Karyanne knew right away when the fae replaced her son. The baby had been crying days straight, since he was born. Karyanne didn't even know how long that was. She woke to darkness. She woke to brittle morning light. She woke to darkness. She woke to full, ripe, afternoon light slanting through the venetian blinds. It was all the same. It was all baby screams, and her eyes glued shut from tears and exhaustion, and the back of her head hurting, and her body aching all over.
       Sometimes, she kept Ewan in the bed with her when he finished nursing and curled her body around him while he wailed. When he nursed, he bit her breast between sobs. It was the closest he came to not crying.
       Sometimes she tried to sleep through his hysterical sobbing as it emanated from the crib across the hall. That was almost worse. At least, when she wrapped her warm body around Ewan, she felt like she was doing something -- trying to ward the sadness away with the comfort of her flesh.
       The baby didn't care.
       Ewan's red face wrinkled with screams. And sobs. Tiny tears traveled down the creases of his face. He wasn't even a pretty baby -- with his red face and red fuzz of hair, he looked like demon spawn. But he still felt like a part of her own body, and his screams tore at her heart from the inside out.
       That's how she knew immediately when he stopped screaming--
       Ewan was gone.
       Karyanne pushed herself painfully out of her bed and padded across the hall. She looked over the wooden crib railing to see a peaceful, serene baby's face. Sound asleep. More beautiful than any baby she'd ever seen before. Her stomach twisted inside her, and it felt like emotion was trying to wring her out like a wet cloth. But the tears wouldn't come. Just dry sobs, shocked and heaving. She sank down beside the crib, leaned against its decoratively carved wooden leg. The wooden carvings dug into her shoulder, and Karyanne tried to anchor herself to that feeling.
       If she felt discomfort -- sharp, painful discomfort -- maybe she didn't have to feel anything else. Discomfort was trivial and could be brushed aside as easily as shifting the way her shoulder hit the wooden crib leg. But if it was sharp enough -- If it dug into her shoulder deeply enough--
       The sound of the front door opening. The sound of heavy footsteps. Then a whisper -- loud but breathy -- from above: "Karyanne? What did you do? He's quiet!"
       Aaron leaned over the crib. Karyanne put her hands around the rough fabric of his pant-leg, bunched up around the top of his boot. She looked up to see a wide grin break across her husband's face.
       "He's so beautiful when he's sleeping!" Aaron reached out to touch the changeling child. Then he sank down beside his wife. "I thought he'd never sleep. I thought. . ."
       Aaron didn't say it. He'd never say it. But Karyanne knew. He'd been gone from the house longer and longer each time. At first, he whispered excuses and kissed her behind her ear before leaving. Last time, he just tore at his hair, cursed under his breath, grabbed a change of clothes from their shared dresser, and disappeared.
       Karyanne couldn't keep track of the days, but he'd come back looking like he'd had a full night's sleep. Somewhere. She hadn't. Not since Ewan had torn his way out of her and begun filling her ears with screams.
       She had prayed for him to stop. She'd prayed for the screams to stop. She'd taken down the special mobile her crazy old grandmother had made to protect the baby from fae -- the one with bright red dragons and silver knights wielding iron swords. It was too scary for a baby, and maybe its bright colors had been upsetting Ewan. That's what she lied to herself, anyway. But she knew what she was doing. She just didn't believe it.
       She didn't believe her grandmother's stories. She didn't believe that her red hair and gold-flecked blue eyes meant the fae would want her baby. She didn't believe in fae at all.
       Aaron leaned his head against Karyanne's. He grabbed one of her hands and stroked the back of it with his roughly callused fingers. "You're a good mother. Whatever you did, it finally worked. That wee boy knows you love him. Knows his mother never left his side this whole week."
       Aaron stood up and pulled Karyanne after him. He looked down on the sleeping changeling child. Karyanne couldn't look at the fae baby who'd replaced her own flesh and blood. So she looked at Aaron.
       "You know?" Aaron whispered. "I think his hair is darkening up already. Gonna be a brunette like daddy! I guess we won't have another redhead in the family." Aaron turned to look at her, his brown eyes soft with love. He ran his fingers through her long hair, maneuvering his thick fingers deftly whenever they ran into the tangles gathered from days without a shower. Then he cupped his palm against her cheek. She loved the skillful feel of his hand on her again. She'd been terrified he'd never come back.
       Had she traded her son for her husband?
       In her grandmother's stories, the fae raised stolen human children as princes and queens. They lived a hundred years, eating honeyed food and drinking nectar, all in the beat of a heart. Her son could meet her tomorrow, a grown man, older than she was, having lived an entire life and crossed back to this side of the veil. She could be a grandmother herself by now, to half-fairy children living in the land of fae.
       Her red-haired son was gone, on the other side of a veil she could never see. All Karyanne could do was hope he was okay -- that he hadn't been raised by a cruel fairy, trapped in a cage constructed of human bones, and whipped with entrails until he obeyed. Enslaved by fairies. Fairies could be cruel, couldn't they?
       Of course, they could. They'd taken her son.
       Karyanne looked down at the changeling finally. The babe's face was smooth and pale, cherubic. The soft fuzz on his head was a shade of brown reminiscent of young tree bark, and there was a slight point to his ears, almost too subtle to see. He breathed evenly. The sound was soothing. Even if it wasn't the breathing of her own baby.
       "Can we. . ." Karyanne hesitated over the words. It was a strange request. "Can we call him something else? I don't think Ewan is the right name. He doesn't. . ." She couldn't stop herself from crying, but Aaron didn't seem to find it strange. She hadn't slept for more than a few minutes at a time for days. "He doesn't look like an Ewan."
       "I don't think he's had time to get used to his name," Aaron said, lightly. As if they were talking about nicknames, nothing more. "And you know I wanted to call him Greg for my dad."
       "The middle name, yes." Karyanne reached toward the changeling, but she let her fingers float just above the curve of his smooth forehead. When she touched him it would be real. "Greg," she said.
       She placed her fingers on the baby's head, and Greg sighed contentedly. Her fairy child.
       Karyanne's body doubled over with violent sobbing. She sounded like Ewan had.
       Aaron guided her out of the nursery room. "Come on," he said. "You don't want to wake him up. And you could use a shower. Maybe a foot rub first?"
       Karyanne nodded, tears still streaming down her face and falling to the carpeted floor. She wanted to tell Aaron, unburden herself of her awful failure and the bottomless chasm of loss she felt. But he'd never believe her. No one would. The mad ravings of a sleep deprived new mother? She'd sound like her crazy old grandmother.
       Instead, she cried quietly and fell asleep while Aaron rubbed her feet. She awoke hours later, still lying on the couch, with a plate of Chinese take-out on the coffee table beside her. She could hear Aaron cooing to the changeling babe in the next room.
       She hoped her red-faced, red-haired Ewan was happier in the fae realm. She hadn't known how to make him happy.
       Aaron brought Greg to her, wrapped in a blanket covered in Winnie-the-Pooh characters. From all the baby books, Karyanne knew he was still too young to smile, but she could have sworn those cheeks dimpled when his unfocused moss-green eyes saw her. She took the baby in her arms. The strange but beautiful imposter.
       Maybe she could make Greg happy.
       And maybe someday she'd tell her grandmother.