Sprite
Chapter 33

Roselle led the small group comprised of herself, Lou from 5, the mouthy one from 3, another of the Hanan group of factories, and the changeling they were going to save, who was also from 3. Lou had brought the other two back to the clearing at the appointed time, and was taken aback to see Roselle, and not Norah, waiting for them.

“I told you I’m Norah’s partner. Did you think she did it all? I know the sprite, too. Now, follow me to the river. Norah went ahead of us to tell the sprite where to meet. You’re to go into the river exactly where I say, and float on your back. The sprite will replace you there.”

Roselle hoped Norah had contacted the sprite. This was the part she was unsure of. Usually, Norah would lead the changelings to the river and then leave to replace the sprite while they were getting into the water. This time, the sprite should already be there, waiting for them. She peered out over the inky water but couldn’t see a thing. “Go on, get in.” She motioned for the changeling who was going to escape to get into the water. He was a stocky boy, not quite as tall as the mouthy boy who had brought him, presumably to witness his departure.

“Go on, John,” said the mouthy one, giving Roselle a dirty look. “Lou said this is the only way.”

Little Lou, broker to the changelings for all the size of her, nodded, although she, too, glanced at Roselle. “You have to get in the water.”

John gingerly removed his shoes, tying them by the laces around his waist. He’d purposely worn a light shirt and thin pants, so that the water wouldn’t drag him down. Lou had given them explicit instructions. In his pockets, safely wrapped in layers, were pieces of fruit and vegetables that wouldn’t get sodden in the water, and would tide him over until he could fend for himself in the forest. He didn’t think it would come to that, but Lou had insisted. He waded into the water.

“On your back!” Roselle whispered as loud as she dared, and John dutifully lay on his back, a few feet from shore, wondering what was supposed to happen next. Roselle wondered the same thing. She didn’t see any sign of Norah or the sprite.

Suddenly the water churned. Webbed hands came up from beneath John and clasped him tightly around the chest. He cried out inarticulately. “Silence!” a deep voice hissed. Almost immediately, John started moving through the water, too fast to be natural. Soon, he was lost to sight, and even though Roselle strained her eyes, she could see no movement, not even a ripple on the water to show that he had ever been there.

“Well, that’s that!” she said, brushing imaginary dirt from her hands. “Lou, you had better take Mister Doubtful there back before he’s missed.” She grinned, showing her dimples. “That was fun!”

The tall changeling growled at her, “It wasn’t fun—it’s life or death for us, Miss. Not a game.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that it was,” Roselle said, subdued. She and Lou exchanged a long look before the younger girl took hold of the tall mutant’s arm and led him from the clearing.

Roselle sighed and headed back to her room. After all the build-up, the actual ‘rescue’ had been anti-climactic. Norah had said not to wait up for her as she might be a while. It wasn’t fair that Norah got to do all the exciting parts, like deal with the sprite.

Instead of going to her room, Roselle walked along the banks of the river in the direction the sprite had swum. She almost missed the spot where Norah’s clothes lay, neatly folded, near a large rock. If the moon hadn’t chosen that exact moment to shine on the rock, and if Roselle hadn’t actively been looking for some sign of Norah or the sprite, she would have missed it. Where was Norah, though? She had told Roselle she needed to contact the sprite to give him instructions, but the sprite was long gone and Norah was nowhere to be found.

Roselle crouched down and fingered Norah’s clothes thoughtfully. Norah was keeping something from her. She searched around the rock, and even went down to the river itself, but the bank dropped off sharply here and she didn’t want to chance slipping in. She went back up to the rock and pressed her back against it. Eventually Norah would have to come back for her clothes.

She jolted awake, disoriented for a moment before she remembered she wasn’t in her own warm bed. Cautiously, she peered around the big rock, trying to see what had awakened her. There was movement on the riverbank, a shadow black against the moon-silvered water. Roselle crept closer, and the shadow resolved itself into Norah. What was she doing down there so close to the water? Roselle glanced back at the rock. Norah’s clothes were still there, untouched.

Roselle stifled a gasp. Norah was busy sawing away at the flesh between her fingers, picking and then discarding the wispy pieces in the nearby river. She hadn’t gotten to the ones on her neck yet, and they glistened with moisture, fanning out around Norah’s ears like little wings.

Roselle sat back with a soft thud and closed her eyes. So this was what all the secrecy was about. There was no sprite, or there was, but it was Norah herself! Norah hadn’t seen her yet. Roselle quietly made her way back to the rock where Norah’s clothes lay, and gathered them up. She knew she should be shocked, or outraged, but right now all she felt was betrayed—again! First Will, and now Norah! No wonder they had been such close friends!

“Looking for these?” Roselle stepped forward just as Norah bent down to feel around on the ground near the big rock. She held out Norah’s clothes.

“Roselle! I told you not to wait for me. How did you replace me?” Norah glanced guiltily back at the river. She was dry now, her hair neatly braided and covering the spots on her neck where moments before elegant wing-like fins had sprouted.

