The Changeling

by Helen Falconer

  The instant his mouth brushed against her, a bolt of gold shot through her heart, a vision of rapture, of flying – perfect, weightless, free . . . She leaped to her feet, exalted. ‘It’s all true!’

  Shay caught her by the sleeve, his face turned up desperately to hers. ‘It’s not!’

  Aoife’s blood was fizzing, her skin on fire. ‘I can fly!’

  He cried in horror, holding her tighter as she tried to pull away. ‘Stop!’

  ‘I can fly!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes!’ She ripped her arm out of his grasp and fled along the grassy perimeter of the world, towards the west.

  ‘Aoife!’

  He was coming after her, his feet thudding on the springy turf, but she could outpace him easily even though she was running into the wind. She was so much faster than him now, even faster than when they had raced each other to the hawthorn hill. Beside her, to her right, the hundreds of metres of crumbling cliff fell sheer to the ocean. Gulls plunged from rocky outcrops into space.

  ‘Aoife! Come back!’

  I can fly. I can feel it.

  ‘Aoife! Stop!’

  She could. She could. She knew it in the very centre of her heart. From the moment Shay’s lips had touched her skin, her blood had been flooded with a weird insistent clamorous joy:

  I can fly! I can fly!

  Although at the same time, in a softer whisper: What if Shay’s right – what if I’m not a changeling, and all this is a fantasy of my parents like the lenanshee was a fantasy of his father’s? Then I’m going to die, like his poor mad mother died. I’m going to die, right . . .

  Now.

  She turned and ran straight off the edge of the cliff.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At first it was all noise – the roar of wind in her ears, the screaming of the gulls, the shuddering crash of the ocean far below.

  ‘Aoife . . .’ His voice faded as she fell.

  She screamed for him in terror – ‘Shay!’ – but the speed of her headlong plunge stripped his name from her lips. The cliff face was rushing past her in a green-grey blur. The ocean was becoming brighter and clearer – huge inky white-streaked waves, bursting like snow against the base of the cliffs; rocks covered in red seaweed, rushing up to meet her, ready to splinter her bones to fragments and her flesh to pulp . . .

  Fly! Let me fly!

  Desperately Aoife spread her arms, and just in time she levelled out, slowing, gliding, the wind blowing through her clothes, the tips of the leaping waves spattering her feet, but not dragging her down . . . Rising upwards a little . . .

  Flying!

  A furious gust caught her and tossed her like a leaf, threatening to smash her apart against the cliff face; she scrambled in mid-air, flailing her arms, flipped over, lost her footing on the wind and fell again, headfirst.

  Shay!

  A grey mist spread suddenly beneath her, and she knew it was the end and closed her eyes. But instead of the freezing arms of instant death, a soft, warm, living blanket held her up.

  It was the gulls.

  They had swooped beneath and caught her on their backs, steadying her, their strong wings battering against her legs. Laughing, gasping with shock and relief and amazement, she rose again . . . Stretched out her own arms . . . Rolled in the air and was caught and steadied again . . . She was flying with the gulls, borne upwards on their wings, rising higher and higher . . . past mossy ledges . . . past a nest of gaping baby terns . . . the smiling woolly skeleton of a sheep . . . the bulging overhang of rock . . . the wind-blown fringe of green grass . . .

  On the wings of the gulls, she rose slowly and smoothly over the edge of the cliff.

  Shay had his back to her, weeping and struggling with his elder brother. ‘Let go of me! She’s jumped off the cliff!’

  John Joe was red with rage, his eyes as wild as when he was mindlessly beating huge dents into the metal of the car. He was gripping Shay around the body, roaring in his face. ‘What are you on about? That happened years ago! Stop trying to get out of what’s coming to you!’

  ‘I don’t mean Mam! Let me go, I have to go after her!’ With a huge effort, Shay freed his arms and tried to push his brother away. ‘Let me go of me!’ Sobbing, he punched John Joe furiously in the shoulder.

