by Kat Shepherd
Kawanna shook her head. “No answer.”
Rebecca looked out the window again. The owl was gone.
Just then, they heard the jingling of the chimes on the shop’s front door.
“Sorry we’re late,” Clio called, “but we brought reinforcements!” Three sets of footsteps trooped down the long hallway that led to Kawanna’s tiny apartment behind the shop.
“Where were you? Why didn’t you answer my texts?” Rebecca asked. “We were so worried!”
“Oh, relax, Rebecca. We’re barely even late!” Maggie said.
“It’s already dark outside, and none of you were answering your phone, and there’s an evil Night Queen out there! What are we supposed to think?!” Rebecca said, annoyed at how cheerful and carefree they all seemed.
“We’re really sorry. Maggie took forever to get ready, and then at the library her phone kept going off, so the librarian made us all put our phones on Do Not Disturb. I guess we just forgot to switch them back on again.” Tanya sniffed the air. “Something smells good! Rebecca must have been working her magic!”
Rebecca tried to smile. “Yeah, it took a few tries, but I think we’ve got it. Kawanna was a great sous-chef.”
“Oh, I can’t take any credit. It was all Rebecca,” Kawanna said.
Maggie shoved her hands in her pockets and yawned. “I can’t believe you’re all actually doing this,” she said. “I mean, do you really believe this stuff?”
“Hey, none of us really knows what to believe, but we don’t exactly have a choice,” Tanya said.
“I guess, but I don’t know how Rebecca’s egg-cakes are going to do anything.” Maggie laughed.
“Well, maybe not, but at least they look cool.” Rebecca held up a brown eggshell, picked at the cutoff top, and carefully peeled back the shell. In her hand sat a perfect egg-shaped cake.
“Isn’t that something?” Kawanna murmured, shaking her head and smiling.
“Who wants a taste?” Rebecca asked, and Clio and Tanya crowded around the table. Maggie hung back. Rebecca handed eggs around to everyone.
Kawanna held her egg in the air. “Let’s have a toast!” she said grandly.
“To exploration!” Tanya called.
“And research!” Clio added.
“And teamwork!” Rebecca cried.
The group tapped the eggs together, cracking them, and eagerly began peeling off the shells to reveal the golden cake within.
Only Rebecca seemed to notice that Maggie hadn’t joined in the toast.
CHAPTER
12
A SHORT TIME later, the four girls sat around a pile of books and papers on the black lacquer coffee table in Kawanna’s office. Rebecca could hear the sounds of Kawanna moving around the shop in front, sliding hangers along racks and laying out trays of jewelry and beaded handbags on top of the counters. Rebecca had Kawanna’s laptop open on the table in front of her, and Clio riffled through a stack of old books.
Tanya read back from a long list on the yellow legal pad. “Okay, so here’s the list of what we have so far to keep Changeling-Kyle calm and happy while we try to change him back. Changelings like music, songs, dancing, nature stuff, and—apparently—letting him bite us. Or at least according to Clio.”
“Trust me, he loves it. Laughs like a hyena. But it’s someone else’s turn to get bitten. My fingers can’t take any more abuse!”
Maggie sat back in the leather easy chair and draped her leg over the arm, her pink jeweled flip-flop dangling from her big toe. She tapped at her phone, her eyes intent on the screen. “So say this thing works, and it turns out that Kyle is some kind of monster thing and not just a grumpy baby who’s had a couple of bad days. What then? I mean, it’s not like the monster is going to change back into Kyle, right? So what’s the point?”
Rebecca leaned forward in disbelief. “Are you serious? The point is getting Kyle back!”
“Yeah, duh, I know that, Becks. I’m not stupid. But what is the cake thing going to even do? It just seems like a waste of time.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “Actually, this whole thing seems like a waste of time, if you ask me,” she mumbled under her breath.
Rebecca’s voice rose and she stood up. “A waste of time?!”
Maggie dropped her phone in her lap, finally facing the other girls. “Yeah, a waste of time! I mean, seriously, you guys. We don’t even know where the Nightmare Realm is, much less how to find it. And Clio told me about what the Night Queen can do, okay? She doesn’t seem like someone to mess with. She could make us her prisoners, turn us into cockroaches, or even kill us! You get that, right? Like, our parents would never see us again.”
