It was the other Per who’d called, Changeling Per. He came through the trees and crunched on the shingle. Changeling Per, whom she’d seen slit his wife’s throat. Or, as Patterson had put it at the time, cut her effing head nearly off. With one hand, she clutched the hood of her cloak around her face and ducked her head.
Changeling Per called, “Cuddy—here!” The big dog halted, but stared into the darkness beyond Joe and Andrea. It whined. “Here!” With another whine, reluctantly, the big dog returned to her master.
Within her cowl, Andrea’s hand rose to her mouth. Cuddy knew the other Per, Per May, was near. She could smell him and wanted to go to him.
“You be Elven.” That was Changeling Per.
With all the astonishment he could fake, Joe said, “Elven, Master? I be no Elf! I be Sterkarm, me!”
Andrea’s skin prickled as she tried to assess whether it had been wise of Joe to say that. And when it came her turn to speak, could she manage her own words as well? She didn’t think she could push a sound past the pumping in her throat.
“Th’art an Elf!” Changeling Per sounded angry. “This be Elf-Land.”
“Nay, Master, I be a storyteller. I’ve ganned a many ways, but never seen an Elf yet. I only tell stories of ’em! This be no Elf-Land, I promise you!”
Changeling Per raised his arm. Light from the river glinted on the pistol he set against Joe’s forehead. “Be thee dead? Be this Land of Dead?”
21st Side:
Warren Road, Oaken
Mick
Mick made toast in his small, untidy kitchen, still in his cycling gear. An unlovely sight, but Andrea would have laughed, hugged him, and said something like, Ooh, sweaty lycra drives me wild.
The thought made him smile, and then sad. “I’ll call you,” she’d said, and when she had a break, they’d meet up. … He suspected she was letting him down easy and she was never coming back.
The toast was browning, the kettle near boiling, when fear gripped him around the midriff and rose rapidly into his chest. His heart beat faster; he gasped.
He whipped around but behind him was only his coat draped over a chair and his bike leaning against it.
Fear still crept about his shoulders. It drove him into the hall. Maybe, subconsciously, he’d heard some untoward noise?
There was nothing to fear in the hall, not even a bill under the letter box.
Somebody upstairs?
At the foot of the stairs, he thought: This is daft. There’s nothing wrong.
Close by his ear Andrea said, “Help me.” He felt his ear quiver to her breath.
He knew before he turned that she wasn’t there.
Nobody was upstairs. The rest of the house held neither Andrea nor burglars. The fear stayed with him. Surely, when imagination became that real, it was madness.
He sat on the sofa, put his face in his hands, and tried to be sane.
He phoned Andrea’s parents. “Hello, Margery. It’s Mick. Listen, have you heard from Ria?”
“Oh, Mick! How lovely.” Margery then burbled on about her garden, her cat, and what she was cooking, but did eventually tell him that she hadn’t heard from Andrea for “two or three days.” After assuring her that nothing was wrong, he rang off.
Mick sat on the sofa in his empty house. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, and he knew no one would believe him. He didn’t want to believe himself. But the knowledge was there, solid as a brick wall.
16th-Side A:
Grenkirk
Andrea • Per May • The Changelings
Joe tried to say something, but only squeaked. He stood like stone. Andrea almost called out Per’s name—but swallowed it, choked on it, in time. Revealing to Changeling Per that she knew him would have been proof of her and Joe’s uncanny Elvish—or dead—knowledge.
Her legs shook. She sank to her knees, drew a sobbing breath, and cried, in her best impression of a local, Sterkarm accent, “Oh, Laird, leave my man, be so kind!”
If Changeling Per recognized her, she couldn’t guess what might happen—but she was hidden in darkness and he wouldn’t be expecting her here. Her connection with him, too, had been much briefer and shallower than with Per May. She hoped he wouldn’t know her.
“If I shoot thine man, will he die? I shot an Elf that had my mother’s face and it died. Well? Will he die?”
“Oh, Laird,” Andrea cried. “Be so good …”
“Did I shoot my mother’s Fetch? Because it died here, does it mean she is dead in Man’s-Home?”
