Ironside

Ellen stood in the hallway, talking to someone. For a moment, Kaye touched her hand to the window, ready to throw it open and call to her mother, but then she noticed her rat cage was missing and her clothes had been piled in two garbage bags on the floor. Chibi-Kaye, Corny had said, joking. Chibi-Kaye came into the room, wearing Kaye's Chow Fat T-shirt. It hung to her scabby knees.

The little girl did look like Kaye in miniature— dirty blond hair in tangles over her shoulders, upturned brown eyes and a snubbed nose. Looking through the window was like seeing a scene out of her own past.

"Mom," Kaye whispered. The word clouded in the air, like a ghost that could not quite manifest. Her heart hammered against her chest.

"You need anything, Kate?" Ellen asked.

"I don't want to sleep," the little girl said. "I don't like to dream.”

"Try," said Kaye's mother. "I think—”

Lutie flew down from the branch of a tree, and Kaye was so startled that she fell back, sliding a little ways on the roof. From inside, she heard a high-pitched shriek.

Ellen walked to the window and looked out at the snowy roof, her breath clouding the glass. Kaye scuttled back, out of Ellen's line of sight. Like a monster. Like a monster waiting for a child to fall asleep so she could creep in and eat it up.

"There's nothing," Ellen said. "No one to steal you away again.”

"Who's she?" Lutie whispered, alighting on Kaye's lap. Lutie's wings brushed Kaye's fingers like fluttering eyelashes. "Why is she sleeping in your bed and wearing your clothes? I waited and waited like you said. You have taken a long time coming back.”

"She's the baby who got taken to make room for me. She's who I thought I was but I'm not.”

"The changeling?" Lutie asked.

Kaye nodded. "The girl who belongs here. The real Kaye.”

The cold of the snow seeped through her faerie gown, freezing the skin underneath. Still, she sat on the ledge, peering at the girl inside as Ellen shut off everything but the night-light.

It was a simple thing to wait until the hallway light went dark, climb a little ways, then push open the window to the attic. Kaye ducked inside, swinging her feet over the ledge and slithering through.

Her feet touched grime-covered floorboards, and she pulled the switch to turn on the single bulb.

Her hip hit a box, sending the contents spilling out. In the sudden light, she saw dozens and dozens of photographs. Some of them were stuck together while others were chewed at the edges, but they all featured a little girl. Kaye bent low. Sometimes the girl was a swaddled-up baby sleeping on a patch of grass, sometimes she was a ski

Kaye traced her fingers through the dust. Impostor, she wrote. Fake.

A gust of wind blew through the open window, scattering the photographs. With a sigh, she started gathering them up. She could smell the droppings of squirrels, the termite-eaten wood, the rotted sill where the snow had soaked through it. Up in the eaves something had made a nest of pink insulation, garish against the planks. Looking up at it, she thought of cuckoos. She shoved the pictures into a shoe box and headed for the stairs.

No one was inside the second-floor bathroom, but another night-light glowed beside the sink. Kaye felt empty in this familiar space, as though her heart had been scraped hollow. But she had guessed right; no one had packed away her dirty clothes.

Picking through the hamper, she pulled out T-shirts, sweaters, and jeans she'd worn the week before, balled them up, and tossed them out the window onto the snowy lawn. She wanted to take her records and notebooks and novels too, but she didn't want to risk going into her bedroom to get them. What if the changeling screamed? What if Ellen walked in and saw her there, clutching the stupid rubber necklace she'd five-fingered at a street fair?

Carefully, Kaye opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, straining for the sound of her rats. She couldn't just leave them to get dumped out in the snow or given to a pet store like her grandmother threatened whenever their cage was particularly filthy. She felt panicky at the thought of not being able to find them. Maybe someone had put them on the enclosed porch? Kaye crept down the staircase, but as she snuck into the living room, her grandmother looked up from the couch.

"Kaye," she said. "I didn't hear you come in. Where were you? We were very worried.”

Kaye could have glamoured herself invisible or run, but her grandmother's voice sounded so normal that it rooted her to the spot. She was still in the shadows, the green of her skin hidden by the darkness.

"Do you know where Isaac and Armageddon are?”

"In your mother's room—upstairs. They were bothering your sister. She's afraid of them—has quite an imagination. She says they're always talking to her.”

"Oh," Kaye said. "Right.”

A Christmas tree sat near the television, trimmed with angels and a glitter garland. It was real—Kaye could smell the crushed pine needles and wet resin. Underneath sat a few boxes wrapped in gold paper. Kaye couldn't remember the last time they'd put up a tree, never mind bought one.

"Where have you been?" Her grandmother leaned forward, squinting.

"Around," Kaye whispered. "Things didn't go so well in New York.”

"Come on, sit down. You're making me nervous, standing there where I can't see you.”

Kaye took another step back, into deeper darkness. "I'm fine here.”

"She never told me about Kate. Can you imagine that? Nothing! How could she not tell me about my own flesh and blood? The spitting image of you at that age. Such a sweet little girl, growing up robbed of a family to love her. It hurts my heart to think of it.”

Kaye nodded again, stupidly, numbly. Robbed. And Kaye was the robber, the shoplifter of Kate's childhood. "Did Ellen say why Kate is here now?”

"I'd thought she'd have told you—Kate's dad checked himself into a rehab. He had promised not to bother Ellen, but he did and I'm glad. Kate's a strange child and she's clearly been raised terribly. Do you know that all she'll eat is soybeans and flower petals? What kind of diet is that for a growing girl?”

Kaye wanted to scream. The disco

"Is Ellen happy?" Kaye asked quietly instead. "To have . . . Kate?”

Her grandmother snorted. "She was never really ready to be a mother. How will she manage in that little apartment? I'm sure she's happy to have Kate—what mother wouldn't be happy to have her child? But she's forgetting how much work it all is. They're going to have to move back here, I'm sure.”

With growing dread, Kaye realized that Corny had been right all along. Giving her mother a changeling child had been a terrible plan. Ellen had just been getting ahead with her job and the band, and a kid completely derailed that. Kaye'd screwed up, really screwed up in a way she had no idea how to fix.

"Kate's going to look up to you," her grandmother said. "You can't be ru

"Stop! Stop!" Kaye said, but there was no magic in her words. She put her hands over her ears. "Just stop. Kate isn't going to look up to me—”