011 Changeling

[brigid]

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Chicago, like all of America, does not have Fairies native to it. Some immigrants brought their pookas and brownies and kobalds and rusalkas with them, but most did not fare very well. Their places were already filled, for the most part, by the dark and secret beings native to this land.

The ones which did survive, of course, were the most terrible and stubborn. They are the blood drinkers, the shadow lurkers, and the stealers of children.

They do not literally steal children, no. They do not take a precious, tender infant and replace it with an enchanted stick or an elderly Fairy, some baby masquerade. Nor are they some groping excuse to explain away Autism or cerebral palsy or hydrocephaly.

No, they evict and devour the humanness of the child and fill that child’s body with themselves. The child looks and acts normal, grows and develops as normal, smiles and plays and throws tantrums as normal.

But at night, when you check on that child, and their eyes are open, you can tell. In the darkness their true nature is visible. Their eyes are sunken, dark pits; sclera, pupil, and iris all the same inky color.

When there are enough of them, when they are strong enough, they will begin preying on adults.

(Sorry this is late, Nesko had the day off for Veteran’s Day so we spent the entire day running errands. I need to set these up to auto post.)

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