Weald Fae 02 - The Changeling

  “Yes.”

  “Some Fae devote their existences to such pursuits. Some Fae spend centuries studying the intricacies of Naeshura, and still others fill centuries studying and debating the very philosophical questions about our existence that you’ve asked tonight. The paths are innumerable. Well, that’s hyperbole of course, but you get the picture.”

  “So you have teachers, philosophers, and artists?”

  “And Fae following a myriad of other pursuits,” she said. “In many ways, humans are similar to Fae. Your species engages in particular vocations to earn things of value to trade for other things necessary to sustain your lives. If you strip away the bartering, the occupations that neither expand your mind nor heighten your experience, and your proclivity to acquire objects, what you have left—at least with the most evolved of your species—is a quest for betterment, knowledge, artistic expression, and what you call a love of living. We are both, Fae and human, very curious about the world we live in. It is that curiosity that drives us.”

  “As immortals, don’t you get bored?”

  “I am never bored learning about existence, or experiencing it. That is why some of the people who have known about us come to the erroneous conclusion that we are simple beings with a penchant for beauty, spending all of our time wandering about aimlessly. It is the same mistaken belief you were laboring under tonight, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’ll admit that. The Fae in the garden seem mesmerized by the smallest things. I’ve seen a Fae spend an hour with one flower only to move on to the next identical flower and study it as though she had never seen one before.”

  Billy nodded his head at me much the way Aunt May used to when I said something ignorant. “Identical. That’s a myth. No two flowers are exactly alike. For that matter, no two flower petals have ever been identical. Each and every single thing on this planet, whether it’s a bird, a grain of sand, or a drop of water, is unique. Whether by volume, shape, or composition, no two objects in the physical world have been anything more than merely similar, and to the careful observer, the similarities are most often superficial. The Fae spend hours studying similar objects—not in an effort to discover like qualities, but instead to learn more about the objects and therefore about existence. We attempt to understand what makes them unique by learning how they’re dissimilar. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we have unlimited time to conduct our investigations.” He tilted his head slightly.

  “You, like your aunt, are more like the Fae in that regard,” he said with an approving smile. “One of the reasons we have provided the Stewards of your family with the means to support themselves and their families, is to allow you to more fully understand the beauty of existence. I know you miss your aunt, and you felt sadness at the manner by which her existence ended, but ask yourself, was she happy here?” Billy’s gray eyes locked onto mine and he paused to let me consider it.

  I knew the answer—she was the happiest person I’d ever met, despite the tragedies she’d experienced. I nodded.

  Like a beautifully written manuscript, Sara took over for Billy and continued their nearly seamless explanation. “The kind of happiness she experienced only comes through a true appreciation for living. She was a devoted student of life, never tiring, never satisfied with what she knew. You are on the same path as her, of course. You’ve matured only a year in age since you arrived here, but you’ve grown so much wiser than that.”

  It was true. I said, “Don’t be alarmed,” as I threw my shield up around the three of us. They stared, and allowed me to do it without moving a muscle. “Can we take a ride? I have other questions that I don’t want the Fae in the garden to overhear.”

  “Certainly,” Sara said, her black eyes flickering in the low light of my bedroom.

  “Will Drevek be all right alone in the cottage with my parents?”

  “He is powerless,” she said.

  I dropped my shield and walked to the window. Billy was beside me as I stepped onto the sill and readied myself to jump.

  “Do you need help? I don’t want you to break anything.”

  I smiled and jumped. I caught myself with my mind and gently landed on the garden path below. They followed, Billy landing silently like a big cat springing from a ledge and Sara floating down gracefully, spinning once but never touching the ground.

  “Nicely done, Miss O’Shea,” Billy whispered quietly.

  “Yeah, I’ve been practicing,” I whispered back.

  We moved quickly to the barn, or the Toy Box as my family called it. I disengaged the alarm and moved the huge door open with my mind, passing the Seelie guards without looking at them, my thoughts well hidden. I took the keys to the ’65 Thunderbird and climbed behind the wheel. Turning the ignition to release the steering wheel and shifting it into neutral, I didn’t start the car. My invisible fingers found the back bumper and pushed us silently up the drive until we were far enough away that I could start the engine.

  “You’ve been practicing a lot of things, apparently. Your parents would have a heart attack if they knew how easily you could sneak out of the house,” Billy teased.

  We drove south as I began asking a few simple questions—I was saving the dangerous ones until we were far away from the Weald and Ozara, who’d returned from Alaska with the Council last night. They’d intervened and stopped the flow of oil, protecting the area from an environmental disaster. Their actions had made me curious.

  “Tell me this, if the Council has the power to clean up an oil spill, why allow things like wars, famine, or even reckless deforestation to occur?”

  The engine thrummed in my ears as Billy spoke. “The event in Alaska was an exception. The potential devastation was too great to ignore.”

  “But could you intervene more often?”

  “Yes, we could,” he said.

  “I don’t understand that. Gavin once told me that the Fae had a strong relationship to the native people, like the Osage, but you didn’t intervene to protect them when American armies rode west and stole their land. If you could avert war, and thereby prevent the deaths of people that you…well…like, or compel people to make better decisions to protect us from ourselves, why don’t you do it?”

