One day, Lilly started acting strangely. She no longer cried to be picked up. In fact, she'd sometimes fuss if Bridgett held her for too long, which she'd never done before. She started speaking in full sentences, when she'd only known a few words before.
Despite the strange behavior, Lilly was still a sweet baby. Bridgett loved her regardless of how she acted. But the sudden change worried her, especially since there were tales of fairies in the area. She decided to perform a test she'd heard worked to make a changeling reveal itself.
Bridgett cooked some food and put a small portion inside and eggshell. She carried the eggshell out into the living room where Lilly was playing and set it on the coffee table.
Lilly looked at it. "Mommy, what's that for?"
"I have some guests coming over later, so I'm laying out some food for them."
Lilly laughed as if that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "That's ridiculous, Mommy. That's not even enough food for one person. I've never seen an eggshell of food feed a group of guests."
Bridgett sighed sadly. "You're not my Lilly, are you?"
The changeling stopped laughing. "Yes I am."
Bridgett shook her head. "No, you're not. You're a changeling, left here by a fairy mother. My Lilly is living with the fairies now."
The changeling looked like she was about to cry. "Please don't make me go back. My other mommy isn't nice like you. She didn't want me. I want to stay here with you." She started to cry. "Please let me stay."
Even knowing it wasn't Lilly, Bridgett couldn't stand to see the child in front of her cry. It wasn't the changeling's fault that her mother had left her here and taken Lilly away. She'd been a sweet and mostly well behaved child for the whole time Bridgett had her.
Reaching out to take the changeling into her arms, Bridgett said, "Don't cry. Of course you can stay here. I wouldn't send you away." The child calmed slightly, and Bridgett added, "But I have to bring the other Lilly back, too. You're going to have to trust me."
When the changeling, who Bridgett decided to call Violet from now on, had stopped crying, Bridgett carried her out of the house. The went to a nearby bridge, and Bridgett held Violet out over the water bellow.
"Fairies, come take your child back or I'll drown it. Return my child to me."
An old woman appeared from thin air on far side of the bridge. She was holding an identical child in her arms. Bridgett pulled Violet back from over the bridge and walked over to meet the old woman, who she knew must be a fairy in disguise. She made sure to stop while still standing on the bridge, knowing that the fairy wouldn't be able to walk over running water.
"Give me the child," the fairy woman commanded.
"You give me my child first," Bridgett answered.
With a hiss, the old woman shoved Lilly into Bridgett free arm. Bridgett shifted the two children so she could hold them both while freeing up one hand for a moment. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a handful of salt and threw it to the ground at the fairy's feet.
The fairy shrieked in rage, glaring murderously at Bridgett, but was unable to keep herself from stooping down to count the grains of salt.
Bridgett ran away as fast as she could while the fairy was distracted. When she got home, she warded her house against fairies as best as she could without harming Violet.
The next day, she began looking for places to move so she could raise her two daughters in peace.
(Twin Girls)
Author's Note: The story this is based on is a Welsh fairy tale called Brewery of Eggshells. In the original, a mother of twins leaves her babies home alone for a few minutes while she runs to the neighbor's house, and they are replaced with changelings. She visits an old man who knows things about the fairies, and he says to test whether the babies are actually changelings by cooking some food in an eggshell and saying she's going to feed it the the threshers, and if the kids laugh or say they've never seen anything like that, to take them and throw them in the river.
No comments:
Post a Comment