The dandelions blossomed from nowhere, and the spring onions sprouted in the meadows, and our Onions would gorge herself, eating the bulbs and grass, staining her teeth and mouth green, reeking, indolent, until her skin itself smelled pungent and bittersweet. Luchóg and Smaolach distilled the dandelions into a potent brew. My calendar helped track the parade of berries strawberries in June, followed by wild blueberries, gooseberries, elderberries, and more. In a patch of forest over the ridge, Speck and I found a red army of raspberries invading a hillside, and we spent many a July day gathering sweetness among the thorns. Blackberries ripened last, and I am sad every time to see the first potful at our evening repasts, for those black jewels are a harbinger of summer's end.
The insect-eaters among us rejoiced at the abundance of the warm season, although bugs are a decidedly acquired taste. Each of the faeries had their own peculiar pleasures and preferred capturing techniques. Ragno ate only flies, which he plucked from spiderwebs. Béka was a gourmand, taking anything that crawled, flew, slithered, or wriggled his way. He would search out a colony of termites in a rotting log, a party of slugs in the mire, or a maggoty carcass, and dig in and eat those disgusting creatures raw. Sitting patiently by a small fire, he snatched moths out of the air with his tongue when they flew too close to his face. Chavisory was another notorious bug-eater, but at least she cooked them. I could tolerate the grubs and queens she baked on a heated rock until they popped, as brown and crispy as bacon. Cricket legs tend to stick in your teeth, and ants, if not roasted first, will bite your tongue and throat on the way down.
I had never killed a living thing before coming to the woods, but we were hunter-gatherers, and without an occasional bit of protein in the diet, all of us would suffer. We took squirrels, moles, mice, fish, and birds, although the eggs themselves were too great a hassle to steal from the nest. Anything bigger—such as a dead deer—we'd scavenge. I do not care for things that have been dead a long time. In late summer and early fall, in particular, the tribe would dine together on an unfortunate creature roasted on a spit. Nothing beats a rabbit under a starry night. But, as Speck would say, every idyll succumbs to desire.
Such a moment in my fourth year in the woods stands above all the rest. Speck and I had strayed from camp, and she showed me the way to the grove where honeybees had hidden their hive. We stopped at an old gray dogwood.
"Climb up there, Aniday, and reach inside, and you'll find the sweetest nectar."
As commanded, I shinnied up the trunk, despite the buzzing of the bees, and inched toward the hollow. From my purchase in the branches, I could see her upturned face, eyes aglow with expectation.
"Go on," she hollered from below. "Be careful. Don't make them mad."
The first sting startled me like a pinprick, the second and third caused pain, but I was determined. I could smell the honey before I felt it and could feel it before I saw it. Hands and wrists swollen with venom, my face and bare skin welted red, I fell from the limb to the forest floor with handfuls of honeycombs. She looked down at me with dismay and gratitude. We ran from the angry swarm and lost them on a hillside slanted toward the sun. Lying in the long new grass, we sucked every drop of honey and ate the waxy combs until our lips and chins and hands gummed up. Drunk on the stuff, the nectar heavy in our stomachs, we luxuriated in the sweet ache. When we had licked clean the honey, she began to pull the remaining stingers from my face and hands, smiling at my every wince. When she removed the last dagger from my hand, Speck turned it over and kissed my palm.
"You are such an idiot, Aniday." But her eyes betrayed her words, and her smile flashed as briefly as lightning rending the summer sky.
CHAPTER 9
"Listen to this." My friend Oscar put a record on the turntable and set down the needle with care. The 45 popped and hissed; then the melody line rose, followed by the four-part doo-wop, "Earth Angel" by The Penguins or "Gee" by The Crows, and he'd sit back on the edge of the bed, close his eyes, and pull apart those different harmonies, first singing tenor and so on through the bass. Or he'd put on a new jazz riff by Miles or maybe Dave Brubeck and pick out the counterpoint, cocking his ear to the nearly inaudible piano underneath the horns. All through high school we'd spend hours in his room, idly listening to his vast eclectic record collection, analyzing and arguing over the more subtle points of the compositions. Oscar Love's passion for music put my ambitions to shame. In high school, he was nicknamed "The White Negro," as he was so alien from the rest of the crowd, so cool, so in his head all the time. Oscar was such an outsider, he made me feel normal by comparison. And even though he was a year ahead of me, he welcomed me into his life. My father thought Oscar wilder than Brando, but my mother saw beneath the facade and loved him like a son. He was the first person I approached about forming a band.
