The Stolen Child

by Keith Donohue

  “Tell me what they were like, my family. What happened to me?”

  “When you were a boy,” she began, “I watched over you. You were my charge. I knew your mother; she loved to nestle you on her lap as she read to you old Irish tales and called you her ‘little man.’ But you were a selfish boy, constantly wanting more and desperate over any attention shown to your little sisters.”

  “Sisters?” I asked, not remembering.

  “Twins. Baby girls.”

  I was grateful that she could confirm there were two.

  “You resented helping with them, angry that your time was not yours to do with what you pleased. Oh, such a brat. Your mother was taking care of the twins, worrying over your father, with no one to help her. She was worn out by it all, and that made you angrier still. An unhappy child . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment, and she laid her hand on my arm.

  “He waited for you like a fox at the edge of a pond, and he made all sorts of mischief around the farm—a knocked-over fence, a missing hen, the drying sheets torn from the line. He wanted your life, and the one whose turn it is brooks no argument. Every eye was upon you for months, anticipating a moment of petulance. Then, you ran away from home.”

  Speck drew me closer, ran her fingers through my hair, laid my head in the crook of her nape.

  “She asked you to wash up the babies after breakfast, so that she might have a quick bath, but you left them all alone in the house, imagine that. ‘Now stay here and play with your dollies. Mom’s in the tub, and I’ll be right outside, so don’t make any trouble.’ And out you stepped to toss a ball into the bright yellow sky and watch the grasshoppers scatter across the lawn before your racing feet. I wanted to come play with you, but someone had to watch the toddlers. I slipped inside, crouched on the kitchen countertop, hoping they wouldn’t notice me or do themselves a harm. They were at the curious stage and could have been opening cupboards, toying with bleach and furniture polish, fingering rat poison, or opening cutlery drawers to juggle with knives, or getting into the liquor and drinking up all the whiskey. They were in danger, while she was wrapping herself in her robe and singing as she dried her hair.

  “Meanwhile, you trolled the woods’ edge, hoping to uncover a surprise. Something large stirred among the dried carpet of leaves and shadow of branches, snapping twigs as it ran through the half-light. A rabbit? Perhaps a dog or a small deer? Your mother descended the staircase, calmly calling, and discovered the girls dancing on the tabletop quite alone. You stood blinking into the dappled trails. From behind, a strong hand gripped your shoulder and wheeled you around. Your mother stood there, hair dripping wet, her face a mask of anger.

  “ ‘How could you disappear like that?’ she asked. Behind her, you could see the twins toddling across the lawn. In one clenched fist, she held a wooden spoon, and knowing the trouble ahead, you ran, and she gave chase, laughing all the way. At the edge of your world, she pulled you by the arm and smacked you on the bottom so hard, the spoon split in half.”

  Speck held me tighter still.

  “But you have always been an imp. Your bottom hurt, and you’d show her. She fixed lunch, which you refused to touch. Nothing but stony silence. As she carried her babies off for their nap, she smiled and you scowled. Then you wrapped up some food in a handkerchief, stuffed it in your pocket, and slipped out of the house without a sound. I followed you the whole afternoon.”

  “Was I scared to be alone?”

  “Curious, I’d say. A dry creek paralleled the road for a few hundred yards before meandering off into the forest, and you followed its path, listening for the occasional chatter of the birds, watching for the chipmunks skittering through the litter. I could hear Igel signal to Béka, who whistled to our leader. As you sat on the grassy bank, eating one of the biscuits and the rest of the cold eggs, they were gathering to come take you.”

  “Every time the leaves moved,” I told her, “a monster was out to get me.”

  “East of the creekbed, there was an old chestnut, cracked and dying from the bottom up. An animal had scooped out a large hollow den, and you had to climb inside and see. The humidity and the darkness must have put you right to sleep. I stood outside the whole time, hidden when the searchers almost stumbled upon you. Skittering flashlights led their dark forms as they shuffled like ghosts through the heavy air. They passed by, and soon their calls receded into the distance and then into silence.