“So are we supposed to just give up on him because it seems hard?”
“Not just hard, Becks. Impossible. I mean, if she’s really that powerful, do you really think a few kids stand any chance of finding Kyle, much less getting him back from her? Are you delusional?”
“Hold on. Everybody just calm down,” Tanya said. “This is obviously a stressful situation, and fighting will only make it worse.”
Maggie snorted. “A math test is a stressful situation. This is, like, Zombie Apocalypse–level stuff.”
“C’mon, Maggie, don’t be so dramatic. It’s not helping. Clio and I did a lot of research while Rebecca was working on the cake, and I think we actually have a pretty good plan.”
“Wow. I’m really sure you guys are going to beat an all-powerful ghost queen with your pretty good plan.”
“Well, technically she’s not a ghost queen,” Clio said. “Although she does have some ghostlike qualities.” Clio noticed Maggie’s darkening expression. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. The point is, I think the plan could work. And it all begins with Rebecca’s cake.”
Rebecca shrugged. “No pressure, right?” She giggled nervously and saw Maggie roll her eyes again.
Maggie crossed her arms. “So this critter takes a bite of Rebecca’s magic cake or whatever, transforms into some freak thing, and then just books it into the woods back to Mama. Okay, fine. So how are you supposed to follow it? What if you lose it?”
“We thought of that, and I think I may have come up with a solution,” Tanya said. “We know that changelings can be all kinds of things, but most of them are at least partly made up of something old and decaying, like dead leaves or something. I have to do some experiments at home, but if our changeling is rotten or has any kind of mold or fungus on it, I think I have a way to track it if we lose it in the chase.”
“But we won’t lose it,” Rebecca said. “There’s no way I’m going to let that happen.”
“Looks like you have a foolproof plan, I guess,” Maggie shot back sarcastically. “Until you meet the queen, that is.”
“Until we meet the queen,” Tanya said. “We need you there, too, Maggie.”
“Isn’t this Rebecca’s deal? What do you need me for?”
Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What is your problem with me? Seriously, what have I done?”
Tanya’s voice rose almost to a shout. “I said not now, you guys! Enough! We need to focus here. Everybody has to do their part if we have any hope of succeeding.”
“Agreed,” Clio added. “Maggie’s right; it’s not an easy plan, but we worked so hard to put it together. Do you two really want it to fall apart just because you can’t figure out how to get along?”
Rebecca exploded. “I’m trying to get along! In case anyone has forgotten, this is about saving a baby! A baby that I have been taking care of since he was tiny. First tooth, first words, and, just a few weeks ago, some of his first steps.” She leaned toward Maggie, struggling to control her emotions. “Whatever your deal is with me, whatever I did, I’m sorry, okay? Tell me what it is, or don’t tell me; I don’t care. I just want to get Kyle back, all right? Just please, Maggie, can you think about something other than yourself?”
“You’re calling me selfish?!” Maggie snapped. “Who exactly is being selfish here? Kyle disappeared on y
our watch, and now you expect all of us to drop everything and risk our lives to get him back because you weren’t paying attention?”
Rebecca’s vision swam. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Clio slipping out of the room and down the hall. “If that’s what you think, then what are you even doing here? Since the moment Clio, Tanya, and I realized what was going on, we have spent every second working our tails off to come up with a way to save Kyle. And what, exactly, have you done so far? Shown up? And you needed a personal invitation to even do that!”
A loud metallic crash reverberated through the room, cutting through Rebecca’s crackling anger. Clio stood in the doorway, holding a large brass gong in one hand and a mallet in the other. Her perfectly arched eyebrows were knitted together. “Did that finally get your attention? Good. Because I have just about lost patience with you two. Now you need to pull it together and pull it together fast, because we only have one shot at this. If we don’t get Kyle back before the next full moon sets, the Night Queen gets to keep him forever.”
