Page 101 of The Changeling

only you can break the curse and pay the price

once, twice, thrice

must die a willing sacrifice

Their piteous voices echoed in my ears. The touch of cold fingers faded away as the mist sank into the earth. I was alone in the starlit glade, the mouth of the cave a slash of darkness in the silvery stone.

I reached up into the hazel tree and plucked a handful of nuts, dropping them into the pouch tied to my girdle. Nan’s cunning book said a pocket of hazelnuts kept you unseen. I had to believe it was true.

I patted Carlin and told her to stay. Then I raised my hazel staff and rapped hard on the rock, crying, ‘Open, open, green hill, and let me in!’

A faint echo of music from within the hill. I crept inside the cave, feeling my way forward, waiting for my outstretched fingers to touch the back wall. I encountered nothing but an icy breath of wind. It smelt of bluebells.

The ground tilted beneath my feet. I followed it down, down, down. The music grew stronger, and light glowed softly somewhere ahead. On I limped, so afraid I could scarcely drag in a breath.

The gleam of light revealed a white stone archway. I peered around, muttering every spell of protection and concealment I could remember. I canna be heard, I canna be seen, I am but a shadow, I am but a dream …

Before me lay the strangest ballroom I had ever seen. A long vaulted cavern, hung with icicles of stone and lit by a multitude of tiny lanterns made of horn, which cast a golden glow like a thousand stars. Here and there, water gleamed in crevices, or dripped from white fangs of rock. It was so cold my breath blew from my mouth like smoke. I drew a fold of my plaid across my face.

The great hall was filled with shadowy figures. Some were dancing, some were playing knucklebones or a game that seemed a little like chess, while others stood in groups and drank from cups made of animal horn, watching the dancers. One laughing group seemed to be playing blind man’s bluff, shoving a stumbling blindfolded figure back and forth. Jugglers threw blue flaming torches into the air, and stilt-walkers strode through the crowd, dressed in long-tailed coats made of many hundreds of different coloured patches. Children raced here and there, shrieking with laughter, their feet bare despite the icy stone floor.

Most looked like me, with pale pointed faces and slender limbs. But some were strange creatures indeed, seemingly made of stone or thistledown, of twigs and moss and heather. They were hard to see, as if they were moths disguised as bark and leaves.

At the far end of the ballroom, musicians played oddly shaped harps and lutes, hung with feathers and bones, and elder flutes like the one I had carved as a child. Their music was strange and eerie. A girl sang. I had never heard such a voice. She was dressed in an extraordinary gown that seemed made of countless iridescent beetles. She was so thin, the hollows of her collarbones made little bowls, and her shoulder blades were bony wings. The cold did not seem to bother her, though her breath plumed white from her red-painted mouth.

I looked for Robbie. He danced and leapt and sang, spinning, arms held out as if to embrace the world. Young women danced with him, holding his hands, winding their arms about his neck, pressing their slim bodies against him, licking the sweat from his throat. Young men wearing stag masks sprang and vaulted about him, half-naked bodies gleaming as if dipped in oil. He did not seem to notice, whirling away to dance with another, and then another. All his energies were focused on the dance.

I wanted to dance too. The music was like a fever in my blood, in my heels. But I had only ever danced once, surrendering myself to Robbie. Without him, I was a poor lame thing. I could not leap and spin. I could only watch as he danced with the faery maidens, so light on their feet, so graceful in every movement, spinning hand in hand with him, laughing.

Jealousy pierced me cruelly.

He had not loved me enough to give up everything for me. He had believed his sister’s lies, believed our love was false and wrong. How could he?

But he had fled with me – the night they took Mam, he had saved me. Now I had to try to save him.

I wiped my face on my sleeve, and crept along the edge of the cavern, where the shadows were thickest. At the far end of the hall, the faery queen sat upon a tall throne that seemed to have been wrought from an ancient willow tree, its tendrils woven together while it was still living. Its roots writhed out into the cavern, covered with moss. Its back rose high into the shadows, the trunk carved into strange serpentine beasts, intricate knots and spirals, a bull wearing a crown of willow leaves between its crescent of horns, three birds flying overhead in arrow formation.

I crouched behind a pillar, and gazed at her. I had never seen my mother clearly before. She was smaller than I expected. Her skin was deathly pale, her eyes shadowed, with hollows beneath her cheekbones. Her black hair was the most vital thing about her, springing from her brow and cascading in twists and ripples almost to her feet. On her head, a crown of hawthorn twigs. On her brow, the dark blue shape of a crescent moon and a broken arrow. Her arms and legs were thin and crookit under the ash-grey rags of her dress. A staff leaned against her throne.

On a long table nearby were a few wooden bowls, with a handful of berries, mushrooms and nuts within, and a plate of rough dark bread and stewed beans. I did not understand. All the old stories talked of faery feasts and faery treasure. Yet everything here was ragged and poor.

I remembered tales of people paid in faery gold who found only brown withered leaves in their pockets when they woke. Was it all just an illusion?

Robbie danced and danced and danced. I longed to put my arms about him, calm him, allow him to rest. But I dared not let anyone see me. The faery dancers caught him, spun him, dragged him up when he staggered, put their red mouths on his and bit him till blood trickled from his torn lip. He did not flinch or wipe it away. On and on and on he danced.

Hours passed. At last, the distant crow of a cock. Robbie stumbled from the ballroom, pushed and shoved by mocking hands, his eyes dazed and empty. I crept up the long tunnel behind him, keeping to the shadows.

He rapped on the stone with the hazel branch. ‘Open, open, green hill, and let me out.’

I repeated the words and the action, then followed him out into the first frosty light of the day. Everything was glittery and grey. Robbie could hardly walk. I put my arm around him and let him lean on me. Carlin leapt about in delirious joy, but I told her fiercely to drop. She obeyed unhappily, not understanding why I was angry.

‘You will knock him over,’ I told her. ‘Canna you see he is hurt?’

She sniffed at the bloody footprints he left behind him.

It took all my strength to help Robbie up into the saddle. He was so hot, he steamed. I climbed up behind him, wrapping my arms about him, my body pressed against him, from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine.

He did not notice.