He merely nodded. “And yet you are here, and it’s clear you are more canny as to the ways of the Folk than any priest, and that gives me hope. I would invite you in, but I’m afraid that the hospitality you will find under my roof will not be to your liking. And I would not wish to frighten your handsome companion.”
He gave Shadow a pat on the head, and the dog sniffed him approvingly. “That’s fine, Mr. Samson,” I said. “He’s used to the Folk. As am I.”
Mord looked dubious, but he did not stop me as I let myself into his house.
Nothing was amiss. A humble reception room and hearth gave way to an even sparser kitchen with iron pans hung upon the wall. The screams did not recommence, nor did I observe any bloody handprints. Shadow, however, sniffed the air and emitted a grunt.
“Yes,” I said. “Stay close to me, dear.” To Mord, I said, “Will your wife be gone long?”
“A while. Walking eases her mind. She does it every day, until the snows come.” He looked out the window, and written plainly on his face was the weary certainty that the snows would not be long in arriving. “I suspect Aslaug will like you. She and Aud have never gotten on.”
I was startled into a smile. Mord motioned with his hand. “Ari’s in the attic.”
“I see,” I said, wincing a little as I remembered Bambleby’s comment about haunted houses. “Are you cold, Mr. Samson?”
He glanced down at himself. He had removed his coat, revealing another beneath it. “Aslaug and I are always cold. It never leaves us, not even in midsummer.”
I had my notebook out, and was scribbling my initial observations. Part of me was aware of how hard-hearted I must have seemed, but I was too caught up in my scientific interest to worry over it, and in any case, Mord did not appear offended by me.
I took a step towards the stairs. Immediately, they transformed. Each stair became a gaping mouth, glittering with teeth and furred with a wolf’s dense pelt. A bitter wind funnelled into the room, smelling of snow and pines. The wolves snarled and snapped at the hem of my coat.
I turned to Mord. He had started back in horror, but there was a dullness to it, and he did not cower long.
“You see such visions often?” I said.
He blinked. Annoyance came into his eyes, and he frowned at me as if expecting pity. His face softened when he encountered only dispassionate interest. “I know they aren’t real,” he said.
“I see.” I thought about living in such a place, beset by such violent illusions. I thought about days following days, and years following years.
“Mr. Samson,” I said, “would you bring me an iron nail and a little salt?”
He blinked but went to fetch what I had requested. When he returned, I asked him if the small coat I had spied hanging on a hook on the door was his son’s. He nodded.
“Thank you,” I said, and I placed the coat in my backpack. “I’ll return it, I promise.”
I mounted the stairs. Mord drew in a sharp breath. He did not follow me, which was just as well. I would have stopped him.
Shadow padded alongside me as wolves champed at my ankles. I could see the stairs through the illusion, and Shadow could not see the illusion at all—at least, I think he cannot see fae illusions. I suppose it is possible that he sees them but is indifferent.
In the attic I found a little bed and a cosy rug of undyed wool. Upon the bed sat a boy, pale as moonlight on new snow. I stopped short, for the creature was nothing like the changelings I have encountered before—ugly, spindly things to a one, with the brains of animals. The boy’s long hair was bluish and translucent, and upon his skin was a glimmer like frost. He was beautiful, with an uncanny grace, his eyes sharp with intelligence.
A distant part of me was struck by how much he reminded me of Bambleby. Though they looked nothing alike, there was a kinship that I could not put my finger on, which was perhaps more absence than feature, a lack of something coarse and mundane that characterizes all mortals.
My stomach twisted at the realization that this creature was the first of the courtly fae I had ever questioned. I was uncertain if the feeling was excitement or terror.
“You tricked me,” the changeling said crossly.
“You have it backwards,” I said, adjusting the sleeves of my coat. I had turned it inside out before entering the house, enabling me to see through any illusion the faerie chose to show me. “I merely sidestepped your own attempt at trickery. Would your true mother be pleased to know how you welcome a guest?”
“Go away.” He was angry, and not just at my evasion of his enchantment. He had not liked me mentioning his faerie dam.
“I am going to ask you a few questions,” I said. “I would recommend ready answers. I am aware of the cruelty you are inflicting upon your foster parents, and it has not inclined me to be generous with you.”
Another blast of winter wind greeted this statement. The beams rattled in the ceiling.
“Are you happy to be the cause of suffering?”
“I don’t care,” the child snapped. For he was a child, for all his power, and he glared at me with a child’s stubbornness. “I don’t want to be here. I want my forest. I want my family.”
“And what has become of your family, that they should send you to live among mortals?” I was particularly interested in the answer to this question, for most of what we know of changelings is guesswork. It is the habit of courtly fae to leave changelings in the hands of mortal parents for a period of months or years, and then swap them again without ceremony （if the changeling has not died in the interim, which is not uncommon）， but no one knows precisely why they engage in this behaviour. The leading theory suggests a motive of idle amusement.
The changeling’s lovely face twisted. He leaned forward. “If you do not go away, I will fill Mord’s thoughts with such horrors that he will wish he was dead. I will give Aslaug dreams of burning and rending and the screams of everyone she cares for echoing in the night.”
A shudder ran through me, but I maintained my bland demeanour. Wordlessly, I withdrew the handful of salt and began scattering it about the room.
“What’s that?” he said, interest replacing fury in the space of a breath. He pinched some between his fingers, smelled it. “Salt? Why are you doing that?”
I stopped, silently cursing. Salt binds faeries, but perhaps in Ljosland it works only on the common fae, or not at all. I withdrew the iron nail.
“You can’t kill me,” he said.
“No,” I agreed. To kill a changeling is to kill the child it has replaced. They are always bound together by a powerful enchantment that neither time nor distance can dispel. “I can hurt you, though.”
I gave Shadow a signal, and he snapped at the child’s foot, distracting him. I thrust the nail into the changeling’s chest.
Almost into his chest. The faerie moved, and the nail ended up in his side. The screams that followed were worse than those before, like winter given voice. The faerie seemed to dissolve, becoming a creature of shadow and frost, with eyes that shone like the blue heart of a flame. It is thought that all courtly fae are like this underneath; their humanlike forms are only a guise they assume. While killing them is a tricky business, a wound wrought with metal may force them into their weaker, insubstantial selves.