Harold touched Lillian gently on the shoulder. She'd been asleep for most of the past eleven hours, the baby swaddled close to her chest. "You must wake, Lillian. The day is almost done. It's time to prepare for the debut ceremony."

Lillian dragged open her bloodshot eyes and steered them up to meet Harold's own soft eyes. "You have got to be kidding." Her eyes drifted shut, a brief microsleep, then back open. "She might look tiny to you, Harold, but to me it feels like I just squeezed an entire tuna out my midsection. Surely a woman gets an hour to rest?"

Harold met her plea with a sympathetic smile. "A mere woman might, yes, but not a queen."

The queen's eyes were closed again. A long pause. "I know," Lillian sighed, finally. "I just don't want this moment to end. I never want to let her go."

"Nor I," Harold replied. "She's certainly a miracle." This comment came out through more of a wince than as smile, but Lillian was in no state to catch it.

"A miracle indeed. What happened this morning? Such a frantic rush, I thought there was something wrong."

"Oh yes, indeed," Harold confirmed. "Her color was all wrong. Doctor Musgrave said she would die."

Lillian gasped. She squeezed her precious bundle a little tighter. "Oh my sweet beautiful girl. I'm so happy you made it. You are such a fair sight."

"Not to pressure you, but have you thought about a name yet?" Harold prompted. "The herald is asking, is all."

"Harold, how could I? The only thing I've thought about today is screaming, bleeding, and sleeping."

"We had discussed a few choices," Harold pressed on. "and of those I thought Fiona might be just the name. Look at her! It's just as you said, she's a fair beauty, so pale and pretty."

Lillian's face softened. Fiona. She looked down at the babe in her arms. Just like that, "the baby" had become "Fiona". Somehow a name made her that much more real. A person, a future to grow into. "Fiona," Lillian whispered at the child. "Hello, little Fiona."

"So that it is, then?" Harold confirmed. "Jolly good, I'll tell the herald so."

Harold gently peeled the bundle off his wife and handed her off to Agnes. Then he stepped outside to relay the news of the royal name.

He returned to the queen to help her rise from the bed and dress in a loose satin nightgown.

Raul, their opinionated young fashion consultant, graciously permitted her to skip the corset and escape with only a minimum of make up, but he cinched her gown with a belt and clipped a few accessories into her hair. He stepped back, held his chin in two fingers, and sneered. "It'll have to do."

Harold and Lillian made for the balcony, both stopping a step before the gauze curtains. They turned their heads to face each other. "This is it," Harold said, cautiously optimistic.

"This is it!" Lillian replied with a warm smile. The royals parted the curtain and emerged onto the balcony to a roar of approval from the crowd in the courtyard below. A low red sun lit the trio in the warm light of the gloaming. Their robes glowed blue and maroon. The infant Fiona was swaddled entirely in bleached linen strips like an oversized mummy lima bean. A tuft of hair escaped her dressing.

Harold removed the baby from her mother's embrace, making the girl's eyes pop open.

Trumpets blared from the ramparts surrounding the courtyard.

The court herald, standing on a dais below the balcony belted out, "Presenting the heir to the throne, the long awaited lovely fair Princess Fiona!" Harold held the baby by her torso and extended her out at arms length, nearly over the stone railing, introducing her to the subjects of the kingdom.

The crowd erupted again in a roar of cheers. The baby gasped, choked, and began to cry.

Lillian reached out protectively and gathered her daughter back into her arms, growling "I'lltake her back, thank you." She tucked the baby back into her bosom and rolled her chin over the baby's head to comfort her.

Harold stepped next to Lillian and draped an arm across her shoulders, smiling and indulging the citizenry in their peek at the newest member of their ruling family. He surely looked forward to the day he might introduce a prince, an heir apparent, but every royal must command respect, and Fiona should be no different. He let the crowd's adulation roll up from the courtyard, over the stone railing, and ebb and flow around their little princess.

