The Changeling of Fenlen Forest

by Katherine Magyarody

  Watching, I realized the horn’s healing power had to do with time. It turned a fresh wound into an old one, encouraging scabs to form more quickly to protect the flesh from the world.

  After a few minutes, the buck stepped away. The four of them moved close together and then walked off into the night, following the herd.

  I wanted to call Sida to me, but I had Telka to look after. She was shivering with exhaustion, wonder and fright.

  “Do you think you can climb on my back?” I said. I had the torch in one hand—I wouldn’t be able to hold her with both arms. She shook her head. I sat down on the cold earth with her and she curled into me.

  I wished I could put out the torch. My arm was aching and it was making me see spots of light in the darkness. No. There were more torches. More people. My gut clenched. More hunters?

  “Heino!” It was Pa’s voice. “Where’s my little girl?”

  “Pa!” I cried. “We’re here!”

  I tried to rouse Telka and she groggily stood. I picked her up and we walked slowly through the dark towards the light.

  They had stopped.

  I saw Pa kneeling beside Heino and turned Telka’s face towards me. Behind Pa were Giron, the drummer, and a few others. They watched us suspiciously.

  At first, I did not see the wounds. And then, the red, damp holes, two of them, a thumb’s width wide, right where his heart lay.

  Pa sat down on a fallen tree. “I don’t think the unicorn hunting would be a profitable plan,” he said quietly.

  “No.” I swallowed. This was his way of admitting that I was right. The night’s events had made the spit thick in my throat. “Do we take the body?” Telka shivered in my arms and then went very still.

  Pa looked at Heino and then quickly away. “I don’t think it’s ours to take.”

  I took a step closer and saw why he had so spoken. The forest had already begun to claim the corpse. Vines had furled around his arms, between his fingers. Grass already poked through the weave of his shirt. Buds and leaves spread through his hair. I was reminded that I had never been at home in the Fenlen Forest. I had only ever been a guest. For the first time, I fully felt the honour of rambling through the trees in utter safety.

  “Give me my child.” Pa took Telka very gently, without looking into my eyes. He held out the torch and we began walking back. The darkness was starting to break; the sky was no longer black, but a deep blue against the trees. I recognized the path even in the murk. Guest I may be, but the forest had begun to be familiar again.

  My heart hurt. Sida had not waited for me. Perhaps she had outgrown me. A thought occurred to me suddenly: would Ma welcome me home if I no longer had the unicorns? She must, I thought. She must.

  Moaning in her sleep, Telka nestled closer in Pa’s arms and he stroked her hair. “I told you not to run away in the night,” he said to me.

  “Look who’s talking,” I shot back. But my tone was half-hearted. I knew he was thinking about Bettina’s disappearance. The other men muttered behind us, not daring to stray too far from us.

  Pa’s brow wrinkled and he shifted Telka in his arms. “I never knew what a miracle it was that I made it across,” he said suddenly. “That night, when I left.”

  “Why did you leave? You and Ma were a mismatch, I understand that. But why leave then? Why there?”

  “I botched it. We had sold bad stock all down the road. The trick of selling cheap pots and pans at high prices to poor folk is to keep moving. Never go back until they forget their anger. But the road ended. I might have been lynched.”

  “Over a cracked pan?”

  “I might have also passed on bad coins. And I cuckolded a man three villages before.”

  “Pa!”

  He shrugged. “Sylvia found out about it all, of course. She was giving me freezing hell. You’d know how it is, of course. Cold looks, sharp words and elbows.”

  “You deserved it.”

  “Ah, did I? I was a few years older than you. Torun’s age.”

  I coughed in surprise. I could not imagine Pa near my age, with a small child, a wife. It was like imagining that Telka was my child or that Torun had left her alone at a forest’s edge. Impossible. We were out of the forest now, at the switchbacks. I went first and then held my arms out to make sure that Pa kept his balance.

  “I was scared out of my mind,” he said. “So I took the pony and rode away. As I went through the forest, the trees loomed and there were strange animal sounds. The pony threw me and ran away with the money. I had nothing. And I prayed that I would change my ways, that I would start again.”

  “Of course,” I said, but he didn’t catch my sarcasm.

  Pa wobbled on a loose stone, and I steadied him. I did not want him to drop Telka.

  “I have done honest trade, though I drive a hard bargain and keep my eye sharp for a good chance. I have kept faith with Melina. And I do not want to lose any more children.” This last part he said rather fiercely, as if I should forget that he had already lost Bettina, that his deal with Heino had almost lost him Telka.

  “You know,” he continued, “sometimes I think I should have let Bettina come trade with me.” Pa gave a wet sniff. If he cried, he’d scare Telka, so I patted him on the back. We walked together in silence. This was the first time I had talked to my father as an adult. I still did not like him, neither did I trust him. Tomorrow, he’d be preening and self-contented. But in this moment, I let myself feel sad for him, just a little bit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Alvinaisik

  When we got back, the bonfire had burned low. Two dark shapes stood out against the glow. Melina and Sarai. Melina stood there, in front of it, with her shoulders hunched. When the group of us reached her, she strode over to Pa and took Telka from him. She nodded to the men. “Please, go upstairs and sleep. I thank you for your efforts.”

