by Renee George
“What gave it away,” Willy said. “The pointing? The staring? Or the chanting in our direction?”
I pursed my lips. “You don’t have to be so sarcastic.”
Willy flashed her tiny fangs. “I really think I do.”
“Uhm,” Ruth said nervously. “Maybe we should go. Those chipmunks are starting draw attention our way.”
“I thought it was a terrible idea to come down here in the first place. I’m all for getting the hell out of this place.” I looked around. Animals and people had completely surrounded us. “Uhm, Chav. Just how vast is that stomach of yours?” Like I said before, I’d seen her dispatch a large man in one bite, but that could have been a one-off.
“I’m not going to eat these folks,” she said. She turned a menacing glare at the crowd. “Unless I am forced to do so.”
The chipmunks were still chanting “Stranger danger,” but no one had joined in with them, which I took as a positive sign. Most peculiarly, now that the fire had died down, the human-looking population had their phones up snapping pictures and video of the four of us huddled together like refugees.
“Would you four shut up,” a man shouted. Miraculously, the naked men along with the whole town square grew silent.
The guy strode forward with a woman on his left arm and a small child on his right hip. He was handsome and thin, the woman pretty. Their dark hair gave them the appearance of being related, but I’d seen the same back home with therianthropes from the same animal category, but considering the backwoods town we were in, I wouldn’t rule out kissing cousins.
“Uhm, howdy, neighbors,” I said as politely as I could manage.
“Who and what are you?” the man asked. He was staring at Chavvah not me, so I tried not react indignantly.
“I’m Chavvah Trimmel,” she said. “I am a coyote, but I walk with Brother Wolf. Unfortunately, I have somehow ended up here as his avatar, and since I can’t seem to get a hold of him at the moment, I am stuck in this form.”
“Hmm.” The man scratched his pointed chin. “I’ve never heard of this Brother Wolf. Is he a warlock?”
I snarfed. “Not hardly.”
“he is more like a spirit,” Chav explained. “He acts as my guide.”
“I wish he could guide our asses out of here.”
Chav narrowed her eyes at me.
“Fine. I’m shutting up.”
“That’ll be the day,” Chav said.
I clutched at my chest. “You wound me.” I dropped my hands to my sides. “Not.” Because I couldn’t see how introductions could hurt our situation, after all, other than the naked chipmunk-shifters, no one seemed too surprised by us. “I’m Sunny Trimmel. Chav here is my sister-in-law. The deer is our dear friend Ruth Thompson, and the bobcat is Willy Boden. She’s in law enforcement if it makes any difference.”
“We have our own form of law in Assjacket.”
“Wonderful,” Willy murmured.
“Can that bobcat talk?” the woman on his arm asked. “That’s fascinating.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s new.”
The man turned to stare at Willy now, the bobcat suddenly very interesting to him. “How can you talk?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “We were hoping someone in town might know.”
“In this town,” he said, “someone probably does.”
I crossed my arms. “Now that you know who we are, maybe you all could clue us in on this place. Are you all part of the Appalachian Therianthrope Council?” I knew from listening to my mayoral husband’s boring political blah, blah, blah, that the Appalachian Council covered therianthropes from Georgia up through New York.
“What’s a therianthrope?” the man asked.
“You know,” I said.
“No, I really don’t.”
“People who can shift into animals and then back to humans.”
“We are Shifters, not therianthropes.”
“Well, technically,” a short, stout man with a hairline that set right above his eyebrows said. “Therion is Greek for wild animal and anthropes means human being. So the word could very well describe Shifters.” He smiled at me. “I’m Bob. I write plays, so I am very good with words.”
“Hey, Bob.” I smiled back.
“I’m Kurt, raccoon Alpha, and this is my wife Wanda,” he gestured to the woman. “And our son, Bo. I’m in charge while our king and his wife are on vacation.” He set the boy down and shook his head. “I’ve never heard of this council you are talking about,” he said. “Where are you from?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but my mind blanked. “I can’t remember the name of our town.” I looked at Chav for help.
“Well, crap,” she said. “I can’t remember either. It’s like it’s there, but not.”
