A SHIVER IN THE AIR

A Sorrows Hill Story

Jean McKinney

A SHIVER IN THE AIR

Blue night, blue cold. Blue the lips of the child in Maddie Cain’s arms, and its face the white of the moonlight that pours in through the frost-glazed window. It was a hard birth, one of the hardest Maddie’s ever attended. Now Juney Hobson sleeps exhausted, and her man Simon too, while Maddie watches the winter stars over Hart Mountain and waits for their brand new baby girl to die. Maddie’s a fearsome witch and maybe the greatest healer the mountain’s ever known, but there are some things even she can’t fix. A log cracks in the fireplace. Maddie’s eyes snap open. She hadn’t meant to doze, not with the baby so poorly. There’s a stinging prickle in the air, a scent of snow and a chill deeper than the night. An unseen hand slips beneath the baby, lifting her from Maddie’s arms. Maddie’s fingers tighten on the blanket and the hand falls away. The empty air in front of the fireplace shimmers. Maddie blinks, making herself look with the other Sight, that sees more deeply than the eyes alone can see. It’s a glamour, calling card of the Fair Folk, the Gentry; the ones the mountain folk call the Shee. Maddie squints into the shimmer, resisting the urge to look away. The sheeny mist between the fireplace and the table resolves itself into a slender woman clad all in white, black hair drifting like seawrack upon her shoulders. In the crook of one arm she holds a bundle wrapped in silky grey. Maddie’s heart beats a wee bit faster, but she makes herself stare into the newcomer’s beautiful, soulless eyes. “Begone, and thrice begone. There’s nothing for you here.” The Shee-woman’s lips tighten. “You see me?” “Well.” Maddie gathers the baby tight to her breast. “O’ course; it’s only glamour, ain’t it? Anybody can see through, if they know how to look.” The Shee leans in. One long finger traces the waxy curve of the dying child’s cheek. “So beautiful,’ she whispers. “Like us.” The bundle in the Shee’s arms squirms and whimpers; a tiny hand, fragile as a starfish, peeps from a fold in that spider silk blanket, and suddenly Maddie understands.

“That’s a changeling,” Maddie says. "You don't mean to leave it here." The Shee lifts her chin. “A fair exchange. That child for this. The woman can hardly complain.” Maddie glances at the bed in the corner. Juney still sleeps, her face shadowed and drawn. This child came near to killing her; she’ll never have another. The changeling child fidgets. The blanket falls away, showing a rosy face topped with brown curls, rosebud lips pursed to cry. Maddie, who grew up on tales of human babies replaced by ugly malformed tricksters, frowns. “What’s wrong with that one, then? Will it turn to a toad or somethin like?” The Shee’s delicate face twists. “Or something like. More legs, I expect. There is a lady in the Bright Court who has learned a nasty lesson. So sweet and so dangerous, to take a lover from the Shadowlands. But one must be discreet. “ Maddie considers the Shee child. A thin veil of glamour hangs about its small, nearly human face. She lets herself look sideways, with the Sight. Ah, that’s the dilemma. Deep within the baby’s chubby body waits the Shadow: a carapace black and gleaming, long legs made to dance on a web. The Gentry are insanely fascinated by mortal folk: a human child is a cherished pet; a man or woman can be an entertainment for a season or a lifetime. But this faery lady’s tastes must have been strange as they come. The air tingles gently with the presence of Shee. Maddie sifts her mental storehouse for a banishing spell. None come to mind. She shakes her head. “Let the child be,” Maddie says. “She won’t live out the night.” The Shee’s eyes make Maddie think of the frost on the windowpane. “With us, she will. And many more besides.” Maddie opens her mouth to speak, closes it again. Death treads delicately in this room. But then so does life, soft as the snowflakes falling in the blackness of the night. It’s a healer’s business, to meet the two head-on. The Shee woman strokes the changeling’s cheek. Nothing more than a pretty girl baby now; the glamour has settled in again like a second skin. Only a narrowness of the features, a purity to that white skin, hint at the child’s true self. The Shee’s voice is cold and steady. “You say that one is dying. Do you think this one would live in the courts of the Fair? Listen, witch. Within an hour of her birth I had

my orders: take her to the hills and leave her there, for the sprites to strip her bones. But I brought her here instead.” Maddie glances at the Hobson baby, at Juney in her weary sleep. The Shee waits, for the Shee have all the time in the world. Maddie kisses the child’s cold forehead and wraps the blanket closer. Wordlessly, she lifts the baby up. Raising one elegant eyebrow, the Shee gathers the tiny bundle into the curve of her free arm and lowers the changeling child gently into Maddie’s lap. Shiver of air and a ghost of a laugh, and Maddie’s staring into emptiness. The changeling has a tiny spiderweb mark upon her rosepetal cheek, like a tracery of lace. Blinking back tears, Maddie gathers her up and walks light as the snowfall across the cold room. Juney Hobson hears her anyway; she waits braced for grief as Maddie leans in and places the warm heavy bundle into her arms. Maddie smiles. “Juney, sit up, now: your little ‘un’s hungry.” ***

About The Sorrow Hill Series:

The stories of Sorrows Hill take place in the haunted hills and hollows of Northern Virginia and Appalachia during the bloody and tragic years of the American Civil War. Inspired by ghost tales, Celtic fairy legends and the narratives of those who lived and fought during those times, the Sorrows Hill stories chronicle the lives and adventures of those who live in our world as well as the mysterious realm under the faerie mound known as Sorrows Hill, where the serpentine Sea King rules and a day can last a minute or a hundred years. The Sorrows Hill series features a gallery of characters including ageless shapeshifter Daniel MacKenzie, the hill witch Maddie Cain, schoolmaster Isaac Bonner and the Merchant clan of dark magicians. Up in Washington, the operatives of President Lincoln’s secret force, the Office of Extraordinary Phenomena, run by the mysterious Mr. Geddes and his trusted agent Thomas Cooper, search for magical means to win the war. Alliances and shapes change again and again, as the world above and the world below meet in that dread place known as Sorrows Hill.

A Shiver in the Air

www.jeanmckinney.com

Design and Concept:Jean McKinney

LunaBlue Stidios 2014