“It’s a town, sort of,” Finn said. “They consider it to be more of a compound, but in the way the Kennedy’s have a compound. Not like a military base or anything. It’s just a glorified gated community, really.”
“So do people live there too?” I stretched my neck and looked over at him.
“Not in the sense you’re talking about.” He hesitated before he continued and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “It’s entirely Trylle, trackers, and mänsklig. There’s about five thousand that live there in total, and we have gas stations, a small grocery store, and a school. It’s just a very small, quiet community.”
“Holy hell.” My eyes widened. “You mean there’s just a whole town of… of… trolls? In Minnesota? And nobody ever noticed?”
“We live very quietly,” Finn reiterated. “And there are ways to make people not notice.”
“You sound like you’re in the mafia,” I commented, and Finn smiled crookedly. “Do you guys make people sleep with the fishes or something?”
“Persuasion is a very powerful ability,” he said and his smile disappeared.
“So you have persuasion?” I asked carefully. Something about it seemed to upset him, and as I expected, he shook his head. “Why not?”
“I’m a tracker. Our abilities are different.” He glanced over at me, and sensing that I would just ask more questions, he went on. “They’re more suited for tracking, obviously. Persuasion isn’t that useful in that arena.”
“What is useful?” I pressed, and he sighed wearily.
“It’s hard to explain. They’re not even real abilities in the sense of the word.” He stared out the windshield and shifted in his seat. “It’s more instinct and intuition. It’s easier for me to get a sense of who I’m following and stay on them. Like the way a bloodhound follows a scent, except its not actually something I can smell. It’s just something I know.” He looked over to see if I was getting it, but I just stared at him blankly. “For example, I knew you were at my door before I opened it. And when you went to visit that woman last night” (that woman being someone who I had thought was my mother my entire life) “-I knew you were far away and I knew something was distressing you.”
“You can tell when I’m upset? Even when you’re not around me?” My heart started to panic, realizing the implications of this. He could tell when I was distressed, he could tell when if I was happy, or maybe harboring feelings of lust.
“As long as I’m tracking you, yes,” Finn nodded.
“I thought you said you weren’t psychic,” I muttered.
“No, I said I couldn’t read minds, and I can’t.” Then with an exasperated sigh, he added. “I never have any idea what you’re thinking.” He noticed my discomfort, so he continued. “I can’t tell everything you’re feeling.
Just distress and fear. I need to be alert to situations when you’re in danger so I can help you. My job is to keep you safe and bring you home.”
“How do you know how to track me? Before you find me, I mean.
You said you only tune into my feelings when you’re tracking me. How does that work?”
“Your mother has things from when you were baby. A lock of hair usually,” Finn elaborated, and I felt an odd warm feeling inside. My mother had things from me. Kim had never treasured anything about me, but someone out there had. She had taken a lock of hair when I was born and kept it safe all these years. “I get a vibe from that, and they usually have a general idea about where you are. You were trickier, but most people are fairly easy to find. Then once I’m around you, I start to get a real scent of you, and that’s it.”
“Is that why you stared at me all the time?” I thought of the way his eyes were always on me, and the way I could never make sense of his expression.
“Yes.” There was something about his answer. He wasn’t lying exactly, but he was holding something back. I thought about pressing him further but there were so many other things I wanted to know.
“So… how often do you do this?” I returned to the question he had refused to answer before we left his apartment. I might have forgotten if he hadn’t seemed too reluctant to answer.
“Why do you want to know?” Finn asked.
“Why don’t you want to answer?” I challenged him. He thought for a minute, but apparently didn’t come up with something to counter it because he answered.
“You are my eleventh.” He looked at me to gauge my response, so I kept my face as expressionless as possible.
I was a little surprised by his answer. It seemed like an incredibly time consuming process, for one thing. For me, he had lived in the same town as me for over two weeks, set up an apartment, and somehow enrolled in high school.
He seemed fairly young to have done that eleven times. Plus, it was unnerving to think about there being eleven other changelings out there. Eleven other kids who had gone through the same things as me.
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked, trying to figure out how he had time for all of this.
“Since I was fifteen,” Finn answered, further shocking me.
“Fifteen?” I shook my head. “No way. You’re trying to tell me that at fifteen-years-old, your parents sent you out into the world to track and find kids? And these eighteen-year-old kids, they trusted you and believed you?”
“I am very good at what I do,” Finn replied matter-of-factly.
“Still. That just seems… unreal.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Admittedly, he did seem intelligent and determined, but at fifteen, I had no selfcontrol. If I had been given a credit card and sent across the country, I wouldn’t have come back. “Did they all come back with you?”
“Yes, of course,” he said simply.
“Do they always? With everyone, I mean?” I continued. I had considered not going with him, and I tried to imagine how I would’ve reacted if it had been somebody else other than Finn. I had never met any other trackers to compare him to, but it still seemed unlikely that I would’ve went off with just anybody.
“No, they don’t. They usually do, but not always.”
“But they always do with you?” I persisted.
