The Corpse Bride
The schoolhouse bell hadn't stopped ringing for three nights.
Julian stood in the ruins of the playground, his boots sinking into earth that pulsed like a throat swallowing. Around him, the missing children's toys lay arranged in a spiral—dolls with their eyes gouged out, jump ropes knotted into nooses, a single tiny shoe filled with rainwater and dead fireflies.
Then he saw her.
The first Lyra Whitfield stood beneath the broken swing set, her wedding dress woven from:
Strips of children's skin (pale as parchment)
Willow roots (still dripping sap)
Julian's father's hair (graying at the temples)
"You kept me waiting," she sighed, her voice the sound of roots cracking bones.
Julian's wedding band burned black against his finger.
Sabrina's Choice
Sabrina felt it the moment the first Lyra returned—a searing pain low in her belly, as if the unborn thing inside her recognized its sister.
She found Lyra (her Lyra) in the nursery, chewing on a lock of her own hair, the strands wriggling like worms between her teeth.
"She's pretty," Lyra mused, staring at the portrait Sabrina had painted of the corpse bride. "But she smells like old meat."
Sabrina reached for her—
—and Lyra sank her teeth into her mother's wrist, swallowing the black sap that welled up.
"Don't worry," she whispered, violet eyes gleaming. "I'll make her leave. I'm your real daughter."
That night, Sabrina dreamed of two Lyras holding hands in the grove, their mouths moving in unison:
"Which of us will you keep?"
Julian's Sacrifice
The first Lyra came to him at dusk, her dress rustling with the whispers of dead children.
"She'll never love you like I could," she murmured, pressing her root-twisted fingers to Julian's chest. "Sabrina's heart belongs to the grove first. But you... you could be mine."
Julian recoiled—
—and the corpse bride laughed, peeling back her skin to reveal the hollow beneath.
"Too late," she crooned. "You're already inside me."
A thorn burst from Julian's tongue.