Wards

This story has been deleted because I am now writing a novel based on it. I will post an update in this blog when it is available.

Burden

Zandra was my best friend, which says more about the state of my social life than about our friendship. I had other friends, but they were the kind of friendships where, when we hung out, we chatted rather than talked. We knew about each other—what we were doing and who was dating who—but I didn’t know them, and none of them knew me.

I never knew anything about Zandra. I only saw her on Saturdays. Whenever I’d suggested we do something on a different day, she’d said she was busy. I didn’t know what she did with the rest of the week. I didn’t know if she had a job, or a social life, or even what her last name was. But it didn’t matter. Zandra was the only person who understood me.

It wasn’t that we spent our time having deep conversations, because we didn’t. But Zandra lived in the moment, and when I was with her the world seemed different somehow. Every passing butterfly was a miracle, and even the most insignificant chitchat was imbued with soul.

One day—it was a Tuesday—I got home very late, and surprised a burglar. I stood in my doorway, shocked at this invasion of my home. The burglar dropped my TV, pulled out a gun, and shot me.

The bullet hit my leg. I collapsed, and he rushed past me out of my house.

I was screaming. One of my neighbors must have heard my screams, or the gunshot, and called the police. My face was soaked in tears of pain when the ambulance finally arrived.

At the hospital, the doctor told me that the bullet hadn’t quite hit the bone, but was still in my leg and would need to be removed. I would be fine, they assured me.

The painkillers were beginning to set in by then, so my leg didn’t hurt as much, but I felt betrayed by the world at the invasion of my home by the burglar and of my body by the bullet. I didn’t think I would be fine.

The operation was successful. All my friends stopped by the hospital to give their condolences and express their shock. All except Zandra, and again I felt betrayed. So what if it wasn’t a Saturday? So what if she was busy? I was in the hospital recovering from being shot!

On Saturday, she did come, sneaking into my room without waiting for visiting hours.

“Hi,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” said Zandra.

I shrugged. “Life sucks.”

Zandra studied me carefully. “Can I tell you a story?”

“Sure.”

She sat down in a chair. “Once, people caused each other a great deal of pain.”

“They still do,” I interrupted, gesturing towards me leg.

“Yes, of course, but once there was twice as much pain in the world. I don’t know if twice as many bad things happened, or if each grievance suffered then was felt twice as much. Either way, the world is only half as cruel now as it once was.”

“It must have been pretty bad back then,” I said.

“It was. People were hurt, and saw their friends hurt, and were miserable. They say we are given no more than we can bear, but then why are there so many suicides? There were even more then than now. The whole world was in despair.”

“So what happened?”

“It was a small thing, in the grand scheme of the world. No one ever knew about it, ever knew about it, even. There was a girl. She had suffered no great tragedy but for living among the horrors of the world. She saw the pain around her, and knew she had to stop it.

“She went off in search of… she didn’t even know what. An evil to defeat? A last thread of hope to unleash into the world? She traveled far and wide, never knowing what she was looking for.

“Until she found it.” Zandra paused and stared off into the distance.

“What was it?” I asked impatiently.

"You would call him the devil, perhaps, though that is not quite right. He is not how you would think of him. He was simply a power with a lust for evil, but rather than committing it with his own hand, he stirred the rest of the world to do his work for him.

“How and where the girl found him does not matter. Perhaps he found her, even. However it went, she knew him for what he was. And he was no demon to be defeated, that was quite clear. So she did the only thing she could.”

“What?”

“She made a bargain, of course. A deal with the devil, but she didn’t pledge her soul, and she knew what she was getting into. She couldn’t, of course, completely understand, but she knew.

“The deal was this: She would take on half of the world’s pain, for as long as she chose to.”
I let out a little gasp of astonishment. “But how could she? If the entire world couldn’t handle it, how could the one girl?”

“She just did,” Zandra said sternly. “Maybe she was stronger or more determined, maybe she was simply able to bear more, maybe it was because she took the burden on herself, a willing sacrifice. And of course, no mortal could survive thousands of years of constant pain. So she was given eternal, or at least extended, life, and youth. And… I forgot to mention this part of the deal—she was given one day off every week, to spend free in the world she had saved.”

I would have realized then, of course, had it not been for the painkillers. As it was, I missed the obvious. “Then what happened?”

“Then she kept up her end of the deal, and he kept up his, and the world is only half as bad as it once was. And every Saturday she is free to enjoy the improvement.” Zandra got up. “Get well soon. I’ll see you next week.” She began to leave.

“Wait,” I called. She stopped halfway to the door. “How can you go back to that?”

She didn’t deny it. “How could I not?” she asked, and left.

I was out of the hospital by the next Saturday, walking on crutches but otherwise fine. I was a little worried to see Zandra. I thought that after knowing her story, our friendship would be changed. But she appeared with a handful of brightly colored sharpies and drew her name over most of my cast, acting the same as ever. I realized that that was how she was able to bear half the world’s pain; by living in the moment; and that this was her retreat. So I didn’t dwell on it any more than she did, and I stopped dwelling on my own lingering pain and fear as well.

After a while, I began to wonder if Zandra had really told me that, or if it had just been a painkiller-induced dream. So I asked her if it had really happened. “Maybe,” she said playfully, but I could tell by her tone that she had told me the story. There was no proof that it was true, of course, but I believed it.

So life went back to normal. My cast came off. The man who shot me was never caught, but it stopped mattering so much to me. I am, for the most part, very happy, and at least on the days I see her, so is Zandra.

The Second Shapeshifter

I like a good prank as well as the next person. And since I can shift skins, my pranks tend to be better than most. But it was only supposed to be a harmless prank. I didn’t know I was the one being tricked.

I should have been suspicious. After all, Ashley had been introduced to me by a mutual friend who’d told me, “She can do the same thing as you! Useful, in her line of work—she’s a con artist.” Ashley told me as much herself, when I finally met her, but it didn’t really bother me. She had a good sense of humor, and though we didn’t became close friends, we always had fun when we hung out.

It was my idea to take each other’s shapes, and Ashley enthusiastically agreed. “And then we have to do something totally outrageous as the other person, and then when people get upset, we can show that we were somewhere else!”

“Like what?”

“We can each decide what the other person does, in our shape. C’mon, Nick, it’ll be fun.”

“I didn’t say I don’t want to do it. I’m just thinking about what “Nick” should do.”

She laughed. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something good.”

We spent some time thinking about it. Finally, Ashley suggested, “We can go over to your girlfriend’s; me as you and you as someone else, and see how long until she realizes I’m not you.”

“That seems kind of unfair to Melissa.”

“C’mon, it’s a joke. It’s not like you won’t be there, and we don’t have to keep it up if it gets uncomfortable.”

I agreed, eventually, because I knew Melissa’s expression when she realized would be priceless. Ashley took my shape, and I took the shape of one of my friends, Jacob. Ashley knocked on the door.

Melissa opened it. Her gaze briefly swept over us before settling on me. “Hi, Nick. And, Nick’s friend who looks just like him.” Her face registered nothing. Ashley, however, was gaping. I am rarely shocked, so it was weird to see the expression on my face.

Melissa invited us in, and Ashley and I returned to our normal shapes. I introduced them, and explained what we’d been doing.

“Obviously,” said Melissa. “So what are you going to do as her?”

“The deal is that I get to chose,” said Ashley.

“So what should I do?”

She considered. “Get arrested. Go to the police station and confess to… murder.”

“Don’t you think that’s going a little too far?” Melissa asked.

I agreed. “How about I confess to something less serious? Theft, or I don’t know, something else.”

“C’mon, it’s not like we’re actually killing anyone! I’ll very clearly be somewhere else, somewhere with lots of people that will recognise me, and cameras, and everything.”

“But Ashley, it’s not when I’m confessing that you’d need an alibi; it’s when the murder actually takes place. And how would we know?”

“Oh.” She thought about it. “We’ll have to stage a murder!”

“Or, I could just do something besides confessing to a crime.”

“No; this’ll be so cool. You could pose as a body, and we could leave all kinds of fake fingerprints, and then you can go in as me and confess!”

“But that’ll waste so many police resources!” Melissa protested.

“Yeah. I can’t say I’ve never done anything like that before, but not without a good reason.”

“Oh, fine. We’ll wait until you have a good reason; then do it.”

I should have been suspicious about how insistent Ashley was, but I thought it was just her stubborn nature. So about two months later, when a girl asked me to help her escape her life, I called Ashley.

The girl’s name was Amy Dellon. She’d ran away from home twice, and had attempted suicide. A friend of mine who was her psychologist said that the problem wasn’t with Amy, it was with the situation that drove her to that point. He asked me to help her escape it. I do that kind of thing all the time.

So I took Amy Dellon’s form and played dead. I can’t take a form that’s not alive, or if I did I wouldn’t be able to shift back. But I can take a form that’s injured, and like Amy with slit wrists, and my psychologist friend called in some favors with a friend in the ME’s office. Amy was declared to have died by exanguination, apparently self-inflicted. Of course, at the time of her death, the real Amy was far away. And, as far as I knew, Ashley was at the mall, asking for help from salesclerks, displaying herself to security cameras, and paying for things with her credit card.

So the next day, I took her shape and went into the police station. “I killed someone,” I said, pretending to be distraught. “I can’t live with the guilt.” I said I’d killed Amy and made it look like a suicide.

I was arrested, of course. I could have gotten out of jail, but as I was being brought there something distracted the guards, so I took advantage of it. I took the shape of a guard, uniform as all, and was gone before they could even realize it.

Once I was home, I called Ashley. She didn’t answer.

The next day, an article in the newspaper told about the murder, confession, and escape. And one more thing. According to the article, Ashley Littlecomb had been arrested again later that day, at her home.

Okay, I thought, maybe she wanted that to happen; she can prove her innocence. But really, who would want to spend months in jail, waiting for a trial?

I went to visit her, in my own form. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“What do you mean? I didn’t do any of it! I never killed anyone, or confessed, or ran away! This is all some huge mistake.” There was a desperation to her voice that was not the mischievious Ashley I knew.

I left the prison and went to Ashley’s house. I took the form of a delivery person, and knocked on her door. She opened it.

