Changeling

by William Ritter

Annie only glared. They locked eyes, and the witch’s smile melted slowly into something softer, a strange spark of tenderness glittering behind her gaze as she appraised the woman.

  “If you really care so very much,” she said, stiffening, “can you even identify your own child?”

  Annie scowled and glanced at Kull. Kull bit his lip. In thirteen long years, for all his studying and spying, Kull had never been certain which child was his marvelous changeling and which was the unmagical human.

  “You can’t, can you? You both wish to claim your poor, lost children, but you don’t even know them, do you? Well, I do.” The queen lowered her chin. Hard shadows fell under her brow. “I know lost children. And I will make you a deal. If either one of you can guess correctly—if either one of you can claim your true kin, then I will give you back your child. Simple as that. You will be free to leave my forest with him and never look back.”

  Kull brightened. Annie remained less than satisfied.

  “But whichever you choose,” the queen finished, “the other will be forfeited to me.”

  Candlebeard kept himself low, thanking the uneven ground and the bushes for what scarce cover they provided him as he moved. The witch’s back was still turned. She was talking to the two intruders.

  Candlebeard plucked a pebble from the ground and tossed it at the nearest slumbering boy. It bounced off Tinn’s cheek and his nose twitched. Candlebeard glanced back up at the adults.

  “That’s not acceptable,” Annie Burton was saying.

  “Don’t tell me it’s not,” said the queen, calmly, although Candlebeard could hear the tightness in her voice. “Tell your cowering compatriot, there. That’s the standard bargain, isn’t it? One child taken, the other left behind? That’s how it works. What do you say, thief—do you know your own blood well enough to choose?”

  Kull took a hesitant step forward, then faltered, gnawing on his lip. “Iffin I choose wrong?”

  “Then your precious changeling belongs to the forest.”

  Kull opened his mouth and then closed it again, his expression visibly pained. “That’s na very fair.”

  “No,” agreed the queen pointedly, “it’s not.”

  Behind the witch, Candlebeard held his breath as he reached a trembling hand out toward the nearest boy.

  Hinkypunks, like all manner of fairies and oddlings, have glamour, the magical camouflage with which they hide themselves from mortal eyes. Candlebeard concentrated harder than he could ever remember on maintaining his glamour now. He was confident that he was invisible to the human, and probably to the goblin, as well—but it was neither the human nor the goblin he feared. He did not fully understand the Queen of the Deep Dark, and he did not wish to remain in her company long enough to learn more. He shook Cole’s shoulder. The boy only murmured softly in his sleep.

  The queen turned her head to look.

  Candlebeard felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. He was completely exposed, and she was looking right at him, her expression unchanging. Could she see him?

  And then the human, Annie, spoke again. “I know.”

  The queen turned back around. Candlebeard breathed. It took everything he had in him not to collapse then and there.

  “You know?” the queen said.

  “I’ve always known,” said Annie.

  The Queen of the Deep Dark turned her eyes to Annie Burton.

  “You’re ready to make a guess, then?”

  “No,” said Annie. “Not a guess. A fact. A mother knows her children, and I know my boys. Both of them.”

  The queen raised an eyebrow. “Both is not a choice.”

  “Of course it’s not! Why on earth would I choose? I don’t care which one has my blood and which one doesn’t. I don’t care which one I pushed into this world with his father at my side, and which one was born far away to some goblin mother and father—”

  “Actually, there’s an egg,” Kull began. “Father’s na decided until—”

  “I don’t care! Those are both my boys, and if you tell me that even one of them will be staying in this horrible forest, then you had better get very used to me, because I’m staying, too.” Annie took another step closer to the witch, refusing to be cowed. “I am not,” she said, planting her fists on her hips, “leaving these woods without them.”

  The queen did not back up. She did not scowl or sneer or snarl. She smiled. “Good answer.”

  Annie Burton blinked.

  Kull lifted his head.

  “Take your children,” said the witch. Her face turned toward the sunlight for a moment, and she looked almost pleasant. “Both of them.”

  Annie Burton’s lips fell open.

