Changeling

When she came to Lexi was sitting in a seat in one of the theaters watching three men in front of her squabble over what was going to happen next.

“We have to tell her now.” That was Dillon talking to the man in the middle, who Lexi assumed that it was Roger in the dark with his arms crossed over his chest. “She has to know something’s up.”

“You two should have kept shut your mouths.” Sven looked about as angry as Roger’s form, but his hands were on his hips. “You knew we were still in the building and you two were being so loud. I can’t believe for two people from your family you were as irresponsible as to mmff—“ His mouth clapped shut suddenly and Sven glared at the larger man next to him.

Roger took in a deep breath before speaking. “I understand our mistake perfectly well. But now we have to figure out what to do from here. What to tell her.”

“Everything.” Dillon said firmly.

Sven shook his head and muffled out an answer until his mouth could move again. “Nein. Little as possible.”

Roger sighed again, a long deep aged sigh. “I agree with Sven, but it won’t be enough. So we’ll have to tell her as much as she wants to know.”

Lexi found her mouth capable of moving slowly, it was as if she’d been asleep for weeks. “What did you do to me?”

Dillon walked over and leaned on the guard rail in front of her. “We subdued you for about twenty minutes so we could figure out what we were doing. Are you okay?”

She nodded slowly, brow furrowed and eyes closed, before looking up at him. “I want to know everything.”

She was met with a kind sad smile. Dillon fixed her hair a bit as he spoke. “I know you do.” With that he turned to Roger. “I think we should start with us.”

Roger nodded and the short blonde next to him let out a huff and leaned against a row of seats. Roger waved Dillon on with a deep breath. “Go on then.”

Dillon sat on the bar in front of Lexi and calmly asked her, “What do you know about elves?”

She looked up at him with a confused expression. “Like Santa’s elves? Or like Legolas?”

Dillon chuckled softly. “Probably more like Legolas.”

“Not much.” She shook her head. “He can walk on snow and ride a shield like a skateboard.”

“Alright.” He thought about what he was going to say for a second before continuing. “I don’t know about riding a shield, but the snow thing isn’t true. Gravity doesn’t work that way.” He leaned down to look her in the eye. “Believe me. Roger and I are elves.”

Lexi just sat there looking at him, then at Roger. She blinked and looked at the two again before speaking. “That’s not funny. I know you think I’m stupid but—“

“I don’t think you’re stupid. If I thought you were stupid I’d tell you that we were just making stuff up and you’d believe me. But if I told you that after the conversation you heard earlier, would you believe me?”

Slowly, as the conversation played through her mind again, Lexi shook her head. “But…what about your ears?”

Dillon laughed and pulled his shaggy hair up and rubbed his hand along his ear. As he did it seemed as though it stretched under his hand. It was long, and pointed. “We hide it. Of course. Just a simple trick.”

“Trick.” She said, looking up at him, the confusion never playing off her face. “Like magic trick.”

“Yeah I guess. I’m not very good at magic though. I’m more a fighter than a mage. Roger’s good at magic.”

“Magic…” She looked up at him. “So when you.. ‘subdued’ me…”

“Roger knocked you up.” Sven spoke up from behind Dillon. She’d almost forgotten he was there.
“Out.” Roger corrected. “I knocked you out.”

Sven waved off the man’s correction. “Eh.”

“Are you an elf too?” Despite the question, the idea of “elves” still hadn’t sunk in. It was like asking if a kid is a superhero on the playground.

Sven made a face as if she’d disgusted him. “Don’t crop me in with those...” He stopped as he tried to think of the word before giving up. “Besserwessi.” (a/n he called them “better westerners.” It’s a way of calling them snobs) She could hear Roger’s huff of impatience behind him. “I’m a fairy.”

“Fairy. You’re a fairy...and they’re elves…”

Dillon nodded firmly. “Right.” He smiled satisfactorily.

“This is insane.” With that Lexi stood up and immediately fell back in her seat as a wave of fatigue fell over her.

Dillon caught her as she went down to soften the blow. “Hey hey are you alright? Look don’t jump up so fast, Roger’s magic isn’t completely gone yet.”

“This is insane. Completely insane. Am I being pranked right now? Am I still asleep?”

Dillon sighed. “As much as we’d love to tell you you’re still asleep, you’re not. Look, take a deep breath. We’ll answer any questions you have.”

“We will?” Sven grumbled.

“Yes.” Dillon looked at him and told him firmly. “We will.”

Lexi sat silent for a few minutes, catching her thoughts and breath at the same time. She let the events play through her head for a moment—the ears, the conversation before, the explanation. None of it really made any sense, but it was real. She looked up at Sven. “Do you have wings?”

