Izzy rubbed her temples. “Now you want me to try to Change into more things? I can barely even do one.”
“I thought perhaps they’re all related,” said Lug. “If you knew what all your forms are, it might help.”
“I think Izzy’s right,” said Dree. “We should take things one step at a time. Let’s focus on what you can do instead of what you can’t. You’re better at Likenesses than any of us. So what are you doing when you put on a Likeness?”
Izzy thought for a minute. “Well, I just imagine what it’s like to be that person. I put myself in their shoes, try to think like them. So when I did the Likeness of Selden…”
“You tried to empty your mind completely,” said Dree.
Izzy giggled as she dodged the spittle-covered toothpick lobbed at her head. “Hey, come on. You know we’re joking.”
Izzy knew she shouldn’t tease Selden. He hadn’t teased her once about not being able to Change, which for him was practically a miracle. In fact, he’d taken the whole thing very seriously. He’d been the one to coach her into the fox form earlier in the morning. It helped that one of his forms was a wolf.
From his perch on the back of the parlor sofa, Hiron cleared his throat. Izzy turned. She’d almost forgotten he was there.
Hiron had golden-brown skin and thick black hair, and he was the only Changeling who wore glasses. He pushed them farther up the bridge of his nose with one finger. “Maybe I should come back later? I mean, it seems like you’re still on a very rudimentary level, Izzy.”
Izzy gritted her back teeth together and tried not to be offended. Hiron wasn’t mean or snobby like Larissa. He was just a serious sort of person who said exactly what he was thinking. Even if it was kind of rude.
Besides, he was right. She was rudimentary, through and through.
“No, Hiron, you should stay,” said Selden. “It’ll be good to mix things up. She’s practiced the mouse and fox all morning. Izzy could use some help with her blackbird form.”
Izzy had thought Dree would be the one to teach her how to Change into a bird. But they’d enlisted Hiron for the job, because all his Changed forms were birds: a kingfisher, a crane, a mockingbird, and an enormous gold eagle with a wingspan the length of a minivan.
Hiron hopped down from the sofa and began pacing in front of Izzy with his hands behind his back. When Hiron talked, he had a habit of looking up, like he was reading invisible words written in the air.
“To connect with your bird form, you must connect to your inner flyer. The soul of every bird is flight. The noble eagle, the humble pigeon—”
“The ostrich,” said Dree. “The dodo.”
Hiron blinked a few times. If he got the joke, he didn’t think it was funny. “Even the flightless birds have flight in their hearts. You should know that, Dree. Now, Izzy, if you want to Change into a bird, you’ll need to take to the sky.” He crossed to the far end of the room and patted the top of a wooden desk. “Hop up here.”
Izzy took a breath and walked to the desk. She was ready to be serious. She could do this. She could Change into a bird. It was every kid’s dream. To fly.
Izzy climbed up on top of the desk. She stood in the center, feet apart. The others stared up at her.
“Maybe it’d be better if you guys turned around,” she said.
Lug lumbered slowly around, making a complete circle.
Izzy sighed. “I meant face the other direction.”
“Oh!” Lug chuckled. “Of course.”
Everyone but Hiron turned their backs to her. “All right, raise your arms up,” he instructed.
Izzy held her arms to the side and shrugged her shoulders to loosen them up. She closed her eyes but not too tight. She let her breath flow naturally. She wasn’t wiggling her butt though, no matter what Lug said.
“Now move your arms up and down slowly,” said Hiron. “They aren’t arms. They’re wings. You feel the air ruffling your feathers.”
Izzy held her chin out as her arms rose and fell. She knew she must have looked silly, but she didn’t care. If this was what it took to Change, she’d do it.
“Your heart is light,” said Hiron softly. “Lighter than air. Your bones are light too. Just like paper.”
Lighter than air. Bones like paper.
Izzy heard a gasp from Dree. She knew her friends must be watching her, but she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want to lose focus. She’d done it. She could feel the slight tingle of feathers, the quills tugging at the places where they attached to her skin. She was a bird.
“Good, excellent,” said Hiron slowly. “Now step forward. When you get to the end of the desk, you’ll leap up and take flight.”
Izzy walked forward, her scaly feet tapping lightly on the wooden desk. When her claws felt the edge, she took one big breath, held her arms high, and jumped.
Izzy instinctively pumped her wings. The air lifted her. She rose up, up. It was magic.
And then she opened her eyes.
Izzy flapped her arms, a pointless move since they were just plain arms now. She landed with a heavy thud on the parlor carpet.
During the long pause that followed, Izzy could feel the embarrassment pulsing from her face out to the rest of her body. She finally raised her head and looked at her friends.
A strained smile stretched across Lug’s face. “That was really very good, Izzy! You held that for almost one entire second!”
Dree, who never sugarcoated anything, looked as disappointed as Izzy felt. “I really thought you had that one.”
Selden walked over and pulled Izzy to her feet. “I think I figured out what your problem is,” he said.
Izzy winced at the pain blooming in her left hip. “I’ve got just one?”
“You’re not Changing at all,” said Selden. “I think you were doing a Likeness of a blackbird just then. That’s why you couldn’t hold it.”
