Changeling

by William Ritter

  “I just want to be special sometimes,” Cole said suddenly. “I want to be a hero, like Hercules doing all those labors we had to read about for Mrs. Silva’s class. I just want to prove I can do—I don’t know—big things. Scary things.”

  “Hercules was a twin, too,” Tinn recalled. “He had a brother called Isosceles or something. No, Iphicles.”

  “I don’t think I read that part,” said Cole. “Did his brother get to go on cool adventures and kill monsters and stuff, too?”

  “Um . . . I don’t think so,” said Tinn. “Maybe? He wasn’t a demigod like Hercules. I think he was just a person.”

  The stream was up ahead, and Cole began scooping up pebbles as they walked. Tinn leaned down to pick up a few, too.

  “Do you think he wanted to?” said Tinn.

  “Who wanted to what?” said Cole, picking bits of bark out of his handful of rocks.

  “The brother. Do you think he wanted to fight monsters and stuff?”

  “Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?” Cole asked.

  “Well, I mean—Hercules didn’t really want to do any of it, did he? He didn’t want to wrestle lions or kill Amazons or clean poop out of an old stable. He just did it to make up for some really bad stuff in his past. He just wanted to go home. I don’t think he ever wanted to be a hero at all—I think he just wanted to not be a monster.”

  They listened to the sound of their own footsteps scuffling along the dusty path for a while.

  “Hercules didn’t clean poop,” said Cole.

  “Did so. It was one of the labors.”

  “That’s gross.” Cole laughed.

  “You’re gross.”

  They drew up to the bridge and Cole nodded. “Ready?”

  Tinn shifted the pebbles in his palm. “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  They tossed all the pebbles at once high into the air and watched as they came down with a satisfying plip-plip-plippity-SPLASH-plip-ploop into the stream. Cole leaned over the railing to watch the cloud of sediment drifting up under the water’s surface. “Maybe Hercules would have liked doing his labors more if he had brought his brother with him,” Cole said.

  Tinn did not reply. His gaze was on the forest. Just as the boys had thrown their pebbles, he had caught sight of something. There—in the shadows at the forest’s edge—had been a pair of eyes, watching from between the leaves of a wide bush. The bush swayed and then was still.

  Tinn swallowed. He wanted to go home.

  FIVE

  Kull fidgeted with the little square of parchment as he hurried between the trees. Already he had folded and unfolded the thing so many times it was beginning to get soft at the edges.

  It did not feel as heavy as it should. It was only paper and ink, but its message had felt like lead in his chest for so long. How many nights had he glowered at that paper, leaning his jaw on one tight fist as he dipped his pen into the inkwell? How many books and scrolls had he amassed—goblin lore and human stories, and even a handful of fairy tales—stacks and heaps and piles that loomed around him as he wrote? His head still ached from study. Kull had always fancied himself a problem solver, but he preferred the problems that could be solved the traditional way, through violence or theft or running away. This problem had been different. It had required words.

  Kull paused under a viny tree and took a deep breath. Bugs buzzed around him, and from just beyond the bushes, a stream burbled. He had almost reached the human village when from ahead of him came the sound of voices. Kull knew those voices better than he knew his own. As quietly as he could, he crept to the edge of the tree line.

  With one hand, he delicately pushed aside the leaves and peered between them. The boys were at the bridge. He could not quite make out their words over the trickle of the stream, but he knew the scene well enough; he had been watching the twins from the bushes all their lives.

  In a moment they would leave the bridge and continue up the winding dirt path, past a thick oak tree. They always stopped at the big oak tree on their way home. They called it their climbing tree. Kull’s hand holding the note felt clammy. The tree was the place. He would leave the message in the tree.

  As one, the boys suddenly threw their handfuls of pebbles into the air, and Kull flinched. They would soon be moving on. He let the leaves settle back into place and took off across the forest as quickly as his goblin feet could carry him. He needed to reach that tree before they did.

