Changeling

by Delia Sherman

  Changeling marched over to me. She still wore her embroidered jacket, its flowers a little faded from their bath in New York Harbor, but she’d traded her ragged skirt and T-shirt for black jeans and a crisp white shirt.

  “Honey told me that my old clothing was not appropriate for Wall Street,” she told me. “I did not allow her to replace my jacket, however.” She examined me with a slight frown. “Do you think that dress is appropriate for Wall Street?”

  “Probably not.” I bit my lip. “You look very nice, Changeling.”

  “Thank you.”

  All at once, I realized just how grubby and itchy I felt. I scrambled out of my nest and told Honey I wanted a bath.

  Honey’s bathroom was mostly occupied by a black marble bathtub the size of a small pond. Honey showed me how to turn on the water and where she kept the bath oil, and left me alone.

  I stripped off the spidersilk dress, washed my hair and skin in the rose-scented water, and then just floated.

  What I should have been doing was planning how to find the Dragon of Wall Street and how I was going to get his Scales from him once I found him. But every time I tried to focus on the subject of dragons, my mind skated off to what Honey had told me about changelings.

  It made a Folkish kind of sense. Living with the Folk, I was growing Folk-y. Living with mortals, Changeling was growing mortal. But what did that mean, exactly? Would I grow magic as I grew Folkier? Would Changeling eventually lose hers? Was her skill with computers mortal knowledge or fairy magic? What kind of supernatural had she been originally? How had she been chosen to lead the life I would have had if the Folk hadn’t switched us?

  Honey tapped on the door.

  “I do hope you haven’t drowned,” she called out. “Management would absolutely hate that.”

  “Out in a minute,” I shouted.

  What about Honey? She used to be mortal like me. Now she was a supernatural with her own set of unbreakable rules to live by. How did she deal with that? Why wasn’t talking to her like talking to a moss woman or a nixie or even Astris or the Pooka? Astris liked me, but she didn’t understand me. Honey understood me. But Honey drank mortal blood.

  It was all very confusing.

  When I was totally waterlogged, I got out and put on the black jeans and white shirt Honey had left for me—not the sneakers, though: I never wear shoes in summer. The spidersilk dress I rolled into a ball and stuffed into my pocket.

  Back in the bedroom, Honey was curled up in a red leather chair with a white porcelain mug. Changeling sat at a black lacquer table eating scrambled eggs and drinking hot chocolate. I sat down to help her.

  Honey wiped a trace of crimson from her upper lip, and I noticed her fingers were bandaged in white gauze.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked around a mouthful of egg.

  “It itches,” she said. “My fault entirely. I couldn’t resist touching your dress. I’ve never seen a real spidersilk one before.” She put the mug on the floor and unfolded her legs. “This is all very cozy, darlings, but we really need to discuss this Wall Street expedition of yours. What are your plans?”

  I took another bite of egg and chewed, thinking fast.

  The Financial Maze belonged to the Folk who lived for gold: giants, kobolds, wyrms, some dwarves. No big European dragons—the Dragon of Wall Street had long ago eaten all the serious competition. Not for the first time, I wished that I knew more than the basic facts about the non-Park neighborhoods of New York.

  I swallowed. “Well, I thought I’d get as close as I could and trust to luck.”

  Honey’s fangs showed at the corners of her smile. “Wall Street isn’t like New York Harbor, darling,” she said.

  “It’s not even like Broadway. You can’t count on running into a friendly investor or a helpful broker who’ll show you the ropes. There’s no such creature.”

  “Then I’ll just have to do without help. If you can tell us how to get to the Treasury, maybe I can ask for a job—you know, like that debutante whose date got stolen by the ogre’s daughter? She pretended to be a housekeeper until she figured out how to break the spell the ogre had laid on him.”

  Honey laughed. “The only job you’re likely to get at the Treasury is as an afternoon snack.”

  I was getting annoyed. “Then what am I supposed to do? Because if I don’t get the Dragon’s Scales, I’ll never get home. Changeling either.”

  “Calm down, darling. I’m just introducing a note of reality into your charming fantasy. Not to beat around the bush, what you need is a native guide.”

