Changeling (6 page)

Everything seemed to click into place: the sandman, Astris hiding the dance from me, even the fate of the other Park changelings. It was like the story of the Sleeping Debutante, where the mayor passed a law against books because an evil fairy had said that his daughter would die of a paper cut. Those Park changelings must have done something stupid and got themselves killed, so Astris had decided to keep me away from the dance entirely. Didn't she trust me? Didn't she know I could take care of myself?

“I know what you're trying to do, Mr. Rat, but really, it's okay. I'm not a complete idiot, and I won't dance myself to death. I'm going to look for other mortal changelings. I'll be fine.”

The Rat's whiskers weren't as expressive as Astris's, but I could tell he wasn't convinced. “Why should you want to do that? They won't know anything about the Park, you know. What would you talk about? And what if they hurt you? Mortals don't always get along with other mortals, I hear. No, it would be best all around if you returned to the Castle.”

“With all this going on? Are you nuts? Listen, Mr. Rat. I appreciate the warning and everything, but you're not my fairy godfather. Just butt out, okay?”

The Water Rat looked grave. “Listen here, Neef. I'm just trying to keep you from making an awful ass of yourself. But if you're determined, you're determined, and I can't change your mind. It might be wise, however, for you to watch for a while before joining in. The Solstice Dance is powerful magic, and you need to understand the pattern or there may be serious consequences. Besides,” he said practically, “you'll never find a changeling by leaping into a huge, moving crowd and hoping to bump into one.”

Even hopped-up on music and keep-awake, I had to admit that the Water Rat had a point. In the end, I promised that I'd climb a tree and watch from above until I was sure I saw the pattern, and then he let me go. I was a little hurt that he waited until I'd found a suitable tree before he joined the dance himself. I may not like rules, but I do keep my promises.

I swung myself up to a nice sturdy branch at about giant's eye-level and put my back against the trunk. The music ran through me like keep-awake. Water Rat hadn't said anything about sitting still, so I bounced until the whole tree creaked and shook.

“Stop that,” rustled the tree angrily. “I shouldn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense, not on Solstice Night. Keep it up, and I'll snap.”

I said I was sorry and stopped bouncing. I couldn't keep my feet still, though, no matter how hard I tried. The music was like a thousand instruments from a hundred different musical traditions all playing at once. It didn't have anything that even remotely resembled a tune and I couldn't quite catch the beat, but I had to move anyway or bust. So I swung my legs and twitched my shoulders and studied the dance for some clue to its pattern.

There had to be one; the Water Rat couldn't lie. But I couldn't figure it out. For all I could tell, the Solstice Dance was nothing but a bunch of Folk prancing around at random, waving their arms or flippers or tails or horns however they felt like it. For a long time, I watched a bunch of leprechauns with emerald-green Mohawks bop-ping up and down in a tight cluster, but I still couldn't make any sense of it.

Then I saw Peg Powler.

She was spinning, her green rags waving like rotten lettuce leaves. As she turned, she looked up and showed me every pointy tooth in her head. My heart thumped uncomfortably under my spidersilk dress, but I grinned right back at her.

Peg circled away, grinning like a goon, and I returned to studying the dance. I noticed an odd kind of ripple moving through the crowd. The ripple came nearer, turning into a line of heads bobbing slightly out of sync with the beat. I wondered what kind of Folk they were. They might have been elves or shapeshifters, except for being red-faced and kind of heavy looking. As they danced past my tree, I noticed that they were panting and gleaming with sweat. A woman tripped, and a man stumbled over her.

Folk don't trip. Folk don't sweat. Folk don't get tired. I'd found the mortal changelings.

CHAPTER 5

 
 
 
I was out of that tree before I knew it. I felt like I was flying, but I couldn't have been: Mortals don't fly, either. I landed on a big furry something that roared and grabbed at me. But I was too quick for it.

The moment my feet hit the grass, the music caught me up like a newspaper in the wind.

The knot of mortals was just on the other side of a garland of nymphs, but I couldn't get to them. My feet had developed a mind of their own. For about a heartbeat, I swear I caught the beat. Everything—the trees, the grass, the stones, the stars, the City, the Folk, the mortals Outside—was part of the same dance, and it never ended. What had been and what was to be were the same as now, and always would be. I forgot about the changelings; I forgot that I'd ever been lonely or angry or even mortal.

And then it all fell apart. Suddenly I had two left feet, and neither of them had the beat. The mortal changelings were nowhere in sight. I bumped into dwarves and elbowed trolls and stepped on a blue demon who might have been Peg's friend Blueberry. Werebears growled at me as I stumbled in front of them. Fox spirits barked and snapped. I wished as hard as I could to be home asleep in bed with the curtains drawn, but like all wishes made when it's too late, it didn't come true. All I could do was grimly keep on dancing and hope I didn't get trampled.

And then I found myself face-to-face with the Green Lady.

When she's happy, the Green Lady of Central Park is as beautiful as the most beautiful thing you can imagine. She has greeny-brown skin, long dark-green ropes of hair, and deep-set eyes the color of new leaves after a rain. But she can change shape, and not all of her shapes are beautiful.