  ‘Why, you lying—’

  But before John Joe’s huge unthinking iron fist had the chance to connect with his brother’s jaw, Aoife seized Shay by his shirt and jerked him backwards off the edge of the cliff. The last thing she saw was the expression of terrified disbelief in John Joe’s eyes.

  They fell together through the sky.

  She held him against her with one arm, and swept wildly at the wind with the other.

  They fell.

  His weight dragged them down, straight through the layer of gulls.

  Aoife kicked and strained with every muscle to leap upwards.

  They fell like stones. Straight down the vertical cliff towards their doom, while the gulls circled screaming overhead.

  She had meant to rescue Shay from his brother, but she had murdered him instead. She couldn’t fly for both of them . . .

  He opened his dark hazel eyes and gazed at her. Then down at the jagged rocks rushing up to meet them, and then back at her, intently, as if just fixing his eyes on her face was somehow enough to save him.

  She tightened her arms around him.

  He rested his face against her neck, closed his eyes, ready for what was to come.

  Straining every nerve, she braced herself against the wind . . . Think not of flying but of floating . . . Like falling paper, or a leaf through water, swinging from side to side, still downwards but slower . . .

  Swinging . . .

  Slowing . . .

  A bone-shaking landing, skittering and rolling across sharp limpets and slippery seaweed into the water. The frenzied ocean swallowed her down, but Shay had his arms around her, swimming with her, pulling her back up onto the wave-lashed surface of the rock, pushing her up, climbing after her. Aoife lay flat, gasping like a beached fish. He was kneeling over her, water running off him. ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?’

  She choked out, ‘Grand.’

  They had ended up on a low flat rock, a few metres square and about a metre out of the water, not far from the base of the cliffs. Dark blue waves were surging past them, boiling up white against the rocks. Shay stared around in wide-eyed disbelief, then up at the grey cliff face towering above them for three hundred metres, the summit hidden by the overhang. ‘How in the name of Jesus did we make it all the way to the bottom without being killed . . .?’

  Getting her breath back, Aoife said, ‘I’m so sorry – I didn’t want him to hit you, he’s so— Crap!’ A breaking wave had nearly washed her off the rock; Shay seized her and dragged her to her feet.

  ‘The next will be higher. Stay with me till it’s gone.’ Even as he spoke, it boiled around their knees. Aoife’s feet came off the ground, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and pinned her against him until the wave had sucked its way back into the ocean – then let go of her and dragged his mobile out of his soaked jeans. ‘Tide’s coming in fast. We’ve got to get the coastguard now.’ He punched buttons, and groaned. ‘Check yours.’

  Her own phone was also waterlogged. ‘Oh God . . . Won’t your brother have already called them?’

  ‘They won’t come soon enough – he’ll be sure we’re dead. And he’ll be right about that if we don’t get somewhere higher in the next few minutes . . .’ Between them and the smooth base of the cliff was a roaring cauldron of thick foam; the waves surged in and out of a low sea cave. To the right of the cave entrance was a narrow shelf, rising three metres out of the thrashing water. ‘We’ll have to try for that ledge. Here, hold me round the neck like I’m giving you a piggyback and I’ll bring you across.’

  Staring at the wildness of the waves, she said, ‘It’s all right. I can swim.’

  ‘No, you’re too light, the undertow is mad, you’
ll get swept out and then I’ll have to come after you and we’ll both drown. This way, at least we’ll have a chance.’ Shay sat himself on the edge of the rock, his legs dangling in the water. ‘Come on, don’t stop to think about it. Quick, before the waves get too big again.’

  ‘Oh God . . .’ Aoife knelt and passed her arms around his neck, and he slid with her into the water and swam for the cliff with strong, even strokes, his body twisting beneath her like she was riding a warm seal. They were only a metre away from the ledge when a huge wave took over and carried them past it through a thick curtain of spray, straight in under the low stone arch.

