Once Upon a Changeling Read online

  She nodded. “And how I fixed your car.”

  Oh. Well, I guessed that made sense. In a totally weird way. Okay, it didn’t make sense. But the baby was talking, and I was sort of shell-shocked. If someone had told me that I’d won a million dollars right then, I would have been like, “Oh. Great.” I didn’t have the energy to freak out.

  Puck and the changeling had a long conversation about why he hadn’t reverted to the human child. The changeling mentioned that the real baby could possibly already be dead, but Puck said no. The Korrigan Queen, whoever the hell that was, hadn’t sacrificed the babies yet. She wasn’t going to do it until the Equinox, which was still weeks away, so the baby was still alive.

  “We’ve got to get it back,” said Marcos.

  He was right. “So the Korrigan Queen’s got the kid,” I said. “How about I just take the changeling here, and we go pay her a visit—”

  Apparently, it wasn’t that easy. Nothing in life ever is, is it? The Korrigan Queen lived in some hill, which humans couldn’t enter and she wouldn’t see faeries, either, so Puck couldn’t go. If her Fey subjects showed up without an invitation, she vaporized them or something. Of course, Puck said she knew exactly who we should talk to.

  We had to leave Marcos at home with the changeling, because my parents were due home any minute. I didn’t figure they’d take too kindly to the idea that the kid was actually a changeling, so I thought it would be best if we’d played it as if everything were normal. Marcos would continue to babysit. Puck and I would go to see her friend, the guy who was supposed to know everything we ever needed to know about changelings.

  We had to drive, of course. You have to drive everywhere in Sarasota. Even if you wanted to walk, you’d get crushed by all the old people who can’t drive. It was just as well anyway, because it was a hot, muggy night, and the air conditioning in Puck’s car felt good against my skin. I asked Puck why she drove a car if she could fly, and she told me she couldn’t fly. Apparently, not all faeries looked like Tinkerbell.

  Puck drove me a few miles down Route 41 to a strip mall containing a K-Mart and a Publix. Sandwiched between them was a tiny biker bar. I could tell it was a biker bar, because there were a whole bunch of motorcycles parked outside. Also, the guy sitting on the bench by the door to the bar was wearing a lot of leather. The bar was obviously a converted retail store, but it made the best of it. The glass doors stood open, offering a glimpse of the dimly lit, smoky indoors. Raucous music spilled out onto the sidewalk.

  I hesitated outside. Puck pulled me in. “It’s okay,” she said.

  The air was oppressively filled with cigarette smoke. I started coughing and couldn’t stop until Puck pounded me on the back. She took my hand and we wound through leather-clad bodies, tables, and heavily-lipsticked waitresses carrying beer on trays. We stopped in the back of the bar.

  A man was sitting in a booth by himself. He was huge. Enormous muscles bulged out of his white tank top. They were decorated with all manner of tattoos. The guy had what they call a shirt sleeve—his arm was covered in tattoos from his wrist to his shoulder. The tattoos bled and twisted into each other. Devils grabbed mermaids, and stems of roses wrapped their thorny ropes around beautiful women’s necks. He wore a red bandana tied around his head. Long hair emerged from underneath it. He stubbed out his cigarette with fingers encircled in numerous rings and looked up at us. One of his eyes looked as if someone had tried to put it out. The iris was a milky blue. There was no pupil. I swallowed.

  But Puck grinned at him. “Hey,” she said, giving him a little wave.

  “Puck,” he grumbled. “What are you doing here?”

  She dragged me to his table and sat down. I stood. I guess I wanted to be able to make a break for it if the guy didn’t want to talk to us. He looked pretty tough. He didn’t look like a faerie. Puck had said we were going to see a faerie, but as far as I was concerned, this guy was nothing but bad news.

  “Need to ask you a question,” she said.

  He looked at me. “Who’s your friend?” he asked.

  “I’m Russ Knight,” I said. “Sir.”

  “Sit down,” he said.

  I glanced at the door and then back at him.

  “Sit down,” he said again.

  I sat.

  “So, how have you been?” asked Puck in a cheery voice.

  I wanted to kill her. Couldn’t she just ask the guy the question and get us the hell out of here?

  The biker lit another cigarette. “Can’t complain,” he said. “How’s your mother?”

  “Good,” said Puck. “She’s adjusting to the weather. She’s not crazy about the humidity, but overall she likes it. I miss Dad, but I understand. They’ve been together for six hundred years, so I can see how they’d get sick of each other. I guess they’ve just had their time, you know? But it’s still sad.”

  Six hundred years?! What?

  He nodded. “I was sorry to hear they split up,” he said.

  Puck shoved him playfully. “No, you weren’t,” she said. “I know you’ve always had a thing for Mom.”

  “Your mother is a very nice woman, but I’ve never—”

  “You should ask her out,” said Puck. “She’s been looking for something to do at night. Do you have our number?”

  “I mean it, Puck. I am not interested in your mother.”

  “Whatever,” she said. She smiled at him knowingly.

  This friendly exchange was doing nothing to calm me down. It just made this whole thing seem more surreal and dreamlike. I was beginning to be able to convince myself that this really wasn’t real and that I would wake up snug in my bed. Maybe I could convince myself to wake up right now. If I concentrated … .

