A scream came from Mrs. Saunders who was stumbling down the stairs. She bravely pushed past the monster and rushed to Not-Jack’s side.
“Jack!” she cried and cradled him into her chest protectively as she cringed in horror at the thing in front of her.
Mr. Saunders who was following on her heels, stopped short halfway down the steps in dumb dismay at what he saw.
The creature was easily eight feet tall. Its skin was hairless and white to the point of transparency. A smattering of sparse hair was a mockery of Jenny’s hair. There was nothing to be seen of the little girl that it had once mimicked.
Mr. Saunders took a breath and dived at the beast intending to take it down in a tackle.
Dropping Millie, the beast sneered at the middle aged man and with frighteningly long arms it smacked him roughly to land in a dazed huddle with his wife and his boy.
The beast whirled around to find Millie scooting back against the unconscious Not-Finn under the steps. An arm shot out and yanked a screaming Millie by her ankle towards its dripping jaws.
Millie kicked at air and tried twisting her face away from its foul breath.
The teeth were enormous.
Then – the creature froze.
The horrible creature gave a sudden look of surprise and its eyes glazed white. No pupils. No Iris. White and hollow. Like an empty dried out husk. As did its entire body. And the monster crumbled into the misshapen flakes of a bad dream.
Millie tumbled to the floor gasping.
“I’m back!” shouted a happy voice from the far corner of the cellar.
Pirate Jenny in her pirate hat and galoshes rushed out of the darkness and stopped short at what she saw. Millie coughing and holding her throat like she’d been almost suffocated. Her parents huddled with a boy on the floor looking frightened.
When she saw her parents, she raced into her father’s embrace. “I missed you!” she cried. As she reached for her mom she stopped short at the strange white-haired Jack in her mother’s arms. “Who’re you?” she gasped.
Not-Jack’s face held sheer panic. He looked quickly around for the original Jack. This was it.
Mrs. Saunders looked at Jenny with surprise. “It’s Jack of course. Are you okay Jenny? Did that thing have you?”
Jenny looked around and then stared again at the frightened eyes of Not-Jack. “Thing? But, you’re not –” Jenny remembered. “Are you a changeling?”
It was then a golden burst of light permeated the entire cellar. Everyone stopped to shield their eyes from the brightness.
* * * *
Jack – wearing his human glamour – had stepped through the portal a moment after Jenny, but stopped when he saw another Jack in his mother’s arms. A Jack with white hair. He saw the other Jack’s terrified eyes as Jenny ran towards them.
Under the stairway, Millie crawled over to an even whiter haired version of Finn. She stroked his forehead and whispered to him.
Jack didn’t understand what he was seeing, till he remembered the warning of the MerKing. These were changelings.
Something big had just happened. Jack saw terror in all their eyes.
A hand grabbed Jack from behind and he jumped. Finn was there in the cellar with him. The real Finn – with merfolk legs and monster feet.
“Jack,” Finn whispered. “I’m coming with you. I might get pulled back into Frey, or abducted by a government lab, but I’m coming too. You... might need to fix my legs though –” Finn caught sight of his double. “Jeez–”
Below the steps, Not-Finn opened his eyes to discover Millie looking down at him.
Jack’s parents were holding this Jack in a way they’d never held the real Jack. His parents were HUGGING this other Jack.
His no-hugging parents were hugging this other boy that was not Jack.
Maybe the real Jack really was untouchable.
Then Jack felt Finn’s arms wrap around him.
Time stopped.
Jack turned to look at Finn. He made a decision.
“Shield your eyes,” he whispered quietly.
Jack transformed into a being of golden light.
Everyone in the cellar covered their eyes.
“Jenny,” Jack stepped towards the group. His mom pulled Jenny and the other Jack protectively towards her chest, and his dad moved protectively in front of his wife. Jack’s heart ached. “I can’t stay. I love you.”
“But –” Jenny started.
Jack held up a glowing hand. “Trust me.”
He looked towards his doppelganger and their eyes met. Was this changeling just a selfish walking fungi? Both changelings were clearly frightened. But they were clearly loved. More loved then the real Jack was at any rate. “Take good care of them?”
Not-Jack nodded with wide eyes, as did Not-Finn.
Jack turned to Millie. “Look after Jenny? I’m glad you finally found a Finn of your own,” He tried to smile.
Finn stepped up beside Jack where Millie and the other Finn could see him. He nodded to her, and Millie and Not-Finn nodded back.
Jack’s glow dimmed as he turned to Finn. They disappeared.
* * * *
Not-Finn healed with time and appreciated Millie checking in on him regularly. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were of course alarmed by the injuries but even the Saunders had agreed to say that he’d fallen down the cellar steps, as they didn’t know how else to describe the events in a way that anyone would believe.
Ever afterwards, Mrs. Saunders was convinced that she’d seen an angel. That an angel – perhaps two of them –had rescued them all from a real live demon. Of course this propelled Mrs. Saunders towards her church even more, and even Mr. Saunders joined her from time to time now. But even more significantly, the Saunders had become a family of huggers. Mr. and Mrs. Saunders could not get enough of their kids having once lost them. TV took a back seat to doing things as a family.