  Being inside the cave was like being in a giant washing machine – thick white foam rushed up the walls and churning water rolled them over and over, tearing her from his back. She floundered, sank, then got her head out of the sea, choking. A rock shelf rose right in front of her and she grabbed for it, found handholds, scrambled up and turned to help him follow – just in time to see his black head being carried out of the cave in the white storm of water. ‘Shay!’ She braced herself to dive back in, but already the waves were returning him. Dropping flat, she reached her hand down as far as she could. ‘Over here!’ Seeing her, Shay made a strong effort to reach her, but before he could get hold of her hand the waves pulled him out again, and it was nearly a minute this time before he was back, clearly exhausted now, beating the water feebly, not even really swimming any more – just desperately trying not to drown. When the sea had again pushed him to within a metre of the shelf, Aoife managed to grab a handful of his Mayo shirt. ‘I’ve got you!’ The swell was sinking again, sucking him with it. ‘Shay!’ His face was white, his eyes half closed. ‘Shay, please!’ Her right shoulder was coming out of its socket. His shirt was slipping from her grip . . .

  ‘Shay!’

  His eyes popped open. He glanced around as if surprised by where he was, then grabbed for the sharp edge of the shelf. Moments later he was kneeling on the rock, puking up water and shivering violently. Aoife crouched over him, rubbing his back. After a while he stopped coughing and sank down onto his stomach and lay limply, water running down his cheeks from his long black lashes.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep! Wake up!’ She rubbed harder, frantic, trying to warm him, massaging his shoulders and arms and legs. ‘Talk to me . . .’ Shay remained flat and completely still. She lay down beside him, trying to press warmth into him with her whole body; she looked into his face – was he even breathing? ‘Shay, don’t do this to me . . .’

  He opened one eye and winked at her. ‘Wahu.’

  She sat up and slapped him sharply, between his shoulder blades. ‘I thought you’d died on me!’

  ‘Ow!’ He sat up, laughing, then jumped to his feet as water flooded suddenly across the shelf. ‘Tide’s still coming in. Let’s move back a way, see if we can find higher ground.’ The shelf on which they had found refuge continued along the side of the cave, rising gently until it disappeared into blackness.

  Alarmed, Aoife said, ‘But the coastguard will never see us back there in the dark.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter either way – we won’t be getting out of here until the next low tide.’

  ‘Oh God . . . How long till then?’

  ‘Ten hours?’

  ‘Ten hours?’

  ‘Hang on.’ Shay was hunting through his jeans. ‘Damn. Thought I had this little yokey-bob on me, sort of a key-ring torch thing, but I must have lost it back there.’

  The sea poured over the shelf again.

  After a short distance they had to get down on their hands and knees because a shelf of rock thrusting out over the ledge made it impossible to stand; then the way became so narrow they had to go in single file. Aoife went first. Gradually the blackness into which she was crawling grew so thick that she had no idea if they were still going up or down. She pulled out her phone – still dead: no chance of using it to light the way. The little locket came with it, the chain winding itself around her fingers. For safekeeping, she clipped it around her neck.

  Down, down . . .

  No. They had to go up.

  A moment later Aoife scraped her head on the rock above and called back to Shay, ‘Watch out – roof’s getting low!’ She got down on her elbows and crawled on. Down . . . Aloud, she said, ‘Up. We have to go up.’

  Shay’s hand gripped her ankle. ‘Aoife, wait – maybe we should turn round while we still can, see if we’ve missed a place where we can get higher.’

  ‘No, this way.’ She jerked her leg, shaking him off. ‘It’s this way. We have to go . . .’ Down. ‘Up. I’m sure this way is still rising.’ But hardly had she said the words when the floor and ceiling met in a wedge. ‘Ah, crap.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think it’s a dead end.’ Down. Down. Aoife felt around in the darkness, and there was the narrowest of gaps, just big enough to squeeze through, one at a time. ‘No, it’s all right. It carries on the other side.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Shay crawled in beside her, and then she could feel his warm hand next to hers, fumbling around in the cleft. ‘No, it slopes down really sharply. If we climb in here and the sea tops this end of the ledge, we’ll be drowned like rats in a hole. We have to go back and find another way.’

