Sprite

Neistah didn’t know what drew him back to the mortal world time after time. Perhaps it was the immediacy of living, the possibility of dying, although for him it was a very slender possibility. For scenery or fragrance or delicacies his own world far surpassed this one.

He gingerly picked his way through a stinking alley, wishing he had shoes to protect his feet. Truthfully, he could only take so much of city life. It was possible he was able to return to this mortal world only because so much of it was reduced to forest once again . . . what would happen if these people redeveloped their lost skills and built metal and glass towers and smoking transporters . . . and weapons that could kill from great distances? Would he be driven back again as once all his people had been?

He grinned as he twisted open a wooden door recessed between two buildings. Thoughts like those were useless. He was here. He would play.

Four sets of startled eyes blinked up at him through the gloom.

“I’m here to take you to freedom,” he intoned in a loud whisper. “Follow me and don’t make a sound.”

Of course they made a sound. They collectively gasped, and one of the four, a large man—boy—with roughened, scaly black skin and twisted, claw-like fingers on each hand, lunged forward to tackle him. Neistah easily sidestepped the youth, who sprawled half in and half out of the doorway. He sighed, grabbing the boy by the ankle and pulling him in. The door swung shut behind him.

“Shh.” Neistah put his fingers to his lips and took a step forward. Three of the four scurried back to the far wall, and the boy who had thought to attack him sat up and stared back at him with a defiant scowl on his dark, leathery face. He made no further move to attack Neistah, however, which irritated Neistah a little. Was that all these changelings would do to defend themselves?

“Let’s take a look at you, then,” he said as he lit a candle. The small room took on a sickly glow and the changelings shrank back even further.

“Put out the light!” hissed the claw-handed youth. “If they see it, we’re dead.”

Neistah glanced at him, then turned back with the light to view the other three. “If you had all just followed me when I told you to, then I would not have lit the candle. Since you didn’t . . . .” Neistah shrugged. “We might as well get to know each other. We can’t go out now until the others stop looking for you.”

“They’re looking for us? How do they know about us?” One of the others spoke, a girl who, at first glance, appeared normal. However, her eyes were coated with a milky white substance. At first, Neistah thought she was blind, then she blinked, and the milky white membrane flicked up, revealing incredibly pale eyes, before flicking back into place and covering her eyes completely once more. It must serve as a protection in bright light, Neistah realized.

“How do you think I knew about you?” he countered. “I saw them, I heard them. ‘Four refugees,’ they said. ’Escapees from the workhouses. Still at large in the city. Mutants.’ So I thought if you really are changelings, you might need some help to escape this place.”

He smiled. “You are changelings, aren’t you?”

Four sets of eyes, three from the back wall, blinked back at him. In the candlelight they noticed his green-black hair, the delicate yet unmistakable webbing on his hands and feet, on his ankles and behind his ears which were curled up in definite points. His eyes weren’t right, either. They also swept up, dark dark black, or was it green? They looked wicked.

“Aren’t you?” asked the girl who had spoken to him a moment ago.

Neistah smiled wider. “No.”

They didn’t believe him. He didn’t expect them to. He was so far outside of their experience that they had no scale except themselves with which to measure him. In their world, whoever didn’t look like everyone else was considered to be a mutant, although the mutants themselves had adopted the word changeling instead. Neistah had to smile. The connotation of ‘changeling’ was an ancient one, from the time before the end of the world. And they had no idea.

Their mutations were not so terrible, he thought. Aside from the leathery boy with claws for hands, and the girl he’d thought was blind, there was another girl whose facial features were uneven—one eye was higher than the other and her mouth twisted to one side. The deformities continued in her arms and legs, with the right side being slightly longer and slightly stronger than the left. It probably wasn’t even a true mutation, but to these people it was different, and that was enough to ostracize the child.

