Changeling Read online

  That did it: I screamed like a banshee. The Hunt leaped up after me, but whatever had nabbed me rose even faster. We spiraled smoothly up and up, neatly avoiding the dragons and garudas and pigeons and other winged Folk who had been dancing in the air. Soon we were so high that I could see the whole Park spread out below me with the buildings of the City clustered around it like a stone forest around a green lake.

  I screamed some more.

  The whatever-it-was plunged down through the center of the Hunt, leaving my stomach behind. It wheeled and flew east over the Metropolitan Museum, and suddenly it dawned on me that maybe I was being rescued.

  I stopped screaming, but I didn’t relax. How could I? I was about twenty stories up, dangling from a pair of really sharp claws that belonged to something that might be taking me home so it wouldn’t have to share. Not to mention that I was heading out into the City. For me, the City was something to look at, not visit; for me, the City was even more dangerous than the North Woods.

  We swooped down toward a pale building crowned with glittering gold. I closed my eyes, and waited for the crash. But there wasn’t one. I touched solid ground with my feet, the claws released my shoulders, and I collapsed, shaking all over. Then I was scooped up, in somebody’s arms this time, carried a little way, and dropped onto something soft.

  We were there. Wherever “there” was. And I was still alive.

  CHAPTER 6

  MANNERS ARE ALWAYS IMPORTANT.

  Neef’s Rules for Changelings

  I lay where I’d been dumped. I didn’t have the strength to move. I didn’t want to open my eyes. With any luck, whatever had snatched me from the Park would think I’d fainted and leave me alone.

  Fat chance. Something poked me in the side. Hard.

  “Ow,” I said.

  Ah, you are awake. The voice was in my head, not my ears, which was icky. Sit up and let me see you.

  This didn’t sound like I was about to be eaten. So why had I been snatched? Witches sometimes stole mortals to comb their hair and fetch water in sieves, but witches didn’t talk in your head. Could it be a dragon, maybe, wanting someone to clean his cave? Only one way to find out. I sat up and opened my eyes.

  A man-shaped supernatural was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, his hands on his knees and his head tipped to one side like a bird.

  Here’s where mortal curiosity comes in handy. Instead of pitching a fairy fit, like normal Folk presented with something they didn’t recognize, I studied him. Bright black eyes, long, straight black hair tied back in a ponytail, bare feet, black pants under a black turtle-neck. No wings or claws now, which meant he must be a shapechanger. His nose was the giveaway, though. It was about a mile long, red, and pointed like a needle.

  Long nose, bare feet, mind-speaker, shapechanger. Put it all together, it spells tengu. Japanese mountain spirit, trickster, thief. Hates priests, likes gold. There was something else, too, but I couldn’t remember what.

  Wonderful, the tengu buzzed in my head. I don’t suppose she’s ever combed her hair in her life, or washed her feet. And that look of sulky suspicion! Perfect! Simply perfect!

  “Thank you,” I said, and yes, I sounded suspicious. I was suspicious. Also puzzled.

  Sarcasm! Wonderful! The tengu rubbed its long hands together. Snatching you was a risk, but I’m glad I did it. Just think. The naughtiest child in New York, and she’s mine, mine, mine!

  “The naughtiest child in New York?” I echoed stupidly.

  You don’t agree? Consider: You strayed from the path, you talked to strangers, you lied to your godmother, you ingested a forbidden substance, you stayed up past your bedtime, you broke a promise. . . .

  The sheer unfairness of this blew my mind. “That wasn’t the way it was at all!” I shouted. “You don’t know anything about it, you, you long-nosed creep!”

  I shut my mouth hard, but it was too late. The tengu’s head got small and feathery, his nose developed a sharp point, his beady eyes got even beadier. In a breath, I was facing a man with a raven’s head. His beak dropped open and he let out a bunch of little caws. After a terrifying moment, I realized he was laughing.

  Perfect! he cawed joyfully. Such exquisite rudeness! And after I saved your life! The award is mine!

  “Award?” I asked blankly.

