The Last Changeling (5 page)

“Countless boys have engaged me in conversation,” she continued, taking a hesitant bite of her pizza. “No girls, though, except for Kylie.”

Kylie rolled her eyes. “Give them time. The boys will all try to pee on you first, and the girls will keep their distance, sniffing to see whose scent you carry.” She flashed a mischievous smile. “Speaking of which, how many dates
have you lined up so far?”

“Just three,” Lora said, very matter-of-factly, and my chest deflated. “But only if they bring me a flower that shines—”

“With the light of the stars. Right!” Kylie laughed, and the air returned to my lungs. “You guys, she has the most hilarious way of getting boys to back off.”

“So I've heard.”

Kylie rounded on me. “You
know about the riddle? Don't tell me she gave—”

“No,” both Lora and I said together. Heat flooded my face, and other places too. I wasn't sure, but I thought Lora might be hinting that she
wouldn't
give me the riddle, if I ever asked her out.

“I've seen her in action,” I said.

Kylie looked relieved, and I thought she and I should spend more time together. Meanwhile, Lora was studying her pizza.

“What's wrong?” Kylie asked.

Lora poked her finger into a gob of cheese, which was gooey and pockmarked with spots of brown. “How do you acquire dairy in the city?”

“Trust me,” Kylie said, opening a container of applesauce. “You don't want to know.”

“I can't eat this.” Lora shook her head, wrapping the pizza in her paper plate. “This is bad for me.”

“Billions of dollars spent on food pyramid commercials and this girl figures it out on her own.” Keegan watched his sister pass her applesauce to Lora. “Next she'll realize that smoking pot turns you into a serial killer.”

I chuckled, glancing at Kylie's brother. Most of the people at school ignored him, or openly mocked his lack of interest in the opposite sex, but he didn't try to befriend them like Kylie did. He walked through the halls as if no one else existed, besides his sister.

I couldn't even imagine what that felt like.

Lora reached into her backpack and pulled out a pink flier, a shade brighter than her referral had been.

“Hey, how was the principal's office?” I asked.

“Oh, wonderful.” She was practically beaming. “She's the most interesting adult I've met so far.”

“Really.”

“Definitely. I will have to make it a point to visit often.”

“Not too often,” I muttered, wondering when her first detention would be. I pointed to the flier in her hand. “What's that?”

“Nothing.” Kylie reached for it.

Lora was too quick for her. She held the flier out for me. “Kylie's the president of the Merry-Straight Alliance.”

“Gay,” Keegan supplied. “And it's not an alliance. It's a bunch of gay kids pretending the straight kids don't hate them.”

I wanted to argue, but it's not like I'd ever gone to any of the meetings. I plucked the flier from Lora's hand.

“I'm going to join,” she told me. “Are you a member?”

“Uh, no,” I said distractedly, searching for an explanation.

What's the problem?

“Do you want to be?” she asked. “I think we have the opportunity to effect real change here. Maybe even shift the power structure completely.” She smiled, but there was a fierceness in her eyes. I wondered why this was so important to her.

“Well, I have soccer practice a lot of the time, and, uh … ” I trailed off, unable to finish my thought. Across the lawn, I could just make out the picnic table where Brad sat, surrounded by his usual band of drones. His taunt from Saturday's game circled my head, whispering “fairy,” just because I hadn't felt like putting a guy in the hospital.

I turned the flier over in my hands, my eyes blurring over the list of meeting times. “Sure.” I folded the paper in half. “Why not?”

9

E
l
o
r
A

A scream rent the air, high and sharp like the battle cry of a hawk. I lurched from my place of rest, pupils dilating until they had taken over the whites of my eyes. The darkness gave way to strange silhouettes scattered around a small enclosure, and though I scanned my surroundings with nocturnal expertise, it took me nearly a minute to understand where I was.

Yet with this understanding came greater confusion.

Crouching on the floor of Taylor's bedchamber, the edge of the blanket still wrapped around my leg, I knew without glancing toward the window that it was the middle of the night. But I couldn't explain the scent of fear hanging in the air, heavy enough to taste, nor could I identify the cause of the scream. I crawled toward the sleeping mortal on silent hands and knees, hoping the closeness might provide insight.

As I drew near he thrashed to the side, all but flinging himself from his little bed, and moaned regretfully as if his beloved had forsaken him. Ever so gently, I brushed my fingers against his arm.