As soon as she saw me, her dreadlocks lifted and began to weave around her head and hiss like snakes. Emerald fire smoldered in her eyes, and her lips lifted over teeth that had grown suddenly needlelike.

“Can the music, boys,” she yelled. “We have a situation here.”

The music fell silent and everyone stopped dancing, just like that. All I could hear was the panicked thumping of my own heart and some noisy panting that was probably the mortal changelings.

The Lady said, “Do you know what you have done?”

She used the voice the Folk use to ask ritual questions, magic questions, questions you'd better answer carefully or you're history. Questions asked in this voice are never as simple as they sound. I licked my lips nervously. “Um. Could you repeat the question?”

“A question is not an answer,” the Green Lady said, the snakes weaving around her head. “You must say yes or no.”

“The thing is,” I said, “it's not that simple. I mean, I know what I
did
, but I don't know why it's a big deal. If that's what you're asking.”

The Green Lady burst into howls of nasty laughter that were echoed by what sounded like every supernatural in New York. It was a horrible sound, full of the promise of blood and crunching bones. I looked around for Astris or the Pooka or the Water Rat or even a friendly moss woman to rescue me, but I was surrounded by open mouths and pointed teeth, tongues of red and blue and purple and black, eyes like red sparks and eyes like soup plates, all of them hungry, hungry, hungry.

“You're a pistol, kid,” the Green Lady said at last. “You
knew
you were doing something wrong, right?”

Another trick question? I wrenched my mind from the hungry eyes and tried to concentrate. Sure, every benevolent supernatural in the Park had warned me away from the Solstice Dance. But I'd never thought about whether I might actually be breaking a rule. So I'd be lying a little whether I said yes or no. I thought it might be safest if I shrugged.

The Lady's hair snakes all twisted around to get a good look at me. My stomach turned over. “I didn't
mean
to do anything wrong,” I explained.

“Geddouttahere,” the Lady snapped. “You think I was born yesterday? The squirrels tell me you've been breaking rules right, left, and center since spring cleaning day. Besides, it doesn't matter what you meant. It only matters what you did.”

“But what did I do?” I meant to yell, but it came out more like a sob.

“
What did you do
?” the Green Lady echoed back at me. “You just broke the geas I laid upon you at your Changing, that's all.”

I felt like I'd opened a door and gotten bonked by a brick. All I could think was
It's not fair
and
I want Astris
.

Something cold and wet touched my hand. I jumped about a mile and screeched. The Green Lady and the Wild Hunt howled with laughter.

Astris patted my knee with a small pink paw. “Hush, pet. It's only me. I did my best to keep this from happening, but mortals are so
curious
. Didn't I warn you that curiosity killed the cat?”

Her voice was brisk, but her whiskers were worried. I let my legs fold and put my arms around her.

The Green Lady smiled graciously at us. “What a good fairy godmother you are, Astris. Aren't you going to fill your changeling in on what's going down here?”

Astris's whiskers twitched angrily. “Perhaps the Lady will recall that she laid a geas on me, too.”

“Not to speak of Neef's geas in her hearing,” the Lady said helpfully. “Too bad you remembered. The Hunt would have had a ball with the pair of you.” She turned her leaf-green eyes to me. “Okay, kid, here's the scoop. The Hunt loves to hunt mortals. But mortal changelings are under my protection. So we have a deal. I put a geas on every mortal changeling that comes to the Park, and when—er,
if
—they break it, the Hunt gets a crack at them.”

I couldn't believe I'd heard her right. “Are you telling me that the Wild Hunt is going to chase me down for breaking a geas nobody was allowed to tell me about?”

“Technically,” the Lady said, “breaking the geas only removes you from my protection. But since my protection is the only thing keeping the Wild Hunt off you, yeah, that's about the size of it.”

The Wild Hunt cheered. My throat felt tight. Astris pressed against me, warm and furry and solid. The Hunt loves the taste of fear, I reminded myself. Freaking out would just bring them down on me faster. I swallowed hard.

“Get up,” the Green Lady said, and I did, shakily. She lifted her slender hand, and her voice rolled like a bell over the mob of New York Folk. “The changeling Neef, having broken the geas laid upon her at her Changing, is no longer under my protection. She is without home, without sponsorship, and all the paths of the Park are closed to her. And this I swear by my name and hers.”

At the last word, she disappeared, taking Astris with her.

The Wild Hunt began to circle widdershins, from right to left. No surprise: It's an unlucky direction. With every rotation, the Hunters got a little closer to me and I got a little closer to breaking down and running until they'd worked up an appetite.

Another circuit, and I could smell their blood-breath, hear their eager, hungry whines. My jaw hurt from clenching it; my legs trembled. I couldn't stand it anymore. I opened my mouth and took a breath so I could scream and get it over with.

And that was when a big black
thing
came swooping down, grabbed my shoulders in strong, sharp claws, and carried me away.

 
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.