Harvest of Changelings

by Warren Rochelle

  Normals? Are there two kinds of humans now? The Changed and the normal? The magical and the mundane?

  “I got some of your clothes and Malachi’s. Those diskettes you wanted—maybe you can use the computer in the rectory office. Here are some of Jack’s clothes. They wrecked his house, too, by the way. I stopped at Kmart on the way back from the library—got some clothes for Hazel, Jeff, and Russell,” he had said.

  He came back down a little while ago, to bring dinner. He was still wearing his robes from mass, white and made from rough cloth, a rope around his waist. He looked a bit medieval.

  “Are you going to stay here tonight with us?” I asked, afraid that the house wreckers would follow us here.

  “You are safe in this church, at least for now. You remember what you told me about priests having special powers in the old stories? You know I can make a Cross in the air,” he said and quickly drew another shimmering cruciform apparition. “I’m Changing, too; I told you that. Look at my ears, my eyes.”

  The Change must take longer in adults. Besides his ears, there is just a touch of luminosity in his blue eyes—as if there were a light shimmering behind the blue, a bit of a ways off, flickering in some distant wind.

  “Are you going with us?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Father Jamey said. “I’m not dreaming of a place with silver and golden-leafed trees with glowing white trunks and two moons in the sky. My dreams are—different. I’d better go on, get to the grocery store before the panic sets in. It’s the darkness—sunset is almost an hour earlier than it’s supposed to be; sunrise an hour later. You’re safe here. I can do that much, combined with the inherent Power of a sacred place. I might be able to do more—I’ll tell you later.”

  I am in the music director’s office right now. I told the others I wanted to be left alone for a while. Father Jamey tells me the music director he inherited when he became the pastor at St. Mary’s was a gadget man, sort of like Hazel’s grand father, I guess. There is a complete computer set-up and a music synthesizer and a stereo deck like something off the Enterprise.

  So I can keep up with my journal for now. But even as I write this, I wonder what for and why. Writing helps me think. Writing helps me release stress, work off tension. But who will read this when I am gone? Do I want anybody to read this? People will want a history of these times—won’t they?

  Never mind.

  I still don’t know how we are going to escape, to get to the gate, even now when we know where it is: the Devil’s Tramping Ground.

  It looks almost Edenic in the drawing in the book, a circle of earth surrounding a grassy lawn that is probably yellow with dandelions and buttercups in the spring. Trees grow close by the circle, a few almost on it, cedars, oaks, maples. According to John Harden, starting on page 54 in The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Ghost Stories:

  . . . the story is that the Devil goes there to walk in circles as he thinks of new means of causing troubles for humanity. There, sometime during the dark of night, the Majesty of the Underworld of Evil silently tramps around and around that bare circle—thinking, plotting, and planning against good, and in behalf of wrong.

  So far as is known, no person has ever spent the night there to disprove that this is what happens and that is this what keeps grass, weeds, and other vegetation worn clean and bare from the circle.

  The cleared spot, surrounded by trees, comprises a perfect circle with a forty-foot diameter. The path itself is about a foot wide and is barren of any obstruction—growing or otherwise. A certain variety of wire grass grows inside the circle in a limited fashion (all right, cut the dandelions and buttercups) and residents of that neighborhood say any attempts to transplant any of it have met with failure. Broomsedge, moss, and grasses grow on the outer edge of the circular path, but not inside the circle.

  Anything left on the path is always removed by the next day. The Devil kicks aside “the obstacles on his nightly perambulations.” Or, a circle worn by the dancing feet of Indians? The path kept clear by God as a “monument to these faithful Indian braves”? A battle fought between Indians before the whites came, the survivors burying their chief, Croatan, and the “Great Spirit kept bare the circle, down through the years, in mourning for the loss of a faithful chief and a great leader.” The soil is simply sterile? Or the spells that bind this gate between worlds have made a barrier that keeps out vegetation, preserving only the earth in a perfect circle? Nine times around, backward, at midnight on Samhain and the gate will open.