  “Does that mean you’re coming with us?”

  Honey shook her head. “Daylight, you know. Ruinous for my complexion. No, I’m going to send you to my friend Fleet. She’s lived in the Maze all her life.”

  Another strange supernatural; another new adventure. It was hard to remember I’d ever wanted one. I poured some more hot chocolate. “What kind of supernatural is Fleet?” I asked resignedly. “How does she like to be asked for things? What will I have to give her in return?”

  “Oh, Fleet’s not a supernatural,” Honey said. “She’s a mortal changeling. Like you.”

  I stared at Honey, who gave a Shirley Temple-esque giggle. “I surprised you, didn’t I? It’s true, though. There’s a whole street of changelings in the Maze. Maiden Lane. But first you have to get there.” She turned to Changeling. “You’re good at remembering things, aren’t you?”

  While Honey and I talked, Changeling had piled the dirty plates on one corner of the table with the forks laid neatly across them, and was arranging some little enamel boxes she’d found in a flowerlike pattern. “I have an eidetic memory,” she said without looking up from her work. “What do you want me to remember?”

  “A series of directions,” Honey said. “Street names, left turns, right turns, things like that. You have to get it exactly right. A mistake could be fatal.”

  “I will not make a mistake,” Changeling said.

  I tried to pay attention while Honey taught Changeling the way to Maiden Lane, I really did. But there aren’t any streets in the Park. Names and turns slid in one ear and out the other like water through a pipe. Instead, I watched Changeling arrange boxes. Her hair had dried into a crinkly halo. I touched my own curls and wondered how alike we actually looked. I thought my eyes might be a little greener and my face a little rounder, but I wasn’t sure. I wished that Honey’s room had a mirror.

  Changeling glanced up and caught me staring at her. I laughed nervously, and Changeling turned back to her boxes. “What comes after Worth Street?” she asked Honey, and then it was all “turn left” here and “take the third right” there until Honey was satisfied that Changeling had the directions memorized. Then it was time to go.

  I picked up Satchel and slung it across my chest. “I hope Management won’t charge you too much for all those contaminated cushions,” I said, looking at the black-and-red nest beside the coffin.

  Honey smiled a rather nasty smile. “Management can go file its fangs,” she said. “Come on, darlings. You don’t want to be caught in the Financial Maze after dark.”

  The hall seemed to be empty of sensitive vampires. We followed Honey through a maze of long corridors lined with shiny wooden doors with brass plaques on them: “Lillie Langtry,” “Lynn Fontanne,” “George M. Cohan.” Finally, we came to a hall so encrusted with painted red dragons and gold curlicues and Chinese characters for luck and joy that at first I didn’t even see that there was a door at the end.

  “This opens on Canal, at the heart of Chinatown,” Honey said. “The Financial Maze is the next district south. Do watch where you’re going, darlings. Canal is delightful, but the Financial Maze is something of a Forest Perilous.” She sighed. “I wish I could come with you. I so want to know how it all comes out.”

  I wanted to tell Honey how much I liked her and how grateful I was for the cushions and the bath and the clothes. But I wasn’t sure that vampires like to be thanked, so I said, “Would you l
ike me to come back and tell you about it?”

  “You darling!” She threw her arms around my waist in a big hug. Even through my clothes, I could feel how cold she was. “Break a leg. And don’t worry about a thing, darling. You and Changeling are a great double act. The Dragon won’t know what hit him.”

  The dragon door led to a room about the size of the Producer’s elevator, with a second door in the facing wall. When Honey closed the door on her side, we were in total darkness. Then I heard a click, and Changeling swung the second door open onto bright sunlight and the chatter of many voices.

  CHAPTER 19

  IF SOMETHING SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE,

  IT’S PROBABLY TRYING TO KILL YOU.

  Neef’s Rules for Changelings

  We stood outside the Bram Stoker’s back door, breathing in the sharp perfume of unfamiliar spices.

