The Changeling (excerpt)

by Sean Williams

The drought that gripped Ros’s family’s farm broke the year he started hearing voices.

Mount Geheb was a lonely place for a boy. The low hill from which it took its name featured on few maps and received even fewer visitors. It had been in the family for ten generations and not one of them had been prosperous. Four hours’ walk from the nearest town, the farm was too remote for regular schooling but close enough that Ros knew what he was missing. In Barker they had fairs and markets. People played sport. Once, a travelling illusionist had come to town and delighted some of the luckier children with transformations of cats into dogs and mice into budgerigars. Ros yearned for such things as thirstily as an empty creek bed yearned for water.

One day, he was pumping fruitlessly at the handle of the outer paddock’s bore when a gust of wind curled around him in a way that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. He straightened and looked about him, not knowing why he felt like he was being watched but certain that he was.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ the wind whispered. ‘I’m not a ghost.’

Ros clutched his bony elbows and tried to look braver than he felt. Mount Geheb was just a day’s journey from the great crack in the earth known as the Divide, where all manner of strange creatures were rumoured to live. His mother had told him stories of ghosts that would drag children kicking and screaming down into their canyon home if they didn’t behave.

‘If you’re not a ghost, what are you then?’

‘I don’t know exactly. This is the way I’ve always been.’

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Escher.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘What does Roslin mean?’

‘Nothing, I guess.’ Ros asked suspiciously, ‘How do you know who I am?’

‘I’ve been watching you.’

‘Why?’ Ros asked suspiciously.

‘Because I don’t have anything else to do. I don’t have a body like you, you see. I’m just a mind. All I can do is float about, watching. You’d be surprised how dull that can be. I know where people hide things and what they say behind closed doors. I know all the secret stuff they don’t tell anyone else. But what good is that if you can’t do anything with it, if you can’t share with anyone what you’ve learned?’

Escher’s voice, as soft as a breeze, was filled with melancholy. Ros recognised that feeling.

‘What sort of secret stuff?’ he asked.

‘Well, let’s see. Did you know that Geno Canzini gave your sister a pin at last winter’s dance in Barker? She keeps it wrapped in a piece of paper under her pillow every night. She even wrote a charm on the piece of paper so he’d fall in love with her by the next dance.’

‘Really?’ Ros’s interest heightened at the news that his sister was drawn to a boy their parents thought lazy. ‘What else?’

‘There’s a silver coin behind the dresser in your parents’ bedroom. It fell down there a month ago and no one noticed.’

More interesting information. If Ros retrieved the coin he could give it to his parents. That would help things on the farm for a while. He resolved to test everything the voice had told him as soon as possible.

‘That’s great, Escher. Maybe you could tell me more when I’ve finished my chores.’ He looked at the pump he was supposed to be pulling. He could see faint lines where his father had clumsily scratched a primitive protection charm the previous season. They were as coated with rust as the rest of the metal. ‘I’ll be in trouble if I slack off any longer.’

‘You’ll probably be in more trouble still if your parents know you’ve been talking to me.’

‘How would they know? I won’t tell them if you won’t.’

‘Just say my name, then.’ A breath of air swirled around him. ‘I’ll be nearby.’

As Escher wafted invisibly away, Ros waved and realised that, against all odds, he had made a friend.

* * *

With another dry summer looming, Ros’s parents faced difficult decisions. What seed remained after four years of drought lay scattered on ground baked hard as rock. Cattle withered from lack of food and water, and became stick creatures that staggered, dazed, from mirage to mirage. The farm would die with them unless it rained soon. But clouds drifted serenely overhead, not stopping to unburden their life-giving loads on the desperate landowners beneath. Ros’s mother wept at night and cursed the harsh life she had married into. No matter how many good-luck charms she wove and hung around the veranda, their fortune never changed. Ros’s father was a big man and craggy with it. His hands were like clubs, toughened by a life on the land. He hadn’t always been surly, but his temper had soured as the dry months dragged on. Anger showed in the tightness of his lips and the set of his broad back.

Although Ros did his best to help, it was never enough.

