Her parents slammed on the bathroom door while Arribela cried.

  “What’s wrong!? Open the door!” Her dad cried through the

  Arribela grabbed the loose string of flesh and cut it off with some tiny scissors. The poor girl could not stop crying as her dad slammed his palm against the door. For whatever reason, in her mind, she felt like she had done something wrong. She soaked herself with a rag she had found in the washroom cupboard and used a beanie to cover up the scar. She was set to play with Cadie and Marisola. Cadie would most certainly comment on the beanie.

  “If you don’t get out and show me what’s wrong, I’m going to tear this door down!” Her dad said again. Arribela turned to her left and escaped through the window.

  Arribela escaped to her favorite creek, where she calmed down by damming the creek with rocks. Luckily, the bleeding had stopped. She splashed her hand in the water and wiped the dried blood off. When she did, she felt the tender skin again and stared at her reflection in the creek. There it was. Gray skin. She tried to rub it. The pain of her wound was still raw. But it did not go away. It did not smudge. She rubbed it again despite the tenderness. She closed her eyes and attempted to ignore the pain as she rubbed harder. A tear welled in her right eye as she realized it was not going away. All she noticed was another fleck of skin starting to come off. Arribela pressed it down, but the damage had been done. There was a slight flap of skin, and under it, more was revealed.

  What was she to do? Lala thought to herself. As if she already wasn’t enough of a freak at school, there was this. Some bizarre cut across her forehead. She looked at it, disgusted with herself.

  “I can tell you what that is.” Said a shaky voice from above her. She looked up.

  Tall, pale gray, nothing but black in the eyes, gaunt cheekbones, and knees that bent the other way. Arribela wanted to scream as loud as she could, but she was exhausted. Instead, she fell backward, hitting her head on one of the dams she made.

  When she came to, the monster was still there, tending to her head wound and nursing her to health.

  “I’m glad you were out here,” Said the monster cheerily, “When it was my time, I was in a china shop.” She said as she treated Arribela’s wound, “Me mam revealed herself to me right there. Thought it was a flasher for a second. Did it with a long coat. Fell back into a table with a whole glass menagerie. I thought I would do it better if it were in the open, but no. It was just a brand new, same old mistake.”

  Arribela looked up at the pale gray monster above her. Arribela was close enough to see the wrinkles on the poor monster’s forehead, deep and creased. The young girl was scared to move. Why was such a monster being so nice?

  “What do they call you?” She asked Arribela.

  “Arribela.”

  “Good name.” She said, “Beautiful name. You’re free to go by it if you like. I’m not one for tradition. But, if you’d also like… what we do is we take the last bit of our human name and double it. It’s a silly tradition. My name is Aba-aba. So your name might be… Lala.”

  To this, Arribela did not say anything. Was this monster planning on taking her away from her family? Giving her a new name? So many thoughts ran through her head before she finally softly whispered, “I like my old name.”

  “Then keep it!” Aba-aba finished tending to the young woman’s head wound, “Like I said, I’m not tied to tradition.”

  Arribela wondered. Was this a reasonable monster? Maybe, she could persuade the monster out of eating her. It was worth a try because the alternative was to be abducted or eaten.

  “What are some qualities you look for when abducting children?”

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  The changeling let out a nuanced laugh. A laugh that was a mix of surprise at a child’s bluntness but mixed with earnest chagrin.

  “What do those humans teach you? Honestly.” The changeling pointed at her head wound, “I’m here because of that.”

  Arribela felt her head, things suddenly started to click for her, “I’m… turning into a monster, aren’t I?”

  The changeling shook her head, “You’re not a monster, Lala… Arribela. You’re a changeling. I should know, I’m a changeling too. See?”

  The changeling transformed into a human woman with brown eyes and a kind smile.

  “I’m… not human?” More tears started to form in the corners of Arribela’s eyes.

  “Oh, no no no!” Said the mother, “Don’t worry! Don’t worry! You can stay in this form as long as you’d like. The world doesn’t have to ever know you’re… one of me. See?”

