The Stolen Child(46)

of his final admonition: "Do not talk to people again."

I closed my eyes and stayed still. The sun shone down through the branches of the trees, warming

my body. My joints ached from the fall, and my fingers swelled and throbbed. One eye was painted

black and blue, and blood oozed from cuts and pooled beneath plum bruises. My mouth tasted of vomit

and dirt, and I passed out in a rumpled heap.

Cool water on my cuts and bruises startled me awake, and my first vision was of Speck bent over

me, wiping the blood from my face. Directly behind her stood Smaolach and Luchóg, their faces pinched

with concern. Drops of my blood left a red patch on Speck's white sweater. When I tried to speak, she

pressed the wet cloth to my lips.

"Aniday, I am so sorry. I did not want this to happen."

"We're sorry, too," Smaolach said. "But the law has a ruthless logic."

Chavisory poked out her head from behind Speck's shoulder. "I took no part in it."

"You should not have left me, Aniday. You should have trusted me."

I sat up slowly and faced my tormentors. "Why did you let them?"

"I took no part," Chavisory said.

Luchóg knelt beside Speck and spoke for all. "We had to do it, so that you will not ever forget.

You spoke to the human, and if he caught you, you would be gone forever."

"Suppose I want to go back."

No one looked me in the eye. Chavisory hummed to herself while the others kept silent.

"I think that might have been my real father, Speck. From the other world. Or maybe it was a

monster and a dream. But it wanted me to come into the house. I have been there before."

"Doesn't matter who he was," said Smaolach. "Father, mother, sister, brother, your Aunt Fanny's

uncle. None of that matters. We're your family."

I spat out a mouthful of dirt and blood. "A family doesn't beat up one of its own, even if they have a

good reason."

Chavisory shouted in my ear, "I didn't even touch you!" She danced spirals around the others.

"We were following rules," said Speck.

"I don't want to stay here. I want to go back to my real family."

"Aniday, you can't," Speck said. "They think you are gone these past ten years. You may look like

you're eight, but you are almost eighteen. We are stuck in time."

Luchóg added, "You'd be a ghost to them."

"I want to go home."

Speck confronted me. "Listen, there are only three possible choices, and going home is not one of

them."

"Right," Smaolach said. He sat down on a rotting tree stump and counted off the possibilities on his

fingers. "One is that while you do not get old here, nor get deathly ill, you can die by accident. I

remember one fellow who went a-walking a wintry day. He made a foolish calculation in his leap from

the top of the bridge to the edge of the riverbank, and his jump was not jumpy enough. He fell into the

river, went right through the ice, and drowned, fro-zen to death."

"Accidents happen," Luchóg added. "Long ago, you could find yourself eaten. Wolves and

mountain lions prowled these parts. Did you ever hear of the one from up north who wintered out inside

a cave and woke up spring-time next to a very hungry grizzly? A man can die by any chance

imagin-able."

"Two, you could be rid of us," Smaolach said, "by simply leaving. Just up and saunter off and go

live apart and alone. We discourage that sort of attitude, mind you, for we need you here to help us find

the next child. 'Tis harder than you think to pretend to be someone else."

"Besides, it is a lonesome life," said Chavisory.

"True," Speck agreed. "But you can be lonely with a dozen friends be-side you."

"If you go that way, you're more likely to meet with a singular fate," Luchóg said. "Suppose you fell

in a ditch and couldn't get up? Then where would you be?"

Said Smaolach, "Them fellows usually succumb, don't they, to some twist in the road? You lose

your way in a blizzard. A black widow nips your thumb as you sleep. And no one to find the anecdote,

the cowslip or the boiled frogs' eggs."

"Besides, where would you go that's any better than this?" Luchóg asked.

"I would go crazy being just by myself all the time," Chavisory added.

"Then," Luchóg told her, "you would have to make the change."

Speck looked beyond me, toward the treeline. "That's the third way. You find the right child on the

other side, and you take her place."

"Now you're confusing the boy," said Smaolach. "First, you have to find a child, learn all about him.