  “Not long after the people faded away, the faeries ran in from all directions and stopped before me, the sentinel at the tree. The changeling panted. He looked so much like you that I held my breath and wanted to cry. He scrambled partway into the hole, grabbed you around your bare ankle, and pulled.”

  She hugged me and kissed me on the top of my head.

  “If I changed back,” I asked her, “would I ever see you again?”

  Despite my questions, she would not tell me more than she thought I should know, and after a while, we set to picking berries. Although the days bore traits of midsummer, there’s no stopping the tilt of the globe away from the sun. Night came like a sudden clap. We walked back beneath the emerging planets and stars, the pale ascending moon. Half-smiles greeted our return, and I wondered why the thin children of our temporary quarters were not themselves out watching blackbirds, and dreaming their dreams. Porridge bubbled on the fire, and the troupe ate from wooden bowls with wooden spoons, which they sucked clean. We dumped quarts of raspberries from our shirttails, ambrosia escaping from the bruised fruit, and the others scooped them into their mouths, smiling and chewing, staining their lips red as kisses.

  The next day, Béka announced he had found our new home, “a place inaccessible to all but the most intrepid humans, a shelter where we would be safe.” He led us up a steep and desolate hill, scrabbling slate and shale from its loose, decaying face, as inhospitable a heap as you’d like to find. No sign of life, no trees or plants of any kind other than a few noxious weeds poking through the rubble. No bird landed there, not even for a moment’s rest, nor any flying insect of any sort, though we would soon find out about the bats. No footprints except our leader’s. Scant purchase for anything larger than our weary band. As we climbed, I wondered what had possessed Béka to scout out this place, let alone proclaim it home. Anyone else would have taken one look at such devastation and passed by with a shudder. Barren as the moon, the landscape lacked all feeling, and I did not see, until we were nearly upon it, the fissure in the rock. One by one, my cohorts squeezed through the crack and were swallowed up in stone. Moving from the bright heat of Indian summer into the dankness of the entranceway felt as sudden as a dive into a cold pool. As my pupils dilated in the dimness, I did not even realize to whom I addressed my question: “Where are we?”

  “It’s a mine,” Speck said. “An old abandoned mineshaft where they dug for coal.”

  A pale glow sparked forth from a newly lit torch. His face a grimace of odd, unnatural shadows, Béka grinned and croaked to us all, “Welcome home.”

  • CHAPTER 23 •

  I should have confessed to Tess at the start, but who knows when love begins? Two contrary impulses pulled at me. I did not want to scare her away with the changeling story, yet I longed to entrust all my secrets to her. But it was as if a demon shadowed me everywhere and clamped shut my mouth to hold in the truth. She gave me many opportunities to open my heart and tell her, and I came close once or twice, but each time I hesitated and stopped.

  On Labor Day we were at the baseball stadium in the city, watching the home team take on Chicago. I was distracted by the enemy runner at second base.

  “So, what’s the plan for The Coverboys?”

  “Plan? What plan?”

  “You really should record an album. You’re that good.” She attacked a hot dog thick with relish. Our pitcher struck out their batter, and she let out a whoop. Tess loved the game, and I endured it for her sake.

  “What kind of album? Covers of other people’s songs? Do you really thin
k anybody would buy a copy when they can have the original?”

  “You’re right,” she said between bites. “Maybe you could do something new and different. Write your own songs.”

  “Tess, the songs we sing are not the kind of songs I would write.”

  “Okay, if you could write any music in the world, what kind would you write?”

  I turned to her. She had a speck of relish at the corner of her mouth that I wished to nibble away. “I’d write you a symphony, if I could.”

  Out flicked her tongue to clean her lips. “What’s stopping you, Henry? I’d love a symphony of my own.”

  “Maybe if I had stayed serious about piano, or if I had finished music school.”

