“I have been speaking with my associates about you,” Dr. de la Mar said from her over-stuffed chair.

  “Seems like a possible HIPAA violation,” I replied over my coffee. My body was surprisingly relaxed, given all the emotional trauma I’d been putting myself through for the last few days.

  “Not at all,” she smiled. “You are not the only one with secrets, little one.” She set down her notebook and slid her reading glasses onto the endtable at her elbow. Her eyes began to shine in a way that was more than human. As I watched, her body waved like the ocean on a bright day, lights reflecting from jewels set in her skin. I could smell sea air and felt droplets of water pelt my face. The air left my lungs as I looked into the face of a goddess.

  “As I said,” she rumbled with a voice that crashed over my like angry waves, “you are not the only one with secrets.”

  And then it was over.

  Dr. de la Mar sat in front of me again, sipping her coffee. My skin was dry, the scent of salt and wind was replaced by the light incense she often left burning in her office. My eyes refused to blink and my brain was frozen in place. We sat in silence for a time, her patiently waiting while I learned to breathe again around the pounding of my heart. I opened my mouth to speak but she held up a hand to stop me.

  “It is not really what you think,” she said. “Let me tell you a story.”

  When the earth was young and covered by my oceans, before time was time and the animals fought for only their survival, we did not exist as we are now. We were ideas and eddies of energy, waiting for someone to think of us and give us form. We watched this world, as we watch all worlds, and dreamed of having form and function. Men were just starting to straighten their spines and they would look to the heavens and wonder at the beauty above them. They would look in the waves at the beauty and danger surrounding them, and they would look to the land as a wish for the future. They lived in fear of many of the animals around them, knowing they could be eaten as easily as a gull eats shellfish. Their lives were no less simple nor more complex than your lives are today, though their world was so different from the one you live in. They did not have things as easy or as hard as you do now, and it showed. They had to focus on simply living from one day to the next, following the cycles of weather and the pattern of light as it warmed the planet. Survival was as hard then as now, though for so many different reasons.

  As man grew taller, his head moving further and further from the earth, he began to think more deeply about what it meant to be alive, living on this rock, being pounded by tide and wave, as the planet hurtled through space and time, though he did not know that then. It was as if, as his head reached for the clouds, his mind sought to be more like the heavens above: limitless, all-encompassing, and ever-expanding. But again, he did not know this yet.

  First, he mastered his body, learning to make noises that others could hear and interpret, learning how to understand the sounds and gestures of others. Then he learned to change his environment, making tools, making food, making art, making love. He learned what it was to be human and taught his children the same. They played in my waves and were often shrouded by the salt spray of the ocean carried away on a gusty wind.

  Things happened that he did not understand, and he told himself stories to make those things make sense, and we began to listen. He did not always know the why behind things, so he imagined something bigger than himself, like him, but so much more powerful. The reason had to be otherworldly. If he could shape the world to fit him, there must be a greater creature also trying to form the world into a shape that would meet its own needs. The trick would be to talk to the larger being, someone who was so big that he could not be seen or heard or felt. And if the larger being was that big, they must be full of magic. A magic that early man wanted for himself.

  He wanted to be the power behind the crown. He wanted to be the one who bent the universe to his will, but he understood that, in order to gain that kind of power, he would have to learn to control this larger creature, this god. He named it thus and set about to forge a relationship that would benefit him.

  As man moved out into the world, he soon found that there were numerous others, all who shared the same body and ability to think and reason and create. They lived in different parts of the world, needed to bend their environment in different ways in order to thrive and survive, but all viewed their own different worlds in very much the same ways. They cooked and ate, planted and reaped, made love and made art, all with any of the things they could find. Fire hardend clay, stones flaked into knives, spears flew through the air, sugar and fat became treats to sooth children and make adults feel comfort in the cold nights. And most believed that out there, in the night sky, behind the flickering pinpricks of light, there was Someone With Power.

  For generations they fought, learning to do it better and faster, discovering new ways to inflict harm. They discovered science, which helped them kill each other both more efficiently and more horrifically than ever before. They told lies to themselves and others, always striving to be the best, to get the most from each other while giving away as little of their own as possible. They studied the worlds within themselves, often finding that distasteful, as introspection made them truly see what they were doing to each other. They worked at ugliness as hard as they worked at beauty, because even as they killed each other and tried to ruin the world, they still created art. They made love. They learned to write and paint and create so that for every single act of depravity they thought up, somewhere in the world there was an act of virtue. Men created the Balance between Good and Evil. They looked into the beauty and solitude of the night sky, and they looked into the darkness of their own hearts, and imagined there was a Balance.

