The Changeling (16 page)

When I got to Highway 23 and headed south, they were in the same place they’d been earlier, congregated in the woods to the west. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when they quickly moved to pursue me. I drove past a few hotels and accelerated. Thanks to Gavin’s lessons, I was a much better driver. I tried to imitate what he did the night Candace woke up, accelerating halfway through the corners, and had the tires of the car squealing in protest in the first sharp turn.

I glanced at my speedometer down the first straight stretch. It read ninety-five miles-per-hour. Turpentine Creek was only a few miles to the south, but I wouldn’t make it. They were infinitely faster, catching and passing me in moments. Jabbing the brakes, I decided to confront them. My gut told me it was an idiotic plan and my hands were shaking, but I was determined to end the cat and mouse game.

They were ahead on the right. I slowed and turned down a dirt road toward them. They switched directions back toward the highway, so I followed, accelerating in pursuit. They reacted again and I chased them. The Fae moved ahead of me and then to the left, behind an abandoned cabin standing on a wooded hillside. Cranking the steering wheel, the Thunderbird fishtailed in the loose gravel as I turned up the overgrown drive. The Fierce One moved closer and the engine went dead. I felt the intrusion—it pulled all the power out of the electrical system.

In a cloud of dust, the car came to an abrupt stop. With the engine dead, I felt even more vulnerable. My heartbeat picked up a few paces as I realized I was stuck and had no option but to confront them face to face. I took a few deep breaths and opened the door. The moment I did, the Fae began to move deeper into the woods.

“I know you’re following me—I can sense you!” I screamed. “Face me!”

The Fierce one stopped and turned back. A breath caught in my throat. I formed my Air shield and stretched my mind out to connect with the sunlight. Once again, I felt euphoric and alive, but I was still scared. I hid the fear deep in my mind, allowing no emotions to seep to the surface.

The Fierce One waited for me around a hundred yards behind the broken cabin. Faded and peeled green paint, rusty metal on the roof and broken windows, the cabin was creepy and reminded me of too many low-budget horror movies. Beside it, surrounded by weeds, a rusting heap of a car sat on flat tires. There were other broken and rusting pieces of cars and appliances lodged in the dirt, partially covered by dead grass. They looked like they were being slowly digested into the earth.

I refused to be timid, and marched forward up the hill, past the wrecked car. My intuition was literally screaming at me to stop and go back when I reached the back edge of the cabin. My resolve faltered. I stopped and let a few slow deliberate breaths begin to slow my heart rate. The backyard of the cabin was more littered than the front, and only about two hundred feet deep. The Fierce One was beyond that, waiting, watching from the trees.

I opened a gap in my shield so I could hear if it tried to communicate. The first whoop sound it made sent a shudder through my body, but that was followed by a wailing moan that chilled me to the core.

“Can you please show yourself?”

Nothing happened for a few tense seconds, and then it stepped out from behind a stand of cedar trees.
Oh, hell!
I’d seen the Fae take many forms, including some frightening ones, but I wasn’t prepared for that. The Fierce One stood nearly ten feet tall. He walked upright like a man, but was covered in matted black hair. His arms were thick and muscular, and his enormous ape-like hands curled into fits. His red eyes were deeply set under his heavy gray brow, and his thick, prominent jaw looked more ape than human.

“Why are you following me?”

“You are fragile.”
The message rang in my head as it bared its yellow teeth with a low-pitched growl I felt in my chest. The Fierce One began walking toward me, leaning forward and swinging his arms. Once again, my intuition told me to run, but I stood my ground.

I felt the others returning in a semi-circle.

“What do you want from me?” I demanded.

The Fierce One slammed a fist down on an old refrigerator, smashing it, and continued moving toward me. When the Cautious One and the Intrepid One emerged from the woods in exactly the same form and began moving toward me, I relented and began walking back toward the car. I was scared but angry, so I strengthened my Air shield and left it in their paths. The Curious One stopped short and reached out with her hand to touch it. The Ferocious One didn’t even pause—he walked through it and roared when he did.