  “Huh,” said Kull. A jagged smile cut across his face. “That was a test, wasn’ it?”

  “And the girl,” said Annie Burton.

  The witch raised an eyebrow. “The girl?”

  “There was a girl. I saw you turn her into a wild animal. I don’t know what she did to wrong you, but no child deserves that. Turn her back. Let me take her home. I can look after her, help her find her family.”

  The witch stared at Annie Burton. Her expression was maddeningly blank. “That one you cannot have. Take your children and go, before I change my mind. Stay to your darling goblin’s path, take nothing from my forest, and do not stray too near the bramble. Now, go.”

  Annie Burton saw two fluffy brown ears poke up from behind a fat log where they had been hiding. Hazel eyes and a wet black nose followed. Fable twitched a furry snout and mewled at the witch. Annie gave the girl a mournful glance before she turned to her boys.

  “Wait. Where are they?” she said.

  “Only sleeping,” said the witch, gesturing behind her. “They will—” But then she, too, turned to look at the boys.

  Tinn and Cole were gone.

  “Where are they?” the queen demanded.

  “Is this another test?” said Kull.

  In the shadows of the Deep Dark, straining under the weight of a boy on either shoulder, Candlebeard ran.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Tinn opened his eyes slowly. The world sounded very far away, muffled and dim, as if he were viewing it not through his own eyes but through a long, foggy tunnel. As the haze gradually cleared, his senses came back into focus. All around him, the forest was gray and cold and unfamiliar. And then, abruptly, his vision was eclipsed by a face. He blinked. In front of him stood the strange little bearded man from the Oddmire, his expression a cluster of relief and panic and sadness and urgency all at once. Tinn began to feel dizzy just trying to take them all in.

  He pushed himself up stiffly. Cole was seated a few feet away, looking equally groggy and rubbing his arm.

  “Where are we?” asked Tinn.

  “I don’t know,” Cole admitted.

  “I had a dream . . .” Tinn hesitated. “I had a dream Mom came for us. But then we were . . . we were running.” He shook his head. “Where are we? It’s so dark.”

  “Watch out, there’s thorns all over—” Cole began, but his warning came too late, and Tinn sliced his forearm on a nasty barb as he stretched.

  “Ouch!” He pulled the arm back. The vine behind him was as thick as his leg, and the thorns were like bowie knives. All around them the forest seemed to have been overtaken by the nasty plants.

  Across from Tinn, Cole winced. He held up his own arm, where a matching line of red had already been inscribed. “Got me, too.”

  “How did we get here?” said Tinn. “The last thing I remember is the queen.”

  Cole shrugged.

  “Candlebeard?” said Tinn. “Did you—did you rescue us?”

  The strange little man shuffled his feet. He nodded and then shook his head. His brow was wrinkled into a tortured knot and his lips were tight.

  “He’s probably embarrassed because he’s the reason the Queen of the Deep Dark caught us in the first place,” said Cole.

  Candlebeard looked as if he had swallowed a toad.

  “Wait a minute
—you didn’t lead us to the witch on purpose, did you?”

  Candlebeard shook his head no, but he didn’t look any less wretched about it. From within his beard, his candle sputtered.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” said Tinn. “He came back for us.”

  “Why did you come back for us?” said Cole.

  The hinkypunk’s shoulders drooped. He took a long, slow breath. When he was ready, he reached into the hollow of his beard. His weathered fingers passed right through the candle flame, and when he brought them out again, they were cupped as if holding a delicate butterfly. From his hands issued wisps of smoke.

  Tinn and Cole watched in stunned silence as Candlebeard released his fingers. The little ball of smoke curled and dipped and spun as if it were alive. It slowed as it formed into foggy shapes. The boys leaned in, staring. From the living smoke emerged images—a silken vision of half a dozen bearded figures.

  “The other hinkypunks,” Tinn said. His breath scattered the vision and he closed his lips quickly.

  Candlebeard gently scooped another puff of smoke into the dark clearing. It swam in midair until a new picture formed. Now there were just two larger figures standing over what appeared to be an infant. The figure on the left was very familiar.

