Read The Changelings Series, Book 1 Online
Authors: Christina Soontornvat
The Changelings Series, Book 1
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Copyright © 2016 by Christina Soontornvat
Cover and internal design © 2016 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover illustration © James Madsen
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsâexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewsâwithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
Fax: (630) 961-2168
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Soontornvat, Christina, author.
Title: The Changelings / Christina Soontornvat.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, [2016] |
Summary: When eleven-year-old Izzy's sister, Hen, disappears into the woods near their new house, Izzy, aided by a band of outlaw Changelings, must seek her in the land of Faerie.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015039331 | (alk. paper)
Subjects: | CYAC: Missing children--Fiction. | Shapeshifting--Fiction. | Magic--Fiction. | Sisters--Fiction. | Fantasy.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S677 Ch 2016 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015039331
Chapter 1: Overheard at the Jiggly Goat
Chapter 4: Come Away, O Human Child
Chapter 6: In Through the Fairy Door
Chapter 8: A Child for a Changeling
Chapter 9: The Rock That Wasn't
Chapter 10: Through the Edgewood
Chapter 12: Hedgeons and Peanut Butter
Chapter 13: The Very Helpful Brownie
Chapter 17: The Apple Festival
Chapter 20: The Chicken Thief Steals a Hen
Chapter 21: Caught in the Dark
Chapter 22: The Purple Man on the Mountain
Chapter 26: The Eidenloam Tunnel
Chapter 27: Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Chapter 29: An Old Familiar Face
Chapter 31: Tipped Upside Down
for Iliana and Verena
Wee Bretabairn, born in the caul,
Child of none, mime of all.
With dimpled cheeks and fine, white teeth,
Mother won't guess what hides beneath.
Father, too, will never know
His babe's a fey in man-child clothes.
from
The Bretabairn
,
a fairy book of poems
Overheard at the Jiggly Goat
Izzy Doyle stood in the school supply section of the Jiggly Goat, coming to terms with her fate. She'd agreed to go with her mom and sister to the grocery store because she needed a new journal. As she faced her only optionsâyellow legal pad or inspirational kittensâthe full weight of her situation came crashing down on her narrow shoulders.
This was it. Her new hometown.
Her little sister bounded down the aisle, blond curls swishing behind her. “Guess what? They don't have that gross healthy cereal Mom likes, so she's letting us get Kookoo Crunchies!”
“That's awesome,” said Izzy. Hen could be happy living on the surface of the moon as long as there were snacks.
Izzy turned her back on the measly journal offerings and trudged after her sister toward the checkout counter. She still couldn't believe it. During the eleven years she'd been alive, her family had lived in nine different cities, and her parents had to choose this one to settle down in. Everton didn't even count as a city. Cities had museums and libraries. Everton had a grocery store named after a wiggling farm animal.
We're getting back to our roots
, her parents had said.
Fresh air
, they'd said.
Nature.
Izzy hadn't connected the dots until now. When they said “nature,” what they really meant was complete isolation from the rest of civilization.
Izzy's mom stood at the counter, chatting with the cashier. He wore a blue apron with a smiling goat on the front and a package of beef jerky sticking out of the pocket.
“I'm telling you,” he said as he scanned the groceries. “That neighbor of yours is a witch, or I'm a bull toad.”
Witch.
The hairs on Izzy's forearms stood up. She squeezed past the shopping cart to get closer.
Her mom smiled politely and took out her wallet. “I beg your pardon?”
The cashier narrowed his eyes and ran his tongue across a silver tooth. “You wanna know what she came in here and bought last week?”
“I can't imaâ”
“
Beef tongue.
Now I ask you, what kind of person buys that? Puts it in a potion or something, I bet.”
Izzy's mom started lifting the sacks into the cart. “I'm afraid we haven't had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Malloy yet.”
“Oh, it ain't
Mrs.
You think anyone would marry her? Shoot, no. Marian Malloy would sooner put a curse on a man than say hello.” The cashier leaned his elbow against the register. “If it were me that inherited that big house of yours, I'd sell it to the first fool who'd buy it from me.”
Izzy slid over to where Hen stood eyeing a display of Moon Pies. “Ask Mom to take you to the bathroom,” she whispered.
“But I don't have to go,” Hen said.
“I know that! It's just a diversion.”
“A what?”
“Ugh, forget it!”
Izzy tried to think of some other way to distract her mom so she could keep the cashier talking about the witch. Before she could come up with anything, their mom finished paying and herded them out of the store to the parking lot.
Their mom laughed as she unlocked the back hatch of the car. “Country people are so superstitious! Your dad is going to get a real kick out of it when I tell him we have to sell his mother's house because a âwitch' lives next door.”
