The Changelings Series, Book 1 (9 page)

Moonlight filtered down through the trees by the time they reached the Giant's Boneyard. Here, the Edgewood thinned out to make room for large sandstone boulders, just like the ones in Izzy's yard back home. The stones gleamed white in the moonlight, forming the shape of a colossal skeleton half-buried in the ground. If they truly were the bones of a long-dead giant, he would have stretched the length of a house. Selden led the way to the tallest boulder, the skeleton's shoulder, and they all climbed to the top of it.

“This is good,” he said, scanning their surroundings. “We'll be able to see anything coming before it gets to us. I'll take the first watch.”

He Changed into a wolf and sat down on the stone, his ears pointed at the trees. Dree Changed into a white cat striped with silver. She sat beside him, and they began whispering to each other, too low for Izzy to hear. She followed Lug over the boulders until they reached the giant's skull.

Lug curled up in a hollow depression that resembled an eye socket. He patted the rock. “Come on. Rest here with me,” he said to Izzy.

She sat down beside him and hugged her knees to her chest. “There's no way I can sleep. What if those things find us again?”

“I've never been so close to an Ungler before,” said Lug with a shudder. “When they put those nasty fingers all over my face, I felt like fainting.”

“But you were so brave, the way you charged into them like that. All I could do was run.”

“When I saw them about to hurt you and Selden, something snapped in me. We got lucky there were only two. The Unglers usually prowl the woods with triple that number.”

Izzy looked over her shoulder at Dree and Selden. “You guys can't go back to Yawning Top now, can you? What are you going to do?”

“I don't know,” he said with a sigh. “But I suppose that's what those two are talking about right now. A terrible shame. I really loved that tree. Almost felt like a proper home.”

Home.
The word sent a pang of longing right through Izzy's chest. If she were home right now, she'd be sitting at the kitchen table reading stories to Hen, while her parents did the dishes. Comfortable. Safe. Izzy shut her eyes to make the thought go away.

“Lug, do you have a mom and dad? I don't mean the human family you lived with. I mean a real mother and father.”

“No, I'm an orphan.” Lug pointed to where Selden and Dree sat talking. “All Changelings are.”

Izzy felt guilty for asking. “Oh. I'm sorry.”

Lug yawned and patted her knee. “Don't be sorry. Good Peter travels around Faerie, rounding us all up. We grow up together, take care of each other. Then, before you know it, it's your turn to do the Exchange.”

“I still don't understand the Exchange,” said Izzy. “Why do you do it?”

“Well, without the Exchange, Faerie and Earth would be completely cut off from one another. Even though our worlds split up, they still need each other. Without fairies, Earth would be a dreary place with no magic at all. And Faerie needs humans for…well, it needs them for…” Lug chuckled. “I guess I don't remember why! But there is a reason. Selden must be rubbing off on me. He's a little harsh on humans.”

“Just a little,” said Izzy. “But what I meant was: why do
you
do the Exchange? Why leave a magic place like Faerie for boring old Earth?” Izzy glanced at Selden and lowered her voice. “Don't tell him I said that, or he'll never quit gloating.”

Lug smiled, and his eyes disappeared behind his downy cheeks. “Selden likes to brag about how much better Faerie is than Earth, but he did the Exchange for the same reason as all the rest of us. To get the chance to have a family.” Lug yawned again and shut his eyes. “Course we're our own little family now. But that's just what friends do, don't they?”

Izzy turned her face away from his. “I kind of wouldn't know,” she said softly. “Can I tell you something, Lug? I think you might be my very first one.”

A deep snore rumbled beside her. Izzy looked at Lug's sleeping face and smiled. Then she curled up beside him and shut her eyes.

• • •

It was either very late or very early when Izzy woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Careful not to wake Lug, she stood up and tiptoed over the boulder until the sound of his snoring faded. She sat down on the giant's skull's smooth forehead. The sky was full of stars, like someone had tossed a handful of sugar out into the night.

The trilling of insects filled the darkness. Izzy took off her hat and set it in her lap. She shut her eyes. It was just like being back in Everton, sitting on the side porch in that wicker chair the night before Hen disappeared—the night she had wished for an adventure and to be as far away from home and family as possible. She looked out at the stars and tried to feel if that fragile thread between Hen and her still existed.