  “Some of us wanted to protect the Osage,” Billy said. “And we could have, certainly. I’d venture to say that even with man’s technological advancements during the last century, the most powerful among us could destroy any army on earth. Ozara could. We could certainly have stopped the armies as they swept westward two hundred years ago, but that has never been our way. As a matter of principle, we have always sought to avoid getting involved in human territorial struggles, political and economic battles, and yes, even the wholesale extermination of one group of people by another. That isn’t our place. We are not of this realm, Maggie. We simply visit and use it as a human does an amusement park.”

  “You mean the Fae could have stopped…say…World War II, 9/11, all wars for that matter, but they chose not to?”

  “Maggie, what side were we to take in any of those conflicts?” He paused for only a moment but he let those words sink in before he continued, “While that may sound like an easy question to answer, it proved impossible for us. For each great deed a human empire has accomplished, be it Rome, Persia, Britain, America, China, take your pick, it has invariably done so at the expense of another group of people. Some empires were more barbaric than others, that’s true, but we’ve seen too often the oppressed take power and become as brutal as their former oppressors. Even the native people made war with one another. The Osage, the Kiowa, the Sioux, they are all incredibly beautiful cultures, but each was capable of incredible brutality at times.” I could just make out the nearly imperceptibly anxiety on his face when I glanced at him.

  “There is another reason, too. You must also realize, now that you know as much about us as you do, that there are Fae who feed on human barbarity in the same way a child enjoys a violent video game or a horror movie.”

  We rode i
n silence as I drove us further away from Eureka. It all made sense to me, but I disagreed with their reasoning. I remembered Aunt May saying she wished that the Fae would take a more pronounced role in the world. She thought the Fae could teach mankind to be more responsible.

  I drove to Fayetteville and followed a winding street to the top of Mount Sequoyah where I parked in a little place that overlooked the city. I searched the area for Fae. There were none except the two in the car with me. I extended my shield around the car and turned to them. They were relaxed, staring out the windshield and admiring the city lights below.

  “So, why are we here?” Billy asked.

  “Two reasons, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near Ozara or the Council.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “First, I want your honest opinion on what’s going on with the Unseelie and my family. Why do they want us removed so badly? You have to have a theory or two.”

  Billy exhaled, and Sara turned to him and smiled. “Full disclosure, right?”

  He nodded. “Maggie, there is a war brewing. Most Fae believe there is a confrontation coming between the Seelie and Unseelie, and removing your family is central to it. The Unseelie must believe your family will play a powerful role in it.”

  “You said Unseelie, not just a band of rogues like Ozara had suggested. You mean the entire clan?”

  “Yes, I do.” There was a grim quality to Billy’s voice. “Tensions between the clans have been on the rise for more than a century, if we’re being honest.”

  “Tensions over what people are doing to the planet?”

  “In part, yes. The fundamental problem is much older than that, and has its roots in the last two confrontations.”

  “Is Ozara lying?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sara began. “I believe she is terribly optimistic though. She won’t allow the Council to prepare for it, and she is most hesitant about lobbying for support from the independent clans. Even if she tried to recruit additional support, I’m not sure many would be willing to join her. To side with Ozara means accepting her way of seeing things, and more importantly, abiding by her rules.”

  Billy added that some of the independent Fae were Seelie two thousand years ago and, like him, grew tired of her edicts. His face was filled with contempt.

  “The rest of the independent Fae are members of smaller clans who aren’t aligned with either the Seelie or the Unseelie, such as the Ohanzee, the Sidhe, the Moirai and Olympians, the Hathors, the Genies, the Ancient Ones, and many others. One by one, the entire world over, Ozara and the Seelie forced each of those clans to choose between obscurity and obliteration. As you can probably imagine, most despise Ozara’s edicts,” he said.

  “Other independent clans? There is so much you haven’t told me, and I accept that, but what does it have to do with my family? I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Sara and Billy exchanged looks.

  “Both of you, full disclosure, remember? My family, my little brother, we’re all caught in the middle of this. Whatever the cause, this conflict of yours has taken lives. I think it’s about time you come clean.”

  “Maggie, we aren’t sure why, that is the truth, but…”

  I stared a Sara, waiting for her to continue. “But what?”

  “There is a belief, really little more than unsubstantiated speculation, that the O’Sheas are direct descendants of the Second Maebown, the Celt, Áedán.”

  My head began spinning as Sara let me take it in. If I were the direct descendent of Áedán, the ousting of my family made some sense. Maybe the Unseelie feared the traits that made Áedán a Maebown, and those traits could somehow be passed down the line from generation to generation. “How do they know this?”

  “They don’t know, and that is the point. Áedán of Cnoc Aine had three children, two daughters and a son, who spent their lives around Cnoc Aine and Lough Gur, in what became the County Limerick. Your family came from the Corcaguiney Peninsula, the County Kerry. While the distance between Cnoc Aine and Corcaguiney is not great, none of us are aware of what became of Áedán’s offspring.”