Oscar stuck with me from its beginning as The Henry Day Five through every version: The Henry Day Four, The Four Horsemen, Henry and the Daylights, The Daydreamers, and lastly, simply Henry Day. Unfortunately, we could not keep the same group together for more than a few months at a time: Our first drummer dropped out of high school and enlisted in the MarineCorps; our best guitarist moved away when his father was transferred to Davenport, Iowa. Most of the guys quit because they couldn't cut it as musicians. Only Oscar and his clarinet persisted. We stayed together for two reasons: one, he could play a mean lick on any horn, particularly his beloved stick; two, he was old enough to drive and had his own car—a pristine '54 red and white Bel Air. We played everything from high school dances to weddings and the occasional night at a club. Discriminating by ear and not by any preconceived notion of cool, we could play any kind of music for any crowd.
After a jazz performance where we particularly killed the crowd, Oscar drove us home, radio blaring, the boys in a great mood. He dropped off the others, and late that summer night we parked in front of my parents' house. Moths danced crazily in the headlights, and the rhythmic cricket song underscored the silence. The stars and a half-moon dotted the languid sky. We got out and sat on the hood of the Bel Air, looking out into the darkness, not wanting the night to end.
"Man, we were gas," he said. "We slayed them. Did you see that guy when we did 'Hey Now,' like he never heard a sound like that before?"
"I'm 'bout worn-out, man."
"Oh, you were so cool, so cool."
"You're not bad yourself." I hitched myself farther up on the car to stop skidding off the hood. My feet did not quite reach the ground, so I swung them in time to a tune in my head. Oscar removed the cigarette he had stashed behind his ear, and with a snap from his lighter he lit it, and into the night sky he blew smoke rings, each one breaking its predecessor.
"Where'd you learn to play, Day? I mean, you're still a kid. Only fifteen, right?"
"Practice, man, practice."
He quit looking at the stars and turned to face me. "You can practice all you want. Practice don't give you soul."
"I've been taking lessons for the past few years. In the city. With a guy named Martin who used to play with the Phil. The classics and all. It makes it easier to understand the music beneath it all."
"I can dig that." He handed me the cigarette, and I took a deep drag, knowing he had laced it with marijuana.
"But sometimes I feel like I'm being torn in two. My mom and dad want me to keep going to lessons with Mr. Martin. You know, the symphony or a soloist."
"Like Liberace." Oscar giggled.
"Shut up."
"Fairy."
"Shut up." I punched him on the shoulder.
"Easy, man." He rubbed his arm. "You could do it, though, whatever you want. I'm good, but you're out of this world. Like you've been at it all your life or you were born that way."
Maybe the dope made me say it, or maybe it was the combination of the summer night, the post-performance high, or the fact that Oscar was my first true friend. Or maybe I was dying to tell someone, anyone.
"I've got a confession, Oscar. I'm not Henry Day at all, but a hobgoblin that lived in the woods for a long, long time."
He giggled so hard, a stream of smoke poured out of his nostrils.
"Seriously, man, we stole the real Henry Day, kidnapped him, and I changed into him. We switched places, but nobody knows. I'm living his life, and I guess he's living mine. And once upon a time, I was somebody else, before I became a changeling. I was a boy in Germany or somewhere where they spoke German. I don't remember, but it comes back to me in bits and pieces. And I played piano there a long time ago, until the changelings came and stole me. And now I'm back among the humans, and I hardly remember anything about the past, but it's like I'm part Henry Day and part who I used to be. And I must have been one cool musician way back when, because that's the only explanation."
"That's pretty good, man. So where's the real Henry?"
"Out in the woods somewhere. Or dead maybe. He could be dead; it happens sometimes. But probably hiding out in the woods."
"Like he could be watchin' us right now?" He jumped off the car and whispered into the darkness. "Henry? Is that you?"
"Shut up, man. It's possible. But they're afraid of people, that much I know."
"The whosits?"
"The changelings. That's why you never see them."
