Changeling Read online

  At last the Tech dwarf came on from the wings trundling two shimmering discs, which it rolled out over the footlights. The Producer caught them neatly, slid them into an envelope, and handed it to me. “Here you go, little dolls,” the Producer said. “Orchestra center, with the original Tinkerbell, just like you want. If they give you any lip, tell them the Producer sends you.”

  CHAPTER 17

  A VAMPIRE’S BARK IS WORSE THAN ITS BITE.

  Neef’s Rules for Changelings

  Debugging the Producer’s computer had done more than just turn Broadway’s lights back on. The elevator zipped us smoothly to the lobby, and all three griffins were sharp and bright and solid. Outside, the sidewalk swarmed with agents waving portraits and scripts and yelling that they had to see the Producer, right away. The door griffin was yelling back at them that nobody saw the Producer without an appointment. Everyone was happy, except Changeling, who started gulping air in a panicky, fairy-fittish kind of way.

  Grabbing her jacket, I kicked and shoved my way through the mob of agents and looked around. Every place that wasn’t a theatre was a shop or a food stand, lit up like a fairy hill and swarming with Folk chattering and shrieking with laughter. I caught sight of a promising gap between the Belasco Theatre and a store selling shadows autographed by Peter Pan.

  It turned out to be a narrow alley, paved with cobblestones. At the far end, I saw a faint, yellowish glow and scurried toward it.

  The alley ended in a quiet courtyard. A lamp shed its gentle golden light over a stone fountain with a statue in it. When Changeling sat down on the basin’s edge, I noticed that the statue was a large, howling wolf. Beyond it was an arched door with THE BRAM STOKER written over it in spiky scarlet letters.

  Wolf plus Bram Stoker equals vampires.

  Although vampires sometimes hunted mortals in the Park on moonlit nights, I’d never actually seen one. Of course I’d been taught basic anti-vampire lore: Carry garlic if you’re out at night; don’t talk to anybody in a black cloak; and if you get caught, don’t look them in the eyes. The best strategy, of course, was not to meet one in the first place.

  I grabbed Changeling and spun around, intending to head back to the street. But Changeling wasn’t going to go back to Broadway without putting up a fight. My panicked attempt to persuade her was interrupted by a long, piercing creak, like a massive ironbound door opening very slowly. I looked up and saw two shadowy figures glide into the courtyard.

  “Look, Honey,” one of them said. “Somebody ordered takeout.”

  I wanted to close my eyes, but it was already too late. I could see and hear, but I couldn’t move even an eyelash. Changeling had stopped kicking me, so I knew they’d gotten her, too.

  The vampires strolled toward us. The one who had spoken was a man dressed in a black silk cloak and fancy suit. His companion was a little girl with golden ringlets wearing pink ruffles and shoes that rang brightly on the cobbles with every step. Oh, great, I thought. I’m going to be eaten by Shirley Temple.

  “Well, well, well,” the man said. “What have we here? Mortal, do you think? I hope so. I could use a bite before the audition.”

  He came right up to me, sniffed at my neck, and pulled back in a hurry. “Phew! This one stinks of fairy.”

  “This one, too. Oh!” The girl vampire clapped her little white hands. “Do you think they’re changelings, Raoul? What fun!”

  The man rolled his eyes. They were a rich, dark burgundy and very large, so it was not a pretty sight. “Cut it out, Honey,” he said. “Can’t you act your age?”

  “Which one?” Honey asked sweetly.

  The man lifted his upper lip at her. “Oh, please, don’t start. I’m much too hungry to deal with one of your snits.” He sniffed my neck again, a questioning kind of snuffle. It tickled.

  “Mostly mortal,” he said. “Maybe just a little sip. . . .”

  “Aren’t you allergic to changelings? Don’t they give you big, fat hives? Won’t the itching distract you at the audition?”

  The warm pressure lifted from my neck. Raoul rubbed the back of his hand against his lips. “You’re impossible!”

  Honey flashed a pair of pearly little kitten fangs at him.

  “We haven’t got time for this,” Raoul said. “Every out-of-work vampire in the City’s going to be at that audition. I can’t afford to be late. And I’ve got to stop at the Blood Bank. Are you coming or not?”