  Words. Kull had been practicing human words for months. He had been forced to; the children had disregarded every note he had left for them in Goblish over the years.

  Once, when the boys were seven, he had gotten brazen and carved the whole message out as clear as day on their windowsill. The boys had rubbed their fingers over his careful Goblish script and mused aloud about how the cat must have gotten stuck outside and clawed up the wood trying to climb in through the window. If only Kull had been allowed to cross the forest line and just speak directly to the children—but he was bound by his blood pact, and bend the rules all he might, he could not break them. Human English was simple enough to speak. Every goblin learns how to haggle in the seven sacred trade tongues before they reach gambling age. Writing was different. Writing was hard. But the boys needed to know what he knew. They needed to believe him. He needed them to believe.

  So he had written the message at last in the fashion of men, using words that humans knew. They were good words, he was sure of it. He had stolen them from books and learned them by heart in their strange, curvy human script.

  His pen had scratched them out along the rough parchment, his lips moving silently as he drew each slow letter. Once . . . upon . . . a . . . time . . .

  They felt like important words.

  “You think it really was the witch?” Cole said. “You think the Queen of the Deep Dark is watching us?” He swung his leg up onto the first branch of the knotty climbing tree and pulled himself to sitting.

  “No,” said Tinn. He wished he had not told his brother about what he had seen in the forest. Or what he thought he had seen. He had been listening to Old Jim for too long. “It was probably nothing.” He wrapped his hands around the branch and clambered up to join Cole.

  “Do you think she’s real?” Cole asked. “I mean—even if you didn’t see her, I figure she’s really in there somewhere, right? Lots of folks have stories about her. That means she’s probably real, right?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. If I was a witch and I could do magic and fly on a broom and stuff, I wouldn’t spend my time stealing children and killing crops and things.”

  “I can think of a few people I would turn into frogs,” said Cole.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Tinn pointed to the little knothole in the middle of the tree. Poking out of it was a dust-brown piece of paper. He had almost mistaken it for a leaf.

  “Another one?” Cole plucked it out. It had been almost a year since the last scrap of parchment had found its way into their tree, covered in scratchy little ink lines. The boys had spent an afternoon imagining it was a secret code and that they were spies who could crack it. When they had shown it to their mother, she had guessed it was just someone’s spare blotting paper. “Huh,” Cole said, turning it over. “It’s got our names on it.”

  Tinn glanced up and down the dusty path, and then into the shadows of the forest. There was nobody else in sight. It was just Cole and him and the gnarled climbing tree.

  And the note.

  Cole unfolded it. “Who d’you think left it?” he whispered.

  “What’s it say?” Tinn leaned in over his brother’s shoulder, looking at the unsteady cursive.

  Once upon a time, there was a child whom the goblins came to steal, and once upon a time, there was a child whom the goblins left behind . . .

  Kull’s heart was racing. He watched over the fronds of a bushy fern as the twins unfolded his note. Absently, he mouthed the words as they read it.

  Once upon a time, there was a child whom
the goblins came to steal, and once upon a time, there was a child whom the goblins left behind. Once upon a time, there was a fool who thought he knew best, and once upon a time, there were children who needed to know more.

  Firstly, little human, it was me. I tried to kidnap you and sell you to the fairies, and I am sorry. Even though you would have loved it, and it would have solved a lot of problems, and it was actually a pretty good idea if I had not gotten interrupted.

  Nextly, little changeling, you must return to the horde. A goblin is not meant to live so long without its kin and kind. I am surprised you have not withered away and died already—but if you do not return soon, you will certainly die. We all will—every creature of the Wild Wood.

  Our last hope lies in a ceremony under the next Veil Moon. If you are not reunited with the horde by then, it will be too late. Magic in the Wild Wood will die. The horde will die. You will die. Lots of death.

  Follow the goblin trail to the horde at Hollowcliff at first light tomorrow morning. Move swiftly. Do not delay. Do not stray from the path. Do not trust anyone you meet in the forest. Maybe bring a light snack. Definitely do not bring any humans you do not wish to see dead.

