The Changeling's Journey

by Christine Spoors

  Standing there in amongst the long grass, I felt as if I was looking at him for the first time in weeks. I noticed just how dirty and unkempt he looked and assumed I was the same. I couldn’t remember feeling anything but adoration for the fairy.

  When was the last time either of us had slept, or ate properly? My mouth was dry and my lips were cut and chapped, as if I hadn’t had a drop to drink in years.

  “What happened to us?” I whispered, almost scared to speak up and ruin our moment of clarity.

  “Enchanted.” Glen whispered back, looking pale.

  “What do we do?” my heart was racing with panic in case the enchantment suddenly came back.

  “We have to get away from her,” Glen said. “Hit me.”

  I flinched, thinking the enchantment had returned but he shook his head.

  “We’ll pretend to fight and then go back. One day we can sneak away when we are ready, she won’t be watching if she thinks we are still unaware. You can’t enchant someone who knows about it,” he explained, and I was glad that he had spent so much time learning all he could about fairies and the north.

  I noticed the fairy’s auburn hair in the distance. She was returning from a walk in the forest and would soon be close enough to see us.

  Before she could notice us chatting, I let out a shriek of anger and charged at Glen. Who in turn wrestled me to the ground, growling and snarling as if he was some sort of wild animal. I would have laughed, had I not been so terrified that she would notice the broken enchantment and simply chain us up.

  I punched Glen as hard as I could in the mouth, giving him a bloody lip. Having never punched someone in my life, I felt as if I had broken every bone in my hand on his hard face.

  Before I could think of what to do next, he backhanded me, knocking me sideways onto the grass. Just as I was scrambling to my feet I felt it. It was akin to being submerged back into the loch.

  Rather than being freezing, the enchantment was like a numb tingling all over my body. My eyes struggled to focus on anything but my fairy and the urge to give in, sink into the blissful feelings of adoration for her, was almost overpowering.

  It’s an enchantment. I reminded myself over and over as I rushed towards her when she beckoned us both. She looked amused at our fight but tried to hide it behind a mask of sympathy.

  “Oh, my poor humans,” she cried, cupping both of our faces.

  I pushed my face into her hand as if I was her pet, desperate for affection. This must be what she wanted. Two human pets to do her chores after she’d enchanted them into loving her.

  The thought made me feel sick.

  “Come, let’s get you both back inside.” she said in a voice that sounded much less musical than I remembered.

  I nodded eagerly and hurried after her, making a point of not even glancing in Glen’s direction. I worried that he may have fallen back under her spell, but I could only hope that we were both still free

  .

  A lthough Mae tried to tell me I was wrong, I could tell from the expressions on the servants’ faces that they blamed me for what happened that day in the courtyard. I still could not understand why my father had named me responsible me for his death.

  My theory was that he had finally grown tired of me being friendly towards the humans, even after Nieve was stolen away, and so decided to make them hate me instead.

  If only I had followed his wishes. That poor man Alasdair, whose beheading haunted my dreams, would still be alive today.

  I could never have imagined how difficult it was to live with the guilt of killing a man. I could hardly sleep and when I did, I was plagued with nightmares. Thankfully, my appetite wasn’t affected, although the sight of blood in undercooked meat was enough to make me want to vomit.

  Father didn’t seem to notice the troubles I was having, but I often noticed mother giving me sympathetic glances. I no longer wondered why she didn’t intervene with father’s plans. Now I understood how dangerous he really was. I wondered how many people died before he had managed to scare my mother into submission.

  Life without Nieve had been lonely and empty, but that was nothing compared to how I now felt. The servants didn’t speak to me and so my only interaction was with Mae or my teacher, even then I found it difficult to concentrate long enough to learn much from him.

  My shadow was always present but, now more than ever, I was wary of him. I still didn’t know when he reported back to father about my activities, but I confidently assumed that he must.

  Spending time rushing around the castle in the hopes of losing him, or at least annoying him, no longer held any appeal. Everywhere I went in the castle, I met humans who now despised me. Instead I began spending most of my time outside.

  Today’s location for avoiding everyone was the large open meadow which lay a short ride away from the castle, and the town, to the east. It felt wrong to be there without Nieve the first few times I’d visited, but now it was the only place I felt close to her, or rather my memories of her. There were farming villages nearby, but luckily this land was always left to the animals and wild flowers, so I was never disturbed.

  I dismounted and allowed my horse to wander freely, knowing that she wouldn’t leave and honestly not caring much if she did. I heard my shadow dismount behind me as I made my way to the middle of the field.

  It was peaceful here, away from the servants and their accusing stares. The breeze in my hair was pleasant and comforting, compared to the stifling air inside the castle, which choked me from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell into a fitful sleep.

  With a sigh, I sank down onto my knees, rolling onto my back and simply lying there. The warm sun on my face, and the soft grass beneath my body, was more comforting than my bed had been in weeks. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift off, feeling like nothing could trouble me here in this meadow.

  Unfortunately, it was not to last. The sound of someone running through the grass towards me ended my moment of peace.