I put my foot in the door, and shifted to my own shape. “What did you do?” I demanded.

She laughed. “I think you mean, what did you do, framing poor, innocent little Ashley for murder.” She shifted, into a form similar to the one I’d thought was her true form, but clearly not the same person. A relative, probably. “I’m Carliza.”

“So this whole thing was a trick, to get me to set her up?” I didn’t wait for Carliza’s response. “Why couldn’t you do it?”

“I needed to keep her from establishing an alibi. And she knows I can shapeshift, so if I hadn’t been with her, she would have known it was me.”

“What was the point? Why do you want her in prison?”

“She called the police on me. Just because I swindled one lousy millionaire out of his hard-stolen savings, my own sister tried to send me to prison. I’m just returning the favor.”

I’d expected it was something like that. I knew she wanted me to be angry at what she’d done, or at least how she’d used me, so I said politely, “Goodbye. Nice meeting you,” and left before she could respond.

I had to make up for my mistake, of course. I could go to the authorities and tell them what I’d done—if I wanted to be considered crazy or a criminal, or both. I could reveal that Amy wasn’t dead, either by bringing her back or by impersonating her—but the whole point had been for people to think she was dead, and I wasn’t going to call that off.

So I’d have to play Carliza’s own trick back on her.

I let Ashley out first—she shouldn’t be in prison, and her presence would make the rest of my job harder. Once the hue and cry had been raised, I took Carliza’s shape and went into the police station.

I made sure none of the officers involved in “Ashley’s” first arrest were present, then went up and said, “Excuse me, there’s been a mistake. My name’s Carliza Littlecomb; I killed Amy Dellon, and came in here and confessed, but I said I was my sister, and then I escaped.”

They arrested me. I stayed in jail for a few days, so they didn’t get too suspicious about how exactly I’d escaped. They didn’t catch Carliza, of course, but that wasn’t the point. She’s wanted by the police, which isn’t much of a problem for her, except she won’t be able to use her natural shape.

Not that I thought Carliza would leave Ashley alone. So I arranged for her to go stay with Amy. They were about the same age, and I thought they’d get along. I won’t say where—that’s the whole point of faking deaths and hiding people, after all—but they’re safe, and when I talked to them they seemed to be doing fine.

It’s not that I think Carliza will leave me alone, either. And sure, I could go into hiding easily, but I’m not. I have a few extra identities stashed away, of course—anybody who can shift shapes would—and I could always take one if I need to. But I can take care of myself.

The Crown

"What happened, Malexandra?” Anonymous demanded, rushing across the lawn to the dark corner she was standing in. “Don't tell me nothing- something happened, something huge and horrible- I can still feel it."

"Of course something happened, and I wouldn't tell you otherwise, but this is hardly the place. Come with me." Without giving him a chance to respond, she hooked arms with him and began to walk, saying loudly, "I know some people think the Jaelic style is more elegant, but you know how I prefer actual aesthetic beauty over whatever happens to be the style of the hour, surely you agree?" Some of the elegantly dressed people sipping drinks turned to look as they walked past, but there was nothing unusual in her manner. She was speaking in the exact way she did when she really was drunk- she did such a perfect imitation of her intoxicated self that he began to wonder if she really had been under the influence any of the times he'd thought she had been. He wouldn't really be surprised if those times were as fake as this, knowing her.

"I don't give a toss about that kind of thing!" he replied loudly, slurring his words.

"No, but surely even a philistine like you can't find anything to appreciate in it. Even if you don't like the one, anyone must agree that the other is even more undesirable-" They were past the people now, and she abruptly cut off her sentence, let go of his arm, and led him up into the tower.

They climbed the stairs in silence. It was not until she'd led him into the room at the top of the tower, barred the door, and checked under the bed for good measure that she finally returned to their true topic of conversation. "Yes. Something's happened."

He waited just a moment, then said, "I knew that."
"Yes. I'm just not sure how to say it."

That surprised him- he'd never seen her at a loss for words, and could hardly imagine it.

“He used the crown.”

Anonymous paled. “He wouldn’t! And even if for some reason he felt he had to, he’d consult with me first! Malexandra, whatever you think of him, Skyler is a good king and he would not unleash that if it weren’t utterly necessary. And anyway, he couldn’t have used it, he’s on the way to my party!”

Malexandra was unfazed. “What else could have done that, then?”

“Any number of things. The crown’s not the only thing with that much power. It hasn’t been used since Skyler’s great-grandfather’s time, Malexandra, and then only during the worst war the world’s ever seen. We aren’t even at war now. Why would he s use it?”

“Let’s go ask him,” said Malexandra, gesturing towards the window. Anonymous looked out and saw the king approaching the party.

“I will do the talking,” Anonymous told Malexandra firmly as they climbed down the tower stairs. “I have no wish to see you executed.” He knew Malexandra too well to take her silence for consent, but he’d warned her, and he’d try to stop her from saying anything treasonous.

They met King Skyler on the lawn. He was about twenty five, and looked the part of king. Anonymous introduced Malexandra to him. She did not curtsey or bow, but didn’t say anything rude either, which was about as much as Anonymous could hope for.

“I’m pleased to finally meet you in person,” King Skyler said to Malexandra. “Anonymous, how did you do it with the floating lights? It’s a great effect, I might copy it sometime if you don’t mind.”

“We are not here to talk about the decorations,” Malexandra snapped coldly.

“Something’s happened,” Anonymous told the king before he could react to Malexandra.

“He knows,” said Malexandra. To the king, she demanded, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Skyler blinked several times. “I beg your pardon?”

Malexandra merely stared at him, waiting for an explanation.

“It’s about the crown,” Anonymous began, but broke off when Skyler’s expression changed to one of utter shock.

“How did you know?” the king whispered.

“How did we know? How did we know?” Malexandra said angrily. “How can you have expected anyone not to know? Did you really think that you could use that much power and nobody would know?”

Skyler’s expression grew even more shocked. “You mean… you mean it was used?”

“You didn’t know,” Malexandra stated. “But what else could it be? You didn’t use the crown, the Talisman was destroyed, the Locket of Amir is… safe. There isn’t anything else with that much power.”

But Skyler was shaking his head. “I didn’t use the crown. Someone else must have. It was stolen.”

“When?” Anonymous asked him.

“Last week. I was keeping it quiet. I assumed it had been stolen for the jewels; I never thought anyone would use it. Do you have any idea of the destruction it can cause?”

“I was there last time it was used,” Malexandra said.

“But that was a hundred years ago!”

“Yes,” she agreed matter-of-factly. “Have you tried scrying for it?”

“It can’t be scried for,” Anonymous told her. “That way a king can wear it and not be found by enemy magics.”

“Ah. How unscryable is it?”

“We did some experiments a few years ago. It’s beyond my power to find it, or anyone wearing it.”

“Past, present, and future?”

“Um… I only tried finding it in the present. But the past would be no help, and even ordinarily it’s hard to see into the future.”

Malexandra ignored that. “We’ll have to go back to my place, then; there’s too much going on here to do such a delicate spell.”

“I’ve never been to the Magiary,” King Skyler said with interest.

“And you never will,” Malexandra told him.

“I could make you let me in.”

“You could try.”

“You’re right, I couldn’t make you,” he admitted.

“Won’t you need him as a focus?” Anonymous asked.

“Yes,” Malexandra admitted grudgingly, after consideration. “I’ll just get the supplies from home, and find somewhere else to do it.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to let me in?” the king asked.

“Yes. Look, I’m sure you’re aware that some of the people there are on the wrong side of your laws.”

“Of course. I won’t do anything about it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Malexandra studied him closely, then nodded, and suddenly they were standing in the room at the top of her tower. As Anonymous and the king got their bearings, she took out a large ceramic bowl and some vials. She poured a shimmery silver liquid into the bowl, then a dark blue liquid that floated above the other. She stirred them together, muttered something over the bowl, and stared into it. After a minute she shook her head and took out a pin. She held it in a lit candle, then handed it to the king.

“A drop of your blood.”

Skyler looked at Anonymous, who nodded. He pricked his finger and allowed a drop of blood to fall into the bowl. Malexandra stared into it again.

Just then, the door opened and a head peaked in. “Malexandra, have you seen—oh.” Aniya stared at the king. She started to duck back out of the room, but Skyler grabbed the door and opened it all the way.

“Aniya,” he said quietly. “It’s been a long time. It’s good to see you again.”

“It would be better to see you again if you hadn’t ordered me killed,” Aniya replied.

Malexandra looked up. “Remember your promise,” she warned Skyler.

“I know. Aniya, I don’t want you dead. We used to be friends, remember?”

“Until you signed a warrant for my execution.”

“No, until you destroyed Majardea’s chance for peace and prosperity!”

“Stop it,” Malexandra ordered. “If I’m going to find something that’s impossible to find, I need to concentrate.”

“What are you looking for?” Aniya asked.

“The crown. It was stolen. And someone used it.”

“Why are you telling her? She’d probably just go and destroy that too!”

Aniya ignored him. “But it’s unscryable.”

“I know! That’s the problem. But really, didn’t you feel that earlier? Anything that unleashes that much energy has to leave some kind of mark. At least if I can find out what’s been destroyed, or will be destroyed I can trace it.”

Aniya frowned. “But you’re not having any luck?”

“I think if I make the spell strong enough, and look into the future rather than the present—”

Aniya interrupted her. “Do you remember the woman who was her for a few days, maybe three weeks ago? Who wanted to learn about getting past magical obstacles?” Malexandra nodded. “Well, she was telling me that her friend had the Mirror of Azerbjingardolinderia… that would be able to find the crown, maybe he’d let us borrow it.”

Anonymous drew in a sharp breath. “That would probably have the capabilities to find it,” he admitted.

“Do you know where to find… what’s her name, Rakayl? Or her friend?” Malexandra asked Aniya.

She nodded. “I’ll go ask them,” Aniya said, and left.

Malexandra tried scrying for it a few more times, then emptied the bowl and put it away. “If Aniya can’t borrow the mirror, we’ll have to get it through nonmagical methods.”

Anonymous and King Skyler agreed, and then the three of them stood around awkwardly. However, by the time Aniya returned three hours later, Malexandra and the king were in the midst of a heated debate, with Anonymous making occasional comments.

