The Changeling

by Helen Falconer

  ‘Fairy gold, Thomas – it turns to dead leaves in human hands. Doesn’t it, Aoife O’Connor?’

  Aoife fled out of the shop, across the square, slung the box of food into the BMW’s passenger seat and jumped in behind the wheel. She was shaking. The garage till was full of leaves . . . So that was why there had been a dead oak leaf in her mother’s purse . . . Oh God, she had cheated Dave Ferguson. She would have to bring the car back to him right away. Hopefully, the guards wouldn’t arrest her. She touched the ignition, turned the wheel. Nothing. She leaned back in despair. Then, remembering she was starving, tore a chunk off the coffee cake and washed it down with the milk. Then, still hungry, crunched down an apple, and a handful of nuts. She had to talk to someone. Carla. No, not Carla – much as Aoife loved her, it had to be someone who wouldn’t just be kind and gentle to her because they assumed she’d lost the plot. It couldn’t be someone down to earth. It had to be someone who might believe the impossible . . .

  Shay. He had talked to her about fairies. His own father, Eamonn Foley, had believed in them. She needed to talk to Shay.

  The car started up again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Three kilometres beyond Kilduff, the Atlantic came to meet her and the cream BMW swung west along the coast road. Aoife clung anxiously to the wheel – the hundred-metre drop to the ocean was unfenced. But after a while she found herself gaining in confidence. The mistiness of early morning was fading, and the sun was getting hot. The land grew wilder, flushing from green to purple. The mountains rose higher with every bend in the road. To her right, the ocean was a vast blinding, rippling sheet, stretching to the horizon. The roof of the convertible slid open and the warm sea breeze fluttered her hair. Cautiously, she leaned her elbow on the door, fingers resting only lightly on the wheel; the car drove smoothly on.

  After several kilometres of nothing but empty, rolling mountains, a turning appeared ahead – a farm track, hedged by wild rhododendrons and gorse, cutting into a greener valley between steep purple slopes. While Aoife was wondering where the boreen led, the car took the turn and drove bumpily along the track, stones spitting out from under its wheels. Stone-walled fields came into view, then a breeze-block shed and a long one-storey farmhouse with a blue tin roof. Two sheepdogs and a terrier came barking furiously down the boreen. The car swept through the pack into the farmyard and screeched to a halt, scattering chickens right and left.

  By the time Aoife had opened the driver’s door, the dogs had formed a growling semicircle around her. She ordered, ‘Stay! Sit!’ They bared their teeth, but didn’t approach. Well-trained farm dogs. The chickens were settling already, like gold-brown leaves only briefly disturbed by a gust of wind.

  No human came to meet her.

  She’d never been here before, but it wasn’t hard to work out where she was. John Joe Foley’s old red Ford was sitting among the dismantled wrecks of several other cars in the corner of the yard. The car’s bonnet was still crumpled up in an evil grin, and engine parts were lying all around. A blue tractor with no cab was parked on the other side of the yard. Washing hung on a line across the open-fronted turf shed: a set of blue overalls, two frayed white shirts and a Kilduff soccer strip.

  Where was everyone? Where was Shay? Aoife checked her phone. Eight o’clock. Maybe he’d gone for the school bus already.

  She glanced in through the open door of the barn, but there were only a few bales of hay, a half-built chicken coop, sacks of sheep nuts and three large containers of diesel.

  She crossed the yard. The house was rundown but not badly kept. The walls had been whitewashed recently and the door was painted the same sky blue as the tin roof. The plastic guttering was broken but tied up neatly with nylon string. There was no knocker; she rapped on the door with her knuckles, and a few flies that had been warming themselves on the wood in the morning sunshine drifted upwards in an iridescent puff. Silence followed, apart from the breathy growling of the dogs. And then even they fell quiet. She tried to see in through the window.

  ‘Stay right where you are!’

