Eamonn

The man living in your home is not your husband. You've known since the first night. From the moment he got into bed beside you and wrapped his arm around you. Your husband would never do that. The creature pretending to be Eamonn must have realized his—its—mistake because it has not touched you in the week since. It has simply lived in your home with you, its physical mimicry of your husband perfect enough even to fool his family. You should report it. You know you should. Stories of changelings and their dangers have been drilled into you since childhood, and if you keep silent you run the risk of being accused of conspiring with fae if anyone were to find out. But you don't want to. Because he—it—looks at you the way you imagined the person you'd one day marry would. It looks at you like it loves you. Sometimes you catch it reaching for you only to draw its hand back just before it touches you as if it is actively fighting the urge to pull you close, to hold you but remembers what person it is trying to mimic. You married Eamonn a year ago. It was arranged by your respective families. Eamonn's is one of the wealthiest families in town. Yours is low-middle class—your parents hoped that marrying you off to someone so respectable would earn your family name and jewelry business favor. You soon realized Eamonn was not the kind, respectable man he made himself out to be. He spent no time shattering the perfect dream of marriage you had had since you were a child. You quickly learned how to read his moods because you had to, when to cower and when to smile, how to pretend and how to hide your bruises. For the entire year you have been married to Eamonn, your husband has never treated you like the creature wearing his face now does. It looks at you not with disdain but reverence, calls you "darling" not to diminsh but with a tone like worship that makes you want to weep. You know you should be terrified of it. And yet you have never felt less afraid.