The Changeling

By Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Ivy and Martha are not ordinary best friends. Ivy is a changeling with supernatural powers—or at least that’s what she says . . . 

Martha is incredibly unpopular. She’s overweight, buck-toothed, and shy. Ivy is an outcast. Her family lives on the outskirts of town amid a field of derelict orchards. But starting in second grade, the girls form a bond that allows them to take control of their own lives. It all begins when Ivy tells Martha that she is no ordinary girl: She claims she’s a changeling, switched with the real Ivy at birth. With the strength of Ivy’s friendship, Martha becomes more confident and sure of herself. And through their bond, Ivy gains the normalcy she needs, away from life with her tumultuous family. When the two girls play, they enter an elaborate fantasy world all their own. But when the real world threatens to split them apart, their friendship becomes more important than ever. This ebook features an extended biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Dec 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453271971

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is the author of The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid, and The Witches of Worm, all Newbery Honor Books. Her most recent books include The Treasures of Weatherby, The Bronze Pen, William S. and the Great Escape, and William’s Midsummer Dreams. She lives in Mill Valley, California. Visit her at ZKSnyder.com.

Book preview

The Changeling

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

To changelings I have known

Contents

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A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder

1

MARTHA ABBOTT WOKE UP on the seventh day of April and sat straight up in bed with her eyes wide open. That, in itself, was significant. As long as she could remember she had always awakened slowly and cautiously, testing yesterday gingerly with the tip of memory, before taking the plunge into cold bright consciousness. But on that April morning she had no choice. Something had reached deep into her dream and jolted her awake—and then quickly faded, leaving behind only four definite words. Something’s going to happen!

Not that she hadn’t had that feeling before—that knowing that something terribly good, or bad, was about to happen—but never anything so strong and certain. Never strong enough to shake her awake and then leave her holding her breath, paralyzed with expectation.

She was still sitting, staring, numb with wonder, when suddenly her eyes focused on the mirror across the room, and the spell was broken for the moment. After the fraction of a second it took to recognize herself, she laughed. There she was, stiff as a hinge, arms straight at her sides, long hair wisping across her face, and her eyes round and blank as two daisies. Blinking, she smiled, imagining daisy petal lashes, and climbed out of bed, almost forgetting about the warning.

But it came back, and it kept coming back. It would sneak out, sudden and stabbing, and then fade again quickly when Martha tried to hang on long enough to examine it. The second time was only a few minutes later, while she was brushing her hair by the window, and watching the sunlight turn the long straight strands from straw to gold. Something’s going to happen! This time it shivered down her back, leaving a fading shadow that felt very much like fear.

It happened, next, on the way to school, Roosevelt High School where Martha was a Sophomore. She had just turned a corner when there on the sidewalk was a bird. It was a brown bird, a perfectly wild brown bird, but it went on sitting still while Martha bent down and picked it up. Of course, it did seem to be a very young bird, almost a baby, but it wasn’t just that it was too young to fly. Because, after it sat in Martha’s hand for a moment, it flew away. With just a very gentle boost from Martha, it flew away to a low branch of a nearby tree. It sat on the low limb, looking down at Martha, blinking its round black eyes, and suddenly, there it was again. Something’s going to happen!

Nothing very special occurred at school, but that was to be expected. School seldom had the right atmosphere for significant messages. But one thing did happen. During drama class, Rufus gave Martha a flower. Rufus, who sat next to Martha in drama, was a special friend, and actually the fact that he gave her a flower was not so unusual. He often brought her little things as a kind of joke—a crazy little toy, or something funny from the newspaper, or a flower.

It was the kind of flower, this time, that made it matter. For Rufus had dropped into her lap a dark pink blossom of oleander.

That’s oleander, Martha whispered.

Oh yeah? Rufus said. You couldn’t prove it by me. It’s that stuff that grows down by the highway.

It’s poisonous, Martha said.

It is? Rufus said, almost out loud, reaching to take it back.

But only if you eat it. Martha kept it closed in her hand.

Well okay, don’t eat it, Rufus said.

Martha nodded. She twirled the blossom in her fingers and leaned toward Rufus to whisper, That’s me all right, beautiful but deadly.

Rufus snorted, and then they both sobered because Miss Walters was frowning in their direction.

Of course, the beautiful but deadly part had only been kidding, but oleander had been very significant to Martha once, and Rufus couldn’t possibly have known about it. Rufus was a city boy, and that was probably the reason he didn’t even know that oleander was poisonous. But the reason he didn’t know the rest of it, was simply that he hadn’t known Martha long enough. Only since September, and now it was April, and during that time Martha had never told Rufus anything at all about oleander.

The final warning occurred while Martha was on her way home from school. In a way it was the strangest, although Martha didn’t realize that until much later. It happened while Martha was waiting for the light to change at an intersection in front of the school. Suddenly a voice said, Martha? Is it Martha Abbott? and there in a dusty station wagon was Mrs. Smith.