  The street was an immersion course in Chinese Folk lore. In the space of a few breaths, I saw a troop of monkey spirits with long tails waving from the back of their camouflage shorts, three doll-like hu-hsien in miniskirts and high-heeled boots, five blue demons, a pair of fu dogs (one red, one green), and countless tiny flying dragons like bright silk scarves. Red-and-gold signs advertised shops and services: CELESTIAL CLOTH BY CHIH NÜ, THE CHIN CHIA GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR YOUNG SUPERNATURALS, and LI ORGANIZING SERVICES.

  The crowd thinned out, and I caught sight of a wide slate-gray canal dotted with red-sailed boats and gilded barges. The sky was blue, scarlet flags were flying, and everybody seemed to be shouting cheerfully. I turned to Changeling to see how she was handling the noise.

  Changeling was handling it just fine. Changeling on a mission was a different creature from Changeling tagging along on somebody else’s adventure.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “We have to go this way.” And she barged through a knee-high flock of shinseën, who wagged their white beards and scolded her in high, old-man voices. I followed, apologizing.

  I wasn’t in a hurry to leave Chinatown. Countless stalls spilled their piles of cabbages and magic fish and amulets and embroidered slippers and bolts of violently colored silk into the street. A tray of tiny, jewel-bright frogs caught my eye. I bent over them, enchanted; a jade green one winked a ruby eye at me. Changeling jigged impatiently. “We have to go,” she announced.

  “Just a sec. I want to see this frog,” I said, but she kept bugging me until I gave in. We walked along the canal to a red-and-gold bridge, which we crossed at a trot. Changeling paused to check a sign, then turned down a side street.

  The side street was, if anything, noisier and more jam-packed than Canal, but Changeling wasn’t fazed. She wove through the Chinese Folk like a needle, trailing me, threadlike, behind her. The street branched and branched again. To my relief, the crowds thinned, then vanished completely. Changeling didn’t even seem to notice, but marched purposefully on, turning right and left, seemingly at random, but heading always southward, deeper into the Financial Maze.

  I wasn’t liking the Financial Maze much. To me, it felt like an anti-Park: dusty, silent, empty, hard. Its gray buildings loomed over us like sheer, many-windowed cliffs. I was almost happy to see a will-o’-the-wisp flickering mistily at the mouth of an alley. In a world of silence and stone, it was at least familiar.

  Of course, if you look at a will-o’-the-wisp, it thinks you’re going to follow it. Next thing I knew, this one had darted out of the alley and started dancing around our heads. Changeling batted at it irritably. This just attracted more will-o’-the-wisps, and soon we were at the center of a misty-bright dandelion.

  “Ignore them, Changeling,” I begged. “They’re just trying to get you to follow them. They can’t hurt us as long as we know where we’re going.”

  Changeling swung her fist at one particularly persistent wisp. “I do know where I am going,” Changeling said angrily. “This is Worth. We turn right on Lafayette, cross the park, and then go left on Pearl.”

  The will-o’-the-wisps fled, squeaking mournfully. Changeling looked after them, puzzled.

  “I knew you weren’t lost,” I said. “Now they know it, too. Let’s go.”

  We tramped down Worth Street, Changeling on the lookout for Lafayette, me on the lookout for possible dangers. Where were the giants and wyrms and goblins Astris had told me about? Were they watching us from the blank windows? Finding a heavy stone to drop on our heads? Why was everything so quiet?

  When we turned onto Pearl Street, I thought it was empty, too. Then a shower of golden light dazzled my eyes and a voice soothed my ears like falling water.

  “Children, children, whither wander you?”

  The voice belonged to a huge golden bird perched on a lamppost. Its song was to ordinary birdsong as the sun is to a candle flame.

  “Are you lost?” it caroled. “I can bring you safely home. Do you want gold? I can give you endless treasure. Friends? I can make you beautiful and charming. Fame? I can put your names in every mouth in New York. Only follow me.”

  Changeling drifted nearer. As I hesitated, the bird promised me my heart’s desire. It would lead me to Central Park, fix things with the Lady, get me an invitation to a changeling party and answers to all my questions. All I had to do was follow it.