  Frantic hands grabbed me by my upper arms and pulled me upright. I panicked, opening my eyes and coming face to face with my shadow.

  “Are you alright Princess?” he asked, his eyes sweeping over me as if looking for an injury.

  “What are you doing?” I was both bemused and irritated at the disturbance.

  “I was tending to the horses when I saw you go down, I thought something had happened to you,” he explained, looking calmer now that he knew I was not in mortal danger.

  “I just wanted to lie down,” I said, realising that sounded ridiculous.

  He let me go and I sank back down onto the cool, comforting grass. My shadow stayed on his knees beside me and made no move to leave which made me glare at him.

  “You don’t have to stare at me. I’m not going to do anything you can report back to the King,” I added bitterly.

  “I don’t report to the King. My job is to keep you safe and protected,” he said with a sigh, sitting down on the grass beside me.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You may complain and have me fired if you want. He would find you a new guard straight away.”

  I noticed that he sounded somewhat unhappy at the thought.

  “No.” I hurried to assure him, the idea of a stranger following me around, and my ever-present shadow leaving, made my stomach churn. I was tired of people leaving me. “I’m sorry, you can stay.”

  “You don’t have to apologise to me Princess.”

  “I doubt it is fun for you, having to follow me around. Even I wish I could get away from myself,” I explained, closing my eyes.

  “I understand, these past few weeks have not been kind to you, but it’ll get better. You’ll see.”

  He sounded so confident and determined that I felt the tightness in my chest loosen a little. Maybe he was right.

  His determination reminded me of Nieve and as I closed my eyes once more, I let my mind wander back to happier times spent here amongst the flowers. Away from the watchf
ul eyes in the castle. Free to be whoever we wanted to be.

  We stayed there enjoying the peace for the remainder of the afternoon. The warm breeze blew strands of my hair gently, making them dance and tickle my face. The sun was warm, despite the breeze, like it was trying to burn away the darkness inside of me.

  I was sure I heard the small feet of the wee folk in the grass, but they never came out. Probably because of the stranger beside me. I hoped that if we kept coming back, my little friend would feel brave enough to approach once more.

  The sun moved across the sky as I lay there, and I felt my shadow beside me shiver a few times. It was starting to get chilly as it was only spring, not the middle of summer. I didn’t want to be selfish, especially after his attempts to comfort me earlier, so I suggested that we go back to the castle we both unfortunately called home.

  As we arrived back at the stables, I spotted Nieve talking to Berwin. Making a split decision, I jumped from my horse before they could see me. Silently gesturing for my shadow to take the horses into the stables himself.

  Thankfully he understood my wild hand movements and I managed to sneak behind the stables. I crept as close as I could to the doorway where they were standing to listen. Realising that, had either of them noticed me, it would have been proof that I couldn’t be trusted and was spying on humans for the King. I had to take the chance to see Nieve again.

  A wave of relief washed through me when I noticed that she didn’t look injured. She had no new visible bruises or cuts, and didn’t stand as if she was in pain. I allowed myself to hope for the best. She hadn’t lost a considerable amount of weight in our time apart, so I felt it was safe to assume that she was being fed well down in the kitchens.

  I felt another wave of emotion, this time embarrassment, as I caught my eyes drifting over her figure appreciatively.

  “Have you seen much of her? Does she look okay?” Nieve was asking, sounding concerned and I hoped desperately that she was asking about me.

  “Almost every day, she is always out riding. You can probably see for yourself that she looks exhausted. It doesn’t look like she is coping very well,” Berwin answered with a sigh.

  “Things will only get worse.” Nieve replied which made me worry.

  What would get worse? Was it really me she was asking about?

  “She asked about you, not long after King Ferchar separated you,” Berwin admitted hesitantly, and I wanted to cry with relief. My risk was paying off.

  “Tell her nothing,” Nieve ordered in a tone so harsh it made me wince.

  Never had I heard her speak like that to anyone. I blinked furiously and tried not to think about what she said. I could cry over it later, for now I needed to listen.

  “I haven’t,” Berwin continued unfazed by her tone, “I think you should consider it though, consider speaking to her.”

  “You know I can’t. Contact would put everything at risk. We need to wait, to plan and then I will consider the Princess.”

  I flinched at being mentioned so directly. They were talking about me. I was helpless to stop my eyes from burning with tears as I realised that Nieve truly didn’t want to speak to me.

  Her talk of plans confused me, unsure what the humans could be planning in the kitchens, but I didn’t dwell on it.

  I had cried more times that I could count over her, and here she was refusing to even consider speaking to me. What had I done?

  Of all the humans, I had expected that Nieve would hate me least for the execution. That she would be the most likely to believe that I had nothing to do with it. I was wrong.

  “Is there anything I can do? I can’t stand all this waiting, tending these horses and watching as the Princess looks worse and worse each day. I want to help.”

  Nieve shook her head looking somewhat pained at the thought. “We have to wait.”

  At that moment, my shadow appeared with our two horses, he gave a nod of greeting to Berwin before directing them into the stables, without so much as a glance at Nieve.

  The walk to the stable entrance should have taken mere moments and I realised, gratefully, that my shadow must have walked as slowly as possible to allow me time to listen.

