“What are you saying? You can’t take her from me.”
“She doesn’t belong here, Marie, you know it as well as I.”
“I’ve raised her for six years. She has friends, family—”
“She has family in the other world, too. We would take care of her.”
“Not like I can. Please, let her stay. This is where she belongs, with me.”
“She isn’t going to be here much longer either way. I suggest—”
“I know damn well what you suggest, Peadar. But I won’t have it. If you take her away from me, my connections will see to it that your life becomes hell.”
“I think the entire court knows about your...connections. Why do you think he’ll care about one changeling left in your care? And what makes you so sure she won’t die here, suffocating as your mortal air slowly destroys her life, just like all the others who have stayed beyond their term? ”
“She would be different. This is her home as much as it is mine, maybe even more so.”
“What do you mean, she would be different? The girl isn’t human, Marie. Changelings cannot stay here. That is our law, and she is bound to it. Her family in the other world—”
“She has none, none that know of her. She’s not...”
“Not what? Marie, what have you done?”
Silence.“She’s
yours?”
“Please leave. Leave us now, Peadar.”
“Marie, I didn’t mean—”
“No. You lot never do. He didn’t either. He didn’t mean any of it.”
Crying. “I— I believe this would give her a few more years in this world, Marie. She can stay for now. The equinox after she turns sixteen, I’ll be back.”
.....................................................................................................................
This is a very dramatic, maybe even overly dramatic scene from
Changeling. Not a very creative title, I know, but I'm working on it. It's almost all dialogue, because the POV is an eavesdropper who can't see the Marie and Peadar. Please comment
