Changeling

by William Ritter

  Tinn nodded. “Me, too,” he said.

  “Okay, then,” said Cole. “Answers. Wild Wood. Sunrise.”

  Tinn nodded. The wind whistled against the windowpane. “So, are you going to tell Mom?”

  Cole bit his lip. “Are you?”

  In the morning, Annie Burton found a note.

  SEVEN

  The map was simple and crude, but the landmarks inscribed near the forest’s edge were familiar enough. The secret path began not far from the tree where the boys had found the message. The morning sun was still hugging the horizon when they arrived at what the map implied was the head of the trail.

  Cole had brought with him his pocketknife. It was good and sharp—although not as sharp as it had once been; countless sticks had been whittled to shavings by that blade. He also carried a bundle wrapped in faded yellow cloth. Their mother had indeed made marmalade tarts the night before and left them cooling on the kitchen counter. While Tinn had been carefully writing a note that explained where they were going and telling her not to worry, Cole had stacked a half dozen of the flaky pastries on a faded yellow dish towel and tied the whole thing up in a neat package. He held the bundle in one hand as they trod down the path.

  Tinn had swiped a matchbox from the kitchen drawer. It had only four matchsticks left, but he had felt his chances of getting a campfire going were better with four matchsticks than with none. With each step, the box rattled faintly in his trouser pocket. Tinn also held the map.

  “If this thing is real,” he said as they passed the knotty oak and stepped over the tall grass toward the tree line, “then there’s a path somewhere just on the other side of the stream.”

  “Well?” said Cole. “Let’s find out.”

  They jumped the stream together and pressed into the foliage on the other side.

  A tingle went up Cole’s spine. He grinned. “We’re in the Wild Wood,” he whispered. “Uncharted territory.”

  “It’s not uncharted,” Tinn whispered back. “We’re twenty feet from where we hang out every day, and I am literally holding a chart.”

  “Don’t ruin this. You see a trail yet?”

  Tinn gazed around at the trees and mossy rocks and wildflowers. There were a lot of things in the forest that were not a path. For just a moment he entertained the notion that there was no path—that the letter had been fake all along. Of course, there was no secret trail, no imminent danger, no goblin horde. He was just beginning to look forward to a blissful morning of eating marmalade tarts in the safety of their climbing tree when his feet slid out from under him on a patch of dewy moss, sending him half falling, half hopping through a curtain of branches. His heart jumped as he regained his footing and looked around.

  “Whoa,” said Cole, joining him.

  Before them stretched a long, winding trail. It was a thin strip carpeted with needles and leaves, tall grasses and shrubs pressing in on it from either side. Unlike the straight, neat paths in town, this one wove in and out along the forest floor, skirting roots and boulders in a wavy zigzag.

  “It looks like an animal path,” said Cole. “Maybe deer?”

  “Maybe.” Tinn glanced back down at the paper in his hands. “It’s in the right place for a goblin trail, though.”

  Cole’s whole body tingled. He looked at Tinn.

  Tinn felt slightly numb. He nodded to Cole.

  Frankly, Cole thought as the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky, he had expected the mysterious goblin trail to be slightly more mysterious and decidedly more goblin-y. It had been hours, and there had been no sign of eldritch talismans hung from tree branches or strange statues half buried in the ground to mark their way.

  They had followed the meandering forest path for miles as it climbed quiet hills, dipped through shady valleys, and crossed burbling creeks. The path grew so thin in places they had lost it once or twice, but with the help of the map, they had managed to pick it up again each time. Cole used his pocketknife to carve a jagged C into the bark of nearby trees from time to time, in case they got lost and had to find their way back—and also because it helped to break up the plodding journey.

  The Wild Wood was not as wild as its name implied, but it was certainly alive. There was a steady buzz of insects and a clamor of birds, chirping and cawing incessantly. The boys caught sight of a doe in a thicket, although it bolted the moment it heard them coming, and Cole spotted a family of squirrels racing along the branches. Tinn paused at a tree raked with claw marks.

