The Changelings Series, Book 1 (3 page)

Izzy opened one eye and quickly shut it again. She held very still, wishing the rest of the world would do the same thing. She reached up to feel the side of her throbbing head and winced. It was painfully tender, but there wasn't any blood.

All at once, the fear came flooding back. Hen! Where was she? Izzy opened her eyes and looked around. She lay on a sofa that wasn't her own, wrapped in a checkered quilt. The room smelled like sharp cheese and freshly cut grass. She sat straight up, which instantly made her feel sick. She tried to focus on the coffee table in front of her to make the room stop spinning.

Dirty teacups, photo albums, and stacks of ancient-looking books covered the little table. The book titles were written in Latin or French or some other language Izzy didn't understand, though she could pick out a few words:
Enchantement
,
Fey
,
Magia
. Something peeking out of the pages of one of the albums caught her eye. Even though it was only the corner of a photo, she had a weird feeling she'd seen it before. She slipped the picture out of the album.

Izzy gasped. A small girl with mousy brown hair smiled back at her.

It was her own kindergarten school picture.

Her hand shaking, Izzy reached out and opened the cover of the photo album. Her school portraits covered the first page. The next sheet was dedicated to pictures of Hen. Izzy flipped the thick pages faster and faster. Ballet recitals, artwork, Christmas cards. The album was a scrapbook of her and her sister's lives. Izzy looked around the strange room. Garlands of tiny silver bells hung in the windows, just like at her grandmother's house. Where was she?

Outside, a goat bleated softly. Boots clomped over the wood floor in the next room. Izzy searched for the door. Before she could stand, Marian Malloy walked around the corner. She spotted Izzy and hurried toward the couch.

Izzy shrank away from her. “No! Stay away from me!”

The old woman stepped closer.

Izzy tried to run for the door, but the walls spun around, and she sank to the wooden floor. The next thing she knew, she lay next to the couch, covered in cold sweat, with Marian cradling her neck.

“Easy, dear, take it easy,” the old woman said gruffly. “Or you'll make yourself sick all over my good rug.”

She helped Izzy back to the sofa and smoothed the hair away from her damp forehead. Izzy gave up on resisting. She felt too dizzy to move. She lay still while Marian gently took her face in her hands and turned it to the side, looking closely at her injury.

The old woman smiled, and a hundred tiny wrinkles appeared at the corners of her blue eyes. “You'll be just fine. But you'll have a devil of a headache tomorrow.”

“Where's my sister?” Izzy croaked. “What did you do with her?”

“Do with her? What makes you think I did anything with her?”

Izzy pointed a trembling finger at the photo album. “You have all those pictures of us.”

Marian sighed. She reached down to the album and turned it so Izzy could see the words embossed on the spine:
Jean E. Doyle.
Her grandmother's name.

“She gave it to me just before she died,” said Marian.

Fighting the dizziness, Izzy sat up. “No, that's a lie. Our grandmother wouldn't have something like that. She didn't care about us. She didn't even know us.”

Marian's eyes seemed to hold years of sadness. “She did care for you, child. More than you could possibly know.” The old woman picked up Izzy's kindergarten photo and slid it into an empty pocket of the album. “Your grandmother told me to keep this safe. She made me promise to keep you girls safe too.” She smiled again. “That'd be easier to do if you didn't go around knocking your head against rocks. I found you lying in the woods, just behind my vegetable garden. Does your mother know where you are?”

Izzy felt so confused. She knew she should be afraid of Marian Malloy. The old woman was a stranger. And according to the cashier at the Jiggly Goat, she was a witch who ate children and spit out their bones. But now that Izzy sat face-to-face with her, she didn't think Marian seemed like a witch at all. At least not the child-eating kind.

Marian picked up a mug from the table and handed it to Izzy. “Drink a little. For the nausea.”

Izzy took a tentative sip of the brown liquid inside. It tasted like mud with metal in it, but it instantly made her dizziness go away.

“Better?” asked Marian.

Izzy nodded and took another sip.

“That a girl. Now, let's get you back. I don't have a phone, or I'd call your mother to tell her we're on our way. Is your sister home with her?”

“No, she's lost. My sister's lost in the woods.” Saying the words out loud made Izzy's throat tighten up. “We have to find her! We have to tell my mom!”

Marian squeezed her hand. “Of course we will, of course. Don't worry. She can't be far. And I could find a thimble at midnight in these woods.” She helped Izzy to stand up. “I'll even bet she's already back at your house, worried about what's happened to
you
.”

