Changelings (6 page)

Are you sure?
Murel asked, joking.
We know you now, but are your relatives maybe those seal-eating otters?

Of course not. Come on! It’ll be fun! We can play over the waterfall!

Sounds kinda dangerous.

Not now. It’s a seasonal game.

It took Murel and Ronan a long time to find their way back out of the maze of otter tunnels to the hole under the ice.

Then they had to swim back upstream to where the ice was thinner and open another hole so they could surface again without tearing up the otter’s home.

They popped their heads out of the water. As long as the rest of their bodies stayed submerged and their heads were wet, they could stay seals.

If we get out now to go play with the otters, we won’t be seals anymore,
Ronan said.

Oh, bother. Then he’ll think we’re otter-eating people and we’ll have to go all through it again or else those hundred relatives he’s trying to scare us with will sink their big sharp teeth into us.

Yeah. As if. But I really want to play with them and I don’t want to scare them.

I think we ought to go home now anyway. Let’s just send a good-bye to our little buddy and say we were called away by our own family.

Yeah, but, Murel, we needed a swimming buddy and he could be it. If he went swimming with us, we could go all the time maybe.

True. I guess if he agreed to do that he’d find out about us being people part of the time anyway. Let’s see what he says. Oh, Otter!

Come, Murel! Come slide with us. You can slide waaaaay down! It’s long and steep but when you get to the bottom you just keep going and going until you slide halfway out to the coast where my cousins live.

We want to come and play, Otter, but we need to talk to you by yourself first. Please. It’s a secret.

CHAPTER 6

A
SECRET?
O
TTERS
LOVE
secrets! Hey, everybody, I’ll be right back. My new friends the seals I was telling you about want to tell me a secret! Maybe they know a secret place where the fish are especially nice.

They had to wait a long time because he had already taken his first slide and had to climb back up the hill again. When he finally reached them, he dove into the hole they had made.

What is it? What’s the secret?

First we want to tell you why you should know about this,
Murel said.

Our parents want us to have a friend to swim with,
Ronan continued.
Someone who knows the waters and won’t get lost and could go for help if something went wrong.

I can do that. Nobody knows the water like an otter. Your parents don’t eat otters either, do they?

No. In fact, our mother isn’t like us at all. Our father is like us, but you’d only know it if you saw him in the water. See, Otter, it’s kind of hard to explain but our mother is human and our father is, like us, a seal only when he’s in the water. On the land he’s a human and, uh, so are we.

“Hah!” the otter said.
That’s interesting. Show me.

You won’t be scared?
Murel asked.
We don’t want to scare you. We really want to be your friends.

Otters don’t scare that easy,
he said, chittering a bit nervously.
Some of my coastal cousins can turn into people too if they want to. They can even get human beings who aren’t like them to turn into otters if they want. Oh, I shouldn’t have told you about that. It’s a secret too. No, not a secret. It was a lie. I was lying so you wouldn’t think otters don’t know about turning into humans and—

It’s okay,
Murel said.
Just so you’re not scared. Come on, Ronan.

They both jumped out of the water, slid to the bank, and shook themselves off.

“Hah!” the otter said and “Hah!” again. He pushed himself out of the water and slid over to inspect them and said “Hah!” several more times as he circled their legs, which were getting goose bumps.
I don’t know why you want to be human. You are all pale and too thin to be warm. You should jump back in and be seals again before you freeze. Being seals isn’t as good as being otters, but it’s much more practical on the river than being human.

Good idea,
Ronan said, running for the water hole.

Murel turned to show the otter the pack with her shiny suit in it.
If we were going to stay human, we’d put on these suits that are stored on our backs but we—

“Hah! Hah!” other otters called loudly from down toward the waterfall slide.

“Hah!” their new friend answered.
Wolves!
he told the children.
Wolves have come. Otter-eating wolves. And our den is up here, uphill from where my family is.

But your family has their big sharp teeth, right?
Ronan asked.

Not as big and sharp as wolves’,
he said, chittering, chirping, and growling aloud in answer to the distress calls from below.
The wolves will eat them all!

Is there a hole in the ice near the falls?
Ronan asked as he teetered on the edge of the ice hole.

Yes, near our slide.

Let’s go then!
he said, diving in. Murel followed him, and the otter right after her.

