Free Scarborough Fair and Other Stories by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Page B

many strange pictures and she couldn’t see what he meant. Then he said, “Well, it’s said that one time they lived above the ground until the fought the next race of people to come along and had to go live in the underworld. But they don’t much like it, see, so they’re always playing tricks on mortal folks.”
    â€œLike the Dine’,” she said. “Here, living in our holes in the ground.”
    â€œNo—well, that is, yes, a bit. Except folk in Ireland know better nowadays than to treat the fairies poorly—bad things happen to them as do. And sometimes, people will just be minding their own business and things happen.” He showed her a picture of a baby sleeping peacefully in its cradle being stolen away by one of the people he called fairies, and another, crying angry sick baby put in its place.”
    â€œDon’t the parents know?”
    â€œWell, the fairies change it so it looks like their baby and they only know by its squallin’ that it’s not normal-like. The new thing put in place of the baby is called a changeling.”
    The word didn’t translate well and he kept showing her pictures. Finally she thought she understood. “Oh, they’re shapeshifters. Like witches.”
    â€œA bit, yes.”
    â€œDo the parents ever get their real babies back?”
    â€œYes, but you won’t like that bit. They have to hold the changeling over a fire until the fairies fear for its life. Then they come and get it and give back the real baby.”
    She nodded, “Barboncito says that when the white men wanted to trade captives, we gave back ours but they wouldn’t give back our people. Maybe we should have held theirs over a fire...”
    â€œNow there’s an idea you don’t want the captain hearing you speak of, young lady. The thing is, a fairy doctor now, like Mrs. Donnolly, they’ll know different ways of doing things. And there’s different sorts of changelings too. Sometimes the fairies will steal an old person.”
    â€œI guess they need their wisdom, huh?”
    â€œIt’s true. Fairies have been called a great many things but I don’t believe wise is one of them. The point is, Horses Talk to Her, that when they take the old people, they also leave changelings—querulous, battlesome, trouble-making things, and an embarrassment to the person they’re supposed to be.”
    Dezbah was afraid. “Do they have to be put over a fire too?”
    â€œNo—no, they don’t. There’s another cure for that and what made me think of it was you and your dark wind. Because we sort of think the opposite, you see. If you want to get an old person back from the fairies, you must go to a crossroad and stand there until a whirlwind comes by, catch the dust in your hand and cast it on them, whereupon the changeling is taken away and the real person returns.”
    â€œReally?” She got a very clear picture of this from him and wondered if he had tried it before—but she saw then from the picture that he had not. This was just the picture he got from what his Irish old one told him. “But what if you get the wrong kind of whirlwind?”
    He shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine. But herself there could hardly be worse now, could she?”
    Dezbah cast a brief glance at the old one who had been her friend and shuddered, lowering her head miserably so that her cheek rested on her knees. The man sighed. He wasn’t completely serious, Dezbah knew, just telling her a story to comfort her and because he was lonely. But there was no comfort in anything now. She heard his boots crunch the sand, the old one moan in the dark, and in the stillness of the night, the halt of footsteps, the man’s voice speaking to the horse, and the hoofbeats gradually fading to the north.
    The hooting of a hunting owl awakened her, and she blinked in a darkness without stars. Her hand found the