The Changeling

by H. P. Mallory

  “I like it.” Klassje slapped her thigh. “Just go where the wind blows. All we need is a toothbrush and fresh pair of panties.”

  “I thought I traveled light.”

  I turned on the radio, and we amused ourselves by singing along.

  For a while, it seemed as if life was brighter out here, away from the stresses of Kinloch Kirk. But the veil that seemed to have descended over the place followed us. You can run but you can’t leave your worries behind.

  “Do you mind if I ask,” Klassje spoke again, “how come you didn’t ask your sister to come with?”

  “Jolie’s busy. Besides, I really wanted to go alone. I agreed to you coming on sufferance, if you recall.”

  “Sorry for existing. But I’d have thought you and Jolie…”

  “Just not in the cards.”

  Klassje was silent for a moment. “I haven’t seen you and her out with Emma recently.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Klassje pressed on. “Seems like you’ve been seeing less of her generally.”

  “Does it?”

  “It does.”

  Hmmm, now that she mentioned it… Not that I felt like facing that subject at the moment. “Klassje, if I told you to shut the hell up and drop the subject, would you?”

  Klassje smiled. “No. I like you Bryn, but we’re not close enough friends for me to worry about losing you. So I think I might ask some of the questions you need to answer, for yourself if not for me.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “When’s the last time you spoke to Jolie?”

  We had said ‘ Hey ’, just in passing. Maybe ‘ How’s it going? ’.

  But other than that, my sister and I hadn’t spoken since the council meeting when internment had been decided on. And she wasn’t ignoring me because I’d failed to back her up, I was avoiding her. Because…

  I didn’t really want to think about the because.

  Guilt, I suppose. I’d let her down, and I’d let myself down.

  Jolie knew me better than anyone. She knew my thoughts and saw my heart. I couldn’t bear to face her feeling the way I did. She’d understand—of course she would; she was Jolie who was nice to everyone. But I didn’t need her understanding now. I wanted her to kick my ass and tell me what a selfish bitch I’d been.

  “You had to put your baby first.” Klassje seemed to be reading my thoughts. “Jolie knows that.”

  “She put my baby first too,” I replied, my eyes not leaving the road.

  “You think that’s why she agreed to internment?”

  “You don’t?”

  Klassje shrugged. “I guess that was part of it, but Jolie tries to do what’s best for everyone. That’s why she’s so down on herself this time; because one group got left behind. You should talk to her.”

  I sighed.

  “Bryn? You should talk to your sister. Bryn? Are you listening to me?”

  I looked at Klassje. “This is why I wanted to take a trip on my own.”

  #

  As afternoon turned into evening, we found a cozy Bed and Breakfast that was run by one of those elderly couples who only exist in British country villages.

  “A double room, are ye wantin’?” asked the very Scottish landlady. “Will ye perhaps be lesbians then?”

  “Oh God,” I grunted.

  “No, just friends,” said Klassje. “Separate rooms, please.”

  “Ah well.” The old lady sounded disappointed. “We had a lovely lesbian couple last month, did we not, Stewart?”

  “Aye,” said Stewart from behind his newspaper.

  “Just married they were. Is that not right, Stewart?”

  “Aye.”

  “Such a lovely couple. Ah well. Come with me.”

  The rooms were spotlessly clean, and Klassje and I settled in quickly. Stewart and Martha (as the old lady’s name proved to be) recommended a restaurant ‘ run by a lovely wee Indian gentleman,

  ’ and we headed out for dinner.

  The restaurant was as good as advertised, and Klassje seemed to make a conscious effort not to bring up our previous conversation again. Throughout the evening, we managed to avoid all reference to Kinloch Kirk and the issues there. It was a genuine break, and I was glad for it.

  After dinner, we strolled home, Klassje a little tipsy from the wine, me a little heavy with food and baby, and rolled into our respective beds for a long night’s sleep.

