Sprite

When the storm was over, a pristine sheet of white lay over Leane’s pond. Norah sighed along with the other three sprites when she saw it. There would be no swimming in the near future, probably not again until spring. Norah wasn’t sure she could last that long.

Sharp cracks from snapping branches still sounded all around them. One had fallen onto the roof of the bunkhouse, and another had nearly taken down the barn. Will’s Sprites were out there now, chopping and cutting the trees away before any repairs could even begin. Luckily the main house was untouched.

Jim came around the back of the house, axe in hand. Leane shrank back behind Norah. Jim assumed it was because she was afraid of the sharp weapon, so he carefully leaned it against the porch steps and continued towards them. “Some of the men are going out to check the boundary,” he said. “Pup wants to take a few of his lads even farther than that. He’s worried about the changelings in the forest.”

Neistah, who refused to compromise and wear human clothing even when the situation warranted it, shifted lightly from foot to foot in the snow. Valin and Leane had no such compunctions, and wore borrowed winter clothes, including soft suede shoes which did not pinch the delicate fins on their ankles. Norah found herself somewhere in the middle, wearing her faerie gown with a winter jacket on top, although she was barefoot like Neistah. She curled up her toes. Standing on snow was not pleasant. She should have taken the shoes when Miriam offered.

“I’ll go,” Neistah decided. “Owen’s group is still out there. So is Patrick’s. I can move faster and be back sooner.” He zipped past Jim, light enough that his feet barely made any impression on the newly fallen snow, to join Pup.

“What can we do?” Valin asked.

“Can you hunt? We suddenly have a lot more mouths to feed. If Pup brings in more stragglers, we’re going to need food.”

“That I can do, and gladly,” Valin replied with a slight bow that made him appear old-fashioned. He winked at Norah when he caught that stray thought. Norah blushed. Valin was her grandfather, and unimaginably old. Most of the time, he looked like a beautiful young man, however, and it was very easy to forget the truth about him.

He started off for the barn, where Jim kept supplies, including guns made with iron, which he had no intention of touching, but he had to make it look good for the human who still watched. ‘I want to check the other two gates,’ he sent back. ‘The ones Neistah and I came through. By now I expect they look exactly like Leane’s.’

‘Wouldn’t they be frozen over too?’ Norah asked silently. Leane’s pond no longer had an active gate—she and Neistah had checked. Besides, Leane’s was the only one within the Hanan compound. How was Valin planning on passing the iron fences around the property’s perimeter?

Valin stopped, and grinned at Norah. Leane’s eyes widened. ‘A blood gate!’ she sent. ‘Will you leave us behind?’ There was a curious wistfulness in Leane’s unvoiced sending. ‘Now?’

It made Valin frown. Why would Leane suddenly care about remaining with the humans? She played with the human boys because it amused her. He would have thought, given the harsh turn the weather had taken, and the added discomfort of having to don heavy human garb, Leane would be more than ready to return home.

‘A blood gate?’ Norah echoed. ‘What’s that?’

Jim started towards Valin, who had paused at the corner of the house, seemingly staring back at them intently. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

Valin shook his head, and continued walking towards the barn. He’d caught the faintest trace of a thought from Leane. He doubted she even realized he had seen it. Leane was young, in relative terms. A child? From a mutated human and a non-mutated one? Valin’s step grew lighter, and he bounded the last few feet across the snow, leaving hardly more of an impression than Neistah had. There was hope for the humans yet. Ever since their cataclysmic war, where they nearly destroyed themselves, human births had dwindled. They culled their own kind, separating the mutated ones, who like as not died before reaching adulthood. The so-called normal humans were the only ones encouraged to breed, with the result that each succeeding generation was smaller than the last. The dearth of human presence, combined with the resurgence of natural forest, had opened the way for his kind to return to the mortal realm, but, as he had counseled Neistah, this place ultimately belonged to the mortals, not to them. What fun would it be if there were no mortals left to enliven their long, long lives? Perhaps the mortals, too, had needed an infusion of new blood to strengthen their line. If ‘normal’ and ‘mutant’ could produce a child, maybe the mutations would begin to be assimilated at last. Time would tell.

Now there was a greater need than ever to preserve the land. Humans needed a place to live, and if it finally appeared that they were going to survive as a species, Valin was determined to make sure they didn’t destroy it before that came to pass. ‘Keep the humans safe,’ he directed Leane, and by extension, Norah. ‘I will return with food as promised.’

X x X x X x X x X

Neistah stayed with Pup’s group long enough to cross the iron border. They broke off to head towards Earl’s last known location, while Neistah backtracked North. The storm had hit hard everywhere. Stark white splinters, looking like broken bones, were all that remained of the tops of once tall trees. Coming so quickly on the heels of the devastating fires which had also destroyed portions of the forest, the widespread destruction was disheartening. The forest would recover, but it would take years.

