The Changeling

by Helen Falconer

  The rain had eased off to nothing, and the sweet smell of wet blackberries was all around them. Eva had woken up when they climbed out of the car. Now she stretched out her arms, yawning, and Aoife took her from Shay. The little girl blinked around her crossly. ‘What are we doing here? You said we were going home.’

  ‘You are home, sweetie.’

  ‘No, I live in Dublin.’

  ‘This is where your mammy and daddy live now, sweetheart.’

  ‘They live in Dublin.’

  ‘Well, then, yes, but now they’re on holiday.’

  Eva looked surprised, then hurt. ‘On holiday? Without me? I want ice cream. Did they forget me?’

  ‘They never forgot you, honey . . . Ssh now, a moment.’

  The door of the house was opening, and two men came out onto the porch, pulling on their coats. One was Martin Flynn, of the coastguard. The other was John Tiernan, one of Aoife’s old school teachers from the Kilduff national school, a very quiet man and a member of the deep sea diving club. His voice ringing clear as a bell through the shadowy late afternoon air, Martin said, ‘God help us, John, that’s a very sad house.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘There’s nothing worse than losing a child that way, and worse again to have no body to bury. I hate always telling them the latest search turned up nothing.’

  ‘Desperate.’

  After a short pause Martin said, ‘Did he encourage her to jump, do you think? It seems to run in the family.’

  Shay was standing so close behind her, Aoife could feel him tense. She glanced back at him and mouthed: Will we tell them now? but he shook his head, and pulled her further back behind the blackberry hedge, out of sight.

  The school teacher said, with sudden volubility, ‘Martin, we’ll never know what was in a pair of teenagers’ heads, and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s no good to anyone trying to figure it out. It’ll only make matters worse, going over and over it again. Things are bad enough as it is.’

  Coats buttoned, they walked in silence to their separate cars, and one after the other backed out into the lane, turning to their right, not seeing the returned ghosts standing in the gap of the wet hedge.

  When they were gone, Aoife said, ‘Do you think I should just go right on in?’

  ‘It’s hard to know how else to do it.’

  ‘I don’t want to give the poor things a heart attack . . . Maybe I’ll go round the back.’

  ‘Like that will be less of a shock.’

  She laughed awkwardly.

  Shay said with sudden determination, like he’d been considering it for a while, ‘Look, I’m thinking will I walk back on up to the road, get a lift onwards.’

  ‘Oh . . . What? Now?’

  ‘I need to let John Joe know I’m alive.’

  ‘You could call him from my house?’

  ‘I’m like you. I don’t want to be giving him a heart attack either. Actual fact, I’m hoping I’ll find him in the pub in Kilduff, and at first he’ll just think he’s seeing things. Let him in gently, like.’

  ‘Right.’ Aoife managed a weak laugh. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  Shay stood hesitating. ‘Look, I’ll see you very soon.’

  And then the thought of him just walking off, into the damp autumn dusk, became unbearable. ‘No, wait. My dad will give you a lift.’

  He laughed genuinely. ‘I don’t think your dad will be interested in driving me around the countryside when he’s just got you back from the dead.’

  ‘Eva as well, don’t forget. Especially Eva. I’m not sure they’ll be that interested in me. After all, Eva’s their real daughter.’

  ‘Ah no, you’re as much their daughter as she is.’

  Aoife shrugged. ‘I guess.’ But she wanted to say: The people we love don’t always love us back. ‘I don’t know if they feel that way. They never asked to look after me. It was all only for her sake.’

  Eva was struggling and sliding down out of her arms. ‘Put me down! I want to see my mam.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Of course they love you for yourself.’

  ‘I want to see my mam!’ Eva was dragging at her hand, tugging her towards the house.

  Shay reached out for her other hand, then didn’t take it, letting his own fall to his side once more. The people we love aren’t always able to love us back. ‘Look, I’ll call you later, all right?’

  ‘I haven’t got my mobile.’

  ‘Have you a house phone?’