  “Is that you?” whispered Cole. “Did you have a little bearded baby?”

  Candlebeard’s eyes shone wetly and he sighed, lost in the memory. The delicate child of smoke lay still, its candle unlit. Above the infant, the cloudy vision of the hinkypunk reached into his beard and plucked out a smoky miniature candle. The figure across from him did the same. Tenderly, the two touched their flames together to light the third. They tucked the flickering candle into the infant’s downy beard, and at once the baby’s chest rose and fell, its tiny fingers wiggling.

  The apparition was already beginning to dissipate into the darkness. Before it had faded completely, the boys watched the cloudy Candlebeard lift his child in his arms, his face alight with joy.

  Candlebeard sat staring blankly at the empty air long after the images had vanished. Tears hung in the creased corners of his eyes.

  “You looked very happy,” Tinn said, breaking the silence.

  Candlebeard nodded miserably.

  “What happened to your son?” said Cole. “Was he taken away from you?”

  Again, Candlebeard nodded. The tears rolled down his cheeks and nestled into his bristly mustache.

  “That’s why you came back for us, isn’t it?” said Tinn. “You lost your child to the witch, and you didn’t want her to take us, too.”

  Candlebeard’s flame spat and flickered as the tears made their way down into his beard. He screwed his eyes shut and turned away.

  “Thank you,” said Cole.

  Candlebeard shook his head and waved them off, batting away the gratitude. He sniffed and wiped his face on one arm, pulling himself together.

  He gave the boys one more pained glance and, without further warning, began to wind his way between and through the labyrinth of inky black briars again.

  “Wait, slow down,” Cole said, jumping to his feet. He pushed himself up and darted after the hinkypunk.

  The vines climbed higher and higher around them as Cole trailed behind Candlebeard, with Tinn following at his brother’s heels. Shortly, they were not walking a trail at all, but crawling through spiral archways and claustrophobic tunnels of the pernicious plants. What little light made it through the brambles arrived sliced into thin ribbons. The flicker of Candlebeard’s candle bobbed ahead of them farther and farther in the distance.

  Fable was feeling a lot of things. She was feeling fur and paws and a tufty tail, yes, but she was also feeling guilty and worried and flustered.

  A peculiar smell lingered in the air, and a part of Fable’s mind kept telling her that it was important for some reason, but the rest of her mind was having trouble concentrating. Being an animal was very distracting. The grown-ups had not stopped arguing, which did not help.

  “My fault?” The little angry man with all the sharp teeth was yelling at the witch. “Iffin you had just let us have the wee ones right off—but na! Had ta get all tricksy, an’ now my changelin’—”

  “Mind your tongue before I remove it, thief,” the witch replied. “Who brought the changeling to the other side of the forest in the first place? Who left him there, a baby, unprotected, far from home, to be raised by strangers?”

  Fable shook her head, trying to make sense of what they were talking about. Words sounded different through animal ears. Also, that smell kept tickling her nose, distracting her.

  “Otch! Ya dinna have ta remind me, ya witchy womern! I’ll be takin’ the slippery blighter back fer good as quick as we can find him!”

  Annie Burton jabbed a finger at the goblin. “Why, you—” And then she said several words that Fable was fairly certain she would not have been allowed to repeat as a human girl, even if she could remember them. “—and when we do find them, there is no way that I am ever letting you run away with either one of my children!” Annie concluded.

  “Calm yerself,” the goblin chided. “’Tis na like I’m stealin’ yer own precious manling. I’m only takin’ back the one what’s not yorn.”

  “Spare us,” huffed the queen. “You think we don’t know what brought you into the baby’s room all those years ago? Stealing her own true child was precisely your intention in the first place.”

  “Okay. Aye, that’s a wee bit true. But . . . but I didn’a!” Kull protested weakly.

  “Just because you weren’t any good at being awful doesn’t make you any less guilty.”

  Annie wheeled on the queen. “You,” she barked, “do not get to help me. You steal children, too—and you turn them into . . . into things!”

