Faerie Tale (6 page)

‘No problem then,’ said Tamar manifesting an iron bar.

‘No good,’ said Denny. ‘It has to be
real
iron, manifestations are no good.  Sorry.’

‘Oh,’ Tamar looked put out as she made the bar disappear or “unmanifested” it, as Cindy always said.  She had said it so often that it had caught on among the others even though, as Denny pointed out, it was not a real word. 

‘You called them fairies,’ put in Stiles. 

‘That’s right,’ said Denny.  ‘But don’t be fooled, it makes them sound harmless, but they aren’t. They’re extremely dangerous.’

‘We’ve noticed,’ put in Tamar sourly. 

‘And …’ Denny looked at Stiles gravely, ‘they steal children.’ 

He waited for the penny to drop.  It did not take long. 

‘It was
them
?’ Stiles snarled, going red with anger.

‘You’ve heard of changelings?’  Denny continued.  Stiles nodded, unable to speak through his fury.

 ‘If it helps, the children are probably all right.’

Stiles found his voice. ‘Why?’ he managed in a strangled tone.

‘Nobody knows.’ Denny sighed. ‘What I
don’t
understand is … he broke off.  ‘Oh my God,’ he gasped.  ‘I am so stupid.  I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.’

‘What?’ said Tamar. 

‘
Changelings
,’ said Denny. ‘They usually grow up as a part of the family.  No one ever suspects. 
We
never suspected, even though he
is
such a little horror.’

‘Jacky!’ gasped Tamar and Stiles at the same time. 

‘I
said
he wasn’t Eugene’s kid,’ added Tamar.  ‘I just never realised he wasn’t Cindy’s either.’

‘We have to get back,’ said Stiles.  ‘My wife is in the house with that …
thing
!’

‘But where’s the
real
Jacky?’ asked Tamar.  ‘And the rest of the missing kids for that matter?’ 

Denny shrugged.  ‘I don’t have all the answers,’ he said. 

‘But what do they
want
?’  Tamar said plaintively. ‘Why are they here?’

‘Fun.’  The voice was a soft female voice and it seemed to come from all around them.  ‘We want to have fun,’

* * *

Somehow, Hecaté realised, some of the parents were accidentally exposing the changeling in its true form.  That was surely the only explanation for the mysterious transformations occurring.  So why had it not happened here?  And how many others were out there, that
had not
been exposed?

Many of the older children were, as Denny had surmised, acting – as she now recognised – like Faeries might be expected to. But it was only the very young – the babies – who had been exposed for what they were.  Another clue? Were the older ones also changelings? Changelings who had not been exposed?  How long had this been going on?

Long enough (and here she shuddered) for some of these to have grown to adulthood?  She realised, with a shock, that Denny had thought so, and he was usually right about these things.

However, this was conjecture and more important to Hecaté, at the moment anyway, was the fact that once the changeling was exposed, the parents ceased to care for the interloper, and it ran away.  She
had
to work out how to expose Jacky (or the thing that looked like Jacky) to Cindy.  She decided to read Stiles’s notes on the missing children, there might be a clue there, now that someone knew what they were looking for.

* * *

Three heads whipped round and saw her standing in a pool of scattered light. Tall, beautiful with a crown of pale green flowers atop her long golden hair. She was smiling. Silvery laughter filled the air around her.

‘This was
our
world,’ she said, ‘long ago.’

‘Until you were banished,’ said Denny defiantly.

‘We left,’ she corrected him, but no one believed her.  ‘And now we are back.’

‘You state the obvious beautifully,’ sniped Tamar sarcastically. 

Bright green eyes were turned on her with an expression that clearly said, “You are nothing.  I could wipe you out without a second thought”.  They were not ordinary eyes. They were, when you looked into them, the cold dead eyes of a serial killer.  Tamar stared back unflinchingly – no one else could have done it.

The Faerie gave in first. Tamar had a stare like a thermic lance and had probably been practising longer.  It was the sort of thing she would do – gaze into a mirror until it broke out of sheer desperation. 

