The Changeling

by H. P. Mallory

  When I finally did sleep, it was fitful and restless, never really settling.

  Which was why I was so easily woken.

  I gasped myself awake and sat up in bed, staring across the darkness of the room to the sliver of pale light where the door stood ajar. Had I left my bedroom door open?

  As I looked at the doorway, a shadow moved—a patch of darkness deeper than that around it, slipping wraith-like across the room and out the door without a sound.

  I didn’t pause, I was up and out of bed in a second. Another second more, and I was out the door and after this apparition. I might be pregnant, but I was still a warrior, still Bryn, and no intruder came into my home— into my bedroom— without paying for it.

  As quickly as I could, I rushed down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to listen. Was that the back door? I raced through the house as fast as my increasing size would allow. The back door was open too, and I plunged out into the night, dressed in the over-sized PJs Jolie had given me a few weeks ago.

  It was dark out, but the moon was high and bright, casting a ghostly pall onto the land. I looked around myself, searching for a sign of the intruder.

  There!

  The shadow of the intruder, moving so quick and silent that it seemed to be composed of the darkness itself flitted out ahead of me, passing the tree line. I chased after it again barefoot in the cool grass. Running into the woods, I had no idea which way to head. My only hope was to catch a glimpse of my quarry, which wouldn’t be easy, as the woods were all shadows.

  “Show yourself!” I decided to try a bit of bluffing. “Come on you coward! Or are you afraid of a woman?”

  A sound from behind made me spin about and I saw the briefest flash of a shadow passing between the trees. I ran after it but could find nothing.

  Another noise, this time like the rustling of dead leaves, again from behind me, and there again was the flitting shadow. It was always too much in the dark for me to make out any features, always too far away and so very, very quick and light on its feet. I ricocheted about the woods like a pinball, chasing shadows, increasingly frustrated as I was never able to see more than a glimpse.

  “Face me!”

  I caught a faint hint of new sound on the breeze that blew through the woods. It sounded like laughter. I ran after it. My feet were muddied, and the damp ankles of my pajama bottoms clung to my legs as I ran.

  A faint pattering from above told me it was starting to rain, the droplets dappling the canopy. In search of the laughter, I ran out of the woods into the open again. The rain was light but persistent, and soon my wet hair was plastered to my face, and my pjs were soaked to my skin. I’d gotten so turned around in the woods that I didn’t even know where I’d emerged and had to pause to get my bearings.

  Up ahead of me was the Daywalker camp. I froze in my tracks. Was that where the laughter had come from? Was that where this shadow had led me?

  It could be a coincidence.

  I’d run around the woods for so long, I could have come out anywhere, and in truth the laughter had seemed to come from all around me, not from any specific direction. I’d never even been close to catching the intruder in my bedroom—it had just been toying with me, if it had ever even been there. Truthfully, if I’d spent the last hour running after woodland creatures and the echoes of my own heavy breathing, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

  But still, this was where I’d wound up; the Daywalker camp.

  “Lass?”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sudden voice.

  “Whit are ye doin’ oot here at this time o’ night?” Odran approached me from out of the darkness, frowning. I couldn’t help noticing that even in the cool of night and the pattering rain, he was still shirtless.

  “I thought I… I thought I… What are you doing out here?”

  Odran hung his head. “Ah fear ye’ll be displeased with me. Ah know ye care for the Daywalkers, but I cannae quite trust ‘em.

  Ah’ve spent a few nights oot here, keepin’ a watch oopon their camp.”

  “Did you see anything?” My question probably sounded too urgent.

  “On previous nights?” Odran shook his head. “Nary a thing. But tonight… Ah dinnae know. Ye’ll say Ah’m imaginin’ things for Ah caught nae more than a shadow. But Ah’d be prepared to swear Ah saw somethin’ go stealin’ into the camp.”

  Had Odran seen the same shadow I had? “A Daywalker?” I pressed.

  “It moved fast,” said Odran. “Fast as one o’ them to be sure.