  The changeling shifted again, her hair thinned dramatically. Her lip sprouted a big mustache, and her brow became severe. She became a man. Her voice changed accordingly, “You see? Anything and anyone you like.”

  Her mother grabbed the ends of her mustache and made a funny face as she pulled on the hairs. Arribela let out a laugh.

  The changeling reverted to her normal form, “This is just so I can explain what’s happening to you. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Yes.” Said a shy Arribela, “Yes, please.”

  “Polite young woman,” The changeling smiled, “Unfortunately,” this will be the hardest part for you, your first shift.. You have been in your twin form for your whole life. Mimicking your twin sister for as long as you’ve been alive. After this, every shift will get easier and easier. But for now, you are going to molt.”

  “Wait.” Arribela interrupted Aba-Aba.

  “Yes?”

  “Does this make you my mother?”

  “That it does.”

  She was hearing too many hideous things at once. Her family was not her family. Her sister was not her sister. She had had suspicions that she was a monster, the way everyone does, but in her case, it was true. Now this large gray teacher told her she was going to turn into her. Arribela could take no more; her mother could sense this and hugged her. Arribela evaded the hug, mistaking it for a lurch, and ran away.

  The young girl ran back to her home, where her parents and sister would reassure her. But then… she thought about what the monster told her. How she was not really a part of her family. Would her family still love her? Would they ever forgive her for being the one who took the place of the real child?

  She would go home and tell her parents. She would tell them about the monster who lied to her and made her feel awful. As she walked home, she grabbed her voluminous red hair and began to chew on it. A nasty habit inspired by her anxiety. She walked along the path home as she chewed her hair, wondering what her sister would say, or worse yet, Cadie when she found out that she was secretly a freak. She pulled her hair out of her mouth and looked at it. There it was. Her hair was white.

  Had Arribela sucked all the color off of it!? It was white just like the monster’s hair. The monster was correct. Arribela was exactly who Aba-aba said she was. She had to get out of there. Her anxiety caused her blood to run, and her wound started to act up again. She walked into the house. “Everything would be alright,” She thought as she tucked the white hairs into her beanie.

  “Arribela, what happened?!” Her mother said.

  Arribela’s head cranked toward her mother. What did she know? How did she know!?

  “Your forehead! It’s bleeding!” Her mother pointed at the spot in her beanie, and Arribela looked. In her nervousness, her blood started pumping more, and she found that she was bleeding through her beanie.

  “I didn’t knit Marisola that beanie for you to get blood all over it.” Said her mother, “You better be prepared to wash it yourself. Here, let me see.”

  “No!” Arribela grabbed her head and ducked under her mother’s arms, “I’ll wash it myself, I promise! I’ll be in my room!”

  She ran into her room and closed the door behind her. Her mother said, “Oh, Arribela! Cadie …”

  Arribela did not hear anything. She ran into her room. She took her hair out of her sweater and looked at it. It was not just that it was a different color; it had become crinkly. Half of it was still red. She looked around for other hairs and found six more white crinkly hairs. Then, she pulled open the beanie again. Arribela wondered if she could prevent the transformation somehow. All she wanted was to be a normal girl. She took off her beanie and stared at the hideous scar that had been left alone. She could see the pearlescent gray color, a similar shade to her new mother’s skin.

  “Monster.” She said to herself, trying her very best not to cry again, “Monster. Not a monster. As if I wasn’t already one.”

  She tried. She could see loose ends of the skin, of the shedding, coming off. She tamped it down with her finger. Making sure to hide the looseness. There was still the matter of the gray streak. She took out her mother’s makeup kit in the washroom and attempted to apply a foundation. She blotted her tender skin with it, causing a blotted discoloration. This one was darker than hers.

  While she was performing this makeup surgical procedure, she did not hear the rest of her mother’s sentence. The mother attempted to tell Arribela about how Cadie and Marsiola had come over to play hide and seek at their house. And Cadie was hiding in the closet behind Arribela, watching as Arribela fruitlessly applied foundation to her new skin.

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