Shifting Is for the Goyim

by Elizabeth Zelvin

  “Yep. His daddy wadn’t much good. I taught that boy to shoot and run quiet in the woods. Play guitar, too. Come on ’n set.”

  He seated himself in one of a pair of wooden rocking chairs and waved me to the other. The smooth wood glowed with the patina of age. I inspected the elaborate carving on its back, a pattern of leaves and half-hidden animals, and the thin flowered seat pad, faded but clean, before I sat. He laid his rifle across his knees and started rocking.

  “These chairs been settin’ here since my granddaddy carved ’em,” he said. “Cain’t never get too much a lookin’ at the mountains.”

  “I see what you mean.” I began to rock too. “You really taught Michael to play? You’re a picker?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you ever play out, I mean perform?”

  “I know what playin’ out is,” he said.

  I rocked and stared at my feet, trying to hide my blush of shame. I might as well have said, Oh, Mr. Crockett, you must be so unsophisticated.

  “I ain’t done it any lately,” he said. “Boy was better’n me by the time he was fifteen.”

  “He was good, wasn’t he?” My eyes filled with tears.

  “The best.” Crockett leaned over and handed me a red bandanna, worn soft and comforting. “It’s clean.”

  “Mr. Crockett, can I ask you something?”

  He kept rocking, his gaze on the mountains marching away to infinity like desert dunes or billows on the ocean.

  “You can ask.”

  “Did you see him when he came home this time?”

  “Yep.”

  “Was anything bothering him? Was there anybody he was mad at, any particular trouble on his mind?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not that you knew of,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “What about—Sergeant Thompson mentioned Michael’s Uncle Burrell. If he’s a friend of yours, I’m sorry, but he said they didn’t get along.”

  “Naw, Burrell ain’t got no friends. He’s been workin’ on hatin’ the world for seventy years now.”

  He hadn’t answered my question, and I had a harder one to ask.

  “Did—did Michael happen to mention any particular woman? Someone from around here, an old girlfriend, maybe?”

  “Now, Miss Amy, you know better’n that.” He got up, and I found myself walking arm in arm with him toward my car. “I ain’t gonna say he never had a girlfriend, but no one recent, not since he started workin’ with you.”

  He opened the car door for me and held it as I climbed behind the wheel: gallantry or, more likely, speeding me on my way. Rolling down the window, I reached out and shook his leathery hand. He started to speak, hesitated, and seemed to come to a decision.

  “I might coulda seen a little gal, not from around here, askin’ around in the bars, down in the town. She might coulda been askin’ for Mike. But I don’t know no more than that. Now, Miss Amy, you go on. Stop frettin’ yourself about what’s done and can’t be mended. You go back out there with your pretty voice and sing that poor boy’s songs the way he’d wish you to.”

  “I will, Mr. Crockett. And thank you.”

  I was halfway back to Boone, where I’d agreed to meet Sergeant Thompson, before I realized Harmon Crockett hadn’t said a word about wolves or the full moon. I’d liked him, of course I had, but what had he told me? Not to investigate. To go away. And that some woman might have been looking for Michael. Who was she? Had she found him? What did she want? Thompson shook his head when I told him and denied hearing any such thing. I followed him in my own car out to Burrell Conlon’s place.

  Where Michael’s cabin was rustic, his great-uncle’s shack was squalid. It lay at the end of a long drive, a dusty, uneven mix of gravel and dirt running between overgrown meadows dotted with burnt out cars and rusty bathtubs and kitchen appliances. Thompson had told me Burrell had no phone, so even if we’d wanted to, we couldn’t have warned him of our coming. He heard us crunching over the gravel and came out on his sagging wooden porch armed, as Crockett had, except his weapon was a sawed-off shotgun, and, rather than leaning on it, he pointed it straight at us. At his side, seated but alert, was a gigantic German shepherd. Thompson, who carried a holstered handgun hanging from his belt, got out of his car with his hand right on it. With his other hand, he waved with a downward motion behind his back, signaling me to stay in my car. I got out anyway, though I left the driver’s side door open and stood behind it as a prudent measure. I couldn’t believe he’d shoot, especially at the sergeant. But I could be wrong.