CHAPTER
13
GIVEN THE LATE night the Dunmores had planned, it hadn’t been too difficult to persuade them to let the four girls come over to watch Kyle together. But that had been just about the only thing that had gone smoothly in the days leading up to the Harvest Ball. Maggie had participated in the preparations only grudgingly, and Rebecca was too focused on Kyle to try to mend the growing rift. The memory of Clio’s words echoed through her mind. Forever. The Night Queen will keep him forever. Her heart seized every time she imagined Kyle eternally trapped in a dark world, his parents never knowing what happened to him. Whatever was really bothering Maggie would have to wait, and in the meantime they avoided each other as much as possible.
That night at the Dunmores’, four exhausted girls stood in a nervous circle around the changeling baby, who eyed them watchfully from his high chair.
Changeling-Kyle’s teeth were sharper than ever, and his skin had a dull, sallow hue. His eyes, once bright blue, were now almost black and sunken into his gaunt face. His hands were curled into themselves like talons and covered with dark, downy hair. Although Rebecca knew that Kyle’s parents wouldn’t be able to see the changes, it was still hard to believe that they hadn’t noticed anything amiss.
Rebecca could see that even Maggie was stunned by the transformation. Her green eyes were large with worry, and her cheeks, normally rosy and freckled, had blanched to a pasty white. She turned to her friends in shock, her voice a terrified whisper. “Is he … is that how…? He’s so … horrible!”
Tanya grabbed Maggie’s arm and squeezed it. “Not now. He’ll hear you,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.
Forcing a smile on her face, Rebecca bent down to look the changeling in the face. “Hey, sunshine. You remember Clio.…” The baby gave a wicked grin and snapped his jaws, and Clio took an involuntary step backward. “And Tanya and Maggie will be babysitting you today, too.”
Tanya smiled. “Hi, cutie.” She nudged Maggie, who still stood there dumbly. “Say hello, Maggie.” Maggie shook her head, and Changeling-Kyle’s face puckered with suspicion.
“I … I … can’t. There’s just no way. I’m not doing this.” Maggie backed out of the room, tears in her terrified eyes. The baby’s expression darkened, and he began to struggle in his high chair.
“Maggie, wait!” Tanya called after her.
“Let her go,” Clio said. She turned back to the baby. “How about some music?” She opened her mouth and began to sing:
“O, don’t you remember, a long time ago,
Those two little babies, their names I don’t know
They were stolen away one bright summer’s day
And left in a wood, so I’ve heard folks say.”
At the sound of the melody, Kyle’s expression softened and he stopped struggling. Rebecca sidled over to Tanya. “What is she singing?” she whispered.
“It’s an old folk song,” Tanya whispered back. “We’ll keep singing to calm him down while you go after Maggie.”
“Me? You know she’s not going to listen to me!”
“Look, you know we can’t pull this off unless you two can work together. We don’t have time to argue, okay? We’ve got to get Maggie back here.”
Rebecca hurried out of the kitchen, dreading the confrontation to come. Confronting the Night Queen was terrifying, but at least it was something she understood: The Night Queen was wrong, and they were right. It was easy to know who had to win and why. But she had no idea how to sort things out with her friend. She felt like Maggie had been pretty awful, but it seemed like Maggie thought that Rebecca was the one who was wrong. We don’t have time for this right now! Rebecca thought desperately as she ventured into the velvety shadow of the dining room.
“Maggie? Maggie, where are you?” she called, trying to smooth out the edge in her voice. She moved slowly through the living room, turning on a dim table lamp with a loud click. The room was devoid of life, but there in the center of the cream carpet was another bright red maple leaf. Rebecca shoved it into her pocket and moved into the front hall. She flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. Was Maggie still in the house?
She walked cautiously toward the coat closet. The door was slightly ajar. “Maggie?” Rebecca whispered, pushing open the door. It let out a long, low creak, making her skin crawl. Rebecca forced herself to shove her arms into the row of coats, pushing them aside. No Maggie.
As she crept up the stairs, she could hear Clio and Tanya singing in harmony.
“Now the robins so red, how swiftly they sped
They put out their wide wings and over them spread
And all the day long on the branches among
They sweetly did whistle and this was their song.”
