Edited by Elisa K. Penha
OVERTURE
The life of a changeling was bound to two denouements: secrecy, or death.
Having known for a very long time that a life abided in secrecy was hardly any life at all, and having been wary of mausoleums in the form of childhood bedrooms, the changeling had not resigned themself to any living death henceforth.
Their keepers had held them in a feeble, hopeful, contempt, as though a corpse of a memory of a possibility; impossible to mourn, yet entirely inconceivable to drive a knife through the barely fluttering heart of. Harder so, to muster together sustenance that the changeling could not consume, nor endure without, as the rumbling mass snuggled within their abdomen begged and expelled in cycles of hateful greed. The changeling did not often find satisfaction in their keepers’ graciousness. Indeed, they had very little capacity to lament their fate, yet slighter still was their capacity to thank. Their keepers suspected this their most wretched quality, yet their faculties seemed beyond reprimand, surrendered to the silent disdain one might subject the neighbour’s misbehaved hound to.
The changeling found many things dull. While their keepers and their litter of progeny found the mundane to be entirely acceptable, the changeling rather despised the regularity with which they approached their freedom. Enviously, it was the freedom the changeling sought. It was a rather bitter boredom, being caged in what was hardly even a room. There was, above the doorway to the changeling’s measly accommodation, a tilted horseshoe. They were aware of this simply because they had been told, and inexplicably the changeling could not step foot past the door. The keepers seemed pleased with this, though the changeling had the sense that they did not fully trust their own talisman.
They did not know the names of their keepers or the children, and the changeling refused to divulge their own. This was an instinct the changeling could not deny. Their name was not to be given, it had not been given to them, and they held it so close they barely dared to think it. It was the only power they held.
The birth of a changeling was a secret to mourn; an abundant future lost to a sorrowful burden.
The changeling had been in the room as long as they could remember, which was not very long by the keepers’ standards. On the day of their birth, the changeling recalled awakening in a cradle. They had opened their eyes, and the keepers had stood above them. Their smiles had trickled mirth, and the moment had been eternal in its foreign warmth. The changeling had attempted to return their smiles, to ease their keepers, yet this had frightened them. They’d backed away in a hurry, and returned only once the changeling had feigned sleep. Their frowns were honed to sharp points tipping downwards like icicles frozen to tree branches, ready to drop.
Every morning, the keepers would open the door. The changeling was not forbidden from doing so themself, but preferred privacy to the peeping eyes of the children. They did not long to be among them as the keepers believed they did, and the changeling was considered far too mischievous to be permitted even if they had. The keepers fed the changeling stale bread, and watched the changeling’s crammed and disorganized sharp teeth nibble, then bite at it.
They would say only one thing to the changeling.
“May we have your name, blood of the fair folk? May we summon your mam, so that you may return to your rightful place, and our kin be returned to our arms?”
Most times, the changeling shook their head and denied their request without burden. At others, the changeling would give them an answer. “You may call me the veiled.”
The keepers seemed to know that this was not the rightful answer to their inquiry, and would close the door immediately. They did not ask again until the next morning, and they did so with the detached precision of practiced banality.
The keepers did not deign to reply to any of the changeling’s inquiries in return. They feared the changeling, and would not speak to them without carefully crafting their sentences first. The changeling found their caution amusing at the best, and meddlesome at the worst. They, by a pull of nature, could not long persist in pretence without compensation, and the keepers so rarely provided them with that which sustained them.
The changeling grew restless.
The death of a changeling was a blessing shrouded in tragedy.
The changeling knew that their keepers would not mourn their loss, nor the loss of the memory of a possibility. They would disappear and lift a burden off of their shoulders, free them of the haunt of what-ifs. If the changeling was to spare them, that was. It was not customary to allow a slight to go unpunished—humans often upset the changeling’s people, though they knew not to because the fair folk were diligent with doling out retribution.
The changeling did not eat their bread, instead they waited. The keepers were gone, and their children played, carefree. The changeling opened the door, the children stared.
“Human children are so ugly!” the changeling exclaimed.
The oldest of the children, six years old, gasped in horror. “You take that back!”
“And lie? I would never!”
The child threw his ball at the changeling, and the changeling slammed the door shut. They felt it as it happened. The horseshoe fell with a loud clang, and a few minutes later, once the children cleared away, the changeling stepped out of their prison. They grabbed the wretched thing, broke a glass, and used twine to tie them together, a horseshoe knife.
They stepped outside, and found no relief in their escape. They ignored the gasps of the children, considered stealing one as retribution, and wiped the thought out of their mind once they remembered how irritating human children could be. Instead, they killed one of the keepers’ goats.