  “Roy Thompson, you stop right there. I ain’t done nothin’ wrong, and you’re trespassin’ on my property, you and that hussy you got with you. Go on, now, git.” He had an unexpectedly high voice.

  “Put the gun down, Conlon,” Thompson said, “and quit threatenin’ the law. I’ve got a right to ask questions about a suspicious death in this county. And the lady’s the executor of your nephew Michael’s will, so mind your manners.”

  The dog growled and raised its hindquarters a few inches, as if preparing to spring if the old man gave the word.

  “And tell your dog to stand down.”

  “Will? What will?” The old man’s eyebrows, still bushy and iron gray although his long ponytail was yellowish white, drew together in a frown. “The boy’s dead, and he ain’t got no kin but me. His property belongs to me now.”

  “Conlon, I’m not tellin’ you a single thing until you put that shotgun down,” Thompson said calmly. “Old fool!” he added under his breath. He stood like a rock, waiting, till Burrell snorted and lowered the shotgun.

  “I got a right.” He gripped the gunstock convulsively, squeezing it over and over. “My daddy and me and my brother Avery built that cabin. It belongs to me now.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Conlon,” I said. “Your great-nephew made a will two years ago in which he left all his property elsewhere, not only the cabin and the land around it but all his assets, including rights to his songs.”

  “Songs!” Burrell snorted. “What kind of a man writes songs? And who might you be, missy? A lawyer?” He half raised the shotgun again, as if he’d be as happy to shoot a lawyer as a police officer.

  “That’ll do, Conlon,” Thompson said.

  Burrell lowered the shotgun and banged it angrily against the plank flooring of the porch. The whole shack shook a little.

  “I’m not a lawyer,” I said. “Michael and I were going to be married.” I didn’t add that it would probably not have happened until my parents had graves to roll over in. That was why we’d made wills leaving everything to each other. We had both been more concerned about protecting the music than anything else. And of course we hadn’t believed that either of us would die.

  “I suppose that means you’re no better than you should be,” Burrell snapped. “Fancy women with red furbelows! I seen you in the woods, don’t think I didn’t.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “I haven’t been in the woods.”

  What woman? It sounded like Burrell had been skulking in the woods, spying. Where was Michael while this woman was prancing around half-naked on the mountain? I didn’t like the sound of that. Michael had always talked about “the boys.” I’d never asked if there were women in the pack. Harmon had said she was “not from around here.” Had he been lying? If he was the leader, he’d want to protect the pack from any damage my prying might do them.

  “I don’t care about no will,” Burrell said. “Nor no songs nor assets neither. I’ll have the law on you’ns, anyhow. Land should go to kin.”

  “We might as well leave,” Thompson told me in an undertone. “We’re not gonna get anythin’ out of him. Go on and get back in your car. I’m not gonna turn my back on him until you’re pointed back down the driveway with your foot on the gas.”

  “Will you take me out to where they found Michael?” I asked. “I’d like to see it for myself.”

  “No reason why not. We’re through there. Though I’d
sure like to find some evidence putting that dried up old bag of vinegar on the scene.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said. Maybe it would help me say goodbye to Michael.

  As we rattled down the drive, I heard the dog barking, but it didn’t follow.

  If Michael hadn’t died there, I’d have called it a beautiful spot. The woods were old growth, a mix of pine and hardwoods, soft and springy underfoot with fragrant dry needles and leaf mold. A narrow shaft of late afternoon sunlight slanted down through the towering trees. I found a log to sit on. I told Thompson I’d be fine on my own and assured him I could find my way back to my car and then to the inn at Blowing Rock.

  After he left, I sat in meditative silence, breathing in the scents of pine and damp composting vegetation as I listened to the chirring of squirrels and the repeated call of a bird I couldn’t identify. After a while, even the squirrels fell silent.

