Lady Changeling

by Ken Altabef

  “Whatever you want to know,” she said, “just ask.”

  He snickered, his head shaking with rage. “Are you a faery?”

  “Yes.”

  Her answer shocked him. Just like that. No excuses. No more lies. So there it is, he thought. Now she decides at last to be honest. But what is honesty worth, really, when it comes after such a deluge of deception? When it comes only after she is found out? He couldn’t trust anything she had to say. That was for certain. But still he must ask.

  “Show me what you really look like.”

  He was surprised to see her cheeks flush. How dare she get angry with me? How dare she?

  She spoke with hard-fought control. She did not change her appearance. “This is what I look like,” she said, “This is who I am.”

  He didn’t expect she would actually show him. Did she want him to see green skin? Pointed ears? All the rest of it? Was she simply embarrassed, or did she realize what that sight would do to him? How it would surely break him down. Perhaps her refusal to change was a kindness to them both.

  “Tell me your real name.”

  “Clarimonde.”

  A beautiful-sounding name, but it cut like a knife. A beautiful name that spoke of another place, another life, a world that did not include him. Other people, friends, lovers. More than that. Another way of being. Alien. Completely different. A life complete without him. Without him.

  “Why did you do this? Tell me. What the hell do you want?”

  With one final sniffle she stopped crying. Theodora wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Fine. I’ll tell you. I need Griffin’s lens.”

  “Is that what this has all been about? Ten years? Ten years, Theodora?”

  “We need the lens.”

  “We? You mean the faeries.”

  “The faeries, yes, but not just us. There’s something coming. A monster. A beast out of legend.”

  He smirked.

  “Hear me out. Listen, Eric. Please listen. A long time ago, thousands of years ago, a monster came to this world. It would have destroyed everything if not for that lens. The lens is the only thing that can stop it.”

  She must have thought she was making some headway with him because she stepped closer and reached to take his hands in her own. He shook them off.

  “It’s coming back. Soon. And when it does it will destroy this place, it will destroy Graystown, Britain, all of it. Everything. So we need that lens. It’s the only way to stop the Chrysalid.”

  “Stop!” he said. “Just stop. You want the lens. That I can understand. It’s the only thing the faeries fear, isn’t it? The only thing keeping you underground. But after all this time, do you think me so stupid as to believe a wild pack of lies like this? Some creature from the sky? The entire world in danger? What kind of hideous joke is this? Ten years. Ten years, Theodora.”

  “We knew you wouldn’t understand. We knew you’d never believe us. That’s why we couldn’t come to you in the first place. I couldn’t be honest with you. You’d never listen. And now you’re just proving us right.”

  “Right? Tell me how this could possibly be right? You weasel your way into my heart, into my life. Did you kill that girl? The one I was supposed to marry? Marjorie Hightower?”

  “No.”

  “More lies. I’ve no way to tell. It’s all lies, though, isn’t it? Everything you’ve said to me. All along. You held me in your arms. You told me you love me. It was all just a trick.”

  “No, it’s not. I meant every word. I do love you, Eric. I do.” Tears came again to her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them.

  Eric did not think they were real.

  “Love? Do faeries even know the meaning of the word?”

  “Most don’t…”

  “I’ll bet they don’t. That you would come here—tricked your way into my bed—what did you do to me, Theodora? What spell did you cast on me?”

  She could only shake her head. “It wasn’t a ‘spell.’ It was real. It was all real.”

  “You disgust me!” he raged. “I swear I could just strangle you, right here, right now. But I’ll tell you what—I’m going to spare your life. For the sake of the children. But I never want to see your face again. Do you understand? Not ever again! You will leave my family home and never return. Go back to Finnegan Stump, go back to your woods, I don’t care. Just go.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “I will not.”

  “Are you insane? There are men on the other side of that door. When I tell them what you are, they’ll tear you to pieces. I won’t even be able to stop them.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  She turned on her heel and walked out the chrome and glass door that led to the garden outside. He watched her disappear among the tailored hedgerow. Into the trees.

  I should go after her, he thought. But it was impossible to move. All the strength had gone out of him. His hands were trembling.

  What did she mean? ‘I will not.’ What hope could she have to stand against him? In his own house? It was ludicrous.

  She must go. And she will. How difficult she chooses to make it, well, that’s up to her. But what about the children? The children. They are half faery. But what exactly does that mean? Are they tainted? He couldn’t think of them that way, as if something were wrong with them, as if they had some sort of disease. But it all made sense now. Everything about them. Their unusual skills, those wonderful traits he had loved and admired. Faery traits. But they were innocents. Would they have to go too? His own children?

  No, not that. He would safeguard them. He would never let them go.

  But Theodora? In one brief stroke his wife of ten years had been taken from him. His heart had been ripped from his chest. I love her.

  Did he? How much of those feelings were real, and how much faery illusion? They had shared so much, their thoughts, all their hopes and dreams. Their feelings had seemed real. No, not seemed. They were real.

  Real? Not real? When he pledged his love for her, were the words coming from his own mouth or the voicebox of some sort of pathetic puppet?

