Laia was half-asleep when her mother pulled the car into the driveway of the old house and called to her.� "Laia.� Laia, wake up! We're here!"

"Um."� Laia rubbed the sleepies out of her eyes and grabbed her bags.� Mommy opened the door and got out, pushing the front seat down so Laia could climb out.� It was twilight, and the old house looked different than Laia remembered it-- its wooden white walls turned an eerie grey, the brown trim faded to black by the dim remnants of lingering sun.� She felt chilly in the driveway, but didn't feel as if getting into the house would warm her up.� On the other hand, she had to go to the bathroom.� So she lugged her bags up to the house, onto the porch, and waited impatiently for her mother to finish getting the luggage and locking the car door.

"Hold the door open for me?"� Her mother's arms were full of bags.� Laia opened the screen door, and tried the door inside.� It swung open easily, which surprised her a little.� She'd expected it to be locked.� The unlocked door made it seem as if something in the house had been there, waiting for them.

She remembered this house.� The hallway, which opened onto the living room to the right, had stairs on the left, and went back to the kitchen if you went all the way.� The bathroom was up the stairs, so Laia put a hand on the banister and started up.

"Laia! Where are you going?"

"To the bathroom."

"Don't.� Not yet.� We need to check everything out first."

"Mommy, I have to go!"

"You can hold it for ten minutes.� Come with me."

They turned on all the lights in the living room, and then the kitchen.� The furniture was more sparse than Laia remembered, which she realized must be because they'd moved most of the stuff to the new house, two years ago.� "Is all this our stuff too?"

"Some of it."

"How come we didn't move it to the new house?"

"It belonged to the house, that's why.� If we'd ever gotten someone to rent this old wreck, they'd need furniture."� Mommy uncorked two squirt bottles of perfumed liquid.� "Help me make Magic Circles, Laia."

Laia shifted slightly with impatience.� "Can't I go to the bathroom?"

"Not until the house is protected.� Make a Magic Circle here in the kitchen.� I'll do the living room."

The Circle was a simple circle with an intricate design inside it.� Mommy made complicated Magic Circles, but the ones she'd taught Laia were fairly simple.� Laia poured the liquid onto the floor in the pattern, careful not to splash too much.� When she was little, before they moved to the new house, she and Mommy used to play Magic Circles all the time, to keep the bad monsters away.� Back then, she'd thought it was real.� Then after they'd stopped, she'd thought it was a game.� Now she wasn't sure at all.

"Are you done?"� Mommy asked.� "We can go upstairs and do the bathroom now."

"How come we have to do Magic Circles again?"� Laia asked.� "Daddy says they're stupid."

A look of pain flashed across Laia's mother's face.� "Daddy says a lot of things when he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"But they're not scientific."� Occasionally, Laia was driven to the conclusion that Daddy was smarter than Mommy because he was scientific and Mommy wasn't, and everybody knew science was for smart people.� She wished he was here.

"He'll be all right,"� Mommy said softly, confusing Laia completely.

"Who will?"

"Daddy."� They finished making a Magic Circle in the bathroom.� "I'll do the bedrooms.� You go to the bathroom, and then you help me unpack."

"Will he be all right? Where is he? How come he didn't come with us?"

"He had work.� Now go if you have to."

The bathroom was even more run-down and ratty than Laia remembered.� As she sat on the toilet, she stared at the place where the tiles had fallen off the wall, over the bathtub.� When she was little, she'd told Mommy she was scared of that place, because monsters could come through it.� So they'd drawn a Magic Circle on it, in crayon.� But now the Circle was gone, worn away by time.� Only fragments of black crayon lines remained.

Laia flushed the toilet, ran a piece of toilet paper under the faucet, and drew a Magic Circle in water on the space without tiles.� It would do until she could get Mommy to draw a better one.

As she left the bathroom, Mommy called from downstairs.� "I've Circled your bedroom and put your luggage up there.� Unpack it, and then get ready for bed."