  From the shadows, Kull breathed deeply. The boys were turning the paper over and giving each other solemn looks. He slipped into the shadows and leaned his back against a tree. It was done. They finally knew what he knew. Well . . . they knew enough of what he knew.

  His changeling would come.

  SIX

  A pair of hazel eyes watched the boys climb down from the knotted tree and dash away up the trail. One of the twins was still scrutinizing the paper, while the other glanced back at the tree line every few steps. The eyes kept watching as the little hunched goblin scampered back into the woods, taking practiced steps on mossy ground to muffle his footfalls. For years, those eyes had watched that goblin watch those boys—but something felt different today. Something had shifted. It was in the air. A beam of sunlight found its way down past the canopy of leaves, and the hazel eyes flashed gold for just a moment. Beneath them, a smile grew. Something was beginning.

  “It’s not real,” Cole said as they rounded the last bend in the path. “It’s probably just Edgar, from school.”

  “It feels a little bit real,” Tinn said. He turned the letter over for the hundredth time, studying the sketchy little map on the back of the page. “If it was real, would you go?”

  “Through the Wild Wood?” said Cole. “Past the Oddmire? Beyond the Deep Dark?” He considered. “Maybe. If we were going together, I guess. I think we could do it.”

  “Even if we made it all the way through the forest, though,” Tinn said, “what would happen when we got to the goblin horde? I don’t want to be the only human in the middle of a bunch of goblins. The note even said not to bring any humans. Do goblins eat people? Would they eat one of us?”

  “I don’t think goblins eat people,” said Cole. “But, if it is real, and if we don’t go, it sounds like one of us is going to die anyway.”

  The boys were quiet for a long time.

  “It’s not real,” Cole said, even less convincingly than the first time.

  “It feels a little bit real,” said Tinn.

  When Annie Burton came to tuck her boys into bed, they were already lying under their covers, blankets pulled up to their chins, waiting quietly. Like any good mother, Annie was immediately suspicious.

  “Okay. What’d you do?”

  “Nothing,” they answered together.

  “Then what are you planning to do?”

  They both hesitated.

  “Uh-huh,” said Annie. “I don’t know about you two, but if I was a boy whose birthday was just around the corner, I would be on my very best behavior in the hopes that my incredibly patient mother would see fit to give me the birthday presents she sent away for three weeks ago and has been hiding ever since they arrived.”

  “They already came?” said Cole. “Where are they?”

  “Nice try, kiddo,” said Annie. “They’re hidden somewhere you two would never think to look for them.”

  “Are they in the hatbox in the back of your closet?” said Tinn.

  Annie pursed her lips. “By morning they will be hidden somewhere you two would never think to look for them. You best not ruin your birthday! I will send your presents back.”

  “You always say you’ll send them back, but you never do,” Cole said with a cheeky grin.

  “Don’t try me.”

  “Hey, Mom,” said Tinn. “How do you know for sure we both have the same birthday?”

  Annie took a deep breath. She had resolved, long ago, not to lie to her children. Not outright. If anybody in the village had a right to know their story, it was the two of them—not that there was anybody in the village who didn’t know their story. “I guess I don’t know for sure,” she answered. “I was only there for the one of you. Why? You hoping for double birthday cakes?”

  “No. Well, now that you mention it, yes. But no.”

  “What would you do,” asked Cole, “if you found out which one of us it is?”

  “If I found out which one of you was a goblin?” Annie said.

  They both nodded, suddenly intent.

  “Hmm. Good question. Can’t have a goblin running loose without a plan, can I? What if the mischievous scamp were to get up to some goblin shenanigans, like—I don’t know—hiding my good whisk in the icebox and switching my salt and sugar bowls right before I made a batch of marmalade tarts?”

  “Okay, that was an accident,” said Tinn. “Mostly.”