They dropped the conversation when Aniya returned, carrying a sack. Out of it she pulled the crown, and handed it to Skyler. “See, I didn’t destroy it,” she said.

“So you were able to scry it and get it back?” Anonymous asked curiously.

“Yes, that is exactly what happened,” Aniya told him, not meeting his gaze.

“Who stole it? And what had it been used to destroy?”

“Just a plantation in Balirmind. It was stolen by a former slave who wanted revenge. You don’t have to worry about it happening again.”

“That’s going to be a lovely diplomatic mess to smooth over,” groaned the king.

“You’ll manage,” Malexandra told him. Once he and Anonymous were gone, she asked Aniya, “What really happened?”

“Well, they didn’t actually need to scry it,” Aniya admitted. “But Rakayl was done with it, so they gave it back to me. Besides for that, it happened exactly as I said.”

Mirror

“Rakayl? What’s a girl like you doing in a nice place like this?” It was not, of course, actually a nice place. The Cat’s Corpse was the seediest tavern in Port Endra; exactly my sort of place.

“Nice to see you too, Zyre.”

“Let me guess, you’re recruiting for some absolutely harebrained scheme at ill-gaining impossible riches.”

“Who, me?” I asked in my most innocent sounding voice. “All I want is to enjoy my freedom and my drink.”

Zyre looked at me disbelievingly. “It’s been a long time, but I can’t believe you changed that much.”

I had, but if anything I was more trouble now, not less. I didn’t answer him.

“Come on, Rakayl, what are you up to?”

“I’m not up to anything.” I paused. “The thing is, I owe Vak a favor…”

“Ha! He’s as bad as you.”

“And you’re as bad as either of us. So, are you in?”

“I should ask what I’m getting into first, but what the hell, we both know I’ll agree, whatever it is. I’m in. What am I in?”

“Guess.”

“Um, emptying out the king’s treasury? Stealing an artifact from the Magiary? Assassinating a nobleman? Kidnapping the queen of Inzeth?”

“Well, not that I’d say no to any of those, but this is Vak’s hare-brained scheme, not mine. So it’s not nearly so interesting. Just a simple little highway robbery.”

“Right. Just like all you want is to enjoy your drink. I said I’m in, Rakayl, tell me the whole of it.”

“Vak’ll tell you, he’s waiting for us now.” We left and walked down to our camp on the beach. Vak was sitting in front of the fire, sharpening his knives.

“So what’s this about?” Zyre asked. “Just tell me straight out, Rakayl gave me all the build-up and I’ve already agreed. So what are we doing?”

“Well, see, Rakayl owes me, did she tell you that part? She promised me the Talisman and couldn’t deliver.”

“I actually only promised to tell him where it is.”

“True, but you couldn’t deliver on that, either, since it isn’t any more. Anyhow, I mean to make up for it. You ever heard of the Mirror of… erm, some prophet or other with a ridiculous name?”

“Nope. Let me guess. A prophet’s mirror prophecies?”

“Exactly. Right now it happens to be in the hands of a rather silly young woman who knows nothing of its true power, and happens to be traveling to Dowheld for her marriage.”

“So this really is just a simple bit of highway robbery?” Zyre asked suspiciously. “Stand and deliver, and all that?”

“More or less.”

Zyre glared at me. “More or less,” he repeated.

“The girl doesn’t know what she has. The same can’t be said for her father or her future husband, both of whom have sent guards with her.”

“Ah. So, a rather more complicated highway robbery. Just the three of us, or are you hoping to increase your numbers?”

“We should be able to do all right,” Vak said.

I don’t think Zyre agreed, but he only shrugged. “Where and when?”

“There’s a deserted stretch of the road a little way into the woods by Dowheld. We can wait there and take them by surprise. They should pass through there, in, oh, three hours?”

Zyre slapped his hands to his face. “I should have known you’d wait until the last minute. If we can get some horses, we should be able to get there in time, assuming you’re right about the timing and we aren’t delayed any.”

“We have the horses,” I told him. We got up and went to where they were tethered, hidden a little by the curve of the cliff. “And we’d expected the party to rest for the night before entering the forest,” I continued as we began to ride.

“And you know they aren’t because...?”

Vak wiggled his fingers and gave them a slight glow.

“Ah. Why do you even need the damn mirror?”

“I know a little magic, enough to do a sort-of muddled scrying spell. If I had more training, I’d be able to do it better. Some of the greatest mages alive can scry anything they like, as easy as looking into a window, and maybe have a few glimpses of the future every once in a while, if they’re lucky. The mirror shows the future, or the future that’ll come about if things stay on the path they’re on.”

“Very useful for gambling, I’m sure.”

Vak grinned. “True. And also for knowing if you’re about to get caged up, or killed. Or if something interesting is about to happen. Or for knowing which horse will win, of course.”

I enjoyed the ride; I’d missed this kind of friendly companionship, as well as the jittery anticipation before a job like this. We made it to the forest in plenty of time, and when the coach rode up we were hidden in the trees, faces covered by masks.

At the sight of the coach, Vak jumped out first, and we followed him. “Stand and deliver,” he demanded, sword drawn.

There were guards in the coach, as well as the young woman, but for some reason they offered no resistance. One, in fact, advised the young woman, “Just give them your money, Mayracelia, and everything will be fine.” He told us, with an apologetic shrug, “The young lady will certainly turn over her purse, as would we, but we’re merely her guards and have no coin.” The woman emptied her pockets and removed her elaborate jewelery with trembling hands. She handed them to the guard, who gave them to Vak.

He studied the loot carefully. “You have nothing else?” he demanded. “No other… trinket?”

“Just-“ the girl began, but was interrupted by the guard. “That’s all she has. Is it not enough for you?”

Ignoring him, Vak asked the girl gently, “Just what?”

“My mirror. It’s not real silver or anything.” She held it out, but the guard snatched it before Vak could.

“Hand it over,” I demanded. And they attacked.

There were five guards, as well as the girl and the driver, neither of whom seemed inclined to fight. Or so I thought, until two of the guards were upon me, and Vak and Zyre each occupied fighting one. They were well trained, better trained than guards of some minor noble should be. I could have taken one of them, with a fight, as Vak and Zyre surely would, but against both of them, I was as good as dead.

Then they froze. Not as if they’d been shocked by something, but as if they’d been turned to stone. I glanced at Vak, surprised that he was capable of such a thing, but he looked just as surprised as I was at the five unmoving guards.

The girl in the carriage spoke. “They should stay like that for a few minutes,” she sounded shy, and scared, and even younger than she was. “Take me with you,” she begged.

We stared at her in surprise. “Why?” I asked.

She held out the mirror. “You can have it, if you take me with you. I know what it is. I’m not as stupid as they think. He just wants it, he doesn’t want me at all, and I don’t want to marry him either.”

Vak and I exchanged a look. “Why not?” I said.

So Vak took the mirror and gave Mayracelia her money and jewelry back. We took one of the horses from the coach, and the four of us rode off. Vak stared obsessively into the mirror, saying things like, “Look, that looks like we’ll be having a good time,” and “Well, we can always make sure it doesn’t happen—Rakayl, when you meet a man with dark hair and blue eyes and a silver earring, don’t slap him; really, really, don’t slap him,” and, “Ooh, that’ll surprise him,” and, “Who needs a mirror to know that?” After about twenty minutes of this, he nearly fell off his horse, and I managed to convince him to put it away until later.

We ended up back at the Cat’s Corpse. Thanks to Vak’s warning, rather than slapping the dark haired man with the silver earring, I told him that I’d love to do what he suggested, and I probably wasn’t too contagious. He hastily backed away and moved on; it was Mayracelia who slapped him. Nobody got killed in the brawl, though.

I waited until we’d all had a few drinks in celebration, Mayracelia was standing on a table trying to sing, and Zyre was trying to talk her down, before suggesting to Vak, “Now that we’re even, I have some debts to someone else. You want to help me get payback?”

“Sounds like fun,” he agreed.

Execution

I’ve been here for a few months now, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Here—I’m not sure what to call it. Someone called it a menagerie of mages, a Magiary, and the name seems to have stuck somewhat, but since it was meant as an insult, those of us who stay here are torn between rejecting the name and trying to reclaim it.

The Magiary is a large house with lots of towers, and is intimidating from the outside but a friendly, cozy place inside, for the most part. The house is not inside the city, but the main doorway is set into the city wall, which is only a few feet high there.

It’s a school, sort-of, and probably several other things as well. People come here to learn magic, and Malexandra and whatever other magic-users happen to be around teach it. There’s nothing official about the Magiary. It’s in Majardea, but everyone knows the king has no control over it. There aren’t many rules here--most of the normal things such as don’t kill or steal are assumed to be obvious. Besides for that, it pretty much amounts to everyone here being expected to not do anything cruel or utterly idiotic. The king’s laws don’t apply here, and so problems are dealt with by Malexandra—you can imagine how relieved I was very when I heard that, considering there’s a warrant out for my execution. But official laws are highly frowned on, and I don’t worry about anyone here turning me in. On the same note, we’re not allowed to go watch executions or other public punishments.

You wouldn’t think that last one would be a big deal. I’ve never had any urge to go watch someone being killed, and the fact that it could easily happen to me has made the idea even less enticing. And it’s not like my friends would want to, either. Devrin’s a bit squeamish, and while Quaos is the last person in the world I’d call squeamish, seeing people die isn’t entertainment for her either.

But we were walking around the city, just for the fun of it. It had been raining for a week, and now that it was bright and sunny we wanted to get out. At first we thought the crowds were just other people who felt the same. But they were all headed in the same direction, and a cheerful woman with a small child on her shoulders told us that we should hurry, because all the best places to see the execution from would be taken.

“Oh no, we won’t be able to get a good view of someone being killed! Whatever shall we do?” Devrin was being even more sarcastic than usual, which is saying a lot.

“We should go,” I said.

“Back home, you mean? This does rather ruin the beauty of the day.”

“No, to the execution.”

Quaos and Devrin both stared at me. “Because your idea of fun is watching people die?” Devrin asked.

“No, because it could have been me.”

“And it could still be you, Aniya, if anyone recognizes you,” Quaos said sharply. “I’ve had friends in line for execution before, I’d prefer not to repeat the experience.”