“Are you still there?” she whispered. “Please tell me you are!”

“Is who still there?”

Izzy spun around. A wolf stood behind her. For a half second, she forgot who it was and nearly screamed.

“You scared me,” she said with an exhale.

Moonlight glinted off Selden's fangs as he grinned. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget which form I'm in.” He shook his coat and Changed back into a boy. He walked over and sat down a few feet from Izzy. “You were thinking about your sister, huh?”

She nodded.

“I guess she's lucky.”

“What do you mean?”

Selden picked at the loose threads of his trouser cuffs. “You know, that she's got someone who cares about her so much. Before I went to Earth, I thought that's what all families did.”

Izzy waited for him to say something sarcastic or mean. After all, the last time they spoke, they'd screamed at each other. But he just sat there, winding the strings around his fingers. It seemed like a heavy cloud had gathered over his usually bright eyes.

“Selden, what was your human family like?” Izzy asked.

He shrugged. “Didn't get much of a chance to find out.” He paused, then added, “They didn't want me.”

“Oh,” said Izzy. “I thought you ran away.”

“I did, but only after I heard them say they were going to send me to a—what's that word? Orpher…orphor—”

“Orphanage.” Based on what Lug had just told her, Izzy realized this meant Selden had been orphaned twice. She ran her fingers around the brim of her hat. Why was it so much easier to talk in the dark? She found words coming to her lips that she couldn't even bear to think about in the daytime. “You're wrong, you know. My sister's not lucky to have me at all. The last time I talked to Hen, we got in a huge fight. I said terrible, terrible things to her. If that's the last memory she has of me, if I never get the chance to make it right…” She glanced at Selden, expecting one of his smug grins.

Instead, his face was serious. “If you don't make it right, you'll regret it every day for the rest of your life.”

He leaned back and tilted his face to the stars that were quickly disappearing into the lightening sky. When he spoke again, the swagger was back in his voice. “Look, it's no secret we'd both love to be rid of each other, right?”

Izzy raised an eyebrow but didn't answer.

“I guess we're going to have to wait a little longer to get our wish,” said Selden. “The three of us are coming to Avhalon now.”

Izzy sat up straighter. “Are you serious? What made you change your mind?”

Selden looked behind him at his sleeping friends and lowered his voice. “When your sister disappeared, you said there was no Changeling to take her place, right?”

“Right…”

“That's because aside from the three of us, there aren't any more Changelings left in Faerie to do the job.”

Izzy let his words sink in for a moment. “What happened to them? Was it the Unglers?”

“Yes, sort of. The Unglers hunt Changelings, but they're working for someone else. They're working for Morvanna.”

“Morvanna? Who is that?”

“She's the new queen in Avhalon.” Selden sneered. “At least that's what she makes everyone call her.”

“This is the woman you and Shank were talking about, right?”
The same woman I heard you and Dree whispering about back at Yawning Top
, she thought.

Selden nodded. “A few years ago, she showed up in Avhalon, took over everything, and built a huge castle for herself. Then she brought in the Unglers from who knows where and sent them out to round up all the Changelings they could find. No one knows what she did with them. They just disappeared.”

“Why didn't the three of you disappear too?”

Selden shifted. A painful look flashed across his face. “I didn't return from Earth until after it all happened,” he said. “When I heard about the Unglers, I hid myself in the Edgewood. When Lug and Dree came back to Faerie, I found them before anyone else did, and we've been hiding out together ever since.”

Selden stood up. The cloud still lingered over his face, but his eyes shone fiercely. “We'd almost given up on ever finding the others. But if the Piper took your sister, then maybe there's one Changeling still alive to take her place. Maybe they're
all
still alive. The Apple Festival is our best chance to find out what really happened to them. There'll be all sorts of fairies there, and it'll be easy for us to blend in with the crowd.”

Izzy remembered what Dree said back at Yawning Top, how she thought the Piper was working for Morvanna. “This means Hen is with Morvanna too. Do you think she's OK?”

“I don't know,” said Selden. “Morvanna's become very powerful. They say there's not a fairy that can match her this side of the mountains.”