  He didn’t know. He just didn’t know. How could he be sure of anything? Hell, he didn’t even know what she really looked like. She might be a hag, hundreds of years old.

  But it wasn’t about her looks. It never had been. It was about her personality, her wit, her spirit. Surely all of that couldn’t have been a lie stretched out over ten years. No one could keep that up, day after day, not even a faery. He had to believe that at her core he knew Theodora and knew her well. And he loved her.

  I love her. All is ruined.

  Chapter 25

  The children. Whatever might happen with Theodora, he must keep the children safe. He must warn Lucinda about this right away.

  Faeries, it seemed, were always after the children. His mother had told him all the stories as a boy. For some reason she’d only ever speak of her superstitions at night, with the old house creaking and the darkness closing in. And that’s all those stories were to him then. Just superstitions and cautionary tales. Because faeries hadn’t been seen in Graystown for so many years, young Eric hardly thought they were even real. But the fear in his mother’s eyes was real, the quaver in her voice.

  In the days before the Purge, when faeries had felt free to walk occasionally among humans, there really were such things as changeling children. Faeries were no strangers to treachery and sometimes stole human children. They left their own cast-offs behind and took beautiful healthy babies for themselves. The anguish of the parents was real, left with a deformed creature in the stead of their own beloved child. A twisted thing writhing in the cradle, half-troll, unholy, perverse, a thing that could only sicken and die. Some said that the changeling children were actually very old faeries at the end of their lives, taking on the appearance of babies so that they could live out their ends in comfort, coddled by the love of human parents.

  And what of the human children? What did the faeries want with them? To corru
pt them? What became of them after all? Eric had never heard anything about such children growing up and returning to society. Never. What did the faeries do with them?

  After his mother finished telling one of these stories, Eric was likely to be visited by nightmares. One figure stood above all the rest. Black Annis—the blue-faced, iron-clawed faery hag, grinding her teeth and laughing in the night. Stealing children and grinding their little bones between her teeth. Hearing them snap. She tanned their skins by hanging them on a tree and wore them around her waist like an apron. Eric shook off a chill just thinking about that horrible old witch.

  Childish nightmares were one thing, but to have these creatures invade his own home was another. Now his fear was real, the cold sweat on the back of his neck was real. Now it was his own children in danger.

  But James and Nora weren’t faery children substitutes put in place of human-born. He had fathered them himself. They were some sort of human-faery half breeds. Eric didn’t know what that meant for them, but he loved them and he would always protect them. He must warn Lucinda. He must keep the children safe from Theodora. From their own mother? Yes. If need be.

  As Eric watched Theodora exit the drawing room and disappear into the twilight garden, his first thought was for the children. He ran up the staircase to the upstairs hall and burst into the nursery anteroom. Lucinda was there, folding some of James’ clothes and arranging them in his little chest of drawers.

  “Where are the children?”

  “In their room,” squawked the nurse. Eric’s sudden entrance had nearly caused her to knock over her candle. “I’ve just settled them in their beds. You’ve still time for a sweet goodnight.”

  Eric rushed forward but stopped at the door to the nursery. He turned back to the charwoman.

  “Lucinda, listen to me. There’s a danger in the house.” He forced himself to speak calmly. The old woman was prone to fits of panic. He didn’t want to alarm her too much.

  Her eyes opened wide. “Danger? What type of danger?”

  Could he say it? Could he put a name to the danger? Her name? Theodora. It was hard, but he had to do it. “There’s a faery in the house.”

  Lucinda let out a frightened gasp. “They dare?”

  He nodded.

  “Act quickly,” she advised. “Put him on the point of your sword.” It had been many years since she’d encountered a faery herself, but the fear was still fresh. “They’re too dangerous to reason with, M’lord and too tricky. He’ll make you see things. You can’t hesitate.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is. You can kill them with a sword. I’ve seen it. They bleed purple and they die. I’ve seen it done under your grandfather. He knew. He rose to the task. And just so, you mustn’t falter. They say if you rub garlic on the blade—”

  “You don’t understand. The faery is Lady Theodora.”

  If it were possible for the old woman to look more shocked than she did right then, Eric couldn’t imagine how. Her face went completely slack, losing half its wrinkles. “Surely not.”

  “It is so. I’ve just uncovered her identity. I heard it from her own lips.”

  Lucinda stared at him, wide-eyed. Eric was worried the shock might cause her to swoon.

  “I know it’s hard to believe. But she confessed it to me herself, not five minutes ago. I’m afraid for the children, you see. We have to keep her from them. I’ll send a couple of men up to watch the nursery, but I wanted you to know first. Keep them indoors for now. I don’t want them outside. I don’t know how many other faeries may be prowling about the grounds. Do you understand?”

  Lucinda did not respond. She was utterly terrified.

  “It will be all right. We’ll handle this, I promise. One way or the other.” Eric stepped closer and reached out to comfort her.

  She shrieked and pulled away.

  “Just settle down, Lucinda. It’s the children we have to think of.”

  “M’lord?” She sputtered out the word in a pathetic gasp.

  “What? Why are looking at me that way?”

  “How long have you had it?” She spoke the words in a solemn whisper, as if proclaiming a death sentence.