Lillian knew the etiquette, but she was still utterly drained. She whispered to Harold, "Tell me when we can go back in. She needs to eat and I need to sleep."

Harold waved an open palm at the crowd, and the ovation kept rolling up the castle walls. "Soon, love. Just another minute; here, the sun's almost set. It'll be a picturesque moment for all to remember."

That very moment, the sun did set. Sparks of yellow light danced around the bundle in Lillian's arms.

Lillian's face opened in surprise. Fiona's own eyes popped open in response to some inner stimulus.

The light show accelerated, sparks and stars dipping and swirling around the royal baby, some twisting behind her mother, others landing on the king's fur robe and fizzling out.

The crowd hushed. A gasp.

The king and queen were paralyzed by the awesome display. Lillian strengthened her grasp on the baby, but the magic seemed to make it more difficult, as if the newborn had tripled in size.

"What's happening!?" Lillian whispered hoarsely at Harold.

Harold's eyes grew huge. He pivoted on a heel and swept Queen Lillian around with his opposite arm and back into the room, behind the gossamer curtains.

Sparks swirled behind, following the royal couple back into the bedroom, and then the fireworks vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

The trumpets sounded a fanfare in the courtyard, prompting a roar of cheering and applause. The kingdom stood at ovation for the most dazzling debut of a new royal in anyone's memory.

Safely in the bedroom, Lillian's eyes recovered from the brilliance and she could now see that she held not her perfectly healthy baby girl, but half a bushel of green flesh. Several of the linen cloths had fallen away from the two stone lump, exposing the pudgy baby fat-rolls of its arms and back, a head more disproportionate than normal even for a baby, and most surprisingly, stout earstalks protruding from that malformed head.

Lillian gasped. She'd have thought someone had thrown a smoke bomb to swap out her baby for this monster, but that vivid red cowlick left no doubt this was still her Fiona. The monstrous head squinched its eyes and opened its mouth to cry.

She stared in shock at the discolored, swollen baby, her mind simply halted by the disconnect. The meaty green face split into a yawning red chasm and spilled a throaty cry, less a plea for help and more a demand for food now, please!

Lillian shook her head, throwing off the stupor. Maternal instinct, driven by chemistry to maximum potential, kicked into overdrive. Lillian turned her back to the drapery, pulled down her gown, and tucked the baby's melon-sized head to her breast. The baby latched on and settled down instantly into a suckling rhythm.

Lillian's eyes bugged at the sight and sensation; four times the tissue vanished into the now-cavernous maw of her delicate baby girl. It didn't particularly hurt; if anything, the broader mouth coupled to resilient skin rather than tender areola. Every sensation was new; neither she nor the baby had any experience with mammalian meal service. But this sudden change was indeed a very different sensation.

Lillian looked up at Harold, her eyes fearful and pleading. "What is happening, Harold? What happened!?" Panic began to rise in her stomach. She looked back down. The baby – the big green thing in the place of her baby – was happy. She felt warm and right and comforted; she felt the same connection she'd felt the moment Fiona had drawn her first sip. But the sight was so wrong; the size of the creature so out of place.

Harold was startled, paralyzed, a 'possum hypnotized by a lantern. His jaw dropped. His stomach sank, his heart tried to escape through his throat. The problem, his problem, their problem, hadn't gone away, it had only been hidden. The Fairy Godmother had told him as much, but he'd rushed out of the room, overjoyed that the horrible maligned birth had been repaired, the problem fixed.

Now, the curtain lifted, the Godmother's words rushed back to mind, rhyming, sing-song, mockingly crystal clear: By night one way, by day another.

Oh Godmother, he thought. The spell had been placed at sunrise, and here it was, sunset. The disguise had vanished.

"I— I don't know." Harold stammered.