  The Eloise Award for the Naughtiest Child in New York. Such a wonderful coincidence that you should come along just now, right when I needed you. Mortal child, you are going to make me the most famous bogeyman in New York City!

  He told me to call him Carlyle.

  Country mountain spirits are called after the mountains they live on; New York mountain spirits are called after their buildings. Carlyle lived in the golden spire on top of the Carlyle Hotel. He’d modeled his nest on a traditional Japanese room, with rice straw mats on the floor and paper walls. It was sparsely furnished with a lacquered chest, a low wooden table, a scroll painting of a mountain in the clouds, and a lacquer shelf that held a peony in an iron vase and a very beautiful blue-and-green china horse. I saw no windows to escape out of and no visible doors.

  The thing I’d forgotten about tengus, of course, was that they collect naughty children. From Carlyle’s point of view, he hadn’t been rescuing me from the Wild Hunt at all. He’d been bagging a prize specimen.

  Well, I wasn’t anybody’s specimen. I was the official mortal changeling of Central Park, and I needed to get back there and straighten things out. Sure, the Green Lady had exiled me, but I knew there had to be some way around it. In the story of the Hippie Chick, for instance, the wicked witch had locked this girl with superlong hair in a penthouse with no door. When the girl found a boyfriend anyway, the witch cut off her hair and blinded her boyfriend and sent her into the suburbs to be a single mom. But the Hippie Chick still managed to get back to the City and live happily ever after. If she could do that, plus restore her boyfriend’s sight, I figured I could live in Central Park again under the Lady’s protection.

  First I needed to get away from the tengu.

  It wouldn’t be too hard to escape from a room with paper walls. All I had to do was wait until Carlyle went to sleep or something, rip open a door, find the stairs, and walk west until I got to the Park. In the meantime, I realized I was starving.

  And then I realized that I’d left Satchel behind in my room.

  It was like taking a step that wasn’t there. I closed my eyes tight and breathed very slowly through my nose. Satchel was more than a portable pantry. Satchel was the only magic I had. And I was still hungry.

  Carlyle gave an anxious squawk. You’re not going to faint or anything, are you? I hate it when my naughty children faint or throw up. Such a mess, and no fun at all, not like crying and screaming.

  There’s nothing like being annoyed to stop you from wanting to cry. “I’m hungry,” I said. “Do you starve your naughty children, or just torture them?”

  Naughty children get sent to bed without supper, he buzzed primly.

  “In that case, I’ll faint for sure and probably never wake up again.”

  Carlyle slid open one of the paper walls, darted through the opening, and slid it shut behind him, squawking crabbily. I rushed to the opposite wall and hit it as hard as I could. It gave a little, but it didn’t come close to tearing. I couldn’t kick through it, either, or slide it. I worked my way around the nest, poking, punching, pushing. Nothing budged, not even the panel the tengu had used.

  I was frustrated, but I wasn’t discouraged. Escaping from a bogeyman wasn’t supposed to be easy. Naughty children from Outside exist for bogeymen to torture. But most naughty children don’t have my training. I knew somewhere in here there had to be a charm or an enchanted cockroach or a trail of breadcrumbs that would help me find the way out. I just had to keep my eyes open and be ready to seize the opportunity when it came.

  The wall slid open and Carlyle stalked in carrying a bowl of rice covered with shiny brown strips.

  Grilled eel, he buzzed in my head. Very
good for you. Do you know how to use chopsticks?

  He was obviously hoping that I hated grilled eel, or at the very least that I’d have to eat it with my fingers. Smugly, I picked up the chopsticks, arranged them in my right hand, and dug enthusiastically into the brown mess. I’d had grilled eel before—it was a favorite with the tanuki who tutored me in Japanese Folk lore, language, and culture. I liked it okay if it was a little crispy and the sauce wasn’t too sweet.

  This eel was soggy and much too sweet, but I ate it anyway. Carlyle looked irritated and began to yatter on about the other bogeymen and how awful the contest was going to be—trying to get me to cry and scream, I guess. Since his voice was in my head, I couldn’t exactly ignore him, but I managed not to react until he mentioned the name Eloise.