‘Give it to me, boy,’ his father growled. After Escher introduced himself, Ros and his father performed another makeshift repair on their ailing tractor. A greasy nut slipped from Ros’s fingers and vanished into the engine’s complex tangle of pipes and belts. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘But —’

‘Go on. You’re only getting in the way.’

Inside, his mother was no comfort. ‘Don’t you upset your father, Roslin,’ she scolded. ‘Just do as you’re told or you’ll earn yourself a hiding.’

‘It’s not my fault!’

‘Then whose fault is it?’

When Ros heard his mother crying late at night, he lay in bed wanting to hug her but knowing she would only brush him aside. She had more important things to worry about, like chickens that wouldn’t lay, meat that had spoiled, and filling four hungry mouths three times a day.

‘Waste of space,’ his older sister taunted him that evening as dinner was served. ‘Waste of food, waste of water, waste of air!’

That was the perfect time, Ros decided, to reveal what he had learned from Escher.

His sister blushed furiously when he mentioned Geno Canzini’s name and the pin she kept under her pillow. In revenge, she tipped a tablespoon of salt into his stew. He tried to continue eating as though nothing had happened, but his next mouthful made him gag and spit, and he was told off for spoiling good food.

Then, when he produced the silver coin he had found in the dusty space under his parents’ dresser, exactly where Escher had said it would be, they wanted to know what he’d been doing snooping around in their room. He tried to tell them about Escher, despite the warning his new friend had given him, and they accused him of stealing the coin and covering up with stupid stories about invisible spies. His sister gloated as he was sent to his tiny room without anything else to eat.

He crouched on his bed with his arms around his legs. That hadn’t gone remotely as he’d imagined. Now he was locked in the dark without a candle and the shadows were gathering in the corners as they always did at night. In them he imagined long-legged, spidery crabblers stirring, and worse.

‘We have to be careful,’ Escher whispered into his ear.

Ros jumped. ‘What are you doing here?’ he hissed, softly so his parents wouldn’t hear through the thin walls. ‘I didn’t call you.’

‘I was worried about you, and with good reason. Are you angry with me for what happened?’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Ros said, even though he did feel that Escher was partly the reason why he was in trouble.

‘I could talk to your parents, prove that you weren’t lying to them, but they wouldn’t understand. They’re simple folk with simple concerns. I’ll have to be a secret if you want me to stay. Our secret.’

Ros nodded furiously in the darkness.

‘You seem angry,’ Escher went on.

‘I’m not. I’m just . . .’ Ros hesitated, embarrassed.

‘What?’

‘I’m afraid of the dark,’ he said, cheeks burning.

‘Oh, Ros. That’s silly. Let me show you something to make you feel better. Join the tips of your thumb and index finger of your right hand so they form a ring. Close your eyes and think of that ring spinning clockwise. At the centre of the ring a spot will form. Concentrate on the spot and see what happens.’

Puzzled, Ros did as Escher said. Perhaps his new friend was only giving him something to keep his mind off the darkness, but he was happy to go along with that. The shadows weren’t quite as dark with someone to talk to. He formed the ring out of his thumb and forefinger and pictured it turning in the eye of his mind. It spun like a top, wobbling from side to side, and after a few minutes a tiny golden speck appeared at its centre. He concentrated on it as hard as he could and caught a faint crackling sound on the very edge of his hearing.

‘Open your eyes,’ Escher whispered.

He did so and gasped with amazement. In the centre of the ring formed by his fingers burned a tiny silver flame. It lasted little more than an instant, but that was long enough to make out the pink skin tones of his hand and the flickering shadows the flame cast on the walls around him. Then his concentration unravelled and it vanished back into the darkness. When it was gone, the memory of that warm image remained, etched into his mind.

‘How did you know how to do that?’

‘I told you. I watch people and I learn things. Do you know what the Change is?’

‘Of course. It’s like charms to bring rain, and stuff.’

‘It’s exactly that, Ros, if you have the gift for it. Most people don’t have it, but some do. They come into it when they’re about your age, and if they have a good teacher they can accomplish more than just bringing rain. The Change is the energy of life, growing and shaping the whole world. By tapping into it, you could move mountains, or even raise them from scratch.’

