changeling
A child's wail pierced the quiet, setting Sarah's nerves on edge. She breathed deeply, trying to ignore the sound. Silence fell and she turned back to her problem sets. She delved into the numbers — what there were of them, she mused. They all seem to have been replaced by letters.
But that's part of what she got when she chose to pursue math. She had been tempted to focus on literature, myths. She studied them avidly — Tamlin, Telramund, True Thomas — but that seemed too personal to pursue as a profession.
Over the past two years she studied the old tales, piecing together the legends with what she remembered of her adventures in the Underground, she realized that she must have visited Fairy. She memorized the lore, piecing it together with the fragments she had caught from the denizens of the Labyrinth as she desperately sought Toby.
But math filled something of the same urge. There was something in the patterns that reminded her of... Her thought fled as another scream burst from Toby's room. She flung herself into her bed, cramming a pillow over her head. Nearly midnight and her stepmother, Karen had abandoned her attempts to quiet the babe, retiring to her now-soundproofed room.
Sarah gritted her teeth and pulled the pillow off her head. She opened her window and leaned out, feeling the rain sighing down. Toby's wails faded against the sound of the falling water. A little moonlight shone through the clouds and, for a moment, Sarah thought she saw a moonbow. She closed her eyes tightly and wished for some good way to convince Toby to stop crying so much. Abruptly the rain stopped, and fresh wailing reached her from inside. Sarah slammed the window shut and stormed into the hallway.
Sarah stalked into Toby's room. She looked toward the bed in the moonlight as her hand felt for the light switch. In the second before the florescent bulbs lit, she saw a shriveled face stare out of the blankets.
Starting forward toward the bed, she saw Toby. Her brother was still wailing, his red and contorted face looking toward her. As he saw her surprised look, his wail subsided for a moment, a shifty look crossing his face.
She knew that look and that sort of face. Somehow that was not her brother in the bed — it was a goblin.
Her hand trembled on the light switch as the implications raced through her mind. Her thoughts tumbled — and caught. She backed out of the room.
Sarah ran to her bedroom and pulled open drawers, frantically searching. Makeup, books, papers scattered in her wake. Light dawned and she turned to face the door. Reaching up she snatched the horseshoe from above her door and dashed back to Toby's room.
She paced toward the wailing baby, holding the horseshoe before her. She gazed down at the face of her brother and lowered the cold iron.
"By power of earth, be you revealed," she said and touched the horseshoe to his chest.
The goblin screamed as the cold iron touched him.
Sarah dropped the horseshoe and took hold of the tattered red and white pajamas Tob- no, the goblin insisted on wearing. As she lifted his face into the light, she saw clearly the gnarled features of a goblin.
It hissed and clutched at her hands, choking and gasping.
"Please don't strangle me, Your Majesty. I didn't mean no harm, I didn't," the goblin exclaimed.
"What are you doing here?" Sarah demanded, standing and shaking the bulging-eyed monster. "Where is my brother?"
The goblin fought and sobbed. She shook him harder. "Do you need another taste of cold iron before you tell me the truth?"
The goblin cried, "All right, I'll talk. Put me down."
"Promise to tell the truth," she said, pulling the goblin closer.
"I promise," he sobbed.
"What is your name," she asked.
"Brunga," he confessed.
Sarah lowered the creature to standing on the bed. She kept hold of the pajamas, now revealed to be grungy goblin-wear.
"Now, Brunga, why are you here instead of my brother?" she asked, picking up the horseshoe. "And, by iron, answer me true."
The goblin stared at the sheets. "He sent me here."
"You mean Jareth," she pressed.
He nodded.
Sarah considered his answer. She knew the folktales. If the babe was a changeling, that would explain why he continued to cry, why he remained so scrawny while others his age were growing.
"When did you come here, Brunga?"
"Two years ago, in your time," he said, cringing.
"So that was you I found in the cradle," she said, wondering. "He never sent Toby back at all..."
Brunga scooted toward the edge of the bed, getting ready to drop beneath. Sarah looked sharply at him and snagged his ragged shirt again.
"Why did you call me 'Your Majesty,'" she asked, peering at him. "Shouldn't you reserve that title for your king, Brunga?"
He squirmed in her grip and stammered. "Well?" she demanded.
"Don't you remember?" he finally asked.
"What should I remember?"
"It's not my place to say," he said, squirming away from her.
"Brunga, if I let you go, what will you do?" she asked.
He froze, "I have to go home now that I'm found out," he said.
"How will you get back to the goblin city?" Sarah asked.
"Oh, I'm not goin' back there," he said quickly. "He'd have the hide off me quicker than a chicken if I showed my face anywhere in the city."
"Then where will you go," she asked.
"There's other places," he said. "Outside the Labyrinth, there's places I could hide if I don't mind it so dusty. Better than the bog, anyways," he muttered.
She glared at him. "Brunga, show me how you get there."
He started to object but she caught his gaze. He swallowed and climbed off the bed. He walked toward the dresser and stood next to it, stretching his arms up in a gesture like Toby's. The gesture caught her off guard for a moment. If her brother had remained with the Goblin King, he was now irrevocably a goblin.
Sarah shook her head. She'd see about that.
She lifted Brunga up onto the dresser. He hopped through the mirror. Sarah saw a dusty landscape in the glass. She looked behind her and saw Toby's comfortable room, Lancelot laying tattered by the bed. Then she slipped the horseshoe into her pocket, turned and followed the goblin through the mirror.