As soon as she broke her gaze, Tamar grabbed Stiles and yelled at Denny.  ‘Now, go
now
!’ and vanished.

Denny shrugged.  He looked at the Faerie Queen.

‘They will not get far,’ she said. 

‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ Denny told her.  ‘You don’t know her like I do,’

‘Why did
you
stay?’ asked the Faerie Queen. ‘I can no longer see your mind, it is like iron. 

 ‘I’m ready for you now,’ he said.

The Queen nodded.

‘I have questions,’ said Denny.

‘Ask.’

‘You are QueenOnagh, the Queen of the Sidhe?’ he began. 

She nodded her assent, seemingly unsurprised at this evidence of her fame.

‘The thing about a link between minds,’ said Denny, apparently inconsequentially, ‘is that it works both ways.  Especially if the person whose mind you’re trying to read has telepathic abilities of their own.’ He looked slyly at her to see her reaction to this, almost certainly unexpected, development.  Her face was carefully blank. 

Satisfied, he continued. ‘It
was
you in my head wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Don’t bother … I know,’ he added before she could deny it.  ‘So I just have one question for you.  What do you want with me?’    

* * *

‘Where’s Denny?’ Tamar panicked as they landed in a clearing, which was nowhere near where she had been aiming for, but one problem at a time. ‘He should have been right behind us.’

‘Maybe
he
went the
right
way,’ groused Stiles from a pile of bracken, which was tearing his trousers as he tried to free himself. 

Tamar glared. ‘It doesn’t work like that. He was following
me
.  Or he should have been.  So where
is
he?’ 

‘When you put it like that,’ Stiles admitted.  ‘It doesn’t look good. 

* * *

Denny was playing a dangerous game here, and he knew it.  Keep her off balance long enough to get some answers, and still get away. But without answers, they did not stand a chance.  He was not really surprised when he lost the game; he was playing with an empty deck. 

Queen Onagh decided that she would not answer any more questions until she had him where she wanted him. 

Resignedly, Denny had to let himself be captured by the enemy.  It was the only way.  He just had to make sure it was not
too
easy for her.  As he half-heartedly ran away, he pondered on the last question he had asked her.  He really wanted to know what she wanted him for.  One thing he was certain of; he was not going to like it. 

~ Chapter Seven ~

W
hen she finally found it, Hecaté could hardly believe it. According to Stiles’s notes, all the children were with someone at the time of their transmogrification.  Well, she knew that.  It tallied with her theory that the parents (or in some cases grandparents or even baby sitters) were the ones who had exposed the changeling, however unwittingly.  But it was telling that it was not only parents who were able to do this.  She was looking for general behaviour brought on by contact with young children. Something that anybody
might
do sometimes, but (and this was important) not all the time and not
every
body (
they
had not done it – obviously) and it had to be a recent development, something people did not do long ago, when the Faeries were here before. This ought to have narrowed the possibilities considerably, but she still had no idea what it could be. 

Stiles’s reports were thorough, but people could not be relied on for the details. She had briefly considered the telephone (another piece of modern technology that was utterly mysterious to her) the contact numbers of the parents were on the reports.  But how exactly would she put it? –  “I think your child may have been kidnapped by Faeries.  What was the very last thing you did before your baby turned into a monster and flew away?” – people these days were far too clever to believe in such nonsense.  Most of them believed that the government had been conducting genetic experiments. A few talked of aliens.  None of them would believe in Faeries.  Sometimes it was hard to make people believe the truth.  It was usually too unbelievable.

So she turned back to Denny’s notes.  There turned out to be a chant in an old language, so old that even Hecaté could barely read, written as it was, in an ancient alphabet.  It was supposed to reveal the changeling to human eyes.  After several tries, she managed to sound it out and laughed all the way up the stairs to Cindy’s room. 

* * ,

Stiles was torn. On the one hand, Tamar was urging him to help her find Denny (who was probably in trouble (having been last seen in the company of the Faerie Queen) and going home to Hecaté who was
definitely
in trouble (being alone in the house with a known changeling who was also known to be extremely vicious). No one worried about Cindy since she seemed to be the only one that was not in any danger from Jacky. 