Selden must have seen the worry on Izzy's face, because he quickly added, “Your sister is probably just fine. Morvanna wants Changelings, not humans. You'll find out more when you get to the city.”

“What does Dree think of your plan?”

“Hates it, of course. But we haven't got many options now that the Unglers found Yawning Top. I promised her that if we don't find anything out about the other Changelings, we'll leave Avhalon straight away.” He sighed and lowered his head. “Faerie's big enough that you can spend your whole life looking for new places to hide out.”

The stars were gone, replaced by the pale lemon sky of morning. Selden walked out to the far edge of the giant's skull. “Hey, come here. I'll show you where we're going.”

Izzy got to her feet and joined him. They faced west, away from the rising sun. From their position, Izzy could see that the Edgewood stood on top of a huge plateau. The Giant's Boneyard lay at the plateau's rim, at the very border of the forest. To either side of them, the line of trees ran on like a curling green ribbon. Below them, a grassy plain rolled out for miles to the feet of a chain of lavender mountains.

Cradled at the base of the tallest peak, Izzy saw a city that she knew must be Avhalon. The morning sunlight danced off the towers of an enormous castle in the center of the city. It sat atop an outcropping of stone at the junction of two rivers that rushed down from the mountains.

Selden pointed at the mountain range. “Those are the Avhals. Mount Mooring is the tallest one you can see from here. And the two rivers that flow around it are the Noy and the Liadan. See where they join together? That big river runs all the way south to the Gray Sea.”

The city's stone walls rose high above the water, surrounded on almost all sides by the rivers.

Izzy remembered the story of King Arthur's final resting place and smiled to herself. “Avhalon. The Isle of Apples,” she said.

Selden tilted his head to one side. “I guess it does look like an island from up here, doesn't it?”

“I'm almost there, Hen,” Izzy whispered. “Just hold on a little longer.”

Selden cleared his throat. “You know, since we've got to travel on together a little longer, maybe we should call a truce.” He held out his hand. Even in his boy form, he had a wolfish smile. “If I promise not to play any more tricks?”

Izzy considered saying something sarcastic, but she was too happy to be annoyed with him anymore. Knowing that she wouldn't have to go to Avhalon alone made her feel light enough to float right into the air. She plopped the hat back on and took his hand.

“OK. Truce.”

By late afternoon of the next day, Izzy sat with her legs hanging out the back of a dwarf's wagon. On one side of her sat a skinny man with curly black hair who kept calling her his “sweet little daughter,” because he knew it annoyed her. On the other side of her sat a very large woman with a scarf tied around her face to hide her large tufts of neck hair. A delicate white butterfly rested on Izzy's shoulder, almost invisible in the bright afternoon sun.

“Oof, this shirt is too tight!” said the woman, stuffing her ample bosom back inside her tunic. “Oh, why did I have to be the mother?”

“Lug, will you stop complaining?” hissed the man on the other side of Izzy. “A family looks much less suspicious than four kids traveling alone. And stop messing with your bust, or I'll start laughing, and then I'll never be able to hold on to this Likeness!”

“Both of you hush!” said the butterfly. “We're about to cross the Liadan Bridge!”

The wagon's wheels clattered against smooth, gray stones as they started up onto the bridge. Izzy could hear the sounds of water rushing beneath them.

“It'll be faster to go the rest of the way on foot,” said Selden, hopping down off the back of the wagon. “Come on, family of mine! Thank you kindly for the ride,” he called to the dwarf, whose pony looked very relieved when it saw Lug get off.

Lug helped Izzy hop down, and they joined the throng of fairies funneling over the bridge to enter the city gates. It took Izzy every effort not to stare. They were surrounded by every kind of fairy she'd ever read about, and plenty that she'd never even imagined: all sorts of elves, pixies, dwarves, a dozen giants twice as tall as Lug, brownies that looked like they could be Shank's cousins, and winged sprites zipping between them all. There were also a few races of talking animals: mice, a black bear wearing an eye patch, and three incredibly old-looking goats. If Izzy wasn't so worried about finding Hen, it would have been the most amazing day of her life.

Beside them, a man carted a huge hive in a wheelbarrow with a swarm of tiny, winged fairies buzzing all around it. A sign on the hive said,
Pollening Honey—For Sale by the Jar
.