Lillian re-gripped Monster Fiona with two arms to bear her enormous size. She shuffled around to the daybed and let herself down onto it. She broke the seal on the baby's latch and repositioned her body and clothes to make the project less awkward. Fiona fussed and craned her neck in urgency. Lillian flopped the baby over and let her connect to the opposite teat.

Lillian looked up at Harold with creased lids and bloodshot eyes. Her body complained just about everywhere, most sharply where it had been expertly repaired. Her mind wanted to abandon consciousness, except for the small matter of a very big problem in her lap.

"What happened this morning, Harold? The doctor said something about a pre-birth, and then he rushed her out of the room. What happened out there? What did he do to her!?"

Harold chewed on his lip and avoided her gaze. "Musgrave didn't do anything to her," he said. "I wouldn't let him," he added, firmly, as if his own brave stance had kept the doctor from disposing of the hideous thing that had emerged from the womb. The hideous thing that was now lying in his wife's lap, suckling at the teat. He shuddered. Maybe he should have let him.

"Wouldn't let him what? What happened, Harold!?" Lillian grew agitated, her usually-controlled composure cracking under the gravity and urgency of the situation. "How did my daughter turn into this!?"

Harold sucked a breath. "It was as I said, Lillian. The baby, when she came out was in grave danger. Doctor said she might very well die." That lie of omission was serving him well.

Lillian nodded; that explained Doctor Musgrave's dark demeanor when he'd returned to the room: She had feared the worst, that the baby was lost, and his muted manner reinforced that conclusion. She hadn't been able to bring herself to ask, and then only minutes later, Harold had emerged with a happy baby, and that terror had been just as soon forgotten. She implored Harold to continue.

"Well, just after the doctor returned to take care of you, my, um, oh my! a … sorceress appeared. She said she knew what we needed to be happy."

"She appeared and offered to save our baby?"

"Exactly! Not exactly, but basically, um, yes. But she said magic exacts a cost, and she said I had to make a decision fast. I said yes, and no sooner than I did she cast the spell. She said it would affect the baby by day and by night. I didn't realize..." he drifted off; no excuse could justify the horror he'd just put his wife through.

She looked down at her far-from-norm daughter. "Affect, indeed!" she exclaimed. "What kind of magical cure involves transforming a beautiful baby into an ogre!? It sounds to me like perhaps she was more of a witch than a sorceress," Lillian pronounced.

"But Lillian, the baby was..." Harold choked up. "It was … she was … about to die. If it wasn't for that spell, she would already be dead."

Lillian's eyes welled up in gratitude. "Oh Harold, I'm so proud of you. I know it must have been scary to imagine the possibilities, to take a chance on a witch, and—" she looked at her ogress daughter, "—well, it did turn out a little scary, but she's here, and you rescued her! If it weren't for your decision, we wouldn't have her at all!"

Harold's lip curled up into a grin that was as much grimace.

Lillian misunderstood his guilt for anxiety. "It'll be okay, Harold. She's fine. Look. She's here, she's eating, she's healthy." Her leadership voice reappeared as her confidence stabilized. "And tomorrow morning, she'll be herself again. We've got some challenges ahead of us, to be sure, but doesn't every new mother and father have to face their own challenges?"

"Yes, yes, dear. Very true," Harold nodded, encouraged. He looked down at the thing latched on his wife and involuntarily turned his head away, tendons appearing at his neck.

A quiet moment came and went. Harold's heart rate slowed.

"And who knows, Harold. Maybe we'll find a better magician. A sorceress who can finish the job that witch started." Lillian relaxed back onto the daybed and closed her eyes. "We have a problem, but it's not a big problem." Her panic over the appearance of the creature in her arms was subsiding: There was an explanation, that explanation seemed to have rules, and those rules didn't demand any action right now. It was scary news to learn that her daughter had special needs, but given the circumstances, that was so much better than losing her.

Her fatigue threatened to swallow her whole, and so she let it. The queen slipped into a heavy sleep, the fat ogress princess suckling at her breast.