  The eel caught in my throat. Eloise is the Genius of the Plaza Hotel and official Patroness of Spoiled Brats everywhere. According to Astris, she was ten times more destructive than a boggart—in other words, nobody I really wanted to meet.

  Carlyle’s nose twitched happily. Oh, you’ve heard of Eloise, have you? Then you won’t be surprised when you meet her, but never mind: I have another surprise for you. I love surprises. Don’t you?

  “No,” I said.

  This is a good surprise. You’ll like it. He smiled unpleasantly. Would you like to see it now?

  “I’m not finished eating.” I snatched up the bowl and stuffed more eel into my mouth. I wished for the Pooka to rescue me, but it was an empty wish: His tail hair was in my jeans back at the Castle.

  Don’t think about the Pooka, I told myself. Think about escape. Maybe if I could persuade Carlyle that I wasn’t as naughty as he thought, he’d let me go.

  I swallowed my mouthful, put the bowl on the straw matting with the chopsticks laid carefully across it, and bowed deeply, as the tanuki had taught me.

  “Honorable tengu,” I said in my politest Japanese, “I am ashamed. My words and actions toward one who has so generously saved my miserable life and given me delicious grilled eel have been nothing less than criminal.”

  This speech did not have the effect I was aiming for. Carlyle screamed a curse that raised a blister on the back of my neck. Horrible child! I don’t have time for tricks, he screeched in my head. There are three hundred bogeymen and their naughty children coming. I have preparations to make, plans to lay. I need to find filet mignon for Eloise and raisins for her turtle, Skipperdee. If you won’t cooperate, I might as well just take you back where I found you. I don’t think the Wild Hunt will care if you’re a bit late.

  “I was just kidding,” I said hastily. “I’m bad. Look, I’ll prove it.” I grabbed the china horse and heaved it at Carlyle’s head. Flexing its wings, it soared past him and landed, prancing, on the lacquer cabinet.

  Ha! Carlyle cawed triumphantly. Now you show your true colors! I expect you thought you were being clever. All naughty children think that way. But you can’t outsmart me, young lady, any more than you could outsmart the Genius of Central Park. Did you actually think you were going to break your geas and get away with it?

  It was time to set the record straight. “It wasn’t my fault,” I said. “I didn’t know I was under a geas. I didn’t even know about the dance until Peg Powler told me about it. She set me up. I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.”

  Carlyle rubbed his long hands together. Perfect! Classic! Denies responsibility, displaces blame, regrets only getting caught! He bounced up onto his bare feet. Well, I’ve got an awards ceremony to prepare for. And you’ve got a surprise waiting for you. Follow me.

  If there had been anywhere to go, I would have run. If there had been any point in fighting him, I would have fought. But there wasn’t. I let the tengu drag me to the paper wall. He pulled open a panel, shoved me stumbling into a foul-smelling darkness, and slid the wall shut behind me.

  CHAPTER 7

  A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME IS A LOT SAFER.

  Neef’s Rules for Changelings

  The smell was the first thing I noticed. Foul, cold, and unnatural, it made my eyes water and caught at the back of my throat. I’d never smelled anything quite like it, not even when a squirrel died in the Castle basement. I coughed and breathed through my mouth until I got used to it enough to notice other things. Like the cold. And the dark. And the humming.

  Soft and even, it vibrated in my skull, buzzing a little, like a snore. I quickly started to run through the ten identifying signs of a closet monster, but couldn’t remember any further than number six (the smell of old socks).

  Well, whatever it was, it was better for me to find it than for it to find me first.

  I began to explore. The floor was hard and cold. The wall at my back was clammy. Over my head, I found a row of hooks with cloths and wooden poles hanging from them. One pole had bristles on the end: a broom. Another pole ended in damp, sour-smelling ropes that made my hands feel greasy and dirty: a mop. I groped along the wall to a corner and came to a smooth, cold tublike thing with damp, greasy rags hung over the lip. As soon as I touched them, I knew just where the stink was coming from.