“That’s so peculiar,” Bob said. “I’ve never heard of hometown amnesia before.”
Ruth danced over to me, her body pushing against my side. “Because there’s no such thing.”
“We are so fucked,” Willy said, stating the obvious.
Ruth let out a bleating noise of despair.
Willy rubbed her fur against Ruth’s legs. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”
I wish I could be so confident. “Yeah, Ruth, what Willy said. We’ll find a way to get home.”
“Hi, I’m Chad,” one of the chipmunk Shifters said. “And these are my brothers, Chip, Chutney, and Chunk. Sorry about earlier with the whole stranger-danger thing. Our mom taught us to yell it when someone we don’t know shows up.”
“She wants us to be safe,” Chutney said.
“Shewouldn’tlikeustalkingtoyourightnowwe’regoingtobeinsomuchtrouble,” the one he called Chunk said. Frankly, I didn’t understand a single word.
“Is he...okay?” I asked.
“Chunk talks really fast,” Chad said. “He’s just worried that mom will be mad at us for talking to you.”
“Aren’t you a little old for stranger-danger?” I asked. They looked to be well over twenty.
“I’m the baby,” Chip said. “I’m only ninety-three.”
Wowza. The therians tended to grow older much slower than humans, but not this slow. “My brain is about to explode.”
“Take cover!” Chutney yelled. He threw his arms up over his head.
“Not literally. Sheesh.”
“Bob, why don’t you take Chip, Chad, Chutney, and Chunk home?” Kurt said.
Bob nodded. He made the chipmunk brothers hold hands, and he led the four bare-butted men from the scene.
“Sorry about them. They are good boys, but not very bright.”
“No kidding,” I agreed. “You wouldn’t by any chance have a phone we could use? Our cell phones don’t seem to get reception here, and we’d really like to call home.” Babe, Billy Bob, Ed, and Brady were probably worried sick since we hadn’t called to check in with them.
Kurt took his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Here. I have full bars.”
I pushed in Babe’s number, the only number I had memorized, and suppressed the giddiness threatening to burble over into a giggle. What can I say, I sometimes had peculiar reactions to stressful situations?
Beee-booo-booop. The number you’ve dialed is not in service.
My mouth went dry. “I don’t understand. Babe’s number has been the same since he was eighteen. He wouldn’t change it.”
“Try Doc,” Chav said, referring to Billy Bob, who was not only the town shaman but also our town physician. She gave me the number. I punched it in.
Beee-booo-boop. The number you’ve dialed is not in service.
I shook my head. “Nope. It says his number, like Babe’s isn’t in service.” My earlier fears of being dead resurfaced.
Willy had me try Brady, and Ruth had me try Ed and all nine of her children, even the youngest, Linus. The result was the same.
“How is this possible? We can’t remember the name of our town, and we can’t get a hold of anyone from our lives back h
ome. What if this is some mad version of It’s A Wonderful Life?” My voice rose an octave as real panic settled in. “Which one of you thought our families would be better off if we never existed?” I rounded on my friends. “Who was it? Who!”
“Ambrosia Sunshine Haddock Trimmel, pull yourself to together,” Chavvah snapped. “There isn’t a single one of us who thinks anyone is better off without us.”
Present company excepted.
I worried all the time that Babe would be better off without me. He could have had a simpler life if he’d settled down with a nice werecoyote. As it was, I was ten years his senior, and I didn’t have near the lifespan of a therianthrope. And sure, I looked all right now, but what about ten years from now? The Doc was in his late fifties, and he looked my age.
“Oh, stop,” Chav said. “I know what you’re thinking, Sunny, and Babe would hate it if he knew you were thinking about him without you, so cut it out.”
“Don’t yell at me,” I whimpered. “I’m going to need years of therapy after this as it is.”
“Did someone say they needed a therapist?” a small man asked.
“They don’t need a sex therapist, Roger.” A woman with large hazel eyes and the kind of beauty I recognized instantly, total Disney princess, walked toward us.
“You’re a deer Shifter, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Why, yes I am. I’m DeeDee,” the woman said. “I own a diner here in town with Wanda.