"Why they so afraid of us? Seems like we should be afraid of them."
"Used to be that way, man, but people stopped believing in myths and fairy tales."
"But what if Henry's out there, watching us right now, wanting to get his body back, and he's creeping up, man, to get you?" And he reached out quickly and snatched my ankle.
I screamed, embarrassed to be fooled by such a simple joke. Oscar sprawled on the hood of the car, laughing at me. "You've been watching too many horror movies, man."
"No, the truth is ..." I socked him on the arm.
"And there's pods in your cellar, right?"
I wanted to punch him again, but then I realized how ridiculous my story sounded, and I started laughing, too. If he remembered that night at all, Oscar never again brought up the matter, and maybe he thought I was hallucinating. He drove off, cackling to himself, and I felt empty after the truth had been told. My impersonation of Henry Day had succeeded so well that no one suspected the real story. Even my father, a natural skeptic, believed in me, or at least kept his doubts hidden deep in his soul.
The ground floor of our house was as dark and silent as a cave. Upstairs everyone slept soundly. I turned on the kitchen light and poured a drink of water. Attracted to the brightness, moths crashed and flapped up against the window screen. They scritched up and down, a sound menacing and foreboding. I turned off the lights, and they flew away. In the new darkness, I searched for a moving shadow, listened for footsteps among the trees, but nothing stirred. I crept upstairs to check on my sisters.
When the girls were young children, I often feared that Mary and Elizabeth would be snatched away by the hobgoblins and two changelings would be left in their place. I knew their ways, their tricks and deceptions, and also knew they could strike the same family twice, or, indeed, three times. Not far from here, the story goes, back in the 1770s, the Church family had seven children stolen and replaced by changelings, one by one, each at age seven, until there were no Churches at all, only simulacra, and pity those poor parents with an alien brood. My sisters were as susceptible, and I watched for the telltale changes in behavior or appearance—a sudden winsomeness, a certain detachment from life—that would reveal a possible switch.
I warned the twins to stay out of the woods or any shadowy places. "Dangerous snakes and bears and wildcats wait near our patch of land. Do not talk to strangers. Why go out to play," I'd ask, "when there is something perfectly good and interesting on television?"
"But I like exploring," Elizabeth said.
"How will we ever find our way back home if we never leave home?" Mary added.
"Did you ever see a timber rattler? Well, I have, and copperheads and water moccasins. One bite and you're paralyzed, your limbs go black, then you're dead. Do you think you can outrun or outclimb a bear? They climb trees better than cats, and they would grab your leg and gobble you up. Have you ever seen a raccoon foaming at the mouth?"
"I never get to see anything," Elizabeth cried.
"How can we ever avoid danger if we don't know what danger is?" Mary asked.
"It's out there. You could trip and fall over an old log and break your leg and nobody would ever find you. Or you could be caught in a blizzard with the wind blowing every which way until you can't find your own front door, and then they'd find you the next morning, frozen like a Popsicle, not ten feet from home."
"Enough!" They shouted in unison and went off to watch Howdy Doody or Romper Room. I knew, however, that while I was at school or rehearsing with the band, they would ignore my cautions. They'd come home with grass stains on their knees and bottoms, ticks on their bare skin, twigs in their curls, frogs in their overalls, and the smell of danger on their breath.
But that night they were sleeping lambs, and two doors down my parents snored. My father called out my name in his sleep, but I dared not answer at such a late hour. The house grew preternaturally still. I had told my darkest secret with no consequences, so I went to bed, safe as ever.
They say that one never forgets one's first love, but I am chagrined to admit that I do not remember her name or much else about her—other than the fact that she was the first girl I saw naked. For the sake of the story, I'll call her Sally. Maybe that actually was her name. After the summer of my confession to Oscar, I resumed my lessons with Mr. Martin, and there she was. She had departed at the end of the school year and returned a different creature— someone to be desired, a fetish, an obsession. I am as guilty of anonymous lust as anyone, but it was she who chose me. Her affections I gratefully accepted without pause. I had been noticing her curves for months, before she gathered the courage to speak to me at the winter recital. We stood together backstage in our formal wear, enduring the wait for our individual turns at the piano. The youngest kids went first, for agony is best served as an appetizer.