  “And the Alvinaisik?” That was the drummer.

  Sarai looked at me swiftly, and I realized that Melina had not yet acknowledged me.

  “Lizbet has done nothing wro….” Pa began, but Giron cut him off.

  “Nothing? She stole the child.”

  “Heino stole her,” Pa shot back

  Melina gave Telka to Sarai. “Take her up to sleep.”

  Telka mumbled something and then burrowed her face into Sarai’s neck.

  Sarai’s grim face contorted, as if she were about to say something, but then she just nodded and retreated.

  Sarai and Telka knew me and liked me. Now they were gone. Torun was up in the high pasture. And the men did not trust my Pa.

  “Heino stole her,” Pa repeated. “Lizbet brought her to me.”

  “But who took the child to the Alvina birlan?” Giron said. “Why is Heino dead?”

  “Because he was a fool,” Pa said. “Like the lot of you.”

  “You’re the fool,” Melina cut in. “Charmed by an Alvinaisik when your daughter is gone. Bettina left us, and you expect me to accept her instead?”

  “I am my own self,” I said, but my voice was faint. I swallowed and raised my voice. “I am not an Alvinaisik. I passed your tests. I walked across poppy seeds. I wear iron. I learned to weave. You judge me by rules that I don’t know. But I am not a hekunaisik that you can throw your sadness on.”

  Melina waved her hands, dispelling traditions like so much smoke. “I did not want to believe it. But Bettina said she had a creature haunting her. She disappears, and you appear. You enchant Torun and Telka. My mother did not trust you and suddenly she decides to join the Alvina. You are a danger to us.”

  One of the men gave out a low growl and I became horribly aware of the fire next to us. Would they shove me in it and watch me burn? The river was too low to drown me in…

  “Tomorrow, I will watch you go back to your home.” Melina said firmly. “To the Alvina birlan.”

&n
bsp; Pa began to speak, but Melina raised her hand again. “You go with her or you stay with me.”

  He looked at her, the men and then me. He had known them for far longer than he had known me. I gave a small shrug and he stepped to Melina’s side.

  They locked me in the henhouse. For a mad moment, I thought they would light the entire building on fire. But the presence of the chickens reminded me that they would not waste food.

  The hens clucked unhappily as I crouched among the straw and the sharp, ammoniac smell of their droppings. Telka and the boys liked poking around in here, but it was cramped for a grown person. I still had my pack, but it was too dark to find the knife I would need to flip the lock. I fumbled in a panic.

  There was a soft scraping, the sound of a log being taken away from the door.

  Was it already time? How?

  The door opened and Sarai’s slim form stood behind it.

  “I brought your boots,” she said. “And your coat.”

  I began to crawl out of the henhouse and when I was half out, Sarai pulled me the rest of the way. She brushed me off with short, hard motions.

  “Thank you.” I said as I pulled on my boots and my coat. “How did…”

  “I came back outside to listen,” she said. “You were an idiot to take Telka out there on a day like this. But they are fools, too.”

  I gave her a brief hug and let go. “Will you be all right?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” She gave me a small shove. “Now go away. While you have time. Please.” After closing up the henhouse, Sarai climbed the ladder to the house without looking back.

  I slipped through the hedge quickly. With no one to see us, my escape really would seem like magic.

  I could have crossed the river then, but I couldn’t walk away into the night. Not just yet.

  The men had thrust their torches into the fire, which was burning down slowly. I took one of them and set out in the direction of the high pasture. But I didn’t go far. Just out of earshot and out of the line of sight from the house, at the lip of the trees, I spotted a small, low fire. As I went closer, I noticed sheep huddled and sleeping. One of Torun’s dogs jogged through the whispering grass and smelled my hand before disappearing again into the night. Torun stood by the low flames.

  “Did you find them?” he called. He had seen my light but had not yet recognized me.

  “Telka’s safe,” I said, coming near and setting my torch into his fire. “She’s sleeping upstairs.”

  Hearing my voice, Torun ran towards me.

  “Elizabeth!” he said. He opened his arms and I stepped into his embrace. “They said you left…” he said into my hair. It was the first time he had used my proper name and I leaned into him. “I thought you were gone.” We sat down near the fire on his big shepherd’s coat. Torun settled heavily into my side and he wrapped the ends of the coat around us like a blanket.

  “I came back for sheep shearing, but…” He trailed off.

  But he had arrived in time for a funeral feast for a woman gone to the Alvina. He had arrived in time for me to go missing. He had come home to his own personal nightmare.

  I told him about what had happen in backwards order. About Sida’s attack. Heino following me with Telka. Telka and Sida.

  He interrupted me before I could mention whom Telka and I had seen with Sida. “Maro told me you had disappeared. And then Telka…”

  A strange anger filled me.

  “Why didn’t you come with them to find me?” Pa had failed me, but I expected more from Torun.

  “They would not let me come. They don’t trust me to help them carry out their superstitions. They don’t trust me around you…” He trailed off.