“Not that rundown shack we passed on the way over here,” Chavvah asked.
“It’s better on the inside than the outside.” DeeDee put her finger to her lips and shushed us. “It’s the town’s secret. It keeps the humans from poking around.” She looked at me. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Besides, as insults went, it was pretty soft. “Is there a motel in this town? We need a place to regroup.” Now that the adrenaline of the firebomb had waned, a weariness had settled into my bones.
“We don’t have anything like that in town. Not many visitors come through here,” Wanda said.
DeeDee nodded. “But I can put you all up for the night. I have an extra room if you all don’t mind sharing. You can take the bed, and I can put down some extra blankets for your friends.”
“Thanks.” That solved one problem. Now, all we had to do was figure out how to get Chav, Ruth, and Willy back into people, which frankly, seemed like a cakewalk compared to figuring out why we couldn’t remember the name of our town or why all the phone numbers to our guys were disconnected.
Chapter Five
The next morning, the world did not look any brighter. As a matter of fact, I felt more tired than I had when I put my head down on the ruffled-edged pillows on DeeDee’s guest bed. I’d had a quick shower, and DeeDee had loaned me a nightgown. Luckily, I had clean undies in my purse, which gave me the chance to wash the ones I was wearing, just in case we were in town longer than a day. God, I hoped we weren’t in town longer than a day. I put my red dress back on and put on my shoes. I’d taken the other heel off the good shoe to turn them into flats. They weren’t comfortable by any means, but they would do.
Chav, Ruth, and Willy looked the same as they had the night before. I’d been holding out hope that their transformations were temporary, but unfortunately, my friends were still a mutant wolf, a white-tailed deer, and a bobcat instead of the women I knew and loved.
As we made our way downstairs to DeeDee’s first floor, there was a distinct lack of coffee aroma. Frankly, it made me a little sad. I guess since she told us she owned a diner, I just assumed coffee, and maybe even a cinnamon roll, was a given.
“What are you doing here?” DeeDee asked when I rounded the corner to the kitchen. Her eyes widened when Chav entered after me.
“I’m sorry. Were we supposed to leave earlier? I didn’t realize there was a check out time.”
DeeDee’s mouth dropped open then closed. Her shoulders slumped. “No, I’m the one who should apologize. It was a long night, and I didn’t get much sleep. I’m afraid I’m a bit cranky.”
“We won’t be in your hair for long. Is there a car rental place in town?” Based on what I saw last night, I doubted they did, but a girl could hope.
“I...No,” DeeDee said, “No car rentals here in town. Maybe the next town up. It’s about half an hour east.”
“I’d hitchhike,” Chav said, “but I don’t have thumbs.”
I giggled because funny is funny, and sometimes you had to laugh to keep from crying.
A knock at the front door drew all our attention. Wanda and Kurt from the night before walked in before DeeDee could say “come in.”
“Oh,” Wanda said. “Your friends are still shifted.”
“Yep.” Get that woman a cookie. “Nothing’s changed since last night.”
“So, tell me what happened,” she said as she went up to Ruth and pried her eyelid open to examine her sockets. Next, she raised up Ruth’s lips to look at her teeth. Ruth’s tail dropped, and her back legs got jittery.
“I’ve had the shit kicked out of me by a deer before,” I said to the raccoon Shifter.
Wanda gave me an interested look.
I shrugged. “Just saying.”
Wanda ignored my warning and pulled up on one of Ruth’s ears.
“Enough,” Ruth said.
Wanda yiked and jumped away from the talking doe.
Ruth leveled her mom gaze at the dark-haired woman. “I don’t mean to be impolite, but you should ask before you put your hands all over someone.”
Kurt suddenly took an interest. “It’s fascinating how you can speak.”
“Yep, fascinating,” Ruth said, clearly not fascinated or amused. “And before you ask, where we come from, therianthropes cannot speak like a person when we are in our second nature. This is new.”
“Interesting,” Wanda said. “Don’t you think it’s interesting, DeeDee?”
“Yeah, a real humdinger,” our hostess said.