  My dreams were strange that night. They were indistinct and vague, yet haunted by a presence. A shadow that followed me no matter where I went.

  Despite the dreams, I was scared to wake that morning and tried to force myself back to sleep. Once I woke, I had to face things.

  Finally, there was no more putting it off. The sun had found a way through a gap in the curtains, and I could hear people moving around elsewhere in the house. I was officially awake.

  It was a few minutes later that I heard the discrete tap on my door, and Klassje poked her head in.

  “Hey, sorry to intrude but I thought I heard… Bryn, why are you crying?”

  I looked up at my friend, my face stained with tears. “I can’t feel the baby. I still can’t feel her. We came all this way and I still can’t feel her.”

  Klassje said nothing, but came to sit with me and put her arms around me. We sat like that for a while. It wasn’t as if anything had changed. I was in the same position today that I’d been yesterday and the day before and the day before that. But I’d hoped. A fatal error, of course, but I’d dared to hope. Now I felt as if my heart had been ripped out all over again.

  But of course, this little trip hadn’t been entirely worthless, as it proved, or at least strongly suggested, one thing.

  “Does this mean it can’t be the Daywalkers?” asked Klassje.

  I didn’t know. But now I needed to speak to Jolie.

  SIXTEEN

  Bryn

  “I’m so glad we’re talking again.” Jolie smiled at me with sisterly love. It was the first time we’d spoken for any length since that fateful council meeting and, as I’d hoped, she was all forgiveness. In fact, she apologized to me, “I’m sorry if I made you feel unwelcome after…”

  “You didn’t,” I stressed. “But I didn’t feel right coming when…

  When it was my fault…”

  “How was it your fault?”

  “If I’d spoken…”

  “You think Dureau and the others were about to back down?”

  “Probably not. But I could have tried.”

  “You did what was right for your baby,” said Jolie. “I couldn’t ask anything else of you, and I would never ask a mother to go against that instinct. I shouldn’t have pressured you…”

  “You didn’t!”

  “I shouldn’t have asked…”

  “You had every right to ask.” I paused and we looked at each other. “Look, should we both just assume we each feel like crap and move on?”

  “Good plan.”

  At that moment, the door opened, and Emma was brought in by her babysitter, Jenny. She looked at me, and her little face lit up with childish delight.

  “Auntie Bin!” She hadn’t yet mastered my name but was clearly trying. On unsteady toddler legs, she wobbled over and I caught her in my arms, hugging her and kissing her cheek. She hugged me back, her little hands tangled in my hair. I felt tears rising in my eyes. Why couldn’t life just be as simple as this? For some, it presumably was. Ours was an exceptional existence, which came with awesome compensations, but also with some major downsides.

  When we were both hugged out, I set Emma down. She picked up a toy horse and waved it at me. Jolie and I sat down beside her, and for the next hour or so we played together. It was the clearest my mind had been for a while. I’d left Kinloch Kirk in search of a break, but it turned out the peace of mind I was looking for was only a play-date away.

  Eventually, Emma was taken off for her nap, and Jolie and I could talk again.

  “Dureau said you went away for
a few days?”

  I nodded. “Just one night in the end.”

  “With Klassje?”

  “Not my choice,” I admitted with a shrug. “But she was pretty good company.” Then I paused as the reason for my visit reared its head. “I need to tell you something. I don’t know if it changes anything, but…” I told her why I’d taken the trip and my hopes being dashed again.

  “Bryn, I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too.” I had to make an effort not to cry. It had been hard to tell her about the fact that the trip hadn’t yielded what I’d hoped it would—hearing my baby again. “But maybe there’s a good side. Mathilda said that for this sort of magic, the person responsible would need to be nearby.”

  “So it might not be the Daywalkers,” said Jolie, cautiously.

  “ Can’t be,” I stressed.