  With a cry of shock, Aoife spun round. The man slapped his big hands flat against the door on either side of her, trapping her between his muscular arms. He was in his twenties, well over six foot and very strongly built – huge muscled shoulders, and arms like iron. He was wearing dirty blue farm overalls, cousin of the clean ones on the line; he was handsome, black-haired and brown-skinned, but his hazel eyes were narrow with anger. He roared in her face, ‘Where’s ya thieving tinker friends – where are they hid? Nobody’s stealing anything off me this time around. If I find them first, I’ll burst them, so I will. This time I won’t hold back.’

  Aoife smiled as brightly as she could, to hide her alarm. ‘I’m not a thief, I’m just lost.’

  ‘Oh, you are, are you?’ He looked her suspiciously up and down, from the goose grass tangled in her hair to her naked dirty feet. ‘And where were you going when you got yourself so lost?’

  ‘Do you know anyone around here called Shay Foley?’

  His hard eyes flashed, then narrowed. ‘And what would you be wanting with my little brother?’

  So now there was no doubt – this was the violent, bullying John Joe. A shiver of fury ran through Aoife, followed by a fierce, wild determination. ‘It’s not Shay I’ve come to see. It’s you.’

  ‘What the . . .?’

  ‘I’ve come to tell you it wasn’t his fault he crashed your car, it was mine.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And I’ve bought you another, to replace it – see, there it is, it’s really nice and it drives perfect—’

  John Joe barely glanced at it; he brought his angry, handsome face even closer to hers. ‘Let me get this right. Are you after saying to me that my thieving little brother not only stole my car but let a wee girleen like you drive it? Wait till I get my hands on him, the lying little—’

  She cried in horror, ‘No, that’s not what happened! It wasn’t his fault! I’ve bought you another one with my own money!’

  ‘I don’t deal with little girls too young to drive. It’s my lying brother that will be paying for this—’

  ‘Just take it.’ And she dropped the car key into the front pocket of his overalls.

  He fished it out instantly, with a growl like one of his dogs – but instead of throwing it back at her, he turned to look at the car. A long appreciative whistle escaped from between his teeth. ‘Looks nice enough.’ He strode long-legged towards it across the yard.

  Aoife followed, heart still beating furiously, not sure if this was some sort of a cunning trap. She called encouragingly, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice, ‘It’s got red leather seats and everything.’

  ‘I can see that.’ John Joe was leaning in over the door, running his hand across the walnut dashboard. ‘A vintage convertible – very nice.’ Then puzzlement crept into his voice. ‘Must have cost you a few bob.’

  ‘It did, but . . .’ She thought quickly. ‘I claimed on my insurance.’

  ‘Grand, so. Fair enough.’ But he still didn’t sound as if he completely believed her. A strange struggle was taking place in his face – his mouth twisting and eyelids flickering. It was as if some other inner self were fighting to get to the surface of his skin. He blurted out in a harsh, strangled voice, ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen!’

  Instantly his face cleared; he smiled and said pleasantly, ‘That’s grand, then.’

  Aoife took a deep breath; relaxed. Maybe this was the same as when she forced Dave Ferguson to sell her the car – maybe once she’d given John Joe the key, a deal had been done that couldn’t be broken, despite the best efforts of his rational mind to fight back. ‘So, is Shay still here?’

  John Joe strolled cheerfully to the front of the car. ‘Nope.’

  ‘He went for the bus already?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then . . .’

  He jerked his chin in the direction of the mountains bordering th
e sea. ‘Back the bog, lambing. Working off what he owes me. Although now you’ve given me this, I suppose I can let him off.’ He raised the bonnet. Then, after a moment’s pause, walked round the car and looked in the boot. He stared at her. His mouth was making odd shapes again, eyelids fluttering. He said hoarsely, ‘Where is it?’

  Aoife wondered anxiously what could be missing out of the boot – the spare wheel? ‘Maybe it’s still in the garage. I could get it for you . . .’

  A red flush was crawling up John Joe’s neck, reddening his jaw line. He slammed the boot and thumped it with his fist, leaving a deep, frightening dent. ‘I said, where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re—’

  ‘The engine.’

  She glanced, startled, towards the open bonnet. The space where the engine should have been was empty.

