Lady Changeling

by Ken Altabef

  For Eric’s parents the plague had come as a vindication of their deepest fears, the just and expected revenge earned by Griffin’s brutality years ago. They accepted it that way, while they had still been able to reason at all. But Hake would not accept that horrible fate; he fought it to the end and suffered all the more.

  Eric had been saddened by the loss of his parents, but the degradation and death of his elder brother had tormented him most of all. In the end he had been left saddled with an unbearable sadness and quite a bit of guilt. Of all of them, why had he been spared?

  “My parents, my brother. Did they pay for Griffin’s sins?” he asked.

  Lucinda lowered her eyes. “You don’t want me to answer.”

  “I suppose not.” He took a last look at the children. “I’m sorry I frightened you, Lucinda. Look after them. Stay close tonight.”

  Lucinda motioned to her chair. “I always do. But you needn’t worry. Nothing will happen to these darlings, not while I am here.”

  Eric forced a smile and bid her goodnight. He went back to his bedroom. The children were safe. Or were they? What if…

  He resisted the thought. He almost couldn’t drag the idea into the light of his conscious mind. But it had to be faced, hauled out from its dark corner under the bed and examined. It had to be. What if the children are half faery? What then?

  By all accounts the Grayson children were exceptional. They were so very happy, full of laughter and frolic and a love of music. Nora had taken up the harpsichord at an early age and was already accomplished at playing it; she loved poetry as well, displaying an almost preternatural ability with meter and rhyming verse. And James. James could see in the dark better than anyone Eric had ever known and at eight years old he was more accurate with the bow than his teachers. They were exceptional…

  But all parents must think their children exceptional. And all children excel at something or other. It didn’t make them inhuman.

  What about the disease they had, years ago, he asked himself. Three years ago. The children both took ill at the same time, growing pale and weak. Nora was confined to her bed. It seemed as if she might die. Both of the doctors in town were consulted and neither had the slightest idea what to do. One suggested he might bleed her off a bit but Eric wouldn’t hear of it; she was so pale already, he could not be certain it would help. The other suggested salt water baths and tincture of cayenne pepper but he had little confidence in those remedies either.

  Little James put on a brave face, making the best of it, and Eric felt his heart break. Eric faced the horror of watching his children die before his very eyes and for what? For no reason, just as his parents had died, and his brother.

  Were the faeries causing this disease too? If only they could’ve asked nurse Lucinda. The old woman would have been better to help than anyone but she’d gone away to take care of her elderly father on his own death bed all the way down in Camden. The replacement nurse was a young girl from town. What did she know of such things? She was ignorant and superstitious. Very superstitious. One of the first things she had done when she came into service was to leave an open pair of iron scissors under Nora’s bed to keep the faeries away. When Theodora found them she was furious. She had them removed and the nurse’s employment terminated. What kind of fool would endanger a child with scissors?

  And just as suddenly the children began to recover. Eric and Theodora had been so grateful for the positive turn of fate they had let the matter drop without further scrutiny. What parent would question such a blessing? But now, looking back, it was clear the children’s recovery had started when Theodora had made the servants remove those scissors. Looking back, the whole episode took on a different light.

  Wretched changeling children, Stump had called them. No other words could have stung Eric more. He worried for the children. Nothing must happen to them. Not ever.

  But he also worried about Theodora. He had never cared for anyone as deeply as his beautiful young wife. At times it had seemed she was tailor-made for him. He depended on her for so much, and now everything was becoming so twisted and strange. He couldn’t imagine living without her. Perhaps she was ill, just tired and in need of some rest. Perhaps the doctor…

  He lay back down on their bed, but sleep was the furthest thing from his thoughts. The doctor, he felt certain, would be no use at all. No doctor could cure this problem. Suspicion and more suspicion. Where was she right now? What was she doing right now?

  He shouldn’t have let her go, even with the Bambury brothers and Fitzroy March to look after her. He’d done everything he could to protect her, but still it wasn’t enough. Protect her? Was that really what he’d been doing?

