In a Dark Land Read online

  ALSO BY CHRISTINA SOONTORNVAT

  The Changelings

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  Copyright © 2017 by Christina Soontornvat

  Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover illustration © James Madsen

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Visitors to Camp Kitterpines

  Chapter 2: Stuck

  Chapter 3: Collecting Species

  Chapter 4: The Road Back

  Chapter 5: Reunions

  Chapter 6: Secrets

  Chapter 7: Changeling Camp

  Chapter 8: The Book of the Bretabairn

  Chapter 9: Still a Fox

  Chapter 10: A Proper Spy

  Chapter 11: The Piper’s Plan

  Chapter 12: The Solstice Celebration

  Chapter 13: Shades and Shadows

  Chapter 14: One Black Feather

  Chapter 15: Appearances and Vanishings

  Chapter 16: To the Norlorns

  Chapter 17: The Fillifut

  Chapter 18: Lake Umbra

  Chapter 19: A Tale of Betrayal and Heartache

  Chapter 20: Twistroot

  Chapter 21: Checking Out

  Chapter 22: Rejoice in the Making

  Chapter 23: On the Trail of the Key

  Chapter 24: Smoke and Mirrors

  Chapter 25: The King’s Key

  Chapter 26: In Between

  Chapter 27: The Most Common

  Chapter 28: Fierceness beneath the Lace Wing

  Chapter 29: Home Again

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  for Elowyn and Aven

  1

  Visitors to Camp Kitterpines

  Leaf, stone, leaf, stone, leaf, stone, leaf, stone…

  Izzy carefully layered the last leaf and dark-gray rock on top of the others. She leaned back onto her heels and looked down at the other four towers she and her little sister, Hen, had just built. The towers wobbled. Overall, it was a pretty sorry attempt, but it wasn’t entirely their fault. The rocks here weren’t smooth and flat like the ones they could find in the woods back home.

  Hen stood up and raised her arms out at her sides. She shut her eyes and tilted her face to the sky. “Oh, Good Piper,” she intoned. “Hear our call. We salmon you here…”

  “Summon,” corrected Izzy.

  Hen wrinkled her nose and then continued her chant. “We summon you here. Come forth, o’ Piper, and cross into our world!”

  Hen stood perfectly still, her blond curls ruffling in the slight breeze.

  Izzy allowed what she felt was an extra-long dramatic pause. “I told you. This isn’t going to—”

  “Shh!” Hen’s eyes popped open. “You hear that? Could it be the sound of a fairy flute?”

  Izzy listened. The brassy spurts of a bugle rang out from the direction of camp headquarters. It was time to rotate activities.

  Hen slumped, one hand on her hip. “Oh man. I was sure making these towers would work.”

  Izzy sighed and straightened a stack that had fallen over. “We’ve been making them for months. I don’t know why you expect anything different to happen now.”

  Hen spread her arms again and spun around. “Because look at this place! This forest is so Faerie, it’s not even funny.”

  Izzy looked up at the trees towering over them. Hen had a point. The forest preserve that surrounded Camp Kitterpines hadn’t heard the swing of an ax since Davy Crockett was alive. Colossal oak trees stretched up and out of sight, their trunks as wide around as a baby swimming pool. The last time Izzy had seen trees that big was when she stepped into the Edgewood, the forest that covered the eastern border of Faerie, nine excruciatingly long months ago.

  A part of Izzy was happy to be in such a magical-feeling place. But the rest of her couldn’t help resenting it. This forest was the reason her parents had abandoned them at Camp Kitterpines for the summer.

  “We picked this place just for you, Izzy,” their mom had said during the long, winding drive through the Cherokee National Forest. “You love the woods, and that’s exactly what this camp is all about. There’ll be hiking and swimming and all sorts of nature activities. The lake even has a waterslide.”

  “Waterslide? That’s so cool!” Hen bounced on her seat, singing the official camp song for the one hundredth time. “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s to the woods we go…”

  “Izzy, look at what a great attitude your sister has,” said her dad.

  True, but then again, Hen would have a great attitude about marching to her own beheading. Izzy’s parents were so clueless. They had no idea that the reason Izzy spent so much time in the woods behind their house wasn’t because she’d suddenly become a nature lover.

  She was waiting for her chance to go back to Faerie.

  At first, it had been great to be home again, to sleep in her own bed with her dog, Dublin, at her feet, knowing she was safe with her parents in the next room. Izzy had learned firsthand that for all its wonders, Faerie was a dangerous place. She and her sister were lucky to have survived their adventures at all—being kidnapped by an evil witch, hunted by goblins, trekking halfway across Eastern Faerie. Sure, when Izzy returned to Earth, she’d had to leave her best—make that her only—friends behind. But she had told herself she’d see them again soon.

  But now an entire school year had blown by, and there had been no sign, no message from any of the Changelings. Izzy worried. Had something bad happened to them? Or maybe they were just too busy. They had each other. Maybe they didn’t miss her the way she missed them. That thought worried her even more.

