by Paula Guran
On the nights when his parents were gone, she insisted on drawing his baths, adding in some liquid from a bottle and making the baths so hot they scalded him and when he cried, she seemed satisfied. Satisfied and a little frightened.
The strangest of all came nearly a month after he’d told her of the dreams. She’d made stew for dinner and she served it in eggshells. When she brought them to the table, the Gnat laughed in delight.
“That’s funny,” she said. “They’re so cute, Gran.”
His grandmother only nodded absently at the Gnat. Her watery blue eyes were fixed on him.
“What do you think of it, Bobby?” she asked.
“I . . . ” He stared at the egg, propped up in a little juice glass, the brown stew steaming inside the shell. “I don’t understand. Why is it in an egg?”
“For fun, dummy.” His sister shook her head at their grandmother. “Bobby’s never fun.” She pulled a face at him. “Boring Bobby.”
His grandmother shushed her, gaze still on him. “You think it’s strange.”
“It is,” he said.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“No.”
She waited, as if expecting more. Then she prompted, “You would say, then, that you’ve never, in all your years, seen something like this.”
It seemed an odd way to word it, but he nodded.
And with that, finally, she seemed satisfied. She plunked down into her chair, exhaling, before turning to him and saying, “Go to your room. I don’t want to see you until morning.”
He glanced up, startled. “What did I—?”
“To your room. You aren’t one of us. I’ll not have you eat with us. Now off with you.”
He pushed his chair back and slowly rose to his feet.
The Gnat stuck out her tongue when their grandmother wasn’t looking. “Can I have his egg?”
“Of course, dear,” Gran said as he shuffled from the kitchen.
The next morning, instead of going to school, his grandmother took him to church. It was not Sunday. It was not even Friday. As soon as he saw the spires of the cathedral, he began to shake. He’d done something wrong, horribly wrong. He’d lain awake half the night trying to figure out what he could have done to deserve bed without dinner, but there was nothing. She’d fed him stew in an eggshell and, while perplexed, he had still been very polite and respectful about it.
The trouble had started with telling her about the dreams, but who could find fault with tales of castles and meadows, music and laughter?
Perhaps she was going senile. It had happened to an old man down the street. They’d found him in their yard, wearing a diaper and asking about his wife, who’d died years ago. If that had happened to his grandmother, Father Joseph would see it.
Certainly, he seemed to, given the expression on Father Joseph’s face after Gran talked to him alone in the priest’s office. Father Joseph emerged as if in a trance, and Gran had to direct him to the pew where Bobby waited.
“See?” she said, waving her hand at Bobby.
The priest looked straight at him, but seemed lost in his thoughts. “No, I’m afraid I don’t, Mrs. Sheehan.”
Gran’s voice snapped with impatience. “It’s obvious he’s not ours. Neither his mother nor his father nor any of his grandparents have blond hair. Or dark eyes.”
Sweat beaded on the priest’s forehead and he tugged his collar. “True, but children do not always resemble their parents, for a variety of reasons, none of them laying any blame at the foot of the child.”
“Are you suggesting my daughter-in-law was unfaithful?”
Father Joseph’s eyes widened. “No, of course not. But the ways of genetics—like the ways of God—are not always knowable. Your daughter-in-law does have light hair, and I believe she has a brother who is blond. If my recollection of science is correct, dark eyes are the dominant type, and I’m quite certain if you searched the family tree beyond parents and grandparents you would find your answer.”
“I have my answer,” she said, straightening. “He is a changeling.”
Two drops of sweat burst simultaneously and dribbled down the priest’s face. “I . . . I do not wish to question your beliefs, Mrs. Sheehan. I know such folk wisdom is common in the . . . more rural regions of your homeland—”
“Because it is wisdom. Forgotten wisdom. I’ve tested him, Father. I gave him dinner in an eggshell, as I explained.”
“Yes, but . . . ” The priest snuck a glance around, as if hoping for divine intervention—or a needy parishioner to stumble in, requiring his immediate attention. “I know that is the custom, but I cannot say I rightly understand it.”
“What is there to understand?” She put her hands on her narrow hips. “It’s a test. I gave him stew in eggshells, and he said he’d never seen anything like it. That’s what a changeling will say.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I believe that’s what anyone would say, given their meal served in an egg.”
She glowered at him. “I put him in a tub with foxglove, too, and he became ill.”
“Foxglove?” The priest’s eyes rounded again. “Is that not a poison?”
“It is if you’re a changeling. I also gave him one of my heart pills, because it’s made from digitalis, which is also foxglove. My pill made him sick.”
“You gave . . . ” For the first time since he’d come in, Father Joseph looked at Bobby, really looked at him. “You gave your grandson your heart medication? That could kill a boy—”
“He isn’t a boy. He’s one of the Fair Folk.” Gran met Bobby’s gaze. “An abomination.”