The changeling didn’t look back at the keepers’ house, didn’t contemplate their escape more than necessary. The keepers would tell their village that their fifth child had passed after three moons, and the changeling—the changeling would finally live.
ACT I
Moth-eaten branches groaned in the slow, laborious lull of the breeze, whispering notes of unease. In the haze of twilight, hints of golden clouds basking in the disappeared sun’s kiss had begun to dissipate, hues of cherries dipped in amber scattered along the horizon as the day’s final stand. Between the blazing heavens of the day, a hue so uniform and bright it could seem opaque; and the expansive shroud of inky night, cut through by twinkling lights, eternal and clear; the skies of the crepuscular were paradoxically bright, holding in their illumination, leaving shadows to scurry away.
There was an unlikely stillness to the woods, an absence of critters and vermin to accompany the backdrop of rust-leaved trees and flora senescing or shifting into dormancy as the promise of a harsh winter loomed in the early chill. No doubt a consequence of the flimsy veil barely keeping worlds apart while the hunter’s moon slowly traversed its well-worn path.
The fauna of the land knew, as all did, the dangers of the time. Before the sun had fully set, birdsong was replaced by the subtle fluttering of wings, before disappearing alongside the light. Insects crawled into crevices of the earth, disappeared behind ridges of bark and packed soil. Paranoid squirrels and cowering deer weaved through the trees, the last to leave the forest empty.
The traveller hummed merrily, a slight pep in their step. They revelled in the crunch of leaves and twigs under their feet, and took great joy in stomping extra hard when they knew the sounds of a coming footfall would be extraordinarily satisfactory. They didn’t quite have a destination, instead, every morning they would pick something—a type of animal, a strange flower, berries—and follow it through the woods. Thus far, their adventures had been successful, if dulled by the lack of magical hum behind the mortal realm’s inhabitants. The trees were perfectly ordinary, as was the grass, the wind, the moths, even the squirrels!
Novelty had been a current pulling them through the land, and now with the veil thin once again, they were forced to make a choice. They could return to the in-between, they could remain wandering, or they could die.
None of their options seemed particularly appealing, so the traveller decided to let fate decide for them, as they often did. Despite the wind’s seeming disinterest in the world’s affairs, the traveller believed that to go where the wind takes you was the best human saying they had encountered. Of course this would be fatally unwise in the wilds, but the tamed elements of the mortal realm seemed the perfect entities to bestow the consequences of their indecision upon.
It was a shadow, in the end, that caught their attention. A shadow, how strange! It curved over tall grass, branches swaying with the plants on the ground as they did in the air ahead. The shadow was short, leading to a tree that seemed as though it should be taller, for how thick its trunk was, though it was unremarkable next to the source of light that gave it an umbral form. The light was a flickering wisp, quickly darting between the branches of the tree as if it was afraid, anticipating an imaginary predator. It glowed brightest at its centre, resembling an orb wearing a luminescent train, dressed with splendour.
The incessant tug of boredom dissipated, replaced by a sudden thrill, a nauseatingly exciting mystery in a mundane, predictable world. The traveller couldn’t tear their gaze away from it long enough to spot the creature until their feet had carried them right under the stunted tree and the beautiful orb had darted down suddenly. Their neck snapped as they followed its path, and like they had predicted, the wind rewarded them with something to break through the blur of banal—something exciting.
It was a cowering creature, candidly baring its teeth like the stalactites and stalagmites of a cavern, set in rows and rows. It might have been a terrifying sight—if it wasn’t attached to a creature so pitiful and feral, like a cub cornered by a hunter after being separated from its mother. Its limbs were long and bony, pallid skin tightly clutching onto its cadaverous frame. Eyes of startling, scratchy green and snake-like slits for pupils were set in its small, pointy face, looking even larger and out of place with how wide they were spread. At its back, the emerald-tinted wings of a freshly-hatched cicada lay limp, not yet ready to fly.
Not a terrifying sight, but so hideous that any onlooker may be revolted enough for any difference to be negligible.
The traveller knew what the creature was, but the solitude of the woods was the last place they would have expected to find one of the unseelie. They were less prone to meandering through the mortal realm—when they did come, they came for a reason. This one, however…its hair caught the traveller’s eye. It was long, dark as night, flowing like water in the most subtle of waves—it seemed to be alive, while the rest of the creature looked like it was one foot in the grave. It was beautiful, but the mark of something different.