  It has always been men against the world, little one. Men against themselves, against each other, and against the world.

  And they created gods. They created so many gods for everything! My favorite joke is the one about the god of premature ejaculation, who is coming soon, but many people get it too late. Ah, well.

  They modeled us upon themselves, pretending we were perfect but making each of us just human enough to be understood and to be able to understand them in return.. They broke us into pieces, gave the pieces names and personalities, and then they made us dance. The same gods for whom they fought and killed each other were now limited by the experiences and ideas of their own creators. Perhaps it was the gods themselves who set the men against each other to distract them from the power They held, or perhaps it was just the contrariness of men in large groups that caused the wars and famines and strife. But the men divided themselves by nation and went to war against any who refused to see the world through their eyes, ignoring the irony such disagreements caused. Men created new words for themselves. “Atrocity” they inflicted upon each other. “Genocide” to wipe each other out. “Squallor” for the lowest to find their place of suffering. “Crusade” to let their gods know that all of this suffering was to benefit Them, to make the men seem worthy of the Gifts they desired.

  Generations of humans spread around this world, talking and thinking in different ways, defending hearth and home against invaders and intruders who were only concerned with their own survival, all praying to different versions of the same dieties. It made us tired, actually, to try to sort out who was asking what and to what end. So we began to do the thing our humans were failing to do: we spoke to each other. As we watched, the men claimed they were living and dying for us, but we never asked them for that. We were too young and too varied to understand what they were doing, to be honest. For creatures that were so similar, they made us all so different in appearance and utility! In their minds, we continued to grow and change, developing new talents, gaining the ability to see their worlds in new ways. Yes, worlds. Each man has his own vision, you see, a world within, and while many share similar points of view, with each new mind added, we gained subtle nuances to our abilities.

  Eventually, We decided to take a break. We moved away from humans, letting them destroy each other as they pleased. We were tired of being badgered to do things for ungrateful people and We decided we would be better on our own. But we grew bored very quickly, and as with humans, that is never a good thing. Do you know who shouldn’t have access to phenomenal cosmic power? Children. CHildren with short attention spans and no emotional intelligence. We were those children. We were bored and the best toys we could find were the people who had created us. Does this explain some of your history? Volcanoes, floods, natural disasters. Wars. Riots. All because We were bored and just wanted to see what would happen.

  When the Board of Directors stepped up and began making a Code of Conduct, some of the other gods were mad. They rebelled against the order that was being created. Surprisingly, many of us were relieved at the change. Having eternity to do whatever you please is amazingly stressful. You can literally do anything you want, and with all the time in Reality to do it, choices and decisions spread out before you like a wasteland. It’s hard to do anything if there is no feeling of urgency.

  The Board did not force the gods to fall in line. They made suggestions for activities and posted quests to entice those who were feeling forced into this new paradigm. But gods are not humans, and given a century or two to consider the consequences of how we had been treating the humans since the Break, most saw the logic in changing our behavior to create something positive. There were exceptions, of course, but even those were accounted for and, while still taking great joy in causing humans to harm themselves or each other, They eventually joined the God Squad, for lack of a better naming concept.”

  “You all call yourselves the God Squad?” I asked, wiping the results of my spit-take off my chin. I fell back on the couch laughing, clutching my belly at the absurdity.

  “I am telling you a True Story, child,” Imanja scolded me with mock severity, “Let a goddess enjoy a little creative license with the telling.”

  “But what about demons?” I asked, unable to hold my question anymore. She looked at me and gave me an indulgent smile.

  “Patience,” she said, before continuing.

  “We look at humans much the same way humans look at pets. They are cute and snuggly and probably wouldn’t survive on your own if left out in the wilderness. There are a few exceptions, but generally, we do our best to create environments for you that will give you the chance to enrich your own lives. That’s part of why you created us, after all. That, and to have someone to blame when things go wrong. And even spirits who take great joy in harming humans, who the humans often call demons or devils, are trying to instigate growth. They are the proof that sometimes people are stupid and make poor life choices, and those choices lead to negative consequences. Some people grow from that, and some don’t, but the choice is always up to the person involved.

