Sprite

“Damn Sprite sending me more mouths to feed,” grumbled Earl, shuffling from his preferred seat on top of a stump to glare in affront at the three changelings his scouts had hauled in. “Eh?” he said, startled out of his bad mood. “You, what’s your flaw?” His beady eyes fixed on Roselle, who glared right back.

“No flaw,” she snapped. “I’m perfect.”

Patrick straightened up and his hip joints realigned with a click. “Neistah sent us,” he explained again. “Isn’t he here?”

Damn Sprite never shows up where he’s expected,” Earl muttered. “Well, come on,” he said after a moment. He shuffled off through the woods, leaving the others to follow as they would. The two shirtless scouts who had dropped onto them from the trees and then not so much escorted as herded them in Earl’s direction, had disappeared. Roselle grabbed Lou’s hand and hurried after the unpleasant man.

“Where’s the hidden mutant village?” Lou whispered. She walked in between Roselle and Patrick, who remained two-footed now that they had reached the end of their journey.

“I get your mutation, and the little girl’s,” Earl was saying to Patrick. “Hers,” he indicated Roselle who sniffed disdainfully and turned her head away, “I can’t tell. Are you one of us or not?”

“One of who?” Roselle asked. “I don’t see anyone except you, old man. Where’s your village?”

“How do I know you’re not a hunter?” countered Earl, offended at being called an old man.

Roselle’s mouth opened, and even Patrick fought down a smile. “You’d better watch out,” he advised. “Roselle can read minds.”

Roselle felt her face heat up. Patrick actually believed her? “W-well,” she stuttered, but Earl backed away warily and she let it drop. Maybe if he thought she had a mutation, he would be a little nicer.

“Where’s the village?” Lou asked, glancing apprehensively at Roselle. She at least knew Roselle was no mutant, although she wouldn’t give away the game.

Patrick sniffed, and he halted in surprise, dragging the two girls to a stop with him.

“You’re in it,” Earl announced.

The woods didn’t look any different, certainly not lived-in. Roselle slowly turned around in place. From behind rocks and trees and bushes, people slowly stepped forward. Many were barely clothed, like the two scouts who had brought them in. Most were children of varying ages. Earl was by far the oldest looking mutant in the group.

“You see?” He crowed in glee.

“But where do you live? Where do you sleep?” Roselle wanted to know, still looking about her in dismay. In what sense was this a village?

“Come, I’ll show you,” a woman only a little older than Roselle offered. She was very obviously pregnant. Roselle wondered what happened if mutant couples gave birth to normal babies. Her eyes widened. Mutants were generally sterile. It was nature’s way of correcting its own mistakes—wasn’t it?

“Wait.” Lou scanned the faces of the mutants. “Is Mack here? Or John?” She named a few more of the mutants who had escaped Datro with the help of Datro’s Sprite, as the villagers shook their heads.

“Friends of yours?” murmured one sympathetically. “They may have gone to another village.”

Roselle didn’t have to be a mind reader to hear the unspoken portion of the villager’s comment. Not all mutants made it to one of the hidden villages. “What about Will?” she asked. “Neistah said someone could take us to him once we got here.”

“How do you know Will?” asked Earl suspiciously.

“I came to find him,” Roselle said simply. She didn’t miss the sharp nod that passed between Earl and some of his young scouts. Good. Maybe they would find him and bring him here. This place wasn’t exactly what she had expected.

Lou sighed and sidled closer to her. The village hadn’t been all she’d hoped for, either. “I wish Norah were here.”

Roselle had convinced Patrick that Neistah had taken Norah on ahead because of her connection with Datro’s Sprite, but now the lanky changeling frowned at her. “Shouldn’t they have been here by now?” he asked. Roselle shared his concern. She hoped Norah had caught up to Neistah. The girl had skills that matched the sprite’s, certainly, and she had been born out here—somewhere. Norah would be fine.

“They’ll come,” Roselle said confidently. Maybe. She wished somebody she knew would come, but strangers took Patrick in one direction, and she and Lou were led off in another direction, while all around them, people who hadn’t been there a moment ago moved about the forest, preparing for a welcoming feast.

Lou wandered around the suddenly bustling village; she, like Roselle, couldn’t get over the fact that there were no identifiable structures as such. Mattie, the pregnant changeling, had explained that they had already changed locations twice before, and had to be ready to pick up and move on at a moment’s notice. Then she showed them the ‘houses.’

Her own house, which she generously offered to share with the two new girls, as her man, one of Neistah’s Sprites, was often gone on patrol anyway, was tucked under an earthen overhang. They had dug out a small area into the land itself and lined it with stones and sweet branches. In summer, it remained cool, and in winter it held the heat better than any drafty city house, according to Mattie. “We wanted room for when the baby comes,” she said, patting her bulging stomach fondly.