Hiron’s eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers. “You know, I think you’re right! That makes perfect sense.”
“A Likeness of a Change,” said Dree. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?” asked Izzy, not even trying to hide the frustration in her voice. “I mean, what’s the difference?”
“It’s like you said yourself,” said Selden. “With a Likeness, you’re imagining being something else. It’s not you. But a Change is still you. You can’t imagine being you. You just are you.”
The parlor door clicked open, and Olligan peeked his head around the door. “Oh, there you are, Izzy. Peter’s looking for you.”
“For me? Why?”
Ollie shrugged. “He told me to come find you. He’s in his room.”
“I guess that means our lesson’s over for now?” asked Hiron.
“It was over anyway,” said Izzy.
She walked past the others, out the parlor door, and started up the stairs.
You just are you. Easy for Selden to say. He’d known who he was all his life. Izzy hadn’t found out she was a Changeling until last year. All her life, she’d felt like the oddball, the one who didn’t quite belong with everyone else. But as much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t belong with the Changelings either.
If Selden was trying to tell her to just be herself, which self did he mean?
When Izzy reached Peter’s room, she knocked on the door. “Peter? Ollie said you wanted to see me.”
“Come in,” Peter answered.
Izzy swung the door open. Peter’s study—Morvanna’s former sitting room—had a cavernous vaulted ceiling and windows covering most of the walls. Up here at the top of the castle, a limp breeze found its way in past the open curtains. There was one couch in the room, which didn’t look like it had been sat on, and one side table that held a bowl of fruit so perfect that it looked plastic. The only evidence the room w
as used at all was the desk at the opposite end, piled high with a messy stack of papers.
Peter leaned over the desk, his back to Izzy. It was strange to see him working. Izzy always had the impression he spent his free time combing his hair or sorting his vast collection of silk neckties. But today, he was absorbed by the materials on his desk. His hair stuck up at the back, and his fingertips were stained indigo from his pen. He even had a blotch of ink on his otherwise pristine white shirt.
“I’ve had a message from Smudge,” he said without looking up at Izzy. “There’s a bit of a hiccup in our scheme.”
Worry tangled up like a ball of yarn in Izzy’s stomach. What if she had to go home early? “The counselors didn’t believe his note?” she asked.
“Oh, it isn’t them,” said Peter. He waved Izzy closer to his desk. “They didn’t question a word of it. It’s your sister. Smudge thinks she’s suspicious. After the counselors told her your mother had come to pick you up, she ran straight out to the woods. She’s been snooping around ever since. This was the last letter from her that Smudge intercepted on its way to the post office.”
Peter handed Izzy a letter written in turquoise crayon:
Dear Izzy,
Sounds like you’re enjoying the psychedelic institute. Funny, but I never knew you were scared of pigs before. Guess you were hiding that from me. DON’T YOU HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE DON’T TELL THE TRUTH? HA HA. Mom’s been sending lots of cookies.
Love,
Hen
Izzy smiled as she handed the letter back to Peter. She couldn’t help feeling proud of her sister. “Hen’s pretty smart when it comes to stuff like this.”
“Well, I don’t want her causing a stir. Those ludicrous camp workers haven’t asked questions, but they might start if Hen makes enough of a fuss about you.” Peter took a sheet of paper from his desk and a pen and held them out to Izzy. “While I’m fully confident in Smudge’s forgery abilities, I think it would be best if we could send her a letter from you directly to dispel any doubts. Write something only you would say. Make it convincing.”
Izzy looked down at the blank page, then back up at Peter. “You want me to lie to her?”
“Is that a problem?”
“I just wish I didn’t have to, that’s all.”
Peter exhaled out his nostrils. “The only reason you’re here at all is because of a lie. My very existence—and yours, I might add—is built upon a mountain of lies. You want to start being honest now?”
“OK, OK, I guess you’re right.” Izzy took the pen and paper from him.
Peter moved the books and papers on his desk to make some space for her. A thin leather journal fell off the top of the stack and landed splayed open at Izzy’s feet. She bent to pick it up, but Peter grabbed it first. He snapped it shut and tucked it quickly into the middle of a pile of other notebooks.
Izzy thought it was a clumsy, jerky sort of move for Peter, who was usually so graceful in everything he did. But she let it go and started on the letter to her sister.
Dear Hen… Izzy began. It wasn’t like she was telling Hen a lie that would hurt her. But she still felt bad doing it. She wished she could tell Hen everything, but not if it meant she’d have to go back to camp. She couldn’t go back—not yet.
Her pen scratched against the page as she wrote. Peter sat, one leg crossed at the knee, rolling his flute back and forth across his desk.
“Here,” said Izzy when she had finished the letter. “I wrote her a story. It’s one of her favorites. She’ll know this is from me.”
Peter’s eyes scanned the page. “Rumpelstiltskin?”
“Hen calls it ‘Rumpled stilt man.’”
Peter smirked. “That old story always amused me. The ridiculousness of it.”
“You mean the whole turning straw into gold thing?” asked Izzy.