“Maggie!” Rebecca called again. The haunting lyrics set her already frayed nerves further on edge. Why wasn’t Maggie answering? She heard the sound of ragged breathing and paused. It was coming from farther down the dark hallway. A huddled shape stood in the doorway to Kyle’s room. As she drew closer, her nostrils filled with that heavy, damp smell of fungus and worms, of wood rotting from within. Her stomach twisted. Her hand reached cautiously forward and touched the huddled figure.
It turned with a bloodcurdling shriek, and Rebecca caught only a flash of red-rimmed green eyes and a blotchy, tearstained face before it struck her and she fell to the ground.
“Oh no! Rebecca! I didn’t know that was you!” Maggie said breathlessly, crouching down next to her. “Are you all right?”
Rebecca took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me.” Sitting up, she reached for Maggie. “What happened? Why didn’t you answer?”
Maggie shook her head. “I couldn’t. I was … I mean … just look,” she stammered, pointing into Kyle’s room. It was flooded with the silvery light from the full moon outside, but the usual shapes of Kyle’s furniture and toys seemed softened and distorted, as though they were covered in glittering sheets. Not sheets; moss. Everything in Kyle’s room was covered in a layer of rich green, wet with dew. Tendrils of cobwebs hung from the ceiling like ancient gray burial shrouds. Bile-colored mold covered Kyle’s mattress, and skeletal branches grew haphazardly from the rocking chair by the window. Patches of pale, poisonous-looking mushrooms sprung from the soggy carpet.
“What … what is that?” Maggie said, shaking.
“I don’t know,” Rebecca admitted, “but I think it means that we don’t have much time. Come on! We have to get back downstairs.” She grabbed Maggie’s hand and pulled her toward the stairwell, but Maggie stopped her.
“I can’t go back down there.”
“Please, Maggie, we need you!”
Her back against the wall, Maggie slid to the floor and hugged her knees. Tears choked her voice. “Look, I just can’t, okay? I’m not like you. Ever since we were little, I’ve been hearing about what a ‘good influence’ you are. Like I’m so lucky to have you around, because o
therwise I’d be a total wreck. Well, look, here we are and, guess what, I’m a disaster. I mean, we’re talking about a kidnapped baby, and some kind of, of … creature downstairs. This is serious, adult stuff. It’s a missing baby, Becks. I can’t fix this! I can’t even keep track of my own lunch box.”
From downstairs Rebecca could hear Kyle growing restless with the girls’ singing. His fists pounded on the tray of his high chair. Rebecca needed to get back to the kitchen. And fast. But they needed Maggie’s help in order to save Kyle. “Look, Mags, I know how you feel.”
Maggie’s eyes flashed with anger. “No, you don’t!”
Rebecca’s voice rose. “Okay, yeah, I get it. I’m not you. And it’s true I do a lot of stuff on my own.”
Maggie sighed impatiently. “I know! You don’t need to tell me again!”
“Let me finish, okay? I’m not some special person who’s just naturally responsible. I’m responsible because I had to be. My parents work all the time, and when Nai Nai died, they still had to work, so I had to figure out how to do stuff on my own. I would give anything to have Nai Nai back again; not just because I loved her, but because I miss having someone else help me with the hard stuff when my parents aren’t around.”
Maggie’s voice got quiet. “I’m sorry. I know you still miss her a lot.”
“But even in my hardest times without Nai Nai, I’ve always known that if I really needed to, I could pick up the phone and Mom and Dad would come rushing home from work and help me. So I wanted to prove to myself and to them that they could count on me, just like I can count on them.”
Rebecca grabbed Maggie’s arm. “But this time I can’t count on them. I can’t even tell them about this. There is no way they would ever believe me. We’re talking about magic and creatures—stuff I didn’t even believe in until a few days ago! There is a very real baby who is in very real, grown-up danger, but grown-ups cannot save him. I don’t know how to rescue a kidnapped baby. I don’t even know how to find him! But I do know that we’re the only ones who can. We are Kyle’s only chance.”