  “You think there are mountain lions out here?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Cole. “There aren’t any mountains out here. More like hill lions, maybe? I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

  “I bet there are,” said Tinn. “Cougars and wolves and all sorts of things.” His chest felt tight. Was it his imagination, or was the air thicker in this part of the forest? He hadn’t noticed it before, but a fine mist was drifting between the trees, winding and twisting around their roots. He peered at the map again until he found a scribble that bore a passing resemblance to the boulder up ahead. If he was right, then the Oddmire was very close. The goblin crossing would be nearby.

  “Let’s take a break,” Cole said. “It’s basically lunchtime. You want a tart?” He sat down on a mossy log and began to fiddle with the knot in his dish-towel bundle.

  “Hold on. Do you hear something?” Tinn said. He strained his ears. He could have sworn he heard a voice.

  Cole paused to listen. In the distance there was a quiet splashing and a piteous mewling. “Is that a person or an animal?”

  The boys traded a wary glance. Cole pushed himself up. Neither one of them spoke as they stepped off the goblin path.

  The fog grew thicker with each step they took, and the ground grew softer. They followed the sound of the wailing farther into the forest until the trees opened onto a wide, marshy swamp.

  “I guess we found the Oddmire,” Tinn said. “Whew, that’s a stink. It smells like armpits and wet possum.”

  “Look!” Cole pointed. Ten feet out, an animal was struggling to keep its head above the muck. It was not a large creature. It was brown or black from the look of it, although it was hard to tell with the slime of the mire all over it. The beast’s desperate cries increased at the sight of the boys.

  Cole took a step closer and immediately sank one leg up to his ankle in swampy peat. He pulled back with a wet sucking sound. “How did that critter even get out so far?”

  The thick roots of a tree beside them wound into the muck like a heavy rope, weaving in and out until it reached a small, damp island, just a few feet away from the trapped creature.

  “Along here,” Tinn said. He tucked the map into his pocket and took slow steps out along the slimy roots, balancing as best he could above the stagnant water until he was as close as he could get to the pitiful creature. “I think it’s a cub,” he called back to Cole. “A bear cub. I’ll see if I can grab it.”

  “Careful!” Cole called. The cub redoubled its efforts as Tinn reached for it, but he was too far away, and the cub’s thrashing only churned up the slime, nearly sending it under.

  “I can’t reach it,” said Tinn.

  Cole looked around until he found a sturdy fallen branch. It was soft with rot, but at least it was thick and didn’t crumble to pieces when he banged it experimentally against a tree trunk. “Here, try this!” He edged out after his brother, treading unsteadily onto the roots, which sank farther under their combined weight until both boys’ boots were completely buried. When he was within reach, Cole passed the branch to Tinn.

  Tinn eased it toward the frightened cub. The little bear pawed desperately at the branch a few times before catching hold, and then eagerly sank its claws into the wood and pulled. Tinn was nearly hauled face-first into the mire, but Cole caught his hand. Together they pulled the cub back to shore, inch by grueling inch, the thick stew of peat and plants and filthy water tugging back at them every step of the way.

  When they had f
inally deposited the bear cub on solid ground, it shook itself like a wet dog, spraying the grass and the trees and the boys and everything else in a ten-foot radius with slime and mud before collapsing.

  Tinn chuckled and wiped the mess from his face. “You’re welcome,” he told the cub.

  Cole traded his dish-towel bundle from one hand to the other as he wiped his palms off on his shirt. His pant legs were soaked up to the knees. “I guess no good deed goes un—” He froze. The color drained from his face.

  “What?” Tinn turned around in time to watch the broad, dark shadow behind him rise up on two muscular, hairy legs. It was a mountain of heavy brown fur with a jet-black nose. Black lips peeled back over the long, sharp fangs of the most enormous animal the twins had ever seen.

  For a moment, neither of them dared so much as blink. The bear looked down at the damp, motionless cub lying in a heap between the two boys, and then its furry chest swelled as it drew a long breath.

  It roared.