Jenny and Millie agreed that they had indeed seen angels, and the two changeling boys couldn’t disagree.
Everyone noticed that the boys were profoundly changed after that. The boys weren’t exactly sure why they weren’t piles of white dust, but it seemed a safe guess that Not-Jenny’s notion of becoming real through anger and consumption was incorrect. What seemed to have saved the boys was learning to care about someone else. Millie’s guess had been right.
Everyone noticed that both boys were losing the unhealthy pallor. They were gaining color. Though their hair remained white.
Not-Finn now wanted to be called Finnegan. Millie’s and his shopping carts for the Hopin’ With The Homeless art show were a big success and raised $41.53 more than any of the other kids. They decided it would be fun to create more art together.
Not-Jack suspected that he’d had a close shave in the selfish behavior department. He decided to go by Jack’s middle name – which was Neo (Mr. and Mrs. Saunders’ first date involved a certain movie). Not-Jack had read that Neo suggested new beginnings.
It was a time for fresh beginnings.
But Jenny was not the same. A sadness always hovered beneath her efforts to be cheerful around her parents. She tried to tell them about her adventures, but they didn’t take her seriously. Their memories blurred the nightmare in the barn till it truly disappeared.
In time Jenny grew used to Neo and Finnegan, though it was painful to see almost identical copies of Jack and Finn. But at least Millie and the boys believed her stories.
Jenny loved her parents – but she missed Jack and Finn a great deal. She missed Footbe and seeing merfolk. She missed the Wishermans who had become like second parents to her. She missed Gibbie and Nibs and her pirates.
Jenny missed Frey.
Chapter 56
The Floating
Island
Jack and Finn were sprawled out on the beach of their floating is
land which was hovering somewhere east of Loot’s End. Time was a little curious in Frey, but the boys guessed that it had been about four weeks since they’d returned.
Of course Finn’s parents had been overjoyed to see them return to Frey. Jack was so surprised to be pulled into the family embrace along with Finn, that his eyes were wet with tears.
Meryth helped her father with restorations to Tryon, the mer-city on the underwater island. There was a lot to be done. Weeds and red algae had infiltrated all of the filtration systems and made the city unpleasant to live in till it could be eradicated. But many hands made light work and the freshly awakened populace was enthusiastic.
Word had traveled quickly that the Blue Queen was gone and that King Posei was back. The various communities of Frey traveled to the Bay of mer’Rinn to welcome the return of the merfolk and naturally brought with them hosts of problems that had arisen under the long years of the wicked giantess’ reign.
Jack and Finn joined Footbe on his journey down into the Frit’s underground city, which they learned was called Grix. They delivered the baby Asphixia to be raised there. They considered renaming her lest she remember her former life, but King Frayex thought it not necessary. With the return of Footbe’s memory the city was coming to life again. Frits who had turned to stone, found themselves alive once more.
Frayex remembered Finn and remembered Footbe – though Footbe had never called on the frit socially. It seemed that the phooka in Footbe’s guise had often tried to find the cave where Meryth had been hidden. If he could have delivered the princess to the envious queen it would have helped him at court. But despite all his unsuccessful attempts at entering the cottage and the Isle of Judgment, the conniving phooka still ended up in her dungeon.
Frayex assured them that if they stayed they would be honored with a feast of the tastiest rocks in the kingdom. But they had politely declined and returned to the surface.
Under the flag of King Posei, the pirates had commenced a mission of exploration around the southern end of the continent. There were many peoples that were still unknown. There were rumors of a colony of satyrs in the wilderness to the south-east and Jack and Finn hoped to find them by air with the island.
All the servants at the Cottage-By-The-Sea had names now. Footbe resisted the change and what it meant. And Footbe was right. As soon as they had names, they wanted vacation time as well. He consoled himself that at least they hadn’t asked for wages yet.
Finn was disappointed to realize over time that his dad could be a little bit of a self-involved dick, but he also noticed that he could be surprisingly generous as well. People can be a complicated mix of good and bad qualities and he realized that on some level he had to just deal with it. He’d rather have a real father than a fantasy father.
Jack and Finn received a letter via a stork-like creature that the Wisherman family had reached their home safely. Tootles the gardener had kept the scrumble-berries quivering happily on their vines. A healthy diet of scrumble-berries brought back the saturation in their lavender fluff which had faded during their adventures. The boys sent a note with the same stork creature that promised to visit the Wishermans and Whippledell before long.
The rescued children and the castle b’Trixers were settling into Whippledell, and the villagers were mostly overjoyed to have the young enthusiastic neighbors. Floogle and his family settled back into their old house – which his aunt Gertie had kept up. The old lizard who liked to read on his porch would occasionally yell at the kids when they made too much noise in front of his house. But even he was happy to see the changes in the sleepy village and the influx of energy and ideas. Creative children were of course a danger to all of Frey, but the villagers were committed to warning them of the dangers.