“I’m not just going to go home and pretending nothing’s going on,” I said stubbornly. “You can, if you want.”

They didn’t, of course.

Executions took place on a stage in a large, beautified square. The square was packed, and we stood far from the stage and right next to the path leading to it which the accused was marched down. The path was empty; everyone knew it was bad luck to stand on it, and most people tried to stay as far away from it as possible.

The path stretched all the way to the prison, and was relatively straight, so we could see the guards marching the prisoner towards us from a long way off, and they marched very slowly. As they drew closer, we saw a scowling woman in chains, held on each side by a uniformed guard.

That could be me. The thought repeated in my mind over and over. I could feel myself in her place, barefoot, wearing only a thin prison shift and thick chains, marching to my death. It could be me.

“We should stop it.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could think them through, but I had no desire to take them back.

“It’s not that easy,” Quaos objected.

“We could do it, though. Just, grab her when she comes by, and we know enough magic by now we could probably get away.”

“What if she’s a murderer?” protested Devrin.

“Well, then, that would make two of us,” Quaos reminded him.

“Same goes for treason,” I added. “So you’re in?” I asked Quaos.

“I’m always up for stopping executions!” Quaos said with a crazy grin. “At least I won’t have to kill a king this time. Hey, the worst that can happen is that we end up on the block next to her.”

“So it’s not like anything really bad could happen to us.” Sarcasm, of course, but Devrin had said ‘us.’

“So, our plan is really just to grab her and run?” Quaos asked rather incredulously.

“Um… we improvise after that,” I said. I was very nervous, even terrified, and maybe beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing, but I had just to glance at the woman to see myself in her shoes, and my second thoughts disappeared.

And then, they were next to us. The guards had swords; I, stupidly, hadn’t thought about that. Still, they didn’t have them out, and were holding the woman’s chains. So I let myself kind of stumble into the guard closest to me, and when she was off her guard, so to speak, grabbed the chain from her hands. She hadn’t been expecting it, but she reacted quickly and grabbed it back, and we were playing tug-o-war. Devrin, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, had grabbed her sword from its sheath, though he wasn’t doing anything with it. I took a deep breath and used a bit of magic to heat the chain. It hurt the prisoner as well as the guard, but it only lasted long enough for me to jerk the chain from the guard. Quaos, I saw, had the other guard on his knees, holding his head in his hands.

We ran.

It wasn’t just the guards behind us; the crowd wanted their entertainment. The prisoner, still chained and now burned under the chains on her waist and left ankle, was not fast. This was the part we hadn’t planned for, and the dangerous part—if they got us now, we were all dead.

Devrin, who had been at the Magiary the longest and was the most studious, did something magical that seemed to slow down everyone else, as though they were moving through thick syrup. We got a bit of a head start, but he only managed to keep it up for a few seconds, and the use of so much energy tired him. We began to slow, and the crowd was upon us, the people at the front just reaching out to grab us—

And suddenly, I felt a large jolt and the four of us were in Malexandra’s tower. I felt rather nauseous.

“That was quite impressive,” Malexandra said. “I haven’t seen a rescue like that since I was- well, in a long time.

The woman who was to have been executed finally spoke. “Who are you? I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but who are you and what the hell is going on?”

We introduced ourselves. Somehow, our names didn’t seem to lessen her confusion.

“Okay, it’s nice to meet you and all, but where are we, how the hell did we get here, and why?”

“You’re in my tower. I was alerted to the unusual occurrence by a friend and brought you here in order to keep you from the bloodthirsty mob and bloodthirstier, if rather inept, guards. Now who are you, and why were you about to be executed?”

“Smuggling. I’m a smuggler. I was a smuggler, I guess, I don’t think I’ll be going back to it. My name is Wrayli.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m worn out from transporting all four of you, but if you give me a few minutes I’ll do something about those chains, and your burns.”

“Sorry about that,” I said.

Wrayli shrugged. “Better than being dead.”

We all stood around awkwardly for a minute. Suddenly, Devrin laughed loudly. We all looked at him.

“Um, you know how we’re not supposed to go to executions? Well, we rescued the condemned prisoner, so we weren’t actually at an execution, since nobody was killed.”

“Well, I’m so glad you’re not in trouble,” Wrayli said, but she laughed.

Pearls

Denise Strimer was returning to her expensive New York penthouse apartment from walking her purebred Papillion, Tutu. After walking up the apartment stairs she put Tutu down for the first time since leaving the apartment twenty six minutes earlier took her keys out of her seven hundred and sixty two dollar purse. She unlocked her door and picking Tutu up, opened it.

She was shocked to find her apartment in what she considered complete disarray, although a normal person would only have considered it slightly messy. Denise was an extremely organized person and she was always careful with her expensive belongings. But now, in the middle of her living room, was half of one of her favorite shoes, which had cost her four hundred and seventy nine dollars. When she went into the hallway, there was a slight char mark on the bottom of the wall. In the kitchen, the bottle of honey was lying on the counter with holes in it, honey oozing from the sides. In her guest bedroom there was a slight rip in the pillowcase, and in the dining room a plate was chipped. In the bathroom, he toilet seat was not only open, which would have been unbearable, but actually halfway gone!

If she hadn’t had Tutu with her Denise would have suspected her dog, but as it was she didn’t know what to think. Someone had broken into her house, obviously. As the thought struck her she ran into her bedroom and opened the jewelry box. At first it seemed that no jewelry was missing. But when Denise opened her closet to check on the damage there, she realized something was missing. She had hung up the clothes she was going to wear to a party that night on the inside of her closet door, and with them, a pearl necklace, That necklace was gone. Still carrying Tutu, Denise to call the police as fast as her four inch heels would permit her.

Fortunately she hadn’t looked down. She would not have known what to make of the shiny, pearly, broken eggshells on the floor of her closet.

-----

I didn’t steal anything from that bitch. I didn’t vandalize anything either, the place was like that when I got there. And yeah, I broke in, but only because I heard what sounded like a baby crying. I knew Ms. Strimer doesn’t have a baby, and I’d seen her leave to walk that piece of fluff she calls a dog. And I waited outside the apartment for a minute, but the noises didn’t stop, and I didn’t hear anything else. So what was I supposed to do, leave some abandoned baby alone to die? I don’t think so. So I broke in.

I found the source of the noise nearly as soon as I got inside. I was right. It was a baby. The only thing I was wrong about was that I’d been expecting it to be a baby human. It wasn’t.

The first one I saw, the one that was crying, was sitting in the middle of a charred spot on the hallway carpet. It was just sitting there, same expression as any scared baby or puppy or anything, howling. It wasn’t a puppy, either. It was small, about the size of my thumb, its skin was a kind of metallic green color and its furled wings were a shimmery purple. Each time it took a breath after a long scream, it let out a little flame.

Yes. It was a baby dragon.

I wasn’t scared or anything. I’ve always loved fantasy books, and it was really small, and it had that round cuteness that babies of any species have. And it was really upset. So I went over and picked it up, carefully. I let it sit in my cupped palm and gently stroked it with a finger.

It stopped crying. It let out one last little spark, which burned my finger but not bad enough to matter, and then curled up and went to sleep in my palm.

I stood there marveling at it for a few minutes. Then I started wondering what to do. I couldn’t just stand in someone else’s apartment holding a dragon, and I couldn’t just leave the dragon there, but I wasn’t sure if it would be right to take it home either. And how would I take care of a dragon? But I knew I’d be better at it than Denise Shrimer, so I was just about to leave when I heard the crying sound again, but coming from another room.

So I followed the noise and found another little dragon, trying to torch the bathtub. I searched the house and found four more, six in all. The last two were in the closet, and when I was looking for them I saw the remnants of the necklace. Six pearly little hatched eggs and some silver chain the six pearls had been strung on. So I knew I’d found all the dragons.

Yeah, I admit, I took the eggshells and the chain with me. It’s not that I was trying to make it look like a robbery… but better she be looking for a thief than for something that hatched out of pearls. I was already feeling downright protective of the six little dragons, and I didn’t want anyone looking for them.

I didn’t think about anyone looking for me. I just put the hand holding the dragons in the pocket of my sweatshirt and caught the bus home. The whole bus ride I was terrified that one of the dragons would start crying, and I even thought up an explanation—it was one of those gag birthday cards that make noises when you open them, but it had gotten stuck so it went off randomly. But the dragons stayed quiet the whole ride.

My roommate was spending the night at her boyfriend’s, so I had the apartment to myself. I was glad; I wasn’t sure how I would tell Melissa about the dragons. I thought I should give them some food, but I had no idea what they ate. I tried googling “What do dragons eat,” but all the answers were either for Komodo dragons or had varying answers that seemed to apply more to adult dragons. I made up a plate of everything I could think of, all cut up into tiny pieces—various types of meat, some bread, a squished grape, lettuce, a piece of chocolate (it’s bad for dogs, but they clearly weren’t dogs), I even added a couple live spiders. I put the dragons in front of it and watched to see what they would eat. One went straight for the spiders, and once it had gobbled them, the meat. Another ate the grape and some of the lettuce. Three of them ate a little bit of everything, and the last one, which was the first one I’d picked up, ate only the chocolate. It didn’t seem like enough, so I offered it a Redvine, and, remembering the mess they’d made, some honey, and it ate those too.

I put the dragons in an old fish tank I had sitting around, with some more samples of food and a little shallow dish of water. I didn’t mean to leave them there for long, but I had to go to the bathroom. When I came back in the living room, the food was gone, the tank was sitting on its side, and the dragons were lying peacefully in the corner of my couch. That was my one and only attempt to put them in any kind of box or cage.

I sat down next to them and watched them sleep, then roughhouse around with each other, then sleep more. They were sleeping when I heard the knock on my door. I pulled a blanket over them—I didn’t know if I’d want whoever was here to see them—and opened the door.

Two police officers stood there. “Are you Jessica Rawlitz?”

“Yes, is there a problem?” Could they know about the dragons? Was there anything illegal about dragons?

“You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will…” They read me my rights, handcuffed me, and took me to the police station.

“I want a lawyer,” I demanded immediately. “I’m not going to say anything without a lawyer. And I need a phone call.”