  The bear bellowed a deep, booming, bone-rattling roar that Tinn and Cole felt in the pits of their stomachs. The noise echoed inside them, rattling those nerves typically reserved for falling blindly backward or waking from a nightmare. The boys did not fall over backward or wake from anything.

  The boys ran.

  EIGHT

  Annie Burton awoke with the sunlight climbing over her windowsill. She rubbed her eyes and stretched. The house was quiet. Her stockinged feet padded past the boys’ room. They could sleep in. They had promised to help her clear the last of the blackberry vines from the back garden days ago, but she would enjoy her tea first, and then rouse them with a healthy breakfast before putting them to work.

  She filled the copper kettle and tucked a couple of slim, dry logs into the potbellied stove. She reached into the drawer for her matches, but the box was gone. Her eyes searched the countertop and noticed the much diminished pile of marmalade tarts—those rotten rascals!

  “Boys!” she yelled down the hallway. “I know you didn’t help yourself to my tarts last night! I know I didn’t raise a pair of sneaky little thieves who don’t respect—” She stormed into their bedroom. It contained a decided absence of boys. She gritted her teeth.

  “Boys!” she hollered from the front door. “BOYS!”

  “They up to their mischief already this morning, Annie?” called Mrs. Grouse from across the way, sloshing her watering can on her slippers. “That’s half an hour earlier than yesterday.”

  “Never mind, Helen.” Annie ducked back inside. Those boys owed her so much more than weeding. As soon as she caught up with them . . .

  She leaned on the counter with both hands and sighed through her teeth. Just one day. Just one morning. Was it too much to ask for a single hot cup of tea before those little devils got started?

  There were tart crumbs all over the countertop. And a note. She straightened. She picked up the little paper and read it. It was Tinn’s handwriting—always just a little neater than Cole’s—but he had signed for both of them. She read it again.

  Annie Burton put on her boots.

  Annie Burton did not make tea.

  NINE

  Cole’s lungs felt like they were going to burst. He and Tinn had run as fast as they could through leaves and hanging vines, vaulting over rocks and fallen trees until they could no longer hear the bear’s huge claws raking through the bark and slicing branches behind them—and then they had run farther still.

  Tinn sank, panting, against the foot of a pine tree. Cole flopped flat on his back on the cold earth in the middle of the clearing. For several minutes they just breathed.

  “Well . . . it . . . wasn’t . . .” Cole huffed, “a . . . mountain lion.”

  Tinn shook his head and threw a pinecone at his brother. Cole chuckled in spite of himself. Tinn could feel his heartbeat beginning to calm.

  After several minutes, Cole let out a wistful sigh. “I just wish I hadn’t let go of those tarts,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault. You had more important—Wait. No.” Tinn reached into his pockets. He pulled out the matchbox and a handful of lint. “Oh, no.” He turned out all of his pockets and pushed himself up from the pine needles, looking all around him. “Oh, no, no, no!”

  “What? What is it?” Cole pushed himself up, too.

  “The map!” Tinn wailed, thudding his head against the trunk of the tree. “It’s gone!”

  He collapsed again beneath the tree. “It must’ve fallen out of my pocket while we were running.” He could feel tears welling, but he forced them back. He hung his head so that Cole couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” said Cole. “We just—we’ll have to find our own way, that’s all. There’s a path across the Oddmire, right? We can find that.” His stomach gurgled audibly.

  “And something to eat?” said Tinn.

  “We can find food, too. People used to find food in the forest all the time, like mushrooms and nuts and things. There were some cattails back by the marsh—I think I heard that you can eat those. Hey, look! Right there. I think those might be huckleberries.” Cole crossed the clearing and plucked a deep purple berry from a low bush. “Yeah. Huckleberries.” He sniffed it experimentally. “I’m pretty sure.”

  Before he could pop one of the plump berries into his mouth, a voice called out from behind them, “You probably shouldn’t eat those ones.”