“Oh, Laird …” Andrea’s breath came so hard, she could hardly speak.
Joe, all too aware of the hard pistol barrel touching his brow, drew a careful breath. “Laird, I will die. I fear, Laird. I fear to die.” His voice choked.
Andrea said, “Would he fear, Laird, if he was dead already? Laird, Laird, I beg you, believe me—this be no Elf-Land and we are no dead!”
An eye blink of time passed, during which no one moved or spoke. Andrea’s heart seemed to thump and pause, thump and pause, as if startled to find itself still beating. She remembered that, like witches, Elves were supposed to be incapable of weeping. She clapped her hands to her face and made loud sobbing noises.
Changeling Per lowered the pistol. One of his men laughed and said, “Word of a tinker’s bitch!” Others near him gave short, barking laughs.
Changeling Per said, “Whyfor come you here?”
“Oh, Laird, thanks shall you have, be so good,” Joe gabbled. His voice shook with relief. “We ganne … on our way to … to Gobby’s but … your fire’s closer!”
Changeling Per considered for a moment, then said, “Come to fire,” and walked away. Cuddy looked after him, but whined and turned back to the darkness of the river bank. “Here!” Per said, and she ran to him. He lightly cuffed her head and rubbed her ears. “What be with thee, eh? What be with thee?”
Andrea needed Joe’s help to get to her feet, she shook so much. She felt him shaking, too. Clinging together, helping each other, they followed Changeling Per as best they could, in the dark, over hidden rocks and shingle that shifted beneath their feet. Andrea felt that her heartbeat would take days to steady but, for the moment, they were alive.
Ahead, the fire showed dazzlingly bright between the trees. They came into its reeking, eye-stinging smoke and its warmth washed over their stone-cold flesh. A few men were still seated around it, and beyond them, in intense darkness, unseen horses snorted, shifted, crunched grass.
The Changelings took their places at the fire again, making room for the newcomers. Andrea crouched down close behind Joe, drawing her shawl into a deep hood. He wasn’t known to the Changelings at all, so it was best to let him take the lead. She ducked her head toward his shoulder—a timidity she hardly had to pretend as she still trembled.
She could feel Joe trembling, too. She squeezed his arm, trying to convey her understanding. She had been more scared than she ever wanted to be again, and she hadn’t even been the one with a pistol barrel jammed against her forehead.
“A storyteller,” Changeling Per said to everyone, to introduce these strangers. He passed Joe flat bread and dried fish. “I am sad I put pistol to thine head.”
From all sides, other hands held out flasks of small beer, and slabs of cold porridge.
“Forgive me,” Changeling Per said. “I had to ken if thee be Elvish or no. Or dead.”
How interesting, Andrea thought. Social manners come to the fore, even immediately after a threat to blow someone’s brains out. And me, what about me? Making notes for a book I can never write now. … We all try to stay calm by repeating familiar behaviors.
“Never mind it,” Joe said rather gruffly. He took a drink and ate a bit of bread and fish. Peeping from under her hood, Andrea saw his hand tremble as he put the food to his mouth. “A man must needs take
care with strangers.”
“If this be no Elf-Land,” Changeling Per said, “where be it? Cuddy—be still!” The big dog had lain down at his side, but now made to rise again. “Down!”
Andrea kept still with her head lowered. Cuddy, she knew, yearned after Per May, hidden in the darkness on the other side of the river.
“This be Sterkarm country, Laird,” Joe said.
The leaves rustled above and around them; the firelight lit grooved tree trunks and then flickered and sank them in darkness. As red sparks flew up, Changeling Per said, “Sterkarm country be in Man’s Home. We left Man’s Home to gan through gate to Elf-Land. From Elf-Land, we came here. Tell truth, now. What be this place?”
He sounded angry—but yet, Andrea thought, he must be open to persuasion, or why ask the question? Why had he lowered the pistol because of her tears; why hadn’t he simply killed them? He must be hoping to hear a better answer to his questions than the one he feared.
