moments when I wonder why I couldn’t do it. Didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” I asked hesitantly.

My mother gave me a pitying look. “Kill you, of course. I had the chance, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.” She huffed. “And now here you are. An abomination that should have been slaughtered long, long ago.”

I nodded, her words making me numb inside.

“Mother?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for letting me live. I will not waste it.”

My mother nodded but did not smile.

I found Beth outside sweeping the patio, or pretending to, while she listened in. She yelped, reddening when caught.

“I-.”

I waved her off. “It’s alright.”

Beth swallowed guiltily. The liquor was wearing off, leaving fatigue behind. Together we walked behind the cottage in the moonlight.

Beth finally broke the awkward silence. “I’m sorry she said all those terrible things to you.”

I took her sweet face in my hands. “Quite alright.”

Beth swallowed. “I’ve always wanted a sister, you know? Someone to come to my wedding, look out for me. Someone I could go to when things went wrong.”

The woman began weeping silently.

“Say you’ll stay, Keres. Mother will come around. She’s as stubborn as the day is long, but she will.”

“Your mother-.”

“Our mother,” Beth insisted. “Please, our mother.”

I nodded, pulling her into a gentle hug. “I owe our mother a life. A debt that must be repaid before I can make promises to anyone else, even you.”

Beth nodded. “But you’ll come back, right? Visit sometime?”

There was a pleading in her eyes. “I’ll never be far. I swear.”

I kissed her gently on the forehead. And began pressing my thumbs into her eyes.

The scream was guttural and awful. Unable to stand it anymore, I finally ripped out her throat.

Her quaking body gargled with blood but otherwise went silent.

I found the blade still stashed in her pocket and began my work. I raised Beth’s skirt until I found her inner thigh. The cut was shallow, but oh, how it bled. I lapped it up before finding my self-control and painting myself in it.

In the moonlight, covered in my dear sister’s blood, my skin rippled, all the pieces coming together in perfect harmony. The door to the cottage swung open and Beth’s mother was there. Her chest heaved as she stared at her daughter’s mangled corpse.

“Oh my-. My-.”

She pushed past me, fell to the ground, and cradled Beth, screaming her name. The sound was agonizing, a heartbreak like no other.

Despite it all, I felt I owed the woman some form of comfort. So I placed a gentle hand on her shaking shoulder.

“Take heart, Mother, you will soon have a grandchild.”

But she did not return my warm smile. Her face remained painted with horror and shock. A grief that gripped so thoroughly I couldn’t tell if she had heard me.

I walked some distance.

Then I screamed. An earth-shattering scream, a perfect mimicry of Beth’s last moments.

He came at once, taking my arms and examining me frantically, kissing me again and again.

“Beth, what...oh God. Are you alright? What happened?”

I shook my head.

“Something, someone? I don’t know. There was blood and I ran. I-.” I breathed him in as he held me close, his love forming a barrier against the world, if only for a moment.

A noise came from behind us.

My mother. Beth’s mother.

She was covered in her daughter’s blood, the knife shaking in her hand.

“Get away from him, you monster!”

I wilted in his arms.

“She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s frightened. Please don’t hurt her,” I whimpered.

My new lover nodded.

“Mother, please!”

“You are not my daughter!” She ran at me, knife aimed at my throat, but he caught her easily. My own personal protector. I smirked to myself.

“Mother, you are not of sound mind. Please calm yourself. The danger is over.”

“I want you dead, you insufferable-.”

She slipped out of his hands and was upon me. Her hands wrapped around my neck, choking me. Then he was there. Beth’s true love, come to save me. My mother was thrown off me and this time she did not get up.

He shivered, but I took his hand in mine, tugging him along urgently.

“We must leave this place, my dear. The village will not understand.”

He stammered, but I took his face in my hands and kissed him. True love’s blood smeared across our lips.

“Now, my love, please,” I pleaded, pulling away.

He nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Let’s go.”

And together, under the light of the moon, we made our way to the nest.