  “There is one,” Billy interjected.

  “Yes, but Bastien speaks to no one,” Sara replied.

  “Hold off on the segue for a minute. How long have the Unseelie suspected the connection between my family and Áedán of…wherever you said?” My breath steamed and circled my head, fogging up the windows on my side of the car.

  Sara smiled, and I felt the cold night air that had been creeping into the car. My teeth chattered.

  “Allow me,” Billy said.

  I felt the heat he generated and began to relax. Slowly the steam from my breath began to disappear and even the driver’s side door felt warm and comfortable against my back.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yeah, thanks. Sara?”

  “Áedán of Cnoc Aine was his name, and the rumors took urgency during Lola’s trials. Even though she failed the Fire trial, her inclination to the three remaining elements was something of a spectacle. But in the interest of our theme for the night, the rumors began the first time many of us witnessed something peculiar about your forefather, Pete O’Shea.”

  “What? His connection to the elements, that innate trait all of you have mentioned?”

  “Yes, but not only that—something even more fundamental—looking at Pete O’Shea, many saw evidence of a possible genetic connection. Pete possessed something so unique, so similar to Áedán, the connection quite literally stared us in the face. Lola had them, so does your dad and your brother. Their most remarkable physical features are their… ”

  “Green eyes?”

  “Not just green eyes, but exceptionally rare and exquisite dark green eyes. Eyes of such a particular hue and quality that all of us noticed—remember we study such things.”

  What she said was true. I’d never seen green eyes like theirs. Mom called them the most Irish of Irish eyes.

  “Who is this Bastien?”

  “Bastien is the oldest among us. He was the first to experience the physical world,” Sara said.

  “How old is oldest?”

  “He predates the formation of Pangaea, though he didn’t take physical form for the first time until after it had broken up.” Sara laughed at the stunned look on my face.

  “Pangaea? As in hundreds of millions of years ago Pangaea?”

  She laughed aloud. “That’s the one.”

  Goosebumps covered the skin on my arms, and my hair felt like it was standing on end. “Unbelievable. I had no idea…I thought Ozara…”

  “She is the oldest Seelie, but she is not the oldest Fae. By comparison she is quite young, although she is more ancient than most.”

  I closed my gaping mouth and listened as Sara told me that Bastien was not a member of the clans—he found clan politics beneath him. She said that he found a new path several thousand years ago. A historian of a caliber I’d never considered, he studied humans, including lineage. He would know whether I was a descendent of Áedán, but unfortunately, he had disappeared at the end of the last Fae war and had since avoided direct contact with Fae and human alike.

  I couldn’t recall how many times during the last year the Fae told me something that completely altered what I thought I knew about the world, but it had just happened again. There was still so much I didn’t know about them, but my mind was already full, categorizing the new information I had, trying to put it all in place. I had more questions, but before I could ask them, I sensed it coming.

  Bristling in the driver’s seat, the approaching Fae registered immediately in my mind. Almost as quickly, and with no conscious effort, my shield strengthened.

  “Maggie, drop your shield,” Sara said quietly.

  “Who is it?”

  “Ozara.”

  SEVEN

  WATCHFUL EYE

  Ozara took form in the back seat before I could completely lower my shield, cutting through the barrier like it wasn’t
even there. I twisted around in the driver’s seat so that we were facing one another. She wore a pleasant expression and clasped her hands in her lap.

  “So, why the midnight flight from the Weald?”

  My stomach lurched, and despite the cold, I felt perspiration form on my forehead. I was trying to think of something to say when Sara beat me to it.

  “We simply wanted to get away for a few hours and chat. The guards in the garden, while most certainly a welcome addition given the situation, tend to unsettle our young Steward. I’m sure you understand that.”

  “Of course, of course. But why the shield, then?”

  “In these trying times, Ozara, I thought it prudent to keep any conversation, regardless of its innocuous nature, hidden from the enemy. Billy and I thought a little time away from the Weald would be good for Maggie, but we didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “Prudent thinking, Sara. I’d ask you what you discussed, but I don’t want to linger any longer than necessary, so I’ll merely ask you to share your thoughts.”

  Agitation spread across Billy’s face instantly.

  “You object?” Ozara asked him, still smiling pleasantly.

  “I’m not in your clan, so of course I object. You knew I would, just like I know you plan to take my thoughts anyway,” Billy said with contempt in his voice.

  “That’s true, Billy, but I’ll be quick.”

  She placed one hand on his and the other gently against his temple. Billy’s eyes closed and he grimaced, wrinkling his entire face. After a few moments, she placed her hands back into her lap.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” she said, as if comforting a child rather than an ancient Fae.

  Billy said something to her in the Fae tongue, a curse I’d wager, and then smiled at me before he blinked out and departed. I felt him move northeast until he passed out of my range. Then Sara leaned forward, toward Ozara, and the process repeated. Sara didn’t grimace and she didn’t close her eyes either. Instead, she maintained a pleasant smile.

  “You see, Ozara, nothing to worry about.”

  “Of course. But you understand that I have to remain vigilant.”