The last of the changelings truly was a child, no older than four or five. He hid his body behind the milky-eyed girl and peeped at Neistah with large brown eyes. He looked normal except for the small tail which stuck out of his pants. It looked like his clothes were sewn so that the tail would be clearly visible, a mark of his difference for all the ‘normal’ people to see. Neistah wondered why his parents hadn’t just cut it off when he was born, but then, all these people were so frightened of anything out of the ordinary that they had probably turned in their own child to the workhouses rather than raise a mutant.

Neistah was slightly disappointed that none of the changelings were water creatures like him. As much as he enjoyed playing in this place, he always missed his own kind. And as long as he continued to intervene, ‘interfere’ some called it, in this world, he was not welcome in his own.

Tracks led down from the city to the edge of the dark wood and no farther. Those who traveled the dark paths did so at their own risk. Men who hunted the woods also hunted the city, and tonight was a perfect night for hunting. The moon shone full and bright, illuminating the darkest hovels, exposing those who huddled together in fear and doubt.

Gordon was a big man, broad and hairy. He carried an axe which he swung in front of himself when he walked, as if clearing a path on the all but deserted streets. None except hunters—or the hunted—ventured out on a moonlit night. Those who had nothing to hide feared that someone would find a flaw in them. Flaws were as real as the nearest hunter’s imagination.

Gordon was a hunter. He turned in mid-swing when he spied a movement in a doorway across the street. A shadow scuttled between one house and the next. Better it had never moved. Incredibly swiftly for a man of such size, Gordon threw himself at the shadow which immediately started squirming and shrieking to be freed.

“Stop, or I’ll knock you senseless,” Gordon growled, then decided to do it anyway, catching the shadow across the head with the blunt side of his axe. His captive immediately went limp. “Now let’s see what we’ve got . . . .”

In the light, the shadow proved to be a boy, perhaps nine or ten. Gordon turned him over carefully and searched for signs of a mutation. He lifted the boy’s shirt and saw the hair—fur, he corrected himself—shaved off probably in an attempt to pass the boy off as normal, but it certainly was a mutation. Gordon grinned.

“Let’s go.” He hoisted the boy—all fur and bones—and strode towards the east gate where he had a little place all prepared. Mutants who escaped from the workhouses were worth a lot, especially if captured alive. Mutants who had evaded the workhouses altogether earned a special bounty, a finder’s fee and a placement fee. The factories paid well for fresh blood. It was Gordon’s lucky night.

As the hunter left, moonlight reflected off five sets of eyes, eyes that hadn’t moved until now.

“Wait here.” Neistah stood up.

The older boy made a grab for Neistah’s arm. “Leave him,” he whispered fiercely. “We can’t help him now.”

Neistah shrugged off the boy’s grasp. “Wait here,” he said firmly.

He slipped after the hunter and his prey, keeping to the shadows of the squat houses to hide his presence until the hunter led him to the outskirts of the city. Then he whistled, one sharp note. The big hunter whirled around, dropping the boy to the ground so he could swing his axe in the direction of the sound. His eyes widened as he saw Neistah, but he didn’t hesitate. He charged towards Neistah, swinging his heavy axe.

Neistah prudently jumped aside to avoid the metal axe, which surely contained a component of iron. This entire town was dedicated to the production of the stuff in one form or another. Usually, he didn’t allow the hunters to catch a glimpse of him; it fueled too many rumors. But perhaps, tonight, if the hunters concentrated on him, they would leave the children alone. Neistah felt confident he could turn this the way he desired.

The mutant boy forgotten, the hunter raced after Neistah, surprisingly quick for someone his size. Neistah led him back into the city, through streets now familiar with repeated use, and abandoned him somewhere near the center, but not before he heard the muttered “Sprite, it was the Sprite,” from the hunter. Neistah froze to hear that particular name. It had been years since his capture in Hanan’s woods, years since anyone had referred to him as ‘Sprite.’ He thought he had been forgotten by now. Who, then, still hunted him?

He doubled back and shook the unconscious mutant boy awake. “Who are you?” he asked roughly, as the boy sat up and shook his head. “What were you doing out tonight? Are you trying to escape the city?”

