Changeling

by William Ritter

  “Why?” said Fable. “What’s it like when you’re all alone?”

  “I don’t know! I’ve never had to be alone. I’ve always had Cole and he’s always had me. I don’t know who I’d be without him. I don’t want to know. That’s what’s so scary. I don’t think ordinary people think like that. I don’t think ordinary people are afraid of figuring out who they are on the inside. I don’t think I am ordinary. I worry about it a lot, actually. And the more I worry about it, the more I worry that I’m right to worry.”

  “Dang. You really don’t want to be the changeling, do you?”

  “I really don’t,” said Tinn, “most of the time. But other times . . .”

  “Other times, what?”

  “Other times, I hope it is me. Don’t tell Cole. Sometimes I hope I am the changeling, because I wouldn’t want Cole to leave me and go off to live with the goblins without me. I don’t want to be left alone. If I was the changeling, maybe then I would forget all about being a person when I changed back into a goblin, and then I wouldn’t have to be afraid of everything anymore.”

  “Goblins aren’t afraid of stuff?”

  “I don’t know.” Tinn took a deep breath. “They’re probably afraid of different stuff. And there’s another reason, too.”

  Fable waited patiently.

  “Cole’s just better at living—better at being a person—than I am. He’s a good person.”

  “How?”

  “Lots of ways. Like one time, these kids in school were picking on my friend Evie, just because she’s small. They did it for weeks and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do. I hated those kids. Cole found out and he just fixed it. Right then.”

  “Did he hurt them?”

  “Not exactly. He had a bunch of marbles tied up in a handkerchief, so he poured them out into his pocket and handed the handkerchief to Evie, who just looked at him funny. Then he loaded up his fountain pen in the ink well and sprayed ink all over one of the bullies. Right in the guy’s face. Everybody laughed at him. I laughed at him. Evie wound up being the only one to help the guy get cleaned up. She already had the handkerchief in her hands. Then Cole tripped one of the worst girls in our class so she fell into a big mud puddle right in front of Evie. Everybody laughed again, except Evie. Evie helped pick her up and get her dried off. Cole planned a whole day full of terrible, awful, wicked ways to mess with those bullies, and I helped. It felt good. That probably sounds rotten, but it did. In the end, they hated us more than anything, but they stopped being mean to Evie. Cole did that. In one afternoon.”

  Tinn looked down at his feet. “Cole can’t be the changeling.” He fidgeted with his shirt and avoided Fable’s scrutinizing gaze. “If I could manage to do one worthwhile thing in my whole life, it would be to let Cole be the real boy. He’d be loads better at it, anyway.”

  Fable watched him fidget with the hem of his shirt for a few seconds before she spoke. “Are you more worried that you are a goblin or more worried that you’re not?”

  Tinn shrugged again, miserably. “Yes?”

  “That,” said Fable, “is super unhelpful.”

  Cole had come back around to what appeared to be the front door of the cottage. He pushed a final handful of leaves aside and tapped on the dusty glass windowpane.

  “Careful,” Tinn called to him. “This place might belong to the witch.”

  “If it does, she sure hasn’t used it in a long time,” said Cole. Thick moss blanketed the windowsill and shutters, and he could see spiderwebs crisscrossing the room and tall weeds growing through the floorboards in one corner. He let the vines fall back over the window.

  “Nobody has used it in ages,” agreed Fable. “Except there was a family of raccoons who lived in it for a little while. What’s a witch?”

  “What’s a witch?” echoed Tinn.

  “The Witch of the Wood?” Cole said, stepping back toward them over the roots that had overtaken the front walk. “Queen of the Deep Dark? Mother of Monsters? She blights crops and eats children?”

  Fable made a face. “What’s she do that for? Wouldn’t it make more sense to blight the children and eat the crops?”

  “Never mind.” Cole clambered down from the hill, brushing his hands on his pants. “It’s just an old house,” he said.

  “But what it’s not is a bridge over a swamp,” said Tinn. “Are you sure this is the right way to get to the goblin horde?”