  “But that actually brings us to the mystery that is you,” she said, leaning forward. “You see, you are not what you seem. For two years now, you have told me only human things, and not all of those things were true. But I think that’s because you are not entirely human yourself. And on some level, I think you know this.” She sat back and watched her words sink in. Her stupid, ignorant words. The truth she saw in me.

  Of course I was angry. I was instantly irritated and irate. How do you just tell a person that they aren’t human? I mean, it’s not like she didn’t have a point. My feet have randomly been turning into hooves and that’s not like a normal human behavior. So why were my feelings getting hurt? I wanted to punch her in her stupid therapist face, but having glimpsed a fraction of her true self, that would also be incredibly stupid. So I sat there, drowning in my feelings for a moment, and then I sighed.

  “Yeah, ok, you’re right, but what does that really mean for me?”

  “I have no idea,” she said delightedly. “This is the first time in centuries I have seen one such as yourself, but you are the first one who has no memory of what came before. Every other changeling I have met has known where they came from and were here with a purpose. You seem to have been here so long, you have forgotten your true self.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I’m a changeling?” I asked, confused at her assumption but feeling the click of rightness at her words.

  “According to my friend, Coyote, it’s more than likely you are a Fae creature, yes,” she said, leaning back in her chair. I sat absorbing this information. Of course I knew what a changeling was. I’d spent a huge chunk of my childhood reading every fairy story I could find, focusing on Celtic mythology. I’d been obsessed with folklore, along with Mac and Cassie. We’d all read everything we could get our hands on, but as far as I could remember, there was no reason to suspect I wasn’t just a kid reading fairy stories.

  “Why do I feel like this is one of the stupidest things to ever happen to anybody in the history of time?” I asked dryly.

  “It’s not stupid,” she said, patting my knee, “but it’s very interesting. You have a twin sister, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my brain so full of weirdness that I had no chance to see where she was going with this.

  “Changelings are usually single children, not twins. To be honest, most Fae don’t want to do the work involved with two human babies. So we’re wondering if, perhaps, your mother realized her child had been switched but somehow managed to get her child back and keep you as well? I can only think of one other case where that happened. Do you have any scars that have been around since you were a child? A burn or cut on an arm or leg?” I nodded, pulling up my shirt.

  “Mom said my appendix ruptured when I was a baby,” I said, showing her the scar inside my right hip area. “It’s really rare, I guess, but it happens.” Imanja looked at the scar, met my eyes as if asking for permission, and ran one finger over it lightly. I shivered at her touch, drawing in a breath. She nodded.

  “Your mother wasn’t playing around,” she said. “It’s not a cut, it’s a burn scar.” I looked down at my body. I was forty-seven years old and this was the first time I could really remember looking at the scar. She was right. Shaped like the point of a fireplace poker, the scar was old and faded, but definitely not a surgical scar. Imanja nodded and sat back.

  “I think I need to talk to Mac and Cassie,” I said at last. She nodded and checked the clock.

  “Our time is mostly up anyway,” she replied. “If it’s ok with you, I’m going to do some research with my resources and see if we can figure out your history. The Scribes should certainly be able to find something. They track every moment of human history, so if nothing else, there should be a record of your mother giving birth and we can move forward from there. I just need your mother’s name and city of birth. Give me a couple of days and I’ll let you know what I can find.” I gave her my mother’s information and, head still spinning from so much new information, left her office in a bit of a fog.

  “Do you remember when we were small?” I asked Mac later that afternoon. We were sitting in the alley behind the coffee shop, sharing a mid-afternoon joint. The morning had been so strange, I was thankful for the touchstone that was one of my oldest friends.

  “I remember middle school,” she said, holding the smoke and then letting it out as she spoke.

  “What about before that?” I asked, taking a deep drag. “See, I remember playing with you and Cassie and Dos out in the woods. I remember birthdays and holidays and school with you three, but not much else. Nothing from when we were really small. I think Mom showed me pictures of us together as toddlers, but maybe I’ve smoked too much weed to remember much more than that.”

  “The same things,” she said. “The weird thing is something about those memories seems wrong, like there’s some big detail I’m missing that should be obvious but my brain can't figure it out.” She tapped the ash off the joint and took another hit before passing it back.

  "Your mom called," she said suddenly.

