Changeling

by Delia Sherman

  Her room was robin’s-egg blue, with flowered curtains and a desk and a computer and a bookcase and framed botanical sketches on the walls. It was very weird to think that it was my room, too, in a way, or the room I might have had if I hadn’t been brought to New York Between.

  “The walls are blue?” I asked suddenly. “What happened to the fairy-tale mural?”

  “That is a very odd question,” Changeling said. “There used to be a mural on my wall when I was very small. I did not like it. The fairies were not accurately drawn.”

  I knew that. The mural fairies had been pink and cute and fluffy—not like real fairies at all. But I’d loved them anyway. “Are there stars on the ceiling?” I asked.

  “We moved from that apartment when I was six, and I think most of the stars had fallen off by then.” A thoughtful pause. “How do you know about the stars and the mural?”

  The truth was, I didn’t know. My questions had just kind of flown out of my mouth. “Magic,” I said shortly. “Tell me about Michiko.”

  “Michiko is our au pair. That means she looks after me in return for a place to live while she pursues her studies at New York University. She is a big fan of anime. Anime is—”

  I interrupted before she got started on another speech. “I’d rather hear about your, um, mom. What does she look like?”

  “She is of medium height and rather small-boned. Her eyes are hazel and her hair is dark brown and very curly, just like mine. She says we should be grateful—women pay good money to get their hair to look like ours. However, I think it is not very reasonable to want tight curls. They are hard to comb.”

  “You can say that again.”

  She began obediently, “I think it is not very—”

  “Reasonable to want tight curls. Got it.” I was feeling weirder and weirder. “What about your father?”

  “Dad is getting bald,” she said. “But he is very distinguished-looking nonetheless. He is also extremely intelligent. Mom says he can make a computer roll over and purr, but I think she must be teasing. If a computer rolls over, it breaks. Dad would never do that.”

  She went on for a while about Mom and Dad and Michiko and someone called Strumble, who, I gathered, was a (non-talking) dog. “I miss them,” she said at last. “I am worried that they must be anxious about me.”

  I moved restlessly, making our bubble bounce. “We have to finish the quest first. Maybe we’d better make a plan.”

  A long silence followed while I pulled myself together and tried to remember my questing lessons. Quests, I recalled, are traditionally achieved by force, by magic, or by trickery. I wasn’t a fighter and I didn’t have any magic, which left me with—“the Riddle Game!” I exclaimed.

  “I do not understand.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you dumb or something? The Riddle Game is the oldest game there is. If I ask the Mermaid Queen a riddle she can’t answer, she has to give me a boon. The catch is, after playing it for so long, the Folk know the answers to every riddle there is. Which means I’ll have to make up a new one. Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

  “I am not dumb,” Changeling said stonily. “A riddle is a question whose answer derives from a pun or a metaphor. I think riddles are dumb.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m the one who’s making one up,” I said. “Now shut up and let me think.”

  I pulled a springy curl into my mouth and sucked. Astris hated when I sucked my hair, and I hadn’t done it in a long time. But it helped me think and Astris wasn’t there. The curl tasted salty.

  “Questions,” I muttered. “Puns and metaphors. Come on, Neef. How hard can it be to make up a riddle?”

  The answer to that, after I’d chewed through about half an inch of hair, was really, really, really hard. It took me a while just to work out that you had to think of an answer before you could figure out the clue. And then you had to turn it into a poem, if possible.

  The best riddles have one-word answers. For obvious reasons, I kept thinking of things like “dark” and “mud” and “boat” and “fish,” which the Mermaid Queen would have to be a total lamebrain not to guess. What I needed was something totally land-based.

  In the end, the riddle came to me in a flash: question, answer, and all. I mulled it over for a while, changed it around so it would sound poetic, and then I said, “I got the riddle, Changeling. You want to hear it?”

  “Riddles are dumb,” Changeling said. “Besides, someone is coming.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The water sounds different.”