  “Yes. Absolutely,” Fable said with a firm nod. “I’m almost positive. Just to be sure, though, goblins are the sort of greenish ones, right? And also, what is a horde, exactly? Oh! And also, do you like blueberries? Blueberries are my favorite.”

  “What? What do you mean?” Tinn felt his whole face turning red. “No, no, no, no!”

  “Calm down! It’s just blueberries.”

  “You have no idea where we are, do you?” Tinn yelled.

  “Of course I do. We’re in the Wild Wood, stupid. My woods.”

  “Argh! We’re way too far north! I knew we shouldn’t have listened to her. We should’ve crossed the Oddmire ages ago.”

  “You wanna cross the Oddmire?” Fable asked, raising a dusty eyebrow.

  “I—what—but you said . . .” Tinn sputtered. “YES! That’s what we’ve been—argh! Yes, we need to cross the Oddmire!”

  “Have you ever tried before? I have. I’m an expert at trying to cross the Oddmire. I’ve tried forty-seven times. I got pretty far once, but I think I got a little turned around, because I accidentally wound up back on this side in the end. The Oddmire flips the whole forward-and-backward thing around sometimes. Anyway, I’m bound to get across it next time. You should come with me so you can be there when I finally do!”

  Tinn’s mouth hung open for several seconds.

  “You’ve never been to the other side of the mire?” said Cole.

  “I can’t believe this!” Tinn fumed, spinning around and marching back the way they had come. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her!”

  Cole gave the girl a sour look before launching after his brother.

  “Wait for me!” called Fable behind them.

  Tinn ignored her, pressing through knee-high foliage, smacking the stubborn shrubbery down with a branch—as much to clear a path as to vent his frustration. Cole kept close behind, following in his brother’s wake of trampled ferns and mangled leaves.

  Tinn’s angry progress was too noisy for any of them to hear the low growl that rumbled through the forest. Somewhere deep in the Wild Wood, claws churned the earth and a wet black nose sniffed the air. The great lumbering bear had one thought in its head.

  It would find the children, and it would not rest until it did.

  FIFTEEN

  “Yer na my changelin’,” Kull managed after he and Annie had exchanged a long and awkward silence.

  “You’re a—” Annie stammered. “You’re a—”

  “A goblin?” prompted Kull.

  “A goblin.” Annie found her composure. She took a deep breath and immediately lost it again. “You’re a goblin! You’re the goblin, aren’t you? The one who—did you write this?” She brandished the creased and tattered paper for Kull to see.

  “Name’s Kull,” he said.

  “I don’t care what your name is! And if you think I’m about to politely introduce myself, like we were meeting at some friendly church potluck, then—”

  “Yer name’s Annie Burton,” said Kull.

  Annie faltered. “How,” she said with measured breaths, “do you know my name?”

  “Been spyin’ on yer kids for nigh on thirteen years, haven’t I? Bound ta pick up a wee bit. Know a lot more’n yer name.”

  Annie blinked.

  “New boots?” Kull asked.

  “WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN?”

  “Otch! Ya dinna have ta holler. I’m just as keen ta know where the blighted boys are as ya are. Maybe more keen.”

  Annie’s eye twitched.

  “No sense gettin’ angry at me, womern. We�
��s both ta blame fer the whole thing, really.”

  “Both to blame?” Annie managed through clenched teeth. “You think so?”

  “Aye. Iffin ya had just stayed asleep when I was makin’ the switch, I wouldn’a have had ta rush the job. If ya hadn’a interrupted me, I ne’er would’ve left without . . . er . . . hmm . . .” He trailed off, glancing up at Annie, whose face was going quite red.

  “Go ahead, goblin. Finish your sentence.”

  “Ah. Doesn’a matter.” Kull cleared his throat. “Point is, there’s fault here an’ fault there, but gettin’ the changelin’ back—that’s what’s important.”

  “No, no. I think it might matter a little, actually,” Annie pressed. “You never would have left without what? What could you have possibly been about to say?”

  Kull mumbled something and inspected his toes.

  “Maybe you were going to say that if I had not interrupted you while you were trespassing in my house, then you would never have left without kidnapping my son and stealing him into the forest to be lost to me forever. Is that about right?”