Laia went into her bedroom, marveling at how tiny it was.� The whole house was tiny.� She had cried and raged when it was time to move, but the spaciousness of the new house thrilled her.� She told the other kindergarteners at Show and Tell that the new house had a thousand rooms.� It turned out that it only had eight-- she counted, later-- but they were big rooms.� She had missed her bunk bed at first, but now as she crawled up into the top bunk, the low ceiling made her feel claustrophobic.� She still remembered the reassuring noises of traffic outside the window next to her bed, though.� And there was still a dimly-stenciled Magic Circle of crayon, drawn over the water stain over her head.

She got down from the bed and began putting things away in the drawers they'd belonged in last time.� It had been two years, but she still remembered where everything went in the old house.� The order of the drawers still seemed more sensible, more right, than the order of things in the new house.� New house was home, now, after two years there.� But it wasn't home, like this place was.� Where she used to live next door to Grandma and Grandpa and the incomprehensible ancient aunts upstairs, back when they all were alive.� She and Timmy had explored the woods at home, but it was a safe woods, not like here, where the spidery trees gave way to rivers and abandoned houses and all sorts of magic.� The new house was new and boxy, with no stairs and lots of windows and everything straightforward and brightly lit.� After she'd explored it, there were no more secrets for it to yield.� Only during the move-in period had it been strange, with the ghosts of her grandparents appearing in the darkened hallways, and the image of her mother watching over her transforming to the goose-necked lamp in the bedroom.� Things like that hadn't happened for two years, at the new house.

They used to happen all the time here.

Like the pretty young man who came to her fourth birthday and taught all the children to fly.� She'd thought he was Peter Pan, but Mommy had later said he wasn't, when she explained why she'd chased him away.� And Laia had never seen two of her friends again after that.� Like the little boy, no bigger than her hand, that she saw running across the kitchen floor once.� Like the way the air would atomize, until she could see the component particles of reality for a few seconds.� Like the Sound.

As if thinking of it summoned it, she heard the Sound again.� A deep reverberating pulse of Sound, that made her think of paralysis, pins and needles, the sick feeling when you try to move a limb that's asleep.� It made her whole body fall asleep at once, so any motions gave her pins and needles.� The boy who'd taught Laia to fly had taught her to ride the Sound-- to fling herself onto it and let it carry her forward in spurts, in time to its thrumming, held motionless in midair in between pulses of the Sound.� But that was the worst kind of flying.� Because now Laia knew that the Sound was evil.

She ran out of her bedroom in her nightgown, out onto the landing.� Downstairs, Mommy called.� "Laia, come help me watch these commercials!"

Laia ran downstairs.� "Mommy! I heard the Sound again!"

"Did you?"� Mommy looked troubled. �"I didn't hear it."

"I did! I heard it!"

"I believe you.� I just hoped I'd be able to hear it too.� Help me watch this, okay?"

There was a dumb commercial on for cars.� Laia knew it was dumb because Daddy had told her so.� "What about it?"

"Just watch.� And let me know if anything strange happens."

"Strange like what?"

"You'll know."

Laia snuggled next to her mother on the couch.� Her mother was in a bathrobe and nightgown, and had her usual glass of diet Coke in one hand.� "Mommy?"

"Mm?"

"Some of my memories don't make any sense.� Like, I remember Peter Pan came to my fourth birthday and tried to teach us all to fly.� And I remember when Timmy found a rock with our names on it in Grandpa's yard, and we lifted it up and it was a hole that went down forever.� Only I never found that rock again.� Those things don't make sense."

"No, they don't."� Mommy sipped at her Coke.

"Well, did they happen?"

"Watch the TV.� I'll explain later."

Laia turned back to the TV.� There was a Burger Man's commercial with Moppets, two-foot tall creatures with brightly colored mop-like heads, stick arms and legs and big plastic eyes that rolled.� "How come Timmy isn't with us?"

"Timmy's staying at Grandma Jo's,"� Mommy said, as all the Moppets giggled in high-pitched voices and faced the camera.� "It's just us girls."

"Just you girls?"�

Laia stared at the giggling Moppets.� "What about the Sound?"� they asked.� "The Sound ReSounds! A sonic tonic!"�

"Mommy, the Moppets--"

"Shh."