They gave me a phone. They probably thought I was going to call a lawyer. I called Melissa.

“Hi, Melissa? It’s Jessica. I’ve been arrested. Can you go home and feed my pets? Yes, you heard me correctly. I’ll explain later. Yes, I have pets. I do now. It’s complicated. There’re six of them, and they pretty much eat anything but one only eats sweets. You’ll be a little surprised when you see them, but I promise I’ll explain everything. Okay, and also, once you make sure they’re okay; can you go talk to a bail bondsman? Thanks so much.”

I had to wait in a cell overnight, and I was arraigned the next day. I got a public defender, Ana Clay, who told me I was accused of burglary and grand larceny, which basically meant breaking into Miss Strimer’s house and stealing her pearl necklace. Apparently someone saw the neighbor’s babysitter—that’s me—going into the apartment.

I pleaded not guilty, but I didn’t know what I was going to do. “Your Honor, it wasn’t me, it was baby dragons,” isn’t the best defense, unless you’re trying to go for insanity. Melissa had come through and bailed me out as soon as she could, so I didn’t have to go to jail.

“Okay, so what the hell is going on?” she asked as she drove me home.

“Are the dragons okay?”

“They’re fine. Now you promised an explanation.”

I told her everything. “God, Jessica, what have you gotten yourself into?” was her only reply.

I rushed to the dragons as soon as I got in. It took me a few minutes to find them, as they’d scattered throughout the house, but they were all fine. They seemed to have doubled in size already. My house was less than fine, but it hadn’t burned down or anything. The damage wasn’t really much worse than what a puppy would have done. Plus a few burns on the walls.

“I just can’t believe this,” Melissa said, holding one of the dragons. I was holding another, my favorite, the first one I’d found, and the rest were roughhousing on the couch cushion between us.

“Me neither. Which part?”

“Everything. Dragons, and you getting arrested, and everything.”

“I’m so glad that my being arrested is as much of a surprise to you as dragons. You can be my character witness.”

She laughed. “But seriously, Jessica, what are you going to do? “

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m guilty or not. I mean, I did break in and take the dragons, which are the remnants of the pearl necklace.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“No, but still. I don’t regret it. I mean, we are holding baby dragons. Magical, mythical, fire-breathing dragons. That is way worth getting arrested for.”

“Okay, but is it worth spending the next five or ten years of your life in jail for?”

“Does it matter? It’s not like I can say, okay, I don’t want to go to jail, I’ll give up the dragons. Telling the truth would just make more problems, I don’t want to go to a mental institution either.”

“I guess you’re right,” Melissa agreed, petting the dragon absentmindedly.

The prosecutor tried to get me to plead guilty, but none of the offers were good enough. My lawyer said that she tried to get him to agree to a plea to vandalism and community service, but since Ms. Shrimer was dating the mayor, he wouldn’t go for anything less than serious prison time. And I couldn’t just agree to that. So I’d have to have a trial.

By the day of my trial, the dragons had grown to about the size of my fist. I’d named them all. My favorite was Sweettooth, and the others were Sunflower, Hunter, Trickster, Puppy, and Victoria (Melissa named her). I know, not very draconian names, but they seemed right.

Dragons are surprisingly easy to sneak into a courtroom. Well, they’re not metal or anything. You might think it was stupid of me to bring them to my trial, but I wanted them there. They were my moral support, and my luck. I’d explained to them that they needed to keep silent and hidden and told them exactly what was going to happen. I think they understand most of what I tell them. Anyway, they stayed in my pockets and sleeves for the prosecutor’s opening statement, and my lawyer’s. It wasn’t until the prosecutor was questioning his first witness, right after he’d had her identify me, that anything happened.

“Can you identify the woman you saw going into the apartment in this courtroom?” he asked dramatically.

“Yes.”

“Please point her out to the court.” She pointed at me, then looked away. The prosecutor said, even more dramatically, “Let the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant.” He looked right at me, and it was then that Sweettooth poked his head out from my collar.

The prosecutor screamed. His first scream was just a wordless shriek. His second scream was, “A dragon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” He pointed.

The whole room was staring at him, but they turned to look at me when he pointed. By then I’d scooped Sweettooth into my pocket, so everyone assumed the prosecutor had just had a mental breakdown. The judge called the room to order, a bailiff escorted the prosecutor away, and the court was adjourned for the day.

The next day, the prosecution was represented by a young woman from the prosecutor’s office, who said that Mr. DeZone had checked himself into a mental institution and the prosecution was dropping the charges in this case. There was some paperwork and stuff, but I got to go home a free woman.

As I was walking out of the courtroom, my lawyer said quietly to me, “What cute dragons. How old are they, six months?”

I turned to her. “You mean you know it’s real?”

“Sure. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Anyway, hearing that that jackass is in an insane asylum is the highlight of my month.”

Deal

The night was dark, so dark I could not even see the blade at my throat, but I wasn’t afraid. “Do you mean to kill me?” I inquired.

“Only if you refuse to tell me where it is,” my attacker answered in a gruff voice.

I smiled sweetly, though he couldn’t see it, and answered, “Sorry, Vak, but you’re going to need to offer more than that.”

“You don’t seem to understand me, Rakayl,” he sounded frustrated. “I’m offering you your life. If you tell me, I’ll go away and leave you be. If not, I’ll slit your throat.”

“You seem to be under the impression that you have the upper hand here. You don’t. I have something you want, but you don’t have anything I want. You’re going to have to raise the price.”

“Your life!”

“Like I said, you don’t have anything I want.”

He finally got it. He sheathed his dagger, and for a moment I thought he was about to leave, but he didn’t. We sat silently in the dark, until he finally muttered something and all the candles in the room flared up. For the first time in years, I saw his face, and he saw mine.

He hadn’t changed much, if at all. Same voice, same face, same beard, same twinkling eyes, same attitude. I knew I’d changed, been aged by years of toil and misery and hopelessness. And I’d meant it, that my life meant nothing to me. Back then, sure, I was a daredevil, took stupid risks that could get me killed, but I’d loved being alive.

I looked away to avoid seeing pity in his eyes. He knew what I’d been once, and to see me reduced to this…. I still had my pride, and one other thing as well.

“Fine,” he gave in. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you can give me.”

“Then why shouldn’t I just kill you and be done with it?”

“I won’t be able to tell you anything once I’m dead.”

“And you’re not telling me anything alive. Why shouldn’t I just kill you and save myself the bother of trying to talk it out of you?”

I shrugged. “No reason.”

He was growing irritated. “Damn it, isn’t there anything I can do to get you to tell me?”

“Like I said, there’s nothing you have that I want.”

“What do you want?”

“Freedom.”

He smiled. “So if I get you out of here, you’ll tell me?”

“No.” He started to glare at me, but I continued, “If you get me out of here, and take me with you, as a partner, then I’ll tell you.”

“I’ve no problem agreeing with that… but are you sure you’re still up to it?”

In a flash, I grabbed his knife from his side and had it at his throat. That was enough of a reply, so I said nothing.

“Fine, fine,” he said, holding up his hands. “I take back the question. We have a deal?”

I tucked the dagger into my waistband, and we shook on it. “My knife wasn’t part of the deal,” he complained.

“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed, but did not return it. “So do you have a plan? Because I assure you, I haven’t stayed here for four years because I like the scenery.”

“You know me, I play things by ear. So should we trick our way out, or fight our way out?”

I’d forgotten that. My style had been to plan everything out to the last detail beforehand, with a multitude of backup plans for everything that could possibly go wrong. Vak had tended to come up with mad ideas and, with no planning whatsoever, act on them, improvising whenever anything went wrong. But it worked for him. After all, I’d been caught, convicted, and sold into slavery, and he was free.

I thought about his question, and grinned. “Fight our way out, of course. If you think you’re up to it.”

“It would help if you gave me my dagger back.”

I smirked. “I guess you do have more need of it.” I offered it to him.

“I don’t need a bit of metal to fight with any more than you do,” he protested, so I put it away.

I had nothing to take with me and no reason to linger, so we left. He’d already picked the locks to get into the room, so we crept out into the darkness.

“Steal a pair of horses?” Vak suggested.

“Just two?” I led the way to the stables. They were guarded, but the guards, not really expecting any trouble, weren’t as alert as they should have been. I was on the first guard before he even noticed us, and by then it was too late; I left him bleeding out into the dust. He’d had time to let out part of a scream, but it didn’t matter. The only one around to hear was the corpse of the other guard, who Vak had dealt with while I was killing the first one. We saddled the two best horses, and quickly released all the others—a distraction, sure, but I mainly did it out of spite. The loss of a few horses, and even a few guards, was hardly enough revenge, but it’s better than nothing.

We dispatched the two guards at the gate as easily as their fellows, but the magic was more difficult. That was how I was caught the last time I tried to escape. I’d thought I’d neutralized it, and started to climb over, and realized it was stronger than I’d thought when I was stuck to the gate for the rest of the night, until the next round of guards came and caught me.

But Vak was with me this time, and as loath as I am to admit it, he knew more magic than I did. So after a rather tense half hour of sitting on my horse in the cold, watching Vak mutter to himself, we were through, and all we had to do was stay out of sight.

“Where to now?” Vak asked me.

“A ship would be best. You up for a spot of piracy?” He was, of course, and if the small craft we took couldn’t exactly be called a ship, it was quite capable of taking us to Port Endra, in Majardea.

“So is that where it is, then?” Vak finally asked me, on the second day of our voyage. “Majardea, or nearby?”

“Well, it was. But it’s too late now. Did you really think they wouldn’t have gotten that out of me a long time ago?”

He stared at me. I put my hand on the dagger, in case he tried anything, but after a while he just laughed. “I should have known. So what happened to it?”

“Well, that bastard wasn’t about to go off on a quest for it, so I guess he must have sold the information or something. A while back I heard some hero went after it, and she found it, but…. I’m not exactly clear on the details, but I heard them complaining about what a waste that was, because I guess she fed it to a goat. Good riddance, in my opinion, you know what I thought about it.”

Vak shook his head. “A goat. The most powerful artifact known to man, and she fed it to a goat.” He looked at me accusingly. “You owe me.”