  Suspicion and more suspicion.

  Chapter 16

  Theodora whirled and spun, the leafy greens melting into a pastel blur all around her. It felt so good being home, out in the open wood, dancing with her friends. She let the surge of emotion take her away, a dizzying feeling that sent her into another world, full of pungent smells and exotic music and a mad jumble of intense sensations that made the human world seem plain, as it was truly plain. Plain and drab. She remembered her early morning walk across the grounds of the Grayson estate, thinking how wonderful and precious her life with Eric and her human family had seemed. But that was all revealed now as a lie. An illusion in a mirror suddenly blown to pieces, its fragments scattered all around her, spinning in the air, reflecting a madhouse rainbow of light and song. This was the true life. How magical it all was. How wonderful. How free. She’d been trapped in a cage before. A cage of flesh and circumstance.

  She embraced Mother Moon’s power, shining on her naked skin.

  The silvery light of Midsummer’s Eve lay like a magical fog blanketing the clearing in the woods, the dancers kicking and playing, splashing moonlight wherever they went. Mother Moon lit them up with her mysterious glow like candles of shimmering glitter.

  Chief among the dancers was Moonshadow. She was the best and brightest of all the faeries at Barrow Downes. Everyone believed she must be a daughter of Moon Dancer, the oldest and most venerable among them. Theodora believed Moon Dancer had been her own mother, but could not be sure. She supposed that made Moonshadow her half-sister. The thought was very pleasing to her.

  Children were such a rare blessing for the faery-folk, and family relationships were so very muddy among them. They were tricksy creatures, horny by nature, and didn’t believe in marriage. They changed gender on a whim and lived such long, promiscuous lives. How could anyone be sure of their lineage? The faeries of Barrow Downes lived all together as one big community and thought it best not to acknowledge parental descent directly. The only guardians they knew in their earliest years were the gigantic mushrooms of the Patch.

  Moonshadow radiated light and life, and just being here with her, with these friends, made Theodora feel like she was truly awake again. Had she been asleep all the past year? Playing a role, sleepwalking through the corridors of Grayson Hall, only half-alive and numb, since her last visit to these wild woods?

  Moonshadow took Theodora by the hands and whirled her around. The young faery threw her head back, laughing. She was completely hairless, with the exception of long and luxurious eyelashes, her skin so bright and luminescent, her eyes a unique combination of silver and blue. The sight of her naked body, flush from the power of the moon, was almost blinding. The pair laughed and laughed as they spun around.

  The dance brought them closer together and Moonshadow caressed Theodora in a rolling embrace. Their shoulders touched and then their backsides and then Moonshadow was on the other side and then, face to face, their breasts brushed against one another. Theodora could feel Moonshadow’s energy rubbing off on her. And then she was to the side and then the back again, kissing Theodora gently on the nape of the neck. Theodora turned around and Moonshadow was gone, off to dance with someone else. What did it matter? There were so many different partners here. Theodora thought she could dance all night.

>   One notable absence was Redthorne, the faery assassin. She’d never been much for dancing. Probably off sharpening her blades somewhere.

  “Greetings to fortune. Hail!”

  “Well met,” replied Theodora.

  A tall, mawkishly handsome faery had appeared. He stood before her, dressed in tendrils of creeping ivy. His hair was long and fine and bay-leaf green, his ears slender and pointed. “Care for a frolic and fondle in the woods?”

  Theodora smiled, but said, “Not right now, Meadowlark.”

  “Oh? What’s the matter?” He ran his hands down along his bare chest and stomach, showing off his slim and well-proportioned figure. “Don’t tell me you prefer me as a woman? Oh, and I’ve just spent two months in the change.”

  “You make a very handsome man, as you were a beautiful lass before.” She remembered the last time they had made love. Ten years ago, before she was married, and Meadowlark had indeed been female at the time. It seemed he changed sexes more frequently than most of the other faeries, as if he was constantly searching for something and never able to find it. That shortcoming was evident in his lovemaking as well. Whether male or female he remained self-centered and groping, unsatisfied and unsatisfying.