Near Datro, Neistah came across a group of hunters, most of them boys about the same age as Jordy and his friends. One of them lay on the ground, moaning loudly. When Neistah appeared in their midst, there was a sharp intake of breath, then a scrambling for guns that had been cast aside. A few of the hunters aimed their weapons at him, the points wavering dangerously as the hunters shook, from fright or possibly from the cold. Neistah prudently stepped behind a tree.

“Mutant!” One of the hunters called out. His voice cracked on the word. He cleared his throat. “Mutant!”

Pursing his lips wryly, Neistah stepped out. “Put the guns down,” he said, putting a little bit of mental command behind his words. Some of the hunters dropped their weapons into the snow, but a few held grimly onto their weapons, unconsciously resisting Neistah’s compulsion. He held their gazes, and before long the barrels pointed downwards. Close enough.

One of the hunters gasped when he got a good look at Neistah, clad only in his golden trunks. The snow made Neistah’s webbing glisten. “Sprite!” he said, half in awe. “It’s Datro’s Sprite!”

Neistah grinned. “Not exactly,” he said, stepping closer. He noted with satisfaction that not one of the so-called hunters had raised his gun. “What are you doing out here?”

The barrage of thoughts that assailed him told him all he needed to know. These were not hunters, after all, but some of Avery’s road construction crew, caught out in the middle of the unexpected autumn blizzard. The road they had been widening was buried now under a foot or more of snow, and the landmarks they depended upon had been wiped clear by the storm. Even the trees looked different. They were lost. In addition . . . .

Neistah glanced down at the moaning hunter, who had not jumped up with the others at his approach. His leg was shattered. The tree limb that had fallen on him lay a few feet away. At least his comrades had managed to get the limb off him, but that was as far as they had gotten. What were they to do with him now? If they left him here, he would die of exposure. If they stayed with him, they would likely die as well. They had been arguing over which direction to try, when Neistah appeared.

“Datro is that way.” Neistah pointed. “Get him on a sled of some sort, so you can pull him through the snow. I’ll show you the way.” Neistah didn’t want to. He didn’t want to waste the time when he could be checking on Owen or Patrick. But he couldn’t leave these children here to die, even if they were the ones who had set fire to the forest in order to make roads. “But only if you leave the guns behind.”

Reluctantly, the ones who had stubbornly held onto their weapons now placed them on the ground as well and moved away. There was a glimmer of hope in their eyes, as they hurriedly constructed transport for their injured friend and prepared to follow the Sprite towards home. It never crossed their minds that he could be tricking them. It never crossed Neistah’s mind, either, to try.

X x X x X x X x X

Adam burst into the kitchen, shaking snow off his boots. “Grandfather,” he said breathlessly. “He’s at the north gate and he wants to come in.”

“What!” Jim straightened up, his lunch forgotten. “Where is he now?”

“I left him at the gate,” Adam explained. “I told the guards not to do anything until I came back. Then I came directly here.”

“Good job,” his father said absently. He was busy trying to figure out what the best course of action would be. Alan Avery had tried bullying, threatening, and finally burning the forest close to Hanan’s boundary, which he still considered his, as John Hanan’s son-in-law. At first, Avery hadn’t pushed the matter. He had come to Jim and Miriam with the sad news that their daughter was missing and presumed dead, kidnapped by mutants. He had expected Jim to side with him in his resultant purge against the mutants who had escaped into the forest, but Jim didn’t trust him. Avery was sincere enough in his remorse over what had happened to Norah, but he had other motives in mind. When Jim decided to aid the mutants, he had cut ties with Miriam’s father completely.

“What is he doing out here?” Miriam asked. “Do you think he got caught out in the weather? Maybe we should open up the gates to him. He may not have any other place to go.”

Jim cursed under his breath. “All right,” he said. “Adam, you go back and guide your grandfather in. Take Mack with you,” he said as an afterthought. The sight of the guard’s obvious mutation would let Avery know exactly how matters stood. “No weapons of any kind. Those they leave outside the fence. If he can’t abide by that, then he can stay out in the snow.”

Adam hurried back out into the snow, calling for Mack and his group of guards, who were busy clearing the last of the fallen branches away from the living areas. They headed out at a trot.

“This should be interesting,” Jim muttered.