“I know.” But I didn’t much care.

Babysitting

Melody answered the phone. “Hello?” she said, her voice, as always, so soft it was just audible. In school she didn’t like being called on because, although she almost always knew the answers to questions, teachers always told her to speak louder. She had once auditioned for the part of a dryad in a school play, but although she could act fairly well and looked exactly like a picture of a dryad that was in her English book, tall, with long wavy red hair, she couldn’t speak loudly enough to be heard by the audience.
“Hello, may I speak to Melody Radin?” asked a pleasant male voice. Melody didn’t recognize the voice, so she prepared to hang up if it was a telemarketer.
“This is me.”
“I’m looking for a babysitter for my six year old daughter and a friend of mine recommended you. I know this is short notice, but are you free tonight?”
Melody considered. She didn’t normally babysit for people she didn’t know, but if someone she did babysit for had recommended her surely it was all right. And she was free, in fact she was bored to death at having nothing to do, and the money would be nice. “At what time?” she asked.
“Well, I need to be there by six, so from about five thirty to… I should be back by eleven. At your house, preferably, we’re remodeling….”
“Sure,” agreed Melody. “That sounds great. What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Kelsey,” said the man. “So, I’ll bring her by at five thirty. How much do you charge?”
“Um, five dollars an hour?”
“I’ll make it six. Kelsey can be rather… difficult. She likes to make up… stories, and will try to get you to believe them.”
“That’s no problem,” said Melody, smiling. “Difficult is when they run around the house climbing on the furniture and peaking things.”
The man laughed. “Well, I can’t promise how Kelsey will behave. I’ve never left her with a stranger before. I think she’ll like you though. I’ll see you at five thirty.”
“Okay, bye.” They hung up.
Melody’s doorbell rang at five thirty exactly. She opened it to a tall man with black hair and striking lapis-blue eyes tightly gripping the hand of a little girl. She was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved pink sweater that was really too hot for August. Her brown hair was somewhat tangled and she had a band-aid on her cheek. The fear in her brown eyes made her face look older than that of a six year old, but unlike most scared children she did not cling closely to her father but stood as far away from him as his grip on her hand would allow.
Melody remembered how shy she had been at that age, always clinging to one of her parents or her big sister Alexia. She smiled at Kelsey. Kelsey attempted to smile back, but the quick upward curve of the little girl’s lips was not really a smile.
Kelsey’s father bent down and whispered something in her ear, but whatever he’d said most emphatically did not comfort her. She looked more scared than ever, her small body almost trembling.
“This is Kelsey,” the man told Melody. “Kelsey, this is Melody, your babysitter. You’ll be a good girl while I’m gone?” Kelsey nodded quickly, and he told her, “I’m running late. I’ll see you at eleven, Kelsey.” He released his daughter’s arm and left.
“What do you want to do?” Melody asked Kelsey. Kelsey looked around nervously. “Um, could we… would you mind going for a walk?” the little girl asked timidly.
“Sure!” agreed Melody. “It’s great weather, isn’t it?” Kelsey nodded. “That sweater seems hot though; do you want to borrow a cooler shirt? I don’t have anything your size, but if you could wear one of my shirts and even if it’s too big it would be cooler than that.”
The six-year-old hesitated, then nodded, so Melody led Kelsey to her room. Melody loved her room. The walls and ceiling were painted in swirls of the beautiful blues and greens of the ocean, Melody’s favorite colors, except for one wall which had an enormous window, framed by turquoise curtains pulled back to each side. Her desk was at the wall adjacent to the window so when she was doing her homework Melody could pause and gaze out at the ocean.
Melody led Kelsey into the room and went over to her closet. Kelsey was entranced by the window, and stood staring out of it, mouth agape. Melody looked through her closet and pulled out a sleeveless t-shirt. She showed it to Kelsey. “Do you want to wear this?”
“No!” It was almost a shout. “It has to have sleeves!”
Melody was puzzled, but she said, “Why don’t you come over here and pick something out?”
Kelsey approached the closet tentatively. Staying as far back as she could, she eventually selected a long sleeved silk shirt that hung down to her knees. Kelsey put the shirt on over her sweater, slipped the sweater out from under the shirt, and put her arms through the sleeves, which she rolled up to her wrists. “Are you ready to go?” she asked, her voice sounding half eager, half scared.
“Sure,” said Melody, so Kelsey eagerly ran out the door.
“Do you want to go to the tidepools?” Melody suggested once they were outside.
“Okay!” Kelsey agreed enthusiastically.
They stayed at the tidepools for several hours. Each time Melody suggested they leave Kelsey begged to stay just a little longer and Melody didn’t have the heart to refuse. Besides, she loved being at the tidepools and was having fun. Kelsey ran around as if she hadn’t been outside for months, hopping from rock to rock and splashing in the water.
It was almost dark, so Melody finally dragged Kelsey away from the tidepools, although actually when Melody insisted that they were going to leave, Kelsey was much more agreeable than Melody would have expected of a little girl whose father had called difficult.
They got home and Melody heated up some leftover pasta. When they finished eating, Kelsey asked if she could go on the computer.
“Sure, do you know how to use it or do you want me to help you?”
“I can do it myself,” said Kelsey. Her voice was tense.
Kelsey sat down in front of the computer, which was already on, and double-clicked on Internet Explorer. While she waited almost anxiously for it to load, she checked to make sure that Melody was not looking over her shoulder. The babysitter was sitting on her bed gazing out the window, so Kelsey turned back to the computer.
Although Kelsey was just learning to read, she could read and write her own name. Checking once again that Melody was not looking, she typed her full name in the search box and pressed enter.
A long list of websites loaded and Kelsey clicked on the first one. It was a newspaper article. Kelsey studied it carefully, but didn’t recognize enough of the words to be able to tell what it said. She went back and clicked on the next article, but she couldn’t read that one either. The third page she looked at was no more legible to her than the first two, but there was something different about it. At the top of the page was a picture of her parents.
Kelsey glanced back at her babysitter, then continued to stare at the article. She needed to know what it said. Hoping, praying, that it didn’t reveal too much, she turned to Melody and asked softly, a tremor in her voice, “What does this say?”
Melody came over and looked over Kelsey’s shoulder. “Oh,” she said. “It’s an article about a couple who killed themselves because their daughter was murdered. I don’t think your dad would want you to read that.”
Kelsey abruptly burst into hysterical, maniacal laughter. She laughed until tears flowed down her face, and at some point, it was impossible to tell exactly when, her laughter changed to sobbing.
Melody stared at the little girl, wondering frantically if she was having a mental breakdown and if she should call Alexia, or Kelsey’s dad, except that strangely enough he hadn’t given her a contact number, or 911.
“Are you okay?” Melody asked Kelsey tentatively, then felt like a complete idiot. Obviously Kelsey was not okay.
However, the question seemed to snap Kelsey out of her hysteria. She stopped crying, and simply stared blankly at the computer. After a moment, she said, “Read me the article.”
After Kelsey’s reaction to just hearing about it, Melody was not about to give her the gory details. “I’m sorry Kelsey, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Read it,” Kelsey insisted so imperatively that, against her better judgment, Melody did.
The short article, dated in May, was about a couple, Carolyn and Bill Anderson, whose five year old daughter had been kidnapped several months earlier. The police had found a decomposed body that they believed to be the Andersons’ daughter, and Carolyn and Bill had jumped off a cliff.
Without a word, Kelsey got up, walked over to the window, and gazed out into the night. “Why?” she asked softly, and Melody knew the question was not addressed to her.
“Kelsey, what is it?” she asked.
After a moment of silence Kelsey looked at her, her eyes filled with fear, sorrow, and the blankness of bereavement, but she merely shook her head. A six year old should never look like that, Melody thought, and repeated, “Kelsey, what is it?”
Kelsey shook her head again, whispered, “I can’t,” and turned again to gaze out the window.
Melody wanted to go over and hug her, but she didn’t think Kelsey would allow her to. After a moment she went over to the computer.
The article she had read to Kelsey had not contained the name of the Andersons’ murdered daughter, but Melody went back to the list of results of Kelsey’s search and clicked on another news article, written in February. It was written before the body was discovered and was about the kidnapping of Kelsey Anderson. It asked readers to call the police if they saw Kelsey, and had a photograph of a smiling five year old.
Besides for the smile, it was the same face as that of the Kelsey gazing out of the window.
“You’re Kelsey Anderson,” Melody said. “The man who left you here isn’t your father, he’s your kidnapper.”
Kelsey spun around to face Melody. “He said he’d kill me if I told you. He didn’t want to leave me alone because I’d been making noise, so he had you babysit me and he said if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me and he’d kill me!” she said in a small, panicky voice.
“It’s going to be okay,” said Melody, although racing through her mind was the thought that a kidnapper knew where she lived and was supposed to arrive to pick up his victim by eleven. She picked up the phone and dialed 911.
“911, please state the nature of you emergency.”
“I’m babysitting and the little girl I’m babysitting for was kidnapped. I mean, she wasn’t just kidnapped now, but the man who hired me to babysit her, I thought he was her dad, but he actually kidnapped her a few months ago and he’s going to be back at eleven and he’s a kidnapper!”
“Ma’am, calm down. Can you give me your name and address?”
“I’m Melody Radin and my address is 1432 Seashell Blvd.”
“Okay, the police are on their way. Will you be okay until then?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Okay. They’ll be there soon. Goodbye.”
“Bye.”
Melody hung up the phone, then realized her sister would be worried if she came home and saw police cars in front of their house, and immediately picked up the phone again and called Alexia.
“Hello?”
“Alexia? It’s Melody. Um, well, the thing is, I’m babysitting, and um….”
“That’s fine,” said Alexia.
“No! I mean, that’s not why I’m calling. I already am babysitting and the girl I’m babysitting for, Kelsey, is at our house, and she’s actually Kelsey Anderson, remember she was kidnapped, it was in the newspaper, and the man who hired me to babysit her, I thought was her dad, is actually her kidnapper.”
There was a loud thud then some scuffling noises, then Alexia’s voice came back on the phone and said, “I’m sorry, I just dropped the phone. A kidnapper hired you to babysit his victim?”
“Uh-huh. Can you come home?”
“Of course, I’ll leave right now. Have you called the police?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. I’ll see you in- wait, does the kidnapper know where you live?”
“Uh-huh. But the police are on their way now.”