  “Had it? Had what?”

  Lucinda pointed a shaking finger at his forearm.

  “What?”

  Eric glanced down at his arm. A scaly gray patch ran halfway down its length from wrist all the way to where his shirt-sleeve had been rolled up at the elbow. Thinking it was mud, he tried to wipe it off. But the gray discoloration would not part from his skin. Just looking at the thickened patch of skin made him want to scratch at it. But it didn’t really itch. Because it wasn’t real.

  “Listen to me. This isn’t real.”

  Lucinda had no words. She just looked at him with horror simmering in her eyes.

  Eric wiped at the gray patch again. “This is not important.”

  “It’s the Creep!”

  “It’s not. It’s some faery trick, just like you were saying…”

  The old woman’s eyes darted back and forth between her stricken lord and the door to the children’s nursery. She moved slightly one way and then the other as if she were caught between two impossibilities.

  Eric tried again to reassure her. “It’s not me you have to worry about. I’m telling you it’s Theodora. Theodora.”

  Lucinda tottered on the verge of complete panic. She took a step toward the nursery then stepped back. “You don’t know what you’re saying M’lord. With all my respect, you’re not in your right state of mind. We’ll just have the doctor take a look. That’s the thing to do. You’re not thinking straight.”

  “Enough! There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  Eric advanced toward the nursery door. Lucinda stood in his way and he had to push her aside. The old woman would have none of it. She came springing right back to bar his way again.

  “No, M’lord. No! You can’t go in there. I won’t let you.” Though it repulsed her to do so, she yanked at his shirt, trying to move him aside. “Not the children. Not the children.”

  “Stop it!”

  She wouldn’t let up, her maternal instinct coming to full force. She clawed at him. “It’s not safe for the children. I won’t let you near them. It’s not safe.”

  That last warning gave Eric pause. He knew his sudden exhibition of the Creeping Gray Rot wasn’t real and no physical threat to the children, but there was still a danger here. He didn’t want them to see him like this. They’d be terrified too.

  Reluctantly, he turned away.

  “Damn it!”

  He had to talk to Fitzroy March.

  Chapter 26

  Eric raced down the stairs, his blood boiling. Halfway down he slipped and nearly fell. He crossed the drawing room and yanked open the door to the foyer where March was still waiting. He had been joined by two of his men.

  “March!”

  At first sight of Eric, March immediately turned his two men away, taking one by each shoulder. “Go to the stables. Get three horses ready. Both of you. Now.”

  He turned back as the men ran off.

  “Do you see it?” asked Eric. “The Creep?”

  “Aye.”

  Eric rubbed his forearm again. Despite its crusty appearance the skin was perfectly smooth. “It’s not real.”

  “I know. But it’s still a problem. It’s on your face as well.”

  Eric ran a hand along his cheek. He felt nothing.

  “Did anyone else see?” March asked.

  “Lucinda.”

  “Damn. She’s probably told half the house by now.”

  “I warned her about Theodora but she didn’t believe me.”

  “It might’ve helped if you weren’t foaming at the mouth.”

  Eric wiped at his mouth but there was nothing there. “God!”

  “We’ve got to get you out of sight,” said March. “I know a faery trick when I see one, but the others—that’s a different story. Where is Theodora?”<
br />
  “She went into the garden.”

  March nodded curtly. “I’ll go after her. But we can’t let anyone see you until we’ve settled this.”

  Eric felt completely helpless. “I’m not going to just hide in my room like a schoolchild. I’m coming with you.”

  “Let me handle this. Right now it’s just Lucinda. One superstitious old woman. We can set her right. But if others see you like this—running around and ranting—”

  “I’m not ranting.”

  “Yes, you are. This is the start of a brushfire, Eric. There isn’t anything these people fear so much as the Rot. Not anything. And you can’t put this fire out. Not looking like that. You have to let me handle it for now.”

  Eric remembered his warning to Theodora. ‘When I tell them what you are, they’ll tear you to pieces. I won’t even be able to stop them.’

  The tables had turned so quickly, those words might seem more appropriate to him at this moment. “I’ll be in my room. Let me know as soon as you have her.”

  “Of course.”

  “And… thank you, Fitz.”

  “No need. I’ll find her. But the question is: What are you prepared to do?”

  “I won’t kill her. We won’t have to. Just arrest her.”

  March nodded curtly. “I can do that. And then?”

  “We’ll keep her under lock and key for now, until I have time to sort this whole thing out. But not in that filthy holding cell downstairs. We still haven’t washed the pirate stink out of the place. We’ll put her in a bedroom in the east wing of the house. Under constant guard.”

  “As you wish.”

  Where is she?

  Where is she?

  Amalric spun the knob on his telescope, searching from star to star. But it was no use. The constellations were just sitting there. Nothing was moving.

  Of course nothing was moving. The stars don’t move sideways. What he had seen the night before was patently impossible. His mother couldn’t really be in the sky. Not really. He remembered the last time he’d seen her, drunk, dirty, on her knees in the muddy street. Her hair, soaked in flop sweat, dangling in front of her eyes. The last time he’d seen her…