  “I thought you were here to ask me a question,” said the biker.

  “Go ahead,” said Puck. “Tell him.”

  I tried to tell him, but it was really hard to explain, and I didn’t know where to start or how to end. Mostly, I ended up babbling for next five minutes while both of them stared at me as if I were a raging idiot. Finally, I paused to take a breath, and Puck said, “He’s got a changeling that won’t revert to the human child.”

  The biker’s face lit up in understanding. “Oh. Well, that’s strange. Did you boil water in an eggshell or brew beer in a walnut shell?”

  I told him what I’d done. I asked if the problem was because the changeling had interrupted me before I’d gotten the water in the eggshell to boil.

  “No,” he said. “That shouldn’t make any difference. Once the changeling is revealed to be inhuman, he and the human child should change places immediately. That’s the way it works. I can’t understand what could be wrong.”

  Great. Not even Puck’s scary biker faerie friend could figure out why this was screwed up. I really was cursed. First my girlfriend saddled me with her bastard child, then everyone in school stopped speaking to me, then the baby turned out to be a monster, and now nobody could figure out how to fix it. It was typical. I was just bad luck. That was the way it went.

  “I wonder,” continued the biker, “if I shouldn’t come to your house and have a look.”

  I shook my head violently. “No,” I said. “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Because he scared me to death! “Because you’d scare my parents,” I said.

  “How old is the child?” asked the biker.

  “Four months,” I said.

  “It took you four months to realize something was wrong with your child?” he asked in disbelief.

  I got defensive. “Hey, it’s not even my kid,” I said.

  “Well, that’s your problem,” said the biker. “The reveal has to be performed by the baby’s parent. If the baby’s parent doesn’t reveal the changeling, then the changeling won’t revert.”

  Shit. “Oh,” I said. “We did it wrong.”

  “I never knew that,” said Puck.

  “It’s true,” said the biker.

  “So what do we do now?” I aske
d.

  Biker shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I’ve only heard of this happening once and in that case the child turned out to not really be a changeling, but an autistic kid. Tragedy, really. I think they burned him.”

  That was awful!

  “If the kid wasn’t actually a changeling then you haven’t heard of it ever happening before, have you?” asked Puck.

  “Touché,” said the biker. “Look, you might check out the club on Main Street across from Enrique’s Bistro. There are some guys who hang out there who might know what you guys could do to fix this.”

  The vampire club? I so did not think so.

  “Cool,” said Puck. And I could tell she wanted to go there right at that exact moment. But I made her take me home.

  My parents had waited up for me. They’d sent Marcos home when they got there, and then they sat in the living room, bitching to each other about what a terrible disappointment I was. I said goodbye to Puck at her car, and made my way into my house. Once inside, I counted under my breath, “One, two—”

  “Where have you been?” exploded my mother, rushing into the foyer.

  Right on schedule.

  “Work?” I said.

  “Oh right,” said my mother sarcastically. “Don’t even try that with me, Russell Cross Knight. I know that Sub Stop closes at ten. Do you know what time it is?”

  I didn’t know.

  “It’s nearly one in the morning,” she said. “Now you come into this living room and sit down and talk to your father and me.”

  My father hadn’t come into the foyer. Instead he was standing in the door to the living room, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Dad’s blocking the doorway,” I said.

  “Young man, that is enough of your smart mouth,” my mother snapped.

  I slid past my dad and sat down on the couch. “I’m sorry I was out late, and that I worried you,” I said.

  “Well, you should be,” said my mother.

  “You have a child, Russell,” said my father. “And he’s your responsibility.”

  “Which is why I had a babysitter,” I said.

  “I said not to smart off,” said my mother.

  I threw up my hands. “I wasn’t—”

  “You most certainly were, and it was utterly inappropriate.”

  “Fine,” I said. I sighed.

  “Don’t you sigh like that,” said my father.

  “What?” I said.

  “I just don’t know where we went wrong,” said my mom. “I just don’t know where we went wrong.”

  “Well, how ‘bout we start with lecturing me on responsibility and then treating me like a five-year-old,” I said.

  “You listen to me, young man,” said my father, “we will treat you like an adult when you start acting like one.”

  “You know what?” I said. “It’s not even my kid.”

  “Russell?” said my mother.

  “Cindi and I never even had sex. It’s somebody else’s kid.”

  “Oh, Russell, what a thing to say,” said my mother. “I can’t believe you. I never thought you’d go so far as to lie like that to get out of your responsibility.”

  “Really son,” said my father. “That kind of statement is beneath you.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Look, forget it. I’ll try to do better, okay?”

  Marcos was at lunch that day. He was off work, which was why he’d been able to babysit so late, and claimed to be so curious about what had happened that he’d rolled into school early that day. He, Puck, and I sat at a lunch table slurping our tomato soup and eating our peanut butter sandwiches, trying to figure out our game plan. Puck wanted to go to the vampire club. I didn’t want to go. I’d just discovered that faeries were real, and I figured that probably meant that vampires were real and that probably meant that they really hung out at that club, and I was too young to die. Puck told me that there weren’t real vampires, but she said there was a group of Fey that liked to drink human blood, but they didn’t need it to live. To which I replied, “Same freaking difference, Puck!”