So she spoke, keeping her face turned down, and the shawl over her head. As before, she made her voice hoarse, and exaggerated the accent she’d picked up from the Sterkarms. She probably sounded ridiculous to them, like someone in her own world doing a poor imitation, but she hoped to delay recognition a little longer. “What happens, Laird, if you sleep in a bluebell wood? What happens if you gan out by night at the in-between times—between old year and new—at Hallowe’en—at midsummer?”
A silence, and then she heard Changeling Per. “It seems thy woman will tell us a tale.”
“She tells a good tale, Laird,” Joe said.
“There was once a man,” Andrea said, “who stepped through mist, took one step from his own world into another, and never kenned he had. Hills were same—waters, woods were same. He ganned to his house, and it was same, and there was his wife. Yet she was a sloven, though she’d never been before. And he’d been a man of good luck, but never was again. He’d taken one step and changed worlds, left his own fate behind, and never kenned it.”
The men around the fire shifted. She sensed the unease stirring through them.
“Bid her tell a gladder tale,” Changeling Per said.
Andrea waited a moment before she dared to go on. “You ken there be many worlds, Laird. There be Man’s Home, and Giant’s Home, and Heaven, and Hell—and Elf-Land. Worlds be like skins on an onion—some close and touching, others far apart. Man’s Home and Elf-Land be far apart, because they differ so, one from other. But there be others so close and so like that only difference between them is in shape of one leaf on one tree.”
She peeped from beneath her shawl. The men listened raptly, their faces burnished by golden firelight. A burning branch crackled, sending a spattering of brilliant sparks into the air.
“Those close worlds have people in them, Laird. People so like. In next world to ours, there be a man just like my man, and a woman just like me—”
“How kens she this?” Changeling Per demanded.
“She kens, Laird,” Joe said. “A cunning woman, her. But kindly.”
“Laird,” Andrea said, “I speak no to anger you, nor hurt you. I speak to warn you. Elven lied. This be no Elf-Land. This be one of those worlds, close to your own as skins on an onion be close. So close. Hills, waters, people, Laird—they be so like to your own, there’s no a hair’s difference between ’em. Not Elf-Land, Laird, but Sterkarm country. Your own country, but in another world. With another fortune.”
The fire, burning up, washed Changeling Per’s face with golden light, showing it still with shock, his eyes wide and silver, as he took in the implications of what she said. Then shadow filled his eyes, and next instant, swallowed his whole face into darkness.
Andrea said, “Elven lied, Laird. They said folk you’d meet here would be Elven, glamouring their faces to look like your kin. But, Laird—folk here be not like Sterkarms and Grannams. They be Sterkarms and Grannams.”
Andrea drew a long, shuddering breath and pulled the hood from her head, letting the firelight play over her face. All around the fire there were startled movements and exclamations as the men recognized her. Changeling Per gave a start of surprise, then relaxed—almost as if he had half expected “the tinker’s bitch” to be her.
“Laird,” Andrea said. “Will you meet a one?” If she tried to call Per—the other Per, Per May—it would alarm the Changelings. She had to have their permission. “Give me leave, and I’ll call him here.”
The look Changeling Per gave her across the fire was one of pure fear. “My father?”
“Nay.” Andrea stood, and held out her hand. “But will you come, Laird?”
Changeling Per could not seem afraid in front of his men. He stood and followed as Andrea left the fire. All his men rose to follow him. She knew that every one of them had swords, and dirks in their sleeves or boots.
She led them to the river’s edge, where the brown water lapped over stones and glinted in the faint light. She called into the darkness, “Per! Come!” Per was a common name among the Sterkarms, and didn’t in itself cause any surprise. “Come now!”
Per May
On the river’s other side, Per May waited in the darkness, wrapped in his cloak. He lifted his head at a new sound, heard above the running of the river. Leaves shifted on the island, as something pushed through them. Feet crunched on the shingle of the strand. Then Andrea’s voice broke sharply through the quiet, calling his name. He leaped to his feet. Andrea was alive!
