The Last Changeling by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-10-27T22:00:00+00:00

SNAIL TALKS TOUGH

Maggie Light found Snail a while later. She was sitting curled up on Maggie’s big bed, her head in her hands.

“Do you wish to speak with me?” Maggie Light asked.

Snail was silent.

“Or will you hear what I have to say?”

If anything, Snail was even more silent. No permission given for or against.

I’m no longer here, Snail told herself. I’ve already left. Or at least I will leave once it’s light. She knew that courage was one thing, stupidity another. And the definition of stupidity would be wandering around in a forest at night all by herself with two armies, Border Lords, and a hungry troll close by.

“Though you may not think it now,” Maggie Light continued as if permission had been given, “the professor is a great man, greater than you can ever know.”

Snail houghed through her nose, sounding, she knew, like one of the unicorns.

“He is willing to make the hard but necessary decisions,” Maggie Light said.

“Like telling you to sing the cloaked man to his death?” Snail bit her lip and thought, I didn’t mean to talk to her, or to anyone. Just get up at first light and leave.

“And to let the troll eat the spy as well,” Maggie Light added.

Snail sat up. “He didn’t!” Her voice was sharp, even shrill. “She didn’t!”

“The professor did. The troll did.” Maggie’s face looked neither happy nor sad at what she was saying. She only looked . . . beautiful.

“That’s . . . that’s. . . !” Snail couldn’t think of what to call it. But began to shake with anger.

“That is the only logical decision that could have been made. Think about it, girl: We have a dead body, a prince who cannot hunt for us in the enchanted forest because he has been wounded, and not enough stores to get us to where we are going without a hungry new mother troll devouring us one at a time because she, regrettably, is hungry and has no husband or anyone else who can feed her.” She stopped, and drew a breath, though not one Snail could hear. “It is not the troll’s fault or our fault or . . .”

“It’s just wrong!” Snail said. Her indignation turning to anger, she glared at the singer.

“It just is,” Maggie Light told her. “And only one person could make that decision quickly, decisively. The spy’s death will mean another day or two of life for Huldra and Og.”

“And then?”

“And then we will be at the fairgrounds and will perform and—hopefully—with a good crowd, we will make enough coins to restock from the fair merchants for the rest of our trip.”

“But Huldra will still be with us.” She thought, I don’t really mean us, because we aren’t us anymore. The closer we get to daylight . . . “And she will still be hungry.”

“Yes. But by then she may be able to go back to the Shifting Lands, where she lived before. Since they are not under the Seelie king’s magic, she can possibly hunt for herself and her child.

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