  I strained my ears until they ached, but all I heard was a slow, regular swishing and some deep-voiced throbs that I thought had been there all along. A faint light began to filter through the rotting deck like daylight through leaves, heralding a school of tiny, glowing fish. They were followed by six mermaids who were even tougher looking than the Harbor garbage collectors. Their hair was short and stiff and prickly like spiny coral, and their fins were pierced and threaded with shiny brown tape. They wore tight black vests held together with big silver pins, and tridents tattooed on their right arms.

  Without a word, they fitted a net around our bubble and maneuvered us out of the wreck like a chunk of extra-large garbage. Then they towed us across the Harbor with the light-fish swimming ahead of us to show the way. I bounced from side to side trying to see everything at once, while Changeling sat rigidly with her legs crossed and her eyes closed, Folkishly determined to see nothing at all.

  Like Central Park, New York Harbor was much busier at night. Mermen with green skin and spiny heads flirted with our merguards, who ignored them. Ugly, knobby, magical fish darted up and gaped at us, then peeled off on their own business. I saw a troop of police-selkies skimming along the silty bottom and waved at them in case one of them was our friend. None of them waved back.

  After a while, I saw something huge drifting ahead. At first I thought it might be another wreck, but as we got closer, the shape got clearer. I made out a long bag and a cluster of tentacles that seemed to beckon us forward. We headed straight for it, and soon I was looking straight into the kraken’s cold blue eye. Its wicked curved beak opened a little, almost as if it was laughing at me, then it bunched its huge tentacles and shot away in a cloud of black ink.

  The bubble bounced and spun, tossing Changeling and me around like pebbles in a bowl. Gradually, the water cleared.

  We were heading straight toward a high wall. It was all rocky and gooey and stuck with rusty iron bars and garbage—not at all the kind of place I’d expect a powerful Genius to live.

  The merguards steered our bubble into a dark slit that looked way too skinny for it. There was a terrifying moment of blackness, with the walls squeezing us like a pair of hands. Crushed up against me, Changeling screeched. I didn’t blame her.

  We popped out of the slit into a shifting mass of huge, round eyes and huge, gulping mouths and huge, sharp teeth. I didn’t see a lot of arms, but I saw plenty of claws, and they were all pointed toward our bubble. It was like the Wild Hunt at the Solstice Dance, only wetter.

  I untangled myself from Changeling and tried to tune out her panicked screeching. I couldn’t pay attention to her now; I had a Riddle Game to play and a Magical Magnifying Mirror to win. I cocked my chin in what I hoped was a heroic pose and repeated my riddle under my breath. I was afraid it sounded pretty lame, but it was the best I could do. Anyway, it was way too late to think of a new one.

  The Sea Folk scattered. The merguards towed us down the middle of a long hall between rows of tall, lumpy pillars. They were stuck with bright, shiny things—I think I saw Coke cans and something that looked like a bicycle fender, as well as a big silver tray and jewels. A lot of jewels.

  The jewel motif was continued on Mermaid Queen’s throne. It was an open shell totally encrusted with jewels that glittered and sparked in the light-fish glow like sun on rippled water. The bottom was lined with something pink and soft that cradled the Mermaid Queen lik
e a shiny black pearl.

  I guess I’d expected the Genius of New York Harbor to be kind of like the Green Lady, only with a fish’s tail instead of high-heeled boots: someone beautiful and scary and proud.

  The Mermaid Queen was just scary.

  Under her black vest, her skin was solid tattoos from forehead to tail-tip. I made out a fish on each cheek, a black anchor on one arm, and a whalelike object that took up one entire side of her tail. Her fins were pierced with studs and rings; her hair stood out around her head like a spiky, orange crown. Around her middle, where maid turned into mer, she wore a golden chain with a disk hanging from it like a miniature moon.

  So far, my quest was a complete success: I’d found the Queen and I’d found her Magical Magnifying Mirror. Now, all I had to do was get it away from her. My mouth was dry and my brain even dryer. I wished as hard as I could that the Pooka would appear and help me out. Needless to say, nothing happened.

  The Mermaid Queen blinked her round, black eyes and waved her tail fin lazily. “Word is, you’re on a quest,” she said. “You want to tell me about it?”

  I bowed, which isn’t all that easy to do when you’re standing in a bubble. Say something, Neef, I told myself. Anything.