  “It’s the Princess’s new guard, you better leave,” Berwin whispered once my shadow was inside.

  Nieve turned on her heel and hurried off without so much as a goodbye.

  It took all the strength I had not to chase after her and beg for her forgiveness. Beg her to speak to me. Even if she simply wanted to tell me how much she hated me, if she wanted to shout at me, hit me. It would be less painful than this.

  I rushed back around to meet my guard. Hoping it simply looked as if I was too lazy to return my own horse to the stable, not like I had been eavesdropping. I had been avoiding eye contact with the humans around the castle since the execution so it wasn’t unusual behaviour for me to avoid Berwin, not wanting him to see my red eyes.

  Luckily, he also seemed to be lost in thought about his conversation with Nieve, so my shadow and I slipped out without needing to make conversation.

  I tried not to worry myself with trying to understand their conversation. Instead I focused on being content in the knowledge that Nieve was unharmed and eating well. That was the least I could wish for until I found a way to get her to communicate with me, or my father to let her come back.

  Both of which now seemed unlikely.

  I found myself growing to like my shadow. I finally learned that his name was William and that his father was a Laird living between the rivers in the east.

  I trusted him, now that he had sworn he wasn’t simply here to spy on me and report back to the King. He could have lied about that, but I decided to trust him anyway. I had so little company these days. I couldn’t afford to be picky.

  Father demanded that I attend another meal with him. This one, thankfully, passed without disaster. I was seated beside Laird Brochan who spent the duration of the meal telling me about his son Tomas.

  Like almost every Laird I had the misfortune of being forced into conversation with, he wanted me to visit his son, probably hoping he could marry his way into the royal family.

  I wanted to laugh, for the first time in weeks, at the thought of marrying. The woman I loved refused to even speak with me. I had no room left in my heart to care about anyone else.

  There was an undeniable tension growing amongst the humans in the castle. I thought that perhaps I was imagining it, but it continued to grow. I just hoped it had nothing to do with me.

  I admitted to my shadow that I was worried they would target me for revenge, but he dismissed the idea and promised to protect me. Father could fight his own battles with his people. I just wanted to be left alone.

  The beheading continued to haunt my dreams. Sometimes the grieving crowd ripped me to pieces and sometimes, Alasdair’s bloody head simply rolled after me wherever I ran.

  As the weeks passed, my shadow and I rode out to the meadow as often as possible as I was able to peacefully sleep there. My shadow never complained about it. He simply sat by my side, watching out for danger whilst I slept amongst the flowers.

  A fter our fight, the fairy seemed to be watching us more intently. I was sure that before we had been left to our work without the fairy lingering, but it was difficult to remember what had happened during our time in her cottage.

  Trying to think about our time under the enchantment was like trying to see the bottom of a muddy puddle. We continued to work as hard as we could, although now that the enchantment was broken the work was difficult.

  Without a haze of love and devotion clouding my mind, I was all too aware of the burning thirst I hardly ever had a chance to quench and the ache in my empty stomach from the irregular meals.

  I felt dizzy the whole time we worked and Glen’s pale face and shaking hands told me he was the same. We couldn’t break our routine and eat whilst we pretended to be under her enchantment. Soon we were stumbling around as if drunk from lack of food, drink and slee
p.

  The urge to throw the broom I was using away, curl up in a ball and accept my fate was growing stronger with every floor I swept. As we worked throughout the night I got closer and closer to giving up.

  Thankfully, the fairy finally acknowledged our loudly growling stomachs and we were given porridge the next morning. We made sure to thank her profusely before shovelling the food into our mouths as fast as humanly possible.

  Almost straight away, I felt the fog of dizziness leave me and I was faced with the new problem of trying not to vomit. It’s never a clever idea to stuff yourself full of food after days without any.

  I doubted the fairy would believe that I was still under her enchantment if I threw up all over her kitchen. The porridge never did make a reappearance, and we were able to garden and whisper our plans that afternoon.

  “We can leave when she goes into the forest,” Glen whispered as we worked. Pulling nettles from in amongst the fairy’s strange herbs.

  I’d never seen herbs and plants like the ones that grew here, not even whilst in the middle of the Fairy Forest. Many of them produced the bright purple vegetables that Glen and I fought over. However, most unnerving of all were the flowers, with drooping purple petals, which turned to follow whoever was closest to them.

  Soon our hands were lumpy, red and stinging furiously with a rash from the nettles, but there were no dock leaves in sight. Which was strange. Whenever I had encountered nettles in the past dock had always been growing somewhere nearby. A part of me wondered if this was a test and so I made sure not to complain.

  “We just take our bags and go?” I mumbled quietly, ripping up handfuls of nettles and pretending they weren’t making me want to chop off my own hands.

  “They are untouched, still sitting beside the door where we left them the day we arrived,” Glen said with a nod, discretely looking around and planning our escape route.

  Realising Glen needed a distraction so that he could get a better look, I took my basket, full of the strange and frankly disgusting looking plants I had picked, and wandered around the garden to a new area. The purple flower heads watching me as I went.