RATATAT EAR ALA fe ebves US i Pal (HANGELING: cones who live, each day, in And if the sweeper of dr —Neil Gaiman, ‘The Qay True Thomas Lose Nis Voice Ie wasa cold day when Trae Thomas lost his voice. Ynow. [was there, and I'll tell the story to you straight. sidwen is my name, and I'm renowned from sea to shining sea for... well, for a lot of things, including my stunning good looks, witty song stylings and impeccable choice of companions. I mean, really, there's no better guy in the entire world than True Thomas, even if he is, as mute as Helen Keller now. Anyway, a pooka couldn't ask fora ber made a vow toset the record i alk andsay ithimself. Thisis what land swear onastack of Bibles thatit’sall true. id, ir was a cold winter's da nd a bunch of ick to death of being cooped up inside che freehold with nothing to do but lessons. | mean, really, what'stheuse of laming sword fightingif younevergetto gout into the world and use it? None, that’s what L say. Toughe to know, because I’ the only one with eno guts to sneak out at night and test my sills. One ni snuck outand defeatedthis knight dude, He wasall up in this sparkly armor, but I chr into a fox, >> “Lhey are not mad, or rather, the loss of cheir sani problems. It is worse than madness. They will cll ya, if pA Geta B) vo nvtinrer pol ie isthe lessor oftheir jou let them: they are the the wreckage of their dreams leaves you he willnever come back he Sweeper of Ohvy rnsuppoxed tobe telling youthe story about ren't? Sorry, gota little carried away there. nyway, it was cold. I told you that part already, 1? We wilders begged to go into town and just hap outfora whileandhave some un, There wasthisguy who wenc to the locai high schiool — his name was Ardy ~ and he and I really had some good times together. [kinda wanted to hook up with him and maybe our out of it. Lmean, we'ee supposed to practice harvest- ing Glamourfrom morcals justin ease we pet caught away froma freehold, right? | wasjuse doing what | was cold. Ir wasn't like I realy liked the guy or anything. Finally, che powers that be said we could leave the frechold, but only if we gor somebody to go with us. Tes not like we're childlings or anything, and intoalitele bit of rouble ast timewe went I swear to God that old dude lit his own hair on fire. we were stuck witha guardian, and [figured we might as, well ask Tommy, because out ofall che adults, he’sone of the coofest. He'd let us go and just hang our without hoveringoverourshoulders, Tommy mightbean oldster, bute remembers what it was like to be young. So went toask him myself, because, like | said, we're so tight and he probably would have said no to anybody else. Bur he Te Chapcer I: Changeling, The Oxcarning asaid yes to me, because we're the hest of bul, and finally ourseclusion wasendedand we could go into town. [twas about time, because i didn’t get out of there soon, I was going to go mad When I went to Tommy's room, I knew something was wrong. [know people always say that after something goes ail to hell, and they're lying through their teeth, but Imean itseriously.1 knew there wassomething wrong with hhim, because he was just sitting there, stating at the wall. There wasn't even a picture on it to look at, just a blank wall, And man, was it cold in there! He hadn't even, bothered to light a fire! Lord knows how long he'd been sitting there in that freezing-cold room without a fire, and with no shoes on. That freehold has some majorly cold stone floors. I'm allways suggesting some kind of central- heating system, but no one ever listens to me. Ie cook me a few minutes to get Tommy’s attention, and [had task hima couple times to take us into town, He just didn't seem himself. Usually he’ssore of kind, but gruff at the same time. You know what kind of guy 1 mean? But he wasn’t anything like that, and he would have walked out of the room barefoot if | didn’t remind him to put some shoes on. Then he laughed at himself, bur it sounded kind of hollow, and | made him bend down, so I could feel his forehead because I thought he aight be sick. He wasn't So, if you think Um making that whole thing up about knowing something was wrong that day, you can stuff itup your behind and light it, because I checked his forchead for a fever before anything ever happened. | know it and Tommy knows it, and I get real offended Iecause people never believe me. Its some kind of weird conspiracy or something. What? Ob, I'll finish the story. Into town we went Tominy sat_at the coffee shop and had one of those espressos. They taste like crap! I went in with himoneday and had one, and he kept eorrecting my pronunciation because I was calling it “expresso” instead of “espresso.” In my opinion, theyshould just call it erap, because that’s what it tastes like, and its easier to pronounce. So anyway, Tommy spent his time in the coffve shop. He didn’t do anything special as far as I know. Suill, something teally weird happened while we were in town. Lought to cell you about it, Because it's related to ‘what happened with Tommy. Wemet up with some of the kids from the high school. They wanted to gee out oftheir houses as much as we wanted to get out of the freehold Andy was there, too, He broughra buneh of garbage and we went sledding down Miller's Hill, showing off dloing tricks. Each trick had to be better than the las, so even though it started off kind of kame, like with a couple guys going dovwn the hill backward, it gor wild ‘There was this gil there, It wasn’t me, because I'd neverdosomethingdumb like this. Anyway, she thought itwould be cool to usea cantrip to doa stunt that nobouly Tame of Jadgimene SSIES SEIS LESS IO IES OSES could beat, Besides, maybe if she amazed everybody, there would be some Glarwour for the taking. Really, i's nota bad idea, and I should know, because I mentioned ittoher, but [wasn’t going todo it myself because it could be dangerous. If T gor myself killed, who would be the voice of reason among al these crazy kids? So I made the suggestion to this girl, andl she thought it was good one Now, in case you've never been down Miller's Hill, there's one thing you should know. The left side is the baby side. Irsall smooth and sleek, and although there's acouple of pechesofice, i’spretty much smooth sailing. That’s the side you want to godlown if you're going to do something faney, because there aren't any bumps. The right side, though, is all uneven, and the whole thing is just one sheet of ice. Even if you're having second thoughts on the way dow, you ean't stop. So this gil decides that she's going to go down the right side, and when she hits one of those bumps, she’s going to cast a Hopscotch ard aim herself right into the ‘nranches of this big oak tree that stands near the edge of the hill. To the mortals it'll Look like she hit chat bump ht and vaulted inco the tree, he shoots off down the hill, and she's gathering wp speed, and as she’s going over those bumps, she's casting the cantrip. Only, something doesn’t feel right. She told ime about it Later in plenty of detail, so I ean describe it exactly for you. She said thatit waslike reaching real hard for something that’s just at your fingertips. Like the Dreaming suddenly moved about five feet farther away. Now, ! shink we've all had those times when we try to access the Dreaming, but we serew up, ormaybe the place that we're in is just so dead that we can’t manage eo call con it. Bur it wasn’t like that, she said. This girl knew in her heart that she did it allright, but forsome reason the Glamour just wasn't working. The other wilders noticed i, too. I mean, even 1 noticed it. I could feel her trying to do a cancrip (of course, | expected it, because it was my idea in the first place), and it felt like the Dreaming just slowed down around us for a sminute. [ felt like my mortal side was running at normal speed, and my fae side was moving through Jell-o, I can’r even begin to explain how steange it was, You can imagine what happened next. She was going, too fast to stop when she realized that her cantrip wasn’t xoing to work, and like [told you before, that hill is just aig stretch of ce. She couldn't stop. The best she could do was twist around so she hit the tree with her side, and after she whacked into it, a bunch of snow fell off the branches and totally covered her. So we dugher out, and she's just wailing likea banshee hecanse herarm's broken in about three different places, not to mention having snow down her jacket, and suddenly the game isn't so much fun any more. Hooked back at the hill, and a chill went down my spite-thae had nothing co do with the Fr