The boy gaped at him, and Neistah scowled in irritation. Hadn’t anyone ever seen a mutant who embraced his differences? Despite the cool night air, Neistah still only wore his usual trunks, with his hidden knives within easy reach should he ever need them. Usually, Neistah’s stealth and speed were enough. He seldom used the knives except to hunt.

“Will, my name is Will,” the boy whispered. “I wasn’t trying to escape. My mother, my mother—she was sick. I had to get her medicine.”

Neistah regarded the child. He had watched while the hunter pulled up the boy’s clothing, searching for mutations, and seen when he had found the shaved fur on his belly. “Do you want to escape?” he asked, point-blank. “I’ll help you if you want to.” Neistah knew it was only a matter of time before the boy was caught again. Even if his mother tried to protect him, he couldn’t avoid detection forever.

“I can’t. My mother needs me,” the boy said softly. “I have to go home.”

“Come, then.” Neistah led the boy back to where he had left the other children, and waited while he slipped quietly into one of the darkened houses in the middle of the row. He never had gotten his medicine. Neistah hoped he was smart enough to let it go and do without. If the mother died, maybe the boy would change his mind about leaving the city.

“Let’s go,” he whispered to the others. The hunter would be busy searching the city. Dawn was not far off, and the moon was beginning to set. It was time to make a run for the forest. He made the older boy carry the youngest, and drove the two girls ahead of him. None of them were used to running, and they had a long way to go before they could rest.

As they ran, Neistah recalled his dance with the hunter. So they knew him. Not as just another mutant in a stream of mutants, but him—the Sprite. He wondered if they thought him a mutant, or something more. It might be time to end this game soon.

x x x x x x

Miram waddled past her grandfather’s study and paused, one hand resting on her rounded belly. At least it wasn’t summer, with its oppressive heat and no way to relieve it. Her baby would be born in the new year. New year, new beginnings. She smiled at the thought, no longer a child herself, but a mother and a wife with another child on the way. She had a lot of responsibilities, but she felt more confident now that she could handle them with Jimmy. Over the last few months, she had come to appreciate him for the tower of strength that he was. He took Norah when she could no longer bear to be near the little girl, who reminded her so much of Neistah. Neistah had hurt her deeply, whether intentionally or not. She still didn’t know if he had been stolen or killed or had just left her on a whim. Norah was what he left her, and although she loved the little girl fiercely and feared for her safety every day, she also resented the fact that Neistah had put her in this position. Norah was a mutant child, and Miriam feared the day the world would take her away from them.

“Papa,” Miriam said, peeking inside. “I wish you wouldn’t tell her those stories.”

Norah sat on John Hanan’s lap. He held a storybook in front of them and was currently reading his great-granddaughter a fairy tale. Norah’s rapt face pored over the pictures in the storybook, but at Miriam’s words, she looked up at her mother in the doorway with a worried frown. Norah was always worried that she had somehow disappointed her Mama.

“You used to love these stories, Miriam,” said her grandfather.

“They’re not real,” Miriam said. “I don’t want her thinking they are real.”

“I know, Mama,” Norah piped up. “Papa told me it’s only make-believe. But the pictures are so pretty!” She held up the storybook so Miriam could see. Miriam relaxed when the page showed a drawing of a fairy princess with silvery hair and angel wings. No fins, no webbing.

“Fine, but you should be reading real stories, too,” Miriam said, going over to the bookshelf and selecting a book that she had read as a child. As she recalled, it had been fairly boring, but normal. She wanted Norah to grow up reading normal things. “Try this one.” She left the book on the desk and continued on to the kitchen, where they had just received a delivery of food and other things from outside. As mistress of the house, it fell to Miriam to do the ordering now. She was already planning her next order. Books—not the kind Papa liked to read, either.

In the study, John Hanan finished reading the story about the fairy princess who lived happily ever after with her prince, and flipped the page to the next drawing. It showed a green creature with fins lazily trailing its arm and leg in a watery pond. “This, Norah, is a Sprite