  All of the blood drained through my stomach out through my feet and my head began to swim. I felt heat fill my legs and my boots began to feel strange.

  “What did you tell her?” I asked through a mouth that was so dry I was surprised the words weren’t slicing my tongue. On top of everything else, this was the time my mother decided to call. I'd almost think she knew something was going on, but she never seemed that perceptive to me.

  “Nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I figured you’d call her when you’re ready. But she’s really hurting, Al. She doesn’t know what happened to you and doesn’t understand why we’re not helping look for you. She doesn’t even really understand why Dos hasn’t been looking for you, but that’s really more for Dos to explain.” She paused and then went on. “Don’t you think you should send her a card or something just to let her know you’re alive?”

  “She’ll start actively looking for me again,” I said, pulling a second joint out of my jacket pocket and lighting it with a deep drag. During the day I tended to avoid smoking too much, as it made my mind wander and made focusing a challenge. Thinking about my mom, though, made me want to go hotbox in my car until I passed out.

  “She’s your mom,” Mac said, pointing out something we had argued about so many times in the past she knew neither of us would actually win.

  “If she knows where I am, everyone will know where I am,” I said firmly. “You know she doesn’t believe anything happened to me.”

  Two Years Ago

  “Hey mom,” I said, my voice cracking. It was three days since Mac and Cassie had rescued me and this was one of the first times I’d been able to rouse myself to speak. My body and mind both hurt and all I wanted was to curl up on my mom’s lap like I had when I was a little girl and let her make things better.

  “Althea, my darling, how are you?” she asked airily. I could hear clacking in the background and knew that she was washing her dinner dishes. Before I could stop them, sobs burst out of me, pulling all the air from my lungs. I screamed soundlessly at the receiver, my body rocking with the power of my grief. Cassie was suddenly beside me, holding me tight but not making any effort to take the phone from me. I was using their landline, which meant the call could only be traced as far as their house. I was still terrified Todd would find out where I was and come for me. Mom knew I’d had a date with a cop, but other than his name didn’t really have any way to identify him.

  “My baby, what is wrong,” she asked, her voice full of worry. The background noise stopped immediately.

  “Something bad,” I choked out. I tried to tell her what had happened, repeating words that were too slurred by tears and my own rasping breath to be understood. She made consoling noises which, combined with Cassie’s arms around me, helped me start to calm down.

  “That sounds like a terrible nightmare,” she crooned at me.

  “It wasn’t a nightmare,” I said, disbelieving. “It happened. You can ask Cassie if you don’t believe me.”

  “Is that where you are now? With Mac and Cassie?” Something in her tone made me pause.

  “Yes,” I said carefully.

  “Theodosia called me,” she said calmly. “She spoke with that young man and he told her you had had a little problem. She said they had to take you to the hospital again.” I went cold all over.

  “What?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Theodosia said that officer had to take you to the hospital and that’s why no one could reach you for three days. They don’t let you have phones in the psych ward. He told her you’d probably be calling me soon. Did Cassie and Mac come and pick you up when you were discharged?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, very confused.

  “Your sister said you had another little episode and you tried to hurt that nice officer. You’re lucky he didn’t take you to jail after you attacked him like that.”

  “What? What are you talking about? What kind of episode?” I gasped again.

  “Why did you stop taking your medication?” she asked.

  “What medication?”

  “My love, what do you mean ‘what medication?’ Your antipsychotics.” I looked at Cassie, who looked blankly at me.

  “Mom?” I asked, suddenly feeling as unhinged as she seemed to think I was.

  “You need help,” she said softly and pleadingly. “Let me talk to Cassie.” I handed the phone over without a word and curled up in Cassie’s lap. She had had her ear pressed to the phone with me and knew what my mother had been saying. It didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t taken any medication since high school, and that was a mild antidepressant to get me through the end of puberty. I didn’t even drink, let alone take any kind of drugs.

  I didn’t listen to Cassie’s end of the conversation, just taking note of the occasional noncommittal noise. After a long time, she said her goodbyes and hung up. We sat quietly for a few moments, then she picked up her cell phone and sent a text. Mac rushed in from the other room, her own phone clutched in her hand and her eyes wide.

  “What happened?” she asked, stunned.

  “Lilith told me that Al has been taking medication for delusions,” Cassie said, stroking my hair lightly. I began sobbing quietly, clutching her knees to my chest.

