Sprite

Neistah left his changelings to the tender mercies of Leane, while he sought out Valin. The elder sprite had been at the lake for at least a day or two, with Leane and Will arriving not long after. Neistah had been right—it was Leane who had tempted the hapless Dave into the swamp. A part of him regretted that he hadn’t found the hunter first. Neistah would have liked to lure him underwater in repayment for giving away his secret all those years ago.

‘Come with me under the water,’ Valin sent. The changelings who had accompanied him stood guard on the shores of the great northern lake, silent sentries, unlike the group that flocked around Leane. Neistah grimaced. Valin would have a better hold on his humans, even if they were only borrowed. Perhaps it came from his time spent in human guise himself. Although now Valin wore only Anais’ bright woven trunks, assimilating even now with the adopted dress of the changelings—which only copied Neistah’s chosen garb. Didn’t Valin see the irony there?

Laughing silently, Neistah slipped under the water alongside Valin. The great lake was cold, but welcome. ‘Where are we going?’ he sent. The rushing water felt glorious against his webbing.

Valin circled back, hanging lightly in the water as he regarded Neistah. ‘We came across three set fires, two with the hunters still there trying to control the blaze. These fires are not arbitrary.’ As usual, Valin ignored Neistah’s question.

‘I know,’ Neistah sent, resigned. He would find out where they were going when Valin was ready to tell him. ‘The humans are building roads through our forest.’

Valin raised his eyebrows. ‘Mortal lands are not our lands,’ his father admonished gently. ’We agreed to help you stop the humans from destroying their world again, but it is their world, Neistah. We come, we play for a while, and then we leave. They must remain, and do with it what they will. Even if it means that eventually we are banished once more.’

‘Then what of Norah?’ Neistah asked. ‘What of you, who seeded the mortal land for his own purposes?’

‘Not only mine,’ Valin sent. ‘However, Norah must find her own way—as must you.’

Neistah was startled. What way did he need to find? Annoyed, he arrowed ahead. ’Where are we going?’ he asked again. But he felt it—a pulsating in the current. A short distance ahead he saw the shimmer and flicked his wrists to come to a stop. ‘A gateway?’

Valin glided to a stop. ‘I found this quite by accident long ago when I was searching for a pathway back to our lands. I had been longing to swim, too long among the mortals that I almost forgot what it felt like to feel cool water against my skin, to move like this, to be free. I thought I had gone home, at first. But when I called out, none of our kind would answer me, and when I finally surfaced, I found myself here. A few humans had settled upon the shores, but other than that, the lake was empty. I fled through the gateway to the village I had been living in, but every so often, whenever the urge to swim became too powerful to ignore, I would follow it back to this lake.’

‘Why didn’t it bring you back to our realm?’

Valin shrugged, an elegant gesture underwater. His cloud of bright red hair obscured him momentarily as the currents swirled around him. ‘That was not what I had wished for,’ he replied. ’And so I remained, in this world, until I could remain no longer. Then the way opened up in blood and I was finally able to go home.’

A strange way of putting it. Neistah had thought that Valin had wanted to remain in the mortal world with his mortal family. Even when Anais had confessed that she had bade him go there for the sake of all of their futures, he had believed that Valin chose it. ‘You wanted to come home?’ he asked.

Later they sat beside a small fire sheltered in part by a low stone outcropping. The sound of waves lapping steadily against the shore was the only indication that they remained near the great northern lake. All around them was forest. Valin had dispatched guards to various points around the area before Neistah or even Will had had a chance to do so. Will sat protectively beside Leane, which didn’t stop her from flirting with the other boys.

‘They will pine away for you when you go back,’ Neistah commented silently, turning all Leane’s bright attention on him for a heartbeat. Another time, and he would have taken her up on her offer, but tonight he was not interested. Laughing softly, he shook his head.

Unperturbed, Leane turned back to her captive audience.

Jordy sidled closer to Neistah. He glanced apprehensively at Will, whose lap was full of a squirming Leane, who pulled one and then another of the starstruck changelings down for a quick kiss. It was a good thing Valin had had the foresight to send some of them away as guards. “What is she doing?” Jordy whispered.

“Playing,” replied Neistah. His mind was elsewhere. Valin had said the underwater gateway led to a forest glen somewhat near his ancient village, which was no more. Would a gate still remain there? So many of the old ways were gone now, or virtually impassable. There was no other way to find out if it still worked except to try it. Intent, and lacking that, blood, would open the path.

Jordy hissed, flinching back. A bright spot of blood, human blood, dripped from Brom’s lower lip where Leane had caught it in her sharp teeth. Brom didn’t seem to mind as he eagerly leaned forward for another kiss. Neistah caught Jordy’s horrified thought. “It’s all right,” Neistah said, grinning. “Leane’s harmless.” His own sharp teeth belied that statement.

Valin had some idea that, by utilizing the underwater gate, they could transfer the water along with themselves and so stop the fires once and for all.