Izzy stood next to the car, drumming her fingers on the door handle. Having a witch for a neighbor would mean they actually hadn't moved to the most boring place on Earth. She peered through the window into the back of the car. From the amount of groceries they bought, she could tell they wouldn't be coming back for at least a week. If she wanted to hear any more about the witch, this was her best chance.
Izzy started to jog back across the parking lot. “Hey, Mom, I think I left something in there⦔
“What? Sweetie, what did you leave?”
“Oh gosh, I left my favorite book! I'll be right back!”
The sliding doors whooshed open, and Izzy hurried to the cash register. The cashier's face was hidden behind a cheap tabloid newspaper. The cover read,
Aliens spotted at Tullahoma Waffle House
.
Izzy tapped on the counter. “Excuse me?”
“Whatcha need, sugar?” he replied without putting his paper down.
“Was everything you said really true? About our neighbor being a witch, I mean.”
The cashier crumpled the tabloid and leaned toward her. “Oh, it's the truth, all right. And you little girls need to watch yourselves out there.”
“Why? What could happen to us?”
The cashier's voice dropped to a whisper, and his eyes scanned side to side. “Folks seen her roamin' them woods around her house, even at night. Anyone tries to go near there, she runs 'em off. She says she's watchin' out for the
fairies
, but I'll bet you she's hidin' somethin'. Like a big pile of human bones.”
The front doors of the store slid open. “Izzy, your book's in the car,” said her mom. “Come on. We need to get home to let Dublin out.”
Izzy reluctantly turned and followed after her. She stole one last look at the cashier. He was back to his tabloid, gnawing at a piece of beef jerky on a string. Izzy sighed. Not exactly the most reliable source of information. Still, if a witch wanted to hide away from civilized society, Everton was definitely the place. Fingers crossed, Izzy got into the car, and her mom started the long, pothole-riddled drive out to their new, old house.
A Neighborly Visit
Izzy tried to ignore the drops of sweat rolling down the bridge of her nose, but her little sister was making it difficult.
“It's so hot it's compressive,” whined Hen.
“You mean
oppressive
.” Izzy wiped her forehead on her sleeve. Even though it was technically the first day of fall, summer still held Everton tight in its sticky grip. “If you're going to complain, then just go back home.”
Izzy knew that would silence the whining for at least a few minutes. She and Hen sat huddled behind an azalea bush at the end of the long gravel driveway leading up to Marian Malloy's house. They'd been waiting for a glimpse of the old woman for almost an hour. If she didn't come out soon, they'd have to go home for dinner with nothing to show for their patience.
Hen picked up an acorn and chucked it into the drainage ditch beside them. “If you want to see her so bad, why don't you just go knock on the door?”
“Are you crazy? You don't just go knocking on a witch's front door!”
“Mom says she's not a witch,” said Hen. “She says we should be nice to her, because she's just a lonely old lady.”
“So was the woman in the gingerbread house, but that didn't stop her from trying to eat Hansel and Gretel, did it?”
“Dad says she was friends with Grandma Jean.”
“That's even more reason to be suspicious of her!”
Izzy and Hen had never met their father's mother. After Izzy was born, Grandma Jean had turned into a complete recluse, refusing their visits and never answering their letters. She didn't even leave them the Everton house in her will. If Izzy's dad hadn't hired a lawyer, the musty old house would have gone to the state, and Izzy would still have her own room instead of having to share one with a seven-year-old.
Izzy rolled up her T-shirt sleeves. “Hand me Dad's binoculars,” she whispered. “Maybe I can see something through the windows.”
Hen slipped off her sparkly purple backpack and started rummaging around inside.
“Shhh! You're making too much noise!” Izzy reached over and took the backpack. Inside, her fingers ran over strands of costume jewelry and a jumble of plastic toys. “Wait a secondâwhat's this?” She pulled out a handful of small paper cones with short strings coming out the top.
Hen scratched the side of her freckled nose, the way she always did when she was lying. “Huh, now how did those get in there?”
“Hen! You know you're not allowed to have fireworks!” Izzy tossed the cones into the ditch. Hen had an obsession with all things combustible, and this wasn't the first time Izzy had caught her with a secret stash. “Do you want to blow us both up or something?”
“Crackle Caps can't blow anything up,” said Hen sadly. “I thought we could use them to create a
diversion
. You know, for the witch.”
“We have to spot her first,” said Izzy. She held the binoculars up to her eyes and peered around the bush.
Marian's house was nestled far back from the road, close to the dense tangle of woods that separated the old woman's property from theirs. Rows of fat, golden corn and vibrant vegetables surrounded the house, filling up most of the large yard. Brown-and-white goats bleated softly from their pen behind the house. Everything else was quiet.