Izzy took a deep breath and let it out again. Maybe Hen was back at home, eating a snack at the kitchen table right now. But then Izzy remembered the music she'd heard earlier. The melody still played in her head, and it gave her a strange, uneasy feeling.

“Marian? Was that you playing the music in the woods?”

Marian's smile vanished. “
What
did you say?”

“The music. I heard music in the woods when Hen ran off.”

Marian leaned down, searching Izzy's face. “Do you remember what it sounded like?”

Izzy thought for a moment. “It sounded like a flute. The music was sweet, like a happy song. But underneath the notes, I think it was actually a little sad.” Izzy shut her eyes. She hummed the part of the melody that she could remember. “I think it was something like that.”

When she opened her eyes again, she was shocked to see that Marian's face had turned ghostly white.

The old woman put her hands on Izzy's shoulders. Her words were slow and serious. “Did you see anyone else? A thin man with black hair?”

The thought of someone else in the woods with her sister sent a chill up Izzy's back. “No. There was no one.”

“What about another child? Or an animal that seemed out of place?”

“What? No, I didn't see anything!”

Marian rubbed her chin and started pacing in front of the door. She talked to herself, the words coming so fast Izzy could hardly catch them. “The Piper… Could it really be? But what could he be up to? He left no one in Exchange…” She stared at the photo album, cracking her knuckles over and over again. Suddenly, she jerked her head up. “September! Of course! Oh, I have to hurry!”

The old woman bolted past Izzy into the kitchen. Izzy followed after her.

Marian yanked open cabinets and started pulling everything down onto the counter. A full sack of flour tipped onto the floor, but she didn't even notice. She grabbed a canvas satchel and began stuffing jars and fistfuls of dried herbs inside.

“What else, what else…” Marian muttered. She dumped the salt out of its shaker into her palm, then let it fall to the floor. “Not enough! Shoot, there's no time to get more!”

Izzy grew increasingly anxious the more she watched the old woman. “Marian? What's going on? Is Hen all right?”

Marian snatched a jar of brown seeds off the counter and shoved it into her bag. She marched over to Izzy and patted her shoulder. She smiled, but it was a thin smile that didn't hide the worry written on her face. “I think your sister may be lost after all. But I don't want you to fret. I'm going to look for her.”

“And you'll find her? Won't you?”

Marian frowned and slung the bag over her shoulder. “Come along. Let's get you home.”

Izzy panted as she followed Marian back through the woods. The old woman was right—she did know her way through the forest. It didn't take long before they stood at the edge of the Doyle property. Dublin came trotting up to them. He danced around Marian's legs a few times, then snuffled Izzy's hand happily, as if everything were perfectly normal.

Marian pointed toward Izzy's house. “You go run on now and tell your mother your sister's lost.”

Izzy rubbed her temples, wishing she could think clearly. The dizziness was gone, but her brain still felt wrapped in fog. “You're not coming with me?”

Marian shook her head. “I've already lost enough time. I've got to start looking now.” She squeezed Izzy's shoulder once and patted Dublin on the head. Then she turned around and strode quickly back into the woods.

“But what should I tell her?”

“Whatever you like,” Marian said over her shoulder.

The words gave Izzy a sinking feeling, like it didn't matter what she said. She watched until Marian disappeared back into the trees, then turned to head to her own house. When Izzy rounded the boulder pile, she saw Hen's sparkly backpack at the base of the rocks. The zipper gaped open. As Izzy reached down to pick it up, she saw two packages of cheese crackers and two sandwich bags poking out of the jumble of plastic toys. She pulled out the sandwiches. Hen had made one of them with honey, not jelly. Just the way Izzy liked it.

She zipped the sandwiches back up and slung the backpack over her shoulder. But instead of walking back home, she stood there with her forehead leaning against the cool sandstone boulders. Dublin worked his wet nose into her hand.

“Why are you in such a good mood?” she whispered, letting him lick her fingers.

Izzy felt sick all over again, but not from the bruise on her head. She knew she should be running for home, screaming for her mom to call the police. But something deep in the center of her chest told her that no police search would ever find Hen. She looked over her shoulder at the trees behind her. Marian said she needed to start looking right away. But how could the old woman search the entire woods all by herself? Izzy shut her eyes and let the melody of that strange, sad music come back to her.

The music had meant something to Marian. She didn't seem worried about Hen at all until Izzy hummed the song for her. What was the name she used?
The Piper
.

Clarity suddenly snapped through the fog wrapped around Izzy's brain.

Hen wasn't lost. She had been kidnapped.

And Marian knew exactly who did it.