The creature looked about ready to pounce on the traveller, and they had to bite back a laugh at the idea. Feral as it might have been, it barely reached their waist, was as tall as a human child, though the traveller knew it had to be close to full grown—its wings were emerging.
“Stand down, child,” the traveller spoke, humour unconcealed. “What do you seek?”
The creature snarled at them, attempting to lunge and bite at their arm. The traveller tutted, grabbing them by the makeshift neck of their potato sack garb. They flailed wildly, snapping their jaw, kicking, screeching in the most horrible voice. The traveller held them in the air an arm’s length away, waiting for them to tire themself out.
“Are you done with your temper tantrum?” the traveller asked patiently. Well, they tried, but they could already tell this one was going to be interesting, and couldn’t keep their lips from quirking.
“Let me down this instant!” the creature squealed. Brilliant! It could speak! That made things so much easier.
“If I do, will you promise not to bite?”
The creature hissed.
The traveller sighed. “Well then.”
It took another two minutes at least to get the thing to stop trying to attack, and eventually it did tire itself out and slumped into a ball of bones. The second the traveller let it to the ground, it attempted to slash their ankles, and it took another few minutes to coax it into relaxation.
“Child, what do you seek?” the traveller asked again, less patient after ending up with several scratches and a few bruises.
“You are presumptuous.”
“You look to be on the brink of death. Tell me, how long have you been in this world? Do you seek the other?”
The creature’s eyes widened. Aha, they’d been right. Something else indeed.
“What do you know of the other?”
“I can lead you to the wilds, if that’s what you seek—”
“What would a human know about the land of the fair folk?” the creature hissed.
This made the traveller pause, and evaluate the creature again, this time in a new light. They were interesting—seeming to know everything and nothing at the same time. It was such adolescent behaviour that the traveller nearly envied their seething surety.
The traveller had many a reply—instead, they simply laughed.
The creature eyed them carefully, sat under the same stunted tree the traveller had found them under. Their time was running out, and they seemed to know it. Decision flashed in their eyes like a wisp of light. “What do you want in return?”
Ah, it wasn’t completely clueless.
“You’re presumptuous,” the traveller provided unhelpfully.
ACT II
The changeling wasn’t sure what to make of the human, but one thing they knew—they couldn’t keep their eyes off of them.
They had sharp features, a strong jaw, and freckled skin. Their eyes were difficult to look at, blindingly bright green, brighter even than the abundance of shining orange curls that spilled out of their hood. At times, the changeling’s eyes struggled to focus when looking at them, their sight turning to a blur. If they concentrated on one feature—eyebrows, cheeks, hands, nose, chin—they could see them, but never the entire picture.
It put the changeling on edge. As it grew darker, their vision improved, but the human remained an enigma. They were wary of them and their contemptuous laugh and their discerning gaze and their cognizant conversation, but they grew weaker each moment, and saw no choice but to trust them. Their choices were to die, or to try, and they had to try.
They led the changeling through the woods, seeming to follow no map or direction. Several times, the changeling attempted to question their guidance, but the human shushed them without consideration. It was unnerving—not being treated like a child, the way they never had with the keepers, but meeting someone who wasn’t afraid of them. The dazzling human barely seemed to blink at their monstrosity.
The forest was terrible. Worse, even, than the keepers’ home. Dirt stuck to the changeling’s toes, got itself stuck in crannies. Flies and other vermin seemed to flock to them, buzzing in circles and flying right into them like uncoordinated babes. They didn’t bite or sting, just created an even more repellent aura. It was easy to trip over roots sticking out of the ground, and get their hair and clothes stuck on bushes and bark.
The changeling almost missed their miserable excuse for a room. Almost.
They walked right into the human when they suddenly stopped in their tracks. The changeling craned their neck to glare at them, but regretted it when they were temporarily blinded once more. They averted their gaze to what the human was staring at.
“This is it.”
“This…is it?” The human had brought them to a circle of mushrooms. They hadn’t lied, the changeling could feel it, the thrum of magic. Like the background thump of a heartbeat, it was always there, within them. Here, they could hear it both ways, louder in front of them, dulling internally in comparison. Something prodded at their chest from the inside, pulling them towards the entrance.
“There’s one more thing—you must shed something to be allowed entry, something to keep you in-between and not…the end,” the human was rocking back and forth, not with anxiety, but anticipation. “The fair folk ask for a simple trade: a secret for safety in their realm. The more powerful the secret, the better. Your biggest, I’d recommend—shed the weight of the mortal world.”
The changeling knew this, they realized. It wasn’t something they’d thought of when they’d embarked—but it made sense to them now. They guarded their name with their life, because a secret like a name was their lifeline. It was their key to their rightful home.