“I’m leaving. You win! Just stay the hell away from me!” I screamed back over my shoulder.

He picked up a tire and slung it in my direction. Before it had flown fifteen feet, I caught it and flung it into the woods just over his head. He stopped and bared his teeth—the long canines caught my attention. Then he began slinging large pieces of debris—a car hood, a tricycle, an engine block. I blocked each piece as it left his hand, holding them in place off the ground.

“I said leave me alone!” I screamed at him, a few tears rolling down my face. “You don’t want to talk, I get it, but leave me alone or I
will
fight back.”

“She’s quite courageous.”
The Fierce One said to the others, apparently not realizing I could hear him.

“She’s foolish, deceitful—I don’t trust her,”
the Cautious One responded.

“Wakinyan, Amadahy, allow her to leave,”
the Wise One commanded.

I didn’t know which was Wakinyan or Amadahy, but the Fierce One stood in the same place, glowering at the debris field I kept floating around him as I got back in my car. He was still interfering with the electrical system, and I remembered what Billy taught me. I stretched out my mind, searching for moisture in the air and in the ground. It took only a moment to conjure a Water barrier, my first, and use it to break his hold on the car. With a little focus, the battery came back to life, the engine started and I dropped the debris at the Fierce One’s feet. They didn’t follow as I drove away. Despite knowing better, I hoped it was the last time I’d see them.

ELEVEN

SOPHIE AND VIC

The weather had finally warmed up some. In fact, Sara told me it was unusually warm for this time of year, but I didn’t feel like leaving my room. Mitch’s abduction consumed my waking thoughts and, too frequently, my sleeping thoughts as well. Several times a week I sat up in bed, rattled by gut-wrenching dreams of losing Mitch in a myriad of ways—in car wrecks, in crowds, in the lake. However, unlike my childhood nightmares, which faded when the lights came on, the tremendous sensation of loss only grew worse when my eyes opened. It affected everything about my life, and as much as I tried to act normal, everyone seemed to notice.

Two hours before I had to leave for swim practice, I heard a car coming down the drive. Ronnie’s noisy, silver ‘71 Riviera stopped at the iron gate. Dented, faded, and looking more like an old battleship than a car, the engine rattled and gasped for life a few times before belching bluish smoke when he killed the ignition. The long doors groaned and spread like sagging wings as Candace and Rachel climbed out of the passenger side. The three of them spotted me in the window and headed through the gate to the front door, sending Justice into spasms.

They told me up front they intended to kidnap me, and refused to listen to my pleas for solitude. My protests caught Mom’s attention, but she was their willing accomplice, offering to provide them with a roll of duct tape if I didn’t go voluntarily. Dad’s quick call to Coach Rollins shattered my last excuse for not going with them.

Despite the fact that I was taller than Rachel, they made me climb into the backseat of Ronnie’s car—I guess they were afraid I’d abandon ship the first time Ronnie slowed the old Buick down.

By the time we got to the Garden Bistro, I was ready to do anything they asked. The car smelled old, the black upholstery was torn, and it stank of gasoline. We took a table on the narrow patio that faced the bluffs on the other side of Main Street.

“We are your friends,” Ronnie started, “and this is an intervention.”

“An intervention?” I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, relaxing in his seat, nodding his head.

“Have I really been that pathetic?”

He rolled his mint green eyes up to the white canvas patio cover dramatically before slowly returning his focus to my face.
Point taken.

Ronnie began a hilarious account of each and every sad facial expression and distant look I’d had since January first, and he informed me, in no uncertain terms, that the three of them were going to see me through the rough patch whether I liked it or not.

Rachel, twirling strands of her brown hair between her thick fingers, chastised me for acting like I was in this alone, and demanded I allow them to help, adding that they wouldn’t take no for an answer. I surrendered to their demands after Ronnie began what he said was an impersonation of me in a bad mood. He was actually pretty good. While he and Rachel carried on, Candace swirled her tomato bisque in a figure eight and listened. She didn’t just look at me—she was reading me. It wasn’t like Candace to be so quiet.