  Honey tip-tapped around behind us. I felt the slither of spidersilk against my legs as she plucked at my skirt. “No,” she said around my shoulder. “I hate auditions. It’s all your fault anyway. You’re the one who bit me when I was eight. If you’d waited a few years, I wouldn’t be stuck playing cute little girls until the end of eternity.”

  Raoul ground his teeth. “Cute little monsters is more like it. You need the work, Honey. All those pots of A-NEGATIVE don’t come cheap, you know. Besides, this is a great part. Little Miss Marker. You were born for it.”

  A sharp clack must have been Honey stamping her foot on the cobbles. “No. I won’t go to the stupid audition. I want to play with the changelings!”

  “So play,” Raoul sneered. “I hope they give you blisters.” He twirled his cloak around him with a practiced sweep of his arm and stalked out of the alley.

  “He’s been like that since Mr. Lugosi flew out from Hollywood and took over the lead in Dracula,” Honey said, sounding suddenly less whiny. She came around in front of me. “Tell me, darlings, are you stupid or merely ignorant? Don’t you know it’s fatal to wander down dark alleys? We can’t eat you, but there are plenty of Folk who’d adore the chance of a fresh changeling or two. Don’t you have a word to say for yourself?”

  I glared at her. Hard. She giggled. “Oh. Sorry.” She waved an airy hand. “As you were.”

  I flopped down like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Changeling collapsed on top of me and wiggled away hastily. I rubbed my neck where I could still feel the tickle of Raoul’s breath.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” Honey said. “Now, answer my question. What’s a pair of changelings doing wandering around the back alleys of Broadway without so much as a Cap of Invisibility? Didn’t your fairy godparents teach you anything?”

  “They taught me lots,” I said indignantly. “I can say ‘I am under the protection of the Genius of Central Park’ in about a million languages. And I know lots of Folk lore. You want to know how to make a leshii leave you alone?”

  Honey squealed delightedly. “Ooh, you’re a country girl! What brings you so far from the fields you know?”

  I stood up, a little shaky around the knees. “I’m on a quest.”

  “A quest?” She started to clap her hands, caught herself, and clasped them behind her back. “How exciting. I adore quests. Do tell me all about it.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you.” I glanced at Changeling, who was sitting on the cobblestones with her arms around her knees and her head down, humming frantically. “Can we go somewhere else?”

  “What am I thinking?” Honey exclaimed. “You’re exhausted, poor dears. Come have some hot chocolate, and I’ll see if we can fix you up with a coffin to sleep in.”

  “Oh, we can’t spend the night,” I said hastily. “Thanks anyway.”

  “You’ve got nothing the fear, darling. Vampires really are allergic to fairies.” Honey held up her hand. The tips of her fingers were blistered and red. “Your skirt is pure fairy magic. Satisfied?”

  “Hot chocolate sounds good,” I said.

  According to its brochure, the Bram Stoker was “a full-service residential hotel for the discriminating urban vampire.” Its lobby was decorated entirely in black and white, with curly tufted sofas and black marble urns full of red roses tucked into every corner.

  Honey led us to one of the sofas and waved. A very tall vampire in a black suit detached himself from the shadows, glided up to us, and bowed.

  “Nosferatu darling,” Honey said. “Be an ang
el and bring us two hot chocolates and a pot of A-negative. And tell Management my friends will be needing somewhere to sleep.”

  Nosferatu’s nose quivered; he swept his arm protectively across his face. “Changelings!” he hissed.

  I didn’t think much of him either. He was as bald as Sammy the Scalper, with fangs as long as my finger and eyes like scarlet eggs in wrinkly nests.

  “Management will not be pleased,” he said.

  “Ask anyway,” said Honey, and waved him away. “Now, darling,” she said. “Tell me everything!”

  I thought I didn’t feel like talking, but telling my story to Honey wasn’t like telling it to anybody else. Most Folk just sit there while you’re telling them a story, looking out over your shoulder or cleaning their claws or cobbling shoes or whatever. You never really know whether they’re listening unless you change something or leave something out, and then they correct you.