‘Do I have the gift?’

‘You were using it just then.’

Ros’s heart beat faster, thinking of how using the Change had made him feel. Alive was a good word for it. ‘Teach me more. I want to learn everything you know.’

‘It’s not always so easy,’ Escher said. ‘The cost can be high.’

‘I don’t care. I have to know.’

His father hammered on the door. ‘I said, no talking! Imaginary friends are for babies!’ Heavy feet stomped deeper into the house.

‘Well, if you’re sure that’s really what you want . . .’ said Escher.

‘Yes,’ Ros breathed, so softly even he could barely hear the words. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

Ros felt a wave of warmth and gratitude wrap around him, as though Escher was hugging him. He leaned into the feeling, taking what comfort he could when all about him was dark.

* * *

Some weeks later, a weather-worker came to the farm. His name was Kuller and he had travelled to Barker especially, he said, to check out the lay of the land. He was preparing a charm to cover the whole area, one that would bring rain and prosperity back to Mount Geheb and its neighbours. His fee would be met by the townsfolk, but he required a bed and meals during his stay.

Ros’s father made no show of grumbling about this, even though there was barely enough food for the four of them already, and Kuller soon demonstrated an appetite big enough for a man twice his girth. Somehow Ros’s plate was always the most reduced at every mealtime. If the scrawny weather-worker noticed the resentful looks Ros cast at him over dinner, he made no sign.

Ros told himself not to be so ungrateful. Perhaps Kuller really could bring rain to Mount Geheb, so Ros’s father would no longer be sullen and his mother would stop crying at night. Even his sister might be nice to him again. That would be worth a thousand hungry nights. He followed the weather-worker between chores, curious to see how the man would help. Kuller’s hair was grey and frizzled around a face deeply etched with red veins. He had tattoos shaped like eyes on the back of each hand. He wore a broad-brimmed black hat and robe, the latter belted around his waist with silky grey cord. As he stalked about the property, picking up stones and looking under them, taking down measurements in a small leatherbound notebook, he hummed a tune that never ended. Round and round it went, sticking in Ros’s ears like wax.

One day Escher caught Ros humming it while carting hay from the big shed. ‘Don’t you start!’ said Escher, who had been telling him a story about the Alder of Barker and the dresses he kept in a chest behind his desk. ‘I’ve had more than enough already from that old fraud.’

Ros carefully checked to see that no one was around before answering. ‘Why do you call him a fraud? Don’t you believe in weather-working?’

‘I believe in it rightly enough. I just doubt his credentials.’

Ros could accept that. He had grown up with tales of the deeds of Stone Mages in the deepest desert, where mighty dunes swept across the land as fast as a galloping camel and tumbleweeds congregated in vast crowds, whispering secrets in faint, rustling voices. Stone Mages, he had been told, could make a stone hot enough to brand the skin by thinking about it, and they could turn a pinch of dirt into a diamond just as easily. They lived in cliff-face cities and kept walking, talking statues called man’kin as servants. Every full moon, they cast dice to see who would live and who would die, for in all the Interior there was no greater power than theirs.

Escher had taught Ros enough about the Change in recent weeks to convince him that these stories held some truth. Like the good-luck charms his mother expended so much energy making, the exercises Escher had given him sometimes seemed difficult and pointless.

The difference, though, was that his worked. If Ros concentrated on particular shapes or patterns hard enough, those patterns seeped into the world like dye into water. Already he could summon a flame bright enough to see by at night, and could strike sparks when he snapped his fingers. In recent nights, he had been learning how to make a stone move without touching it.

Start with the small things, Escher had told him, because that’s the way the Change works. A tiny seed grows into a towering tree, and with practice you’ll grow in knowledge just as surely.

Ros finished his chores in record time so he could follow Kuller and learn more about him. The weatherworker was out on the far paddock that day, stamping through the dust and tasting the air with his long tongue. Occasionally he stooped to draw a symbol in the red soil, then stepped back and erased it with his foot. If Ros could prove this weather-worker a fake, he reasoned, perhaps he could convince his father to kick him off the farm. Then they could eat properly again. It had been days since he’d had a full meal and his stomach rumbled constantly.