“Maybe you should go over to a neighbor’s?”
Melody was nervous about waiting at home, but she said, “Don’t worry, the police are on their way here now, and he’s not supposed to be back until eleven.”
There was a silence, and Melody knew Alexia was deciding whether to argue. Finally, she said, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Bye.”
“Bye,” said Melody, and hung up.
Kelsey was staring at her in horror. “The police are coming?” she whimpered. “He’ll kill me! He’ll kill you too, and the police, and the rest of your family, and… He told me he would!”
Although Kelsey’s words filled Melody with fear, she told the little girl, “It’ll be okay. The police are going to come and they’ll arrest the kidnapper and then he won’t be able to kill anyone.”
Kelsey looked at her dubiously. “What if they can’t find him? Or if they arrest him and he gets out of jail? Then he’ll kill us!”
“They will get him,” Melody assured Kelsey firmly, hoping that it was true.
It was not.
The police came. They questioned Melody and Kelsey, staked out the house, examined Kelsey for evidence… They did everything they could to find the kidnapper. It wasn’t enough.
A social worker came as well. Her intent was to take Kelsey to social services. Alexia, who by now knew the whole story from questioning Melody and Kelsey as intensely as the police, had other ideas. She sent Melody and Kelsey upstairs while she discussed things with the social worker. When Melody came down half an hour later, the social worker was gone. “Kelsey is staying with us,” Alexia proclaimed.
The next day Alexia signed Kelsey up for karate classes. Kelsey loved them, and was a natural at karate. Alexia also made an appointment for her to see a psychologist. Kelsey loved that a bit less, but she went. The therapy did help Kelsey’s feelings of self-blame over her parents’ death, a little, but it did nothing to stop her nightmares.
Two days after Kelsey’s rescue came a peak in the case. The small family had just gotten home from Kelsey’s therapy session when the phone rang. Melody answered it.
“You know, you might be a good babysitter, but you’re not very smart,” said the kidnapper. “To believe the fairytales of a little girl not known for her truthfulness. And to call in the police because of them. You have no proof I’m not the girl’s father. I could have you arrested for kidnapping.” He chuckled.
Melody had frozen, but she managed to find her voice. “I hope you do go to the police, because then they‘ll arrest you!”
“Exactly. And do you know what people do when the police can’t help them?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “The take the law into their own hands.”
“Wha- what?”
“I will get Kelsey back.”
“No!”
“The night I was supposed to pick her up the police were there, of course, and last night, I had some… business to attend to, relating to the reason I found it necessary to leave Kelsey with you in the first place. But tonight….” He hung up.
Melody was frozen in place, the phone still in her hand, when Kelsey came into the kitchen a few minutes later.
“What’s wrong Melody?” she asked.
Melody started to cry.
Kelsey went over and gave Melody a hug, but it did nothing to stop the older girl’s sobs, so Kelsey went to get Alexia.
Alexia promptly went to Melody, took the phone from her hand, and hung it up. Then she looked into her sister’s eyes and demanded, “What was it?”
Melody took a shuddering breath and managed, “It was him.”
Alexia took out a glass and filled it with cold water. She put in two ice cubes and a slice of lemon, then handed it to Melody, who took a sip.
After a few minutes, once Melody had regained control of herself, Alexia asked, “What did he say?”
“He said… he said that I don’t have any proof he’s not Kelsey’s father and he could- he could have us arrested for kidnapping. I told him that he couldn’t go to- that if he went to the police they’d arrest him. Then he said that he was going to take the law into his own hands, and that the night he left Kelsey with me the police were there and last night he had to do, um, whatever it was that was the reason he left Kelsey with me in the first place, and then he said, he said, like a warning, a threat, ominously, ‘But tonight…’ and then he hung up.”
Alexia picked up the phone, then thought better, put it back down, and took out her cell phone.
“Are you calling the police?” asked Kelsey.
“He won’t come if the police are here.” She dialed a number into her phone.
It rang three times before a young woman answered. “Yes?”
“Alala? This is Alexia. Are you busy tonight?”
“I have my Criminology final tomorrow. So do you, actually, remember? I have to study.”
Alexia ignored the fact that her reply was negative. “Do you want to help with a stakeout?”
There was a pause before Alala said, “What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“Fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
The doorbell rang almost exactly ten minutes later. Kelsey, who was sitting on the couch looking at a picture book, froze. The doorbell rang again a few seconds later, and then there were three sharp taps on the door. Kelsey told herself that it was not her kidnapper, but she was still too terrified to answer the door. A few seconds later Alexia strode into the room, looked through the peephole, unlocked the lock, and swung the door open.
It was not the kidnapper, but Kelsey had known that as soon as Alexia had begun to unlock the door. The woman standing at the door appeared to be a few years older than Alexia. Her long ebony hair stood out against her pale skin and the large red bag hanging on her shoulder. Her eyes were nearly as haunted as Kelsey’s, and because of this, Kelsey immediately liked her.
Alexia made the introductions. “Kelsey, this is my friend Alala. We go to school together, and we used to be roommates. Alala, this is Kelsey, who I told you about.”
Alala flashed Kelsey a small smile as she entered the room, then turned back to Alexia. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Yeah.” Alexia sat down on the couch next to Kelsey, and Alala sat down in an armchair and looked at Alexia pointedly.
“Well, like I told you yesterday, Kelsey’s kidnappers still on the loose,” Alexia began, then paused.
“Yes?” prodded Alala.
“Well, today we got- well, Melody actually got the call. It was him, the kidnapper.” She gave a detailed summary of the phone call, then concluded, “If the police are here he won’t come. So I thought that instead of calling them, you and me could keep watch.”
Alala nodded, started to say something, then glanced at Kelsey and remained quiet. After a moment she asked, “Have you locked the place up yet?”
“Of course. You can check if you want though.”
Alala got up and walked through the house. After a few minutes she was back. “It’s secure, but the only problem is Melody’s room. That window could be broken easily, and with the proper equipment it wouldn’t be impossible to climb in.”
Alexia nodded. “Melody and Kelsey can sleep in the guestroom tonight. The only door is to the living room, and you saw the windowpanes; nobody could get through them. And that way we can stay in here and study for our final while we keep watch.”
“Alexia, can I go in Melody’s room for now and go on the computer?” Kelsey asked.
“It should be fine for now,” Alala told her friend. “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to climb up in broad daylight.”
Alexia hesitated, but she knew her friend was paranoid enough that if she said it was safe, it was. “Okay, Kelsey, but only until it gets dark.”
Once Kelsey left, Alala said, “I didn’t want to tell you with Kelsey around, but I brought this.” She pulled a handgun out of her bag. “Just in case.”
Alexia nodded. “Is it loaded?”
“Yes, but the safety’s on.”
Alala put the gun on the couch cushion between them, then pulled out a textbook, and they began to study.
The sun was just beginning to set when Kelsey appeared on the stairs.
“Good, I was just about to get you,” Alexia said to her.
Kelsey appeared not to have heard her. She was pale, and there was fear in her eyes. She started to walk down the stairs, slowly, but she stopped about halfway. “We found out why,” she said quietly.
“Why what?”
“It was another news article, on the computer. I thought of it because of what he said to Melody on the phone.”
“What was it?” Alexia asked, her voice troubled.
“It has to be him. His eyes- and who else would…. And I knew there had to be some kind of reason, I mean, it really was a risk….”
“Why he left you with a babysitter,” suggested Alala. Alexia looked at her in surprise, but she agreed that it made sense.
Kelsey nodded mournfully. “He… it was in the news. It had a police sketch, it wasn’t very good, not like mine, that I told them, but the eyes…. It was him.”
“What did he do?” asked Alala.
“He- he killed someone!” cried Kelsey. “Her name was Crystal. It said she was walking home from school with her friend and he shot her from the roof of a grocery store, that’s how they got the police sketch, someone saw him coming down from the roof. I know it was him.”
“I’m sure it was,” said Alala solemnly, as Alexia, noticing that it was beginning to get dark out, blurted, “Where’s Melody?”
“In the bathroom, throwing up.” Kelsey added in a small voice, “I told her it wasn’t her fault….”
Alexia started to get up when the phone rang, jarring the solemn mood. Alexia answered it automatically. “Hello?”
“Hello,” said a pleasant yet ominous voice. “Do you know who this is?” he inquired.
“I can guess,” Alexia said. “What do you want?”
“I want to speak to Melody. Would you please put her on?”
“No.”
“It’s the only way you’ll find out what I have to say….”
Alexia considered, then said, “Hold on.” She covered the receiver with her hand and said, “It’s him. He wants to talk to Melody.”
“Don’t let him,” advised Alala.
“No. I’ll do it,” said Melody as she appeared on the stairs next to Kelsey. Slowly, she made her way to the phone and took the receiver from her sister. Against her better judgment, Alexia let her.
“I know what you did!” Melody accused before he could say anything. She stepped away from Alexia and stood staring at her, until Alexia reluctantly sat back down on the couch. Alexia glanced at the gun next to her, and was glad of it.
“Which thing that I did do you know about?” came the voice from the other end of the phone.
“That you-” Melody couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “Why you needed a babysitter!”
“Ah. How nice for you. Anyway, I’m just calling to let you know that I lied to you yesterday. I’m no longer in the country. If you have caller ID, you can see that the number I’m calling you from is in Australia.”
“We don’t have caller ID,” Melody said automatically, then felt stupid for telling him.
“Oh, well you’ll be able to see it on your next phone bill. But I’m calling to let you know that you may keep Kelsey, at least for now. I do owe you something, after all, I never did pay you for babysitting.” He laughed, an evil laugh, and hung up.
Melody turned to face Alexia, and was struck by the image of Alexia and Alala sitting on the couch, textbooks still on their laps, with the gun on the cushion between them, and Kelsey, standing on the stairs above them, tears running down her pale face. She managed to say, “He says he lied, that he left the country and isn’t coming to get Kelsey.”
None of them moved, at all. There was complete stillness in the room until Alala said, “You don’t know if it’s true.”
Alexia took out her cell phone and called the phone company. She explained what she wanted, and was told that the last number that had called her home phone was, indeed, from Australia. “It seems true then,” she said once she hung up.
“So he’s gone?” Kelsey asked. She did not sound happy; her question was almost a wail.
“Aren’t you glad?” Melody asked her. It was not a suggestion that she should be, just a question.
“No.”
Alexia said, “If he’s gone, there won’t be justice.”
“At least you’re safe from him now,” said Alala, her voice revealing that she, of all people, knew it wasn’t enough.

