“I’m a changeling, too,” she’d said. Too. “I’m not— I’m not—” I couldn’t breathe.

  She instantly looked contrite. “You are, but don’t worry, dear. I’m hardly going to tell anybody, not after telling you I am as well.” She sounded sincere, but still almost hyperventilating I took a huge gulp of water that went down wrong, leaving me coughing for air.

  “I changed nearly ten years ago, now,” she went on when I could breathe normally again. “Not long after Frank’s death. I know your change was recent, perhaps the day you arrived over there. You were a bubbling fountain of confusion and panic.”

  “You—you—how do you know?”

  “Because, my dear, I’m a telepath.”

  In my state it took a moment for the word to register. “You’re a mind-reader?” I whispered as if someone might overhear us.

  She snorted. “Hardly. Minds aren’t like books, dear. I can’t peek in and rifle through your thoughts and memories. I can’t even see memories, really, and most thoughts are non-verbal emotions and impulses.” Sighing, she stood. “I suppose I owe you my story. Come inside and I’ll pour us some nice sweet tea.”

  I followed her in. Her sweet tea didn’t include bourbon, and when we both had our tall, sweating glasses she sat down at the kitchen table. I took the seat across from her and she started talking again after we’d both sipped our drinks.

  “A few weeks after Frank died, I experienced ‘changeling fever’ as they call it. The next day I began hearing people. ‘Hearing’ isn’t really the right word, I could just as well say I began ‘feeling’ people. I was already dealing with my own grief, and for a while I thought I was going mad. Especially when I heard my first thoughts.”

  “You said most thoughts are non-verbal.”

  “They are.” She gave it some consideration. “Imagine every person around you emitting a tone. Always, consistently, and each person’s tone is uniquely theirs. Never louder or quieter, always there if they’re in your hearing range.”

  I tried to picture it. “Okay.”

  “Now imagine if each unique tone, someone playing a unique instrument, is always playing a tune. Sprightly and happy. Content. Sad. Panicked. Any emotion on the spectrum.”

  “Sounds distracting, but alright.”

  “It is. And every so often someone around you will internally verbalize a thought, like they’re talking inside their own head. That I can hear as words. Some people self-verbalize a lot, others hardly at all. Most of the time I just hear the tune that communicates the emotional load of their thoughts.”

  I narrowed my eyes and thought Can you hear me now? She almost snorted into her glass.

  “That’s exactly what my son thought at me the day I told him what was happening. An old phone company commercial? Really?”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Indeed. And how do you know that commercial? I suppose it’s somewhere on the immortal internet, but it’s hardly a meme that a teen would pick up. Ah, that has to do with your own transformation?”

  “I—”

  “Your anxiety spiked just then, dear. Really, you have nothing to worry about from me although I don’t suppose that will stop you.

  I shook my head, thoughts a complete jumble and I wondered how that sounded, but— “I’m sorry, it’s a lot to take in. I’m— My transformation rejuvenated me physically. And regressed me developmentally. I’m a lot older than this. Or, I was.”

  “Well.” Sitting back, she studied me. “I can see how that would be discombobulating.”

  “And I was a man,” I blurted out the rest. “I’m David Ross, your next-next door neighbor.”

  Her mouth actually dropped open before she shook her head, remembering herself. “Good heavens. Well, that certainly explains your mental state when I first heard you.”

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  “So, you didn’t ‘hear’ me transform?” That had to have been unignorably stressful.

  “I don’t hear very far. Around thirty feet. Enough that I can hear from my next-door neighbors, and from passersby on the street when I’m at the front of the house.”

  We were silent in our thoughts until I realized— “Wait, did you— Could you— Oh, my God!”

  “Now, calm down.” Reaching out, she patted my hand. “Could I what?”

  I looked at my glass, blushing hot as a nuclear power plant. Could you hear me experimenting?

  “Could I—” She burst out laughing. “No, no I could not. You were obviously beyond my range when you did. I presume your bedroom is on the second or third floor over there? I relocated my bedroom to the basement two years ago—I moved out for two weeks for the remodel, as difficult as it was for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Seevers moved in next door and their monkey-sex was keeping me awake and frustrated at night! Nearly every night.”