Kuller pricked his thumb, sucked it, and spat redtinged saliva into the dirt. A funnel-shaped cloud of fine dust rose up around him, swirling like a willy-willy, then faded away.

‘Maybe I was wrong,’ Escher said at that. ‘Maybe he does have some talent after all.’

Conversation over dinner that evening was muted, swinging back and forth from trouble to trouble without ever settling on the real issue. There was no point seeding, Ros’s father said, until the ground was soft and moist enough. A litter of puppies had to be disposed of because there were already enough dogs on the property. A good milker had turned sour and might serve the family better by becoming meat on the table. If they had rain, Ros thought, all these problems would go away. But where was it? When would Kuller deliver, if he could? Ros didn’t understand why his father pretended life was normal while things continued to go bad. It made him so angry sometimes, but no one ever listened to him.

‘He’s watching you,’ whispered Escher as Ros licked every last morsel from his barren plate.

Ros looked up to find Kuller staring at him. Grey eyes regarded him curiously for a moment, and then looked away.

‘What’s he up to?’ Escher mused. ‘What’s he after?’

Ros bit his tongue on an automatic response. No one could hear Escher unless he wanted them to, and Ros couldn’t say a word in reply without everyone else thinking he was talking to himself again.

‘We’d better keep a close eye on this so-called weather-worker,’ Escher went on. ‘I’m getting a bad feeling about him.’

* * *

The next day they trailed him again, keeping well out of sight. Kuller led them on a drunkard’s ramble across the property, from cracked pasture to stony outcrop, through stubbled wheat stalks left over from last year and around dried-out dams. He cast charms using twigs and pebbles and made more notes in his little book. Three times he stopped to cut himself with a thin, curved knife that glinted in the sun. With quick flicks of his long fingers, he scattered bloody drops into the thirsty dirt, where they vanished as though they had never existed.

‘What did he do that for?’ Ros asked Escher, both sickened and intrigued by the display.

‘He’s a blood-worker. That’s where he gets his power from.’

‘Is that normal?’

‘Not common, no. I told you earlier that the cost of using the Change can be high. This is one way of paying it.’ Escher’s tone hardened in a way Ros hadn’t heard before. ‘Now, shhh, or else he’ll hear you.’

Ros caught the man looking directly to where he crouched, peering from behind a cracked water trough. He ducked out of sight, but felt Kuller’s gaze cut right through the weathered stonework. He froze in fear.

Kuller knew they were there. Perhaps he had known all along. This thought sent a wave of ice up Ros’s spine.

While he had been watching Kuller, the blood-worker had been watching him right back. What would he do now the game was exposed?

Kuller’s footsteps crunched closer to his hiding spot. The cyclic meander of his humming ceased for a moment.

‘I’d be very careful if I were you, boy,’ said the weather-worker in a voice as dry as the land he studied, ‘or you’ll be in a great deal of trouble.’

Ros fled. He ran all the way home, feeling Kuller’s gaze boring into his back, dodging between dead trees and leaping in and out of creek beds, expecting a knife or a lightning bolt to strike him at any moment. Only as he passed the comforting bulk of the big shed and the homestead came into sight did he dare believe he might make it alive.

His mother didn’t give him a chance to explain.

‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘You were supposed to peel the potatoes for dinner. Go to your room!’

‘But —’

‘Without dinner! Now!’

He did as he was told, although the thought of missing a meal made him feel faint with frustration and hunger. He crouched on the bed and furiously practised drawing sparks from his fingertips. Hot tears welled in his eyes.

‘Don’t listen to her,’ said his only friend in the whole world. ‘You’re strong. You deserve better.’

Through the door Ros heard the rest of his family eating. The low murmur of their conversation was grim and urgent. He couldn’t make out the words, but the weather-worker’s voice ran through it like thread. Ros felt deliberately excluded from issues that would inevitably affect him. If they were talking about the farm, as they surely must have been, they shouldn’t do it behind his back. That they did only confirmed that he meant nothing to them.