Kelsey, Melody, and Alexia are characters in Hey Cool, I've Never Seen a Teacher With His Head Cut Off Before!

Not Bob

“You are not Bob!” the small, elderly woman accused, shaking her finger in my face.

I thought fast. “No, ma’am, I’m not. My name is George, I’m Bob’s identical twin and-”

She cut me off. “Sir, I have no idea who you are, but I am Bob’s mother and I assure you, they only pulled one baby out of me. Now who are you and where is my son?”

I was about to say that I was actually Bob’s illegitimate half-brother who happened to look exactly like him, but after a second look at the woman I knew that wouldn’t fly. The form I was currently in was the splitting image of his mother, if younger and more masculine. No, I’d have to tell her the truth. “Why don’t you come inside and sit down, and I’ll explain,” I offered.

“Nuh-uh. I’m not letting you get me alone. You’ll kill me, just like you must’ve killed my son. POLICE! MURDER! HELP!” she screamed.

I sighed. “I haven’t killed anyone,” I told her calmly. “Bob’s in Hawaii. If you don’t want to come inside, you can call him from out here if you have a cell phone.”

She eyed me suspiciously and took a large step back, but pulled a cell phone out of her tiny flowered purse and made a call. I assumed it was to Bob, it was too many numbers to be 911, and the side of the conversation I could hear confirmed it.

“Bob? This is your mother. Where are you? Don’t lie to me. Robert Caspian Jones, I am at your house, and that man is not you. How could I tell??? You’re asking me how I could tell? I am your mother! Now where are you? Hawaii? What are you doing in Hawaii? You’re snorkeling with your new girlfriend. You just take off in the middle of a work week to go snorkeling with some girl you just met, without telling anyone. You can explain? Fine, I’ve got to hear this.” Up until this point her voice and expression ranged from infuriated to exasperated and back again. But with whatever she was hearing now, her eyes widened, then darted around nervously.

“But you’re sure you’re safe there?” she asked him finally. “You promise? Do you want me to come out there? Are you sure? I’d feel so much better if I was there with you. Promise you’ll call me if anything happens? Okay. I love you, sweetie. Bye. Don’t forget to call me.”

Finally, she turned back to me. “So what’s your role in all this?”

“How much did Bob tell you?”

“Just that someone’s trying to kill him and you’re a friend who’s helping him out.”

I nodded. “That’s true, as far as it goes. Come inside and I’ll explain the rest.”

She didn’t argue this time, just followed me inside and sat down on Bob’s couch.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name?” I asked her.

“Ethel.”

“I’m Nick.” As I introduced myself and while I was shaking her hand, I shifted into my true form.

She blinked, twice, but to my surprise that was her only reaction. I’d have expected her to shriek and run out of the house. Most people who actually see me shift without knowing what I can do beforehand get pretty upset. It’s not like there’s some disgusting morphing thing either, like I go all squishy and mush into another shape. I just suddenly look different. It’s just the shock of it that can upset people. But I guess Ethel’d had enough shock in one day to be immune for the moment.

“Ah. That explains it,” she commented. “Now, who is trying to kill my son, and what are you doing about it?”

“I wish I knew,” I confessed. “To both questions. Right now, I’m pretty much acting as a decoy and hoping someone’ll show up and try to kill me, thinking I’m Bob.”

“That’s obvious,” Ethel said. “But surely you know more than that. What makes you think he’s in danger in the first place.”

I shook my head. “I have a friend who’s a psychic, or a prophet, she’s not exactly sure yet. But she knew that someone is trying to kill Bob, and she told me that I could stop it... Basically, I guess she sees thousands of different possible futures, depending on the course of events, and the ones where I step in… turn out better than the ones where I don’t.”

She sat staring at me. “A psychic said that someone wants to kill my son, so a shapeshifter is sitting in his house pretending to be him.”

I grinned at her. “Yep. Sounds crazy when you put it like that.” I shifted back into Bob’s shape. “Anyway, you should probably go, in case anything does happen.”

She agreed, and I walked her out to her car. I’d just turned to go back inside when I heard her scream.

I spun around in time to see a masked man with a gun pulling Ethel into a van, which was beginning to drive away. I shifted my legs to those of an Olympic runner and began to run after her. The van was moving fairly slowly; I could have caught up with it. Even running like a normal person I probably could have caught up with it.

That’s why I stopped.

Cassie (yes, my prophet/psychic friend’s name is Cassandra, how ironic, prophetic, weird, whatever, ha ha ha, now get over it) had said that the futures where I was here were better than the ones where Bob was, and now I realized why. It wasn’t just because I had more experience with this sort of thing, or even because I can shift shapes. It was because I didn’t have the emotional attachment to Ethel that Bob did. Sure, I’d liked the woman, but she wasn’t my mother. If it had been the real Bob here, he would have run after the car, and he would have been killed.

So I glanced at the van’s plates, watched it drive out of sight, and shifted into Ethel’s shape. I took the cell phone out of my little flowered purse and called 911.

I didn’t have any particular reason to take Ethel’s shape, except for the vague hope it would confuse the kidnappers, but it felt like the right thing to do. I spent the time waiting for the police to get there trying to decide what to tell them.

When they finally arrived, I told them, “My sister was kidnapped!” I explained that I’d been house sitting for my son while he’s on vacation, and my sister Mildred had been over to hang out, and she’d been leaving when a van pulled up and a man dragged her inside and drove away, and the license plate was….

When the police left, I went back inside the house and waited. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later the phone rang, and when I picked it up a technologically blurred voice told me, “That was stupid, calling the police. If you ever want to see your mother again, you won’t make a second stupid mistake.”

“I’m sorry?” I said, filling Ethel’s voice with confusion. “I think you must have the wrong number. This is Ethel Jones. My mother’s been dead for nearly forty years.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then I heard in the background, “He must be faking it!”

I grinned. Despite using a machine to make his voice unidentifiable, my caller didn’t know how to use a mute button.

“Naw, it sounds like her. Hey Jimmy, go to the house and pick up whoever’s there. Once we got ‘em both here, we’ll sort it out.”

“Damn waste of an exploding van,” someone commented, and I shuddered. Then the muffled voice came back on the line. “Mrs. Jones? I don’t know if you’re you or this is you, but I can tell you this—do anything stupid and the other you will die.”

“I won’t do anything stupid,” I said, then made it a lie by waiting quietly for them to come kidnap me.

There were three of them, all wearing masks. I went with them willingly, struggled feebly a bit for show, but let them bind and gag me and shove me into the van.

They brought me to a warehouse. There were a couple more of them, also in ski masks, and Ethel. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she said nothing—probably because of the duct tape over her mouth, but I thought she had enough sense not to give me away when they took it off.

Almost as soon as they’d shoved me on the ground next to her, they ungagged both of us. “Where’s your son?” one of them demanded. I didn’t know which of us he was talking to, and I don’t think he did either.

“Florida,” I said. “What’s this about? What did he do?” Sure, I didn’t really think they’d tell me that easily, but I really did want to know.

“What did he do??” one of my captors repeated angrily. “He hacked into our accounts and stole $50 billion from us.”

The explanation actually made sense—stealing money from mobsters from behind the safety of a computer screen was exactly the kind of thing Bob could, and would, do.

“Now where the hell is he? And don’t give me any of that ‘Florida’ crap!” He took out a gun and aimed it at me.

It wasn’t until that very moment that I had a plan. I shifted into Bob’s shape, which startled them for long enough for me to maneuver so the gun was pointing at my stomach. I know, some plan, right? I’m stupid and foolhardy and all that. As soon as the guy realized what had happened, or at least that the man they’d been looking for was standing in front of him, he pulled the trigger. Which is what I’d been counting on, of course, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. I writhed in agony. It was real, but I managed to make it seem just a little more fatal than it actually was.

“Distract them,” I somehow managed to whisper to Ethel. I think I managed to whisper it. Actually, I probably just thought it really hard. Anyway, whether it was through my intervention or not, when I let my head fall to the ground, eyes rolled wide open, a pool of blood all around me, Ethel began to wail. “My baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You killed him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You killed him!”

It gave me the time I needed. It was harder than I expected. Normally, shifting shapes is nearly as easy for me as breathing. All I need to do is concentrate on the shape and just… shift into it. But since I was using most of my powers of concentration on just staying alive and conscious, it took every ounce of will I had to shift.

But I did it. I shifted into my own shape first, since I knew it best and couldn’t have managed another. I can’t describe how wonderful it was to shift into my own, unwounded form. I had been dying from a gunshot wound to the stomach, and suddenly there was no gunshot wound no pain, no bullet lodged inside me.

Before they could notice anything, I shifted back into Bob’s shape, but a healthy Bob. The puddle of blood was still there, and I lay in it with my eyes wide open, unmoving. I steeled myself to stay as still when they dragged me out of there, but they didn’t. They completely ignored me as they gagged Ethel again, and then ignored us both as they cleared out of the warehouse.

I waited and waited, just in case. Finally, I whispered, “Are they gone?”

“Mmmmrumph.”

I sat up and pulled the duct tape from her mouth.

“You’re…” she stared at me.

“I’m fine. I can shift my physical shape in any way I want, so I can shift injuries away. Of course, if I’d died I wouldn’t have been able to.”

“What’ll happen now?”

“Well, they think they killed Bob, so they’ll be leaving you alone now. It might be a good idea if he stays in Hawaii for a while. Hopefully the police’ll pick them up soon.”

“And if they don’t? Will Bob have to hide for the rest of his life?”

“No. If the police don’t get them, I’ll track them down and make sure they get put away. And I doubt Bob will mind staying in Hawaii for another month or two.”

The police did get them though, the next day. I testified as three different people in that trial, and I guess the jury believed all three of me.