In spite of her ordinary name, Mrs. Smith was one of the most extraordinary people Martha had ever known. To say that she was the wife of the man who owned the riding stables where Martha had once spent a great deal of time, didn’t begin to explain who Mrs. Smith really was, or why she had been important to Martha. But all that had been several years before, and it was a long time since Martha had seen her.

Is it really you? Mrs. Smith called, and Martha ran out to the window of her car.

It’s Martha, she said. Hi, Mrs. Smith. She stuck her head in the window and said it again. Hi, Mrs. Smith.

Mrs. Smith had a strange way of looking at people, a deep concentrated look, as if she could see things other people missed.

You’ve changed a great deal, she said.

I know, Martha said. I’m not so fat and ugly.

Mrs. Smith smiled. You’re very beautiful, but that’s not what I meant. Have you heard anything from— But the light changed, and Mrs. Smith motioned Martha away and said, Scoot now. Call me someday, and Martha had to run back to the curb. She didn’t really think anymore about the meeting until after dinner much later.

Dinner that night at number two Castle Court in Rosewood Manor Estates was just the same as always. Everyone was there, at least all of the Abbotts except Tom and Cath Abbott, Martha’s older brother and sister, who were away at college. The Abbotts present, besides Martha, included her father, Thomas Abbott, Junior; her mother, Louise Abbott; and her grandmother, Adelaide Abbott. Thomas Abbott was a lawyer, of the kind that mostly defends businesses against taxes. Louise Abbott was a housewife and didn’t work, but she kept almost busier than if she did—at things like volunteer jobs and golf and staying very beautiful. Grandmother Abbott spent most of her time traveling and gardening and going to garden clubs, and she ordinarily only stayed at number two Castle Court during the best gardening months. The rest of the time her garden, which was very beautiful and elaborate, was Martha’s responsibility.

The conversation that night followed the usual pattern. Martha’s father talked about an especially difficult client, and her mother talked about her golf score, and Grandmother Abbott talked about the Hollandaise Sauce, which she had made herself because Martha’s mother had been so late getting home. Martha, wearing her usual smoke screen smile, was not really listening, when suddenly one sentence ripped through the screen and whirled everything into chaos.

Oh, by the way, her father said, Joe Peters says the Carsons have shown up again. Joe was up in Edgeport today, and on his way back he saw them from the freeway. They’re moving back into the old Montoya house again. I was beginning to think we’d seen the last of that bunch around here. How long has it been since they left the last time? Must be two or three years.

Two years, a strange voice said, which Martha hardly recognized as her own. A little more than two years. And even while she was answering, another part of her mind was thinking, So that was it. So that was what was going to happen.

Martha’s father looked at her as if it had just occurred to him that she might have a particular interest in what he had said. You didn’t hear from your friend, did you? he asked. Did she let you know she was coming back?

No, Martha said. I didn’t hear from her. Was Mr. Peters sure? How could he tell for sure it was the Carsons, all the way from the freeway? He couldn’t recognize faces from there.

No, I suppose not, but Joe said he saw a bunch of people unloading what looked like the same old red truck they used to drive. Besides, who else would live in that old shell of a house? It must have been the Carsons, all right.

It must have been, Martha said to herself. It must have been.

Well, Martha’s grandmother said, but not so much to Martha as to her mother, I suppose now we’ll be seeing a great deal of that Carson girl again. What was that child’s name?

There was an undercurrent in what Grandmother Abbott was saying, and everyone at the table knew what it was. She was saying that she had always advised against allowing Martha to spend so much time with the Carson girl. She was reminding them all of the things she had always said, but Martha, for one, didn’t need to be reminded. She already remembered all the things Grandmother had said on the subject. Things like, I can’t understand why you permit it, Louise. It’s not as if there weren’t any other children her age in the neighborhood. There’s that lovely little Peters girl right next door, and the Sutter children just down the block. And it’s not just the child’s unfortunate background. It’s more than that. There’s a strangeness about her—

Martha remembered hearing Grandmother Abbott say that more than once. There’s a strangeness about her. A strangeness—. Suddenly an interior explosion shook Martha so hard that her smoke screen smile was blown away and she had to bow her head quickly to hide her face. Staring down at her plate she tried to explore the damage and wound up lost in a rushing tide of memories. Above and around her the conversation went on as if from a great distance.

Dinner finally ended and Martha, having cleared the table, was free to leave. Her father had made his regular retreat to the study with the paper, and in the kitchen Louise and Adelaide’s regular polite argument was covering such things as proper companions and interfering in your children’s lives. Martha took her warm car coat from the hall closet and went out the double front doors of number two Castle Court into the April evening.