Izzy hoped they hadn't started out too late. Today was the perfect day to spy. Their dad had driven to Nashville to do research for his new book, and their mom had shooed them out of the house so she could paint the living room. Who knew when they'd get such a good chance again?
From the side of the farmhouse, Izzy heard the creak of a rusty hinge. She swiveled the binoculars in time to see the garden shed door swing open. An old woman emerged, carrying a bucket in one hand and a spade in the other.
“She doesn't really look like a witch to me,” said Hen.
“You can't tell anything about her just by looking,” whispered Izzy, but she had to admit that Hen was right.
Izzy had hoped for an ancient crone or an icy sorceressâthe kind of witches she'd read about in
Faerie and Folktales of Yesteryear
. But the tall woman tromping into her garden looked more like a farmer than anything else. Her pants were tucked into mud-stained boots, and her rolled-up sleeves revealed splotchy, tanned arms. Despite her wrinkles, she looked strong and didn't stoop the way most old people did.
The woman plopped the bucket down beside one of the vegetable beds and started sprinkling a red powder over the lush plants.
“Can I see?” whispered Hen at Izzy's shoulder.
“There's nothing to see yet,” said Izzy. “She's just gardening. Wait a secondânow she's standing up again.”
Marian Malloy marched to the edge of her garden, where the trees of the surrounding woods cast her vegetable beds into deep shade. Izzy thumbed the dial until the old woman snapped into focus again. She stood facing the woods with one hand resting on a tree trunk. She lifted up her crumpled hat and passed a hand through her short, white hair. Eyes shut, she took in several slow breaths. It seemed to Izzy like she was listening, waiting for something.
The old woman opened her eyes. She frowned and shook her head, then bent down to tend to something at the base of the tree. Izzy stretched up a little taller, angling the binoculars down at the thing at the old woman's feet. It looked like a short stack of stones. Izzy swept the binoculars over the rest of the yard. More of the strange stacks of rocks stood at regular intervals all along the perimeter of the old woman's property.
“That's so weird!” she whispered to Hen.
“Can I see? What is it?”
Izzy lowered the binoculars and held them against her chest. “She's got all these funny little stone towers around her yard.”
“What, like that one?”
Hen pointed to the old woman's mailbox, just a few feet away from them. A stack of stones lay nestled in the long grass at its base.
“Exactly like that one.”
Before Izzy could say anything, Hen scooted over to the stones and picked the top one off the stack.
“Careful! They could be laced with poison or something like that,” said Izzy. She shuffled closer and leaned forward, peering over her sister's shoulder.
Underneath the rock lay a single oak leaf, pressed flat, its edges still fresh and green. Hen lifted up the next rock, then the next. A different species of leaf lay sandwiched between each stone, five in all. The back of Izzy's neck tingled. If this wasn't witch behavior, then nothing was.
“What do you think it is?” whispered Hen.
“Could be anything. Maybe some kind of trap to lure little children to her house. Or a signal so other witches know what she is.” Izzy raised the binoculars again to watch the old woman. “Maybe we can catch her saying an incantation or something like that.”
Hen reached up for the binoculars. “I want to see. It's my turn to look.”
“Not yet.”
“You've had them forever already!” Hen lunged for them and slipped, crunching her tennis shoes into the gravel.
Izzy winced and glanced back up at Marian Malloy, who stood up quickly and darted her eyes around the yard like a wary bird. Izzy held her breath. The old woman brushed her dirty hands against her legs and turned to go inside her house. Izzy exhaled with relief.
She glared at Hen.
Be quiet
, she mouthed, reluctantly passing her the binoculars.
Hen peered through them at the house. Her tongue flicked the space where her top two teeth used to be. “She's in the kitchen,” she whispered.
“What's she doing?” asked Izzy. “Crushing herbs? Mixing a potion?”
“She'sâ¦she'sâ¦washing dishes.”
“Is that all?”
“OK, wait, now she's doing something else. She moved away from the window.” Hen scanned the binoculars side to side. “I think she went into a different room or something⦔
Izzy frowned and squinted at the house. Now that she'd seen the stone towers, she wanted to catch the old woman doing something even witchier. Hadn't the Jiggly Goat cashier said something about a pile of bones? That would be perfect.
Izzy heard the unmistakable sound of wet, fast breathing a moment before something warm and heavy bowled her over.
“Dublin!” said Hen, opening her arms to let their black Labrador lick her face.
Izzy grabbed the dog by his collar and pulled him down beside her. “Sit, Dublin, sit! Hen, what is he doing here? I thought I told you to lock him inside!”
“I did!”
“You obviously didn't! He's going to give us away.”
A gruff voice above them said, “You gave yourselves away long before he showed up.”
