The Changeling

by Victor LaValle

“I’m here,” Apollo said again, “for my wife.” “Are you here to apologize and beg forgiveness?” a third woman asked, sounding slightly winded and clearly sarcastic. “Or did you mean to kill her?” asked the fourth, and when she said the words, his whole body tensed, and the women laughed together like people long hardened from a war. “I want my revenge!” shouted the first. “She took my child!” added the second. “She made me suffer!” hissed the third. “Her blood is owed to me!” came the fourth. Now they didn’t laugh but clucked their tongues. They seemed so unsurprised. Apollo wondered how many times these four women had made the same journey with a man who’d appeared on the island. Maybe this was how the path beneath them had come to be beaten down so well; back and forth with the bodies of the men. And where would this path end?