Martha walked uphill against a soft April wind, toward the unsubdivided green at the top of Rosewood Hills. Castle Court, which was formed by a cul-de-sac at the end of Castle Drive, was at the very top of Rosewood Manor Estates, so Martha had only to walk through the vacant lot that separated the Abbotts’ house from the Peters’ next door, and she was on a narrow foot trail that left suburbia behind. The path climbed steeply, zig-zagging through deep spring grass, and passing outcroppings of jagged turreted rock and scattered oak trees and madrone. The sky was just beginning to turn pink with sunset, but Martha could probably have climbed the narrow trail almost as well in complete darkness. All the hundreds of times her feet had climbed that path, walked it, run it, skipped or slid or scampered it, had printed a pattern somewhere in her mind. And now her feet followed that pattern automatically while her mind raced ahead, and back, rushed forward excitedly—and stopped—looking back longingly at yesterday and the day before.

Almost at the ridge of Rosewood Hills the path passed a small grove of old trees known as Bent Oaks, but Martha went on, straight up to where the path topped the crest of the hill and started down the other side. There, at the highest point, you could see beyond the northern slope of Rosewood Hills and catch a glimpse of a huge old ruin of a house. Half buried in orchard, the Montoya house was further hidden by the dark sweeping shadow of the freeway, where it dropped on a high overpass, down from a deep cut in the Rosewood ridge to narrow away into the distance.

Where Martha stood she could just make out part of the roof and upper story of the house, but that was enough to tell her that it was true. The Carsons had come back. Light was glowing in some of the upper windows for the first time in more than two years.

For a long time Martha stood looking down the dark north side of the hill. Below her the path quickly disappeared in the shadow of oak trees, and further down she knew it wound tunnel-like, under heavy brush, and then through the old plum orchard until it reached the house. Martha had been down that path once—only once. All the other times she had waited, as she would wait tonight, at Bent Oaks Grove.

The wind at the crest was not very cold, but Martha found that she was shivering. She turned back, and a few yards down the hill she took the turnoff to Bent Oaks. The trees of the grove had grown up among a very large outcropping of jagged boulders, and the path entered between two turrets of stone, like a narrow gateway between tall towers.

Stepping back into Bent Oaks Grove was like stepping back through time—two years of it. It was a jarring step—like the one that surprises you at the bottom of a dark staircase, when you think you’ve already reached the floor. Martha stood stock still, while bits and pieces of shaken up memories whirled through her mind. Then she moved forward.

The grove closed around her. Growing so near the crest of the ridge, the old trees were exposed to the full force of the wind, so that they had been bent in places almost to the ground. Some of the branches, leaning away from the wind, had grown in great rolling twists and curves only a few

Reviews for The Changeling

[sophroniaborgia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Martha and Ivy are two girls whose lives couldn't be more different. Martha is the misfit daughter of a prominent and successful family who, unable to find a place for herself in their high-achieving world, spends her time daydreaming and crying when confronted. Ivy comes from a family of drunks, delinquents and criminals, but spent her early childhood living with her aunt, who introduced her to magic and wonder. When the two meet at age seven, their creativity and imagination make them fast friends despite their backgrounds. Their friendship proves to be a buoy for them both as they grow to high school age, helping them to overcome challenges and separations until at last they realize their dreams.Zilpha Keatley Snyder was a wonderful children's writer who knew the power of imagination and how freeing it could be for kids who feel disconnected from the people and places around them. But she never forgets the real friendship that underlies the tales. It's the friendship between the girls, strengthened by their years developing the fantasy stories of the Tree People, that allow them to mature into people who will never be conventional but will be able to thrive in the world.

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I never read this as a child, but I totally devoured it as an adult. Really well-done and stands the test of time. Martha's and Ivy's characterizations are so subtle yet vivid. And Alton Raible's illustrations of this edition really enhance the story.

[robertalea-223265 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorites books when I was in middle school. I still love this story.

[tatiannasilverness · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Changeling is about two girls, Ivy Carson and Martha, who have make believe adventures. Ivy believes she is a changeling, which is a magical creature that has replaced an infant in another family. Ivy lives with another relative for most of the time and when she doesn't she lives with her parents in the same town as Martha. Ivy moves around as they grow up. Martha and Ivy have many adventures in the woods, which they call their kingdom. However, when Ivy must leave, she and Martha fight. Martha loses her best friend in the world and only gets her back after many years when Ivy returns. This shows that the theme is friendship is important and to be cherished. This book brings joy to all that read it and memories of childhoods. One major strength of this book is that it is written with clever and well thought out layers. The top layer is a fantasy of elves, witches, and, of course, changelings. But underneath, it is a story of a friendship between two girls that is very heartwarming. A weakness of this book is that the second layer isn't very clear. It can only be seen after lots of thought and even then it isn't certain that there even is a second layer. But the lesson is taught through the second layer, and without the second layer, there would be no theme. I liked the Changeling. It's for all ages and I would definitely reccomend it.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think I may have read this as a child - I know I read others by Snyder, and the Sch. mm pb cover looks familiar.  I think it may have had a subtle influence on me, and helped me to survive adolescence, just as knowing Ivy helped Martha (and, probably, vice versa).  In any case, it's one of Snyder's best (at least among those I've read, and imo) and that's high praise.  Beautifully written, gorgeous story.  How does one cope with being unlike one's family and peers?  How does one get along when nobody else cares?  How does one face growing up, when an imperfect childhood seems better than getting boring, responsible, and solid?

