‘You didn’t want to marry me.’
‘Marriage makes chains. As we were, was all I wanted.’
‘Perhaps your desires aren’t the only ones that matter, Mehrab.’ His grip tightens but not painfully so; he leans in, lips moving against my ear. ‘We wanted different things – except for each other. We never stopped wanting each other. I wanted you to wife.’
‘You wanted a possession.’
‘My wife…’ he begins, then drops off, looking away, lets me go. ‘You’re flushed, Mehrab – are you well? Will you come in and sit for a while? There’s dandelion tea or something stronger, if you wish.’
‘I do not.’ Curse myself for sounding like a pinch-mouthed spinster, a dried-up nun; prim and prudish. He leans against one of the massive wooden posts that holds up the roof of the smithy, an expression of defeat. I move off, don’t look at him so he can’t see the fleeting wings of disappointment I know cross my face.
‘Orin says the girl’s changed. Doesn’t play with them so much anymore. Has become unpleasant.’ His voice halts my steps. ‘He looks out for them, the other children, my lad. Can’tsettle to one thing, horses or smithing, but he does look out for the youngsters.’
‘Has he said anything about Tieve? The best friend?’
‘Only that there’s been a falling-out he didn’t quite understand. The ways of women.’
I grunt in irritation; shoot a glare at him. He laughs and it irks me out of all proportion.
‘Mehrab. Mehrab, when will you stop being angry at me?’
‘When you’re in the earth, perhaps. And perhaps not even then. I’ll dance on your grave so loudly you’ll hear it under all that soil.’
He laughs even harder. ‘Remind me to have a funeral pyre instead, then you’ll burn with me, you old witch!’
‘Less of the old, thank you very much.’ And a laugh forces its way out of me. I step away lest I start to recall why I loved him. ‘Get back to work, old man.’
***
Walking home, I think more on the problem of Ari.
There are stories, of course.
Double-walkers or double-goers that appear to a person as an omen of death. Or as a dark echo of that same person, doing things the real version never would. A haunting of self, sometimes as a punishment for sins unforgiven or unrepented. Or a “first-comer” that does whatever the person does – sometimes walking ahead of them, just a few seconds, almost like a blur of movement, a prediction. A fetch, a ghost of a living person. Whatever they are, they’re never regarded as good omens. They are not helpful, not like household spirits or creatures like hob-lads, or beekies.
But.
But, but, but…
Those doubles, those reflections or echoes, all exist when the original is around – either seen together, or in different locations at the same time – the entire point is to exist simultaneously, to be seen andknown. There is torture in that, a plucking at someone’s sanity. However, the double is always merely an echo, a shadowy thing, a reflection – if touched, hands pass through them, the body disappears like a cloud disturbed by a breeze.
Ari, however… the child was not wispy, there was no give in her flesh, or no more than a human normally displays. So, might she be something else? Perhaps?
A changeling.
A replacement. Something left behind, made of other flesh – a cuckoo in the nest. There are tales of such things, of trolls leaving their offspring in cradles, of fae whose babies need mortal milk to survive, to strengthen them in the way fae mothers cannot. Both troll and fae changelings are made in infancy; the former will be a most grizzlesome, gluttonous child, but the latter very quiet and only will be shown up if iron is applied to its flesh – but I didn’t think Gida would appreciate me drawing my iron blade on her daughter.
Sometimes a “stock” might be left, a child carved of wood to resemble the stolen one – held too close to a flame and the thing will twist and turn and burn. A troll-child left behind to wreak havoc – such tales are plentiful, even royal families have suffered such things. Sometimes a distillation of brewed eggshells would force the thing into its true shape – either drinking it or simply the smell of it.
But, but, but…
Why? No child has gone missing from the village in the twenty years I’ve lived here. Yrse told the same story, no such losses in her lifetime. Been lost, yes, for a while, but always found quickly and safely. That’s not to say there’ve been no deaths, but those have been from illness or accident. So, why now?Ifsomething’s happened.Ifit’s something unnatural. Yet I could feel nothing wrong with the child’s flesh, the little examination I was able to make.
There’s another explanation, there must be.
A child’s resentment at parental treatment, a confidence blooming of having survived on her own, punishing behaviour. A new cloak, knitted at speed to make up for everything. A guilt gift.
What if it’s not that simple?