  Honey listened with her whole body, red-violet eyes wide, oohing and aahing and giggling and shivering in all the right places. She didn’t care if I stuck to the traditional rules of storytelling—in fact, she asked questions that made it impossible. Before long, I’d forgotten she was a bloodsucking ex-mortal and was telling her my adventures without even thinking about which fairy-tale pattern they fit into.

  I was just describing the Mermaid Queen’s tattoos, with special attention to the nuclear submarine, when Nosferatu glided up with a silver tray filled with pots and cups. “Two chocolates and one A-negative, Miss Honey. Management says that you may accommodate the changelings in your suite. But do try and keep them from running about the halls. Some of our older guests are particularly sensitive.”

  Honey lifted her upper lip just enough to display the tips of her fangs. “How sweet of Management to care.”

  Nosferatu sniffed. “There will be an extra cleaning charge, of course—to decontaminate whatever they may touch.”

  “I just adore the Bram Stoker,” Honey said sarcastically, sounding a lot like Eloise. “Go on, darling,” she said when Nosferatu had hissed himself away. “What happened next?”

  I took a sweet, burning gulp of hot chocolate and picked up the story at the Riddle Game. Honey insisted on trying to guess the riddle and couldn’t, although her second guess—a magic rat—came close. I was feeling better than I had since seeing the Producer’s cabinet of Tech heads. Changeling had finished her chocolate and was fast asleep in the corner of the sofa with her mouth open, looking about as heroic as a ham sandwich.

  This is my quest, I thought. I’m the hero around here. And before I knew it, I was telling Honey that I had fixed the Producer of Broadway’s computer all by myself.

  Honey’s eyes sparkled at me. “Well, aren’t you the bee’s knees! Last time I was in Central Park, it was all too Olde Worlde for words. I wouldn’t have guessed anyone there would even have heard of computers, let alone learned how to fix them. Well, you live and learn, don’t you?”

  I quickly took another sip of chocolate and tried to think of a response that wouldn’t sound lame. The silence was getting really uncomfortable when Honey asked, “Do you remember much about your life before you were changed?”

  “Not really,” I said cautiously. “I don’t think about it.”

  “Perhaps they took you when you were very young. I was eight when I crossed over.” She smiled sadly. “I remember lots about being mortal. I was the original Gwendolyn in The Poor Little Rich Girl. The New York Times called my performance ‘heartbreaking.’ ”

  She’d listened to my story; it was my turn to listen to hers. I made an encouraging noise.

  “The stage was wonderful,” she went on. “Still, what I remember best is things like Mama taking me to Central Park and feeding the pigeons on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes we’d walk down to the lake and Papa would rent a rowboat and I’d trail my hand in the water and Mama would scold me because the water was dirty.” She played with a pink frill on her skirt. “Sometimes I splashed her. I wasn’t a very nice child, I’m afraid.”

  I stifled a yawn. “My mom wouldn’t let me feed the pigeons,” I said. “She called them flying rats.”

  “Your mom?” Honey asked, startled. “Don’t you mean your fairy godmother?”

  I shook my head. It felt swollen and strange, almost as if it belonged to someone else. “No. My fairy godmother is a white rat. She likes pigeons. Mom hated rats and snakes and pigeons and cockroaches. Dad said we ought to get a cat, but she wasn’t big on cats.” I looked at Honey. “I feel really weird. Did you put some kind of spell on me?”

  Honey laughed. “Just conversation, darling. It’s a kind of human magic. What else do you remember?”

  I told her about my room with the fairy-tale mural and the stars, which somehow reminded me of the wooden sailboat Daddy built for us to sail on the Boat Pond. “It had a lavender ribbon flying from its masthead,” I said, and then, “Changeling fixed the Producer’s computer.”

  “I know,” Honey said.

  She was sitting with her ankles crossed, her shiny black Mary Janes dangling above the black plush carpet, her blistered hands folded in her frilly pink lap. Her expression, even without whiskers, reminded me of Astris when I’d been acting particularly mortal.

  “I wish I hadn’t lied,” I said shyly.

  “Apology accepted,” she said. “It’s natural for mortals to beef up their parts a little, but keep this in mind: If you start lying about things, after a while you’re in danger of forgetting what’s real and what isn’t.”