  But Jolie shook her head. “It’s not that simple, Bryn. We don’t know what’s wrong with you. We don’t know what kind of magic has been used against you. Mathilda was guessing based on what we knew, which wasn’t much. And time hasn’t changed that. For all we know, the spell was cast on you from close quarters but has long-term effects.”

  I deflated. “So you’re saying this tells us nothing?”

  Jolie hedged. “I’m saying it tells us nothing definite. But it raises doubts. Maybe enough doubts to end the internment. Then, if there are no more attacks, no more sabotage, we can safely acquit the Daywalkers.”

  I raised the elephant in the room. “What if we end the internment and someone is killed? We almost lost Klassje.”

  Jolie raised her eyes to mine. “These are the choices a Queen has to make.”

  I didn’t envy her one bit.

  “I must convene the council.”

  My heart sank. “Really? You’re Queen, they’re just advisers. What you say goes. Just seems like another chance for everyone to shout at each other.”

  “Things have been tense lately,” admitted Jolie. “Even Rand and I…” She broke off.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe anything could interfere with the mushily romantic, sickly sweet love between my sister and her husband. “You two…?”

  Jolie looked away for a minute, and then, as if she couldn’t bear to say the words out loud, I heard her thoughts, Rand is staying in the guest suite. We see each other for official business only.

  “I’m sure it will pass,” she added, out loud.

  This piled more evidence onto my increasing certainty that something was wrong. Now I could add Rand to the list of people who was acting out of character. Cut him open and you would find Jolie’s name engraved on Rand’s heart, probably with little hearts dotted around it. They were like teenagers in love; they held hands, took walks, left each other notes, made breakfasts in bed for one another. Now they were in separate rooms? I would have guessed they would die if they spent as much as a night apart.

  What was happening around here? And why?

  “The point is,” Jolie went on, “I have to at least consult the council over something like this.”

  “But you know what they’ll say.”

  “We have new evidence.”

  “They’ll say it’s not proof,” I answered. “Even I don’t really think it’s proof.”

  “And yet you want the fence to come down.”

  “No…”

  I stopped dead. The strangest thing had happened. When Jolie asked if the fence should come down, I opened my mouth to say ‘

  Yes, of course ’ but the word ‘ No ’ came out, instead. Not just the word, every fiber of my being demanded the fence stay up. I didn’t believe it, and yet something inside me insisted it was true.

  “Bryn?” Jolie looked at me with concern.

  “I don’t want anyone to be hurt because of what we decide,” I managed to say, my mind angrily pulling in two directions.

  “That’s how I feel,” nodded Jolie. “That’s why I think I must consult the council.”

  Her voice now sounded uncertain too. Was she feeling the same as me? Was she also in two conflicting minds, worried her thoughts might not be her own? If there was something going on here that went beyond the Daywalkers, beyond my baby, beyond petty acts of vandalism and random attacks, then it was something that was affecting Jolie and me as well. What the hell was going on in Kinloch Kirk?

  #

  “This changes nothing!”

  Dureau and the others had listened to my story, and maybe their reaction was inevitable, but I found myself once again most struck by the fact that Dureau, who was a good friend and who had once been more, didn’t even ask if I was alright. It was so unlike the Dureau I knew of old. These were difficult times, but was that really enough to account for such a major change in character?

  “Where is Mathilda?” asked Jolie. The old Fae had attended meetings less and less and had been distracted when she did.

  “Haven’t seen her,” said Mercedes. “I’m not her keeper, after all.”

  “She knew about this meeting? Knew it was important?” Jolie asked rhetorically.

  “Important?” Dureau scoffed. “Nothing has changed.”

  “Nothing has changed when we might have expected something to change,” corrected Jolie. “If the curse on Bryn’s baby remains when she’s so far from the Daywalkers, then we have to assume they aren’t responsible, or at least…”

  “Have to?” Rand was seated in his normal seat beside Jolie, but the atmosphere between them was distant—they barely acknowledged each other. “I would hardly call it proof.”