One of the Moppets, a blue one, leaned forward until its face was smashed against the glass of the TV.� "Beware the Babel King!"� it said.� Then the picture spun around wildly, and vanished.� The program started again.

"Did you hear that?"� Laia asked.

"I heard,"� Mommy said.� Her face was pale.� "What did they say? I couldn't make it out."

"They said-- what about the Sound? It resounds.� It's a sonic tonic.� And to beware the King of Babble."

"The Babel King?"� Mommy sucked in her breath.� "That's not good.� What would the Maker of Tongues want..."

"Mommy! Why are Moppets talking to us at all?"� Laia shouted.� "They're on TV! TV people don't talk to us!"

"Sometimes they do."� Mommy sighed.� "Let's go to the kitchen.� I'll make us a snack."

The lights were on in the kitchen and the hall, and Mommy put an album of show tunes on the old, beat-up stereo.� It didn't completely dispel the feeling that something fearful was lurking in the house, but it relaxed the tension a good bit.� The smell of eggs and mushrooms frying and the homely sound of it helped as well, until Laia could almost forget about the Sound.

But she couldn't forget the Moppets, or her uneasy sense that something bad had happened to Daddy.� Or the weird memories.� She'd forgotten them, or assumed they were just little-kid dreams, until coming here again.� As Mommy set the eggs down on the table, Laia asked, "Are you sure Daddy's okay?"

Mommy's eyes welled with tears.� Laia was startled.� "Mommy, don't cry! It's okay!"

"It's not,"� Mommy strangled out.� "He's not okay, Laia.� He's not okay."

She started to weep.� Laia got out of her chair and put her arms around her mother.� She was scared, for herself and for her father, but if Mommy was crying she had to take care of her.� "Don't cry, Mommy.� Don't cry."

"They-- they've taken him,"� Mommy choked.� "We-- we have to--"� She gulped Coke, swallowing tears.� "We have to get him back, Laia.� That's why we're here."

Cold gripped Laia.� "Who's got him?"

Mommy picked Laia up, seating her on her lap.� She hugged Laia tightly.� "Does this old house feel strange to you now?"

"Uh-- uh-huh."� Laia nodded.

"I grew up here until I was ten.� Then my parents built the house next door, and kept this house to rent.� The other house shares a little of it, but not the whole thing.� Do you know what I mean?"

"No, what thing?"

"The strangeness."� Mommy wiped her eyes with a napkin.� "In all the science fiction cartoons you watch and the stories Daddy gave you to read, did you ever come across the concept of a dimensional nexus?"

"In comic books, people are always going to other dimensions, where like the dinosaurs didn't die and stuff.� You mean like that?"

"Sort of.� This house is built over a gateway to-- you could call it a gateway to the spirit world, I suppose.� Or to the world of Platonic ideals, or to the world of mythos-- the world that lies at the foundation of our own.� Things both wonderful and terrible live there.� I learned how to do Magic Circles from necessity-- spirits were always trying to get out and get to me.� I heard voices.� My dolls used to talk to me, and sometimes they would get up and walk around.� My parents always said it was just an overactive imagination.� Later they started to spank me for telling lies, so I stopped telling them."

"That's what Daddy always said when I told him about the Sound.� Overactive imagination, I mean."

"Uh-huh.� You see, I was born in this house, and it changed me.� Your grandmother, your grandfather, your Aunt Trisha-- they were all practical, hard-nosed people.� They didn't perceive spirits.� It took them ten years to get uncomfortable enough to move, and even then they only moved next door, where there's still a bit of spirit influence.� But I grew up with it, and it turned me fey.� I understand spirits.� I did a lot of reading on the occult and on various mythologies when I was in college, to learn to explain what I already knew, but I've never been too comfortable with the occult vocabulary-- I still call things as I did when I was a child."

"Daddy says there's no such thing as magic.� That you do it all as tricks."

"The kind of magic he's talking about, that's true.� Your father's a brilliant man-- a scientist, a linguist.� He lives in the world of logic, like Mr.� Spock on Star Trek.� He doesn't sense spirits, so he's mostly not vulnerable to them-- but he can't defend what little vulnerability he does have, either.� You've inherited some of his pragmatism and some of my feyness-- you're less vulnerable than I was as a child, and better able to protect yourself than your father is now."