  ‘You haven’t got your mobile either.’

  ‘I’ll call from my brother’s phone. What’s your number?’

  She told him. ‘But you won’t remember it.’

  ‘I will, I’m good with numbers.’

  ‘Repeat it back to me?’

  ‘Really, I have it. Aoife, listen, you’re going to be fine. Everything will be more than fine. Just get in there.’

  ‘I want to see my mam!’

  ‘Aoife, go on.’

  But then, as she turned to go, Shay called her back – ‘Wait a minute!’ – and lifted his hand and very lightly touched her nose with the tip of his forefinger. ‘Wahu, Aoife,’ he said softly. And then, ‘Take care.’

  Lifting Eva, she moved carefully across the lawn to peep in through the kitchen window from the growing shadows. Her father was standing with his back to the window, one hand on the electric kettle, the way he always stood waiting for it to boil. His head was lowered.

  Eva asked, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘That’s your daddy, honey.’

  ‘My daddy has black hair.’

  Suddenly James turned and stared straight at them, or rather, straight in their direction into the darkening garden – as if he had heard something. He was pale and his eyes were puffed up with weeping.

  ‘Daddy?’ said Eva doubtfully, touching her forefinger to the golden locket.

  ‘Yes, sweetie. Just his hair went grey.’

  ‘OK. Will we knock on the window?’

  ‘No – ssh – let’s go round the back—’

  ‘Are we going to give them a surprise?’

  ‘That’s right, honey.’

  With Eva on her hip, Aoife climbed the ash tree easily, using only one hand. Her bedroom window was unlocked, and she leaned out of the tree to pull it open, then lifted Eva across the gap and followed herself, nearly knocking a lighted candle to the floor. Her bedroom was like a shrine. It was a shrine. There was a ridiculously large picture of herself on the chest of drawers; a jar of wild roses, five candles and two plaster angels were grouped around it. The bed neatly made and the covers turned down and everywhere unnaturally tidy – all clothes put away; her guitar leaning in the corner; the computer desk a paper-free zone. The torn edges of the music posters were neatened with Sellotape. There was even a set of her own song lyrics hanging on the wall, mounted on blue cardboard and laminated. Under the hawthorns, he raises me with a kiss . . .

  ‘Is this house your house?’

  ‘Ssh, honey, just whisper.’

  ‘That’s you! And you! And you!’ Eva pointed to the walls with enthusiasm. There were many more photographs than before. The sort that she wouldn’t have bothered with herself, because they didn’t have Carla in them. Aoife moved softly around, gazing at them. She’d never realized how many pictures her parents had taken of her, year after year. Grinning in a centimetre of snow. Knee deep in a river, holding up a fish. Lopsided on a donkey. A holiday in Cork. They must have had a full drawer of photographs somewhere – photographs of her, their fairy daughter.

  ‘Can I see my mam now?’

  ‘Ssh, honey.’

  ‘Is it still a surprise?’

  ‘That’s right. Don’t make any noise until I tell you.’

  Holding Eva’s hand, Aoife eased her bedroom door open a crack.

  Across the landing, her parents’ bedroom door was nearly closed. Before she could open the door any wider, her father came into view up the stairs, a mug of tea in each hand. He glanced sadly towards Aoife’s bedroom, th
en used his foot to push open the door of his own. ‘Thought you might want a cup of tea, love.’ He went in, turning on the light, leaving the door ajar behind him.

  Eva tried to pull her hot little hand out of Aoife’s; Aoife looked down with a frown and a slight sideways shake of the head, putting her forefinger to her lips. Then led the child out onto the landing.

  Through the half-open door of her parents’ room, they could see Maeve sitting cross-legged on the bed, dark blonde hair grown longer and tied aside in a plait, her back resting against the oak headboard, staring blankly in front of her. James stooped over her, pressing one of the mugs into her hand. She smiled up at him weakly, tears running down her face. In a choked voice, she said, ‘I almost wanted them to find her, James. Do you believe that? It just hurts so much, not knowing. Then, at the same time, of course I don’t want them to find her. I want to carry on believing she went back to her own world. That she’s there with Eva, somehow. And they’re happy together, in paradise.’