  “Right. And what if the naughty troublemaker used my nice tablecloth to turn his climbing tree into a pirate ship?”

  “That was Tinn’s idea!” said Cole.

  “Was not.”

  “Okay, it was my idea, but Tinn helped.”

  “I did not!”

  “Okay, but he didn’t tell me not to, so it’s really just as much his fault as it is mine,” said Cole. “Also, it made a really good sail, and actually I’m still pretty proud of how it came out. I mean—I’m very sorry and it won’t happen again.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Annie Burton. “What would I do if I knew for sure which one of you was a goblin?” She kissed Tinn on the top of his head, then crossed the carpet and kissed Cole. “I would find out what day my little goblin boy was born and bake a special cake just for him. And then I would hide his presents better because apparently an old hatbox in the back of my closet is the very first place you ruffians would look.”

  “That’s where you hid them last year,” said Cole.

  “You’re incorrigible,” said Annie.

  “What’s incorrigible?” said Tinn.

  “It means go to sleep,” said Annie. “As long as you look like my boys and talk like my boys and—God help me—get yourselves into all sorts of trouble like my boys, then you’re stuck with me for a mom, and as your mom I say it’s time to turn out the lights and go to bed.”

  “Good night,” said Tinn. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” said Cole. “’Night.”

  “Sweet dreams, my little goblin boys,” said Annie Burton. “Get plenty of rest, now. You’re helping me with the garden tomorrow.”

  As she clicked the door shut she heard Tinn’s voice whisper across the silent bedroom. “Not knowing is the worst part.”

  “Do you think not knowing is why Dad left?” said Cole.

  Annie winced. She hesitated, then leaned her ear closer to the bedroom door.

  “Naw. Mom says he never would have left us if he didn’t have to.”

  “But he did leave,” said Cole. “He left because of us.”

  “You don’t know that. Maybe he was always gonna come back. Maybe he went looking for answers, like Old Jim says.”

  “Old Jim doesn’t know anything about it. If Dad was planning to come back, would he have left without telling Mom where he was going?”

  Tinn shrugged. “Would you wanna tell Mom if you wer
e about to go do something stupid and dangerous?”

  Cole considered this. “I would leave a note, at least.”

  Annie Burton smiled to herself and tiptoed away from their door with a bittersweet sigh. They were good boys, underneath.

  “Hey, Tinn?” Cole whispered later that night. “You awake?”

  “Yeah,” said Tinn.

  “Me, too,” said Cole. “Are you thinking about the letter?”

  “Of course I am,” said Tinn.

  “Me, too.”

  They lay in silence for a while as the leaves rustled in the wind outside their window. The letter was tucked inside the top drawer on the nightstand between them. It was only a thin scrap, but in the dark it seemed to take up the entire room. If not knowing had been a pebble, then the possibility of knowing was a boulder.

  “What if it’s me?” Cole said at last.

  Tinn stared at the ceiling. The letter promised answers to a question both of them had felt pressing the insides of their skulls for as long as either of them could remember.

  “I don’t want it to be you,” whispered Tinn.

  Cole sat up and leaned his back against the wall. “What if it’s you?”

  Tinn lay motionless. He didn’t even blink for several seconds.

  “I don’t want it to be me,” he breathed.

  Both boys were quiet for a long time. Crickets chirped rhythmically outside, and a gust of wind rustled the leaves of a big sycamore.

  “Hey, Tinn?” Cole whispered again. “If it is me—if I’m a—if you’re the real boy and I’m . . . not”—he swallowed—“will you still be my brother?”

  Tinn’s throat tightened. “Always.”

  Cole nodded into the dark.

  “Hey, Cole,” Tinn began.

  “Always,” said Cole.

  Tinn took a deep breath. “We’re going to do it, aren’t we?” he said.

  “Well, if it is you, I’m not sitting around to watch you die because we didn’t go,” said Cole. “I’d rather get eaten in the forest.” He swallowed. “You know, together.”