Sven nodded. “Yes. But they aren’t light and pretty like you Americans imagine them to be.” He turned his back to her as vines grew out of his back, tangling in with one another to create shape. After a moment the vines had grown into dark green wings on his back.

She nodded again, trying her best to understand. “So Sven is a fairy. Dillon and Roger are elves. What am I?”

Dillon and Sven both went silent. Dillon hopped off the bar and backed up, letting Roger take the field for the question. The older elf looked down at her calmly and told her. “You are a changeling.”

Lexi blinked. "A what?"

"Changeling. A human who was taken by the fey to raise as their own."

"I wasn't taken by anyone. My parents died. I told you that. Warren isn't a fey or an elf or whatever." Lexi glared up at the older man, defending the one who had always been there for her.

"We aren't accusing him of kinder stealing." Sven sat next to her and patted her hand, his wings had disappeared again somewhere in the conversation. "But he has claimed you as his own. You are his changeling.”

Lexi took a deep breath. "Warren is a fairy. You've never met him, how would you know?"

"Because when I met you I knew you had been marked as a changeling. Changelings live with their guardians. They have to or they wouldn't keep the claim on them. When you mentioned he was French it simple to see. There are many of fey in that area like my family."

"So what does being a changeling mean? Do I have super human strength?"

Dillon shrugged. "That’s a case by case situation. If you were going to have super human strength I would imagine the attribute to have already appeared. As for most other super human features. You're basically a plain ordinary human with cool hair and an overprotective father figure."

"That’s pretty lame." Lexi shrugged and relaxed for the first time during the conversation. "So he claimed me so that he could protect me."

Roger nodded. "Most likely. It's a rather strong claim for an. adopted child though."

"Well what else could it be?"

"Plenty of things. Changelings aren't as common as they used to be but they still happen." Sven explained. "Some taken to be cared for by a fairy that couldn't have children or never found a lover to give them a child. Some taken to be used as slaves. Some taken to be sold. But you are too old to be sold. He would have sold you when you were un kleinkind.” (a/n “a baby”)

"But that’s another one that's unheard of nowadays, right?"

"Depends on the family. French still do."

Lexi thought about it for a moment. Marrying Warren seemed like a foreign thought to her. There was no way that could be the case. "But this case is just where he took me in for protection."

Dillon nodded. "That’s probably it."

"But it still seems like a pretty strong claim to be put on a surrogate child." Roger looked at her carefully. "I would rule out other possibilities just yet."

Lexi stood up, more strength in her than before, and headed out of the row of seats. "I'm sure it’s just a claim on me for protection. I mean he has been nothing but kind to me. There's no way it could be something else." As she stepped down from the aisle she looked back at the group. "But I have to get home. I have school tomorrow. And he’s probably worried about me."

"Let me give you a ride." Dillon offered. "We put quite a shock to your system I'm sure. And all the busses have probably stopped by now."

"Why? What time is it?" Lexi searched around and pulled out her phone. The screen read 1:47 am, nineteen missed calls and over twenty text messages. Cursing under her breath she shoved her phone into her pocket. “Hurry up. Let’s go.”

After a long car ride across town, they finally reached Lexi’s house. Not a word was exchanged between the two of them until then when Dillon parked across the street. “The lights are still on.”

“Of course the lights are still on.” She growled. “He’s probably up trying to find out where I am.”

“Are you okay going in alone?”

Lexi sighed. “I’ll be fine. But you going in with me will get me into a lot more trouble, believe me. I told you though, he’s never been anything but kind to me, I’m not too worried.”

Dillon looked unconvinced as she opened the car door. “Alright…”

She could still hear his engine idling behind her as she walked across the lawn into her house. With a glance back she noted that his lights were off, and soon after his car was turned off as well. She wanted to tell him that his precautions were unnecessary, but she didn’t. She just kept walking toward the door.

Lexi’s hand reached out for the knob just as the door was swung open in front of her, and a red faced Warren stood in front of her. “Where have you been?”

He wasn’t yelling. That should be a good sign. But the tone in his voice was unlike any Lexi had ever heard from him, and that made her more nervous than if he’d been screaming. “I got caught up at work.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a job yet.” He followed her as she walked in the door, shutting the door behind him.

“Oh yeah. I have a job. At the movie theater. I work concessions.” She tried to sound cheery, as if it would make the situation a bit lighter.