  So had Michael been murdered or not? Mauled, Thompson had said. If Crockett wouldn’t tell me who the others in the pack were, how could I find out if one of them had a quarrel with Michael? Crockett talked as if he’d liked Michael a lot. But what if Michael had committed some infraction? Crockett himself might have meted out the punishment and lied to me to cover it. From the little Michael had told me, the weres were loosely organized and not at all paramilitary, not too different from real wolves. But they must have rules.

  Burrell would have been the prime suspect if Michael had been shot. But he hadn’t, unless he’d been shot in the throat and then mauled to cover it up. What if the dog had been trained to attack if he thought his master was being threatened? What if Michael had gotten into a shouting match with Burrell? Or worse, a fist fight? I’d seen Michael lose his temper with a clumsy roadie or a stubborn sound engineer, but he’d never gotten physical. He’d told me he was “raised rough,” but only in a joking way, and he had never elaborated.

  Lost in thought, I didn’t realize that I was no longer alone until the big cat padded into the center of the clearing and started sniffing the ground. I forgot to breathe. What was it? A cougar? It was big. Its tawny body rippled with muscle. Had it been drawn here by the smell of Michael’s blood? Slowly, it circled the spot where Sergeant Thompson had indicated the body had lain. Then its head came up and swung from side to side as if searching for something. That was odd. It was looking around like a human. I didn’t think it had been sniffing the ground either, but examining the ground by eye. A shifter! And an inept or inexperienced one at that.

  Ah, now it had spotted me. I wasn’t afraid. I stood up slowly and looked it in the eye. The big cat did an almost comic double take, like a cartoon character that’s run past the edge of a cliff. I expected it to spring at me. Instead, it whirled and bounded away. Two could play at that game. I wanted answers.

  With a kind of shiver, I summoned up the power inside me and sent it coursing through my body. Warmth flooded my body, rippling down to my toes and fingertips. I knew my head was turning small and round, the barrel of my chest deepening, my butt morphing into hindquarters ropy with muscle. I held out a paw to admire the luxuriance of spotted fur, black on golden, and thumped my tail, which I knew had a black brush at the tip. Then I followed the cougar. Panther. Whatever. It might be good for a sprint. But nothing could outrun a cheetah.

  On this forested ridge, there was no one to wonder what a cheetah was doing in North Carolina. The wind sang in my ears, and my heart surged with the joy of the hunt. Only onstage, pouring out a song, did I ever feel this present in the moment. I ran the panther down in three minutes. I wasn’t even breathing hard when I planted my forepaw on its tail to stop it, then leaped onto its back. I let it taste a little claw, then flipped it over so I could crouch astride it, my paw against its neck.

  The panther, twisting from side to side in a futile effort to get away, turned into my sister Wendy. Her makeup was smudged, her hair a mess. She had nothing on but abbreviated red lace undies. I snarled and pressed my paw harder on her neck, though I sheathed my claws.

  She must realize I was another shifter. If I weren’t, she’d be dead and half eaten already. But she had no way of knowing it was me. Shifting is for the goyim. She had never told, and neither had I.

  Maintaining the carnivorous snarl, I shifted just enough for her to see my Amy face, then shifted back. I bet she couldn’t do that.

  “It was an accident!” Wendy wailed. “It wasn’t me! I didn’t mean for him to die.”

  I felt not only enraged, but shocked. My snarl deepened to a growl. I felt my jaws stretch open. Saliva welled up in my mouth and dripped down my teeth, which were small but extremely sharp. I wanted to tear her throat out.

  Did she think she could say, “Oops!” and walk away? I had a lot to say, but if I stayed a cheetah, I wouldn’t be able to say it. On the other hand, if I shifted back to human form, how would I keep her from running away? I was surprised she hadn’t shifted back to cat yet. Maybe she knew that in cheetah form, I could do 0 to 60 in three seconds and run 75 miles an hour. Or maybe she was simply too rattled. If she’d killed Michael, she’d certainly be upset about it. I’d seen her freak out at breaking a nail. And she seemed even more stupefied to learn that I was a shifter than I was to realize that she was.

  I settled myself on her chest, growling softly and letting a little saliva fall on her terrified face, while I thought about it.

