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face. The strands felt sharp for a second, as if they weren’t hair at all but little thorns. The doppelganger was standing in the shadows of the grotto room.
    Bee crouched down on the dark stone floor and wrapped her arms around her legs. She could hear the soft rush of water that ran through the grotto. Her body shook like the eucalyptus leaves in the breeze of her mother’s garden. But there was no real breeze down here.
    The girl crouched beside her. Bee stared at the other face. Her own face. Fuller, though, and less strange. But the same. She remembered once seeing a photograph of twin girls, identical, but one looked pretty and the other grasping, hungry, demented, almost ugly. It was all in the details—an expression in theeyes, the way the smaller girl reached out to grip her sister’s sleeve. For a moment Bee wanted to feel the girl’s cheek. Instead, she brushed her fingers across her own. It was cool and soft to her dry fingertips, almost like the underside of a mushroom. Her fingernails were lined blackly with dirt, so thick with it they ached.
    Then the girl spoke.
    â€œPeople used to do things to changelings like you. Vile-tempered, ugly, old-looking little things all dressed up in good-girl manners and a pretty-girl glamour spell. Test you. Cook your meals in an acorn or an eggshell to see if you cried out, ‘I never saw a meal cooked in an eggshell before, beer brewed in an acorn!’ They frightened you with steel. You don’t like steel, do you? Put an effigy of wood where you lay to curse you. Or you’dbe whipped to make you confess. Then you would turn into your true self—a hideous elf that just lay there, not moving, drooling down your chin. If you didn’t pass the test they’d make you drink water poisoned by witches’ gloves. Or they’d drown you in the river. They’d shove you in the oven. Burn you to death alive. Mother is too nice; she’d never do such a thing, even if she knew the truth. You’re lucky, because there are people who would. If they knew that it would make you disappear and bring their real daughter back.
    â€œWhat say you, beastie? Can you pass the test? Does it make your skin crawl? Do you feel gnawed by rabid rodents? Will it kill you? Don’t come crying to me, now, fetch. There’s a simple solution to your worries. Give me back my life.”

12
“Tiend to Hell”
    B ee hadn’t been in school for a couple of days. She didn’t answer their calls or emails.
    â€œI’m worried,” Sarah told Haze at lunch. They were sitting together at their table, staring at the empty space where Bee usually was.
    â€œI’ve been doing some research,” he said.“I think I understand what might be happening.”
    â€œWhat? You better tell.”
    â€œI think she’s a changeling.”
    â€œA what? One of those fairy things they exchange at birth?”
    He nodded.
    â€œThat explains why we all get along so well,” Sarah said.
    â€œAnd it also means someone wants her to go back where she came from.”
    Sarah tugged at her braids. “We should go see her.”
    So after school she and Haze went over to Bee’s house. Lew answered the door.
    â€œYou must be Sarah. And Haze. I’m Lew.”
    â€œIs she all right?” Sarah asked. “We’re sorry to just come by. We hadn’t heard from her.”
    He asked them in. The house was small butpretty. Bee’s mom had painted the walls and furniture an unusual mix of colors. Lavender with green trim. Yellow with rose. Lots of beaded Indian cushions and Mexican folk art. Framed astrological charts on the walls. Crystals that caught and refracted the sunlight.
    They sat on the purple couch. There was a framed black-and-white photo of Bee watching them from the top of a bookcase. She wasn’t smiling, and her deeply set eyes looked haunted.
    â€œShe’s in the hospital,” Lew said.