  Fable pushed the smell to the back of her animal mind and gave a growly sort of grumble. The adults were talking about her now, she could tell. She plodded forward on all fours while Annie railed at the queen.

  “I saw you do it!” Annie continued. “There! That’s her, right there—the poor girl.” Annie was pointing right at Fable, who turned her shaggy head sideways at the woman. “Don’t lie. You would have done the same to my boys if I hadn’t stopped you! Admit it!”

  “The girl is not your concern,” said the queen.

  “Of course she’s my concern,” said Annie. “She’s an innocent child lost in the woods with a wicked witch. What sort of monster wouldn’t be concerned?”

  Fable stood on her hind legs beside the Queen of the Deep Dark. She still only came up to the witch’s waist. She pawed pleadingly at the queen’s cloak, her hazel eyes blinking their widest, sweetest, and saddest expression.

  The queen turned her glare toward the girl, unmoved by her piteous appeal. “No,” she said.

  “Have you no heart at all?” Annie implored.

  “’Course she doesn’a have a heart,” Kull mumbled at Annie’s back. “Na fer wee girlies lost in the Deep Dark.”

  The witch rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said at last, scowling down at the pitiful cub. “Go ahead.”

  Kull gaped.

  Annie blinked. “Fine? You’ll give her back her human body?”

  “I will do no such thing. What I will give her,” the queen said, still eyeing Fable, “is my permission.”

  Annie Burton blinked, not understanding. She glanced at Kull, but he only shrugged. When she turned back, Fable was a girl again.

  “Hi,” the girl said meekly.

  “Oh! Goodness! Are you all right, sweetheart?” Annie asked.

  “I— Wait a second . . .” Fable screwed up her eyebrows, concentrating. Thoughts were shuffling back into place in her human head. Yes, human brains definitely worked differently. She sniffed several times, turning this way and that.

  “It’s going to be okay,” said Annie. “Do you know where you are right now?”

  “Paraffin,” said Fable, gazing into the trees.

  “What?” asked Annie Burton.

  The girl cl
utched at the witch’s fur cloak. “It’s candle wax! I can smell it! You know what that means!”

  “You are wrong,” said the queen. “Their kind have left the forest.” But her nose twitched, and Fable could tell that she smelled it, too.

  “They have not! I met one! How do you think I got so far into the Oddmire? Please, we need to hurry!”

  “We need to do nothing of the sort. You aren’t going anywhere until—”

  The girl’s voice was desperate. “They don’t know the forest like I do!”

  “You don’t know the forest!”

  “I know enough to know where they’re headed.”

  The queen hesitated.

  “Where are they headed?” Annie said, breathlessly. “What’s going on?”

  The queen’s eyes flickered toward the trees for a moment.

  “They might not know what’s out that way, but I do,” Fable said. “And you know it, too. You can’t pretend you don’t. Please. They’ll die.”

  Annie’s eyes bounced from the girl to the witch.

  The queen regarded Fable coldly for a moment, then nodded. “Fine. Find them quickly,” she said. “We will discuss your punishment after the boys are safe.” Together, the girl and the witch started into the trees.

  “Wait!” Annie called after them.

  Fable turned, impatient. “Are you coming or what?”

  “How can you just trust that woman to help you after what she did?” Annie asked. “Do you even know who she is—what she is?”

  “Of course I do,” said Fable. “She’s my mom.”

  Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. The words were meaningless to the Thing at the heart of the bramble. The Thing was born of loneliness. It had been raised with fear and hate for its only companions—these words it knew. Family, however? Family was a strange word. Family intrigued the creature.

  At first, the notion had struck the Thing as utterly pointless. What purpose was there in a brother? What value in a sister? And then the creature had discovered it: pain.

  In families there was love—a trivial, meaningless emotion, to be sure—but with love came loss. Loss was so much more exquisite than simple solitude. A happy family was dull to the Thing in the bramble. It was content and comfortable. When one tore a family apart, however, their pain would blossom. The suffering of a child ripped from its parent was misery tenfold anything the creature had known inside its perpetual prison, and it was delicious. The Thing had found a feast of torment in breaking apart families in its new forest home.