  Both boys spun around. A girl with bright hazel eyes was seated on a thick branch ten or fifteen feet above them. She looked about their age, if a little smaller. Her hair was a mess of curly, knotted strands, hung with twigs and leaves, and her dress was little more than a canvas sack with a bit of style. It appeared to have been dyed in ink made of only the finest dirt.

  “Those ones make you fart and barf a lot and maybe die,” she added, kicking her feet absently as she took a bite of a flaky tart.

  “Where did you come from?” asked Tinn.

  “Wait a second,” Cole said. “Where did you get that? Those are ours!”

  “I know. You dropped them. They’re super good.” She stuffed the rest of the tart in her mouth. “Forry! No more left!”

  “Have you been watching us?” Tinn asked.

  “Mm-hmm.” She nodded, crumbs dribbling down her chin. “For a really long time.”

  “Well, stop it,” said Tinn. “You shouldn’t be out this far, anyway.”

  “We’re on a really dangerous quest,” Cole added with a somber nod. “We’re going beyond the Deep Dark Forest to find the goblin horde.”

  “Ooh! Fun! I’ll come with you!” the girl cried, her face alight. She swung herself backward off the branch, caught another on the way down, and then landed smoothly on her feet.

  “What? No,” said Tinn. “We’re not taking you with us.”

  “Why not? You need to find the goblin horn. I know where that is!”

  Tinn glanced at his brother. Cole shrugged.

  “You mean the goblin horde?” asked Tinn.

  “Yes! That thing. I know all about that thing! These are my woods. They’re in my blood.”

  Cole looked skeptically at the girl. “You certainly have enough of them in your hair,” he said, although Tinn could detect a glimmer of admiration in his comment.

  The girl just looked back and forth hopefully between the two boys.

  “Give us a moment, would you?” Tinn leaned into his brother. “We can’t seriously be thinking about taking her with us,” he whispered. “We don’t know anything about her. We don’t even know her name.”

  “Fable,” whispered the girl. Tinn started and spun around. She had slipped next to the boys without making a sound. “My name,” she said. “It’s Fable.” She stared at Tinn for several seconds and then smiled broadly. “It’s a people name.”

  Tinn took a step back. “Okay. Yes. Fable. Hi.”

  “Where did you come from?” asked Cole.

  Fable crinkled her eyebrows. “From here,” she said.

  “Well, sure—but w
hat town?” Cole persisted. “I mean, you must have come from somewhere. You speak English, and you’re wearing clothes and everything, so it’s not like you were raised by wolves in the forest. Did you run away from home or something?”

  “I am home,” Fable said. “What’s English?”

  Tinn shook his head. “It’s what you’re speaking!”

  “Oh.” Fable scrunched up her nose. “I call these words. These are people words.”

  “Yeah, they’re words,” said Tinn. “But people speak lots of different languages. English words aren’t the only kind of words.”

  “Oh!” Fable looked intrigued. “What other languages do you speak?”

  “I—well, I don’t. I mean . . . I just speak English, but people speak loads of different languages.”

  Fable’s eyebrows knit together again. “Oh. I thought you were people.”

  “What?” Tinn was beginning to have trouble keeping up. “Of course we’re people!”

  “I think you’re a little confused about this whole words thing, then,” Fable declared. She continued to survey the twins with interest.

  “We’re not the ones who’re confused!” Tinn said.

  “There are lots of different kinds of people from lots of different places and not all of them speak English,” Cole said. “Don’t you know anything about anything?”

  “I know how to get to the goblin horde,” Fable answered. “Do you?”

  Cole and Tinn fell silent. They exchanged glances.

  “That’s what I thought,” Fable said, grinning. “See? I know things. It’s settled, then. We’re going to have an adventure together! And then we’re going to be best friends forever and ever and ever, I know it.” She hopped off into the forest, bounding from grass to rocks to fallen trees. “Come on!”

  “Well,” Cole sighed. “She does have a point.”

  “I really don’t know about her,” Tinn said.

  “I know we don’t have much time,” said Cole. “One of us is probably going to die, and maybe a lot of other people, too, unless we make it to that horde—and there’s an awful lot of forest that I don’t want to see before we get there.”