  And then recently, in the weeks since school had let out, Izzy had started to feel differently whenever she went into the woods behind her house. It was hard to explain. The air smelled greener, the light seemed sharper, and goose bumps ran up the backs of her arms, the same way they did when she crossed into Faerie the first time.

  Just when Izzy was sure her friends were about to finally make contact, her parents had whisked them away to sleepaway camp so they could take their first solo vacation in twelve years. They’d even put poor Dublin in a boarding kennel. Parents could be so selfish.

 
Izzy frowned and plucked a leaf off a vine she hoped wasn’t poison ivy. She handed it to Hen, who’d started gathering more tower materials.

  “I think we should build just a couple more,” said Hen, cradling a rock under her chin. “If Peter sees them, he’ll know we’re here and come find us.”

  “Who are you talking about?” asked a voice behind them.

  Izzy spun around. Long-legged Larissa stood on the trail with her arms crossed. The other girls from the twelve-year-old cabin stood behind her, watching Izzy and Hen with curiosity.

  Larissa held up one pinkie, the camp salute. “Hi-ho.”

  “Hi-HO!” responded Hen, pinkie extended with glee.

  Larissa glared at Izzy until she limply held up her finger. “Hi-ho.”

  Larissa’s mother and grandmother had gone to Camp Kitterpines and had donated enough money to have the dining hall named after them, which Larissa made sure no one forgot. She strode toward Izzy and Hen, knocking over three of the towers with her long, floppy feet.

  “Who’s Peter?” she asked. “Your boyfriend?”

  Hen, who never got sarcasm, chuckled. “Ha, of course not! Good Peter is the Piper. He’s the one who lures human children away from their homes and switches them with Changelings. He’s, like, a thousand years old. And last September, he stole me away into Faerie because he was pretending to work for this wicked witch named Morvanna. Izzy and the Changelings had to rescue me…”

  Izzy kept silent while Hen spilled all the details of their entire adventure in Faerie. When they’d first returned to Earth, she’d tried to keep her little sister quiet about it. But she soon realized that the more Hen blabbed, the more everyone, including her parents, thought it was all just an elaborate make-believe game. Even now, the camp girls smiled indulgingly at Hen. Izzy could tell what they were thinking: What a cute little girl with a great imagination!

  Larissa was the only one who rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said to the others, cutting Hen off. “Let’s go before someone changes us into a troll.”

  She knocked over another stone tower and started walking back toward camp.

  The other girls patted Hen on the head and turned to follow Larissa. One of them tapped Izzy on the shoulder. “You want to come? Our last activity is sand volleyball. You can be on my team.”

  Izzy glanced at the girls trotting away. Larissa was a snob, but most of the others were pretty friendly. Izzy told herself she should go with them. She should be friendly back for once and give this camp a shot instead of being a loner like she usually was.

  But she just couldn’t. There was something depressing about the thought of playing volleyball moments after trying to summon a fairy to take you away to a magical world.

  Izzy smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll meet you guys in the dining hall.”

  The girl shrugged and left.

  Hen picked her backpack up off the ground and swung it over one shoulder. “I’ve got to go too. Our cabin’s last activity today is fire building, and I’ve got to show them how to do it. Yesterday, our activities counselor couldn’t get one going. Not even with a bow drill!”

  Izzy laughed. When it came to fire, her little sister could teach a college course. Their parents had to check her duffel bag three times for smuggled fireworks before they dropped them off. The fireworks were pretty tame—Crackle Caps and Fizzy Twirlers—and Hen was always super careful. But the camp handbook strictly prohibited incendiary devices of any kind.

  “OK,” said Izzy. “I’ll see you after dinner for the marshmallow roast.”

  She watched her sister sprint back along the trail, her backpack bobbing up and down as she ran. With a sigh, Izzy picked up the rocks Hen left behind and began repairing the towers Larissa had knocked over.

  Izzy glanced back in the direction of camp. She could hear the faraway sounds of laughter and happy shouting, but no one was near enough to see her. There was another reason she hadn’t wanted to hang out with the girls in her cabin. She didn’t belong with them.

  Not just because she was awkward or introverted. Because she wasn’t even a human.

  Izzy was a Changeling.

  She’d discovered this during the last few days of her journey in Faerie. It had come as a complete shock. Even now, the thought that she was a shape-shifting fairy switched at birth with a human baby sounded so crazy that Izzy could hardly believe it wasn’t a bedtime story she’d made up for her little sister.

  Izzy shut her eyes. She knew she had the ability to Change into a fox, a mouse, and a blackbird. She’d done it before but without fully realizing what she was doing. When Izzy returned to Earth, she had promised Good Peter she wouldn’t Change. It was a promise she’d tried to break almost immediately. She was trying to break it now.