  “Amy, please, please don’t do whatever you’re going to do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She was still struggling, though she didn’t have a hope of getting away. As she gibbered and pleaded, I remembered that I had another gift, one I could use in human form. I’d never tried the trick I’d just thought of, but I had a feeling it would work.

  I changed slowly back to Amy. I left my chest and front paws for last so she couldn’t get up before I was ready. When I had Emerald’s vocal cords back, I took a deep breath and started to sing.

  “Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Wendy.” It came out as a kind of recitative, sounding more like opera than country music, at least until I added, “You killed my man.”

  “I didn’t!” she protested. But she stopped struggling. As I’d hoped, my voice had binding power.

  “It wasn’t me, Amy, please let me tell you what happened.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her nose was running too. All the mockery and spite had been knocked right out of her.

  “Go on and tell me, then,” I sang. “And if you lie, I’ll know.” I had no idea if that was true, but she didn’t know that.

  “Can you get off me first?” she asked. “I can hardly breathe.”

  I hadn’t even noticed I was still squatting on her chest. I pointed to the log I’d been sitting on when she showed up.

  “We can sit there,” I sang. “But don’t try to run or shift. It won’t do you any good.”

  “I won’t,” she sniveled. “I promise.”

  “No lies, no promises,” I sang. “So what’s your story?”

  “It’s not a story,” she protested, “it’s what happened.”

  I surprised myself by feeling relieved to hear her sounding a little more like herself. I hoped it didn’t show. Wendy was five years older than I, and I’d hardly ever had the upper hand when we were kids.

  “Start talking,” I sang.

  “You remember when I ran into you and Michael in New York around Christmas?”

  We’d flown up from Nashville for a long weekend. Michael had never seen the tree at Rockefeller Center, and New York City is a great place for what secular Jews, even older ones, consider a real Jewish Christmas: Chinese food and a movie. I had left Michael to have a drink with Wendy while I kept a long-scheduled and expensive hair appointment in preparation for an industry party we’d been invited to for Christmas Eve.

  “I—I misread the signals,” Wendy said. “He was so sweet and attentive.”

  That was Michael.

  “I thought he might be up for a little no-fault fling if we were ever on our own together.”

/>   Good thing she’d told me up front that she’d been mistaken. I might have had to tear her throat out after all. And we had yet to talk about his death.

  “So I found out where he’d be while you were at the parents’ for Pesach.” My expression must have scared her. “He didn’t tell me! I looked in your iPhone while you were in the shower. I thought I’d fly down to North Carolina and surprise him.”

  “No lies of omission,” I sang.

  “Okay,” she mumbled, “I didn’t let him know because I thought he’d tell me not to come. But I didn’t think he’d send me away.”

  How sure was I that he would have thrown her out if he’d found her in his bed with nothing on but red lace panties? I felt my teeth sharpening into fangs and reminded myself she’d already told me she’d misread him.

  “You had nothing to worry about,” she said. “Nothing happened the way I expected. I got there late Sunday night. It took me forever to find the cabin, and I probably would have missed it if the moon hadn’t been full. When I got there, the door was open, and I saw a wolf go inside. Then the door slammed, so I snuck up to the window.” She’d taken animal form, which I know from my own experience is a lot better for sneaking. “The wolf was gone, and Michael was there. He stripped off his clothes and went into the shower. The door wasn’t latched, so I went in and shifted back.”

  “And took your clothes off.” I almost forgot to sing it, I was so angry. I had never thought I could be jealous. Michael had never given me a moment’s worry, though we were surrounded by beautiful young women everywhere we went, fans and backup singers and Nashville hopefuls who found ways to get to all the parties.

  “I waited in his bed.” She cringed as if she expected me to hit her. “When he came out of the shower and found me, he was furious. He ordered me to get up. He said he’d been running for two days, whatever that meant, and he was exhausted. He said all he wanted was to be alone and work on his new song. For you.”

  It didn’t sound as if she knew about the pack. Was it possible that Wendy didn’t know any other shifters? She’d have had to be secretive, as I had. Among the goyim, shifter families were proud of those who had the gift. But if you were Jewish, you had to keep it hidden.