  Boot was it one? Ah cannae be certain.” He looked me up and down.

  “Ye dinnae look dressed for a midnight stroll, lass. Let’s get ye inside.”

  I allowed myself to be led by Odran. I was cold and wet, and I didn’t want to catch anything that might harm the baby.

  “Here.” With no more warning than that, Odran swung an arm around me to pick me up and into his arms. “Yer feet moost be like ice.”

  Carrying me as if I weighed nothing, he ran through the woods, taking the quickest route as the crow flies back to my house.

  “Get yerself changed, Lass. Ah’ll build the fire.”

  I did as I was told, which gave me a chance to think. Should I tell Odran what I’d seen? If I did, then he would tell the council and that would be that; the end for the Daywalkers at Kinloch Kirk.

  Part of me thought that might not be a bad thing, but the rest of me was still tolerant enough to want to give them the benefit of the doubt. I hadn’t seen anything that could be called proof, and even if there was one rogue Daywalker, I didn’t want to condemn them all.

  But was I endangering my baby by holding my tongue? Why couldn’t Sinjin be here to help?

  “Will ye take a drink?” asked Odran—rather an odd thing to ask since this was my house, but I noticed he’d already helped himself.

  “Not with the baby, thanks.”

  Odran facepalmed himself. “O’ course. The fool Ah am! Let me get ye somethin’ hot, all the same.”

  I nodded as I curled up in the chair by the fire, letting the pleasant heat seep down to my bones. I felt the baby stir inside me, enjoying the penetrating warmth as much as I was.

  Odran returned with a mug of steaming hot chocolate which he passed to me. I sipped the drink; it was sinfully rich and thick,

  scalding its way deliciously down to my belly, warming me from the inside out.

  “Thank you, Odran.”

  “Nae problem, lass.” He dropped his muscular bulk down into one of the other chairs and stared across the room at me by the flickering light of the fire. “Now, do ye think ye might tell me why ye were oot tonight?”

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “Och, aye?” He expected me to go on.

  “Yeah. Guess it was nothing.”

  “Whit sort o’ somethin’ was it ye thought ye heard?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe just the rain. I’ve been hearing things at night.”

  “Ye have?”

  I nodded and then sighed. “The nights have been hard; I’m not going to lie. With Sinjin gone, I haven’t been sleeping much.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “All of this,” I answered and gestured with my hands in the air.

  “Everything that’s been going on. It’s all too much. I have too much in my head.”

  Odran nodded. “If ye say so, lass. Boot I hope ye feel that if there’s somethin’ to tell, ye can tell me.”

  “Tell me about what you saw tonight?” I put the pressure back on him.

  Odran pulled a face, the firelight making him look momentarily like some medieval gargoyle and not the good-looking Fae royalty he was. “Ah saw little enough. Barely a shadow. Could’ve been a cat or a fox for all Ah know. Ah’d have thought nae more aboot it if Ah hadnae bumped into ye. Seems a power o’ a coincidence for oos both to be hearin’ an’ seein’ things on the same night an’

  around the same place.”

  “The Daywalker camp.”

 
Odran nodded. His eyes were lit from beneath by the fire and they seemed to glow red. “If Ah go to the council an’ tell them Ah saw a shadow then they’ll dismiss it an’ say Ah never liked the Daywalkers anyway—an’ right enough. Boot if ye say ye saw somethin’, that’s another matter. Ye’ve been their defender.”

  “I think we’re all on edge with what’s been happening lately.”

  Odran shrugged. “Maybe so, lass, maybe so.” He poured himself another drink and knocked it back with one easy gesture. “Ah’ll leave ye to yer sleep. Ah’ve nae wish to disturb ye any further.”

  He stood, and it seemed to me he grew as he did so, his head almost brushing my ceiling, though I suppose it was another trick of the firelight.

  “A reckonin’s comin’, lass,” he said as he turned to face me. “A time when sides will have to be chosen. Ah hope when that time comes, ye will remember what ye saw tonight. The Queen troosts ye more than any o’ oos. She will listen to ye. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Odran.”

