The Changeling Bride

by Lisa Cach

  “Ooh,” he crooned in distress. “How to fix?”

  She took a step forward. “Take me back home.”

  “No, no, no. Too hard start over, make them angry.”

  “Make who angry?”

  He waved his hand in the air behind him. “Others. Too hard to find you. You fit.”

  “No, I don’t fit. I need to go home.” She took another step towards him.

  “Think, think, think.” He pounded the heels of his delicate hands against his forehead.

  “Take me home.”

  “No, must stay.”

  She lunged, grabbing him by the arms. His bones felt fragile beneath her hands, and his weight was insubstantial as she hauled him off the windowsill. Tatiana, on cue, chose that moment to wake up, and stood on the sofa, her head appearing over its back. She gave a hearty woof.

  The fairy seemed to shrivel into himself at the sound. He shook in her hands. Feeling both heartless and grimly determined, she dragged him over to the sofa.

  “Tatia! Kitty cat! Where’s the kitty cat!” she asked, knowing the reaction she would get.

  Tatiana fell into a frenzy of barking and growling, leaping off and on the sofa. It was a spectacular display of sham ferocity. The fairy was limp with fright.

  “I have to go home,” Elle said into his ear. “If you won’t take me, I see no reason not to make Tatiana eat you.”

  His hands fumbled at his waist, and then gold dust flew into her face.

  “Release me!” the fairy ordered.

  Elle tightened her grip on his arms and laughed with delighted malice. “I put pearlwort in the milk,” she said, and snatched the little pouch of powder away from him. He was small enough that she could pin him against her with one arm. “You can do nothing against me.”

  She held the pouch out of his reach, then tilted it upside down, shaking. A fine shower of gold dust sprinkled out. “Children shouldn’t have such toys,” she said sourly. “They might hurt someone. Tell me your name.”

  “Noooo!”

  “Your name, fairy boy.”

  He shook his head in wild denial.

  “Kitty cat! Where’s the kitty cat!”

  Tatiana indulged in another cat-killing frenzy, topping it off by jumping upon the fairy and snapping her jaws inches from his nose.

  He screeched in terror.

  “Good girl, Tatia. What a good dog.” Tatiana gave a low growl of happiness and wagged her tail, panting moist dog breath on the fairy’s face. “Now, my little friend, what is your name? Or would you like me to dress you in scraps of iron? I hear fairies love iron.”

  The fairy sobbed. Elle shook him. “Your name?”

  “Mossbottom.”

  “Thank you, Mossbottom. Now how do we get home? You’re going to take me.”

  He nodded weakly. Elle knew he could do nothing else. By revealing his name to her he had become her slave for as long as she held him.

  Mossbottom feebly gestured out the window. “Closest hill close enough.”

  “Then let’s to it.” With the powder pouch in one hand she dragged Mossbottom over to the open window and looked out. It was only about four feet from the sill to the ground. She was about to climb onto the sill when she paused.

  She looked down at the wedding ring on her hand, which had looked to her like a golden shackle such a brief time before. She hadn’t expected freedom. There was a catch in her heart at the thought of removing it. Doing so meant the end of possibilities.

  The tears in her eyes surprised her, as she pinned Mossbottom to the sill with her hip and pried the ring from her finger. Her hand shook as she gently set it beside the bridal necklace. When she reached home, Henry would be two centuries dead. All this would be as a dream, and equally as beyond reach.

  She shut her mind to the thought. This was her only chance, and if she hesitated, it would be lost.

  “Up we go, Mossbottom.” She hauled him with her onto the sill, and together they dropped to the ground on the other side. Tatiana leapt onto the wide sill, looking after them, whining and pacing. Elle began to walk away with the forlorn fairy, and fearful of being left behind, Tatiana jumped the short distance and joined them.

  The gardens at this side of the house had not yet been touched by the new complement of gardeners. The grass was tall and lush, the shrubberies overgrown. Small burrs caught in Elle’s skirt, and her shoes quickly grew damp. Small insects buzzed and whirred in the warm air.

