In a Dark Land Read online

  He scurried to the top of the fort and rocketed down a tiny slide made from a hammered sheet of tin. “Come on, Izzy! Change into a mouse and give it a try!”

  Izzy smiled and cleared her throat. “Well, maybe not right this min—”

  “Later, later,” said Lug, pushing Izzy gently toward the next room. “First things first, and dinner is always first.”

  Izzy’s mouth watered the moment she stepped into the dining room. She remembered fairy food. And after days of oversalted sloppy joes and dry tuna fish sandwiches, she was ravenous for it.

  A long wooden table stretched down the center of the dining room. The castle servants had just finished lighting the candles in the chandelier overhead. Auburn-haired Olligan pulled out a seat for Izzy. Mote and Mite, the twins, hopped into the chair beside her.

  “Move over! I want to sit next to Izzy!”

  “No, I was here first!”

  Hale untangled the boys and took them to seats at the other end of the table. “If you fight over it, you’re both going to sit in the other room.” She swung her long braid back over her shoulder. “Besides, I want to sit by Izzy, and I’m the oldest.”

  Hale was fifteen, older even than Dree and Selden. She’d never been Exchanged. Years ago, when it had been her turn to go to Earth, Selden had convinced her to let him go first. Izzy had always assumed Selden had tricked Hale or twisted her arm to get her to switch. But seeing her now with Sibi and Yash in her lap, Izzy wondered if Hale had actually wanted to stay behind. She seemed like she genuinely loved taking care of everyone. Hale was the perfect stand-in for a parent, at least as close as the Changelings would come to having one until they went for the Exchange.

  Across the table, a chipmunk poked its head out of the top of Olligan’s overalls pocket. Olligan cupped his hands gently around the little animal and set it beside his plate. Izzy waited for it to Change into one of the children before she remembered that Ollie had a special way with animals.

  Ollie leaned down so the chipmunk could chatter in his ear. “Yes, I told you, we’re about to eat,” said Ollie. “Just be patient.” Then he made a very high-pitched chirping that must have been a chipmunk joke, because the little animal rolled onto its back squealing.

  Yash Changed into a lizard with a collar of sparkling green scales. She climbed up Izzy’s chair leg and sprawled across her lap. The twins buzzed back and forth across the table as fat dragonflies. All the younger Changelings were so excited that they Changed from one form to another in rapid succession. Izzy tried to keep track of who was who among the menagerie, but it was overwhelming, like sitting down to dinner with escaped zoo animals from a dozen different zoos.

  Hale stood up and clapped her hands. “Hey, hey, where are your manners?” she said loudly. The little ones went quiet under her commanding gaze. “That’s better,” she said, flipping her braid from one shoulder to the other. “What did we talk about this morning at breakfast? No Changing at the table. Look at Izzy, what good manners she has, staying in her normal form while she waits for the food to come. You could all learn a lesson from her.”

  Izzy blushed as the other Changelings mumbled apologies and Changed back into children. She was glad when the kitchen door swung open and the servants brought in the food: a golden pie filled with cheese and baked apples, potatoes roasted crispy brown and glittering with salt, crunchy sweet beans from the castle garden, and, for dessert, cups of berry pudding heaped with peaks of whipped cream.

  Izzy looked around and realized for the first time that Peter wasn’t with them.

  “Where did Peter go?” she asked Lug, who had taken the seat to her left.

  Lug shrugged as he wiped his mouth with the napkin tied around his neck. “He doesn’t ever eat with us for some reason.”

  Selden leaned back in his chair and kicked his heels onto the table. “See what I mean? He’s avoiding us. It’s because he’s hiding something.”

  “Peter’s always avoided us,” said Dree. “And he doesn’t eat with us because I don’t think he eats at all.”

  Lug shook his head. “Can you even imagine such a thing?”

  No, Izzy couldn’t, especially not with food like this. She had second and third helpings. The little ones finished their dinners in less than five minutes and started to squirm in their chairs. Sibi, who climbed like a monkey even when she wasn’t in her chocolate-colored monkey form, scaled the back of Izzy’s chair and swung down into her lap.