  “Then, really, I must protest. Why not? You’re married to a man and surely you must diddle sometimes. Or has that dreary old Grayson Hall sucked all the life from your bones?”

  Theodora thought he was wrong about that. Perhaps Grayson Hall was a dreary place but she couldn’t possibly think of Eric that way. Her romantic moments with him had surpassed anything she’d ever experienced among her own kind. She and Eric cared so much for each other and found a spiritual bond in lovemaking, a sense of fidelity that transcended personal pleasure.

  “It’s not that simple,” she said. “I don’t dare. You’ve no idea how difficult it is maintaining this glamour. Have you ever held one for a whole year? For ten years?”

  “Heavens, no. How very tiresome that would be. Be careful you don’t get stuck that way.” He seemed content to leave it at that, but then he twirled around and took her by the hand again. “Reconsider. I’m sure you’d enjoy a break in the monotony. Come with me. Into the woods.”

  She squeezed his hand and let it drop. “It’s a dangerous thing. If I were to let go, I’d lose the spell entirely.”

  “Really, my little apricot, if I didn’t know you better I’d think you favor the humans, and that lord in particular, a bit too much. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love?” He pronounced that last word as if it was the most distasteful thing in the world. He spoke much too loudly for her liking. “You haven’t, have you? Speak true.”

  Theodora pulled away from him. There was no point in trying to explain. Meadowlark would never understand.

  The other faeries seized the moment, making funny faces, sticking out pointed tongues and laughing. “Change,” they chanted, “Change! Change!”

  Theodora shook off their groping caresses. Why couldn’t they understand?

  She bumped straight into Meadowlark again.

  “Why so shy? We’ve a cure for what ails you, Lady Changeling. Come, take your medicine.” He brushed aside his codpiece of clinging ivy in a crude carnal invitation. “You needn’t change shape at all. I don’t mind rutting with a human if needs be.”

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted at them, pushing him away, pushing them all away, though that was the last thing she wanted to do. She could have tried to protest, to insist that she was just staying true to the cause, that she was sacrificing for them. But why should she need to defend her actions to them? Or to herself? She turned her back on the faeries and walked away. She would say no more.

  Theodora met with Moon Dancer in a large underground cavern beneath a great white ash tree. The base of the tree’s trunk filled the center of the room. Its tremendous roots spilled out to all sides and circled above, to support the ceiling of the chamber, crisscrossing overhead like the arches of a gothic cathedral. Tiny balls of faery light bobbed and drifted lazily around the trunk, illuminating the cavern with pulses of white and yellow.

  The merging of Moon Dancer’s spirit with the great ash tree was nearly complete. The faint outlines of her face could just barely be seen overlaying the pattern of wrinkled, white bark. Her fine, corn-silk hair was the faintest yellow color and bound up around the top of her head, her brow and chin both sharp and somewhat masculine, her skin pale as milk. Her cheeks and nose were plump and matronly, her eyes bright blue and soft as a dandelion’s feathery head. The great matriarch had changed sexes numerous times in her three hundred years of life, a laborious process that eventually wore away the distinctions of gender and left the aged faery somewhere in between.

  The base of the tree radiated its own faint shimmering light, giving the suggestion that she wore a white silk gown, very pale now as it melted into the tree.

  Theodora sat quietly in Moon Dancer’s presence, inhaling the gentle fragrance of midnight orchids. She struggled to calm her raging emotions. The elder faery had always been able read her moods like a book. Right now she must be radiating anger and frustration, both sharpened by the ugly scene at the dancing circle, the accusatory looks of the other faeries, the taste of Meadowlark’s bitter ire, the way it had all ended, with Theodora chided and alone. But in the presence of the great faery, Moon Dancer’s soothing tranquility flowed over her in waves of calming emotion, and Theodora found she was finally able to relax.

  Moon Dancer’s eyes fluttered open.