“How did you all end up here?” Kurt asked.
“Now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it,” I said. “One minute we were getting our fortunes told in Reno, and the next minute we were laying in a ditch outside your trash...er...treasured town.”
“Nevada?” Kurt asked.
“Yes.”
“This sounds like no spell I’ve ever heard of,” Wanda said. “I wish our king and the Shifter Wanker were back from their visit with Baba Yaga. They’d know what to do.”
“Shifter Wanker sounds like a bad porn title,” Willy said.
I giggled again because, in my house, I was the shifter wanker. Bow-chicka-bow-wow. “How can this king and the other people help us? We can’t remember the name of our town or even how to find it. We can’t call home because none of the numbers work. Chavvah is in the body of an ancient spirit guardian who isn’t talking to her at the moment, and Ruth and Willy have gone full-on therianthrope.”
At that moment, a wave of despair hit me. I was Sunny, the one who always looked on the bright side of bad situations, but this was worse than bad, this was catastrophic.
I hiccupped a sob. “I miss my babies.”
“We’ll get home, Sunny,” Chav said with swift fierceness. Kurt, Wanda, and DeeDee all took a step back.
“Zelda is the Shifter Wanker. She is a healer witch who is mated to our Alpha, Mac. She can heal any Shifter, so she should be able to help your friends. At least the deer and the bobcat. I’m not sure about,” he pointed to Chav, “her. I’ve never seen anything like her before.”
“Yeah, she’s just full of surprises.”
“Not by choice,” Chav said. “I’d happily settle for the nice quiet life of a doctor’s wife.”
“DeeDee is a doula. She’s delivered forty-one babies, including the Shifter Wanker’s twins.” Wanda was bright-eyed with pride for her friend. “She might not be a doctor, but she’s got the most medical experience of anyone in town. Let her examine you to make sure there isn’t anything else wrong.”
> I looked at my besties. One by one, they nodded their agreement. “Fine. But only if someone brews a pot of coffee. I’m in desperate need of caffeine.”
Wanda glanced at DeeDee. “I’ll get the coffee on. You examine the guests.”
The hazel-eyed beauty nodded. “If you think that’s a good idea. Maybe we should wait for the wanker.”
“No. We need to make sure they have no magic curses on them.”
I turned my focus on DeeDee as she started with Ruth, doing a head to hoof assessment. “You seem fine. No wounds and I don’t see any magic wards that would keep you from transforming.”
Next, she picked Willy up. My red-headed friend had a temper to match her fiery hair. She hissed at being placed on the counter like a pet. “Give a girl some warning, why don’t you?”
DeeDee checked Willy’s eyes, her teeth, felt down her back and stomach, then under her tail. The last earned the raccoon alpha’s wife another hiss.
“How far along are you?” DeeDee asked.
“What are you talking about?” Willy said.
“Your pregnancy.”
“I’m not pregnant?” Willy sat on her haunches. “I can’t be, can I?”
“You are definitely with child.”
“Oh, Willy! I’m so happy for you and Brady.” I rushed the counter and threw my arms around her.
I caught a glimpse of Chav. Her shoulders slumped as she blinked rapidly for a second. She settled, forcing her eyes wide. “Congratulations, Willy,” she said. “That’s wonderful news.”
“My land,” Ruth exclaimed. Her hooves clattered on the hard-tiled floor. “I’m so excited.” She peed a little. “Whoops. Bladder control gets tenuous after nine kids.” She turned her focus back to Willy. “This is sudden. Will you and Brady move of the wedding date? I can make all the calls to get the venue moved up when we get home—” Ruth dropped her chin. “I... We will get home. Does Brady know about the baby?”
Willy squirmed away from me and jumped down to the tiled floor. “I didn’t even know about the baby, for fuck’s sake. Do you really think I would’ve drank seven margaritas and three fireballs last night if I knew I was pregnant? Jesus H. Christ, I’ve probably pickled the kid.” She clicked her nails. “You.” She glared at DeeDee. “Doula. Is there any way to tell if I’ve damaged the tiny alien growing inside me?”