"What about Timmy?"

"Timmy's like me.� Remember, he was born in this house.� Your father and I lived in an apartment when you were born.� That's part of the reason we moved.� I thought you could defend yourself, but I didn't want Timmy growing up like I did."

"I'd've protected him."

"I know you would, Laia."� Mommy stroked her hair.� "You're a good older sister.� But you aren't strong enough to protect both of you-- and They want Timmy.� Or you."

"'They'?"� Laia shivered in her mother's arms.

"Don't worry, Laia-bye.� I won't let them get you.� But it's-- They came through at the new house, last night.� While you and Timmy were both there.� I protected the two of you, but they took Roger."

"How could they do it if it's at the new house? Is there a dimensional nexus there, too?"

"No.� That's what scared me.� You, Timmy and I all contain small nexii of our own.� Because we're fey.� They move slowly-- They didn't realize I was there for the taking, the ten years I lived at the gate, and then I was too old and too powerful, and I had allies.� Also, I became too rooted to this world.� All children are a little fey.� It makes it easier for Them to take them."� Mommy's hands tightened on Laia.� "They know who I am now, and They know about you kids.� I think They want Timmy, but They'd settle for you."

"Then why'd we come here?"

"Because.� This is the only place where we can get Them to give your father back.� This is our place of power, too, Laia.� Here we can fight Them and force Them to let Daddy go, and not to come after you and Timmy anymore."

"How?"

"I think it's the Sound that took your father.� We wait for it to come to us.� Then we trap it."

Laia shivered again.� "This is like a bad dream."

"I know, honey."� Mommy held her tightly.� "I know."

It was late-- time to go to bed.� But even with the night-light on, the Magic Circles drawn all over her room, and the TV in the living room downstairs making comforting noise, Laia was scared to sleep.� She wanted to be grown-up and help Mommy-- she was eight, after all.� But she was scared.

The cars zipping past her window helped lull her away.� She didn't know she'd fallen asleep until she jerked awake again, as the Sound reverberated through her consciousness.

Laia opened her eyes.� The shadows had pooled together.� In the nightlight's steady glow, they seemed to be reaching for her.� The Sound throbbed again, impossibly deep and sickening, like stroking a scar too hard.� As it resounded, the shadows lengthened, reaching.

Quickly, Laia scrambled out of the top bunk and headed downstairs.� The Sound had taken the form of a black line, crawling along the hallway wall, moving forward with every throb.� Before it could cut her off, she leapt down the remaining stairs and ran into the living room.

"Mommy!"� Mommy had fallen asleep on the living room couch, watching TV.� "Mommy, wake up! It's the Sound!"

"Whu-- ah,"� Mommy mumbled, and sat up.� "The Sound?"

"Uh-huh! It's coming this way!"

"Hand me my pocketbook!"�

Mommy grabbed her jacket and Laia's.� She handed Laia her jacket as Laia handed over the purse, then took Laia's hand and ran for the door.� The Sound was right behind them.

This late at night, there were no cars.� They ran straight across the street, to the library.� The lights were on in the library, and the door was open, even though Laia knew it should be closed now.� The two of them ran inside.� There were five Moppets in the library.

"I thought you might come through,"� Mommy said to the Moppets.� "Whose side are you on?"

"This side now,"� chirped a red Moppet.

"I meant--"

They all giggled.� "We know what you meant, Suzie,"� the green one laughed.

"Haven't you learned not to ask questions like that?"� the yellow one snickered.

The blue bounced up to Laia, who stared at it with wide eyes.� "Hello, Laia! Let's be friends!"

"Laia!"� Mommy pulled Laia close and grabbed the Moppet by its shaggy top.� She lifted it off the ground, pulled it in tight against her chest, and took its hands in her own, making the hands form a clapping pattern as she chanted.� "A one, a two, a spiderweb for you.� Two spider, three spider, four spider, five.� Five little bugs in the spiderweb alive."