Per went forward, stepping carefully and quietly. The island’s trees were a dark bulk ahead of him, firelight flickering through gaps and gleaming on the water. With every step, Per’s heart beat faster as he felt the familiar exhilaration of gambling his life on his own skill, against that of whoever stood under the trees.
Waiting under those trees was his mother’s murderer, the man that honor, duty, and love told him he should kill. Himself. His Fetch.
Andrea
Andrea, standing beside the Changelings, knew the exact moment when they glimpsed the figure approaching through the darkness. Every Changeling’s hand went to his sword hilt or dagger.
The figure crunched across the causeway’s shingle and held up both his own hands to show them empty of weapons.
Cuddy, who had been fidgeting and whining at Changeling Per’s side, left him with a bound and raced, crunching, over shingle to leap up at the stranger.
That dark figure fell back for a moment in surprise, but then said, in joyful astonishment, “Cuddy!”
The dog reared up and set her great paws on his shoulders, and he put both hands to her ears. Then, as the dog dropped down, Per May went to his knees, hugging the hound and letting her lick his face. “Oh, Cuddy!” No one watching could have doubted that this man and dog knew each other.
Changeling Per, annoyed, whistled. “Cuddy! Here!” The other Changelings turned their heads, looking to one another in confusion.
The big dog came back a few paces toward Changeling Per, but then jinked, and returned to the stranger on the causeway. She whined with uncertainty, her tail wagging at half-mast.
“Laird,” Andrea said, “Cuddy kens him. Would Cuddy gan to an Elf? Even a glamoured elf?”
The stranger came on, his crunching footsteps quieter as he reached sand and grass.
Andrea heard mutters around her about Elf-Work but said, “Do hounds no run from Elf-Work? Let’s back to fire, Laird, where we can see.”
The newcomer was hemmed in by the Changeling men. His weapons were demanded and he unfastened his sword belt and handed it over. Changeling Per reclaimed Cuddy, grasping her collar and pulling her away from the stranger.
The visitor was led back over the causeway and through the trees, to the fire’s circle of golden light, heat and reeking smoke. And there stood Changeling Per and Per May, facing each other.
Both wore the long boots of the Border rider, but Changeling Pe
r had put aside his heavy jakke and wore a loose woolen shirt and denim jeans. Per May still wore his jakke, which made him look burlier. Maybe it was this difference in dress and the trickiness of the firelight that made some of the men slow to see what was in front of them.
But as the firelight flared and flickered over their faces, brilliantly and goldenly lighting them for a blink, then making deep shadows under brows or cheekbones, it was seen that these two men had the same face. Now and again, a shift of the light would shadow and emphasize the slight dint in Per May’s cheekbone, the crookedness of his broken nose—but then the fire would flare and a soft golden light washed away those differences.
One of the Changeling men grunted and pointed. Another stepped sharply back before gaping around at his companions. Recognition rippled around the gathering.
Changeling Per and Per May looked about them in increasing bewilderment and unease.
It came to Andrea that neither Per recognized his own likeness.
Expecting them to recognize their own face was, she realized, a 21st-side reaction. The 21st was full of mirrors and selfies. Every child soon learned to know his own face.
On the 16th side, looking glasses were expensive and neither Per owned one. The only small mirrors they’d ever seen would have given blurred, distorted, spotty images, and still water in tubs and pools didn’t provide a good reflection.
Perhaps Changeling Per, during his visits to the 21st, had seen himself in large, clear mirrors—but with so many other distractions, how interested had he been? Why would Changeling Per recognize Per May, or the May the Changeling?
It was the other men who saw Per Toorkildsson Sterkarm doubled, and they were afraid. Changeling Sweet Milk stepped in front of his Per. Ecky, looking at Changeling Per and pointing to Per May, said, “Thine Fetch!”
Per May had been told he would meet himself, and was the first to understand that the man in front of him was his double-ganner from the Elf-Gate’s other side. His mouth fell open and he looked the other over from head to foot.
A Sterkarm Tryst Page 10