“Yes.” Finn looked over at me again. “You did. Why do you find it so hard to believe?”
“No, it’s not that.” I took another drink from water and tried to think about what was bothering me. “Wait. You were fifteen? That means that you were never… you weren’t a changeling. Is everyone? How does this work?”
“Trackers are never changelings.” He rubbed the back of his neck and pursed his lips. “I think it’s best if your mother explains the changelings to you.
Its complex and I don’t know all the details.”
“How come trackers aren’t ever changelings?” I questioned.
“We need to spend our lives being trained to be a tracker,” Finn said.
“And our youth is an asset. It’s much easier to get close to a teenager when you are a teenager than it is when you’re forty.”
“A big part of what you do is building trust,” I remarked, eyeing him up with new suspicions.
“Yes, it is,” Finn admitted.
“So at the dance, when you were being a total dick to me. That was you building trust?” I asked him pointedly. For a split second, he looked pained, but his normal emotionless expression returned.
“No. That was me putting a distance between us.” His eyes were too fixed on the road and his expression hardened. “I shouldn’t have asked you to dance. I was trying to correct the error. I needed you to trust me, but anything more would be misleading.”
“I see.”
The nice things he said to me had been to gain my trust. Everything that had transpired between us had just been because he was trying to get me to the compound. He had been keeping me safe, getting me to like him, and when he noticed my crush developing, he had tried to put me in my place. It stung painfully, so I just swallowed hard and stared out the window.
“I�
�m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” Finn said quietly, noticing my distress. I could’ve lied to him, but that would’ve been pointless. He knew when I was upset, even if it wasn’t so clearly written on my face.
“Don’t worry about,” I replied icily. “You were just doing your job.”
“I know that you’re being facetious, but I was. I still am.”
“Well, you’re very good at it.” I crossed my arms and stared out the window. I didn’t feel much like talking anymore. There were still a million questions I had about everything, but I’d rather wait and talk to them with somebody else, anybody else.
The scenery had started giving away to tall tree-lined bluffs. The car rolled up and down through the hills and valleys, and it really was stunningly beautiful. Eventually, Finn slowed and we turned, driving steeply to the top of a bluff. The road curved down, winding through the trees, and through them, I could see the Mississippi River cutting through the bluffs.
A large metal gate blocked our path, but when we got to it, a guard nodded at Finn and waved us through. Once through, I saw beautiful houses dotted along the bluffs, mostly obscured by the trees. It was an odd sensation. I felt like there were more homes than what I could actually see. Everyone of them appeared luxurious and perfectly poised to make the best of the view.
We pulled up in front of a massive house perched precariously on the edge of the bluff. The driveway made a half-circle in front of it, with a grand fountain. It was pure white, with long vines growing up beautifully over it. The back, which faced the river, was made entirely of windows, and it seemed to be held up by weak supports. While stunningly gorgeous, the house looked as if it would fall of of the edge at any moment.
“What’s this?” I took a break from gaping at the house to look back at Finn. He smiled at me in the way that sent shivers through me.
“This is it,” Finn smiled. “Welcome home, Wendy.”
10
I had come from money, but it had never been anything like this. This was aristocratic. Finn carried my bag for me as we walked up to the house. When he rang the doorbell, it was one of those tremendous bonging sounds. This had to be the most beautiful house I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe that I’d truly come from this, and if I had, why would I have ever left? I had never felt so small or ordinary in my entire life.
With a house like this, I had expected a butler to answer the door.
Instead, it was just a kid. He was about my age, with sandy hair cascading across his forehead, and he was very attractive. Which made sense, because I couldn’t believe that anything ugly ever came from a house like this. It was too perfect.
He seemed confused and surprised at first, but when he saw Finn, an understanding came to him and he smiled broadly.
“Oh my god. You must be Wendy.” He opened the massive front door so we could come in. Finn let me go in first, which made me nervous, and I felt embarrassed with the way this kid was smiling at me. He was dressed like any other normal kid I had gone to school with, at least in the private schools, and I found that weird. As if he would run around in a tux first thing in the morning.
“Um, yeah,” I mumbled awkwardly.
“Oh, sorry, I’m Rhys.” He touched his chest, gesturing to himself, then turned back to Finn. “We weren’t expecting you this soon.”
“Things happen,” Finn explained noncommittally.
“I’d really love to stay and talk, but I’m already running late for school.” Rhys glanced around and looked apologetically at us. “Elora is down in the drawing room. You can get yourself there, right?”
“I can,” Finn nodded.
“Alright. Sorry. I would show you down there if I could.” Rhys smiled sheepishly and picked up his messenger bag lying by the front door. “It was really nice meeting you, Wendy. I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”
Once he hurried out the door, I took a moment to take in my surroundings. The floors were marble and there was a giant, crystal chandelier hanging above us. From where I was standing, I could see the breathtaking view through the windowed back wall of the house. It was all floor to ceiling glass, and all I could see were the tops of trees and the river plummeting below us. It was enough to give me vertigo, and I was on the other side of the house.