  “Izzy, will you show us? Please?”

  “Show you what?” asked Izzy.

  “You know!” said Phlox.

  “Yeah,” said Luthia. “Show us a really good one!”

  “They’re talking about a Likeness,” explained Hale. “Selden and I have been teaching them how to do it. He told them how good you are at it, and I think they’re a bit in awe of you.”

  Little Sibi’s dark eyes grew wide. “Did you really do a Likeness of Morvanna?” she whispered.

  Izzy nodded slowly. “I really did.”

  “We heard it was so good that it put her under a spell,” added Rusk.

  Izzy rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know if it was that good…”

  “It was,” said Selden, picking salad out of his teeth. “But only because she learned how from me.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes at him. Selden was the one who’d given her the idea to trick Morvanna with her own Likeness, but he hadn’t actually taught her anything. For some reason, Izzy had a natural talent for pretending to be someone else.

  “Now don’t do anything that will give the little ones nightmares,” warned Hale. “Or else they’ll all be crawling into my bed tonight.”

  Yash covered her eyes with her dimpled hands. “I don’t want to see a wicked witch!”

  Izzy smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I don’t want to give myself nightmares either. Let me see if I can do someone else.” She handed Sibi back to Hale, knocking her fork off the table. “Oops, let me get that. Hold on…”

  Izzy knelt down under the table where no one could see her. She took a deep breath and imagined what it would be like to be a very unkempt boy with terrible table manners. When she stood up again, everyone gasped, and their eyes went back and forth between Selden and her. She must have nailed it.

  Izzy—who didn’t look like Izzy any longer—jumped onto her chair and rifled her fingers through tangled black curls.

  “Everyone listen up!” she ordered in her best Selden impersonation. “All of you are wearing ridiculous shoes! What are you? Humans? Don’t make me gag!”

  Laughter erupted around the table, and everyone pointed at Selden, who sat with his arms crossed, glaring up at his double. “Oh, come on. I don’t sound like that. And I’m taller.” He Changed into a leopard and playfully swiped a paw up at Izzy’s Likeness of him.

  Izzy jumped back and landed on the floor, back in her own form. She could have held onto his Likeness for longer if she hadn’t lost her concentration, but it had been good enough to please the table. Izzy bowed as everyone applauded. Dree whistled through her teeth.

  “Encore, encore!” called Olligan. “Do another one!”

  Izzy shut her eyes. To do a Likeness, she had to feel some connection to the person she was impersonating. It was usually a phrase or a gesture that would help her get into character. She held her chin up high, very snobby, very haughty. No, that wasn’t quite doing it. She smoothed her hair back off her forehead and tugged down on imaginary jacket cuffs. That did the trick.

  When she opened her eyes and held out her hands, they were pale with long slender fingers. “Whatever are you staring at?” she said, holding her nose in the air just like she’d seen Good Peter do a hundred times. “You children are forever staring at things you know nothing about.”

  Her Peter Likeness got a standing ovation. Even Selden stood up and gave her the slow clap.

 
“One more!” shouted Park, wiping tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes.

  “Oh yes, please do one more?”

  Izzy thought for a minute. She snapped her fingers and whirled around on the ball of one foot. When she stopped, the lacy hem of a dress spun around her, flaring in a wide circle at her knees.

  Izzy put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a beetle brain. Don’t you know all humans are spies?”

  Izzy didn’t understand why no one was laughing this time. She knew she’d gotten the Likeness of Dree perfectly—she could feel it. But when she looked down at her arms, she realized she hadn’t gotten it right all the way. Her skin was opaque, not see-through the way Dree’s was.

  “Oh, whoops! I guess that was trickier than I thought.” Izzy looked up. She lost hold of the Likeness the moment she saw Dree’s face.

  Dree stared up at her like she’d just been punched in the stomach. Tears shimmered in the corners of her eyes.

