Sprite

Neistah shook his head. -No, the iron in his blood would destroy him and faerie both if we brought him over. He is truly one of theirs.-

He and Lara swam contentedly near young Andy, who spent most of his days, as did the sprites, underwater except when he was playing with Jenny. Then the boy would deign to come to the surface and splash in the shallows. Even Jenny had begun to swim using just her hands and feet, though her fully human body wasn’t as suited to it.

-It’s a shame,- Lara commented. -He so nearly is one of ours.- She and Neistah had been trying, but it was not easy for a sprite to conceive. Possibly because they were so long-lived, the imperative to recreate was missing or dormant in their genes. It happened, but fae births of any kind were few and far-between. Lara would have liked to take Andy as her own.

Andy swam closer, rubbing against Lara affectionately as he passed by. She gave him a pat, and returned her attention to Neistah. -Do you think he will be all right here on his own if we leave for your pond instead?-

Neistah’s ears pricked with interest. The fun was in the trying. -He has a father to take care of him. Let’s go!- He practically leapt out of the water with Lara close beside him. They did not need to tell anyone where they were going; they were sprites, not some of Jim’s human underlings. Yet Lara sent her thoughts winging ahead for Leane to catch, admonishing her to look after the boy in their absence.

They skipped away to the hourglass pond beyond Hanan’s fence, easily bypassing its nagging iron barrier thanks to the precautions Neistah had taken to devise an overhead route. He did not like being near the fence, but it did not bother him as much as it did Lara, who felt ill in its proximity. Old Hanan knew what he was doing when he’d had that barrier erected. He had believed in faerie. Unfortunately now a whole lot of other people also believed, including the old man’s son-in-law, through Neistah’s foolishness. The problem was that Avery also knew of their weakness to iron. Neistah should have killed him long ago. By now, that knowledge had spread. He wasn’t worried for himself; he and Valin had a high tolerance for iron due to their sprinkling of human blood, but Lara did not. And she would not go back to faerie without him.

The double-pond looked different. Neistah stopped just at the edge and put out a hand to stop Lara from entering the water. He gazed across his pond to the other side of the hourglass, Valin’s pond. Something was not quite right about it. A fine mist hovered just above the surface, obscuring the oddness that Neistah felt. His own side was clear in the mottled sunlight which filtered through the trees.

-Wait here,- he sent, moving off to skirt the edge of his pond towards the narrow waterway which linked the twin ponds. Valin’s pond had the feel of a gateway between the realms, unstable, not altogether present in this reality, but it was the whole pond that felt that way, and not just a particular spot. How could that be?

-What is it? A gate?- Lara had come up beside Neistah. He frowned at her distractedly, but she was already here. She might as well stay.

-Valin must be up to his tricks again,- Neistah said. -I wonder where it goes.-

-We could always find out.- Lara’s smile dimpled her cheeks, and Neistah was torn between wanting to play and wanting to play. There was no reason why they couldn’t do both. Water was water, whether here or in their own sweet corner of faerie, or even in the Great Northern Lake itself.

In silent accord, they slid feet-first into the fog-shrouded pond and let the gate bring them where it would.

X x X x X x X x X x X

Norah looked up from her picnic with Pup. “What was that?”

Pup paused with his sandwich halfway to his lips. “I didn’t hear anything.” But already he had lost interest in the food and listened more intently. He did not doubt Norah any longer. She sensed things he could not.

“I thought I felt—never mind.” Norah smiled. “It’s gone now.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. It was probably Neistah or Valin or one of the others—it had that feel.” She gathered up the remains of their lunch and gazed challengingly at Pup. “If they want me, they know how to find me.”

Pup allowed himself to relax in light of Norah’s confidence, but he remained vigilant. He remembered all too clearly the Rellan incident. Together they walked slowly back to the main house, their idyll in the woods over for the afternoon. Pup had things he ought to be doing, though he preferred spending time with Norah whenever he could.

The boy Andy was a puzzle to them all. How could he be human and so like the sprites? Pup glanced at Norah as she prepared to join Andy and Leane and, surprisingly, Andy’s hunter father, in Leane’s pond. She shed her faerie gown without a thought for who might be looking, and indeed, none of the other changelings would admit to it, but Pup gazed hungrily at Norah’s sleek body before her deep red hair swirled around it like a luxurious cloak. Norah was no human. Will was a fool for ever having thought so.