“Come on,” Finn instructed. He started walking ahead of me, turning down a decadently furnished hall, and I scampered after him.
“Who was that?” I whispered, as if the walls could hear me. They were lined with pictures, a few of which I recognized as being my master painters.
“Rhys.”
“Yeah, I know but… is he my brother?” I asked. I had already decided that he was foxy, so I really hoped that he wasn’t.
“No.” That was all Finn would say on the subject.
Abruptly, he turned into a room. It was the corner of the house, so two of the walls were entirely glass. One interior wall had a fireplace, and hanging above it was the portrait of an attractive, older gentleman. The other interior wall was lined with books. The room was filled with elegant, expensive looking furniture, and an easel in front of the window. A velvet chaise lounge was poised in front of the fireplace, and a woman laid on it, her back to us. Her dress was dark and flowing, just like her black hair that hung down her back.
“Elora?” Finn said cautiously, and I got the sense that he was intimidated by her. This was as unnerving as it was surprising. He didn’t seem like he could be intimidated by anyone.
When she turned to look at us, I forgot to breathe. She was much older than I had expected, in her fifties probably, but there was something stunningly elegant and beautiful about her. Her eyes were dark and large, and in her youth, she had probably been unbearably attractive. As it was, I could hardly believe that she was real.
“Finn!” Her voice was angelic and clear, and her surprise was endearing. With a graceful move, she swiftly sat up, and Finn did a small bow to her. It confused me, but I clumsily tried to copy it, and this caused her to laugh.
She looked at Finn, but gestured to me. “Is this her?”
“Yes. It is.” There was a hint of pride in his voice. He had brought me here, and I was starting to realize that must have been a very special request.
“Oh my.” Elora smiled wistfully at me and got to her feet.
Poised and regal, she was absolutely captivating. The length of her skirt swirled around her feet making it seem more like she floated than actually walked. Once in front of me, she inspected me carefully, gesturing for me to turn around so she could see all of me. When I had finished, she smiled appreciatively at me.
“You are lovely,” Elora sounded almost awed by me, and I felt a blush redden my cheeks. “It’s Wendy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I smiled nervously at her.
“What an ordinary name for such an extraordinary girl.” She looked displeased for a moment, then turned to Finn. “Excellent work. You can be excused while I talk to her. Stay close by, though. I’ll call when I need you.”
“Yes.” Finn set down my bag and did another small bow before leaving the room. His level of reverence made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure how to act around her.
“I’m Elora, and I won’t expect you to call me any different. At first, this is all so much to get used to. I remember when I first came back.” She smiled and gave a light shake of her head. “It was a very confusing time.” I nodded, unsure of what else to do, and she gestured expansively to the room.
“Sit. We have much to talk about.”
“Thanks.” Uncertainly, I took a seat on the edge of the sofa, afraid that if I really sat down on it I would break it or something.
Elora went back to the chaise lounge where she laid on her side, letting her dress flow around her. She held her head up with her hand and watched me with intense fascination. Her eyes were dark and beautiful, but there was something familiar about them in a weird way. They reminded me of an eagle’s eyes or wild animal trapped in a cage.
“I’m not s
ure if Finn has explained it to you, but I am your mother,” Elora said conversationally.
It was impossible. I wanted to correct her. There must be some mistake. Nothing as stunning and elegant as that could spawn me. I was clumsy and awkward and impulsive. Her hair was like silk, and as it had been pointed out to me before, my hair was like a Brillo pad. There was no way that I was related to her. There must’ve been an error somewhere along the lines.
“Ah. I see he did not,” Elora mused. “From your bewildered expression, I take it you don’t even believe me. But let me assure you, there is no mistaking who you are. I personally chose the Everly family for you and delivered you to them myself. Finn is the best tracker we have, so there is no way you could be anyone else but my daughter.”
“I’m sorry,” I stumbled out an apology. “I didn’t mean to question you.
I just…”
“I understand. You’re still used your to normal human way of being.
That will all change soon,” Elora promised. “Did Finn explain anything to you about Trylle?”
“Not really,” I admitted carefully, afraid that I might get him in trouble.
“I’m certain you have many questions, but let me explain everything to you, and if you still have questions, you can ask me when I’m done.” Elora had a coldness to her voice, and I doubted I’d ever be able to question her on anything.
“Trylle are, to the layman, a troll, but that term is antiquated and demeaning, and as you can tell, it doesn’t do us justice at all.” Elora gestured to the expanse of the room, all her grace and luxury, and I nodded. “We are merely beings closely related to humans, but more in tune with ourselves. We have abilities, intelligence, and beauty that far surpass that of the human, but we have much fewer numbers. We keep to ourselves and try to ensure our way of life.
“Our way of life is relatively simple. There is an order to how we do things,” Elora went on. “And I am ensured with the responsibility of keeping that order. Again, the term isn’t entirely right, but I am the Queen.” She paused letting me take it in. “Meaning you are the Princess.” I wanted to ask her a question or refute her but she held up her hand to silence me. “You are my only child, the last of my legacy.
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