  Izzy realized she’d just done something very stupid. “Oh, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean…”

  Dree jumped up, knocking her chair over, and bolted from the room.

  Izzy started to follow her, but Lug held onto her arm. “Give her just a minute by herself, dear. Here, have a potato.”

  Hale cleared her throat and shifted Sibi up onto her shoulder. “I think the little ones are getting tired. Mote, Mite, you come up with us. You’ve both got to have baths tonight.”

  Mote gasped like Hale had suggested electrocution. “But we had one three days ago!”

  “No complaining. Come on.” Hale Changed into a chestnut-colored horse. The littlest Changelings helped each other onto her back, and she clip-clopped out of the room with them hanging onto her braided mane.

  The rest of the Changelings made lunges for the last remaining pudding or started sword fighting with their forks. Ollie and his chipmunk were engaged in a serious conversation about walnuts.

  No one said anything about Dree’s Likeness to Izzy, but she still felt like sliding down the seat of her chair and hiding under the table. “Ugh, why did I do that?” she groaned.

  Selden slid into Hale’s empty seat and used his finger to wipe the leftover sauce off her plate. “Don’t get too mad at yourself. Dree’s pretty sensitive about the way she looks.”

  “But I love the way she looks,” said Izzy. “It’s part of what makes her so special.”

  Lug squeezed Izzy’s hand. “We all have our secret little hurts that we hide from everyone else,” he said softly. “Even the toughest of us.”

  Her appetite gone, Izzy rolled a potato around on her plate until the servants came back to clear the dishes. While the others started getting out decks of cards and a chessboard, Izzy slipped out of the dining room. She wandered upstairs, past servants lighting lamps in the dark hallways, and found Hale dragging Mote and Mite into the large tiled bathroom.

  “Do you know where my room is supposed to be? The one I’m sharing with Dree?”

  Hale pointed the way up another flight of carpeted stairs. “Last door on the left. Boys! If you try to run away again, I’ll cut your fingernails too!”

  As Izzy climbed the stairs, she heard loud splashes followed by howls. She found the door to her room and knocked.

  “Come in,” said Dree softly.

  Izzy opened the door and pulled it shut behind her. The room was spacious, with a high ceiling and two canopy beds set along one wall. The moonlight streaming in through the tall windows filled the space with a soft silver glow. At first, she didn’t see Dree at all. Then she spotted her wavery form, sitting on the floor in a beam of pale light, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  “This place is a step up from Yawning Top, isn’t it?” said Dree without looking up. “It was hard to get used to such a soft mattress after so many years of living in a tree trunk. Did you know Lug still sleeps on a pile of sticks on the floor?”

  Izzy sat down beside her. “Dree, I’m so sorry. I hope you didn’t think I was making fun of you back there.”

  Dree stared at her fingers, flipping them back and forth, in and out of the moonbeam. “I didn’t think that at all. I’m not mad at you. It was just seeing myself like that—the way a person’s supposed to—” Dree cleared her throat. One corner of her mouth ticked up without making a smile. “You know something funny about me? Whenever I Change into one of my other forms, I’m normal, solid. I’ve never figured out why…”

  They sat in silence for a long moment. When Dree spoke again, her words caught. “What’s wrong with me, Izzy?” she whispered. “No one else looks this way.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re different, but that isn’t bad.”

  Izzy struggled to think of what else to say. Like all Changelings, Dree was an orphan, so there was no way to know if she inherited her ghostliness from her parents. When Dree had gone to Earth for the Exchange, she hadn’t been able to make herself look solid. Her “mother” on Earth was afraid of her, and she’d tossed Dree into a river. Dree had survived, of course, but she didn’t like to talk about it. It must have been terrible.

  Dree put on a stiff version of her usual sarcastic smile. “Sometimes, I wonder if one day I’ll just fade away completely. I’ll just wake up and not be there. And no one will even notice.”

  Izzy grabbed Dree’s hand. “Don’t say that! Of course we’d notice. And besides, that’s not going to happen anyway.”

