“In visions,” she said, “I’ve seen this creature as a child, moving about, making noise, acting like any human baby. Always with you, Clodagh. Always in your arms, with you patting and singing and carrying him about. Not here in the house. In other places: hiding in the forest, crossing a river, going down a sort of underground passage. Sometimes alone, sometimes with someone else, but I couldn’t tell who it was. When I look at it—him—I see both at once. I see what Father and the others see, and I see the child of the visions: a changeling. Clodagh, you’re crying.”

“Sorry,” I said, sitting down suddenly on my bed and wiping my eyes. “You’re the only person who’s even half believed me. Father’s been so cold about it, cold and angry, not like himself at all. And I feel guilty. Father thinks it’s my fault that someone took Finbar, because . . .”

“Because you were kissing Cathal, yes, everyone knows that story now,” Sibeal said gravely. “That doesn’t matter, Clodagh. What matters is what you’re going to do about this.”

“I thought maybe you could help me. If you’ve seen visions that explain what Becan is, can’t you speak to Father or to Johnny? If they keep looking for Finbar in places where a human abductor might take him, they’ll never find him.” The baby was stirring; I got up and began to prepare a new batch of honey water. My sister regarded me solemnly.

“You can’t risk that,” she said. “I might tell them and they might dismiss it. Then your Becan—that’s a good name, by the way—could be taken from you and disposed of. Clodagh, I did once hear a story about someone getting a little girl back when she was taken by the Fair Folk.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“They went to fetch her,” said Sibeal, making my jaw drop. “They found the one who had taken her and negotiated an exchange.”

“Where?” I asked, as hope and dread fought a battle inside me. “You mean someone found a portal to the Otherworld? How?”

“I can’t remember that part. I do know that when the child came back she was . . . different.”

My imagination conjured up an infant who had sprouted wings like an owl, or whose legs had been transformed into a salmon’s tail. “Different in what way?” I asked as Becan came fully awake and began to squall. It was plain that Sibeal could not hear his cries.

“Just different. She looked the same. But I think if a person stays in the realm of the Fair Folk for any length of time, he or she becomes a little like them. That might be good or bad.”