  I stepped backwards, gagging. Something gave unpleasantly under my foot, then jerked sharply away. I lost my balance, falling onto something squishy and lumpy that screeched angrily. I hastily scrambled away from it as far as I could get, which wasn’t very far.

  “You stepped on me!” the closet monster yelled. “That hurt!”

  Given the size of its closet, it had to be a small monster, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. Boggarts are small; so are many devils. It’s not a good idea to annoy either one. “I’m sorry,” I said hastily. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You stepped on my hand,” it accused. Its voice was loud and flat. “You should watch where you are going.”

  “I can’t see in the dark,” I said apologetically.

  “Then you should be more careful.”

  The monster still sounded angry, but it hadn’t mentioned grinding my bones to make its bread yet, which was a good sign.

  The humming got suddenly more intense.

  “Is that you?” I asked.

  Silence, except for the humming and a rustle that I read as the monster making itself comfortable. “I believe,” it said thoughtfully, “that is the compressor of the central air-conditioning unit.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Is that some kind of dragon or something?”

  There was another silence. “You are teasing me,” the monster said reproachfully. “I do not like being teased. Teasing is not nice.”

  Now, I’ve spent my whole life learning how to talk to different kinds of Folk. Nixies are interested in fish and cute boys. Leprechauns love shoes and gold. Brownies are into household hints. Tricksters like practical jokes. Demons like contests. All the Folk I knew about told stories, traded gossip, granted wishes, played games. They never, ever said things like “teasing is not nice.”

  But if Carlyle’s surprise wasn’t a supernatural, then what was it?

  “I’ve never heard of a compressor,” I said cautiously. “What’s its magic? Is it dangerous?”

  More silence. “Is this a test?” the surprise asked.

  “No. I really don’t know. And I don’t like not knowing things.”

  “Neither do I,” the surprise said. “Insufficient data can lead to unfortunate mishaps.”

  “Right,” I said, which I figured was a safe thing to say. “Will you tell me about the compressor beast, please?”

  “Very well,” the voice said. And it proceeded to give me an explanation in which the words “and,” “the,” “chill,” and “air” were the only ones that made sense. As the voice went on and on about flower-carbons and cold-producing poisonous magic insects called “refriger-ants,” I realized something.

  Carlyle’s surprise was a mortal child.

  Park Folk can be pretty nasty on the subject of mortals, but Astris had always told me that most mortals were perfectly nice. Changelings were mortal, after all. Mortals from Outside were
fine, too, as long as they stayed where they belonged. Wild mortals in New York, though, were nothing but trouble. They didn’t know the rules, and even when they knew them, they usually broke them.

  Secretly, I’d always thought it might be fun to meet someone where I didn’t know what they were going to say before they opened their mouth. And now, here I was, talking to a genuine wild mortal. Or rather, it was talking to me.

  Too excited to keep quiet, I broke into the stream of strange words. “Are you really, you know, a”—I couldn’t call it a “wild mortal” to its face—“a human being?”

  The ugly voice stopped short. Silence filled the darkness—the thick kind that happens when someone is really mad at you.

  “Have I got that wrong?” I said uncertainly. “I read it in a magazine. I’m a human being, too—a mortal changeling. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  Silence. I babbled on nervously. “I guess it’s a silly question, huh? If you weren’t a mortal child, Carlyle wouldn’t have stolen you.”

  “Carlyle did not steal me,” the mortal child said sulkily. “The Carlyle is a hotel. I can see it from my bedroom window.”

  “It’s also the home of the tengu who brought you here.”

  “You mean the man with the long nose?”

  “The Japanese mountain spirit,” I corrected. “Yes.”

  The mortal ignored me. “He said I was a naughty child,” it complained. “That is not an accurate description of my behavior. Sometimes it is difficult for me to tell whether my behavior is appropriate or not, but I am not naughty.”

  “Why did he think you were naughty, then?”

  The mortal child was silent awhile. “It may have had something to do with taking my father’s computer apart,” it said at last. “I remember that he was very angry when I dismantled his cell phone last summer. However, the situations were not parallel. I dismantled the cell phone out of curiosity. I dismantled his computer so that I could repair it.”