  “Greetings, great Queen of New York Harbor,” I croaked. “Um. Nice tattoos.”

  “I know,” the Mermaid Queen said. “Wanna see my submarine dance?”

  She floated up from her throne and sent a long ripple through the thing I’d thought was a whale. “Cool,” I said weakly.

  “It’s a nuclear sub,” the Mermaid Queen said, settling back down. “I know all about submarines, you know. I know everything. I know how the currents run and the shallows shift. I know when a ship is heading into New York Harbor and what her tonnage is and what her captain eats for breakfast.”

  She gave me a fishy look and I pulled myself together. “You do? Wow. That’s way more than the Green Lady of Central Park knows.”

  The Mermaid Queen twirled the Mirror on its chain. “You better believe it, sister. If it’s happening or if it’s happened or if it’s been written down anywhere, I can see it. All I have to do is ask, and my Mirror shows it to me. So. What’s the story with this quest?” She frowned at me, pleating the trident tattooed on her forehead. “You better not be after my Mirror. Because that would be so boring. Everyone’s always after my Mirror.”

  There’s this thing my brain does sometimes when I’m really panicked. I’m sure it’s totally stalled, then I open my mouth and discover that it’s been working behind my back. “I’m on a quest for a riddle nobody can answer,” I heard myself say. “I think I’ve got one, but I can’t tell unless I try it out. Since you know everything, I thought I’d ask you.”

  The Mermaid Queen grinned, puffing up the fish tattooed on her cheeks. “I don’t work for free, you know. What’s it worth to you?”

  I had no idea, but kept talking anyway. “My spidersilk dress.”

  She wrinkled the trident on her forehead again. “Your dress? Why would I want a spidersilk dress? It’s so not me, you know? Think again.”

  I shrugged. “You don’t want my dress, it’s no skin off my teeth. It’s not like I want to get rid of it.”

  She flicked her tail fin. “A magic dress, huh? What does it do?”

  “Why should I tell you? You don’t want it.”

  “Maybe I changed my mind.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I’ve changed mine. A challenge isn’t any fun if only one person’s risking something. Forget the whole thing. I’ll find someone else to ask.”

  She floated upright. “So it’s a challenge now? I knew it. Fine. Let’s rumble.”

  When you’re on a wild ride, the Pooka always said, you just have to keep going and trust your luck. I took a deep breath. “Challenger calls the wager. That’s the rule. I put up my dress. What do you put up?”

  “My Mirror,” said the Mermaid Queen. “That’s what you’re fishing for, isn’t it? It’s not like I’m actually risking anything. It can answer every riddle that’s ever been asked. It remembers everything it’s ever heard or seen. And you’re, what? Some dry-behind-the-ears mortal changeling? I can’t lose. Bring it on.”

  My heart was pounding so hard it was making the front of my dress quiver. What if my riddle wasn’t new? What if the Mirror figured it out anyway?

  The Queen waved the Mirror at me. “Whatcha waiting for? Lay it on me.”

  I took a deep breath of magic-smelling air. “Needle feet, feather pelt, candle eyes, engine belly. Who am I?”

  The Mermaid Queen scrunched her face first to one side and then to the other, doing hideous things to the fish on her cheeks. “I don’t remember hearing that one before,” she said, surprised. “Run it by me again.”

  I repeated it. She lifted the Mirror and whispered at it, then peered into it intently. I held my breath while she frowned, whispered some more, tapped on the frame, looked again, lowered the Mirror to her scaly lap.

  “You gotta give me three guesses,” she said.

  I wanted to say no. Boy, did I want to say no. But something told me it would be a mistake. “Sure,” I said. “Take your time.”

  “Is it a tugboat with an icebreaker on front?”

  I was so relieved, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “No,” I said. “It’s not a tugboat.”

  She looked down at the Mirror. “A subway?”

  I didn’t know what a subway was, but I did know it wasn’t the answer to the riddle. “Nope.”

  More whispering and tapping. I bounced between terrified and hopeful so many times that I didn’t even know how I felt anymore, except ready for this to be over. “Give up?” I asked.