Walking back to the car, Candace hooked her arm around mine.

“Mags, you all right?”

“Yeah. Sorry you guys had to do this.”

She tugged my arm, her signal for “no problem,” and asked, “Mitch any better?” I felt her stare again—she was reading my face as carefully as a test question.

“No, he isn’t.”

After a brief pause, she said, “I’m sorry…I’m sure he’ll get better soon.”

I squeezed her arm back and pulled her forward.

Ronnie donned his sunglasses and opened the passenger-side door. “Are you ready?”

“Permission to come aboard Cap’n” Candace quipped.

Rachel and I both laughed as he turned his focus on Candace and shifted his weight, trying hard not to smile.

“It’s not a boat, Candy.”

Ronnie was proud of the gray behemoth. His family was poor and for six months he’d saved money from waiting tables to buy it. Once upon a time, I was sure it was very stylish. Maybe.

“Aye-aye, Cap’n, it’s as big as a boat and you could land planes on the hood, but not a boat. Understood, Cap’n,” she said, saluting him.

Ronnie’s lips twisted. “Are you done yet?”

Candace climbed into the back seat saying, “Weigh anchor, left full rudder…”

Rachel snorted and gave Ronnie an apologetic shrug. This was about to get good—I knew the barbs were about to start flying. I relaxed in the back seat and didn’t have to wait long.

He climbed behind the wheel. “I suppose the four of us could have taken your Miata. Oh, wait…”

“MX-5, and you know you’d rather be driving my car,” Candace said.

Ronnie had an ornery look on his face when he lowered his glasses and looked at her in the rearview mirror. “No honey, a yellow Miata…I’m gay, but I’m not that gay.”

“Please…you’re wearing a pink polo and plaid shorts. How much gayer do you need to be?” she said smoothly.

“When I sprout wings and fart glitter,” he shot back.

Rachel laughed out loud and choked out the words, “Battle stations, all hands to battle stations.”

The bantering continued, with each scoring one zinger after another—slight edge to Ronnie. As we backed up, he stabbed the brakes and we rocked in the seats.

“Oh what in gay hell,” he said under his breath.

The rest of us turned to see what was blocking his path. It was Rhonda in her mom’s black BMW with three cheerleaders. She stared at Ronnie’s car, shaking her head.

Candace blurted, “Sea hag dead astern, Cap’n… No, no…” she gasped, “that big-ass hair, it’s the Kraken. All ahead flank speed!”

Ronnie’s laughter was raucous. He punched the gas, and the Riviera belched out a cloud of blue smoke and lurched forward. Over our laughter, Rachel scolded us for making fun of Rhonda.

For the first time in weeks, I was laughing and focusing on something other than Mitch. It helped to soothe my frayed nerves. I owed them big.

***

Dad got back from the airport with Grandma and Grandpa around one o’clock in the afternoon. After facing down a clan of Sasquatches last week, I was ready for their visit. Grandpa was already out of the car when I got to the front door. He looked the same as always, maybe a few pounds heavier, and the shock of black and silver hair on his head was as thick and wiry as ever. He smiled at me with his arms open as I ran with Justice to the garden wall. His smile forced the lines in his russet skin to sink even deeper around his mustache. His kind black eyes were deep-set in his wrinkled face, under bushy eyebrows that were shaped like apostrophes. I hugged him and could smell the spicy Avon aftershave he always wore—it was his smell, and I loved it.

Grandma climbed out of the back seat of the red Lincoln, smiling. Her smile didn’t stretch across her face like most people’s did—it was narrow but enormous. I hugged her and held on for a few extra seconds. Her hair was different. Brown with a lot of gray, it was normally down to her shoulders, but she had it cut shorter, just over her collar, in large, loose curls that framed her oval face and blue eyes. Grandma’s large eyeglasses looked even larger with the new hairstyle.