  The crimson had reached John Joe’s strong cheekbones. He smashed his fist on the car again and again. Huge dents and cracks kept appearing – he had incredible strength. ‘What are you doing trying to cheat me with this heap of junk! You wait here till that thieving brother of mine comes back and then I’ll show him he can’t make a fool of me!’ He lunged for her. ‘Come back here!’

  She fled past the barn, between the wrecks of cars, over the wall into the fields, the three dogs snarling and snapping after her. ‘Home! Go home, dogs!’ They obeyed her, dropping back. Less than a minute later, Aoife had reached the mountainside. Rather than zigzagging to and fro to ease the climb, she ran straight up the heathery slope. When she stopped at the top to look down, John Joe’s small blue figure had come to a halt in the middle of his fields, the dogs clustered around him. She had outpaced him with ridiculous ease. She had just run half a kilometre up a nearly vertical slope, and she was not even out of breath. It was like having wings on her heels. It was as if she could fly . . .

  Could she? Could she? If she was the fairy child . . . And she had to be – she had driven a car with no engine, and nothing rational could explain that away . . . If she was the fairy child, maybe she could fly. She had done so when she was little, on the day she arrived. According to her father’s story, she had smashed the light bulb in the room.

  Aoife raced across the heathery summit, holding out her arms like wings. Her green hoodie billowed out in the wind. She took a running jump. The blustering air caught her and carried her towards the edge of the cliff; she landed on all fours just before being swept right off, grabbing at grass, heart pumping with fright. The cliff face plunged hundreds of metres below her to the wild Atlantic. At its base, the ocean crashed on jagged rocks, sending up huge glittering clouds of spray. The skeletons of careless sheep were littered on thin green ledges all the way down.

  Not the safest place to test her invisible wings.

  Heart still pounding, she scrambled back to her feet and hurried west along the edge of the rolling land. The cliffs grew higher and steeper the further she ran. Far below her, the ocean roared and sucked. Gulls screamed and circled in grey flocks. The wind tore at her, threatening to push her to her death. She had to find Shay. She had to warn him that in trying to make things better with John Joe, she had ended up making things a thousand times worse. His brother thought they’d been trying to make a fool of him. God knows what he would do to Shay this time. She had to warn him not to go back to the farm.

  Where was he, in all this wind-swept wilderness?

  She would never find him.

  Yet when she crested the next summit, he was right there, a few metres away from her, kneeling near the edge of the cliff in his faded jeans, a baby lamb in his arms.

  Aoife collapsed beside him on the sheep-cropped grass. He didn’t seem even to notice her – he was so utterly focused on what he was doing, stroking the soft curls of the new-born lamb. The lamb looked dead. The ewe, its mother, kept nudging it with her nose, bleating miserably. Once more he ran his hands over its curls, and this time it was as if a bolt of energy had shot through the tiny body. It raised its head and uttered a vigorous cry. Shay set it down and it sprang towards its mother and the pair of them walked away together. Then he sat back on his heels and smiled at her lying beside him.

  She scrambled into a sitting position. ‘I need to talk to you. I’ve done something really bad.’

  A slow steady sweep of his green-brown eyes across her face. The bruise on his cheekbone had already vanished. The cut on his curved mouth was a thin dark line. He said lightly, ‘Bad? You?’

  ‘I drove to your farm.’

  He was startled into seriousness. ‘You did what?’

  With a flicker of smugness, Aoife said, ‘You’re not the only one who can drive.’

  ‘Did you run into John Joe?’

  ‘Yes, and I told him I’d bought him a new car because it was my fault that his old one got wrecked.’

  ‘Oh, for . . . What were you thinking? Aoife, you have to be careful around him. I told you, he doesn’t know his own strength.’

  ‘You’re not kidding.’

  He looked horrified. ‘What, did he—?’

  ‘No, no, he was fine with me. But he smashed up the car.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘He got annoyed when there was no engine in it.’

  Shay looked at her blankly, trying to work out what she was saying. ‘You mean it got banjaxed when you drove—’

  She said indignantly, ‘I drove it perfectly well, thank you!’

  ‘Then . . .’

  ‘The engine wasn’t there. Like, completely not there. And your brother got pure thick about it. So you have to keep away from him. He thinks we were trying to pull some stupid trick on him. But I wasn’t, I swear. I thought it had an engine in it, I really did.’