  She was sweating by the time they had left the grounds and crossed the distance to the first low hill. They climbed to its summit, which was no great height, but upon turning and looking back Elle had a glorious view of Brookhaven, the lake, and the farmland that stretched in gently rolling folds to the near horizon. Sunlight glittered on the lake. The small windows in the cupola-topped towers of the house reflected light like diamonds in a red stone crown.

  This could have been her home. Henry, with his mask of self-control and his goodness and warmth underneath, could have been her husband. If she had been Eleanor Moore, she could have been happy here.

  She turned her back on the view and gave Mossbottom an unkind jerk of his arm. “What now? And don’t try to fool me.” Her voice was harsh with threatening tears. “Tatiana will find you if you do, and I don’t have to tell you what it’s like to be attacked by a vicious hunting dog, do I?”

  “Thought you were nice,” Mossbottom blubbered. “But not!”

  “That’s right, I’m not. Women are dangerous when they don’t have what they want, and I am a very, very unsatisfied woman right now.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Henry sealed the letter to his longtime friend Dr. Joseph Samuelson. He watched the wax cool from glistening red, bright and shiny like blood, to matte hardness. He lifted the letter, weighing it in his hand, feeling a weight far heavier than paper and ink. In a sudden fury of motion he tore it in half, then again, and again, until it was nothing but scattered confetti and broken wax.

  His head dropped down into his hands, and he felt a tightness in his chest that he had not felt since he had been a boy. The unfamiliar, unwelcome sting of tears came to his eyes, and he held his breath against the pain that filled him.

  He did not know when or how it had happened, but he had fallen in love with his wife. There was no rhyme or reason to it, only the truth that held him tightly in its grip. He could not send her away, or put her under the care of physicians who would be blind to the magic of who she was. He loved her, and she would stay with him here at Brookhaven. It was her home. Their home.

  A weight slid from his heart with the decision. He had to tell her. He scooped the fragments of the letter into his hand and tossed them in the grate as he left.

  He jogged up the stairs and down the hall to her room. As he approached her door, he could hear pounding from within, and ripping and tearing. He threw open the door, and then rushed through her bedroom to the source of the noise. He stopped short at the entrance to her dressing room.

  Workmen were tearing down the wall that divided Elle’s dressing room from his own, and debris was scattered across the floor. Several crates were stacked against the back wall, one of which was open, revealing a porcelain toilet such as he had seen in the houses of a few wealthy friends in London.

  One by one the workmen stopped what they were doing, their eyes shifting nervously to each other, and then seeking out Lawrence, who at the silence had looked up from the plans he was studying.

  “Oh, dear me, Henry.” He fumbled with the papers, then rushed to Henry, trying both to shoo him away and somehow hide the room behind him at the same time. “You were not supposed to see this. Not yet, anyway. It was to be a surprise, when it all was finished.”

  “It will still be a surprise. I have no idea of what is going on here.”

  Lawrence smiled. “Your wife will be so glad to hear it. A remarkable lady, if I may say so. I would not have liked to disappoint her.”

  Henry let Lawrence back him from the dressing room
and could not find the heart to be offended when, with a little shrug of apology, Lawrence shut the door in his face. So this was what Elle and Lawrence had been whispering about for weeks: a flushing commode. And he had accused her of infidelity. Guilt rushed through him.

  He was an idiot, blinded by his own preconceived beliefs. He had not once given her a fair hearing. He was as bad as Freddie, condemning her on speculation. No, he was worse than Freddie. He had had several weeks to know her and to know that she was honorable.

  He felt the firm shell of logic over his heart, already cracked by love, split apart and fall away under the force of the possibilities that now appeared. Elle was different from her sister, and not just in temperament. She spoke differently, she knew vastly different things. They could not have grown up in the same house.

  Elle did not quite look like—and certainly did not act like—an eighteen-year-old girl. She had a dog no one had seen before the wedding. And he himself had often felt there was something foreign about her.