Btw, the Tree People game here is developed further in Snyder's Below the Root.  And the very best Ive read by Snyder is the very short The Princess and the Giants, which is dependent on its illustrations and is therefore sometimes dismissed as 'just a picture-book.'  I must try harder to find more by the author, as I see by her page here that she is much more prolific than I realized.

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[abigailadams26 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Writing a review for this treasured volume from my childhood seems impossible. Since first making the attempt, I have spent hours staring at the blank screen in front of me, have begun in a hundred different ways - "Some books aren't books at all, but mirrors..." / "Zilpha Keatley Snyder may not know it, but she wrote this book about me..." - but have always ended with the same admission of failure, with the same deletion of whatever facile comments I had typed, whatever little bits of text I had produced - text that had inevitably failed to capture the terrible beauty and power of The Changeling, its strange and elusive appeal, its unshakable hold on me. I am haunted by this book, and although I pride myself on being able to articulate even the most difficult of thoughts and emotions, I find it impossible to say why. Just as it once saved me, this seemingly simple children's novel now defeats me. Again and again. I am too close to it, perhaps...I grew up in a beautiful old house on a hill, with a rundown old carriage house behind it, where my sisters and I were wont to play in younger days. A dreamer, always, I lived in my own world, dividing my time between the pages of whatever book I was devouring, and my imaginary (year-round) outdoor games. Naturally, I had a country of my own - ironically, given my childhood ignorance of the word "arcane," it was named Arcania - with its own intricate history, customs and culture. I spent hours creating the Arcanian language, and crafting its script (sadly, all lost to me today), with its superfluity of vowel forms. Arcania was my retreat and my stronghold, in a world that was beginning - just as I was starting to search for meaning in it - to make no sense, and was as real to me as anything I experienced in my more mundane, "workday" life.No author has ever captured - for me - that reality of the imaginary, that power of childhood make-believe, with the same skill as Zilpha Keatly Snyder, in The Changeling. The story of two very different young girls - shy crybaby Martha, so worried about fitting in with her successful family, and wildly idiosyncratic Ivy Carson, daughter of the town's local criminal element - whose friendship is the salvation of both, it perfectly embodies one of the key realities of my own childhood: the role of imagination, and of the internal world, in creating a safe place in a decidedly unsafe existence. Like Ivy and Martha, whose created world was known as Green Sky - a world that Snyder would later use, in creating her brilliant dystopian Green Sky trilogy (Below the Root, And All Between, Until the Celebration) - I too enacted a complicated series of rituals and plays surrounding my imagined world. Like them, this had extraordinary meaning for me, and is, to this day, terribly precious to me.One of my favorite works of literature, of ANY kind, The Changeling is a book that has become entwined with my memories of my childhood, to the point that I cannot separate it out. I have lived in this book, as surely as Ivy and Martha did, and while I wouldn't venture to guarantee that it will speak to every young reader as it did (and does) to me, can readily attest to the fact that every word in it is true.

[satyridae · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A re-read. Snyder's sure hand at the wheel gives this story a ring of truth and an immediacy flavored with the not-quite-supernatural. When I read it as a kid, I identified so closely with Ivy that I fancied myself a changeling too. Reading it as an adult, I have much more insight into both Ivy and me, and I still identify with her. I want to know what happened to her, where she's dancing now. A lovely, transcendent book.

[saroz_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my very favorite children's books. Martha - a shy, withdrawn girl - befriends her next door neighbor, Ivy, who is anything but quiet. They grow up together, their friendship shifting and changing and ultimately fracturing over the years, but with the glue of Ivy's imagination always bringing them together. A lightly fantastical book, similar to but far better than (and written before) "Bridge to Terabithia." As always, Snyder has a great grasp on how children think, and the 'message' doesn't overpower the story. Also notable for having spawned Snyder's "Below the Root" series, which appears here as one of Ivy's imaginary worlds...

[lssian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the best books I ever read as a kid, I don't know how many times I read it. I love Snyder, and still reread her books to this day. This one in particular is a wonderful book about being yourself and bring brave about it - but never in an overt, Lifetime movie preachy way. I just know that this book gave me inspiration about just being me and ignoring social pressure. Highly recommended, especially for children.