  He continued looking at her for a while, then turned to gaze out over the Atlantic, clasping his arms around his knees, the wind ruffling his hair and Mayo shirt.

  After a while Aoife said quietly, ‘I’m not lying, I swear.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were lying.’

  ‘I know, but that’s what you’re thinking.’

  Shay remained staring out over the sea that crashed against the cliffs so far below.

  She moved closer, kneeling right beside him. If he wasn’t going to believe her anyway . . . She said recklessly, ‘Do you want to know what else? John McCarthy in the shop said the money I paid with in there yesterday turned to a dead leaf, and so did the fifty euros I gave Sinead, and he said it was fairy gold. Same with that money I used to buy the car – it turned into leaves and that’s why Dave Ferguson called the police this morning. I gave a hundred to my mam, and there was nothing left in her purse but a dead oak leaf. I saw it myself.’

  He glanced at her; his sun-browned skin had paled beneath.

  ‘I found photographs of me as a little girl in a drawer which came unlocked when I touched it. Least, I thought the little girl was me. But my parents said she was their real daughter, and I was the changeling the fairies left in her place. That’s why they moved to Kilduff permanently, so that no one would notice they had the wrong child.’

  He shuddered. ‘Don’t listen to them. They’re lying to you.’

  ‘But why would they lie? And how else are all these things happening to me? I think they were telling me the truth.’

  ‘No, they’re mad.’

  ‘Why do you think they’re mad? It was you told me about the sheóg!’

  ‘I told you what my father said. And he was mad himself, Aoife. He thought my own mother was a fairy.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ So old John McCarthy had been telling the truth. ‘Tell me.’

  Shay wrapped his arms around his knees, tightening his arms until the muscles showed, staring out to sea again.

  ‘Shay? Tell me. Why did he say she was a fairy?’

  He cast a wild, sad look at her. ‘Aoife, who knows why he thought it? Because she was so beautiful, maybe.’

  ‘He loved her.’

  ‘Sure, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was forever painting her. And then, at th
e same time, he said she was burning him up and killing him.’

  ‘Ah . . .’

  ‘She left him because of it, when John Joe was five. She stayed away for seven years. But then she came back because she loved him still, and I was born, and my father went back to his painting, and telling her all the time that she was killing him, because she was from the otherworld. So in the end she said she was leaving again, and just walked away up the mountain. I was five and John Joe was seventeen. I wanted him to go after her, but he was so angry with them both and their craziness that he wouldn’t go. So I went to fetch her back myself. She didn’t seem to mind me coming after her, but she wouldn’t come home. She held my hand. She brought me all the way up here to the cliffs. She spent a long time standing on the edge. Then she said she loved my father and was sorry for killing him. She said that she didn’t belong in this life, that she didn’t deserve to live in this world. Then she laughed and said that if she really was a fairy, maybe she could fly, and asked me did I want to see if I could fly too, because I was more like her than my father, and maybe I could. But I was only five and I got scared and pulled my hand out of hers. And she jumped without me.’ Shay rubbed his hand across his face and groaned, from deep inside himself.

  ‘Oh God, that’s . . .’ There were no possible words for it. Aoife got to her knees and put her arms around him.

  He glanced past her towards the edge of the cliff, where the long grass bent double in the wind. ‘I crept on all fours to the edge and I looked down. I hoped with all my heart that I would see her flying with the gulls. But there was nothing, only the sea breaking on the rocks. And I went home. And the coastguard were sent for and it took them a week to find her. And they did find her. So she never did fly, just fell. And my father died anyway, of the grief.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

  He said softly, ‘You’re not a fairy, Aoife. Don’t ever believe someone who tells you that you can fly.’

  She could feel the pulse of his skin through the green and red material of his Mayo shirt; it seeped into the coolness of her blood and warmed her. She raised her head and looked at him. His green-brown eyes were dark with unshed tears. The cut on his lip was a faint line. She touched her finger to it. He opened his mouth very slightly, and closed it on her skin: the lightest of kisses.