The Replacement

"In the story, Emma’s four years old. She gets out of bed and pads across the floor in her footie pajamas. When she reaches her hand between the bars, the thing in the crib moves closer. It tries to bite her and she takes her hand out again but doesn’t back away. They spend all night looking at each other in the dark. In the morning, the thing is still crouched on the lamb-and-duckling mattress pad, staring at her. It isn’t her brother."

"It’s me."

The Replacement is a supernatural teen novel dealing with depression low self-esteem  grief  bullying baby-stealing, murderous Fair Folk! Set in suburbia, it is narrated by a boy named Malcom, or rather, the creature that took Malcolm Doyle's place.


 * Changeling Tale
 * Dark Is Not Evil / Light Is Not Good: Zigzagged. Ends up somewhere near Blue and Orange Morality.
 * Equivalent Exchange
 * Emo Teen: Mackie actually has legitimate reasons for being sickly and depressed, but being an Emo Teen makes a good cover story for why he acts weird, skips class and avoids people.
 * The Fair Folk
 * Human Sacrifice: the town's prosperity is Powered by a Forsaken Child.
 * The Magic Goes Away: the Lady mourns the good old days, when her sacrifices were great warriors, and willing. Also, the Morrigan was once a goddess of war.
 * The Masquerade: A small one. Mackie is actually the only one of Them who tries to live with Muggles; the rest live in their burrow.
 * Not Using the Zed Word
 * Stepford Suburbia: Nearly everyone has had a child go missing or die in their family, but no one ever talks about it. They just bury quartz in their gardens, hang scissors over the cribs and enjoy their financial prosperity.
 * Town with a Dark Secret
 * Weaksauce Weakness: Malcom has the fair folk's traditional sensitivity to iron, most particularly "blood iron." Fortunately for his one-man Masquerade, his peers assume his illness and fainting are because he just can't stand the sight of blood.