"I'm rubber and you're glue,"� the red Moppet protested.�

"Too late.� You're webbed.� Five little bugs in the spiderweb.� Now answer me true: are you allies of Laia's and mine?"

"Now we are,"� Red said sullenly.

"We were before,"� Blue said, as Mommy put it down.

"Are you really Moppets?"� Laia asked.

They all giggled again.� "No, they're not.� They just look that way,"� Mommy said.�

Before she could say what they actually were, the purple Moppet shrilled, "The Sound! It's coming!"�

They all began to chatter wildly.� "What's happening?"� Laia cried, but she knew.� She could hear the Sound throbbing in her bones.

"Quick! Take the books and make a Trapping Circle, around the door!"� Mommy shouted.� "You guys, help us out here!"

The Moppets grabbed books off the shelves wantonly, flitting around the library.� The entrance to the library was a pair of wide glass doors, opening onto empty space.� There were at least ten feet between the door and the first rack of books, the 7-day-lend bestseller shelf.� With the books, Laia and her mother constructed the Trapping Circle between the doors and the rack, and the desk on the left of the doors.� It had one open edge at the doors, so that the Sound could enter it.� Mommy set up a stack of three books on the edge of the Circle, right by the open side.

Then the Sound came in.� It was darkness, throbbing, coiling, a shadow oozing into the Trapping Circle.� "Now!"� Mommy shouted.

Laia kicked the stack, causing the books to slide into place, closing the Circle behind the Sound.

It changed.� Instead of pulsing, it wailed.� It pulled into itself, a shadowy nightmare shape, and made a cacophonous noise.

"Shut up!"� Mommy said, and sprinkled some kind of spice on it.� Laia thought it might be ordinary salt, but wasn't sure.� "You're trapped, Sound.� I won't release you until you do as I say."

"THAT IS?"� the Sound howled.

"Return my husband to me!"

"I CANNOT."

"Who stole him?"

"I, I, I."

"Then who can give him back?"

"THE DEMIURGE.� THE SEMIOT.� THE BABEL KING.� THE MAKER OF TONGUES."

"Is that your master?"

"YES, YES, YES."

"Laia! Draw me a sign!"

Laia got a pencil and paper out of Mommy's pocketbook.� She knew the kind of sign Mommy meant-- a trapping sign.� You drew a maze for the monsters, and you made them go in it, and then they couldn't get out.� She piled circles on circles while her mother questioned the Sound, and finally she handed the picture to Mommy.

"Good.� It just needs one or two strokes--"� Mommy added them.� "There."� She slid the paper into the Circle.� "There's your route home!"

The Sound coalesced on top of the picture and slithered down into it.� In seconds it was gone.

Mommy crumpled up the paper and stuffed it in her purse.� "Let's go back to the house, Laia-bye.� You Moppets too.� We've got to summon the Maker of Tongues."

With the aid of the Moppets, Laia's mother drew a symbol Laia had never seen before, copying it out of a book onto the wooden floor of the living room.� It was a circle with a star inside, and all sorts of squiggly marks inside and outside the points of the star, within the circle.� At each of the points of the star was a candle.� There was a metal pan in the center.� Laia stared at the circle.� It felt more complete than the Magic Circles Mommy had taught her, more powerful.� She'd never seen it before, but something about it resonated within her.� "What is it, Mommy?"

"A summoning circle to bring the Maker of Tongues."� Mommy turned to a Moppet.� "Red chalk."

Red handed her some, and Mommy began writing names in the center of the star, around the pan.� "These are some of his names.� He has at least one in every language, since every language comes from him."

"Who is he?"

"He's the Maker of Tongues.� The one who created every human language, the muse of poets and writers.� I can't imagine why he took your father-- Roger may be a linguist, but he's no poet."

"How're we going to bring him?"

"Like this."� Mommy gestured to the Moppets.� "Stand at each of the points of the star.� When I give the signal, jump back, out of his reach.� Light the candles.� Laia, turn off the lights.� Here we go."