  I sat by the fire a while longer after he’d gone, thinking about what he’d said. I was glad I’d said no more to him but, damn it, I would have to tell Jolie. She was Queen, all the decisions were on her and she deserved to have all the information at her disposal. I was still on the side of the Daywalkers—they had few enough friends as it was—but my ultimate loyalty was to my family; my sister, Sinjin, and my child.

  ELEVEN

  Bryn

  “Seems like we keep having different versions of the same conversation,” sighed Jolie as we sat together in the meadow outside Kinloch Kirk, watching Emma play.

  When I’d first learned of the existence of a sister I hadn’t previously known about, and one who was on the side of the people I’d been brought up to consider my enemies, I’d thought I could never have real familial affection for her. The differences in our lives had seemed to outweigh any similarities in our blood.

  Now I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Jolie was my most trusted confidante as well as my best friend. Looking back, I thought the change in our relationship began with Emma. My sensitivity meant I’d been first to ‘talk’ to Emma before she was even born, and since her birth, I’d fallen easily into the role of Auntie Bryn. It was a role I loved, and the time I spent with my niece had, in turn, brought Jolie and me closer together. I longed for the day when we’d be sitting here, watching both our children play together in the long grass. If that day ever came…

  Even this alone time with my sister and her daughter, that I’d come to value so much, wasn’t immune from the shadow that had been cast across my life and its repercussions. It was the morning after my nocturnal visitor, and I’d told Jolie what had happened, omitting nothing. I trusted her to do right with the information.

  “You’re sure of what you saw?”

  I drew in a deep breath. “Jolie, I’m not sure of a damn thing!

  These days I don’t feel like I can even trust my own senses. If Odran hadn’t seen something too, then maybe I would’ve dismissed the whole thing as a bad dream.

  Jolie frowned. “It doesn’t sound like a bad dream.”

  “Didn’t feel like one either,” I answered on a sigh. “On the other hand, I’ve been having some pretty awful dreams lately.”

  Jolie took my hand in hers and squeezed. “I’m so sorry all this is happening to you.”

  I forced a smile. “I made my own bed, sis. I went up against Luce and I knew what I was doing. I guess I must have known there’d be consequences. I just…” I shook my head. “I didn’t think those consequences would be anything like this.”

  “Remember, we still don’t know what this is. Have you heard from Sinjin?”

  I shook my head. That too was weighing on me. I’d received a call when he arrived in Africa but nothing since. He’d warned me that he’d probably be out of cell phone range, but for how long? When I tried to call him, I just got that annoying beeping and a voice telling me the number I’d dialed hadn’t been recognized and that I should try again. His phone seemed to have ceased to exist.

  “This figure in your room…”

  “All I saw was a shadow.”

  “But then in the woods…”

  “I probably saw even less.”

  “And you heard…?”

  “Sounds. Could have been wind in the trees. By that time, it could have been my own heart pounding in my ears.”

  “But you also heard laughter?”

  “Yes.” That I could be definite about. Whatever aspects of last night that could be written off as imagination and noises in the night, one thing was for sure: I had heard laughter, mocking laughter.

  “And the laughter or the shadow led you to the Daywalker camp?”

  On that I was a lot less certain. “It seemed to. But I got turned around so badly in the woods and the laughter just kept echoing around me. I might have wound up anywhere.”

  Jolie’s gaze drifted off to Emma, as it tended to when she had to make tough decisions. At that moment, the double doors to the hallway opened, and a pretty woman entered. It was Emma’s babysitter. This babysitter was a Fae girl (I thought her name was Jenny). Having Jenny here was a sensible precaution as Emma reached an age when she was running headlong at things, but it was also unusual, as Jolie usually watched Emma herself. Clearly, even Jolie was affected by the suspicion that hung heavy in the air.