They stepped into the circle, opened their mouth, and found that they could not speak their name. The human stood and watched, waited, aggravatingly patiently even as they could see the glint of mischief on the edges of the human’s frame, like their excitement was powerful enough to displace them from reality.
The changeling couldn’t let go of their name, they realized. It was the only thing that was theirs. If they gave it up, it would belong to every creature and being in the wilds, the wilds would be in their reach, but it would not be theirs, either.
“Turn away, plug your ears,” the changeling told the human. “This won’t work if you can hear. A secret only stays one for the solitary keeper.”
The human arched a brow, but complied. The changeling pulled out their horseshoe and glass knife, clutching it tight. in a split second they leaped onto the human’s shoulders and held the edge to their neck. “Another secret will suffice, don’t you think?”
The changeling already knew the answer. The human was eerily calm. “Perhaps for a while, but you’ll get dragged back here eventually—or death will stake its claim. I’m not quite sure. I was already dead by the time I made it to the wilds.”
They didn’t quite take in the human’s words until they’d already slit their throat. The changeling decided there was no use in pondering once their body hit the ground, lifeless. The brightness didn’t dull, to their annoyance, but they didn’t have time to complain.
“I am a killer.” It was a strong one, the changeling knew, but not strong enough for long enough. It would have to do, because they were going home.
ACT III
Time passed differently in the wilds. Seven minutes or seventy years, they were indistinguishable. The changeling found the incomprehensibility of it to be wholly consuming. They weren’t sure they’d ever get used to it—light streamed down without the source of a sun, moon, or stars. It came bright, in streams and colours, blinding and soft all at once.
The realm hummed with restless energy, it came from the ground, the skies, the air, the water. Fairies even smaller than the changeling zipped between flowers. Sometimes they appeared as glowing orbs, guiding lights or noxious temptations pulling people away. They flickered out of sight, easily passing between realms. The changeling didn’t mind them, and would share space with them at times, usually from a distance.
Others, the changeling avoided. They had incorrectly assumed that the rest of their people would be as hideous as they were. Most of the fae were beautiful, resembling humans closely. Their wings would give them away if mischief and glimmers of magick didn’t, but they were beautiful all the same. The changeling had discovered that they were no less vengeful, in fact, they tended to appear to humans more often, and brought back secrets worthy of legends—couldn’t return without them, anyway. They’d wondered why they would risk it, but one of the small faeries had asked, “what else would we do?”
There were others like the changeling, to be sure, but they avoided everyone and especially one another, so the changeling followed in their footsteps.
There was a blurriness to the edges of their vision that the changeling had come to know well—it was as if the entire realm was uncertain, ready to shift at any moment, unwilling to be truly seen. If they looked at a few flowers that yelled at them for stepping on one of their stems, the trees and their branches extending maliciously close would leave their focus and they’d be vulnerable to their marauding. The light would take details with it, and shine new ones where the changeling may not have looked.
At first, they had tried to decide whether the wilds were with them, or against them. It had taken a while to realize that to be either would contradict everything the realm was, there couldn’t be a discernible motive.
They avoided trying to go anywhere—if they went one way, the ground would tilt and take them another. They’d look up and realize they were back where they started, or in the entirely opposite direction. The realm took them where it wished—sometimes it felt like the wind was dragging them along and pushing them around.
One day, they were brought to a familiar face, when they had just wished for some company with the little-faeries. Instead they were met with radiant orange curls, and blindingly green eyes, and the blurry whole of those parts. Motive or not, the place seemed to have the same propensity for mischief as its residents.
“You,” they said.
The not-human didn’t seem surprised to see them. They looked slightly different in this realm—their ears poked out of their hair, long and pointy. Their eyes seemed sharper, cutting through the light, and their wings expanded behind them, unlike any the changeling had seen yet. Their own had finally allowed them flight—but they were delicate, their most beautiful asset.
The not-human’s wings were a soft green and had hind-wings with tails, like the Luna moth—larger than the wings of most of the fae.
“The traveller,” they supplied. The changeling blinked in surprise. The pseudonym or title, whatever it was, seemed fitting.
“Traveller,” the changeling repeated. “You are not dead.”
“Well, don’t go trying to kill me again,” the traveller joked. They had to avert their eyes, stared at one of the gorgeously nasty flowers instead. Everything in the wilds was entirely different, yet impossibly the same. They were in a field—the changeling had been next to the fairy pond just moments earlier.
“You said you died before you came here?”