She took a dictionary and began flipping it open to random pages.� "Dispersion.� Fraxinella.� Sirocco.� Minister.� Psychopomp.� Transmutation."� On each page she pricked a different finger of her right hand, and squeezed a drop of blood onto the word.� Then she stepped forward and placed the dictionary into one of the candle flames.� As it caught, she placed it in the center of the circle, in the metal pan.� "I summon you, Maker of Tongues, by the rite you have given us.� I have sacrificed your icon to you.� Appear to me."

A swirling, smoky shape took form in the center of the circle.� "Now!"� Mommy shouted, as clawlike hands seemed to reach out of the coalescing shape, grabbing for the Moppets.� The Moppets leapt backward.

The shape congealed into the form of a man in a business suit.� "Oh, very clever, Suzanne,"� he said in a fond voice.� "You knew I couldn't resist the taste of little mad mindlings like those."

"Can we go now?"� the red Moppet asked.

"Yes.� Begone."� Mommy waved at the Moppets, and they vanished.� "You've taken my husband, Babel King.� Where is he?"

"Well, in my realm, of course.� Where else would he be?"

"Why?"

"Oh, Suzanne.� You think you know so much, and yet you know so very little."

"Don't give me platitudes.� I want my husband back!"

"Why did you take my father?"� Laia interjected.� The Maker of Tongues looked a little like Mr.� Evans, the third grade teacher.� He was just a handsome middle-aged man with glasses in a nice business suit.� He didn't scare her.� She had expected him to look like the Spellbinder from the Electric Company, or something.

"Laia, don't interfere!"� Mommy shouted.

"Why did I take your husband? Ah, there is a tale indeed,"� the Maker of Tongues said.� "Intentional it was, but intended, no.� My target was another entirely, one protected by you.� So need prevailed on me to take the next best choice."

"You wanted Timmy,"� Mommy hissed.� "You wanted my son, didn't you!"

"Your son? He's as you are.� A poet, perhaps, but a linguist no.� He is no creator and integrator of words.� Even his childish nonsense was bound always to English.� What use have I for your son? No, I wanted the child with the language gifts and the name like a song.� I wanted little Laia."

"Me?"� Laia whispered.� She drew back, pressing against Mommy.

"Laia?"� Mommy repeated.� "Why? I've bound you, Babel King.� You owe me an explanation.� What did you want Laia for, and why did you take my husband?"

"A linguist, a poet, a channel to grant my gifts.� Language changes subtly and slow.� But there are those who create catastrophe change.� Shakespeare helped to mold English into its current form.� I tried with Joyce, but he was a bit too extreme.� I need a channel whose brain to fire, a channel to bring linguistic transformation.� A child would be best, a child of malleable brain and still unformed language talent, a child who's shown such gifts already.� I fear your husband is a flawed vessel, and will break under the pressure.� Of him I can make a visionary philosopher, mad and consumed with the need to speak things that have never before been said.� He is not young enough to bend properly."

"Then release him!"

"But why? I need a vessel, as I said.� And you have kept the best choice from me. �After all, there is a chance that Roger won't go mad-- or that even if he does, he will be able to serve my purpose.� Him I can reach."

"Why my family? Pick someone else's family!"� Mommy shouted.� "Leave my children and my husband alone! I command you, by the rite I've summoned you by..."

She faltered.� Laia looked fearfully at her and at the Maker, whose grin was a nightmare.� "You command me? By a rite? A rite of speech?"� His laughter was the cold and humiliating laughter of classmates, when a smart child made a stupid mistake.� "Suzanne, I am the Maker of Tongues.� I am entirely out of your league.� Lesser servants you may bind and hold to your will, but I made the rites you think to control me by.� I gave you speech.� Who do you think it was who gave you the ability to hold off the spirits of this realm? I needed a fey child to breed with a man of tongues and produce a child for me, so I gave you the rites you used to protect yourself, that other spirits might not have you before you'd bred me Laia. �Everything you know comes in the end from me, Suzanne."

"Magic Circles don't,"� Mommy said.� "Ritual icons don't.� Circles of containment don't.� Your power extends to words alone, not icons."

