My husband’s cousin switched my daughter with her own while I was in a delirium after childbirth. So I waited until she was sleeping soundly, high on her triumph, and I switched them right back. Day after day, she tormented her own child while showering mine with every affection she could muster. I would watch and wipe my tears. What a human tragedy. She deserved it. 1 The day my daughter was born, I was up all night, engrossed in a gothic novel about a changeling. Just as I reached the most thrilling, heart-pounding part, my water broke. I grabbed the arm of my handmaid, Ruby, and said with a tremor in my voice, "Watch my baby! Don't let anyone switch them!" The labor was brutal. The entire wing of the house was in chaos. The pain was so intense I blacked out, but just before I did, I heard another maid shouting, "Sir! Sir! It's Miss Lillian, she's in labor too! You must go to her!" I reached out, grabbing for my husband, Brayton. "Don't go..." I clung to his sleeve, but he pried my fingers off, one by one. His voice was soft, yet unyielding. "I have to go to Lillian. She’s delicate, not resilient like you are." The pain consumed me, and I fainted. When I next opened my eyes, Ruby was kneeling by my bed, sobbing. "My lady, they've taken the young miss! She's been switched!" "What?!" I whipped my head around to look at the novel on my bedside table. The story I had just been reading… was now my own. 2 Through her tears, Ruby told me what happened. The baby was born while I was unconscious, but my husband, Brayton, had dismissed all the other maids and the midwife, sending them to Lillian’s side. Only Ruby remained to look after me. Remembering my warning, she’d made a small mark with rouge on our daughter's heel before going to fetch hot water. When she returned, the mark was gone. The room had been in turmoil, and she hadn't gotten a clear look at the baby’s face. Without that mark, she would have never known. "Was anyone else in this room?" I asked. "Celeste, Miss Lillian's personal maid. She came in with a basket, saying she’d brought you some food. She saw I was in a hurry and offered to watch you and the young miss, so I..." Ruby prostrated herself, banging her head on the floor. "I deserve to die, my lady! I am a worthless servant!" "No," I said, my voice a raw whisper. "You did well. Now, I have a task for you. Do this, and you will have redeemed yourself." "Yes, yes! I would die for you, my lady!" "Stand guard here. Don't let anyone in, and don't let anyone notice that I'm gone." "My lady, where are you going?" "To get my daughter back." 3 I picked up the baby girl who had been placed in the cradle. She was dressed in the soft satin I had prepared for my own child, but her face was pale, her breathing shallow as a thread. Her cries were as faint as a kitten's mewling. This was not my daughter. My daughter had let out a lusty wail the moment she was born, so loud it had pierced through my haze of pain. My daughter had been switched. Luckily, Celeste hadn't been gone long. "No one should be coming for a while," I instructed Ruby. "If she dared to switch the babies, she must have made sure the coast was clear." "My lady, let me go for you!" "I need you here to cover for me. This is something I have to do myself." I lifted the child and, forcing my weak, postpartum body to move, I followed. The corridors were eerily empty, as if they had been deliberately cleared. I spotted Celeste's figure in the distance and trailed her silently. She was clearly nervous, clutching the baby and hurrying along without ever looking back. She never noticed me. She went straight to Lillian's rooms. Outside Lillian’s door sat a shabby, soiled cradle, with flies buzzing around it. She placed my daughter in that filthy basket and went inside. In that split second, I sprinted across the yard and switched the babies back. My own daughter was heavy in my arms, a solid, reassuring weight. I was about to turn and run, but then I heard voices from inside the room. Lillian's voice was thick with tears. "Brayton, my love, I had no choice. Our daughter is so frail. If she stays with me, she won’t get the care she needs. Lady Clara is so much more capable than I am." My husband, Brayton, scoffed. "She only got to be my wife because of her family's status. If she hadn't stolen your place, our daughter would have been the true heir." Lillian quickly soothed him. "Don't be angry, my love. Our daughter can still be raised as the legitimate one. Think of it as my gift to you." "Don't worry," Brayton said. "Clara won't have any more children. I've been putting a drug in her water to make her barren. From now on, her only purpose will be to raise our daughter." "But won't she suspect something?" "I've told her this child is from your previous marriage, that you came to me for shelter after your divorce. She won’t doubt it. With me here, you have nothing to fear." "Oh, Brayton," Lillian sighed. "After everything I've been through, I finally see that you are the only true man..." Inside, the lovers murmured sweet nothings, while outside, in the yard, mosquitoes began to land on the infant in the dirty cradle. I clutched my child and slipped away, back to my own rooms, a bone-deep chill seeping into me. 4 When I returned, Ruby was frantically searching the yard for me. Seeing me return with the baby, looking like a ghost, she rushed to my side. She helped me back into bed, covered me with thick blankets, and pressed a cup of hot tea into my hands before turning to care for my daughter. I stared at the steaming tea, the lovers' conversation echoing in my mind. A wave of nausea washed over me. I pushed the cup away. "Everything from the kitchen today—the water, the tea, the porridge—throw it all out." Ruby looked at me, confused, but said nothing, simply nodding and taking it away. Still feeling uneasy, I had the servants take every pot and pan from my private kitchen and scrub them clean that very night. Once I was alone, I sat on the bed for a long time, trying to calm my racing heart, before the tears finally came. When I married into the Brayton family, they were so poor they couldn't afford meat. The entire family scrimped and saved to support Brayton’s studies, but it was never enough. Brayton, a frail scholar, tried working at the docks and broke a rib under the weight of two sacks of grain. The ten silver pieces he got in compensation were what his family lived on, gnawing on the price of his broken bone. Later, he tried copying texts for a bookshop. He knocked over a candle and burned half his face and one of his eyebrows. Though he healed, the shop gave him two silver pieces for his trouble, and his family gnawed on the price of his eyebrow for a few more months. When he was healed again, he couldn't find work anywhere. He collapsed from hunger on the street, and I was the one who found him. Brayton was refined and eloquent. I fell for him quickly. He immediately came to my family to propose. My father looked down on his family's poverty, but he couldn't dissuade me. With my family’s money, Brayton passed his exams, secured a minor official post, and his fortunes finally turned. But his position was new and his salary modest; our household was still supported entirely by my dowry. Just as our lives were getting comfortable, his cousin, Lillian, showed up at our door, heavily pregnant. She knelt and begged him to take her in. They had been betrothed once, but after Brayton's family fell into ruin, Lillian had married another man. It turned out he was a monster who beat her daily. She’d divorced him and now had nowhere to go but to her cousin. I took her in out of pity. I never imagined she and Brayton would conspire against me. A child from a previous husband? That was a lie. The two of them must have been entangled long before. This child was Brayton’s. But now, I had switched the child back. I was morbidly curious to see what kind of twisted drama they would create.
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