The traveller shrugged. “I’ve said many things. Your time is running out, you know? You’re fading at the edges. There’s a void where magic should be.”
“I am quite aware,” the changeling snapped. “What it is, it shall be.”
“You would rather die, holding on to your secret, than live without its burden?” The traveller’s wings fluttered with the question, excitement sending the long grass into a strange little dance.
The changeling was silent for a second, then asked, “what is your name, traveller?”
The traveller laughed, a sharp, humourless laugh. They seemed to become more clear with it, just for a second. “Why would I tell you that?”
“You don’t need to tell me. What is your name?”
“Sounds like you want me to tell you,” the traveller argued, amusement fading back into their eyes.
“I do not. Just…think.”
The traveller stopped, dead silent. Their stillness seemed unnatural, even more so in this realm. “I…don’t remember. I hadn’t thought about it till now. I’m the traveller.”
“That is why,” the changeling concluded. “It is the only thing that is truly mine. I will not forget it. I will not give it up.”
The traveller studied them for a second. The changeling was not fond of their grin—they felt like they weren’t privy to something. “I don’t think I’d die for a name. I love stealing them though—names, there’s so much power condensed in them. Secrets, too. Humans are so callous with their secrets.”
“I once swore to myself that I wouldn’t live a life of secrets. It’s one death or another,” the changeling said.
Who were they telling?
“But this place is exciting,” the traveller emphasized. The statement was facetious, to be sure. The changeling couldn’t quite understand what they really meant. “It’s every wonder you can imagine. Every beauty, every danger, every secret, every death, everything.”
“Nothing would be mine anymore.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a capitalist,” the traveller chided.
“A what?”
“Nevermind, wrong place,” the traveller paused. “And the wrong time. I mean, what’s your real problem? What is a name that no one can call you by? I don’t think that’s what you’re clinging to.”
The changeling didn’t appreciate their vague questions.
“Aren’t you dead?” they prodded childishly.
“You’re dead too, or you wouldn’t be here at all.”
“What?”
“What I mean to say is,” the traveller waved their hands impatiently, “you claim you swore not to live a life of secrets, yet that is exactly what you’re doing. Other people’s secrets are one thing—this realm is built on them. But you aren’t living at all, you’re dying slowly, holding onto it with fear. Keeping your secret won’t save you, you’re dead either way. Wouldn’t you rather live while you die?”
“Everything you say contradicts everything else you say,” the changeling complained.
“That’s the fun in saying things.”
The changeling sighed, staring out across the grass. They couldn’t quite see past the field, could make out the vague outline of a forest, but knew if they approached it’d likely turn into a desert or a tundra. They wanted to approach the uncertainty, but they stayed tethered. “You’re right. I am afraid. not to die—I accepted my death as soon as I was born. I came here knowing that death would come soon after.”
The traveller hummed. “Many people are afraid to live.”
“I’m afraid I won’t live.”
“Is there a difference?”
“You tell me.”
“I’ve lived, I’ve died. You will too.” The traveller flickered away for a second, like the little fairies did at times. They weren’t sure if it was the light, but the traveller seemed to age under their perfectly young skin. “Let go, and you’ll find that’s all you can do.”
The changeling took in a deep breath. It wasn’t any of their words, but the traveller’s presence alone that had convinced them. They had died, hadn’t they? The changeling had killed them, yet there they stood. The in-between didn’t submit to explanation, and the changeling had given up on understanding, but there was something they knew, that they had been unsure of. The traveller was what they were—a traveller. They weren’t bound to one place, one time, one life. They hadn’t a name, a secret, and they had died and lived.
The changeling didn’t think they could ever be so untethered, but they were going to die either way. They had been afraid they wouldn’t be able to live, gave themself excuses to be afraid, lied and betrayed themself. Now, all they could do was let go of it all. They would die, but before they did, they would be free. “I am Fey.”
The words spilled out of their lips as a beautiful apparition, a bright, delicate orb, light trailing behind it as it caught on the breeze. The changeling watched their secret fly for a few seconds, before it landed in the traveller’s cupped hands. They brought it to their mouth, and swallowed it whole. They shifted again in the light, giving a dramatic bow. Their glow had changed, a more poignant green joining the soft, iridescent array. “Pleasure doing business with you, Fey. Until life may we part.”
Then the traveller was gone, and Fey realized their name was still theirs, but their fear was not. The traveller held their secret, and Fey found they had been right.
Fey lived. Then, they died.
fey (adj.) / feɪ / from Old English fæge
- fated to die
- of the excitement that presages death
- otherworldly, supernatural, strange, enchanted