The situation with the b’Trixers was complex. The average Frey citizen confessed to liking individual furry-ners just fine. But collectively there was a stigma that followed the b’Trixers – and a wishing that they’d just go back to their own land (which no longer existed). Jack hoped that at some point the Frey population could see the cute critters as a resource rather than as a threat. The b-Trixers had useful skills. If they were welcomed into village life, who knew what wonderful ideas they might bring to all of Frey.
The night previous to this lazy afternoon on the beach, Jack had overheard a conversation when he’d flown down to the nixie village. (The nixies had offered to bring Jack all of his books and writings from his tree-house in Mount Vernon. They’d also left a letter for Jenny).
“We don’t need their cutesy ways here,” an alligator had grumbled to a nixie sitting nearby. They’d just finished eating a lost rabbit who had been traveling through the swamp. They were sitting near a campfire at the village’s edge and swapping stories about the day.
“But, he was delicious with tomatoes on the side,” reflected the nixie moments before she was eaten for the alligator’s dessert.
Frey needed more sources of food which were not sentient. It was disturbing to not be sure whether a carrot might start chatting about the weather, just when you were intending to make a salad with it.
The boys had become Frey celebrities after all the crazy events at the castle. News traveled fast. Everyone was excited when the floating island with the two strange boys came to visit.
Finn was drowsing in the sand next to him. They had the island to themselves. They’d stopped worrying about clothes some time back. It was remarkable how quickly clothing became a pointless notion, unless it was cold of course. Naturally when the weather turned, clothes would be very useful. But he reflected that they could also just move the island when the weather turned chilly.
Today the weather was beautiful.
Jack trickled grains of sand along Finn’s back. He was curious how much sand he could put there before Finn would wake up.
“What are you doing?” Finn murmured.
“I’m burying you a few grains of sand at a time,” Jack responded.
“Okay. I’ll drown you after you’re done,” sighed Finn as he went back to sleep.
Jack rolled his golden naked body back into the warm sand and spread out his arms and legs to the sun. It was glorious to just be lazy like this and not be afraid of burning. His old pale skin would have never been able to do this. Finn had happily discovered that merfolk skin didn’t burn.
There was a rustling sound behind them in the tree line. Jack sat up. He only saw the shimmering birch trees that bordered the beach. He saw two misshapen tree stumps that he hadn’t noticed before. But he’d hardly taken an inventory of the island’s trees.
Jack settled back into the sand and nestled into its warmth. Finn’s hand silently crawled across the sand like a spider. It leaped along with the rest of Finn.
“Gotcha!” Finn landed on top of Jack.
They giggled and rolled in the sand.
They were home. Their own floating island.
* * * *
One tree stump nudged the other with a root.
“What d’ya think?”
“I like ‘em,” said the other stump with a knotty smile.
The first tree stump (whose name was Burl) wasn’t sure. “They might work out. We’ll see. There’s lots ta do.”
“The gold one ain’t figg’red the limits o’ magic yet... we should prob’bly let’m know,” mused Brin. “before he does somethin’ he shouldn’t.”
Burl gave a sigh. “Prob’bly. No hurry. Let’s get back ta the cave – an’ the map. We need to ‘stablish where those dark wishes were droppin’ ther eggs...”
The two tree stumps quietly pulled up their roots and crawled off through the woods like giant spiders, leaving behind the two boys on the beach who were discovering the merits of wrestling punctuated with kisses.
The
Wanderin’ Tree
An Olde Frey Drinking Song
Ah once met a tree
,
a comf’t’ble tree,
what loved all de birds
and de breezes so free!
She had a sweet brook–
a wee comfy spot–
‘twas neither too chilly,
nor neit’er too hot!
Not pixies nor squirr’l poop
dinna much rile,
her own sunny spot
on her own sunny isle.
A bird came one day!
A bird o’ red hue.
“Your life is so dull!
What is there ta do?
Go see de big world!!
It’s wondrous! It’s grand!
That wee creek is nothin’,
tis nothin’ but bland!
Ya should see da sea!
‘Tis seasoned wi’ salt!
If you wilt o’ boredom,
tis only yer fault!”
De birdie flew off!
De Tree’s happiness waned.
Her li’l brook shrank,
an’ her spot now was stained
wit’ longin’ for somethin’
dat she’d neve’ seen.
She thought o’ de places
de wind might ha’ been.
De notions were pretty,
her trunk wore a smile
an’ soon she decided
ta leave her small isle!
She pulled up her roots
an’ she started ta walk!
Wi’ a boat at de shore,
she started ta talk!
De boat said, “Come travel
wi’ me on ze sea!
Come fly like ze wind!!
On me ye’ll feel free!”
She straddled his bow
an’ she sailed wi’ de tide.
Wit’ wind in her leaves!!
Her branches stretched wide!
A’ first it was splendid!
Her leaves all a twirl!
Yet salty life soon
made her roots start ta curl.
Ta dance in da waves
tis a glor’ous thing –
Olly, Olly, Oxen Frey Page 31