“No, no, the part about guessing his name. It’s actually a very common name in Faerie. There’s a whole village of Rumpelstiltskins on the other side of the Dunla River.”
Peter folded Izzy’s letter and sealed it in an envelope. He opened his desk drawer, revealing an impressive array of earthly office supplies—paper clips, staples, and a roll of stamps from different countries. Izzy watched him peel a U.S. postage stamp off a reel and stick it on the envelope. “I’ll send this to Smudge, he’ll stick it in a mailing box for us, and all will be well.”
Peter played a quick, fluttery song on his flute. The envelope lifted off the desk, into the air, and sailed through one of the open windows, zipping fast through the sky like a paper moth.
“Thank you for your help,” said Peter. “You may go now.”
He turned his back to Izzy and resumed his writing. Izzy crossed the room but stopped when she reached the door.
“Peter, can I ask you something?”
“No.”
Izzy planted her feet. “I want to know more about me.”
Peter held his pen still but didn’t look up at her.
Izzy swallowed. “What I mean is, I want to know who I really am. Where did I come from?”
“You are an orphan. Just like all the other Changelings.”
“Yes, I know, but…”
Peter turned, one eyebrow arched sharply. “I hope you’re not under some grand illusion that you’re the last descendant from a fairy royal family or something absurd like that.”
Izzy blinked. “No, I didn’t think that. Wait, am I?”
“No.”
Izzy took a breath and started again. “It’s just that I’m having trouble Changing, and I thought…”
“Good,” said Peter. “You don’t need to be doing any Changing. You’ve already been Exchanged, which means the best thing you can do for us all is to get Stuck like you are. Fewer chances to raise people’s suspicions.”
Izzy shifted and squared her shoulders. She was not going to let this drop. Peter had dodged her questions a million other times, and he wasn’t doing it again.
“This isn’t just about Changing,” she said. “When I’m on Earth, I don’t really feel like I fit in with everyone else. And now that I’m here, I don’t really fit in with the other Changelings either. You told me that when I was a baby, someone brought me to you and asked you to hide me on Earth, right? I thought maybe if I knew more about my past, if I knew who I really was…”
Peter had gone back to writing. It was like Izzy wasn’t even there.
“Peter, please?”
He snapped his head up angrily. “Do you know how many Changeling babies have been left on my doorstep over the centuries? How many squealing infants I’ve taken in and taken care of every day of my vastly long life? If you are wondering if you’re special, the answer is: you’re not. You’re just like all the others. A problem for me to deal with, a commodity in a trade. That’s it.”
With the afternoon sun shining directly onto his face, Peter looked washed out and tired. For the first time, Izzy noticed faint whiskers of wrinkles in the corners of his slender eyes.
“You children always ask more from me no matter how much I do for you,” he said, waving his fingers over the tall stacks of papers. “And meanwhile, the work never stops piling up.” Peter picked up his pen and turned back to his writing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work that must be attended to.”
Izzy turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her without looking back. She walked quickly down the hallway to the stairs. A few stubborn tears leaked out of her eyes. She brushed them away, annoyed at herself for even making them. What had she expected from Peter? Hugs and a lullaby? He would never understand. Peter was like a robot, programmed to do one task. As long as he kept the Exchange going, he didn’t worry himself about the details.
He’d said she was just like all the other Changelings. But she wasn’t.
Izzy could bear being different on Earth if she knew she
fit somewhere. But the thought of being a misfit in two worlds just wasn’t acceptable.
She was a Changeling. And she was going to learn how to Change no matter what it took.
Izzy walked straight back into the parlor and swung open the door.
“I want to read it,” she said.
Her friends looked up at her, confused.
“Read what?” asked Lug.
“The Book of the Bretabairn,” said Izzy. “Where is it?”
Selden groaned and flopped onto his back on the carpet.
Dree smiled. “It’s at the library.”
8
The Book of the Bretabairn
“You sure you can pull this off?” Selden whispered.
Izzy carefully peered around the corner into the kitchen. Two fairies of the Watch stood on either side of the door that led out into the street. “As long as you’re sure Peter won’t catch us.”
“Lug’s keeping an eye on him,” whispered Dree. “If Peter comes out of his room and asks for us, Lug’s going to tell him we’re playing hide-and-seek. Whenever I’ve snuck out to the library before, it’s taken about an hour. We should get going.”
“OK,” said Izzy, taking a deep breath. “Whatever you do, just don’t make me laugh.”
She rolled her shoulders back and did the same cuff adjustment she did the other night at dinner. When she felt Peter’s Likeness snap into place, she sauntered around the corner and walked up to the guards.
“Come along, you two,” she called over her shoulder to Selden and Dree, trying to achieve Peter’s tone of undisguised annoyance. “You children never appreciate the concept of being on time.”
The Watch leaped to attention, looking much more watchful than they had just a moment before. “Afternoon, Good Peter, sir!”
“Hmm,” said Izzy snobbishly. She patted her jacket pocket and hoped the guards wouldn’t notice it was empty. She could imitate Peter and his clothes almost perfectly, but the flute was one thing she couldn’t do. “I’m taking these two to the apothecary. They’re unwell.”
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