Tommy's History
From Changeling Venue
Contents |
First; The Little Girl
A childhood.
Alice speaks:
I’d always something of a tomboy. I climbed trees, something I taught my younger brother to do when he was good enough at walking, jumped and splashed around in the small river on the border of my parents’ land, chased the sheep with the dog, and helped my papa flush out game during hunting season. For a long while, my mamma despaired that her little girl would ever be a proper little girl in pinafores and pretty dresses, in stockings without holes and shoes with out scuffs. I guess she never liked me very much.
But I enjoyed my days. My brother and I became thick as theives. We hardly ever squabbled even, which Papa said was unnatural.
Tommy Speaks:
When I was seven and my brother five, Mother heard the news about children going missing near the Blakenship Farm. Mother wasn’t a very nice woman, you see? It’s hard sometimes for grown ups to tell, but not for us. Both Isaac and I were Daddy’s Children. Daddy loved us. He just loved Mother more. And Mother didn’t want to loose her son. Her family had lived our here forever and ever, and she had funny ideas about this place. Superstitions. So what did she do? She didn’t want to loose her son. She was angry at me for wanting to be a boy. So she made me a boy. I wore Isaac’s clothes, and he stayed inside all the time and wore mine. I did his chores and his work while he sat with Mother and did nothing all day. Chores and work he hadn't had before because he's too young. No more playing, no more hunting with Papa, no more running with the dogs.
I hated Isaac. I hated Mother.
It’s all her fault. The Others though I was him. They thought I was Isaac, and they took me.
Then, The Little Boy
The taking, and Arcadia.
Tommy speaks:
They say they can’t remember. Arcadia’s a jumble of fear and strange, an early-morning-late-Autumn-wet-and-chill fog in their heads. No one is sure what’s real and what’s not and what was and what wasn’t. Up and down aren’t down or up but in bewteen and outside and stretched long and flavoured like pie. Who knows? No one is sure. But I remember. That, you see, is the mark of insanity. I remember it all. The price I pay for being mad. The price I pay to know what it is to be Fear.
It fits like a cheerleader uniform. I like it.
I was on the riverbank, fishing. It was noon, the sun was high above and framed by the lines of trees on the banks. They made no sounds. Neither did I, in the sudden darkness. “You’re coming with us, boy.” (No, they didn’t really say that. But I bet they thought it. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was too late for them to think anything on their own.)
He did, though. Her Hunter. “What’s your name, little boy?” My mother had told me to lie. Lie to strangers. A lie is a sin, my mother said. Honor your parents, said the preacher. I figured he knew better. (He was wrong, but Gods usually are.) Lie to strangers. So I did. “Albert,” I said. I shook. He was tall and beautiful and hard and his eyes were all wrong and he knew I was scared. He held out his hand. I shook my head like my knees. He laughed, and beckoned me with his fingers. I stepped back and felt my shoe squelch in the mud of the river bank. He laughed again, and I tripped and I fell into the mud. My shoe came off my foot, stuck there in the river bank.
Do you know why I remember this? Because later, I would know that it should have been Isaac. All of these things should have happened to Isaac, not to Albert, not to Sarah.
I’d thought they would come to look for me. We’d left my shoe there, sticking out of the mud at an awkward angle. Of course, no one looked. The Others didn’t know that there wasn’t a need to leave a fetch. My mother had given the Old Ones her offering. All she wanted was to be left alone, with her son.
Someone once told me that the whole thing could be a dream. My mother and my Keeper were the same. Maybe I was never taken. It all sounds the same. Bullshit. And maybe I was born in Arcadia and my Keeper was my mother. And maybe turtles will spin webs and homeless guys will floss. (People with bathrooms don't.) And maybe Roosevelt High will win State in ping pong. I remember. She made me a boy. That’s what she wanted, and that’s what she got. That’s what I was when I wasn’t a girl, or a man, or a woman, or a simulacrum of Her. It made Her laugh – the only sound in the years of Fear that I learned to love. It’s the only way I knew that I knew how. I would always try to make Her laugh because it made me feel something nice.
I don’t know what happened to her Hunter or the changelings that we with Him. I never saw them again. I only saw one other Other when I was with Her, and He had my brother and my brother was a blur. An anchor. The Anchor.
The reason and the rage that made dream false and be true memory. Do you see?
My mother lost her boy. My Keeper lost hers, too.
Mothers, be good to your daughters, too.
I have my brother to thank. I don't blame him for leaving me there. It was easier for him to get back, and harder for me. But he gave me what I need. We'd always loved each other, even when our mothers tried to make us stop.
The Making of A Mistress
Escape and Toil
One, two, three times the charm.
I couldn’t get out right away. I’d been there too long, too long in my mind, in my little bodies, in my little velvet box beneath Her feet. The first time I don’t think I came close. It was when I found my brother, and when we traded weapons hacking through the thorns and the hunting dogs and all that. I couldn’t get out. The riders found me, but Isaac was already gone. I’m not angry at him. I know now how easy it is to get stuck or get lost in the Hedge. I’m glad he managed to get out - it was one less thing to worry about.
But because of it, I went to a new Keeper. His Master was not happy that I had cost Him His duelist. His Master was quite upset with my Mistress. His Master demanded me in payment, and my Mistress lost Her boy.
It may sound strange, since we Lostlings really should just hate all Gentry equally, but I preferred Her to Him. She, at least, taught me things and paid me some attention. He didn’t. After years of being under the constant and watchful eye of a super controlling and really not real or human Mother, being completely ignored is not preferable. I’m sue you can understand, can’t you?
I guess it was OK in the end that I was so totally ignored. I could be more watchful. I'd seen, escape is possible! There is a way out! Of course I wanted to try again, to get it right this time. A man, a man, some man managed to call me out of my little hole of ignorance and ignore-ance, make me come with them when they ran, though I don’t know why they ran or why they did or why he sought me out. I wasn't ready. I wasn’t very good at being watchful for escape back then. I still didn’t know how, and so I still got stuck. I wasn’t the only one, though, and while I know it’s bad that someone had to get caught instead of me, it meant almost freedom for me. That’s a price we all pay together, when we’re Lost trying to be Found.
(To Be Continued…)
Now: Don't Fear the Reaper
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