  My nuclear-grade flush was back. “No— I meant, why was it difficult?”

  “Ah. Well, you try walking through the world surrounded by an eternal discordant orchestra, and you’ll understand. If I get very many people around me it’s a dizzying environment. I lose track of what thoughts and feelings are mine and what belongs to someone else. Too many people, and I can barely hear myself think or know what I’m feeling at all. And as you can imagine, sleep requires some quiet.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “I should tell you that I heard you in the backyard before you shouted.”

  “You heard me thinking about—” My blush would be eternal.

  “Yes, but don’t worry, dear. I’ve found the truth is that virtually every healthy adult will think about sex given the slightest cue. It’s like having softcore porn intruding on my awareness at any time. I’ve become used to it.”

  “And always hearing everyone, that’s why you’re a recluse?”

  “Not . . . entirely.” She looked truly uncomfortable for the first time. Sipping her drink, she set it down and squared her shoulders.

  “After the funeral and my change, I was already having a difficult time coping with my neighbors and peers. You can imagine how awkward people felt around me after Frank’s death. I dearly loved my husband and missed him horribly, and people didn’t know what to say, what to think. It was very grating, much easier to be by myself.

  “Then one day there was a knock at the door, and a man in a service uniform said he was here from the power company to read my meter. I almost let him in but his thoughts were excited, ecstatic when he thought I would let him in the house. His tune didn’t match the circumstances at all, and it stopped me. I slammed the door and locked it and yelled through it that I had a gun and was calling the police. He ran.”

  Taking a deep breath, she started and then paused again.

  “Well,” she finally said. “I did call the police. I told them what had happened—not that I’d read the man’s thoughts of course, but that there had been something off about him and that he had run—and they sent a young detective to take my statement and then a very nice police artist to get a rendering from my description. A week later I was informed that they had arrested a rapist and murderer. A month previous, another woman had been . . . assaulted, and strangled in her home. No witnesses, and the police believed that she must have let her murderer in. With the police artist’s sketch, they recognized a sex-offender who had been released from prison the previous year. They arrested him and found physical evidence, and he is back in prison for the rest of his life.”

  She exhaled. “My fright that day, compounded by learning what had happened to that other unfortunate woman, left me severely shaken. That’s when I got the new locks on my doors and installed the cameras. I withdrew.” She paused, considering. “Perhaps I would have withdrawn anyway, I really can’t say. It was . . . easier.”

  Putting a smile on her face, she let it grow more natural. “And then the Seevers came. And Mrs. Seever with her cookies and waves. And now you, and here we are.”

  “And here we are,” I echoed. It was such a terrible story, but I was confused and she knew it.

  “But why did I tell you?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, you are the only other changeling I’ve met. It’s not like there’s millions of us, and I don’t get out.”

  She was right; the last time I’d checked there were maybe five hundred known changelings in the US. Less than ten thousand of us in the whole world. “And I learned something more about myself because of you. Selfishly, I want to learn more.”

  I blinked. “What? What did you learn from me?”

  “I’ll tell you in a moment. May I conduct a small experiment, first? A game, really.”

  When I nodded again, she stood up from the table and pulled me to my feet in front of her.

  “Now,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. “I’m going to spin you around a few times. When I let go, close your eyes and keep going for a few more spins and then stop and point to where you think I am. Alright? Take as long as you need to point.” And she spun me.

  Around, around, around, around, and then I was spinning on my own. With no idea where this was going, I put my heart into it and gave it another half-dozen revolutions, eyes tight shut, before stopping.

  Listening for her breathing I didn’t hear it. Where, where, where? Was she trying to tell me? Project her own thoughts to me? That didn’t seem likely, didn’t really explain the spinning, but okay. I listened. Peekaboo, where are you? She didn’t answer, but “listening” as hard as I could as I slowly turned in place I thought there was something . . . there.

  Pointing, I opened my eyes to find her all the way across the kitchen staring at my finger. Which was pointed right at her. “How did you do that? I didn’t hear you.”

  “I didn’t,” she said with an arch smile. “You did.”

  “. . . What?”