  “No,” she snapped. “I don’t. Did you make this up?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s cheating,” the Mermaid Queen said hopefully.

  “No, it’s not. Do you give up?”

  “No!” She waved her tail fin so hard the bubble scudded backwards. I lost my balance and fell. Changeling had quieted down, but when I sat on her, she started screeching again. I heard the merguards snickering as I got to my feet.

  “Okay,” the Mermaid Queen said. “I got it.”

  My heart jumped into my mouth.

  “You think you’re real smart, don’t you?” she sneered. “Well, you can just take off that dress and get ready to swim to shore. The answer to your riddle is the clock in Grand Central Station, the one with the eagle on it.”

  I swallowed my heart again. “No,” I said. “It isn’t.”

  “Oh, no? Then what is it?”

  “I don’t have to tell you.”

  Her fishy eyes got narrow and her lips lifted just enough to show the sharp tips of her teeth. “Shark poop. How do I know your riddle even has an answer, huh? If it doesn’t, you’re a cheat and a liar and I’m allowed to drown you.” She looked wistful. “I haven’t drowned anybody in ages, not up close and personal.”

  She unpinned the top safety pin holding her vest together and tested the point on her fingertip, which bled a cloudy halo of dark blood.

  “You wish,” I said. “Ready? The answer to the riddle is ‘a cat.’ ”

  “A cat?” The Mermaid Queen darted upright. “You’re making that up. Cats aren’t what you said. I’ve seen cats. They’re soggy and limp.”

  “Only if they’re drowned,” I said. “Live cats are soft and furry. And they purr. Ask your Mirror, if you don’t believe me.”

  Not surprisingly, the Mermaid Queen was a sore loser.

  She argued about cats, the form of the riddle, and the terms of the bargain. After a while, I was tempted to give up and call it a draw just so she would shut up. In the end, only the fact that I was sure she’d drown us if I did kept me arguing. She even pitched a Genius-sized fairy fit that bounced the bubble all around the hall, making Changeling scream and my stomach flip over like a pancake.

  Finally, however, the Mermaid Queen gave in. “You win,” she snapped. “Take it.
Stupid Mirror. What good is it, anyway, if it can’t even figure out the answer to a stupid riddle?” She unwound the chain from her waist, piled it in her hand with the Mirror on top, and handed it to the biggest and spikiest of the merguards. “Listen carefully, Flotsam, and do exactly what I tell you. Take these changelings to the pier, give them the Mirror, and let them go.”

  “You got it, Harbor Lady,” the merguard said.

  The trip back to land was a lot faster than the trip out. I wanted to replay the Riddle Game with Changeling so she could tell me how great I’d been, but she was way past hearing me. I wished again that the Pooka had been there. I was sure he’d be proud of my bargaining skills. I was. The nervous, jittery feeling in my stomach was just because the merguards were swimming so fast that the bubble was bouncing a lot.

  We drifted to a stop. Flotsam grinned at me with all her sharp teeth. Then she undid one of the pins in her vest and shoved it through the bubble’s side. As the cold water rushed in on us, I felt something hard being shoved into my hand.

  “Here’s your prize, sucker,” she said. “Have a nice swim.”

  CHAPTER 15

  THERE’S ALWAYS A CATCH TO A MAGIC TALISMAN.

  Neef’s Rules for Changelings

  “Let them go,” the Queen had said. Very funny. Gasping and coughing, I broke the surface and tried to get Changeling’s head above water. She was limp and heavy, not even fighting me. The pier looked a long way away. Luckily, a couple of burly selkies who were hanging out on the pier saw us thrashing around. They dove in, hauled us out, and thumped on Changeling until she coughed up all the Harbor water she’d swallowed. Then they yelled at us for swimming without proper supervision. I promised we wouldn’t do it again. They let us off with a warning and left us shivering in a widening pool of cold salt water.

  I looked around. In front of Castle Clinton, I saw a crowd of misty men and women surrounded by boxes and suitcases. Some of the women carried babies tied to their backs in shawls. They were all waiting for something, and I could tell they’d been waiting for a long, long time. They didn’t even notice us.