Roselle raised her eyebrows; to her, the space was tiny compared to her home in Datro, but it was cozy. Mattie had a shallow stone bowl with a wick floating in oil which gave off a soft light and illuminated the wall hangings which Mattie herself had woven out of river grasses dyed brilliant colors.

Earl’s ‘house’ was a hollowed out oak tree, just big enough for him to squeeze into, which suited the self-proclaimed village leader just fine. A few of Neistah’s Sprites, which seemed to be a common occupation among the changeling boys in the village, had fashioned a beehive-looking ‘house’ out of mud and clay. It sat among similar boulders so that on first look, it seemed to be just another boulder. Clever, really.

Patrick ended up staying with the boys in the clay house. He readily adopted their habit of going shirtless, and had cut off the legs of his trousers to imitate the shorts they all wore. Roselle bit her tongue. She’d have thought, since he had met the real thing, Patrick wouldn’t have been so quick to join their group. Neistah must have made quite an impression on him after all.

The other girls had taken to Lou right away, and she gradually overcame her reticence as they accepted her wholeheartedly, six fingers and all. Or, was it because she had a visible mutation like the rest of them? Roselle felt a little guilty that she had lied about being able to read minds. Except for Mattie, the others avoided her, and she couldn’t tell, because she wasn’t really a mind-reader, whether it was because they were afraid of her hidden talent, or that they didn’t trust her because she looked like a normal? It was the first time in Roselle’s life that she had been on the outside, and she didn’t like the feeling.

A group of Neistah’s Sprites entered the main area of the village, not that anyone not a part of the village would have known this was a main area. Roselle only noticed because she had been out looking for Lou, who had gone off with some of the other girls. As usual, Earl popped up out of nowhere to grill the returning Sprites, asking questions that didn’t make sense, as far as Roselle could determine. Roselle shrank back behind a tree where she could watch unobserved.

She screamed as someone grabbed her from behind, then spun her around. She stared up at a tall young man, not recognizing him for an instant. Then he kissed her, and Roselle felt all the tension she hadn’t even known she was carrying just melt away. Will was here. Now everything would be all right.

“When they told me you were here, I couldn’t believe it,” Will murmured, bending to kiss her again. “Why did you do it? Why did you come?”

Earl and the other Sprites crowded around them. “I guess you really do know her after all,” Earl cackled, jabbing Will with his elbow. The others laughed, and Roselle blushed before she glared at all of them.

Will pulled her away, leaving the rest of the group still chuckling to themselves. He held Roselle’s arm as they walked further into the trees. “I don’t understand why you did it. How can I take you back now? Do you know what’s going on out there?” He raised his other arm to indicate the forest in general. “I can’t bring you back to Datro.”

“Will.” Roselle stopped. “I don’t want to go back. I came here for you, Will.”

Will shook his head, and leaned back against a tree, pulling Roselle with him. “You shouldn’t have come.” He held her tightly and ran his hand over and over her hair. With her face buried in his furry chest, Roselle smiled.

Will had a home of sorts in Earl’s village, Roselle learned, although he didn’t use it much because he was out on patrol most of the time, like Mattie’s husband. It was basically a burrow carved into the hillside. From a distance, you couldn’t tell it was there. The entrance was beneath the gnarled roots of a tree which butted up against the side of the hill. As soon as you crawled inside, the space opened up so that there was enough room to stand. Like Mattie’s place, Will used stone bowls lit with hot oil to light the space. He only used it for sleeping when he was in the area.

“Where did they put you?” Will asked tentatively.

“Lou and I are staying with Mattie,” Roselle replied, “and Patrick--,”

“Lou?” Will came to attention. “Lou is here with you?”

Roselle nodded. “There she is. Lou!” She called out to a group of girls who were just coming up from the spring with buckets of clean water for cooking. The young girl broke away from the group and looked at Will curiously.

“This is Lou?” Will asked. “She’s Datro’s Sprite?”

“No!” Roselle giggled. “Why would you think Lou was Datro’s Sprite? Don’t you know?”

Lou tugged on Roselle’s sleeve until the older girl looked down at her. “It’s a secret,” she whispered, confirming once and for all that she really did know who Datro’s Sprite was. She had probably known all along.

“It’s all right,” Roselle reassured her. “This is Will. He’s a good friend of mine—and Norah’s. She would want him to know the truth.”

“What truth?” Will asked, narrowing his eyes. “If Lou isn’t Datro’s Sprite, then who is?”

“I should let her tell you herself,” Roselle said slowly, savoring the moment. “But I don’t know for sure when she’ll get here, and I can’t stand the suspense!” She giggled again. “I can’t believe I found out before you did! It’s Norah! Norah is Datro’s Sprite!”

“Impossible, I would have known!” Will burst out. “Norah can’t be . . . .” He rubbed his temples. “Where is she now? Where’s Norah?”

Lou answered. “She’s with Neistah.”

Neither girl understood why Will suddenly paled and sat down abruptly on the ground.