  “All I want is a little clarity,” my sister said, half to herself. “One way or the other. If there was clear proof that it was one of the Daywalkers, then I could act. If there was no evidence whatsoever, then I could be justified in doing nothing.

  But as it is, there’s just enough proof to make them suspect but not enough to point the finger.”

  “The worst of both worlds,” I concurred.

  “I should speak to Odran.”

  “I don’t think he saw much. And whatever he saw, I’m sure he will exaggerate, as he’s likely to do.”

  Jolie nodded. “I know. Odran can’t run a simple errand without it turning into an epic quest in which he fights off dragons, tempests and the odd army single-handedly.” I had to laugh at that characterization, because it was spot-on.

  “I’m sure he’s already composing a ballad about last night,” I added.

  My sister nodded with a laugh. “But at least if I talk to him, then he might feel less need to tell other people. Especially if I ask him not to tell other people. There’s already enough distrust circling through Kinloch Kirk; I don’t need any more.”

  She shook her head, sadly. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Bryn. This isn’t the world I want to be Queen in.”

  “I guess Queens have got to take the rough with the smooth.”

  “When the hell was it ever smooth?”

  We laughed together. In times like this, you could either laugh or cry, and since crying solved nothing, then you might as well laugh.

  “Has Klaasje found out anything?” I asked, hopefully.

  “Not yet,” replied Jolie. “Or nothing she’s told me about, anyway. Do you think she’s the right person to conduct the investigation? She didn’t seem to like the Daywalkers, herself.”

  “No,” I agreed. “But that was mainly because Sinjin didn’t.

  Klaasje’s fair-minded. She won’t let prejudice lead her on the wrong path.” I paused. “I had a weird moment with her yesterday.”

  “Weird how?”

  “I think she was jealous.”

  Jolie pursed her lips. “I always wondered if she had a thing for Sinjin. On the quiet, you know.”

  “No, she doesn’t have a thing for Sinjin.” I waved her thought away. “She saw Dureau and me together.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Just talking,” I shrugged. “I mean… I guess we were standing pretty close, but nothing scandalous or anything.”

  “He was pretty obsessed with you not so long ago,” pointed out Jolie with a shrug. “It’s not so weird for Klaasje to be worried.”


  “Dureau and I have always been friends,” I went on. “And it never seems to have bothered her before. I’ve always thought Klaasje to be pretty sensible and level-headed about that sort of thing. Not the sort to get jealous.”

  “Yeah, but now Sinjin is away,” said Jolie. “She may think with him out of the picture…”

  “I’ll jump on the next man passing by?” I pulled a face. “Is that really what people think of me?”

  “People in love get jealous easily.”

  “But Klaasje?” I shook my head. “She’s always so confident.

  Secure. I’d have said she thought I couldn’t take Dureau away from her even if I tried to. Which I’m not.”

  “I know.”

  “Good.”

  Jolie shrugged. “Maybe Klaasje is more vulnerable than we thought. I guess you never really know people.”

  “I guess.” I shook my head. “It’s just so unlike her.”

  For a few minutes we sat in silence, watching Emma play, until I spoke again. “What are you going to do about the Daywalkers?”

  “I’ll talk to Odran. If he’s got as little proof as you, then I’ll leave it at that.” Jolie paused. “Maybe I’ll get someone to watch the Daywalker camp.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Odran?”

  “Really?”

  Jolie gave an exasperated gasp. “He wouldn’t be my first choice but… damn it, I’m running out of people I can trust who haven’t already made up their minds about the Daywalkers.”

  I remembered what Odran had said to me last night about having to pick sides. It was already starting to happen.

  #

  After the previous night, I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep for myself and my baby. A small, hopeful voice within me kept insisting that maybe, just maybe, if I got a full night of rest, that I’d wake up able to hear my child again and everything would be fine. I’d even considered asking Mathilda to charm me into an uninterrupted eight hours. But I wasn’t the type to fool myself; sleep would do no good and I didn’t want any unnecessary magic near the baby. Things were bad enough already.