Wolves probably eat seals too.

Yes, but we can scare them away when we turn into people,
Murel said. But she didn’t think that through. She just knew that wolves never bothered her father or her aunt Sinead while they were in the woods. Most sled dogs were part wolf anyway, and she wasn’t afraid of them.

It didn’t occur to her that nothing had threatened Ronan and her because since they were babies they had been escorted everywhere by a snow leopard and a very large track cat.

A long long dive into the ice cave running beneath the otter tunnels and then, at last, open water. First Ronan surfaced, then the otter, then Murel.

There. There’s the slide. Right there. Slide down. Be quick.

Below, the wolves were howling while the otters chittered, chirruped, and hahed as they tried to scramble away. Then one screamed.

Without shaking himself dry, Ronan slid down the long frozen cataract in seal form, Murel and the otter close behind him.

At the bottom he saw a wolf with an otter in its mouth. The little beast was still alive and snapping its teeth for all it was worth.

The wolves lined the riverbank and blocked the ice downstream. The cataract prevented the otters from climbing back up.

Before she shook herself off, Murel dug a hole in the ice with her claws and told the otter,
Get the others into the water, quickly.

But that’s my mother!

We’ll try to save her.

Ronan shook himself dry and instantly was a naked boy. No time to put on the silver suit.
Get your teeth out of that otter right this minute,
he snapped at the wolf, trying to look as menacing as he could, which wasn’t very.

Mine,
the wolf snarled back.

Look at that, he’s already defurred!
another pack member, this one about a year-old pup, said.
Can I have him, sire? Can I?

I don’t know, son,
the alpha male growled uncertainly
. There’s something fishy about those two big ones. They were seals just a minute ago. Now they look like men. Men have firesticks, and besides, you never know what they’ve been into. They might be bad for you.

Just let the otter go and be on your way and nobody gets hurt,
Ronan told the wolves.
Besides, wolves don’t normally eat otters. And we have it on good authority that these ones are poisonous.

She doesn’t
smell
poisonous,
the wolf holding the otter argued, slitting her eyes suspiciously.

Neither does he,
the young wolf said, slinking closer to Ronan with hindquarters tensed to spring.
He smells delicious.

By then the last of the otters had popped into Murel’s hole and she had changed. While the wolves circled, she put on her silver suit and looked around for a weapon. Ronan’s skin was covered with goose bumps. With her entire body protected by the suit, she was better able to defend herself than he.

The female wolf shook the furious snapping otter mother trying to break her neck. Without thinking, Murel took a long slide forward, bowling into the wolf, and smacked her hard on the muzzle with the side of her mitten, making her drop the otter.

Run!
she told the smaller creature, but there was no need. The otter hit the water before Murel had formed the thought.

Now there was a new problem. A circle of hungry wolves tightened around Murel and Ronan, so close the twins could smell their breath, which was doggy and rotten at the same time. The wolf who’d had the otter leapt to her feet and with both front feet stiff brought them down sharply in front of Murel, snarling,
Thief!

Ronan had used the distraction to seal himself into his own silver suit.

Now what is he, sire?
The yearling who’d asked permission to hunt Ronan sounded bewildered.
A fish? These creatures can’t make up their minds what they are. But they still smell like prey to me.

And so they are, son, and so they are. Those flimsy shiny hides won’t protect them if we all jump them at once. Ready . . .
The female wolf waggled her hindquarters, poised to spring. Murel lost her nerve and backed into her twin, who hugged her, and they clung together.

Set . . .
the wolf’s mate said.

Murel squeezed her eyes tight and hoped she wouldn’t be more than one bite to them so it wouldn’t hurt so much. There were no weapons. No fire.

Ronan buried his face in her shoulder, and she did likewise with her twin.

Attack!
This order was followed by yipping, snarling, snapping, and growling, but no biting.

The twins were braced, ready to be knocked down by the wolves, but nothing touched them. Instead, they heard familiar voices using feline profanity never before uttered in their presence.

Murel opened one eye in time to see Coaxtl pounce on yet another wolf and ride it like a horse while Nanook sat on her hindquarters, swatting wolf bodies right and left.

The wolves were already on the run when the first shot rang out.