  I wanted to go wherever it led me. I really did. But a dry voice in my head that sounded a lot like the Curator kept telling me that quests don’t have shortcuts.

  “Don’t listen, Changeling,” I gasped. “I think it’s like the will-o’-the-wisps. Say the streets again, and maybe it will go away.”

  I might as well have saved my breath. The bird took to the air in a scatter of light like the last rays of sunset, and Changeling took off after it—or she would have if I hadn’t attached myself to her. She whipped around, trying to make me let go without tearing her beloved jacket. I hung on like a burr, and the bird fluttered around our heads, showering us with impossible promises.

  Out of nowhere, a whistle blew, incredibly loud and incredibly harsh.

  Three things happened at once. I let go of the jacket and covered my ears, the bird disappeared like a soap bubble bursting, and Changeling let out the saddest, loudest, most desperate wail I’ve ever heard.

  I knew how she felt, but I couldn’t help thinking that this was not a good time to call attention to ourselves. “We’re on Pearl, Changeling,” I said as calmly as I could. “Do you remember what comes after Pearl?”

  She stood in the middle of the street, repeating the directions to herself, and a giant walked into us.

  It was only a little giant, as giants go—just big enough to see into a second-story window, not big enough to squash us flat. He knocked us over, then stood still, turning his head this way and that. Changeling, not surprisingly, went totally to pieces. She screamed and flailed and screamed some more. The giant tilted his face toward her, and I saw his eyes flash bright and golden, like polished coins.

  A shiver went through me, more horror than fright. Clutching Changeling by the collar, I hauled her upright and pushed her flat against the wall. “Shut up,” I hissed. “I know you’re freaked, but you have to be quiet. I think that giant’s blind, but he’s not deaf.”

  She tried. She really tried. She managed to turn down her screaming to a strangled moaning, which the giant would have heard just fine if the street had stayed quiet and empty. But it didn’t. All at once, kobolds, demons, wyrms, giants, and goblins started pouring out of the buildings and into the narrow street, filling it with the confused thunder of heavy feet.

  Our giant shook his head and shambled away.

  “We’ve got to get out of here, Changeling,” I muttered. “What’s the next street?”

  She shook her head, eyes squeezed shut.

  “Let’s see. It was north to Lafayette, left on Lafayette, left on Pearl. Or was it south to Lafayette?”

  “You have it all wrong,” Changeling said irritably. “We turn right on Lafayette, cross the park, turn left on Pearl, follow Pearl down past Fulton, John, and Pla
tt to Maiden Lane, then left.”

  I grinned. “You’re right. Let’s get going.”

  I soon realized that all the Wall Street Folk were as gold-blind as the giant, but it didn’t make me feel any better. We sidled down the side of the street, hugging the wall and hoping nobody bumped into us. By the time we finally made it to Maiden Lane, I’d been frightened so long I was feeling sick. I don’t know how Changeling was feeling.

  Just as there were no pearls on Pearl Street, there were no maidens on Maiden Lane: only a couple of scurrying kobolds and two rows of grim stone towers that reminded me of the building where the witch had stuck the Hippie Chick. I wondered if we were going to have to climb up Fleet’s hair to get to her apartment. I hoped not. I don’t mind heights so much, but I hate climbing ropes.

  I don’t know how Changeling knew which building was the right one—maybe there were signs that only fairy eyes could see. In any case, she marched up to a wall that looked like every other wall and poked it firmly with her finger. After a moment, the wall asked who we were and what we wanted.

  For some reason, this was too much for Changeling, who retreated into her jacket. “We’re changelings,” I told the wall, speaking loudly and clearly. “We’re looking for you, I think. Is your name Fleet? If it is, please let us in. Honey sent us.”

  There was a pause and then the voice said, “How do I know you’re not a broker?”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind. Honey sent you, straight up?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Brokers don’t have hearts.”

  I looked up and down Maiden Lane. The light was fading and the wind was picking up. A fat wyrm waddled past on stumpy legs. “You have to help us,” I said. “We’re on a quest. And we’re changelings, just like you. Please?” This last came out sounding a lot more panicked than I would have liked.