  Izzy thought about what Lug said at the dinner table, that everyone had their secret hurts. Maybe her friend should know she wasn’t alone.

  Izzy swallowed. “At least you can Change,” she said.

  Dree brushed a tear off her glassy cheek. “What do you mean?”

  Izzy took a deep breath and let it back out slowly. “I think I might be Stuck.”

  Dree leaned back and tilted her head. “Stuck? Like in one form? But that’s not possible. In the dining room, I just saw you…”

  “Oh, I can do a Likeness any day of the week. Just say the word.” Izzy smiled, thinking of the trick she pulled on Larissa. “You should’ve seen what I did in my cabin at camp. But Changing is different. I’ve tried. A lot. And I can’t do it.”

  Dree stared at Izzy long and serious. Being Stuck wasn’t something the Changelings took lightly.

  “So that’s my little secret,” said Izzy with a sigh. “I don’t belong with humans, but I don’t belong with you either. I’m a Changeling who can’t Change.”

  Dree brushed the hair back from her face and blinked her last tear away. “If you can do a Likeness, then you can Change,” she said firmly. “You just need some practice, that’s all.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. I’ve been practicing.”

  “Not with us you haven’t. We’ll start tomorrow first thing. You’ll do drills every day. Each of us can rotate, taking turns teaching you what we know. By the time you leave Avhalon, you’ll be Changing in your sleep. Sound good?”

  “It sounds a little like camp.”

  Dree grinned and nodded. “Yup. Changeling camp.”

  Dree held her hand up, fingers spread wide in the moonlight. It took Izzy a beat to realize she was waiting for a high five. Izzy gave her one and smiled.

  “Hi-ho.”

  7

  Changeling Camp

  “Don’t hold your breath,” said Dree. “Let it flow, in and out.”

  “And don’t shut your eyes so tight,” said Selden. “You’re trying to Change, not disappear.”

  “Focus.”

  “But don’t think about it too hard.”

  “I always find it helps me to wiggle my bottom,” said Lug. “Ever so slightly.”

  Izzy opened her eyes and let out a sigh. “You guys are giving me too much advice. It’s confusing.”

  She stood on a plush carpet in the center of the parlor, across the hall from
the dining room. Selden, Lug, and Dree stood in front of her, staring expectantly, like parents trying to get their toddler to take its first steps.

  In the room across the hall, Izzy could hear the happy screams of the younger Changelings, who were playing a modified game of tag. Every time someone got tagged, they had to Change into a different form. When they ran out of forms to Change into, that child was it. It was a game Izzy obviously couldn’t play, which was why she’d spent the entire morning shut inside the parlor, her friends doing their best to teach her something they could do in their sleep.

  “Don’t get discouraged,” said Lug. “You Changed into your fox form this morning and stayed in it for almost a whole minute. Tiny steps climb mountains, as they say.”

  Izzy rubbed her knuckles into her eyes. “If I take steps any smaller, I’ll start moving backward.”

  “Lug’s right. Any progress is good,” said Dree, flopping into one of the parlor chairs.

  Dree had been patient so far, but Izzy could tell she was tired. They all were. It didn’t help that the day had turned muggy and hot, and fairies had yet to invent air-conditioning.

  Selden flicked a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. He pulled it out and pointed the chewed end at Izzy. “I don’t get it. You’ve Changed before. What were you doing then that you’re not doing now?”

  Izzy shook her head. “It’s like I told you. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I never even knew I could Change until Peter told me I was a Changeling.”

  “Fox, mouse, blackbird,” said Selden, counting on his fingers. “You’ve got to have at least one other form you can do. All the rest of us can do four.”

  “Yash can do six,” said Lug.

  “Yeah, but three of them are different kinds of lizards,” said Dree.

  “We could find your poem in The Book of the Bretabairn,” said Lug. When Izzy stared back at him blankly, he added, “You remember. It’s the old book of poetry that describes each Changeling and the creatures they can Change into. If we knew what your fourth form was, you could try that one too.”