“Go on, you mangy critters, get outta here! Those kids are too fraggin’ spoiled rotten for you to eat anyway.” Their aunt Sinead’s voice sounded so good to them, she might have been promising presents instead of punishment by the time she braked her sled and ran past her spitting track cats to scoop up the children.

She bundled them into the sled and told them, as if talking to one of her team, “Stay.”

They tried to tell her about the otters, but she didn’t pay any attention to them. Her mouth was compressed in a thin line. The only sounds for several hours were the shushing of the runners and the patter of paws against the snow, the occasional dog stopping to relieve itself, and Aunt Sinead’s barked commands. Not even Nanook or Coaxtl spoke. Ronan and Murel were too miserable to communicate with each other. After what seemed like a week but must have been sometime during the night, though it was hard to tell in the winter, the lead dog stopped in front of their house. Sinead stamped on the brake to set it, and ripped off her mittens to release the bindings holding the twins on the sled and under the furs. Her hands were shaking, which was funny since next to their mother, Aunt Sinead was the bravest lady they knew. Silently, she pointed to the door.

When they left the sled, Coaxtl and Nanook stalked them all the way there.

CHAPTER 7

O
NLY
M
UM WAS
there, and to the twins’ relief, she did not seem upset.

“Where’s Da?” Ronan asked innocently.

“Still out hunting for you. I imagine he’s on his way home now, though.” Mum’s voice was smooth and calm, conversational, her face unreadable. But then, her thoughts had never been easily readable to the twins. “Suppose before he gets here you explain to me without benefit of telepathy where you’ve been and what you were doing that required you to do it so far from home for so long and without the company of Coaxtl and Nanook.”

“Well . . . we—There were these otters, weren’t there?” Ronan began.

“No, first off, Johnny brought us these suits from Marmie, for our birthday, see—”

“Your birthdays are not until tomorrow,” Mum said, lifting one of her raven wing eyebrows. “I should remember. I was definitely there.”

“Yeah, well, but we figured it was close enough and we’d be busy on the day and we wanted to try the suits out, that was all,” Murel said, feeling it was best to start at the beginning. “Co’ and ’Nook weren’t around, but we just got excited and wanted to see what the suits were like so we decided to swim for a ways and put them on. They’re brilliant, Mum. They kept us as warm and dry as a parka, snow pants, boots, mittens, and a hood with a good ruff, and they’re no heavier than long johns.”

Their mother sat with her arms crossed under her breasts, and gave a slight nod that they should continue.

“Well, we were just getting ready to come home when we heard this poor little otter crying for help from inside the river. Of course we had to help him. Petaybee would want us to, right?”

Their mother’s expression did not change.

“He had his head caught so we got him loose,” Ronan said. “Then he wanted to play. Well, you know, we were thinking, here’s the new swimming buddy we could have to show us around, like you said we could. So we thought we should get to know him better, didn’t we? So we thought just a little longer would be okay. Only the hide-and-seek took a long time in all those tunnels the otters dug, and then he wanted us to slide down the waterfall with his family.”

“But before we started down, the wolves came and grabbed his mummy. The otter’s, I mean. It was terrible, Mum, the poor little thing chittering and hahing—both our otter friend and his mummy, I mean. We slid down there and there was this big circle of wolves all around them. Ronan was ever so brave.”

“I was, rather. I stood there and tried to reason with the wolves while sis dug the otters a bolt hole with her flippers and put on her suit. Then she attacked the wolf with the otter in her mouth while I got on my suit.”

“And that held them off until Co’ and ’Nook could wade in and scare off the rest of them,” Murel concluded. “Auntie Sinead fired a shot over their heads too, and that convinced them to look elsewhere for prey.” Mum still wasn’t saying anything, just looking at them. Murel decided to press her luck a little. “So you see, Mum, we were doing a good thing.”

“You visited otters and then reasoned with wolves before you attacked them, is that about right?” Mum asked again in that calm voice that wasn’t just cool—it was downright cold. This must have been how she sounded when she was an officer for the Company Corps.

They looked at each other, trying to think if they’d left anything out, decided they hadn’t, shrugged and faced her again. “Well, yeah.”

Ronan added, “It will make a brilliant latchkay song, Mum. We could do harmony.”