Now Father Joseph’s face flushed, his eyes snapping. “No, he is a child. You will not speak of him that way, certainly not in front of him. I’m trying to be respectful, Mrs. Sheehan. You are entitled to your superstitions and folksy tales, but not if they involve poisoning an innocent child.” He knelt in front of Bobby. “You’re going to come into my office now, son, and we’ll call your parents. Is your mother at work?”
He nodded.
“Do you know the number?”
He nodded again.
The priest took Bobby’s hand and, without another word, led him away as his grandmother watched, her eyes narrowing.
That was the beginning of “the bad time,” as his parents called it, whispered words, even years later, their eyes downcast, as if in shame. The situation did not end with that visit to the priest. His grandmother would not drop the accusation. He was a changeling. A faerie child dropped into their care, her real grandson spirited away by the Fair Folk. Finally, his parents broke down and asked the priest to perform some ritual—any ritual—to calm his grandmother’s nerves. The priest refused. To do so would be to lend credence to the preposterous accusation and could permanently scar the child’s psyche.
The fight continued. He heard his parents talking late at night about the shame, the great shame of it all. They were intelligent, educated people. His father was a scientist, his mother the lead secretary in her firm. They were not ignorant peasants, and it angered them that Father Joseph didn’t understand what they were asking—not to “fix” their son but simply to pretend to, for the harmony of the household.
They took their request to a second priest, and somehow—for years afterward, everyone would blame someone else for this—a journalist got hold of the story. It made one of the Chicago newspapers, in an article mocking the family and their “Old World” ways. His family was so humiliated they moved. His grandmother grumbled that his parents made too big a fuss out of the whole thing. It didn’t matter. They moved, and they were all forbidden to speak of it again.
That did not mean no one spoke of it. The Gnat did. When she was in a good mood, she’d settle for mocking him, calling him a faerie child, asking him where he kept his wings, pinching his back to see if she could find them. When she was in a rare foul temper, she’d tell him their grandmother was right, he was a monster and didn’t belong, that their p
arents only had one real child. And even if it was all nonsense, as his mother and father claimed, that part was true—he no longer felt part of the family. They might not think him a changeling, but they all, in their own ways, blamed him. His parents blamed him for their humiliation. The Gnat blamed him for having to leave her friends and move. And his grandmother blamed him for whatever slight she could pin at his feet, and then she punished him for it.
He came to realize that the punishments were the purpose of the accusations rather than the result. His grandmother wanted an excuse to strap him or send him to bed without dinner. At first, he presumed she was upset because no one believed her story. That did not anger him. Nothing really angered him. Like happiness, the emotion was too intense, too uncomfortable. He looked at his sister, dancing about, chattering and giggling, and he thought her a fool. He looked at his grandmother, raging and snapping against him, and thought her the same. Foolish and weak, easily overcome by emotion.
He did not accept the punishments stoically, though. While he never complained, with each hungry night or sore bottom, something inside him hardened a bit more. He saw his grandmother, fumbling in her frustration, venting it on him, and he did not pity her. He hated her. He hated his parents, too, for pretending not to see the welts or the unfinished dinners. Most of all, he hated the Gnat, because she saw it all and delighted in it. She would watch him beaten to near tears with the strap, and then tell their grandmother that he’d broken her doll the week before, earning him three more lashes.
While there was certainly vindictiveness in the punishments, it seemed his grandmother actually had a greater plan. He realized this when she decided, one Sunday, that the two of them should take a trip to Cainsville. He even got to sit in the front seat of the station wagon, for the first time ever.
“Do you think I’ve mistreated you lately?” she asked as she drove.
It seemed a question not deserving a reply, so he didn’t give one.
“Have you earned those punishments?” she said. “Did you do everything I said you did? That Natalie said you did?”
He sensed a trick, and again he didn’t answer. She reached over and pinched his thigh hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“I asked you a question, parasite.”
He glanced over.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” she said. “Parasite?”
“I know many words.”
Her lips twisted. “You do. Far more than a child should know. Because you are not a child. You are a parasite, put into our house to eat our food and sleep in our beds.”
“There’s no such thing as faeries.”
She pinched him again, twisting the skin. He only glanced over with a look that had her releasing him fast, hand snapping back onto the steering wheel.
“You’re a monster,” she said. “Do you know that?”
No, you are, he thought, but he said nothing, staring instead at the passing scenery as they left the city. She drove onto the highway before she spoke again.
“You don’t think you deserve to be punished, do you? You think I’m accusing you of things you didn’t do, and your little sister is joining in, and your parents are turning a blind eye. Is that what you think?”
He shrugged.
“If it is, then you should tell someone,” she said. “Someone who can help you.”
He stayed quiet. There was a trick here, a dangerous one, and he might be smart for a little boy, as everyone told him, but he was not smart enough for this. So he kept his mouth shut. She drove a while longer before speaking again.
“You like the folks in Cainsville, don’t you? The town elders.”
Finally, something he could safely answer. She could find no fault in him liking old people. With relief, he nodded.
“They like you, too. They think you’re special.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “I know why, too. I’m not a foolish old woman. I’m just as smart as you, boy. Especially when it comes to puzzles, and I’ve solved this one. I know where you came from.”