  The night she had run into the woods to talk to the fairies came back to him in stunning clarity. He had avoided thought of that night, ignored the otherworldly even as it was occurring, blanking it all from his mind. He had not wanted to understand, he saw that now. Even when an entire night passed in three sips from a spiced cup, he did not allow himself to believe the truth was other than he made it.

  Marianne came into the room and sucked in a loud breath when she saw Henry standing so still in front of the closed door.

  “Milord! You gave me a fright, you did.”

  He blinked, coming out of the fog of his thoughts, and turned. “Have you seen Elle about?”

  “I believe she is in the library, milord.”

  He made his way there, his heart beating in his chest, loud with what it had learned. The door latch was cold on his palm as he turned it, the chill stealing up his arm. The usual musty scent of the room was gone, replaced by sweet spring air.

  “Elle? I need to talk to you,” he said, coming in and scanning the vacant room. The windows were open, and the open door behind him created a course through which the breeze rushed, rustling papers and flipping pages of open books on desk tops and chairs. The edges of the open curtains billowed, the room in cool shadows that touched him with an uneasy foreboding.

  The sun slipped out from behind a cloud, casting yellow rectangles upon the floor in front of the windows. He came into the room, looking for signs of Elle’s recent presence and saw the empty plates and bowls on the table. The sun sparkled over the necklace that lay there, and he ran to it, scooping it up in his hand, and then saw the ring lying on the dark wood. He felt a cold rush run through him.

  A moment later he noticed the fine gold powder on the floorboards, and knelt down on one knee to examine the sparkling substance. He touched the powder with his fingertips and brought it up to his eyes. The skin on his fingertips began to tingle and go numb. “What the hell . . . ?” he muttered under his breath, and quickly brushed the powder off on his breeches.

  He stood up. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. His eyes went back to the traces of food on the dishes. Bread, milk, honey, butter. She had brought similar foodstuffs into the woods with her that night. Any child knew that they were fairy gifts, especially if left on a windowsill.

  And any child knew that a fairy wife always returns to the fairies when her husband has done the forbidden—asked her who she really was.

  She had left him.

  It took only a clear-eyed look at the ground outside the window to see the obvious path she had taken. The tall grass was pushed down in a trail that a simpleton could follow, which was fortunate considering how dense he had been. He put the ring in his jacket pocket and vaulted over the sill, following her trail at a run.

  He broke free of the last of the overgrown shrubberies at the edge of the gardens, and got his first clear look up ahead. There was a hill before him, and a couple hundred yards away, up at the summit, he saw her, and a fresh chill went through him. She was not alone. The figure at her side looked to be a child, dressed in some flimsy garment.

  He knew, immediately and illogically, that this was not an ordinary boy. He remembered the gold dust with its odd effect on his skin.

  “Elle!” he shouted. “Elle, stop!”

  He saw her turn as his voice reached her, her red hair glowing in the sunlight. He could not read her expression from that distance, but she made sudden frantic gestures at the boy. Tatiana trotted toward him until her mistress snapped an order that the dog obeyed, returning to her side.

  He sprinted the last hundred yards up the hill. She would not escape him, and she would not be taken from him. He did not know why, but he was certain that the boy had the power to take her from him forever.

  “Henry, stop!” Elle commanded as he approached. She was pale, her eyes filled with the sorrow of her soul. He felt sick, knowing at that moment that she had abandoned all hope of him.

  He slowed to a walk, now only ten feet from where she stood with the boy and Tatiana. “Elle, do not go,” he said, continuing to move towards her. He took in the landscape behind her, and saw that there was no one waiting, no place she could hide from him. He was faster than she was, but his sense of urgency had not lessened.

  “Stay back, Henry!” She put up her hand, palm out, as if the gesture could hold him. “This is the only way. You’ll see that when you have the chance to think about it. You shouldn’t have to live with a wife who is a burden, and I most certainly shouldn’t have to live in an asylum.”