“Oh yes, I can see that,” their mother nodded reasonably. “All about how you almost got eaten one day short of your eighth birthday. Perhaps we could have some wolves howling to accompany the drums? You’d best be quick about writing it, then. Your father and I have discussed this with Clodagh and the village elders and there will be a special secret latchkay held tomorrow in the Night Chant grotto. You are the guests of honor.” Her voice was grim now, and tight, as if there were much more she wished to say but would not or could not.

Murel put out a hand, tentatively touching her mother’s. “Mum, it’s fine. We’re fine. We’re very sorry we worried you and Da and Auntie and the cats, but we waited and waited and Da never had the time, and really, the suits are all we need to be off by ourselves—”

“Unless there are wolves,” her mother said, grasping her hand and squeezing her fingers so tightly it hurt. “Or bears, or even people who don’t know we never hunt seals here. I told you already, you are too young to even imagine the dangers in which your actions placed yourselves, us, the village, and even Petaybee. I love you. Your father loves you. Everybody who knows you loves you, and if they don’t know you very well, they love you even better. But, my little ones, despite your lineage from your father, despite your shape-shifting and your ability to talk with all of Petaybee’s creatures, you are my children, not wild animals. And you must learn that side of your nature too. I want you to think about that and know that whatever happens, happens for your good. Now off to bed with you. Your father will look in on you when he comes in.”

Murel thought that in her sleep she felt her father’s kiss on her forehead and a sudden drop of water, warm as it fell into her hair.

Ronan dreamed of wolves and did not realize that the touch brushing his face as lightly as a warm breeze was his father’s kiss until it was gone. Then, half awake, he became aware of a strange sound from the other room. It was his mother, so stony-faced earlier in the night, sobbing as if her heart were broken.

M
OST OF THE
day was suspiciously normal—even better than normal. Father made them a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes made with berries stored from the previous summer, caribou sausage, and rose hip tea. Mother was not much of a cook, but after they cleaned up the dishes, she gave them identical presents.

Murel examined the outside of the little hard-bound journal when her mother handed it to her. A diary? It was not very special-looking. But when she opened it, she saw that it was already filled with her mother’s writing, including some odd charts and symbols.

“What’s this, Mum?” Ronan asked.

“I thought you were old enough for it now. It’s everything I know about my side of the family, including the stories about the origin of your middle names and what they were called in my mother’s language.” She turned to one of the charts. “This is a family tree—two branches, my mother’s and my father’s. My mother’s people consider all of the children and all of the houses and land to belong to the women. Also, everybody belonged to one clan or the other. In the old days, people didn’t like to give their proper names because your own personal name is like your arm or your hair or anything else of your person that an enemy could grab onto and hold you with. So they introduced themselves to each other by giving their lineage—who their mother’s clan was and who their father’s clan was. The way they put it, you were born ‘to’ your mother’s people, as you were most directly tied to your mother. You were born ‘for’ your father’s people because the mother brought her children into the world for the father. Since my father was of Irish descent, I don’t have a clan on his side—no ‘born for’ clan, only a ‘born to’ clan, that of my mother’s relations, the Far Walking Diné. So this is the same clan you have. If you ever meet someone else who is of my mother’s people and they know that your mother is half Diné—or Navajo, as our people were known to others—they may ask you about your clans and tell you theirs. What would you tell them?”

“That our mother was born to the Far Walking Diné and born for our Irish grandpa?” Murel answered.

“This is pretty cool!” Ronan said, thumbing through the book before laying it back on the table.

Murel was puzzled. “Why did you write this stuff all down, Mum? We can’t even read some of the words yet. I like it when you tell us stories about when you were a little girl and your family and everything. If we meet someone from your mother’s people, we would just bring them home to meet you.”

Mother’s smile faded, and Murel said, “But it’s a really great gift. I didn’t mean that. It was really nice of you to do this. I just don’t understand why is all.”

Mother nodded once. “Surely you remember what day it is, pet? It’s your birthday, yours and Ronan’s. Today you are eight years old. Eight is two times four, which is the number of the four directions, the four elements, and a very special number to my mother’s people. It is time for you to know these things.”

Their journals lay forgotten at home, however, when Da proposed the most wonderful part of the day. He wanted to go swim with them and have them show him where they’d met the otters and seen the wolves.