“I’m not stupid,” Roselle muttered, thrusting the bundle of clothes out to her friend. She felt stupid, stupid and foolish. “Why didn’t you tell me, Norah?”

“Tell you what?” Norah slowly pulled on her clothes over her bathing suit, avoiding Roselle’s gaze. “I told you I had to take care of some things with the sprite. You didn’t need to wait.”

“I saw you.” Roselle shuddered and wrapped her arms around her midsection. “You’re Datro’s Sprite, aren’t you?”

“Me?” Norah attempted to laugh, but stopped when she saw Roselle’s face.

“I SAW you!” Roselle screamed. “I saw you cut yourself! Why did you lie to me, Norah? I trusted you!”

Norah looked around anxiously. “Shh!” she said, coming up to put her arms around Roselle’s shoulders, half-expecting the other girl to pull away. When Roselle didn’t, she pulled her into a hug, feeling her tremble in fear or shock. “I’m still me. Let’s go back to our room and we’ll talk.”

“Oh, you bet we’ll talk,” Roselle said acidly. Norah wondered if she could have been wrong about why Roselle had been trembling.

It was late, almost dawn, but neither girl felt tired. They sat opposite each other on their beds. “I wanted to tell you,” Norah began. “But I couldn’t. No one knows about me. I have to be very careful, or I’ll replace myself working alongside Lou and the others in my grandfather’s factory.”

“It’s your factory,” Roselle pointed out. “Could they really just take it away from you because you are---you know.”

Norah smiled wearily. “Of course they could. I’m a mutant, Roselle. I’m defective. Not even my grandfather would want me in control of normal people if he knew. That’s why—I think that’s why I feel so strongly about the changelings in the factories. It could so easily have been me.”

“So you and Will cooked up this plan to rescue the changelings who were in danger of being,” Roselle hesitated, searching for the right word, “punished? I understand why you didn’t tell me at first—but surely, after Will told me his secret, you could have trusted me then? I never said a word about Will!”

“Will doesn’t know.”

“What?” Roselle leaned forward.

“Will thinks I’m just like you—normal. He never knew my secret. Except for my parents, and now you, no one knows.”

Roselle frowned. “But then why—?”

“Why what? Why did the sprite start helping changelings? Will did have a lot to do with it, although he never knew it. I was so scared for him, that he would be killed trying to leave Datro. Bad things happen to changelings all the time when they try to get away, and worse things happen if they stay. Do you know that most of the changelings never make it much past the age of eighteen? If they don’t try to run, then some sort of ‘accident’ happens, and they either die or are sent away. What do you think happens to them then? Will told me about the hunters who track such changelings for sport. I wanted to help in some small way. Swimming is all I know. I thought if I could get the changelings far enough away from Datro, they might have a chance of making it.”

“It’s because you don’t know for sure if Will made it or not, isn’t it?” Roselle asked. “I think about him every day, and I worry about the same thing. You didn’t have to do this alone, you know. You should have asked me to help.”

“Even though I’m a mutant?”

Roselle laughed softly. “You’re Norah. And Will is Will. Even if I wanted to go back to how I used to be, I don’t think I could, now that I know you. And Louise. I suspect that the more changelings I get to know, the more I’ll stop thinking of them as mutants, too.”

Norah grinned. “It’s a relief, not having to keep secrets. I’m glad you’re my friend, Roselle.” She stretched out on her bed and yawned. “Class tomorrow morning, then work after that. We’d better get some sleep.”

“Not so fast,” Roselle replied. “I want to see. Show me your mutation. I want to see what Datro’s Sprite looks like.”

Norah turned and propped herself up on one elbow. “It’s not that easy—I have to get wet, completely wet, before the webbing comes out. And then I have to cut it all off again to look normal. It stings.”

“We have time,” Roselle said adamantly. “I’ll fill up the bathtub.”

“Don’t you care that I have to cut my skin to get it off?”

“No, you do it all the time, don’t you? What’s one more time?”

Roselle would not be swayed, so Norah closed her eyes while Roselle went down the hallway to fill the bucket. They had a small tub in the little bath they shared, but the water had to be drawn from the tap in the main bath, which they did quite often, although not quite this early in the day. It answered a lot of questions for Roselle, such as why Norah was such a prude when it came to washing. Well, that was about to come to an end.

Norah sat in the tub and let Roselle pour cold water over her head until the little tub was half filled. The familiar tingling began, and Norah’s webbing appeared between her fingers and toes, and the fins appeared behind her ears. “Are you satisfied now?” she asked self-consciously. She usually washed perfunctorily to avoid just such manifestations, and saved her immersions for when she was able to swim in the river. Rescuing the changelings had a selfish component to it as well, for it allowed Norah to swim as nature intended her to do.

“You’re beautiful!” Roselle breathed. She stared, rapt, as Norah’s mutations appeared. Her roommate’s slender limbs became perfect with the addition of the faintly greenish, nearly transparent webbing. Small fins sprouted at her ankles as well as behind her ears, also faintly green. Norah’s eyes were luminous in the dim light, and her red hair, already escaping from its severe braids in the dampness, framed her face like a halo.