  None of which helps me. How are we supposed to get there, escape from this church when demons and demon-possessed people. are just outside? Father Jamey says he has a plan and not to worry.

  Jack is only getting a little better. I make him eat and drink, but he hurts.

  Malachi is dying.

  Russell and Jeff are bored and scared and excited and are driving me crazy. Hazel is waiting for her turn to use the computer. Alex is asleep.

  Samhain is three days away.

  I can feel the demonic outside.

  VII

  Tuesday and Wednesday, October 29-30, 1991

  The White City Faerie

  FOR A LONG MOMENT, THE SECOND—I MUST THINK of myself as First, as Prime Mover, Valeria is dead. The others need me to accept this, accept me as Prime Mover—didn’t respond to the report that had just been delivered to the Dodecagon. Instead she stared out the nearest open window. The day had dawned without sun. Thick, thick roiling black clouds all but hid the bare minimum of light. The storm, thank the Three, was still far out to sea. She could not see the lightning, but rather its flashing glow on the grey water. Below she saw only a few people hurrying through the streets. Most had not left their houses, or were at the Temple.

  “Sec—Prime Mover, please,” a speaker for the Third-Born said, his hooves striking the floor.

  They aren’t quite used to me as Prime Mover, either.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” she said and turned away from the window. “The report is no surprise. The Peace has held for a year—almost a year. There have been—and continue to be—violations. The Fomorii know how weakened we are from the war. There are signs they may be planning a new war. And you want to know if our call to the changelings has borne fruit. In three days, on Samhain, we will know. There is nothing I can do to make Samhain come any sooner. No petitions in the Temple to the Good God, to the Goddess, the Teachers, no prayers to the Three. I cannot sound the call any louder or make its effects happen any sooner. You all know this,” she said, looking slowly around the table, her bronze eyes glowing. She lifted her right hand and then, one by one, flicked a splash of light at each one, a warm, white wash that broke and flowed over foreheads, eyes, ears, mouths, spilling down throats.

  “But will they wait those three days before they break the Peace?” a centaur asked, his arms folded across his chest, his tail swishing nervously back and forth. His left front hoof kept tapping the floor.

  The Prime Mover resisted going over to grab it and hold it still.

  “We and the dolphins think so,” the swimmer said who sat beside the centaur. “They need the power of Samhain and the opening of the gates as much as we do.” For the first time in years, a speaker for the swimmers had actually attended a session of the Dodecagon. His green-and-black body glistened wetly in the yellow candlelight. Water pooled at his feet. When the swimmer turned to look up at the centaur, moving his hands to make his point, water sprayed everywhere. The drops bounced off the auric shields of the others. The centaur had forgotten to manifest his shield—he sputtered and stepped away, his tail swishing even harder.

  “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to get you wet,” the swimmer said and got up to try and brush the water off the centaur’s chest and face. This, of course, made matters worse as he sprayed and dripped more water.

  “Never mind,” the centaur said and stepped back hastily, his tail swishing. “Prime Mover, can we wait three days, can we hold out if they at
tack beforehand?”

  “He’s right,” she said. “They need the power from the gates as well—”

  “Why don’t we attack?” a dwarf interrupted, ignoring the sudden intake of breath and mutterings at his breach of accepted good manners and council protocol. “We have waited and waited for this silly experiment of the First-born to work and so far, no powerful changeling children. Are we going to let all that we lost during the war be a vain sacrifice to First-born pride?”

  “How dare you say such a thing?” a First-born shouted, his fist pounding the table. Fireballs popped as he hit the table and bounced over the polished wood, leaving scorched trails behind.

  “Stop, both of you,” The Prime Mover said, as the fireballs fizzled out on the stone floor. “All of you: STOP!” she said angrily, turning to glare at the other First-borns who were grumbling among themselves. “We will not sacrifice anything to anyone’s pride. There was no other solution. We will not just sit and wait. I have placed our forces on alert; we are prepared for attack. But, even if the Fomorii weren’t moving against us again, we still would have called the changelings home. We are just too weak after the war to go on without their new blood, energy, their new magic. If this experiment does not work, if the changelings do not come to Faerie, a renewal of the war by the Fomorii will only hasten the inevitable.”