  “So, my beautiful Clarimonde, you’ve returned home at last.” It was difficult for the aged faery to speak. Her words came as barely a whisper, like a late evening breeze threading through the trees, the mellow timbre of her voice soft and androgynous.

  “At last?” returned Theodora. “I’m right on time. Midsummer’s Eve.” She spoke a little too sharply. She was still much too sensitive about the topic.

  Moon Dancer did not take offense. “Of course. Midsummer’s Eve. I only meant that a year has seemed such a forever time without you here. I’ve never gotten used to these long absences.”

  “Neither have I. A year is a long time.”

  “And you must be eager to feel the embrace of Mother Moon, I’m sure. But let’s talk a bit first.”

  “Of course. I’d like nothing better.”

  “I’d like nothing better,” Moon Dancer repeated, “than to talk of old times, of happy memories of your youth, of mushrooms and daffodils, and the beautiful pictures you painted for me with rosebuds and flower petals when you were younger. I still remember your laughter as we used to splash in the moon pool and chase dragonflies across the fields... But instead I must ask, what news have you from the world of men? Tell me about… time.”

  “My astronomer watches the skies closely. The heavenly bodies will all align within a week, he says.”

  “He says true.” Moon Dancer forced the words from withered lips. Theodora had never seen her looking so tired before. “That agrees with my own calculations. The heavens shift in a most predictable way, like the turnings of a great clock, the only clock that matters.”

  “Just because the stars will align—that doesn’t mean the Chrysalid has to return. Maybe it won’t come back at all.”

  “That’s possible I suppose, but can we afford to take that chance? It will destroy everything. The Chrysalid is a seething mass of chaos, of nonsense, bereft of all logic and reason. It burns everything it touches.”

  Many years ago, sitting at Moon Dancer’s feet, Theodora had first heard the tale. She knew the legend, but knowing and believing were two very different things. “All of that happened so long ago, long before any living soul can remember. Legends and stories have a way of changing as they’re passed down. Everyone knows that. How can anyone be sure?”

  “I am sure,” said Moon Dancer, and this she said so forcefully and with such passion that Theodora winced at the cut of her tone. “I have lived three hundred years and I still remember, as a child in the Fen, listening
to the words of those who had lived hundreds of years before me. It is an unbroken line, and this I can tell you is true.

  “Back when the world was new, it was full of gods and monsters, krakens and hydras, minotaurs and dragons. The world spewed out monsters like seeds from a rotten fruit. But there were also heroes enough to fight them—brave Beowulf, mighty Hercules and Gilgamesh, Aladdin and Sinbad, and all the rest.

  “Thousands of years have gone by. The world has changed. Those heroes who might have faced down the Chrysalid have all gone away. Where is Odysseus now? Or Apollo? Gone and gone. When the Chrysalid returns, who will stand to fight it?”

  Theodora had no answer, except a fervent wish that it need not be them—not now, not ever.

  Moon Dancer continued, “The humans won’t be ready for it; they won’t even comprehend it. It comes from the other side of the sky, through a tear in the blue, a different place, so very different that its way of life, its very nature can only seem impossible to us. They will stare, blindly, as the Chrysalid rains destruction down upon their heads. We are the monster’s legacy. It’s up to us.”

  “Is that what we are? Really? Just twisted versions of mortals, given the gift of madness by the Chrysalid? A parting curse? A blight?”

  Moon Dancer sighed. It was the sound of a gentle breeze stirring the leaves on the big ash tree above. “We are what we are. But yes, my love, that foul thing was responsible for giving us birth. When struck by the power of the Silvered Lens, the Chrysalid recoiled, writhing in mindless agony. And whatever it touched was either burned away or changed forever, warped by a little of its own madness. Whatsoever people were touched became the faeries.

  “When the Chrysalid retreated back into the curtain of sky, it left us with a warning. Perhaps only the faeries, its own ill-begotten children on earth, could understand its meaning. It warned that this defeat would not stand, that it would return someday and finish what it had started. It would destroy everything in this place, everything on this world.”