1. The Changeling Baby


    Date: 1/1/2016, Categories: Supernatural, Author: TamLin, Rating: 3, Source: LushStories

    the enormous silhouette was hiding in the tunnel again. But there was nothing there. "William?" He turned to Nissa. She lingered at the playground gate, her eyes gauging him. She did not seem frightened or surprised, only curious. He was unsure what to say and decided on "Hi." "Hey," she said. "I was walking by and I saw you sitting here. Thought I'd say hello." She didn't see it, he realized. If she saw me then she would have had to see it, but she didn't run away and she's not saying anything about it now. So it must not have been real. Another hallucination? He really was losing his mind… "You okay?" Nissa said. She came a few steps closer, peering at him. He opened his mouth to say, "Yeah," but instead he said, "No. Not at all." He always had trouble lying to Nissa. When his parents asked him how his day was, he would say fine and change the subject, but when Nissa asked, he really told her. It was impossible not to. She was the same age as him and lived in the apartment upstairs. Her bedroom was even right over his, he knew, though he had never seen it. She had four younger brothers and they all lived with just their father. Her father, William knew, lived off of disability and drank too much, though he never seemed to shout or hurt the kids. Mostly just sat and drank beer after beer all day long. Nissa minded her brothers. She’d never gone to school, as far as William knew. He saw her infrequently, but always wished he’d see her more. "I'm going to hang out in the ...
    concourse for a while,” she said. “Want to come?" "You hang out in the park at night? Isn't that dangerous?" Nissa shrugged. "It's one of the only times I get to leave the house. Dad is passed out, the little ones are asleep, and the older kids can watch TV for an hour before bed on their own without burning the place down. So I took a walk. Join me?" William hesitated. He was afraid of going through the underpass, imagining that he would brush up against some huge, hulking shape in the dark. But then he thought about Nissa going in alone with no idea what was waiting there and he just standing here, not even warning her. And besides, he really did want to spend time with her, just the two of them, alone together, no parents, no siblings… “Okay.” He held his breath as they went into the tunnel. He wanted to take Nissa's hand but instead he shoved his own hands in his pockets. He waited for something to emerge and block the bare illumination at the tunnel opening, but nothing came. They came out the other side and William looked behind him, wondering again if there had ever been anything there at all. He turned to say something to Nissa, but blinked when he found she was gone. Panicked, he swiveled left and right, searching, and then he saw her, clear on the other side of the plaza. How had she gotten so far ahead of him? And where was she going? He ran to catch up, past the empty fountains and the blank-eyed statues of Beethoven and Father Serra. When he was a kid he used to ...
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