His eyes popped open.

For a moment we spoke only in breaths, his sharp and ragged, mine hissing and long, as we searched, in our own ways, to bring our hearts relief. I was the first to part my lips, yet he was the first to speak.

“What happened?” His eyes traveled the length of the bedchamber, and I realized that in his dreamy state, he believed I'd come to warn him of some danger.

Nothing
, I thought to myself, but the word caught in my throat and shied away from my lips. “You cried out,” I said, staring at the strands of hair that clung to his forehead. “I heard you.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away from me.

“Why?” I asked. His back was soaked with sweat, seeping through the fabric of his shirt, and I placed my hand upon it, to cool him.

“For waking you up,” he said.

“It seems I have returned the favor. But I require little sleep.”

“Okay … ” He twisted around to look at me.

I couldn't help but wonder, berating myself all the while, what would happen if I let the glamour slip for a moment. Would he be able to see? It wasn't a terribly disturbing thought. The disingenuous nature of my disguise would cause any faerie unease. Sure, we were tricksters, but playing a human for this duration was a flat-out lie. And yet my desire to be revealed ran deeper than this. I wanted to show myself to
him
, specifically. It was a desire originating not from my body but from my spirit, and it went ricocheting through me, igniting my heart, my mind, everything.

All my life, I had been warned of faeries who lost their minds in the wasteland. Is that what was happening to me now?

“I didn't mean to wake you,” I said. “I know you have trouble falling asleep.”

“You've been watching me?”

“No more intently than you watch me.” The rogue words defied my guarded lips.

Bad faerie
.

“Sorry.”

The sincerity in his voice surprised me. So much of what the Dark Court said about humans seemed untrue of this one. Perhaps I was not losing my mind. Perhaps I was simply reacting to him empathetically, the way I did with so many earthly creatures. For a moment I missed my train of ravens, flying around my head like a dark veil. Even my mother's wolves could be sweet, and playful, when the Dark Lady's moods did not make them surly.

“I should be the one who is sorry,” I said. “You've done much to help me feel comfortable here. Isn't there some little thing I can do for you?”

Clever girl, limiting the terms of the bargain.

After all, he had been content to offer me room and board for nothing. I was the one who had promised him his heart's greatest desire. Why had I done that? The words had just slipped past my lips, as if I w
ere possessed.

Or under a spell
.

Did
humans have a magic all their own?

Taylor was watching me. His hair had fallen into his eyes. I had a sudden vision of him dancing in the moonlight, his body adorned in leaves and vines: the ritual for a faerie child entering into maturity. “Remember what I said to you at the park?” he asked. “About wanting you to be safe?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn't the whole story.”

My breath caught in my throat. Here, he would divulge his true intentions. Here, I would be proven right about humanity.

But he did not look evil in the darkness. He looked
broken
. “I moved out of my parents' house over a year ago.”

“Any particular reason?”

“It's just better this way,” he said quickly, hiding his bitterness. Three days and I was already learning his tricks.

“I think I can understand,” I said, reminding him that my situation was far from perfect.

The words leant him obvious strength. His back straightened as he spoke. “I like the privacy. I can come and go without bugging anyone. But it's quiet. The sound of my breathing keeps me awake. So I lie in bed at night letting every possible thought come into my head. Sometimes the thoughts are really stupid. Sometimes they're dangerous … ” His gaze drifted to the books stacked on his desk.

Maybe his glance was inadvertent, but I took the opportunity and ran with it. “Are you asking for something to fill up the silence?” I said. “Perhaps a story?”

“No, I just—never mind.” He hid his face in his pillow.

“Not so fast.” In Faerie, a well-told story was worth more than gold. If I could choose the right one, I would not feel so indebted to him. “What kind of story?”

“I don't need a
bedtime story
,” he snarled. “Just … tell me about yourself.”

I froze, staring into the darkness. “Is that what you desire?”

“It is.”

I chose my words carefully. “Then I will do as you ask. But my story will start in a curious place, and you will just have to trust me.”

“I trust you,” he said without missing a beat.

My heart constricted. My entire body was trembling, but I opened my mouth and pushed out the words: “Once upon a time, a planet came into being, spinning through the universe amongst a billion burning stars. The planet, now called Earth, had a body and a spirit, which shared no visible connection but were intrinsically linked. So when the planet's body separated into innumerable forms of life, her spirit separated too, into millions of self-aware entities, and that is the origin of faeries.”