Valin returned before Adam did, went out again, and returned a second time with game enough to last several days even with the added influx of people. So by the time Alan Avery arrived, with six of his men all tense and jumpy from being weaponless and surrounded by mutants, Valin had cleaned up and lounged by the fire in the big living room, with Norah and Leane nearby. Roselle, too, sat with the sprite women, holding Jenny on her lap. She and Leane conversed quietly, while Norah had a book on her lap. In the corner, Lou and the other girls from Earl’s camp practiced the knitting that Miriam had taught them.

Avery’s eyes hardened when he walked into the living room. He stared at the three sprites relaxing by the fire. Grimacing, he spun on his heel and left. “I understand that these are extreme circumstances, but this is too much,” he complained to Jim. “To have them in your own home like this. . .”

Their voices faded away and Norah released the breath she had been holding. Her grandfather, her other grandfather, she amended to herself, hadn’t recognized her. Did she truly look all that different?

‘You are one of us,’ Valin sent softly. ‘You no longer hide your true self.’

Norah supposed Valin was right. Since she had ceased cutting off her webbing, and wore only the shimmery gown Anais had given her, she did indeed look like a real sprite.

‘Not only look,’ Leane commented. ‘Your hair is a jewel as bright as the one you wear around your neck. I was lying when I said it wasn’t. You are everything I wish I could be, strong and beautiful and able to have children one day. Forgive me if I wasn’t ready to admit it earlier.’

Norah looked at Leane in surprise. The sprite woman had completely turned around since she had found out about Roselle’s baby. She smiled in thanks.

Will came in with an armful of firewood. “Is that Avery I saw out there?” he asked. “He looked at me and I’m sure he remembered me, but he just muttered something under his breath and stomped past. Your father, I think, was pleased.”

He put down the firewood, spent a moment to build up the fire again, and then came around to sit between Norah and Roselle. Leane moved closer to Valin, putting her arms possessively around the older sprite’s shoulders. She couldn’t have been more clear if she had shouted. Will glanced at her, shrugged, and divided his attention between Norah and Roselle.

‘We need to leave them,’ Leane said. As one, she, Valin and Norah stood up and excused themselves. Leane nodded to Roselle, who nodded back. Now was the time she would tell Will about the baby. With the other sprites in the room, the attraction was just too great for Will, who had been to faerie and was well and truly entranced by their very presence.

They didn’t go far. Jim was in the kitchen with her grandfather, her mother, and Adam. Avery’s men had been fed and relegated to the newly-repaired bunkhouse. It was cold, but livable. Norah hesitated, but came over to sit down next to her mother anyway. Valin and Leane stayed protectively behind her.

“What are they doing here?” Avery demanded. “How do you know one of them isn’t Datro’s Sprite? Your daughter was killed by Datro’s Sprite! How can you let them in your house? Don’t you care?”

“One of them is Datro’s Sprite,” Norah answered. She swept her hair away from her face and looked at Avery directly. “I am. Don’t you recognize me, Grandfather?”

Avery’s face turned chalk white. He swallowed. “No,” he whispered. He stared at Norah, trying to see the young girl who he had taken into his home and trained to be his successor. “You’re not Norah. She’s a normal human. She’s not—“

Norah smiled, and brushed the delicate webbing on her neck with her equally webbed fingers. “I’m not,” she agreed. “I hid who I was from you, from everybody. I wasn’t taken away from Datro. I escaped. There are some of us who don’t agree with your opinion of mutants. Didn’t you notice Roselle in the living room?”

“The other girl who went missing? Is she a mutant too?”

“We call them changelings,” Norah told him, “And no, she’s not. But she’s one of us just the same.”

“So am I,” Adam said. “Even though I’m not like Norah. Valin says I’m his descendant too.”

Avery glanced at the tall sprite, who grinned back at him with unusually sharp teeth. There was something about the three sprites, Norah included, that gave him shivers. They weren’t just mutated. They were comfortable in their mutations, as if it were natural. He wondered if they had adapted to live underwater, and unbidden, a memory of his dead wife, Miriam’s mother, came into his mind. When they were young, she used to tell him stories of fanciful creatures, water creatures, which she said were special to her family. Of course, they were only stories she’d learned from her crazy father, John Hanan.

Will interrupted them, towing Roselle behind him. He also hesitated when he noticed Avery, but even the Datro factory owner could not wipe away the elated grin on his face. “Guess what?” he announced to the room in general. “Roselle and I are going to have a baby!”

Avery had had one too many shocks that day. He had recognized the young mutant who had once worked for him, despite the fact that Will’s mutations were hidden underneath his winter clothing. The other girl was Norah’s friend, the one who Avery had thought had been leading his granddaughter astray. Instead, it appeared it was the other way around. “Impossible!” he croaked. Mutants and normals did not, could not, procreate.

Valin caught the unspoken thought. “Apparently they can,” he answered.

Avery’s head hit the table.