Izzy tried not to gape as she pointed out the hive to the butterfly on her shoulder. “What's pollening honey taste like?”

Dree shrugged as if nothing could be more ordinary than honey made by a hundred Tinker Bells. “It's all right. Goes good with pancakes.”

All sorts of smells from the sweaty crowd hovered in the humid air: musky barnyard odors mixed with pine and incense. Izzy touched the necklace of Scarlet Stairstep hidden under her shirt.

She reached up for Lug's hand. “Will there be any you-know-what here?” she whispered, thinking of the Unglers.

“I wouldn't think they'd show their snouts here,” he whispered back. “They'd scare everyone to death. It'd cause a stampede.” As they approached the stone entryway into the city, he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “Coming home at last! Thought I'd never see this place again.”

Dree flew to his cheek and flicked him with her wing. “Shhh! This isn't home, not anymore. And we've all got to be careful. Take a look at that!”

Izzy's eyes followed her as she fluttered up toward the archway at the end of the bridge. Two tall guards in dark-green uniforms stood on either side of the arch. They were as tall as full-grown men, with sallow, pockmarked skin and sharp teeth protruding up from their lips. Each carried a short sword and a club in his belt, and they patted them threateningly as they stared down their long, twisty noses at the crowd.

“Goblins,” whispered Lug.

Selden eyed the guards, then elbowed a fairy man walking beside him. “Say, friend. I h'ain't been to a festival in a couple years,” he drawled. “What's with them tall fellas?” He pointed his chin at the guards.

The man answered with his hand over his mouth, speaking so low that Izzy could barely hear. “Wevildale goblins,” he said. “
She
brought 'em in from the Norlorn Mountains. Says they're here to keep order, but don't look at 'em wrong, or they'll reorder your face.”

Izzy pulled her hat down tighter and squeezed Lug's hand. She let out a breath of relief when they finally passed under the archway.

The flow of the crowd carried them forward through the narrow city streets. On either side, brightly painted wooden buildings tilted this way and that, like they had been built on top of each other over the years without much thought to style or stability. Some houses had round windows, some square, and some had tiny doors no larger than a deck of cards. Izzy thought they looked cheerful in a ramshackle sort of way.

The castle gave her an entirely different feeling. It loomed oppressively over everything, like it was looking down, watching her as she passed. From her view back in the Edgewood, Avhalon had looked like a city that belonged nestled in the clouds. But the longer she looked at it, the more Izzy thought the castle seemed out of place, too new and perfect compared with the other buildings. Its towers soared hundreds of feet above the rest of the town, casting everything beneath it into dark shadows. Their pointed rooftops looked like silver claws grabbing for the sun. Was Hen at the top of one of those towers? Izzy didn't see a single crack or crevice that could serve as a toehold in the sheer walls, and the lowest window was at least a hundred feet off the ground.

The sun had begun to set as the crowd wound its way behind the castle and onto a wide, grassy field that lay between Avhalon and the base of Mount Mooring. Rows of twisty apple trees ringed the field on all sides. A full moon floated overhead, lost among the lanterns hanging from their black branches.

The many vendors Izzy had seen on their journey had set up booths on the field in the center of the orchard. They sold trinkets and art, livestock and tools, and lots and lots of food.

Lug breathed in deep. “Ah, the sweet smells of paradise!”

“Lug's version of paradise is a never-ending, deep-fat fryer,” said Selden.

Izzy laughed. For a moment, she forgot why she was there and let herself get swept up in the festival atmosphere.

Jugglers and fire-breathers and barefoot dancers whirled around her. She stared in wonder at the array of clothes for sale—bridal veils embroidered with morning dew, a hunting cloak the color of shadows, leather gloves that let you stick your hands straight into a fire and not get burned. There were booths hawking potions in glass bottles:
Love Detangler
,
Colic Cure
,
Grump Reducer
,
Weed Shriveler
. Magic infused everything Izzy saw. But it was a humble sort of magic, country magic practiced by country fairies.