  “Isn’t everything real here?”

  She looked serious. “No,” she said. “But it could be. That’s why Folk don’t lie. And they have a very short way with mortals who do. Take it from one who knows: Being a has-been mortal in New York Between is no day at the races.”

  “I like the Folk.” I sighed. “When I was smaller, I used to wish and wish I was a fairy, until my fairy godmother made me lay off.”

  Honey gave my hand a snowflake-cold touch. “I’ll let you into a little secret, darling. You are—a tiny part of you, anyway.”

  I snatched my hand away. “That’s not funny.”

  Honey leaned forward earnestly. “Scout’s honor, darling. Think about it. You eat supernatural food, you breathe supernatural air, you live and play exclusively with supernaturals. You shouldn’t be surprised if some supernaturalness rubs off on you. You look maybe ten, eleven years old, but you’re probably older.” She studied me, her curly blonde head cocked. “Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

  “No,” I said shortly, feeling stupid.

  “It’s not your fault, darling—Park Folk are notoriously ignorant about all things mortal. Pay attention now. I’m going to give you your first lesson in human time. Outside mortals count time in years—that’s roughly from Winter Solstice to Winter Solstice. Every year, they grow older. Are you following me so far?”

  I thought this over. “Does getting older have anything to do with getting bigger? I know I’ve been growing a lot lately.” I looked down my body in alarm. “How big am I going to get? Ogre size? Giant size?”

  Honey laughed. “Calm down, darling. You’re already nearly as big as you’re going to get. So is Changeling. Because she started as a fairy, she grows more slowly than a mortal. As she spends more time in the mortal world, she’ll start aging faster. Understand?”

  “Not really,” I muttered. My eyes drifted shut. It was nice and quiet there in the dark, and I would have been happy to stay there and just go to sleep if Honey’s pixyish giggle hadn’t jerked me awake. I picked up my chocolate cup to see if there was any left. There was, but it was cold and sludgy, kind of like my brain.

  “Time for all good changelings to be in bed,” Honey said. She got up and slung Changeling over her shoulder, careful not to touch anything but her clothes. Vampires, I remembered, are a lot stronger than they look.

  “Come along, darling. Next stop, beddy-bye.”

  CHAPTER 18

  FOLK OF A FEATHER FLOC
K TOGETHER.

  Neef ’s Rules for Changelings

  When I woke up, I was so warm and comfortable I thought at first I was back in my own bed in Belvedere Castle. Then I realized it was much too quiet, and the air smelled stuffy and kind of flowery.

  I opened my eyes. Reflected candlelight danced in the shiny side of a big black box about an inch from my nose. I wallowed upright in a huge pile of velvet-covered cushions and stretched.

  Honey peered down at me over the edge of the box. “You slept like the dead,” she said. “The maid’s been trying to get in and fumigate for hours.”

  Her voice brought it all back: Sammy the Scalper, the Chorus Line, the Producer and his cabinet of Tech heads, the lights of Broadway going out, Changeling turning them back on again.

  “Where’s Changeling?” I asked.

  “Changeling’s taking a bath, darling. Your Satchel is on the breakfast table, hobnobbing with my magic coffee-grinder. The Bram Stoker doesn’t do solid food, I’m afraid.”

  Honey’s room was decorated entirely in red, black, and pale yellow. So was Honey. She’d lost the Shirley Temple look for black tights and a loose red silk shirt, and had scraped her blonde ringlets back into a curly ponytail.

  A door opened and Changeling walked into the room.

  I wasn’t sure, this morning, exactly how I felt about Changeling. On the one hand, she was so totally not from around here. She didn’t know Folk lore; she didn’t know the rules. I wasn’t even sure she really believed in fairies yet. If she looked just like me, she should be just like me, you know? Like nixies are like other nixies? But she wasn’t.

  On the other hand, she could see things I couldn’t and knew things I didn’t. Without Changeling’s Tech magic, I’d be negotiating with Sammy the Scalper over which body part to trade for a ticket to Peter Pan. Or decorating the Producer’s cabinet of heads. I owed her. Big-time. And I didn’t feel good about that either.