‘How, if the gate leads to your old village?’ Neistah had asked, but Valin only smiled. For all his human airs, he was not human. Valin was old and had powers Neistah could only guess at. Yet Valin had allowed himself to be sent to the mortal world because of the drop of human blood in his veins. Valin was an enigma, one that Neistah gave up trying to understand.

He changed his mind. ’Leane!’ he called abruptly. Immediately she left her human entourage behind and followed Neistah to the lake. They did not emerge until dawn was breaking over the camp.

X x X x X x X x X

Leane was harmless. That’s what Neistah said. Jordy watched anxiously as the Green Woman, as he thought of her, stalked one after the other of them, making small talk and running her eyes everywhere her hands couldn’t easily touch. As if she had heard him, Leane paused and turned to stare appraisingly right at Jordy. He gulped, and ran.

There was something not quite right about the three of them—the real sprites. Jordy couldn’t help thinking of them that way. They were so different from the rest of the changelings. Neistah, with his eerie ability to stay underwater, and tall Valin, whose eyes were like nothing Jordy had ever seen: violet, ringed in darker and darker shades until the innermost ring was nearly black, making his pupils look huge. They moved, those eyes, in rippling waves from light to dark, and whenever Valin glanced his way, Jordy felt sure his soul was being sucked right out of him. Leane was the strangest of all. Her hair was bright green—green! And she mocked them all with her easy charms. The others didn’t see it—they fell all over themselves for some small crumb of recognition from her.

They had been at the great northern lake for three days now. During that time, Neistah, Valin, and, thankfully, Leane had disappeared for hours on end under the gray waters of the lake. Neistah was not the only one who could hold his breath for a long time. They were closer to fish than to people, Jordy thought. He remembered the warning he and the other hunters had been given: don’t let them lead you near the water. The sprites will try to drown you. Is that what had happened to the bloated body they’d discovered floating half-in and half-out of the forest swamp? Jordy uneasily wondered if either Valin or Leane could have done such a thing. He didn’t doubt Neistah could; but Neistah had been with them the whole time. And even though they all called themselves “Neistah’s Sprites,” Jordy knew he wasn’t a real one, and neither was Owen or Mark, the changeling that Jordy was supposed to shadow. The longer Jordy stayed here, the more he began to question his own desire to be one of “Neistah’s Sprites.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want to swim with me?” Leane wrapped her body around Jordy’s. He averted his eyes so she couldn’t steal his soul. Leane laughed, and released him, swaying slightly as she strolled back to Owen and Brom where they waited at the edge of the lake. It was cold—much too cold to go swimming. Jordy shuddered, and turned away.

“Having second thoughts?” Neistah mocked him too. “You should.”

He had come up behind Jordy, as silently as Leane. That was another thing about those three—they could move without sound when they chose. That wasn’t natural, either.

“Ah, but it is,” Neistah replied, as if Jordy had spoken out loud. His eyes gleamed with amusement. “We are part of nature, after all.”

Will was with Neistah. A tall changeling, though not as tall as Valin, Will had a scowl on his face as he followed Leane with his eyes.

“I’m sending you four hunters back with Will,” Neistah said, and Jordy was faintly disturbed at being called a hunter again. He was no longer sure he wanted to be a ‘sprite,’ but he didn’t want to be a hunter, either. Neistah nodded, as if he could guess what Jordy was thinking. “You’re to be Will’s Sprites now, not mine. He’s in charge.”

Jordy was puzzled. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“Will has a Lady he has to get back to, among other things,” Neistah answered inscrutably, darting an amused glance at the tall changeling. “Leane will be disappointed.”

“What about you?” And Leane, Jordy thought. And Valin.

“We have something else to do. You can’t come.” Neistah’s eyes glinted. “Unless you want to swim with us?”

Jordy shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “No.”

“Then go gather the others, Owen and his group included,” Neistah directed him. “Will and his changelings will meet you here in one hour.”

Not waiting for Jordy’s reply, Neistah strode off, towards the water. Jordy and Will both watched him speak briefly with Leane, and then lead the Sprite woman away from the group of boys, who stood as if bewildered, not moving. “You’d better go get them,” Will said quietly, giving Jordy a little nudge. Jordy went.

Will explained to the group that the sprites—and nobody was confused over which sprites he meant—would be traveling separately from now on. He and the newest Sprites, Brom, Jordy, Rolf and Pete, would go back to Earl’s village. Owen and his group would continue their interrupted patrol, until Will relieved Pup, and Pup could join up with them again. Patrick would lead a third group, despite the fact that he was among the newest of Neistah’s Sprites. His sense of smell had proved an invaluable asset in the dense forest.

They now had a better picture of where the various hunter groups were concentrated, and where to expect the next outbreaks of fire. Although some of the fires were set with pure malice in mind, most of them indicated a larger purpose, a chilling one to mutants who had made the forest and the anonymity it gave them their home.

“I’m staying with Owen,” Brom said stubbornly. Will glared at him, and Brom glared right back.

“Fine,” Will said at last.

Owen’s group left first. Jordy watched them go with wide eyes. He glanced back once at the lake. It was gray and utterly empty.