  “Elle, I was wrong, let me explain—” he said, stepping yet closer to her.

  “No!” There was panic in her eyes. “Stay back!” When he did not obey and took yet another step forward, she reached into a small brown bag and then threw a cloud of gold dust at him. “Don’t move!” The youth at her side slapped his hands to his face, his jaw dropping open.

  “Elle . . .” Henry said, trying to step forward again. His legs did not obey him. He tried to look down at them, but could not move his head. “Elle?” he questioned, fear that he would be powerless to stop her rising in his throat. “What . . . ?”

  “You didn’t believe me,” she said, and tears spilled from her eyes. She did not seem to notice when the boy took the little bag from her, peering inside to check the contents. “Not that I could expect you to, I suppose. How could anyone believe the unbelievable? Maybe some part of me thought that you would take my word on faith alone. I think it takes love to do that, though. And you don’t love me.”

  “You are wrong, Elle—”

  “Don’t lie now, Henry,” she said, stepping up to him. He could feel her body warmth through the air between them, could see into the rich depths of her eyes. He had to say it, it was his only chance now.

  “I do not lie. I—” she stopped him with a hand over his mouth, the same hand that had thrown the dust, and he felt the tingle of it on his lips.

  “Quiet,” she whispered.

  His mind silently finished the sentence that the powder forbid his lips to utter, “. . . love you.”

  Elle rested her hands on his shoulders and stood on her toes. She looked into his eyes for a long moment, and he put everything he felt into them, praying she would see the truth there, but then she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. Every muscle in his body strained to be released, to crush her in his arms, to keep her there with him forever, and every muscle failed to break the bond of the spell. He could only call to her in his mind, and accept the soft warmth of her lips against his own, deathly certain that it would be the last time he felt them.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  She stepped away, and turned and spoke with the boy. “I’m ready now. Sorry I had to use your powder.”

  The boy pouted at her and gestured unhappily at Henry. “Not good, not good. Only fairies use dust. Humans, no.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  The fairy boy wrinkled his nose at her, then gestured at the ground.
“Sit.” Elle sat and brought Tatiana to sit beside her. “Hold tight to dog. This be quick.” The fairy sprinkled dust over them both.

  Elle’s eyes move from the fairy to Henry. Her eyes locked with his, and he saw a pain there that he knew mirrored his own, only she was resigned to it while he stood frozen, fighting against the invisible bonds that held him.

  “Back to beginning,” the fairy said, and a black hole opened in the ground behind them. “Gone!” The pair, wife and dog, disappeared into the blackness.

  The boy turned and looked at Henry. “Sorry, so sorry. Bargain not fulfilled. Will try again.” He made a gesture with his hand, then followed Elle and Tatiana into the hole.

  In the space of an eyeblink, the hole had closed and was covered once again in meadow grasses. Henry’s muscles were released, and he dropped to his knees with a shuddering breath.

  He crawled the last few feet to the place where Elle had disappeared, his fingers pressing deeply into the grass and dirt, searching for what he knew was no longer there.

  He bent his head down to his knees, then flung it back, his cry echoing across the valley below.

  “Where did they take her?”

  Lady Annalise looked up, her mouth parting.

  “She is gone. That creature, that fairy boy, took her away,” Henry said and did not care that his voice was cracking. “So you can stop playing your games with me and help me get her back.” He dropped to his knees beside her chair, some of the energy draining from him. “Help me.”

  “He was not supposed to take her back,” Lady Annalise said.

  He was not surprised that she spoke. “It is my fault, I drove her away.”

  “But she seemed so happy here.”

  “And she will be, if only I have the chance to tell her.” He took her hand between his own, pressing gently. “Where is she?”

  “It is not so much the where of it, as the when. There is no getting there from here.”

  He dropped her hand and stood. “I do not accept that.” He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the mantel. He looked like a wild man. He did not care. “If she could get there, so can I.”