Changeling Read Online Free PDF Page A

shouted. “Hey! I’m unhappy here. Really unhappy.”
    At this point, I tripped over a root that hadn’t been there a minute before and fell on a rock and skinned my knee.
    â€œ Now you’re unhappy,” a gentle voice said. “Before, you were mostly pretending. I can’t help you if you’re pretending.”
    The voice came from a clump of twigs that looked like a nest built by a bird who wasn’t very good at nest-building. It was perched unsteadily on the root I’d tripped over.
    â€œThat’s a nasty scrape,” the moss woman said sympathetically. “You want me to put a bit of spiderweb on it? Or a burdock leaf? There’s nothing more cooling than a burdock leaf.”
    â€œNo, thank you,” I said as patiently as I could.
    The moss woman blinked. “You’re the mortal changeling, aren’t you?”
    â€œUh-huh.” There was something about the way she’d said it that made me uncomfortable. It almost sounded like she was sorry for me.
    â€œOh, my goodness. You really are unhappy.” The moss woman stood up, which made her look like a nest propped up on twigs, and got into wish-granting position. “Okay, shoot.”
    I bit my lip. Of my two questions, the one that was bothering me the most was what had really happened to Astris’s other mortal changelings. But I was having trouble phrasing it as a wish. “I wish I knew if Astris was a murderess”? I just couldn’t! The second question was a lot simpler.
    â€œI wish I could go to the Solstice Dance,” I said.
    The moss woman’s twigs turned a pale beige. “Do you know what you’re asking?”
    As a matter of fact, I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to admit that. “Sure I do. I want to go to the ball, like Radiatorella. What’s the big deal?”
    â€œOdearOdear,” the moss woman muttered. “What to do? What to do? She’s very unhappy—miserable, in fact. It’s coming off of her in waves. Most unpleasant. I have to fix it. But I can’t tell her about . . . O dear. OdearOdearODEAR!”
    As she muttered, her voice got higher and faster and her twigs rattled furiously. Afraid she’d fall apart completely, I told her I withdrew the wish.
    The moss woman settled her twigs with a nervous clack. “Are you sure?”
    â€œI’m sure.”
    â€œHow about another wish? I’d do anything—almost—to make you happy. How about a nice puppy?”
    â€œI don’t want a puppy,” I said crossly.
    â€œO dear. I’m sorry, I really am, but I can’t , you see. It’s a geas. You do know what a geas is, don’t you?”
    Geases are a Folk lore basic. “It’s when you’re not allowed to do a certain thing, and if you do it, something really bad happens to you.”
    â€œThat’s right,” she said. “And I’m under one. About the—what you said. So is everybody else around here. Please don’t mention it again. Wish for something else instead. How about a nice new dress?”
    This would have been the time to ask her about Astris, but I still couldn’t find a good way to put it. And I did want to go to the Solstice Dance instead of just sleeping through it.
    â€œI wish I had an antisleeping charm,” I said.
    â€œAn antisleeping charm?” The moss woman sounded surprised. “I don’t know any antisleeping charms. Let me think.”
    She settled back down to her nest-on-a-root mode and closed her eyes. I waited and waited and waited. You can’t rush Folk. The trees rustled peevishly and a toad with a ruby in its head hopped over my foot. I waited some more.
    Finally the moss woman stood up. “Okay. I got it. You know the kazna peri over by Huddlestone Bridge?”
    â€œNot personally, no.”
    â€œThat doesn’t matter—you’ll know it when you see it. It has a nose you could roll a marble down.