“Come swim.” Norah held out her hand to Pup. He didn’t hesitate, dressed as he was like one of Neistah’s Sprites in cut-off shorts and nothing else. The real sprites were gentle with the humans in their midst, but even so, Norah glided around him effortlessly, making little Andy seem awkward by comparison. Pup held his breath for as long as he could, but it wasn’t enough. Andy had him beat there.

He struck out for the surface, but Norah was there before him, her face tantalizingly close to his. She shook her head, and her hair danced around them both like a red cloud. Her hands closed on his arms as her lips met his and she stared into his open eyes. She frowned, and moved back a fraction, mimicking a blowing motion. Ah. Pup let his breath go in a stream of bubbles. If he had to die, this was the way he would choose, but he didn’t believe Norah intended him to die. She grinned, almost as if she could hear what he was thinking, and quickly pressed her lips to his so she could blow sweet air into his burning lungs.

Aaah! Like this, Pup could swim forever! He let Norah wrap herself around him, arms and hair, holding him close as they drifted together towards the bottom of Leane’s pond. Out of the corner of his eye, Pup saw Leane swim by, an impish leer on her pretty pointed face. Pup didn’t care. This, this was heaven!

Andy swam down to them, peering curiously at their joined bodies. -Play?-

Norah gasped and let go of Pup in surprise. Had Andy just spoken to her? She glanced at Pup to see if he, too, had heard, only to see him struggling in the water suddenly bereft of her life-giving oxygen. She quickly grabbed him and breathed a last kiss of air into his lungs as she towed him to the surface. “Did you hear?” she demanded excitedly, but Pup only stared at her blankly. Andy surfaced beside them as Leane streaked across the pond to join them, leaving the hunter to flounder slowly in her wake. Apparently Leane had heard the boy too.

“Play?” Andy repeated out loud, blinking in the sudden attention. He still had a hard time stringing his words together in complete sentences. “Norah and Pup play. Me too.” He smiled and tugged on Pup’s hand as the changeling treaded water. “Come on, Pup.”

With a regretful smile, Pup began swimming towards shore, leaving Norah and Leane with their heads together, blood-rose and grass-green, hanging just below the surface. “Look, here’s your Daddy,” he commented as Tom caught up to them.

-You heard him?- Pup momentarily forgotten, Norah circled deeper, weaving in and out of Leane’s path as the two wound down towards the bottom. Somewhere up above, Norah registered faint splashing followed by silence that indicated everyone else had exited the pond.

-Clear as I hear you,- Leane replied. -Tom and I were just getting ready to leave the pond and Andy in your care for a little while, too!- she sent petulantly. -So, did the little human develop this skill because of our proximity, or is it something he would have figured out by himself eventually anyway?-

-Does it matter? He is becoming more and more like us, whether or not he is human.-

-We can’t just abandon him now,- Lara responded pensively, angling away from Norah as she headed back towards the surface.

Norah wondered what she meant. Who said anything about abandoning the child?

She followed Leane up to find Pup with Andy, Tom and Jenny playing tag on the grassy lawn. Andy ran, squealing, as Pup growled and chased after him, turning in mid-stride to stalk Jenny instead, much to her delight. Leane linked her arm through Tom’s and pulled him aside, whispering something in his ear.

-Andy, behind you!-

Andy had been watching Pup and not paying attention to his own father, who now was creeping up on him. At Leane’s subvocal sending, however, he whirled around, eyes widening as he spied his father’s outstretched arms. -Help!- he sent back on a burst of laughter, both inside and out, as he ran madly in the opposite direction. If either Leane or Norah had had any doubt as to Andy’s ability to communicate subvocally, it was completely erased now.

-Where is Valin? And Neistah for that matter? Shouldn’t we tell them about this new development?-

Leane shrugged delicately. She had donned her human garb as Norah donned her own bright gown, mostly so the humans would not be scandalized. Or more scandalized than they already were—most were becoming sensitized to the sprites’ casual mores. -Valin? I haven’t seen him in days. Neistah is off with his sweet Lara.- She shot Norah a sideways glance. -If you feel it cannot wait, you can always go to the Lady yourself.-

-Me? But I—-

Leane gave a tinkling laugh. -You. You hold the land. You are free to come and go as you please.-

-But I don’t know where to find a gate.-

Leane arched a brow. -You hold one close to your heart, or have you forgotten?- Her glance slid across the lawn to where Pup tumbled in the grass with both children on top of him.