Norah blushed, and reached for a towel. “You wanted to see it all,” she said. “This is what I have to do every time I get out of the water, so nobody will see my mutation.” She went to her dresser and opened the small jewelry box where she kept her razors. With Roselle watching, she sliced away the webbing and the fins, wincing occasionally. There was no blood; there never was. “Will told me once that the reason he only has fur on his torso is because his mother shaved it off his face and hands, anywhere people might see it. After a while it stopped growing back.” She glanced up at Roselle. “That’s my greatest fear, that someday my webbing might not grow back. I know, I suppose I should wish that would happen; then I could be normal for real. But I don’t want to lose my mutation. I feel more me when I’m in the water. I wish I could be in the water all the time.”

“Why don’t you? Why pretend, and work in that stinky factory for your grandfather?”

“And what would I do? Where would I go?” Norah had thought about it more than once. It just didn’t seem practical. She could do more good in Datro, as Datro’s Sprite, than if she just ran away. At least that’s what she told herself to make her situation bearable.

“You could go to the forest, to Will.” Roselle said quietly.

Norah shook her head. She put her razor carefully away and re-braided her hair. “Are we going to class or are we skipping again?” she asked. Will was Roselle’s.

“Skipping,” Roselle answered firmly.

They woke up in time for their afternoon jobs. Roselle rode as far as Factory 5 with Norah, before turning off to go into Datro proper for her afternoon at the dress shop. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight,” she promised, as she signaled the driver to proceed. The horses clopped off at a slow but steady pace.

5 was in an uproar. Alan Avery had returned to Datro, and had visited factories 1 through 4 that morning. He was waiting for Norah in her office. “We have a problem,” he told her. Behind him stood Jonas and two of the other supervisors, all with grim expressions on their faces. “Last night, two mutants were caught trying to escape. One was from Factory 5.”

Two mutants? Norah had just known about the one, and he was from 3. Who had tried escaping on their own from 5? Everybody here knew enough to ask for Lou, who would arrange it with Datro’s Sprite. “Who is it?” she asked.

For answer, her grandfather signaled, and Jonas opened the office door and beckoned. Lou and another mutant, the angry one from the other night, Norah realized, were ushered in. The tall mutant glared at Norah. Lou just averted her eyes.

“We caught them a little after midnight sneaking around your school,” Grandfather said. “The boy said they were looking for you.” He pinned Norah with a challenging stare. “Is that true?”

“It’s her!” The boy pointed at Norah. “She was the one who said she could contact Datro’s Sprite. But when we got to the place she told us to wait, only her friend was there. She tricked us!”

Lou grimaced.

“Is it true?” her grandfather demanded. “Did you tell these mutants that you could contact Datro’s Sprite for them? Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

“Her and her friend,” reminded the mutant boy. “A blonde girl. She was in on it, too.”

Norah noticed that he did not mention the mutant who had been taken away by Datro’s Sprite. Was he trying to throw the authorities off the track? “Grandfather, I—“ she began.

“I knew it was too soon to put you in charge. You’re too soft-hearted. The men here told me you talk to the mutants sometimes. That has got to stop. See where it has gotten you? Did you think you could be their friend? Mutants will turn on you as soon as look at you.”

“Grandfather, stop! I did try to help them! It’s my fault, I’m sorry.” Norah looked at the boy who had told on her, and at Lou, who still refused to meet her gaze. “I’m so sorry.”

Lou, her small arms held firmly by two normal men, as if she might bolt otherwise, said softly, “Norah didn’t promise Datro’s Sprite. I did.”

It was a lie, a total lie, and she was doing it for Norah’s sake. Norah raised her head in surprise.

“I thought so.” Alan Avery sounded satisfied. “Norah, what you did was wrong, but I blame your innocence and your compassion, misplaced as it was. However, there will be consequences. Take them away.”

The men holding Lou and the defiant boy started to lead them out of the office.

“Wait! Where are you taking them? What will happen to them?” Norah asked.

Her grandfather rounded on her. “What do you care?” he asked heatedly. “This no longer concerns you. The boy will be—rehabilitated. The girl—she will be sent away. I don’t want her influencing you. She will have to answer for her crimes. We will replace out what she knows about Datro’s Sprite. After that, well, we’ll see.”

“But she’s just a child!”

“She’s a mutant!” Alan Avery shouted. As Lou was led out the door, she cast a last glance back at Norah and smiled wistfully. She gave her head a small shake when Norah moved to go towards her.

“As for you,” her grandfather continued, still incensed. “As soon as school is finished, you’re coming to live with me. You’ve had enough schooling. That girl you room with is a bad influence on you. “

“Roselle? But she’s my best friend!”

“It was probably her idea to get involved with those mutants. No, don’t bother to make excuses for her. I know her kind. After this month, you will live with me, and you will start working full time in the family business. There will be no more opportunities for you to get close to any mutants. I’ll personally see to that.”

Norah had no response to her grandfather’s pronouncement. Shaking, she took her seat behind her desk and opened up the ledgers that were waiting for her.