  ‘That’s what I hope for, sweetheart.’

  ‘But does paradise even exist?’

  ‘I think it does.’

  ‘But we don’t know for sure, do we? And we told her she could fly. And then she jumped . . . with that poor boy.’ James sat down on the bed next to her, passed his arm around her. She pressed her wet face to his shoulder. ‘Oh God, Aoife.’

  In this room too there were photographs everywhere, covering the walls. And, framed, on the oak chest of drawers. Aoife’s face, but also Eva’s – all the hundreds of photos from the drawer. No longer locked away.

  ‘If only I knew where they were!’

  ‘We have them here, Maeve. Both of them. Here.’ And James pressed his hand to his heart. ‘That’s what matters in the end. Wherever they are.’

  There was no easy way, but it had to be done now. Aoife crouched down beside Eva, and whispered very, very softly in the little girl’s ear. ‘Keep quiet a bit longer, honey. We’re going to go stand where they can see us. All right?’

  Eva nodded solemnly. Aoife straightened up. Hand in hand, they moved a few paces forward, to where the bedroom light could fall through the door onto the two of them. The slender changeling in the sun-rise dress with her red-gold hair, and the sheóg in a dress of dried rose petals, with her short blonde curls.

  Maeve had lifted her head from James’s shoulder and was frowning towards the dark, rainy window. ‘What was that?’

  ‘What, sweetheart?’

  ‘I thought I heard something.’

  He glanced upwards. ‘Birds on the roof?’

  ‘No, maybe the wind . . .’ She turned her head towards the door. And after a long moment said, in the strangest voice, ‘James?’

  ‘What are you looking at?’ He turned to look as well.

  For several shimmering, silent seconds, Maeve and James O’Connor stared at the vision on the landing. Their eyes enormous in white faces. Each with a steaming mug of tea in one hand.

  And a moment after that, Eva tore her hand out of Aoife’s and went rushing into the room, leaping onto her parents’ bed, knocking the tea flying and screaming: ‘Surprise!’

  Maeve was kneeling up in the bed, screaming too, crying, howling, her arms around the tiny child. ‘Oh, it’s not possible, oh, it’s not possible, James, do you see her too, have I gone mad, have I died, she’s here, oh my God, my love, where have you been – She’s still four, James! – are you well? She’s not dying! Oh my love, my love, my love, my love, my love . . .’

  And James as well had his arms around the grinning four-year-old, who kept on and on shouting at the top of her healthy little lungs, ‘Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!’ And occasionally, ‘I want ice cream!’

  Aoife, out on the landing beyond the door, stood watching the broken family instantly remake itself – the tight circle that had been on display in those pictures hidden in the drawer. It reminded her of the studio shot – her parents posing on the photographer’s couch, with their arms around their only child, in her blue velvet dress and beret. The picture she had thought for a short while was of herself.

  Eva was shouting now, ‘She found me! Mam’s friend found me!’ and Maeve was trying to stand up now, with the little girl clinging like a monkey around her neck. ‘Friend?’ And James was striding towards Aoife, weeping, with his arms held wide.

  ‘You said you were our friend?’ He pulled her into a bear hug, his wet cheek pressed to hers, holding her so tight she feared her ribs would crack.

  Maeve was sobbing to Eva, ‘She’s not my friend, sweetie.’

  And the little girl said doubtfully, ‘But she’s very nice and this is her house.’

  ‘Of course it’s her house! She’s our daughter, Eva! She’s your sister!’

  ‘But I don’t have a sister—’

  ‘Yes you do, sweetie. You really absolutely do.’

  ‘OK. Was she away at school?’

  ‘That’s right, sweetie. But now she’s home.’

  ‘And is this her house?’