  “What’s stopping you from going back to college?”

  Nothing at all. The twins had finished high school and were working. My mother certainly did not need the few dollars I brought in, and Uncle Charlie from Philadelphia had begun to call her nearly every day, expressing an interest in retiring here. The Coverboys were going nowhere as a band. I searched for a plausible excuse. “I’m too old to go back now. I’ll be twenty-six next April, and the rest of the students are a bunch of eighteen-year-olds. They’re into a totally different scene.”

  “You’re only as old as you feel.”

  At the moment, I felt 125 years old. She settled back into her seat and watched the rest of the ballgame without another word on the subject. On the way home that afternoon, she switched the car radio over from the rock station to classical, and as the orchestra played Mahler, she laid her head against my shoulder and closed her eyes, listening.

  Tess and I went out to the porch and sat on the swing, quiet for a long time, sharing a bottle of peach wine. She liked to hear me sing, so I sang for her, and then we could find nothing else to say. Her breathing presence beside me, the moon and the stars, the singing crickets, the moths clinging to the porch light, the breeze cutting through the humid air—the moment had a curious pull on me, as if recalling distant dreams, not of this life, nor of the forest, but of life before the change. As if neglected destiny or desire threatened the illusion I had struggled to create. To be fully human, I had to give in to my true nature, the first impulse.

  “Do you think I’m crazy,” I asked, “to want to be a composer in this day and age? I mean, who would actually listen to your symphony?”

  “Dreams are, Henry, and you cannot will them away, any more than you can call them into being. You have to decide whether to act upon them or let them vanish.”

  “I suppose if I don’t make it, I could come back home. Find a job. Buy a house. Live a life.”

  She held my hand in hers. “If you don’t come with me, I’ll miss seeing you every day.”

  “What do you mean, come with you?”

  “I was waiting for the right time to tell you, but I’ve enrolled. Classes start in two weeks, and I’ve decided to get my master’s degree. Before it’s too late. I don’t want to end up an old maid who never went after what she wanted.”

  I wanted to tell her age didn’t matter, that I loved her then and would love her in two or twenty or two hundred years, but I did not say a word. She patted me on the knee and nestled close, and I breathed in the scent of her hair. We let the night pass. An airplane crossed the visual field between us and the moon, creating the momentary illusion that it was pasted on the lunar surface. She dozed in my arms and awoke with a start past eleven.

  “I’ve got to go,” Tess said. She kissed me on the forehead, and we strolled down to the car. The walk seemed to snap her out of the wine-induced stupor.

  “Hey, when are your classes? I could drive you in sometimes if it’s during the day.”

  “That’s a good idea. Maybe you’ll get inspired to go back yourself.”

  She blew me a kiss, then vanished behind the steering wheel and drove away. The old house stared at me, and in the yard the trees reached out to the yellow moon. I walked upstairs, wrapped up in the music in my head, and went to sleep in Henry’s bed, in Henry’s room.

  What possessed Tess to choose infanticide is a mystery to me. There were other options: sibling rivalry, the burden of the firstborn, the oedipal son, the disappearing father, and so on. But she picked infanticide as her thesis topic for her seminar in Sociology of the Family. And, of course, since I had nothing to do most days but wait around campus or drive around the city while she was in classes, I volunteered to help with the research. After her last class, she and I went out for coffee or drinks, at first to plot out how to tackle the project on infanticide, but as the meetings went on, the conversations swung around to returning to school and my unstarted symphony.

  “You know what your problem is?” Tess asked. “No discipline. You want to be a great composer, but you never write a song. Henry, true art is less about all the wanting-to-be bullshit, and more about practice. Just play the music, baby.”

  I fiddled with the porcelain ear of my coffee cup.

  “It’s time to get started, Chopin, or to stop kidding yourself and grow up. Get out from behind the bar and come back to school with me.”

  I attempted not to let my frustration and resentment show, but she had me culled like a lame animal from the main herd. She pounced.

