asked her to sign. She did not suspect Mary of trying to cheat her, but she did believe her friend knew more than she was saying, and that made Lucy uneasy.
Lucy slept badly and was awakened by the baby, whom she could hear fussing through the walls. Martha was not at the table when Lucy went downstairs for breakfast. There was only Mr. Buckles and Uncle Lowell, who appeared very angry indeed. Lucy glanced at Mr. Buckles, but he offered only a foolish smile before turning away. Was it hard for him to look at her, she wondered, to see the young lady whose life he had stolen? Lucy doubted his thoughts were ever troubled by such things. She did not believe him even conscious that he had done wrong. He had done it, and now it was over, so he thought no more of it.
After a brief period of silence, and then the baby began its shrill wail again. Mr. Lowell slammed down his fork. “I cannot see what your baby is doing, crying so violently.”
“It is usually very placid,” said Mr. Buckles. “Even Lady Harriett has condescended to observe how very… how, ah, very placid it is.”
“It weren’t placid last night,” said Uncle Lowell.
Lucy set aside her breakfast and went up to see Martha, who was still in bed, but quite awake. The bags under her eyes testified to the difficulties of her night, but she brightened considerably when she saw Lucy.
“I shall go quite mad,” said Martha. “Poor little Emily is really not herself. She’s never been like this, and I fear she may be ill.”
Lucy brushed some unruly hair from Martha’s face. “Does she nurse?”
“Like nothing I’ve seen.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I am quite bruised. Emily is ravenous, and has taken to biting me with the little teeth she has. Why, it seems she has grown more teeth overnight, which may explain her sadness. In truth, if she does not cease hurting me, I will have to hire a wet nurse after all.”
Just then the door opened, and the nurse came in with little Emily wrapped in a blanket.
“How is she?” asked Martha.
“She won’t settle, mum,” said the woman. “I reckon she wants her milk.”
“It cannot be,” said Martha. “She has done nothing but eat.”
“She’s been trying to nurse off me, mum.”
Martha reached out and the woman handed her her baby, and as she did so, some of the blanket fell away. It was all Lucy could do not to scream, for instead of little Emily, there was a monster, a foul thing of skin so white that its bulging, pulsating blue veins showed through. It had pink eyes, little tufts of black hair curling from its head, sharp and narrow eyes, pointed ears, and a predator’s sharp teeth. It looked at Lucy and grinned.
Lucy looked to the nurse and then to Martha, but neither of them noticed anything unusual about the child. Neither observed that it was not Emily at all.
Lucy saw what was invisible to the others—that baby Emily had been replaced by some foul thing, by a changeling. But how had it happened, and where was the real Emily?
“My sweet, you must not hurt your mama so,” said Martha to the thing as it suckled greedily upon her breast.
Lucy swallowed hard, and tried to speak. She failed and made the effort again. “Martha,” she said a ragged voice, “when did the baby begin to fuss?”
“Now that I think on it, it was right after we went to visit your friend, Miss Crawford.”
Lucy took another step backwards. “You saw Mary? When did you see her?”
“After we returned from Newstead and you retired to your room—to nap, I presume. Your friend sent her coach around, inquiring after me. She said she had no wish to disturb you, but she longed to meet her friend’s sister and niece. I cannot believe I neglected to tell you, but it is almost as though I forgot about it until this moment. How odd.”
A secret meeting between her sister and Mary—a meeting her sister happened to
She excused herself, not caring how she surprised Martha with her abruptness, and ran downstairs and out of the house. She ran down the street, pushing past and over and around whoever or whatever came across her path. She cared not how women stared or tradesmen shouted. It was nothing to her. She ran as fast as she could across the square to High Pavement.
When she arrived at Mary’s house, she knocked heavily upon the door, but received no reply. She knocked again and again, and finally she peered into the window.
What she found made her heart thunder in her chest. The house was all but cleared out. There was nothing upon the walls, no furniture upon the floors. The rugs were gone, and the curtains too. All was closed up and removed. Lucy saw but one thing, a single crate with a piece of paper attached to it, and upon the paper was written “Miss Lucy Derrick.”
Trying the door, Lucy found it unlocked. She rushed inside and unfolded the paper, but it contained no information. It merely denoted that the crate and its contents were hers. Lucy looked inside and saw it was a large collection of books upon the practice of magic.
Lucy remained frozen. Martha’s baby, dear little Emily, was gone, replaced with some goblin monster, and Martha did not know it. Mary was gone, and it seemed that she had played some terrible role in all this.
Lucy staggered backwards and felt tears coming on, but she fought them back. No, she thought. No more crying. Mr. Buckles and Mary Crawford and Uncle Lowell and Mr. Olson and even General Ludd—Lucy would discover who was set against her, and she would give them cause to regret it. She would take back what was hers, what had been robbed of her father—and she would find Martha’s baby. For so long she had been powerless, but not now. She would save her niece. She did not know how she would do it, but she would find a way. By force or by stealth, she would challenge those who had made themselves her enemies, and she would have victory over them, because Lucy understood that at the center of all these events was the
21
IT IS ONE THING TO BE DETERMINED TO ACT, AND QUITE ANOTHER to know precisely what needs doing, and so Lucy spent a long and sleepless night as she weighed her options and considered her alternatives. In several trips, so as to avoid the notice of anyone in her household, Lucy removed the books from Mary’s house to her own room. If Mary were her enemy, why would she give Lucy these books? And yet all evidence suggested that Mary had played some part in Emily’s being replaced by a monster. There was nothing to do now but study, learn what there was to be learned, what paths there were to explore. It all had to be done soon—very soon—for Lucy could not endure that Martha must live another day with that vile, grinning monster suckling at her.
She could find in Mary’s books nothing of use about changelings—only myth and folklore, stories that rang of falseness and ignorance. What Lucy needed was to learn how to banish a changeling and how to retrieve the stolen child. If there was little to be discovered about changelings, however, there was much written on other sorts of beings. In Lucy’s new library she read of the dark things that stalked the world, the spirits of Agrippa’s
With no one to guide her, with no hints to help her follow the right course, Lucy had no choice but to find her own way. She spent the day closeted away with her books, looking for what she ought not to look, and found what appeared to her promising. It was in a volume that Mary had given her, marking off certain sections as the only