Suddenly she was on the couch, and her chest hurt where two hands had shoved her. “You didn’t tell me anything. You didn’t call. You didn’t answer your phone. You just disappeared. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

Lexi took a breath to replace the one knocked out of her as she fell. As she opened her mouth to speak—she didn’t know what she was going to say, an apology or an excuse—he interrupted her. “And who have you been with? Don’t tell me it was the girls because they both answered my text messages.”

She took mental note to tell her friends to lie better in the future, but looked up at him, carefully thinking on her words. “I was with my boss, my coworker, and that foreign exchange student I told you about. He works with me too.”

“Why are you hiding all this from me now Lexi? When did I give you reason to hide from me?”

“I wasn’t trying to hide from you! I just knew you wouldn’t like me working there. You didn’t like me talking about it and I wanted you to see how good I was at working before I told you. I was going to try to get you some free tickets for opening night so you could come see me.”

“Enough Lexi!” His voice resonated in her head and her chest. It shook up the fear in the pit of her stomach. She’d never seen Warren like this before. His normally brilliant green eyes, looked dark, almost black. His pale skin looked red with anger. This was a side she’d never wanted to experience. “Why have you been hiding from me?”

She didn’t know if it was fear, anger, or panic that drew the next statement from her mouth, but whatever it was, she wished instantly that it hadn’t. “Why have you been hiding from me?”

Warren stood straight, looking down at her with his arms crossed over his chest. “What are you talking about?”

She couldn’t think of what to say next. Either she could lie and make something up, or she could just flat out ask him. “I… I mean… you never tell me anything…” Lie it is.

“That’s not what you mean. What are you talking about, Alexis.”

He’d used her full name. There was no going back now. She had to ask, and she had to say it quick. Quick and painless. Like a bandaid right? “Why did you never tell me you were a fairy?”

Nope. Not painless at all. The hand across her face actually caused a great deal of pain as it whipped across. She could taste blood coming from her lip as she looked up at him in shock.

“Because that’s none of your business yet.” He didn’t seem shaken up in the least. There was no look of remorse. There was no warmth in his voice. “As a changeling, you are to do as you’re told. And now that you know what you are I expect you to act as what you are.”

“Warren…” She didn’t know what she wanted to say. Part of her wanted to cry, part of her wanted to scream, but the part that had taken over her body just sat there staring at him, unable to think of words.

“The elves told you everything I assume.”

She nodded slowly. “That you adopted me. As a fairy, right? You took me in as your daughter.”

He ran his hand over her injured cheek. “As my daughter. No you’re much more than that. You’re mine. In every sense. And I want you to remember that, alright? I’m all you have, Alexis. I’m all you need. All you’ll ever need, okay?”

Inside she was shaking, as if her body was filled with ice. “Okay.” Her voice sounded dead to her.

“You aren’t going to school tomorrow. You aren’t keeping that job. You’re staying home and we’re packing.”

Her head jerked up to look at him suddenly. “Packing? Why?”

“I think I’m tired of this place. And I don’t like the idea of you hanging around elves so much. They’re no good. “

“But I don’t want to move. I have friends here. I have Cece and Allie and Sven.” Her voice was shaking as much as her insides by this point.

He moved his hand as if a conductor silencing his orchestra and her mouth was snapped shut, just as Sven’s had done earlier that day. “Tomorrow you’ll wake up. You’ll eat. You’ll take your medicine. And you’ll pack. We’re leaving tomorrow night. I’ll give you a chance to have your friends over for a goodbye at dinnertime.”

Her tears made her cheek burn even more as they fell, but she nodded. She wasn’t sure who was controlling her anymore, but she stood up, turned away, and headed down the hall. “You don’t need them Lexi.” He called after her. “I’m all you need, right?”

Her voice was quiet and empty to her ears. “You’re all I need, Warren.” And her door clicked behind her.

She sat slowly on her bed, still unsure if she was moving her body or not. She turned slowly to look out her window and saw the outline of Dillon’s car across the street. She had forgotten her phone was in her hand, when she turned it over to see the screen she saw a message from him. Is everything alright?

Everything is fine. Thanks for waiting around. He was just really worried. She sent the message without looking, hoping he’d believe her. It seemed like hours passed before he responded.

Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, Lex. She gave him a single word response and closed the blinds. A few minutes later she listened as a car cranked across the street and drove away into silence.

Once she was finally left alone, without the lookout, or Warren, she slid into her bed wearing her jeans and tee-shirt. She wasn’t sure if she’d even remembered to take off her shoes. As soon as her swollen cheek hit the pillow, she let it be her excuse for every tear that fell.

She didn’t make a sound, never even moved to wipe her eyes. She only laid in the dark, letting her tears fall onto her pillow, her mind crying out like a 4 year old child. “Mommy…”