  “I know all about you. Your mother is very insightful about the real Henry Day.”

  “You talked to my mother about me?”

  “She said you went from being a carefree little boy to a serious old man overnight. Sweetheart, you need to stop living in your head and live in the world as it is.”

  I lifted myself out of my chair and leaned across the table to kiss her. “Now, tell me your theory on why parents kill their children.”

  We worked for weeks on her project, meeting in the library or carrying on about the subject when we went out dancing or to the movies or dinner. More than once, we drew a startled stare from nearby strangers when we argued about killing children. Tess took care of the historical framework of the problem and delved into the available statistics. I tried to help by digging up a plausible theory. In certain societies, boys were favored over girls, to work on the farm or to pass on wealth, and as a matter of course, many females were murdered because they were unwanted. But in less patriarchal cultures, infanticide stemmed from a family’s inability to care for another child in an age of large families and few resources—a brutal method of population control. For weeks, Tess and I puzzled over how parents decided which child to spare and which to abandon. Dr. Laurel, who taught the seminar, suggested that myth and folklore might provide interesting answers, and that’s how I stumbled across the article.

  Prowling the stacks late one evening, I found our library’s sole copy of the Journal of Myth and Society, a fairly recent publication which had lasted a grand total of three issues. I flipped through the pages of this journal, rather casually standing there by my lonesome, when the name sprang from the page and grabbed me by the throat. Thomas McInnes. And then the title of his article was like a knife to the heart: “The Stolen Child.”

  Son of a bitch.

  McInnes’s theory was that in medieval Europe, parents who gave birth to a sickly child made a conscious decision to “reclassify” their infant as something other than human. They could claim that demons or “goblins” had come in the middle of the night and stolen their true baby and left behind one of their own sickly, misshapen, or crippled offspring, leaving the parents to abandon or raise the devil. Called “fairy children” or changelings in England, “enfants changés” in France, and “Wechselbalgen” in Germany, these devil children were fictions and rationalizations for a baby’s failure to thrive, or for some other physical or mental birth defect. If one had a changeling in the home, one would not be expected to keep and raise it as one’s own. Parents would have the right to be rid of the deformed creature, and they could take the child and leave it outside in the forest overnight. If the goblins refused to retrieve it, then the poor unfortunate would die from exposure or might be carried off by a wild
thing.

  The article recounted several versions of the legend, including the twelfth-century French cult of the Holy Greyhound. One day, a man comes home and finds blood on the muzzle of the hound trusted to guard his child. Enraged, the man beats the dog to death, only later to find his baby unharmed, with a viper dead on the floor by the crib. Realizing his error, the man erects a shrine to the “holy greyhound” that protected his son from the poisonous snake. Around this story grew the legend that mothers could take those babies with “child sickness” to such shrines in the forest and leave them with a note to the patron saint and protector of children: “À Saint Guinefort, pour la vie ou pour la mort.”

  “This form of infanticide, the deliberate killing of a child based on its slim probability of survival,” wrote McInnes,

  became part of the myth and folklore that endured well into the nineteenth century in Germany, the British Isles, and other European countries, and the superstition traveled with emigrants to the New World. In the 1850s, a small mining community in western Pennsylvania reported the disappearance of one dozen children from different families into the surrounding hills. And in pockets of Appalachia, from New York to Tennessee, local legend fostered a folk belief that these children still roam the forests.

  A contemporary case that illustrates the psychological roots of the legend concerns a young man, “Andrew,” who claimed under hypnosis to have been abducted by “hobgoblins.” The recent unexplained discovery of an unidentified child, found drowned in a nearby river, was credited as the work of these ghouls. He reported that many of the missing children from the area were stolen by the goblins and lived unharmed in the woods nearby, while a changeling took each child’s place and lived out that child’s life in the community. Such delusions, like the rise of the changeling myth, are obvious social protections for the sad problem of missing or stolen children.