"And have you never heard of an iconic tongue?� Think of Chinese,"� the Maker said.� "I can create icons as well.� Any method of communication is within my domain.� No, if you want your husband back there's only one solution.� You must yield me your daughter."

"No!"� Mommy shook her head violently.� "You're not having her!"

"Well then, I must make do with your husband."

Laia looked at her mother's face, and saw despair there.� She felt a sense of panicked terror, realizing that the Maker was right.� He was much too powerful for Mommy.� There was no way they were going to get Daddy back.

"What would it mean, if I went with you?"� Laia asked.� "You said that Daddy might go insane.� Would I go insane too?"

"Laia, no! Don't talk to him, don't encourage him, don't do anything."

"How are we going to get Daddy back then? I want Daddy back! You can't do it, can you?"

"We'll think of something.� But I'm not--"

"Let the child speak,"� the Maker said.� "She should understand the stakes."

Mommy whirled on the Maker, to say something, but her mouth opened and closed and no sound came out.� With a horrified face, she put her hand to her throat.

"What did you do to her?"� Laia screamed.

"I took her words away,"� the Maker said.� "If she attempts to interfere again, she will never get them back."

"Give them back to her!"

"When I've answered your question and you've made your decision.� You may go insane.� It is not very likely, though.� Far more likely, you will become isolated.� Your life will be the words I give you, that dance in your brain and burn their way out to your hands and tongue.� No friends will be able to compete with the words.� No lover.� Your schoolfriends will call you strange and shun you; you will have few friends and few points in common with the friends you make.� Older people will never understand you.� If you succeed in the mission I give you, you will become a great poet or writer, a shaper of language.� You may become famous.� But you will never be wealthy, and you will rarely be happy, and you may well die young or by suicide."

"And what if you kept my father?"

"Oh, his mind will probably break under the strain.� He will come back to your world when I'm done with him, but he will most likely leave you, his family.� He may end up chanting tone poems on street corners or obsessively writing novels in hermitage.� If he succeeds at the mission I intend, he will change the language at the cost of losing all he ever loved."

The decision seemed obvious to Laia.� She opened her mouth, but her mother pushed her aside, and pointed at herself.� The Maker waved a hand.� "What is it now, Suzanne?"

"Take me instead! Roger would break under the strain of it, I know.� I could handle a torrent of words, I'm enough of a mystic or a poet already.� Don't take my daughter!"

"Very brave and noble of you, Suzanne.� I applaud.� But I don't need you.� You are far too much the mystic for me to make use of you.� I need one who can bridge between the worlds, who can take the torrents I give them and translate them into terms your world can understand.� You are not sufficiently bound to your world to do so.� Your husband is too bound.� If I exchange your husband, it will be for your daughter alone."

"NO!"

"Mommy-- if it's the only way to get Daddy back--"

"I won't let you do it, Laia.� Your father wouldn't want you to ruin your life for his sake."

Tears stung Laia's eyes.� "So what, am I supposed to feel better that my father's gone insane and it's my fault because I could've stopped it but I didn't? You heard what he said.� It wouldn't be as bad for me as it would be for Daddy.� It's just logical, isn't it? That's what Daddy would say."

"Your father would not want you to sacrifice yourself for him."

"But I think Timmy needs him, too.� And so do you.� And so do I.� I want my Daddy back!"� She spun around before Mommy could stop her.� "Give me my Daddy back!"

The Maker smiled.� "Go on home.� He'll be waiting for you."� And he vanished.

Mommy burst into hysterical tears.

Laia wanted to comfort her, but she knew Mommy was angry at her.� It would be better if she didn't stay around.� She was surprised the Maker hadn't taken her to his realm.� Maybe nothing would happen.

It was close to dawn.� Laia stepped outside.� The colors of the lightening sky caught her attention with their beauty, and she stared at them.� There ought to be a name for the color of the sky just before dawn, when the colors started to creep across the darkness and turn the night to day.� It was close to periwinkle, but not quite.� In her mind, she named it "aurathine."

She sat for half an hour, watching the dawn, and making up names for all the different colors that didn't have names.� From a distance, she heard Mommy calling her to come inside, but it didn't seem to matter.