Wow, we picked a good time to get born,
Ronan told his sister.
I thought they’d punish us for going too far yesterday, and instead, I guess they have decided we’re old enough to do what we want to because all of a sudden we’re getting everything we’ve been wanting.

Yeah, funny, isn’t it? And a special latchkay tonight too. Even on our birthday, you’d think they’d make us take naps instead of Da going swimming with us.

The trip downriver to the otter den was much faster now. Not only did they know where they were going, they could predict, more or less, where the ice widened and narrowed, and that helped. Also, during the wide-open stretches, Da raced with them or used the straps holding their suits on their backs to tow them, while his sleek and powerful body carried them so fast, the water streamed through their teeth and left a bubbly wake behind them.

They showed their father the maze of tunnels the otter had led them through the day before, but it was all messed up. The ceiling was caved in the length of the central tunnel and the whole area smelled funny. Not like otters.

Ronan sent out a mental call anyway.
Hey, Otter. It’s us, the seals who save otters from otter-eating wolves. We brought our father to meet you. He doesn’t eat otters either.

But there was no answer. Da swam around back and forth, sliding up onto the ice where he could and looking at the entire complex. He sniffed and turned his head to scan the trees on the horizon. But he was also looking at the snow, which was trampled with what looked like human footprints.

Da slid out of the maze back into the water.

Murel ventured a guess. She was pretty sure she was wrong, but maybe it would get Da to tell them what he thought.
The wolves know where they were living,
she said.
So I think they moved.

These wolves each had two legs and wore military-issue snow boots,
Da said.
See there?
He turned his head toward a glint in the trees.

What’s that?
she asked.

Surveillance equipment of some kind. Did you kids change on the way here at all?

Yes, but only a couple of times, and not for very long.

They know about you,
Da said seriously.
Someone told them the circumstances of your birth, and they’ve been watching ever since, off and on. That’s why we’ve always had the cats go with you. Come on, let’s get out of here.

What did they do to the otters?
Ronan asked.

I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe they just scared them off when they came tramping around looking for you two. But we need to go now. If they’re still watching this spot, they’ll be here with dope darts in a moment. Dive below the ice and swim as long as you can. We’ll make new breathing holes on the way upriver too. Don’t want them tracking us with the old ones.

But before they made their first breathing hole, they heard a familiar mind-voice.

Hah! Ronan, Murel! Hah! It’s me, the otter who is friend to brave wolf-scaring river seals who are sometimes human. Wait! Wait! I have a thing to tell you. Hah!

Murel somersaulted in the water and swam back to meet the otter.

We brought our da to meet you, Otter, but your lovely tunnels are all messed up. What happened to them? Where are the hundred otters with the big sharp teeth?

Gone, all gone, Murel who attacks wolves. When the sled woman took you away, we hurried to our dens in case the wolves decided to return. But then came men with big feet and big nets and guns that shot sharp things bringing sleep. Hah! I cried out to warn the others and dove deep but other otters did not. My mother was taken and my siblings and cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides of the family. At first they bit and scratched, but the men shot them with sharp things and they no longer moved. The men took them, all of my family. Ruined our house and took my family.

All one hundred otters?
Murel asked.

All the otters except me. Otters need families, and mine is all gone now. I tried to follow, but the men had those noise-sleds that are fast as an avalanche. Otters are very fast, but I could not catch them.

Da?
Ronan turned to his father.
You and Mum are the governors. Make those men bring the otters back, huh?

I can try, son, but not while you two are with me. Who do you think they really wanted to catch anyway? Probably as soon as they find out that the otters remain otters all the time, they’ll let them go. They do, don’t they?

What?

Remain otters all the time?

Otter said,
“Oh yes, Father River Seal, my family remain otters at all times. They are always otters. There have been stories about my cousins on the coast, but river otters are different. We are always otters.

I’ll do what I can, Otter. But those men are not acting under my authority. They had no legal right to take your family. I will have to come back later with more men and if possible make them let your family go.

I will go with you then and come back to show you where the men went,
Otter told them.

There’s no need,
Da said.
We’ll find you again tomorrow.

Maybe you will and maybe not,
Otter said.
But meanwhile I am alone and have no one to play with. Otters are not supposed to be alone. Otters need to be with others, even if the others are river seals.