  Izzy took a deep breath. She imagined herself as a fox, tail swishing, ears twitching, shiny black nose pointed to the sky. She imagined the breeze tickling her stiff whiskers and parting the fur down her back.

  But when she looked down, hoping to see paws, she saw her own hands. She had no fur, no whiskers. She wasn’t a fox. Just her plain, ordinary self.

  Izzy let a slow puff of air out the side of her mouth. Despite trying almost every day, she hadn’t Changed into anything since she’d been home. For some reason, Changing just wouldn’t come to her. The more she tried, the more she felt like that part of her was all just make-believe.

  Another bugle song blasted out from camp. Izzy slowly got to her feet. Time to get ready for another delicious meal of sloppy joes and canned beans.

  A draft of air ruffled the leaves overhead. They swished against each other like sheets of tissue paper. The sound made the hairs on the back of Izzy’s neck prickle. The wind stilled, but the shuffling noise remained. Izzy stood frozen. The noise didn’t come from the treetops. It was somewhere in front of her on the ground.

  Someone was coming closer. It couldn’t be a camper. Those girls crashed through the woods like elephants. Whoever was coming took slow, careful steps, like they didn’t want to be heard.

  “Who’s there?” Izzy asked, her voice sounding higher than normal.

  The steps shuffled closer. Izzy heard a wet snorting sound.

  Adrenaline and memory rushed over her like a wave. The sound was unmistakable.

  Izzy still dreamed of them. No, not dreams. Nightmares.

  Unglers.

  2

  Stuck

  The Unglers were monsters—eyeless, boar-faced beasts that Morvanna had bred to hunt down Changelings. But they couldn’t be here. This was Earth, not Faerie.

  Izzy held still. She tried to listen over the sound of her own heart beating in her ears. Ahead, the undergrowth along the hiking trail parted.

  Four bony gray fingers tapped along the ground.

  Izzy turned and bolted. Behind her, a piercing squeal rang out. She tore down the trail, swerving as the path curled through the trees. She didn’t dare slow down to look over her shoulder, but she heard the sickening thud of the Unglers vaulting themselves forward on knobby hands.

  “Help!” screamed Izzy. “Someone! Help me!”

  Ahead, she glimpsed the cabins through the trees. She was close now. She could make it.

  Izzy burst out of the woods into the sunlight. She ran across the grass, past a group of girls in brightly colored camp T-shirts, straight into the arms of the camp director.

  Miss Madrone dropped her walkie-talkie and stumbled backward. “What on Earth? Doyle, what’s gotten into you?”

  “In the woods!” panted Izzy. “It’s these—creatures!”

  Miss Madrone held Izzy by the shoulders. “Hon, you’ve got to calm down!”

  Izzy gasped for breath. “Please…we’ve got to…get everyone out!”

  The campers standing nearby looked frightened. Some whimpered and huddled together, and others looked confused.

&
nbsp; “Go!” Izzy shouted at them. “Run!”

  The younger girls screamed and ran to their cabins. Frantic squealing and snorting came out of the woods, and the branches of the trees broke apart. Izzy clutched Miss Madrone’s arm.

  Four rangy pigs with gray and brown spots ambled out into the sunshine.

  “What?” gasped Izzy. “No…it can’t be.”

  Gasps rippled through the crowd of campers, followed by giggles and then full belly laughter.

  “Girls, girls! Calm down!” Miss Madrone blew her whistle and clapped her hands. “Hi-ho, girls, hi-ho! Or I’ll take points away from your cabins!” She extracted her arm from Izzy’s grip. “Didn’t you read your handbook, Doyle? Camp Kitterpines has a feral pig problem. This is why we’ve got to keep all food strictly in the dining hall. Someone’s obviously been breaking that rule. Now we’ve got to corral those pigs and get them out of here before they poop all over the tennis courts! Hobson! Bennett! Come on, ladies, you’re on pig duty!”

  Miss Madrone and the junior counselors waddled after the pigs, shooing them down the gravelly road that ran through camp.

  Izzy stood bent over with her hands on her knees, keenly aware that two-thirds of Camp Kitterpines was staring at her. She would not look up. She would just wait until all the girls went away to archery or papier-mâché or whatever activities they were wonderfully good at.

  She heard the noise of jangling plastic and saw her sister’s rainbow-laced tennis shoes standing on the grass in front of her.

  Hen’s face was smeared with black ashes. She held a bow drill in one hand and a brown cardboard box in the other.

  “Hey, are you OK? I just passed Miss Madrone, and she said you were really upset.”

  Izzy looked at the scattered pig tracks leading out of the forest. There was no way she had confused pigs with Unglers. Unless she’d been thinking about Faerie so much that it was making her hallucinate. But those horrid gray fingers. She did not imagine them.

  Hen looked at her worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

  Izzy knew if she said what she was thinking, Hen would go berserk and make an even bigger scene.