The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente Read Free Book Online

will very soon forget it, I shall tell you how a curious boy was born in winter, at night, in a city called Chicago, which is four thousand miles from London, something like a million nautical leagues plus a feral furlong, a shake of the leg, and a stone’s throw from Fairyland, but not so very far from Omaha, Nebraska. Chicago at the time owned a lake the size of a sea, several advertising firms, at least six tribes of marauding criminals, healthy herds of sailors grazing free, the first Ferris wheel in all the world, and more wind than it could care for. The boy was called Thomas Rood, or at least he shall be called that shortly. If you squint, you can see him hurtling through the snowy air at the speed of story. At the moment, he is still called Hawthorn. The faster you go, the brighter you get, and Hawthorn glowed so hot the clouds went up in smoke when he touched them.
    If you have ever seen a falling star, you have seen a Changeling arriving.
    The parcel box outside the home of Gwendolyn and Nicholas Rood, 3 Racine Avenue, received one troll, slightly singed, with a soft sound like an envelope sealing. The Roods were very much alarmed in the morning to find their little boy sitting on the doorstep with snow in his hair, blinking up at them as though he had never seen them before—which, of course, he hadn’t, because only a moment ago he had been a troll called Hawthorn. If they’d investigated later, they might have missed him. He just couldn’t abide that cramped little box another second and had gotten busy with his escape.
    Neither Gwen nor Nicky guessed that their own child was, even then, as they gasped and worried on the front stoop, being bundled into certain red arms, on his way to another world and a much later chapter. How should they guess? The boy on the doorstep with snow in his hair looked just like their Thomas. He made the same gurgling noises and had the same moles and the same round, uncertain gray eyes. Indeed, far from being suspicious, the Roods were secretly a bit proud, as parents often are when their children do something awfully dangerous and at the same time awfully clever. Only a year old and already able to open the front door! What a firebrand our Tommy is! What have you got there, lad? A baseball! A sporting ace in the making! That’s our boy!
    But this child knew very well that he was called Hawthorn and not Thomas, and was a troll on the inside, not a baby human. It was only that he could not tell anyone—his human mouth was so small and soft! He could not make any words come out of it at all. When he finally managed it, they were just the simplest and plainest ones, none of which were big enough to hold his trollness, or that he had once spoken to a giant Panther, or the wonderful, terrible, burning flight through the clouds. He could not ask anyone about anything, or understand any of the bizarre objects that surrounded him. He could only grab hold of them, and shake them, or put them in his mouth and try to taste what they were. He did not turn his head when Gwendolyn sang out, Thomas! Thomas, where have you gone, my love? Because he could not remember that he was meant to be called Thomas now.
    Whenever Hawthorn picked up a wooden block or a spoon or a ball, he dropped it at once. He could not seem to keep hold of anything. When one is a troll, one has a fearsome grip, and must handle everything very delicately if one does not wish to pulverize it immediately. Hawthorn’s hands still thought they could crush stone by waving hello at it. They still wanted to treat the world as gently as they could. But his new hands couldn’t pulverize so much as the corner of his blanket, and when he picked anything up with his careful troll-manners, they slipped right through and clattered to the floor.
    His parents began to fear that he had suffered some strange injury during his adventure on the doorstep. Their once-sleepy Thomas suddenly barreled headlong round