  “Maybe somethin’ along those lines. Aye, but everythin’ sounds awful when ya say it out loud like that.”

  “You tried to steal my baby!”

  “An’ I said I was sorry!”

  “No, actually. Not that it much matters, but you didn’t!”

  “Well, maybe I would have said sorry, iffin ya weren’t yellin’ at me about every little mistake that happened years ago!”

  “Every little—” Annie gritted her teeth and pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand. “You tried to steal my baby, and you’re literally still trying to steal my baby!”

  “I am na! Keep yer blasted boy! I’m tryin’ ta steal mine back! Been tryin’ ta get the wee changelin’ back since the day I left him. I canna seem ta sort out which is which, though—an’ I been bound by oath na ta mess with yorn again. See, none o’ this is how it was supposed ta go. Twins? Brothers? Bah! The pair of them was ne’er meant ta know one another at all! A changelin’ is only supposed ta see its human fer a moment. The goblin imprints, then the human is—erm—taken. With na baby ta mimic, goblin goes back ta bein’ a goblin soon enough, finds his way home ta the horde, an’ the whole thing’s done and over with inside a week. Except I had ta go an’ mess everythin’ up.”

  “I see messing up is something you’ve kept consistent over the last thirteen years. You swore an oath not to mess with my boys? Well, thanks to your rotten message, both of them are now lost in these horrible woods!”

  Annie’s voice caught in her throat on the last words, and she found a well of fear waiting just behind her anger.

  Kull watched in uncomfortable silence for several seconds as her shoulders rose and fell. “The forest isn’a so bad,” he offered, gamely. “Well—I suppose there are wolves an’ bears an’ great big snakes,” he mused.

  Annie shot him a poisonous glare.

  “But there’s na any proper monsters!” he added hastily. “Well—na on this end o’ the forest, anyway.” He paused. “Well—”

  “If you say well one more time,” Annie growled, “then I swear to you I will become the scariest thing in the Wild Wood.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know why we’re even still standing here. I’m going to go find my boys.”

  Annie spun on her heel and stormed back into the bracken.

  “I am, though,” came a voice at her heels a few minutes later.

  “You are what?” She did not bother to look at the goblin as he scrambled after her.

  “I am sorry.”

  Annie ignored the goblin. She found her way back to the clearing on the edge of the mire where she had found the tracks and the torn dish towel and began scrutinizing the surrounding brush for any sign of a new trail.

  “Only wanted my wee changelin’,” Kull said, sitting down on a fallen tree trunk. “Didn’a mean any harm ta yer manling. Honest.”

  “Your changeling?” Annie rounded on him. “Yours? They are my boys.”

  “The changelin’ isn’a—”

  “Have you sung any lullabies in the past thirteen years?” she demanded. “Helped anyone with their homework? Taught anyone how to tie their father’s old bow ties with fumbling fingers so they could dress up for their first school dance?”

  Kull opened his mouth, and then tactfully closed it.

  “Mm-hm. My boys.”

  They searched wordlessly through the bushes for the next few minutes. It was Kull who broke the silence. “They went this way,” he said.

  Annie glared at the goblin before climbing out along the long tree trunk where he stood. Muddy footprints marked the children’s path.

  “Ya read my message?” Kull asked softly from behind her.

  “I read it.”

  “Then ya already know.”

  Annie stared at the footprints.

  “Iffin the changelin’ doesn’a come back ta the horde this night, then it doesn’a matter whose boy he is.”

  “I’m going to find them,” said Annie.

  SIXTEEN

  “You shouldn’t go that way,” Fable’s voice called down at the boys from high above them.

  “We’re not listening to you anymore!” Tinn snapped, continuing his angry trek toward the heart of the forest.

  Fable hopped from branch to branch, tree to tree. She was keeping up easily, free from the viny undergrowth. “You’re going to get lost.”

  “Lost? Imagine that.” Tinn glowered and kept moving forward. He was maddest at himself for opening up to a total stranger about everything.

  “If you want—”

  “We don’t need you. We don’t want you—go away!”

  “But—” Fable stopped abruptly, as if struck. “But we’re friends now.”