‘What are they saying?’ he wondered aloud as his stomach clenched like a fist around nothing. ‘What are they talking about?’

‘I can find out for you,’ said Escher. ‘Would you like me to eavesdrop on them?’

He felt foolish for not thinking of that sooner. ‘Would you?’

‘Of course. I’ll be back soon.’

Ros waited in the thickening dark, telling himself that there was nothing to be frightened of in the shadows, no matter what he imagined. Alone, though, it was harder to concentrate on the charm Escher had taught him. The faint flame he eventually managed to conjure danced fitfully in his grasp.

‘Escher?’ he whispered as the sound of dishes being cleaned came to him faintly through the door. ‘Are you back yet? What did they say?’

No answer.

Ros leaned closer to the door, trying to make out something from the voices. His mother said clearly, ‘Is that even possible?’, but the rest was as garbled as ever.

He fell back onto his bed. ‘Escher, are you there? Escher? Where are you?’

The beginnings of panic pricked him. Escher had never failed to come when called before. Had something driven him away? Had he learned something that made him dislike Ros as much as his family did?

‘Escher, please don’t leave me,’ he whispered.

‘I’m back, Ros,’ said his invisible friend. ‘I’m here. Don’t worry.’

Relief flooded him. ‘Don’t do that again, please!’

‘I won’t. Ros, I won’t. I promise. I wouldn’t.’

There was a new note to Escher’s voice. He sounded breathless, which was strange for a creature composed entirely of breath — almost afraid.

‘What did you hear, Escher? What did they say?’ A new fear struck him. ‘Are they talking about me?’

‘I don’t know how to tell you. I can hardly believe it. But it’s true. I heard it. You have to know. I can’t just sit back and let this happen. I can’t!’

‘What, Escher?’

‘Your family and Kuller are going to trade you for rain.’

For a moment, Ros was certain he had misheard. ‘What?’

‘You saw Kuller bleed himself. That’s well and good for little charms, but a big effort requires blood in quantity — and he’ll need to spill a lot to break the drought. Think about it, Ros. The blood can be his or someone else’s. Whose do you think he’d rather spill?’

Ros shook his head in denial but Escher kept going.

‘Rain, Ros. That’s why he’s here. The farm will die without it. Your parents are desperate. They’ll get him the blood he needs, one way or another. It can’t be an animal’s; it has to be human. So what choice do they have? Who else can they spare? They’re going to sacrifice you in order to keep the farm going another year.’

Ros still didn’t believe it. ‘You’re lying. You’re making it up!’

‘Why would I do that? I’m your friend. I want to help you, not harm you.’

The air moved against him. Ros kicked and flailed at it, but the voice didn’t stop.

‘Your father thinks you’re useless, Ros. He blames the breakdown of the old tractor on your clumsiness and calls you ham-fingered behind your back. And your mother? She’s never wanted you; she only ever wanted a daughter. She has much more important things to worry about now.’

‘I know.’ The guttering flame in Ros’s hand went out. Everything Escher said was true; he knew it in his heart. ‘But they wouldn’t kill me. They wouldn’t! You’re lying!’

Something thudded heavily on the door. ‘What’s going on in there?’ boomed his father’s voice.

Ros yelled with fright. Supposing Escher was right and they were coming for him now? Was Kuller sharpening his curved knife to spill his blood and make the land fertile again? Would his parents hold him down while the wicked deed was done?

He wanted his father to save him. But what if it was his father he needed saving from?

The door opened and his father loomed above him. He scowled at the tears running freely down Ros’s face and the whimpering noise coming from his throat.

‘I don’t know what’s got into you, boy,’ he roared, ‘but I’m going to thrash it out of you right here and now!’

Ros made his body as stiff as a board. His father dragged him out into the light by one rigid arm, took off his belt and looped the buckle end around his meaty hand. Ros didn’t cry out. The pain of the leather snapping on his skin barely registered against the pain of betrayal.

The keen eyes of Kuller watched from the kitchen. The weather-worker didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. He was going to get what he wanted in the end, because there was nothing Ros could do about it.