  “Fair enough,” the dwarf growled. “Damn First-born arrogance,” he added, under his breath. The Prime Mover shook her head at the other First-born. Let it go.

  “Now, if we can go on to other business? . . .”

  On the Great Sea

  “We will be off the coast of Tir Mar and the White City just before midnight on Samhain, as planned, Your Highness,” the lieutenant said.

  “Good,” the prince answered, his fangs bared, his eyes glowing fires. “We will strike them at their weakest—when their call fails and when we draw on the energy of the changeling world, of those at the gate who cannot cross. The rule of the dark will last for millennia.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the lieutenant said, and touched his forehead with his front claws in salute. “I know their souls will taste sweet.”

  Father Jamey

  The phone rang.

  “Hello, St. Mary’s, Father Jamey speaking,” he said, surprised the church phones were still working. The electricity in the air had caused half the phones in Wake County to go out. And the half that worked seemed to belong to all the Catholics in Garner with the same idea: call the church, find out what was going on, get some reassurance. He was sure, as he listened, that there was a goodly number in the sanctuary, praying or lighting vigil candles or slowly following the Stations of the Cross, muttering as they walked. How many, he wondered, had even been inside the church before everything had started?

  Don’t be so cynical. Take people where you find them. At least don’t be cynical out loud.

  “No, I don’t know what’s wrong with the phones.” The lights in the room blinked then, popped, and then were out. Instantly everything in the room softened and dimmed, as only the grey light from outside was left. “Yes, my lights just went out, too—there, they are back on. Yours aren’t? Maybe soon. Yes, the weather report is still calling for unseasonable storms. No, I am sure we are not facing an inland hurricane. I heard it on NPR this morning. The National Weather Service is researching the cloud formation even as we speak. Yes, I know there was some daylight early this morning—I guess that old saying isn’t true anymore. Darkest before dawn. Never mind, you were saying? It is safe to go out—but I would stay home at night—and there is a dusk-to-dawn curfew anyway—you know that. Yes, of course, you can come to church—just stay put wherever you are after dark. Yes. This is all real. Yes. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  Father Jamey hung up and looked out his office window. It was just after nine—the visible daylight for the day was gone, the one brief break in the clouds just after dawn, replaced by a pervasive greyness and the darkening clouds, the occasional lightning only briefly adding any light of significance. That was the tenth phone call since he had gotten into his office. Now the wind was beginning to rise. According to NPR severe thunderstorms were up and down the Eastern Seaboard and there really was a late hurricane, Susanna, brewing out in the Caribbean. Chains of typhoons were supposedly spawning in the Indian Ocean, but overseas news was erratic at best, with all the interference. The worst storms seemed to be in North Carolina.

  More lightning rippled across the sky, followed by explosive thunder, as if a chain of firecrackers had gone off above the earth. The church had been packed for the eight A.M. mass. He looked briefly from the window to the mirror that hung on the inside of his closet door: I guess they found your face inspiring, bucko—dark circles, hair looking permanently electrified. No accounting for taste.

  “Well, prayer won’t hurt. I bet it’s actually helping—if I can get enough to pray tomorrow morning during that one bit of light, I think we can make it out of here, anyway. I should talk to Ben—tell him this should work—that I can do what I have to do, my own magic,” he said to himself, as he turned back to staring out the window. He raised his right hand as he stood there and then slowly drew a cross in the air, light bleeding from his hand as it moved. Then, the cross, wavering, but finished, he drew a five-pointed star around it. Father Jamey took both hands and pulled at the sides of the star, as if to make it wider, to give the cross more room. More white light first fell out of the star’s interior, dropping like a net around him and he disappeared. Almost. He could see in the closet-door mirror a faint whiteness, a blur.

  “That will do, I think. Let me go tell Ben.”

  The phone rang again just as he got to his office door.

