The Stolen Child(54)

but those papers, like many others, are in ashes now. The best I can do is re-create from memory what

we recorded that day, which was far from truly accurate to begin with, since Speck herself did not know

the full story and could merely summarize or speculate. Still, I wish I had my notes, for the conversation

was years ago, and my whole life seems to be nothing more than reconstructing memories.

That my good friends could one day leave profoundly saddened me. The cast of characters, in fact,

constantly revolves, but so slowly over time that they seemed permanent players. Igel was the oldest,

followed by Béka, Blomma, Kivi, and the twins, Ragno and Zanzara, who came late in the nineteenth

century. Onions arrived in the auspicious year of 1900. Smaolach and Luchóg were the sons of two

families who had emigrated from the same village in Ireland in the first decades of the twentieth century,

and Chavisory was a French Canadian whose parents had died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918.

Besides myself, Speck was the baby, having been stolen as a four-year-old in the second year of the

Great Depression.

"I was a lot younger than most of the others when I made the change," she said. "Except for the

twins. From the beginning, there have been twins in this line, and they're impossible to take unless very

young. And we never take babies. Too much trouble."

Vague memories stirred the sauce of my thoughts. Where had I known twins before?

"Luchóg named me, because I was a speck of a girl when they snatched me. Everyone else is

ahead of me in line for the change, except you. You're the bottom of the totem pole."

"And Igel has been waiting for his turn for a whole century?"

"He's seen a dozen make the change and had to bide his time. Now we're all in line behind him."

The mention of such a wait caused her to shut her eyes. I leaned against a tree trunk, feeling helpless for

her and hopeless for myself. Escape was not a constant thought, but occasionally I allowed myself to

dream of leaving the group and rejoining my family. Dejected, Speck hung her head, dark hair covering

her eyes, her lips parted, drawing in air as if each breath was a chore.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

She looked up. "Help Igel."

I noticed that her once-white sweater was fraying at the collar and the sleeves, and I resolved to

look for a replacement as we searched for the boy.

In glowing red letters, the sign out front read oscar's bar, and alone in the lot behind the building,

Béka found the hunter's green pickup. He and Onions jumped into its bed and rode, undetected by the

drunken driver, to the man's house out in the country. She laughed when she read the name off the

mail-box: love's. They memorized the location, sharing the good news with us later that night. With the

information in hand, Igel set in motion our recon-naissance and assigned shifts of teams to watch the boy

and his family to learn their movements and habits. He instructed us to pay close attention to the boy's

character and demeanor.

"I want a detailed account of his life. Does he have any brothers or sis-ters? Uncles or aunts?

Grammy and Gramps? Does he have any friends? What sort of games does he play? Any hobbies or

spare-time activities? Find all there is to know about his relationship with his parents. How do they treat

him? Is he inclined to daydream? To wander about by himself in the woods?"

I transcribed his words in McInnes's composition book and wondered how we might undertake

such a task. Igel walked over and stood in front of me, glaring down at my scribbling.

"You," he said, "will be our scrivener. I want a complete record. You are to be his biographer.

Everyone else can tell Aniday what they learn. Don't come pestering me with every detail. When the

story is complete, you can tell it. This will be the most perfect change in our history. Find me a new life."

Before I saw the child again, I felt as if I knew him as well as myself. Chavisory, for instance, found

out that he was named after his uncle Oscar. Smaolach could do a passing imitation of his voice, and

Kivi had applied an unknown calculus to plot out his height, weight, and general body type. After years

of mere self-preservation and maintenance, the faeries' industry and de-votion to the task bordered on

the fanatic.

I was assigned to watch for him at the library, but I rarely bothered to look for him there, and it is

by chance that he appeared at all. His mother had dragged the poor child along and left him alone on the

small playground out front. From my hiding place, direct observation was impossible, so I watched his

reflection in the plate-glass windows across the street, which distorted his appearance, making him