He tried not to sigh, as the conversation swung back to dangerous territory. Perhaps he should be frightened, but after months of this, he was only tired.
“Do they ask you about us?” she said. “When they take you off on your special walks? Do they ask after your family?”
He nodded. “They ask if you are all well.”
“And how we’re treating you?”
He hesitated. It seemed an odd question, and he sensed the snare wire sneaking around his ankle again. After a moment, he shook his head. “They only ask if you’re well and how I’m doing. How I like school and that.”
“They’re being careful,” she muttered under her breath. “But they still ask how he is. Checking up on him.”
“Gran?”
She tensed as he called her that. She always did these days and it was possible, just possible, that he used it more often because of that.
“You understand what honesty is, don’t you, boy?”
He nodded.
“And respect for your elders.”
It took him a half-second, but he nodded to this as well.
“Then you know you have to tell the truth when an adult asks you a question. You need to be honest, even if it might get someone in trouble. Always remember that.”
While he liked all the elders in Cainsville, Mrs. Yates was his favorite, and he got the feeling he was hers, too. There had been a time when his grandmother had seemed almost jealous of her, when she would huff and sniff and say she thought Mrs. Yates was a very peculiar old woman. His parents had paid little attention—Gran had made it quite clear she thought everyone a little peculiar in Cainsville.
“There are no churches,” she’d say. And his mother would sigh and explain—once again—that the town had started off too small for churches and by the time it was large enough, there was no place to put them, the settlement being nestled in the fork of a river, with marshy ground on the only open side. People still went to church. Just somewhere else.
It was his mother whose family was from Cainsville. Gran only accompanied them because she didn’t like to be left out of family trips. She didn’t like the town and she certainly didn’t like Mrs. Yates. But that day, as she went off to visit his great-aunt, Gran sent him off with two dollars and a suggestion that he go see what Mrs. Yates was up to. Just be back by four so they could make it home in time for Sunday dinner.
He went to the new diner first. That’s what everyone in Cainsville called it. The “new” diner, though it’d been there as long as he could remember. It still smelled new—the lemon-polished linoleum floors, the shiny red leather booths and even shinier chrome-plated chairs. The elders could often be found there, sipping tea by the windows as they watched the town go by. “Holding court,” his grandmother would sniff—watching for mischief and waiting for folks to come by and pay their respects, like they were lords and ladies. He didn’t see that at all. To him, they were simply there, in case anyone needed them.
Today, he found Mrs. Yates in her usual place. He thought she’d be surprised to see him, but she only smiled, her old face lighting up as she motioned him over.
“Mr. Shaw said he spotted your car coming into town,” she said. “But I scarce dared believe it. Did I hear the rest right, too? Your gran brought you?”
He nodded.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“She said I could come talk to you if I wanted.”
Then he got his look of surprise, a widening of her blue eyes. “Did she now?”
He nodded again, and he expected her to be pleased, but while her eyes stayed kind, they narrowed too, as she surveyed him.
“Is everything all right, Bobby?”
He nodded without hesitation. Gran thought she was clever in her plan, that he would tattle on her to Mrs. Yates without realizing that’s exactly what she wanted. He had no idea what she hoped to gain, but if Gran wanted it, he wasn’t doing it.
“Are you s
ure?” Mrs. Yates said, those bright eyes piercing his. “Nothing is amiss at home?”
He shrugged. “My sister’s annoying, but that’s old news.”
He thought she’d laugh, pat his arm and move on. That’s what other grown-ups would do. But Mrs. Yates was not like other grown-ups, which was probably why he liked her so much. She kept studying him until, finally, she squeezed his shoulder and said, “All right, Bobby. If that’s what you want. Now, do you have your list of gargoyles?”
He pulled the tattered notebook from his back pocket. He’d been working on it since he was old enough to write. Cainsville had gargoyles. Lots of them. For protection, the old people would say with a wink. Every year, as part of the May Day festival, children could show the elders their lists of all the gargoyles they’d located, and the winner would take a prize. If you found all of them, you’d get an actual gargoyle modeled after you. That hardly ever happened—there were only a few in town. It sounded easy, finding them all, and it should be, except many hid. There were gargoyles you could only see in the day or at night or when the light hit a certain way or, sometimes, just by chance. He’d been compiling his list for almost four years and he only had half of them, but he’d still come in second place last year.
“Let’s go gargoyle hunting.” Mrs. Yates got to her feet without groaning or pushing herself up, the way Gran and other old people did. She just stood, as easily as he would, and started for the door. “Now remember, I can’t point them out to you. That’s against the rules.” She leaned down and whispered, “But I might give you a hint for one. Just one.”
Behind them, the other elders chuckled, and Bobby and Mrs. Yates headed out into town.
He found one more gargoyle to add to his list, and he didn’t even need Mrs. Yates’s hint, so she promised to keep it for next time. They were going back to the diner and the promise of milkshakes when Mrs. Yates glanced down the walkway leading behind the bank.