Lug wandered out among the food stalls, pretending to inspect what was on sale. When he joined Izzy and Selden again, he pulled a handful of crumbly apple pastries out of his blouse. Izzy took one and shoved it into her mouth. It was flaky, sweet, tart, and buttery all at once. She didn't know if it had been baked by magic, and she didn't care. It was the most heavenly thing she'd ever eaten.

Dree landed on Izzy's shoulder and stamped her butterfly feet. “Lug, you've got to quit doing that! You're going to get caught!”

“But being a woman makes me so hungry!” he mumbled through a mouth full of apple dumpling. “Besides, everyone's enjoying themselves too much to notice.”

“They won't enjoy it for long,” Dree grumbled. “This thick air means it's going to rain on all their heads before the night's over. Lug! You get back over here right now!”

He ignored her and went back to the pastry stands. Dree lifted off from Izzy's shoulder and flitted after him.

Izzy licked the last crumbs off her fingers and walked out into the crowd. Straight ahead, a tall figure wearing a crumpled hat bobbed among the other fairies. A crop of short white hair peeked out from beneath the cap.

Izzy stared in shock. It couldn't be.

“Marian?” she whispered.

Izzy turned away from Selden and pushed into the crowd. She followed after the cap, weaving between the fairies, trying to keep up. It looked exactly like Marian's hat. But how could she have gotten away from the cobwebs? The crowd thickened, and Izzy lost sight of her.

Izzy wiped the sweat off her forehead. She must have been imagining things. Marian couldn't have escaped Netherbee Hall, not after what Izzy had seen. She patted the tiny bottle in her jacket pocket. Her mind had played a trick on her, letting her see what she wanted to see.

Izzy turned this way and that as the crowd swirled around her. Perfect. Now she'd lost Selden and the others too. She was just about to turn and go looking for them when she heard something that made her skin go prickly all over: a flute playing a tune, sad and sweet. She knew it instantly.

It was the same song playing in the woods when Hen disappeared.

A throng of fairies had gathered in the center of the grassy field. Izzy pushed her way through them to get closer to the music. The crowd parted to let a black horse step past. On his back rode a slender man, pale as a swan. Compared to the common fairies at the festival, he was dressed like a prince. He even wore a thin crown of silver set into his dark hair.

Izzy's stomach did backflips. “Good Peter,” she whispered to herself.

The Piper continued past, riding toward a line of tall white tents at the far end of the field. If he was here, that meant her sister must be here too. Izzy had to tell the Changelings. They'd help her find Hen.

Trumpets blasted from the direction of the castle. Everyone turned to look. Whispers rippled through the crowd as the fairies pressed back farther to make more room.

“It's her. It's her…”

“Here she comes! The queen!”

Four snow-white mares pulled an open carriage into the throng of gawking fairies. Wevildale goblins flanked the carriage on all sides, shoving away spectators who tried to get too close. Izzy's pulse thumped along in time to the trumpets as the queen drew nearer.

The woman standing in the carriage held herself as tall and stiff as the white towers of her castle. Her red hair was parted down the middle and fell stick-straight to the middle of her back. She could have been a statue if not for that hair, swishing to the rhythm of the carriage, and eyes that darted around the crowd like a reptile's. They rested for a brief moment on each fairy before moving to the next face.

The carriage rolled to a stop a dozen yards from where Izzy stood. The crowd seemed to press forward and draw back at the same time. Izzy felt it too. She wanted to keep a safe distance, but she couldn't take her eyes off the queen. Izzy had the weird feeling she had seen her somewhere before.

Morvanna held out both hands to quiet the crowd. She waited, letting the silence build before she spoke. “Good evening, my dear citizens of Avhalon.” She clipped her words like a gardener cutting thorn bushes. “And greetings to our guests from near and far. As your queen, I welcome you to the Festival of the Apples. As you know, it is tradition to open the festival with the Adoption Ceremony.”

The fairies standing around Izzy nodded and murmured in agreement.

“As it happens, this year, we have only one human child to choose from…”

Izzy leaned forward onto her toes.

“…and so I have decided to start a new tradition.” Morvanna smiled coyly. “This year, I have decided to adopt the child for my own!”

The queen stepped aside with a dramatic swoosh of her emerald skirts. Someone sat in the carriage beside her. Izzy jammed the back of her hand into her mouth to keep from crying out.

It was Hen.