In the end, it was decided that they should go after Denny since Tamar said that: A, she wasn’t leaving without him, and B, her teleporting power seemed to be a bit off, and she could not guarantee
where
they would end up.  Oh, and there was no chance of them making it home on foot since they were completely lost. 

‘If we don’t stop the Sidhe,’ she added.  ‘It won’t matter anyway, because
no one
will be safe.’  This was inarguable. 

Stiles argued anyway (Tamar was rubbing off on him) but Tamar was better at it, and she won in the end. 

‘So,’ said Stiles suddenly as they trudged through the trees.  ‘Was it real or not?’ 

This was unexpected and rather difficult. 

Tamar rubbed her nose, a habit picked up from Denny, which meant that he was going to lie but was not happy about it.  ‘No,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ said Stiles.  ‘No I thought not.  I mean, we … you and I … I mean
us
!  It’s just not …’

‘Exactly!’ said Tamar.  ‘You love Hecaté and I love Denny, and we’ve had this conversation before anyway.’

Stiles was startled. It was true, but he had forgotten it until now.  He nodded uncertainly but since he was behind Tamar, she did not see this. 

She ploughed on.  ‘I mean, there might have been
something
there if it wasn’t for the others, but it wouldn’t have been real anyway.  So just forget about it.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Stiles. Nevertheless, he continued to watch Tamar’s backside as she walked ahead of him – but that is just men for you. 

* * *

What do you want with me?’ Denny was painfully aware that he was not in any position to be asking questions.  He was chained up in dungeon.  The chains and manacles appeared to have been wrought from some kind of bronze and the knife the Faerie Queen was wielding was perhaps made of stone – he was later to make the horrible discovery that the knife had actually been carved from a human femur. 

She gave him a blank smile.

‘I know you wanted me here, but I want to know wh…’  Denny began.

She grasped his head and kissed him slowly. 

It was all Denny could do to prevent himself from gagging. 

‘I think you know why,’ she told him. ‘But later, when you have been properly … indoctrinated

‘Brainwashed you mean?’ said Denny. 

Not at all, you must open your mind, that is all.  Perhaps I should have said, “Attuned”.  You must learn to understand us.  To understand us
is
to love us.’ 

Denny seriously doubted this.  He felt he already understood the Sidhe pretty well and love was the furthest thing from his mind. 

‘I have no intention of being banished again,’ she said suddenly. 

‘Ah, so you
were
…’

‘I plan to stay this time.’  She overrode him as if he had not spoken. ‘The blood of a witch on the stones to bind us to the land and …’ She looked at Denny with a steely gaze. ‘A human husband to bind me to its people.’

‘
Husband
!’  Denny almost shrieked.  Obvious as it might be to you and me where this was going, he honestly had not seen it coming. 

‘I thought you already had a husband,’ he added hopefully.  He was sure he had read about this somewhere.  Well, as sure as he could be about anything, circumstances being what they were.

‘Oh … him,’ she said dismissively.  And hope died. 

‘Why me?’ he asked, truly perplexed. 

‘You have power,’ she said. ‘I sensed it the first time I entered your mind.  ‘And I don’t mean this …’ she took the Athame from his belt, ‘this borrowed power. I mean
real
power – power of the mind.’ 

Denny was disconcerted. He had not expected her to take the Athame, or even recognise it for what it was.  He brought his mind back to the matter at hand and tried not to think about the sudden loss of his only advantage, or the fact that he was now a prisoner in actual fact rather than merely pretending to be one.

‘I don’t. I mean I don’t know what you mean by that,’ he tried. 

‘You are a natural leader of your people,’ she said, and Denny nearly laughed out loud. 

‘You disagree?’ she observed. ‘But I know what I saw in your mind.  You have saved the world several times.  I read it there.’

‘I didn’t do it on my own,’

‘You are the leader of these people,’ she insisted, ignoring this disclaimer. ‘They just are not aware of it. But where would they be without you?  Dead – or worse, and I know about worse believe me.  I can see to it that they understand all you have done for them. I can give you everything you ever wanted.’

‘You have no idea what I want,’