“Sorry, Tinker Bell,” Taylor said with a laugh.

I smiled at that. “In those early days, the faeries lived only as spirits, nestled inside flowers and stones or dancing across the earth in sunlight and rain. But as more creatures came to life, the faeries began to experiment with matter, manipulating the elements to create physical bodies.”

I paused as Taylor shivered. The window above the bed lay open a crack, at my request, and a breeze drifted steadily into the room, carrying the scent of hyacinth. I reached for the blanket Taylor had tossed aside in the throes of sleep and pulled it over him. He turned to me, and a multitude of emotions danced across his face: surprise, embarrassment, gratitude.

My breath quickened as his hand neared mine, accidentally brushing against me as he settled onto his back. I had the sudden desire to take those fingers and clutch them in my own, but I fought it, knowing it to be foolish.

It's in his nature to hurt me.

“You can have some of the blanket,” he offered, and my confusion deepened.

“That's okay,” I said, thinking of other things that might lend me warmth. I couldn't believe my boldness, even if only in my own mind, and turned away, terrified and entranced at the same time.

Taylor's voice brought me back. “What happened next?”

“Humanity was born,” I said softly, “providing the Folk with new features to incorporate into their many forms. Using humanity as their inspiration, they made bodies with human faces and limbs, adding dragonfly wings or shimmering fins. This was a time of glorious discovery for the fey, and they tried on every imaginable ensemble, emerging transformed each time.

“But things began to change. Humans separated themselves from the natural world, studying it from afar as if it were not a part of them. They stopped entering the dark forest
s and began fashioning their houses from dead trees, afraid that live trees held spirits they couldn't contain. And as the human world grew more controlled, more finite, faeries living in physical forms grew more finite as well, until only the oldest among them could transform at will. For the rest of them, their bodies became like shells, encasing them.

“Fearing the changes brought forth by humanity, the Folk traveled to the places where the connection between body and spirit remained uncompromised: untouched forests, peaks of desolate mountains, and the depths of the sea. They relied on glamour—magical illusion—to keep humans away. But no matter how far they went, one aspect of human life always managed to reach them: iron. Iron-infested air attacked the faeries' lungs. In its purest form, iron could burn the flesh from their bones. And at the height of the Middle Ages, when humans laid iron over their doorways and fashioned it into instruments of death, the faeries found they were losing the ability to reproduce.”

“Wait,” Taylor broke in. “How does that work? If faeries are spirits who put on physical bodies, how can they reproduce?”

“When faeries fashioned bodies from the elements of the earth, those bodies were as real as the earth herself. As real as you are.” There was an edge to my voice that I hadn't intended.

“I didn't mean—it's just fascinating,” he said quickly.

I wanted to touch him so badly then, to illustrate the realness of my body. “As fascinating as where human bodies and spirits come from?”

“Okay, okay,” he said with a smile. “So the faeries just manipulated elements and formed bodies—”

“From soil and leaves, from air and starlight. Yes. Call it magic, or concentrated will, or focused energy. So if a faerie made a body like a tree, she could self-populate. And if she made a body like an animal, she could give birth like that animal does. The earth is filled with miracles and magic, and faeries are no exception. For many centuries, they were blessed with the ability to have children.”

“Until they weren't anymore?”

“Exactly.”

He closed his eyes, scooting an inch closer. His smallest finger came to rest upon my arm. I stared down at it, savoring the connection between us in spite of the danger.

“What did they do?” he asked.

“They didn't know what to do.” I exhaled slowly. I couldn't believe the tiniest of touches could bring me such joy. I didn't want to believe it. “They knew they had to try to reach humanity and take back what they had lost, but they could not fathom how to do it. Humans no longer listened to them. They believed the faeries were minions of some demonic underlord, if they believed in them at all. It seemed hopeless.”

“But it wasn't?” His voice was very soft now, the cooing of a slumbering babe.

“No. For out of the darkness of their despair emerged a leader, whose cruel and cunning tongue promised to bring salvation to faerie kind: the future Unseelie Queen.”

Taylor's eyes fluttered and I heard the soft rhythm of his breathing. For a moment I sat perfectly still, before passing the silent words from my lips: “My mother.”