  Since I wasn’t budging on the subject, we considered some alternatives. The best to come out of those suggested was to try to get the baby’s real parent to do the reveal ritual. Cindi was out.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “They won’t let me take an eggshell in there, much less a lighter.”

  Marcos pushed the Cindi thing. “Are you sure you couldn’t sneak an egg in there?”

  “No,” said Puck. “Even if he could, he couldn’t sneak the changeling in.”

  “Oh,” said Marcos. “Right.”

  So we’d need to find the real father.

  “So,” I said. “How are we going to find out who the real father is?”

  “I don’t know,” said Puck. “Was there anyone you saw her hang out with last year?”

  “I told you the news she cheated on me hit me like a truck,” I said. “I was sweetly oblivious if she was hanging out with someone.”

  “If she was cheating on you, she would have laid low,” said Marcos. “You wouldn’t have seen her.”

  “What do you mean ‘if’?” I said. “Don’t you believe me, dude?”

  Marcos shrugged. “No, I believe you.”

  “Yeah, you sound real freaking convinced,” I said.

  “It’s just that it’s real convenient for you, isn’t it?” said Marcos. “Suddenly, all your problems will be solved. You won’t even have to hang out with the riff raff like us anymore.”

  “Hey, that’s not true,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re—”

  “Marcos,” said Puck. “The real baby would be back here right now if Russ was lying. He’s telling the truth. The changeling is proof of that.”

  “Oh,” said Marcos. “Oh yeah.”

  I glared at him.

  Puck cleared her throat. “Play nice, boys,” she said. “You know, we could always just ask Cindi. Have you ever asked her?”

  I shook my head. “No. I can hardly bear to bring it up in front of her.”

  “Poor you,” said Puck. “You’ll have to get past that.”

  “Look, there’s no reason to upset Cindi,” said Marcos.

  “What?” I said. “Two minutes ago you were trying to get me in there to ‘upset’ her with an eggshell and a cigarette lighter. You were gung ho for that.”

  “I know, but that was because it would be the fastest way to get this thing resolved,” said Marcos. “But now, bugging her about this … .”

  “Got a better idea?” asked Puck.

  “Why don’t we just talk to her friends?” said Marcos. “What girl doesn’t talk to her friends about this stuff?”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “See,” said Marcos. “We talk to her girls; we find the answer; we don’t even have to leave the cafeteria.”

  “Okay,” said Puck. “Let’s go.” She started to stand up.

  “Not you,” said Marcos.

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “They won’t talk to you,” said Marcos. “You have blue hair.”

  “He’s got a point,” I said.

  “Like they’ll talk to you two? Outcast of the year and auto boy?” she demanded.

  We looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Fine,” said Puck, sitting back down. We looked at her. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she said. “Go find out who the baby’s father is. Geez.”

  Marcos and I turned away from Puck and surveyed the rest of the cafeteria. Marcos pointed out Kara Reese, Cindi’s best friend.

  “Good call,” I said. We headed over to her table. Kara had her back to us, so she didn’t see us as we approached. Instead, she chattered to her friends, tossing her blonde curls. The girls opposite her noticed us before she did. They didn’t speak. They just pointed. Kara turned around.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hi Kara,” I said. Kara and I used to travel in the same social cir
cles. She used to say hi to me in the halls. Ah, how times had changed.

  “What?” she said.

  “Look, you were Cindi’s best friend.”

  “I still am,” said Kara. “I visit her once every two weeks. Not that there’s much left of her after what you did.”

  “Right,” I said.

  Marcos held a hand up to me as if to say, “Let me handle this.” I shut up. Let Marcos knock himself out.

  “Listen, Kara,” said Marcos, “everybody liked Cindi. And she knew that. She kind of felt like there was enough of her to go around, didn’t she?”

  “Hey,” I said. That wasn’t true. Cindi wasn’t like that.

  Marcos shot me a look.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Kara, but her face was different now. More serious.

  “Sure you do,” said Marcos. “Come on, you and I both know that Cindi was bagging other guys besides Russ. Who were they?”

  They?

  “Look, Cindi didn’t appreciate it when people said stuff like this about her last year,” said Kara. I was aghast. When had people said this kind of stuff about her? “She said it was all vicious rumors.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it?” asked Marcos.

  “Cindi was a really nice girl,” said Kara.

  Marcos nodded. “Yeah. Real nice.”

  He made nice sound sleazy. I wanted to punch him. I almost did, and then I remembered that this was the chick who’d ruined my life. I didn’t need to defend her anymore. She’d have to fend for herself from now on.

  “Cindi was totally faithful to Russ,” said Kara. “Russ, did you ever doubt that while you were dating?”

  I shook my head.

  “See?” said Kara.

  “Whatever,” said Marcos. “If you want to start telling the truth for a change, let us know. It’s important.”

  He touched my shoulder and signaled that we should walk away. On our way back to the table, I said, “So, we won’t even have to leave the cafeteria, huh?”