Breyan’s stone. Norah’s hand clenched around it where it lay warm between her breasts. She had thought of it as a way to contact Breyan should she have need of him, not as a gateway to faerie itself. -I—- She glanced over at Pup. -Can’t you go?-

-Me?- Laughing, Leane shook her head, tumbling grass-green locks around her face. -I’m not leaving until I absolutely have to. There’s too much fun to be had in this land. Besides, once I return to faerie, I may not be able to leave again.-

-Why not?-

-Not all of us are strong like you and your line. I followed Valin here once; I don’t think I could have managed it on my own. Ask yourself why Breyan leaves you to your own devices. If not for the Lady’s intervention, sweet Lara would not have been able to come here either.-

-Couldn’t the Lady send you back?-

-Could you? Do you know how?- Leane softly mocked. -We do not belong here, Norah. That is the truth of it, for all our wanting. The Lady knows that.-

But that could not be true. Of course Norah belonged here—she was half-human. Even Neistah and Valin had some human blood. Why shouldn’t they all be free to come and go whenever they wanted?

-Perhaps you can,- Leane responded quietly, picking up on Norah’s thoughts. -That is something for you to decide. Now, are you going back to faerie or not?- She glanced significantly at Norah’s pendant.

-Not yet. We will wait a little longer for Neistah or Valin to return. They will know what to do.- Norah let her hand fall away from Breyan’s pendant. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see him; she wanted to see him too much. She was afraid if she did, she wouldn’t want to come back.

X x X x X x X x X x X

Will held onto Roselle’s arm while she balanced baby Clarice on one hip as they made their way down the wide steps of the front porch. He had a pack slung over his shoulder for the journey ahead of them. They paused as they beheld the gathering on the front lawn. Even the sprites had come out of the water to say good-bye.

“It’s not forever,” Roselle laughed, jiggling Clarice up and down. “We wanted to go before the weather changed, but we’ll be back.” She glanced fondly at her husband. “Will has started work on our own place a little down the road. We plan to be back in a few weeks so he can get it ready.”

Will nodded. “Thanks to Jim and Miriam, who gave us the land. When we return from visiting Roselle’s parents, I’ll be asking for help to finish it before winter—otherwise, Norah will have to wait until spring to get her old bedroom back!”

Norah started in surprise. She didn’t particularly want her old room back. She hardly ever slept at the house anymore anyway, preferring the open air while the weather held.

-As if it were their land to give,- Leane commented disparagingly. -They should be asking you for permission to build on this land.-

Norah thought it was a great idea for Will and Roselle to build their own house. At least on Hanan lands, they could build it openly and not hide like the other changelings had to do. If she had her way, all the changelings would be able to live openly in the forest. They knew how to take care of it without ruining its natural beauty.

-But for how long?- Leane asked. -If all the changelings were able to live just like all the other humans, how long would it be before the forests are destroyed again?-

-They deserve a chance to try.-

Their silent byplay went unnoticed by the mortals in their group. For the past week and a half, Leane and Norah had been the only sprites at the Hanan estate, and they had as a result become closer friends.

“I can send some of the boys to accompany you,” Pup told Will. “It’s been quiet, but there is no guarantee it will stay that way the closer you get to the city.”

“We don’t intend to go into Datro proper,” Roselle replied. “My mother and father are meeting us at Jordy’s parents’ farm. We should be safe enough once we’re there.”

Jordy and Adam had returned briefly, reporting that the farmers in general bore no animosity towards changelings in general. Of course, there were always exceptions on both sides. The two boys had gone right back out again to visit more farms and try to put families back in touch with changelings who had escaped into the forest. They both had the advantage of being ‘normal’ humans, although they proudly called themselves Pup’s Sprites.

“I’ll get word to the Sprites to keep an eye out, but you won’t necessarily see them unless you need them. Will knows how to contact them if he has to.”

“Well, that’s it, then.” Roselle smiled happily. She stepped forward to give Norah a one-handed hug, the baby in between them. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

“Hold,” Leane said, whisking the baby out of Roselle’s arms. “You won’t last an hour if you carry her like that.” Swiftly she loosened the baby’s blanket and placed her in the center of it, then positioned her on Roselle’s back, cinching the blanket together at the corners and tying it in front of Roselle to form a sling. Clarice’s arms, legs and head stuck out but otherwise she was snugly held against her mother’s back. “There.” Leane moved back, satisfied with her handiwork. Norah wondered how a creature who rarely wore clothes had figured out how to make a baby carrier. Leane smiled mysteriously.

Pup accompanied Will and Roselle to the boundary of Hanan lands. He promised Norah he would be back by evening.