  “Whereas,” Dureau picked up the thread, “since the internment, we can say with confidence that everything has gone back to normal.”

  “Everything has gone back to normal?” I could have broken his neck.

  “Except, of course, for your baby,” said Dureau, dismissively.

  “But Sinjin’s looking into that.”

  “Everything is not normal,” I was finding it difficult to speak, as if the words had to be forced out of me. “Look at us. We’re on the same side, and here we are fighting each other! If Luce chose to attack now…”

  “Luce is already attacking!” Dureau barked at me. “Using the Daywalkers.”

  “We aren’t behaving normally,” I grounded the words out from between gritted teeth.

  “The lass may have a point,” said Odran. “The Daywalkers mebbe locked oop, boot they have sown dissent between oos, nary the less.”

  “Then perhaps the time has come to rid ourselves of them,” said Dureau. I could barely believe what I was hearing.

  “Silence!” With difficulty, Jolie reasserted her authority. “I called this council meeting because Bryn brought us genuine new information and it’s being treated with dismissive contempt.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Dureau began but was silenced with a look from Jolie.

  “I don’t pretend that Bryn’s evidence is conclusive. But this new information may give us some new insight, which is why I wanted the opinion of Mathilda, who knows more about magic than anyone else here. Is anyone else claiming to be an expert?” Jolie continued.

  No one spoke up. “Does anyone wish me to make my decision without the opinion of the only person qualified to give one?” She continued.

  Again there was silence, although rather resentful. Jolie sat back down. “I’m sick of these meetings degenerating into brawls.”

  She addressed a guard. “Go and find Mathilda please. Bring her here.” She turned back to the room. “If Mathilda thinks that, in the balance of probability, the magic that silences Bryn’s baby is being performed by someone close at hand, then I’ll order the

  fence to be torn down, and the Daywalkers will again be free to go where they please. Is that understood?”

  As the room began to express its opposition, I found my own thoughts again rebelling against themselves. The moment before, I’d known where I stood, and now I didn’t; the two sides were violently opposed within me. If there were others in this room in the same state,
then there was no wonder why nothing could be decided.

  “My Queen,” Rand spoke, “I’ve pledged to stand with you, and I’ve done so, but to free the Daywalkers when everything we know points to their guilt…”

  “We know nothing,” Jolie retorted.

  “We know that nothing bad has happened since the internment,”

  Dureau put in.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” I argued.

  “Everyone is safer with them locked up,” said Mercedes.

  “Everyone is safer with them gone,” said Dureau.

  “We’re not even safe from each other,” I struggled to be heard as the council descended into argument.

  “I can’t let you do this, Jolie,” said Rand. In his eyes I thought I glimpsed some of the internal struggle I felt, as if his mind was crying out against his own actions. He wasn’t just revolting against his Queen, but also against the woman whom he adored with all his heart.

  “And how do you propose to stop me?” asked Jolie, her face as hard as Rand’s, but her eyes just as uncertain.

  “With my help,” Dureau spoke up.

  “Mine too,” said Mercedes.

  Were they actually saying what they seemed to be saying? Were they about to depose Jolie?

  I looked across to Odran who still sat watching with a curious expression on his face. He caught me looking at him and shrugged as if to say, Whit can Ah do? Then, as if my look had shamed him, he stood to his feet.

  “The Fae stand with yer Majesty.”

  “Odran!” Dureau rounded on his fellow Fae, fists up, ready to fight.

  “The werewolves stand with Rand.” The werewolf representative on the council, sprang up.

  “So do the vampires!”

  I looked up in shock. It was Klassje who had spoken. Only the day before, when we’d talked, she seemed… well, nothing specific had been said, but she certainly hadn’t seemed as gung-ho as she did now. Maybe she was standing with her man, but… No. This was all part of the same hell we were descending into, and right now it was hard to see how it could possibly get any worse.

  The doors to the council room burst open, and the guard whom Jolie had sent to fetch Mathilda rushed in.