Matthew Sturges - Midwinter

Angela started crying. "She started singing, Brian. She started singing in some weird language and then there was this wind and suddenly there was a fire and Leila got scared. She said, `Stop it, mommy! Stop it!' but I didn't know what to do. So I ran and got the fire extinguisher and sprayed it all over.

"Leila was crying, I was crying. None of it made any sense. And then it just stopped."

"What happened then?" said Satterly, holding her tight.

"Then she said, `I'm sorry, mommy. I won't do it again.' And she went right back to playing with her dolls."

Five minutes later, Evelyn Yeoh appeared on Angela's doorstep. She was a petite Asian woman with a serious face dressed in jeans and a sweater. She was carrying an odd little device that looked something like a compass but glowed with a hazy blue light. She explained about Leila, but it wasn't anything that Angela or Brian were ready to hear.

"Don't worry," said Evelyn. "When it happens again, you'll call me." She left her card. Angela wanted to throw the card away, but for some reason Satterly kept it.

The next time it happened, Angela ended up in the hospital with seconddegree burns. Standing in her hospital room, with Leila asleep in his arms, he called Evelyn Yeoh.

The scene at Satterly's apartment a few days later hadn't been pretty. Evelyn arrived, in jeans and a different sweater, this time carrying a black jewelry box. Angela was still in pain and was furious that Satterly had allowed this strange woman into their lives with her little devices and her ludicrous claims. Satterly was skeptical too, but if there were even a chance that Evelyn could help them, what could it hurt? They were way off the map already.

"Get ready," said Evelyn. "This will be the worst part. Removing the glamour, that is." She sat Angela down at the kitchen table with Leila in her arms. Then she took a small metal bracelet from the box and slipped it over Leila's wrist before Angela could object.

The instant the bracelet touched her skin, Leila shrieked. "Get it off? Get it off!"

Angela reeled backward, almost tipping backward in her chair, but before she could reach the bracelet there was a bright white flash and Leila suddenly changed in her arms. Satterly was awestruck; one instant his niece had been there, and the next she was replaced by a rail-thin girl with palest white skin and long, pointed ears. The little girl, who looked nothing like Leila, was pleading now, tears falling from her crystalline blue eyes.

"Don't send me back," said the little girl. Her voice was nothing like Leila's now; her words were stilted and strange, as though she were reading words in a foreign language from a script. "Please, please! They'll send a wolf to eat me if I get sent back. They promised!"

Evelyn reached out for Leila, and Angela pushed the little Fae girl away, horrified. "What… did you do to my Leila?" Angela whispered.

"I'm sorry," said Evelyn, picking up the girl. "But as I tried to explain earlier, this isn't your daughter." The little changeling wailed and buried her face in Evelyn's shoulder.

Angela refused to believe at first, threatening, then begging. Satterly sat and watched, his mind a whirl, unable to understand what was happening. What finally convinced him was the patient, sympathetic look on Evelyn Yeoh's face. This woman, he realized, had done this hundreds of times.

Angela, however, remained unconvinced, until Evelyn finally persuaded "Leila" to tell the truth. "They told me if I was good," the girl whimpered, her face still half buried in Evelyn's breast, "and never let on, that I'd be loved and taken care of in the Nymaen world. I never had no mama 'til now."

"How long?" said Satterly. "How long since they were switched?"

"Probably not very," said Evelyn. "It usually only takes them a couple of days to manifest."

"You mean," began Angela, "my little girl is… out there somewhere?" Angela waved her hand in no particular direction.

"Yes," said Evelyn. "But we can get her back. That's what I do."

The next night, Satterly found himself on a hill in Topanga Canyon, several miles away from anywhere. In one hand he held the changeling girl, and in the other he carried a gym bag containing three pounds of South African gold Krugerrands, forty-eight in all. Together they were worth about thirtyeight thousand dollars. He'd cleaned out his savings account to buy them. Evelyn had insisted on gold coins.

As he stood waiting, he slowly became certain that he and his sister had just fallen for the most bizarre con ever practiced. Any second now, a big guy with a gun was going to step out from behind a tree, take the gold coins, and leave Satterly with this strange little girl on a hill somewhere inland of Malibu.

What happened instead was that a pair of men in gray and gold robes appeared in front of him with a low snapping sound but no other fanfare. These, he learned later, were Masters of the Gates, a brotherhood whose members were the only ones able to travel between worlds without the assistance of a gate.

The two men both had shaved heads and the same pointed ears as the child in his arms. They were both tall, but one was burly and the other was thin, almost emaciated. The burly one looked Satterly in the eye, but the other one only looked down, kicking his feet sullenly in the dirt.

"My name is Pilest," the stout Fae said, his eyes sparkling. "You are the human named Brian Satterly, I hope?" Then he reached out and patted Satterly's shoulder. "I'm kidding, of course. My partner Jindo is never wrong." Pilest held up his hand and Satterly realized that the two men were joined together with manacles made of what appeared to be silver.

"Okay," Satterly said.

Jindo roughly took the gym bag from Satterly's hands and hefted it a few times, then unzipped it. He took one of the Krugerrands and held it up to the moonlight, bit it, then replaced it in the bag.

Jindo said nothing, but Pilest said, "Good. Then let's be on our way."

Instantly, Satterly was somewhere else. A meadow in broad daylight. The air was sweet, almost perfumed, but clear and fresh. It was as though he'd never breathed before. A feeling of deep joy rushed through him and then he remembered where he was and what he was doing and the warm feeling became a chill.

"Welcome to Faerie," said Pilest. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

With that, Pilest kicked Jindo harshly and the two of them disappeared.

The rest of it had been like a dream. Traveling to Sylvan, meeting up with Evelyn. The real Leila had already been rescued by the time Satterly arrived at Evelyn's house in the Fae city. Leila ran to him, squeezed him tight, sobbing. The changeling girl was whisked away by one of Evelyn's assistants, her eyes blank.

"What will happen to her?" asked Satterly, after Leila had fallen asleep in his arms. "The little Fae girl?"

"We'll try to find her a good home," said Evelyn. "Adoption isn't common here, but it's not unheard of, either."

"You're very lucky, you know," she said. "We got to her in time."

"In time for what?" said Satterly, pulling Leila close to his chest.

Evelyn gave him a measured stare. "You don't want to know."

Back in the meadow a few hours later, Pilest and Jindo reappeared. Pilest reached out his hands for Leila.

"Can't we go together?" said Satterly. "My sister's meeting us on the other side, but I don't know if she managed to find the place."

"Oh, no. One at a time. My partner here is no grand magus, you know."

"Stop there!" cried a voice behind him. Satterly turned to see a pair of guardsmen at the edge of the meadow, both of them holding crossbows aimed at his chest. Behind them stood a gaunt man with a flowing gray beard.

"We will see that the girl gets where she needs to go," said Pilest. He and Jindo vanished, Leila struggling in Pilest's arms.