  Down. Aoife thrust her head and arms into the crevice.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing? Don’t . . .’

  Down. She pulled herself in.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She shouldn’t have left him. Yet she couldn’t go back, she had to go . . .

  Down.

  He would follow her. If she just kept going, he would have to follow. And if he didn’t . . . He would. He would.

  But what if he did, and he was right, and they were trapped and drowned?

  Down, down, down . . .

  It was the only way – Aoife could feel it in her heart. There was no going back. The roof was getting lower again and the blackness was as thick as oil, but she dropped flat and crawled blindly on, wriggling down the increasingly narrow tunnel, dragging and pushing herself forward with her fingers and toes, grazing her belly on the rock, scraping her elbows on the walls.

  Moments later she felt as if her skull had been split in two by an axe. She lay gasping, hand clasped to her forehead. It was wet and sticky with blood. As the pain subsided, she took her hand away, and a faint light filled the tunnel. Her palm was smeared with light. As she stared at it, another iridescent glittering splash hit the sandy floor. Her own blood, shining like silver . . . Shining?

  In her father’s story, the changeling’s hand had been injured and her blood had shone. The changeling was her. Maybe the magic was coming back to her, now that she was . . .

  Now that she was what?

  Down.

  She had to go on, but she had a choice to make. The light of her own blood, slowly fading, was still bright enough to show her that the way had split into two tunnels, with a sharp dividing wall between them. One passageway was high enough for her to make her way on her hands and knees. The other was as low and narrow as the tunnel down which she had come.

  Just as Aoife was making up her mind to take the easier path, she became aware of a distant hissing sound, rapidly growing in intensity. The next moment cold water spread out beneath her. Terror briefly gripped her, but the incoming ocean merely flowed on around her without getting any deeper, pouring down the narrower tunnel to her right. So that was the steepest way. That was down.

  Before going on, she unclipped the locket and looped it over a spit of rock above the entrance to the narrower tunnel – then smeared a little of her own blood on the gold. If the light didn’t fade too fast, Shay might see it there in the darkness – a small ghostly heart, showing him the way.

  The new path descended much more steeply than the first. The rapidly running water, a couple of centimetres deep, made the rock slippery, and after a while Aoife was sliding as much as crawling on her elbows. And then, with a startled intake of breath, only sliding, like down the water chute a
t a fun park. But this wasn’t fun, it was terrifying. She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t see where she was going. Any moment now she was going to be tipped over the edge of an abyss, and fall and fall . . .

  She fell.

  And slammed so hard into solid rock that she thought she’d broken her shoulder. Waiting for the agony to die down, she lay there panting, then tried to move her arm, and couldn’t. Maybe she really had broken her shoulder.

  Her other arm wouldn’t move either.

  Nor her legs.

  Was it her neck that she had broken? No, don’t panic – she could move her fingers and toes. Somehow she must have got herself stuck in a cleft in the rock. Aoife struggled to free herself, but was unable to move. She struggled again. And again. It made no difference. She was completely wedged, lying on her front with her head twisted to one side. In the absolute dark it was impossible even to tell which way she was lying – staring into the crack in which she was trapped, or looking back the way she had fallen.

  Nothing to do now but wait and trust that Shay would come. She strained her ears, listening hopefully to the silence. Water was still running somewhere nearby, gurgling faintly over stones, but there was no other sound.

  Had he even tried to follow her at all? Aoife had been so certain that he would – but then, why would he? He had said they’d be drowned if they came this way, caught like rats in a trap, and she had ignored him. Maybe he had done the sensible thing, and let her go on alone.

  After what seemed like hours, even the water stopped trickling, and then there was nothing.

  Then there was something. A single bright pinpoint in the darkness. A random neuron firing in her brain? But the light stayed, until after a few minutes she was almost convinced it was getting closer. Even if it wasn’t, at least it wasn’t moving away – that would have been an unspeakable, horrible disaster. As she lay paralysed in the dark, this tiny pinprick, this eye of light, had already become the focus of all her hopes and dreams.