  “Damn.” Now, remember why you became a priest, Jamey-boy. Ben and the kids and Jack and that big cat are not going anywhere.

  “Hello, St. Mary’s, Father Jamey speaking.”

  Three calls later, the last one cut short by a white flash that must have fried the line, Father Jamey stepped out on the rectory’s back porch steps, and then down into the yard. He stood there, pulling his overcoat tighter as he watched and listened. The wind was rising, a cold, wet wind, with a high whistle. Wolf-wind, he thought, remembering what he and his brothers had called such winds when they were children. Wolf-winds came down from the mountains, spreading snow far and wide, as they set howling wolves loose on the terrified populace. I wish I had tried to call home before the phone went dead. God help us all if it snows. Twisting and turning sheets of newspaper, brightly colored insert ads like huge odd fall leaves, unidentifiable bits of plastic flew through the air. An escaped umbrella rolled and bounced down Vandora Springs Road. The number of cars and trucks on the road didn’t seem out of the ordinary, but then Father Jamey had never paid any attention to morning traffic. He was sure, however, that the cars and trucks passing loaded to the gills were not ordinary.

  Where are you going? Where do you think you can go to escape all this? You know all the highways leading out of North Carolina are blocked and guarded by the Army.

  Now, where are the watchers? Ah, right across the street was the Wake County Sheriffs squad car—I wonder why they haven’t gotten the Garner PD to help? The others—Father Jamey couldn’t see them, but he felt them, and today, as if this wind had carried the scents, he could smell them: bitter, metallic, harsh, sort of like zinc. Wait-there was one, skulking behind the oak tree near the squad car.

  Might as well as try this now.

  Father Jamey drew a luminous cross in the air and then, with a shove, released the glowing cruciform into the air. The cross wavered, shook, and for a moment, as it collapsed into itself, Father Jamey thought his new magic had failed. But the cross became a white ball, a small comet that streaked across the streets, its tail a white flame. The comet smashed into the tree and the shape screamed and ran. Was that a man? Or a woman? Or worse?

  A Cherokee Scout rumbled down the street as Father Jamey turned to go back inside. He
waved at the dour deputy who waved back. Did he see the cross turn into a comet? Hit the tree? The shape? Never mind. The rain started when he got to the back steps, cold, and heavy and laced with bits of ice.

  “Ben’s in the choir director’s office,” Hazel said, looking up from the piano. She was trying to teach herself how to play. “I have to do something, Father.” She wasn’t doing so badly, Father Jamey thought as he stood beside Hazel, listening as she picked her way through a simple tune. But then, isn’t music a magic by itself? Random sounds shaped and arranged into meaning? The cat, which had been drowsing at Hazel’s feet, got up, stretched, and then headbutted the priest’s legs.

  Pet me.

  Okay, okay, I will. I thought you could talk, you big overgrown rug.

  Head to tail. Rugs don’t have claws, by the way.

  “Okay, no more rug jokes,” Father Jamey said and sat down beside Hazel to stroke and scratch the cat’s massive head as Hazel finished the tune.

  “Jack helped me some—he said he had piano lessons when he was a kid and took them again for a while after his divorce,” she said, looking up when she was done. “Your eyes are getting all silvery, too, Father Jamey.”

  “I know. I figure I can give up trying to hide my ears—everybody will be too busy looking at my eyes. Play something else.”

  “Okay, but I only know two.”

  As Hazel started another simple tune, Father Jamey looked around for the others. Malachi lay beneath the window, on top of a pile of sleeping bags, covered by several blankets and a quilt scavenged from the rectory. He was sleeping, his face to the wall. Father Jamey could see his aura, a pale, sickly yellow, streaked with red. The lights intertwined in his hair and glowing beneath his skin were the same feverish red.

  Hazel stopped playing. “He doesn’t wake up much now, Father, except when Ben makes him drink something, eat some soup,” she said softly. “He can still sort of mind-speak, but mostly it’s all dreams about Faerie and the White City and the sea. And the four of us all there together. He’s dying, isn’t he?”