  “There were no medications in her apartment,” Mac said firmly, “and her purse only had some ibuprofen and lip balm. I’d think if she was taking something stronger we would have seen it.”

  “I know,” Cassie said levelly. I could hear her growing irritation in her voice. “She said Dos told her that the cop said Al was kept in the psych ward on a three-day hold after she attacked him. Dos said the guy looked pretty beaten up when he tracked her down.”

  “He tracked her down?” I asked, terror in my voice. “Is she ok?”

  “She’s fine,” Cassie said dryly. “She told your mom that you’ve been hiding your mental illness from them for years. I guess the cop had some papers or something that sold his story as the truth and she didn’t even question it. That, combined with the two black eyes, broken nose, and split lip made her believe him.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I didn’t do anything to him.”

  “I know,” Cassie said again. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I’m going to call your sister and find out more. I told you mother that you left while I was talking to her and that you took your keys with you. I’m going to call her later and tell her you’re gone and I don’t know where you are, but I think I need to talk to Dos first.”

  “He saw the pictures,” I said, my heart squeezing in my chest and my vision narrowing. “I had pictures of us together on the fridge, on our 21st birthday. He saw her picture and he found her.” I drifted back through the fever dream that had been the week before and remembered him asking about my sister. I’d screamed at him and threatened him until he drugged me into compliance, but now I remembered he’d been curious about her.

  Theodosia and I were identical twins, but beyond genetics, we really didn’t have anything in common. Even as babies, mom would have to put a pillow between us in our crib to keep us from hitting each other. We couldn’t roll over or hold our heads up, but we scratched each other constantly if we got too close. In school, she excelled in math and science while I favored reading and band. I have a quick temper but then it’s gone, but my sister can hold a grudge like she’s a fat kid determined to dominate at a donut-eating contest.

  For most siblings, it’s only natural to torment your family but if anyone outside the family says anything, you defend your sibling with tooth and claw. Theodosia seemed to be missing that gene. If she liked you, she would protect you until and unless you did something to make her angry, at which point she would relish in the torment she could inflict upon you for revenge. And if she felt that you hadn’t been given enough punishment, she’d encourage her friends and followers to pile on. She was a master manipulator from birth, taking pleasure in getting me in trouble for things she did when our mother wasn’t looking. If I had anything she wanted, including attention from our mother, she would do everything in her power to take it from me. I could never understand why no one else saw what she was doing. Then, one day, I saw it. She only gave love and affection to people who could do things for her. People like me, people who had nothing she wanted, she ground under her heel, using us as stepping stones to get to the people who could benefit her in some way. In her eyes, I was as powerless as a vending machine that’s only function was to supply her with anything I had.

  She hid it well from adults, but even as children she was too coldly calculating to be trusted. I even remember her trying to take Cassie and Mac away from me, but they saw her clearly and told her to leave them alone. I often wondered how I would have turned out without them, if Dos’s constant verbal, emotional, and often physical abuse would have eventually caused me to end my life just to get away from her. As it was, with the exception of birthdays, I hadn’t seen her or spent any time with her in years.

  With this in mind, the idea of Todd partnering with Dos made my blood freeze. I’d barely survived either of them on their own. Together, I didn’t stand much of a chance.

  Five Weeks Ago

  I hated the fact that I couldn’t trust my mother to keep me safe. And it wasn’t even like she would do harm intentionally. My mother would tell my sister, who may or may not then tell my attacker, and I really didn’t have the strength to risk that. Instead, I was constantly choosing to live as someone else, hidden from someone who I knew loved me, but didn’t seem to grasp that she was a liability to my safety and mental stability. Yes, it felt cowardly, but I was still recovering two years later, and really only just now starting to make progress. I missed my mom, but contacting her just wasn’t worth the risk.

  “How did she sound,” I finally asked. My brain was nicely clouded and my heartrate had dropped out of panic back into a normal rhythm.

  “It’s coming up on the anniversary of your disappearance,” Mac said flatly. “How do you think she’s doing?” I could hear the judgment in her voice and hated that I agreed with her on some level that I was hurting my mother on purpose. Mac understood where I was coming from, but her family was so loving and close, she didn’t really understand what it was like to be able to make the choice to hide. She took the joint from my fingers, took one huge drag, and put it out on the heel of her boot. It was mostly gone, but I put the roach in my pocket before following her through the back door.