  I thought of Melina’s accusations. You enchant Torun, she had said. “It’s like I’m the hekunaisik,” I said.

  Torun nodded. “When Bettina disappeared, no one knew why. You are the other girl. They can put their fear and their anger on you.”

  “And what do you put on this other girl?”

  He nudged a stick further into the fire. “You wanted me. Like I wanted you. Like I wanted Bettina.” He glanced away, ashamed, but I caught his face in my hands and looked at him. She had been his friend, Torun had said. They had planned to be married, but that was Bettina’s childish way of imagining escape. In the end, she had left him behind. While I…I ran up to the high pasture to see him. I teased him and claimed him as my own.

  I tried to keep my voice calm. “Then am I an Alvinaisik to you?”

  “No. You are not like her.” His voice was rough. “You are your own self.”

  That was not enough to make me stay. Still cupping his face, I kissed him gently. “I found my old path. The one that could lead me home.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  It was a brave thing to say, but I did not believe Torun would abandon the herd which was his livelihood or the family who gave his life meaning. And I had not told him everything.

  “Don’t choose yet,” I said. “Listen, Torun, I went to the Alvina’s cave. And…”

  “And?” To my surprise, Torun did not look angry or skeptical. The look in his eyes was scared, pleading. “Did you see anything?”

  “I don’t know.” I had no more words because the hope in his voice broke my heart. We sat side by side, watching the fire. “I’ve been thinking about it since we saw the uksarv disappear. And since I learned about the hekunaisik.” I cleared my throat. “I have a story for you, Torun. Plants and animals are born from the Life Tree, they spend a time above Earth Mother, warmed by their Sun Father and then return to her belly to sleep, only to be born again soon. One spring is like the next and if this winter is particularly harsh, in a hundred winters from now there will be another just like it. And to Earth Mother those winter days and summer nights are the same. The unicorns know this, and so they can pass between moments that are years apart.

  “But humans left the forest and forgot Earth Mother. They started to count the cycles of the seasons and call them years and to use years to count lives and deaths. And now we don’t live like the animals and the plants. I won’t be born again into this world because I am Elizabeth and not anyone else, and you are Torun and not anyone else. But what if that’s not quite right? Because to the forest, at least, I’m not Elizabeth and you’re not Torun. We’re just bits of earth and heat that can be put together and taken apart and put together again in time.”

  There was a pause. Torun said slowly. “I hear your story, but I do not catch the meaning.”

  “Here’s what I think. I grew up in the forest and I have learned that time works differently there. And I can use that knowledge.” I took his hands from around my waist and he curled them in his lap. “Torun, if…if you could know that Bettina was alive and safe, what would you give?”

  He pulled away from me a little. “How can you ask that? I knew her all my life. She was my friend and now she is gone. I would give anything.”

  We stared at each other.

  I wanted him to hold me to his side and tell me never to leave. Or I wanted to throw something at him, push him, scream. But clinging to him or hurting him would not give me what I needed, I realized. My desperation would not exempt me from my choice.

  I had to save her and I couldn’t stay here.

  I stood up. I would have to go now, before anyone woke, before anyone could follow me. I didn’t know what would happen. I opened my pack and fumbled through it, then placed the uksarv horn and the little jar of alicorn ointment I had onto the grass. The family could make use of them as they saw fit. “My village’s name is written on here,” I said, showing the label. “Maybe you can find someone to help you find it. If…If you ever needed more of it.”

  “I will find you,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Dawn was breaking now and I left my torch to burn in the fir
eplace. I wouldn’t need it where I was going.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Found, Lost

  I went back to the place where Sida had opened time, where my snapped stick lay. I looked at the thin, dry length of wood. It wasn’t very strong, after all. Or else…I couldn’t quite see its ragged edges. I put my hand to the stick and drew it through the air. At first, I felt nothing. I tried again, and…there. That slight tickle under the nail of my smallest finger. Sida left the edges of time messy, unsealed. If I put my other hand…there…I could feel the soft rips, like the pages of a book thumbed into softness. Did uksarv leave certain places open, or was Sida merely young and careless?

  I searched for the first sting of winter’s cold and drew my hand back. I let the filmy days of late autumn fall past until I saw a thin layer of snow covering the ground. A fresh set of footprints led from the boulder to the cave.

  She had gone then.

  I stepped through into the cold day and ran. The heat of the cave melted the snow into red mud.

  Bettina was at the lip of the cave. She had her back to the warm stone and her arms were crossed. Her eyes were closed. She was steeling herself to turn and walk inside.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  Her eyes fluttered open and she saw me.

  I grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her away from the cave’s edge. She tried to bolt past me, but I caught her by the arm.

  Bettina pushed me away, then pulled at her clothing for anything that might protect her from me. She wouldn’t have any iron on her, I knew she would be thinking. As a last resort, she balled her fists and squared her stance. There were no rocks small enough to throw here.

  I stepped towards her.

  She pushed me and I grabbed onto her wrists as I fell back. We hit the ground, with her on top of me. She twisted one of her hands away and swung her fist at my face.