  Tinn let out an exasperated grunt and threw his hands up, stomping off without a response.

  “You should go home, Fable,” Cole called up at her, a little more gently. “We’re going to the other side of the Oddmire. It wouldn’t be safe for you anyway. We’ll find our own way from here.”

  Fable pursed her lips and scowled as Cole hurried to catch up with his brother. For a long while, the boys did not hear another word out of her. From time to time, out of the corner of his eye, Cole caught a flicker of curly hair slipping along the branches above them. He found the sight strangely comforting, in spite of Tinn’s continued grumbling.

  Gradually, the trees began to thin and the air began to thicken. Heavy fog rolled along the spongy earth, and the boys knew they had found the Oddmire once again.

  Tinn came to a stop right at the edge of the murky swamp, and Cole drew up beside him.

  “I don’t see any sort of bridge,” said Tinn.

  “I can’t even see the other side, can you?” Cole said.

  Tinn shook his head. He found a knobby tree branch almost as tall as he was and lowered it into the inscrutable green water. It did not touch the bottom. When he tried to pull it out again, the mire sucked at it until eventually he gave up the fight and just let the mire have it.

  Here and there, tree trunks jutted out of the swamp, their bark coated in moss and slime. It was anyone’s guess how far their roots sank below the surface before they found solid earth. Five feet? Fifty? The trees grew fainter and fainter the farther out they stood, fading into the distance until they were enveloped completely by the thick gray haze. Cole guessed the farthest he could see was a hundred feet out, maybe less. Even if the shore was just beyond his clouded vision—it would still be like swimming through pancake batter to get there. His head spun just breathing in the heady mist rolling off the Oddmire.

  “Maybe we could make a raft out of logs?” Cole said, although he wasn’t sure how well a raft would work on water that was mostly made out of mud—besides which, all of the logs within eyesight looked as if they were half-mud themselves.

  “There’s something out there,” said Tinn. He pointed out into the murk.

  Cole tried to follow his gaze. T
he rolling fog made strange shapes dance at the limits of his vision; gray ships on gray waves melted into coiled gray dragons, which folded into skeletal gray faces. “It’s just the mist,” Cole murmured.

  “It isn’t. There. See it? What is that?”

  Cole blinked hard and looked again. A tiny pinprick of flickering orange light cut through the mist. “Is that a lantern?” His heartbeat quickened. “Maybe there’s a house on the other side?”

  “No, it’s moving. Watch.”

  The tiny light jiggled and jumped, inching forward. Briefly, Cole imagined he had seen a hint of a shadow beside it. An arm? A pair of legs beneath?

  “Someone’s crossing!” Cole said. If someone was crossing, that meant there was a way to cross. He and Tinn exchanged glances full of excitement and fear. Sure enough, the little flickering light was growing brighter as it traversed the swamp. It was not bound straight for them, but toward the shore some ways up the bank, and the boys hurried across the soggy ground to reach the spot.

  “Ugh. Nothing over this way,” Annie Burton grunted. For the dozenth time, the children’s trail had tapered off, and she and Kull had been forced to scan the surrounding forest for any sign of them.

  “Na this way, either,” Kull called, tromping back toward her, slapping leaves out of his face. “Otch! Mind yer feet, womern,” Kull warned.

  Annie glanced down just in time to avoid catching her ankle on a creeping, thorny vine.

  The goblin hissed through his jagged teeth. “’Tis a bit o’ the wicked bramble, that is,” he said. “They’re much worse in the Deep Dark, but them vines run all through the Wild Wood. Nasty things.”

  “Oh, stop it. They’re just vines. Keep looking. I’m going back this way—I saw a building up ahead. It looks like an old run-down cabin. If the boys came this way, maybe they found it, too.”

  “Wait!” Kull drew to a full stop, his hands out and his eyes wide.

  “What now? Was I about to step on a pointy pebble?”

  “This is a witchin’ place,” whispered the goblin.

  “What? Seriously?” Annie glanced around. Kull’s tone was unsettling, but the real world was the real world and stories were stories. “You mean the Witch of the Wood? Queen of the Deep Dark? That’s real?”