Izzy turned around. A shiver of fear raced up her arms as she started retracing her steps back into the woods. She had never been in a forest by herself until today. In fact, she'd never been in a forest at all, unless you counted strolling along the paved trails of a nature preserve. But this time, Dublin stayed by her side, and there was no strange music, only the light ruffling of wind through the leaves.

Izzy moved carefully through the brambly undergrowth. She didn't want to trip and fall again. She also didn't want Marian to know she was following her. The old woman would tell Izzy to get on back home, and then she'd never figure out what was really going on.

Deeper into the woods, Izzy spotted the old woman on the other side of a leaf-covered gully. She stopped and pressed Dublin's rump onto the ground.

“You sit here, and don't move a muscle,” she whispered to him. She crouched down and summoned up her special trick.

It was a talent she'd discovered during hide-and-seek games with Hen. She would imagine she was a fox, stalking an unsuspecting bird. She placed each foot on the ground with silent precision, quiet as a padded paw. She looked back at Dublin, expecting him to follow her or start whining. But he sat as still as a stone, as if she had given him orders in his own language.

Marian walked slowly, her eyes trained on the ground. She stopped once, scratching her head and muttering to herself. She bent to the ground and brushed aside the leaves. The old woman dug her finger into the soil and put it to her lips, like someone tasting the icing on a cake. She stood up, changed her direction a little, and kept walking.

Izzy crept closer, as foxlike and silent as she could manage, until Marian came to a stop in front of a boulder beside a bent oak tree. Marian paused and looked over her shoulder. Izzy ducked down behind a bush and held absolutely still, peeking over the top.

The old woman tasted the ground once more and then began to pace slowly around the stone and the tree. She circled them twice and walked behind them again. This time, she didn't emerge on the other side.

Izzy stayed crouched for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for Marian to reappear. But she never did. Izzy stood up and walked to the other side of the boulder. Nothing. She walked around the stone and the tree three times, just as Marian had. Still nothing.

Izzy clucked her tongue to call Dublin over. She stood with her hands on her hips, while he sniffed the ground at her feet. Had the old woman somehow slipped away without her seeing? She was about to give up and go searching in another direction, when Dublin started whining at something on the ground.

“Hush, boy!”

Izzy knelt beside him and put her arm around his neck to settle him down. He sniffed at a round pad of moss the size of a dinner plate. Though the rest of the ground was dry, tiny droplets of water trembled on the feathery leaves. Izzy pressed one finger into the spongy pad. She pulled her hand back as a thick chunk of moss fell away, revealing a dark, gaping hole in the ground. Using both hands, she peeled away the rest of the moss and leaned over the hole.

Izzy picked up a pebble and dropped it down the hole. She heard a soft thud, followed by another much farther down. As she lowered her face over the darkness, the sound of her own breath echoed back at her. A draft of cool air flowed onto her face. It smelled fresh and a little sweet, like honeysuckles. Her pupils dilated, and she could see a very faint green light at the bottom.

This wasn't a hole in the ground. It was a passage.

Sweat beaded up on Izzy's forehead. This was insane. Was she really about to follow a complete stranger down a dark tunnel in the ground? She should go home, get her mom, call the police. But Izzy knew if she left, she'd never be able to find this spot in the woods again. Then what would happen to Hen?

Izzy bit down on her cheek until it hurt. This whole thing was her fault. If only she'd gotten out of bed earlier or not finished that stupid crossword puzzle, Hen might be at home right now, twirling around the living room. Izzy felt a whisper-thin thread still connected her to her sister, and it ran right down into that dark tunnel. She felt sure that if she walked away, the thread might snap forever, and she'd never see Hen again.

Dublin whimpered beside her.

“Don't worry, Dub. I'll be right back, OK?”

She sat down and let her feet slide over the edge of the hole. The damp earth scraped against her legs as she lowered herself down. To her surprise, the hole wasn't nearly as small as it looked. She had to shrug off Hen's backpack and let it slide down behind her, but otherwise, she slipped inside easily.

The tunnel sloped steeply toward the green light at the other end. Damp soil caked up under her palms and elbows as she slid down, a few inches at a time. Halfway down, she stopped and looked up at the way she came. The silhouette of Dublin's blocky head loomed above the opening of the passage. She continued, while the light grew brighter with every inch. Another draft of the cool, fragrant air fluttered upward, ruffling the hair at her temples.

When she reached the bottom of the tunnel, she huddled there like a fox in its den, waiting to feel the courage to make her go forward. Instead, she had an overwhelming desire to run back home.
You can't stop now. You've come this far
, she told herself.

With a deep breath, she moved forward into the blinding green light.