  ‘Yes, and yours too, sweetie. And mine. And your dad’s.’

  And Aoife’s father, still with his face pressed to hers, kept on and on repeating, ‘Never leave us again. Oh God, never, ever, ever leave us again.’

  There was so much noise, between the constant joyful shrieking, and James furiously cooking spaghetti bolognese because his girls must be starving, and Maeve unable to stop crying, and going from Eva to Aoife, and from Aoife to Eva, and Eva being more delighted with Hector than anything else, that by the time James said, ‘Maeve, phone . . .’ it had rung off.

  The telephone sat silent by the coats in the hall. No caller ID.

  Standing behind her, Maeve said, ‘I don’t suppose it would have been for you, sweetheart.’

  ‘I guess not.’ Aoife kept on staring at it.

  Maeve said, gently caressing her hair, ‘I know this is going to take a bit of getting used to, but you see, everyone thinks—’

  ‘I know. You don’t need to tell me. Sinead spotted us walking down the road and had an absolute panic attack.’

  ‘Oh, the poor child.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘We better start making some calls about you soon. Just as soon as I can believe it isn’t a dream myself. Darling, come and eat.’

  They had barely made the kitchen doorway when the phone rang again. Maeve reached it first. ‘Hello? Hello? Sorry, speak up, it’s very loud where you are . . .’ She was frowning, smiling, shaking her head, turning to Aoife with the receiver in her hand. ‘It is for you.’

  It was very, very loud where he was. Music blaring, people shouting and screaming, glasses chinking. Shay said something into the receiver, but too low to make out.

  ‘I can’t hear you! Are you in the pub? How’s John Joe doing?’

  He said more loudly, ‘Grand.’

  (Someone was shouting, ‘Good on ya!’ and another, ‘Here’s a pint of the black stuff, John Joe! Drink up, there’s more on its way!’)

  ‘Not too much of a shock?’

  ‘Not too bad. Blamed it on the drink, but I think he has it straight now. Aoife, listen, there’s something I forgot to say to you before . . .’ And his voice dropped again.

  ‘I still can’t hear you! Move somewhere quieter!’

  ‘I can’t – this is the pay phone stuck to the wall. And everyone here is very excited. Just listen . . .’ Again his voice tailed off.

  ‘I still can’t hear you!’

  ‘Oh, come on . . .’

  ‘It’s not my fault, you keeping not saying it loud enough.’

  ‘All right. Grand. Fine. I love you, Aoife O’Connor!’ And to the background noise of absurdly drunken cheering, he shouted: ‘Now, did you hear that?’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For their invaluable advice and constant support: My son Jack and daughter Molly.

  For being my target readership: My daughter Imogen and son Seán.

  For first draft feedback: Aideen Kane, Sabine Lacey, Sinead Leonard, U
na Morris, Derek O’Flaherty, Morag Prunty, Denis Quinn, Aideen Ryan, Cathy Whelan; Zoe Costello, Ming Flannelly, Dearbhla Forkan, Gemma Lacey, Katie McHale, Derry Quinn, Meabh Walsh; the girls from St Mary’s.

  For their professionalism: Marianne Gunn O’Connor, Vicki Satlow, Kelly Hurst, Sophie Nelson.

  For being herself: Rachel Falconer.

  For being himself: Tim Lacey.

  Also available

  The Accident Season

  by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

  It’s the accident season, the same time every year.

  Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.

  The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

  Why are they so cursed?

  And how can they break free?

  About the Author

  HELEN FALCONER was a journalist on the Guardian before becoming a full-time writer.

  Helen was educated at Dartington and Oxford. She lives in north Mayo, Ireland, with her husband and has four children.

  THE CHANGELING

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 19663 0

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This ebook edition published 2015

  Copyright © Helen Falconer, 2015

  Cover imagery © Trevillion Images

  Cover design and montage by Lisa Horton

  First Published in Great Britain

  Corgi 978 0 552 57342 9 2015

  The right of Helen Falconer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.