“I tried to change his mind,” Wendy admitted. I guess she believed my gift could detect a lie. “I thought maybe he’d feel differently if I showed him I was a shifter too. I didn’t, like, just do it. First I pretended it was a joke. You know, I said, ‘Hey, you’re younger than me, aren’t you? I bet you didn’t know I’m a cougar.’ And then I shifted. But that only made it worse. He shifted a lot faster than I could, and for a moment I thought he was going to sink his teeth into my jugular. Then he shifted back to human and told me to get back into my proper skin and get out.”
She must have been thoroughly humiliated. I couldn’t be sorry.
“He said, ‘If you’re so desperate for a man, there’s a painter down in town you might get along with real fine. You should find him in one of the bars this time of night.’Then he shifted back to wolf and slammed out the door. I didn’t dare stay, he was so mad, and I didn’t know where to go or what to do, so I figured I’d go into town and find this painter.”
I considered and rejected singing, “Wendy, you idiot.” It would serve no purpose.
“You’ll probably think I was stupid,” she said, probably reading the expression on my face, “but I thought, so long as I was there, I wouldn’t mind networking with a regional artist. Maybe he’d be young and good looking. Maybe if he turned out to be talented and on the way up, I could buy some of his work, get in on the ground floor. How was I supposed to know that around here they call a panther a painter?”
This time I did sing, “Wendy, you idiot.” At least it relieved my feelings. Along with everything else, I couldn’t believe she hadn’t googled and learned everything she could about her shifting animal, including all its different names.
“Did you find him?” This was an awfully long story, and so far she hadn’t put herself and Michael in the clearing.
“Well, I did. I went to two bars asking for an artist. I said a friend of mine had told me to look him up. At the first one, they looked at me as if I was crazy, and at the second one, they told me there were plenty of artists down in Asheville. But at the third bar, I happened to say “painter” instead of “artist,” and this guy at the bar turned around and offered to buy me a drink. Afterward, he said he could smell it on me. Can you—never mind. Anyhow, we drove up on the mountain in his pickup truck, and then what I expected to happen happened, and it was very good, so then we shifted and, well, we ended up here.”
“Wendy, you’re not going to tell me you did it in panther form.”
I was scandalized. Then it occurred to me that the only reason Michael and I had never thought of it was because we shifted to different species. But I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“So what?” She sounded sulky. “We were already, well, intimate, and we both wanted to, so we did.”
“And how did Michael get into this mess?” It was hard to remember to sing, with my fists clenching and my throat tightening with rage.
“I told you it was an accident,” she said. “Please, Amy, I know how terrible it is, but I’ve got to tell you so you won’t be thinking even worse. Michael came after me, probably to extract a promise never to tell you, even under torture, that I’d been in North Carolina at all. But he never got the chance. He came on us while we were in the middle of, well, you know, and my friend thought he was a real wolf and jumped him. It happened fast, and Michael didn’t change back till he—”
Died.
Wendy and I were both silent for a long time.
“What’s his name?” I asked finally.
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “No, Amy, I mean it. It wasn’t his fault, it really was an accident because he didn’t realize who Michael was. I won’t let you run him down and kill him. And you know you can’t tell this story to the police without bringing the shifting into it. So you can’t tell it.”
I hated to admit it, but she was right.
“I’m never going to forgive you,” I said.
“I know.” She hung her head and scratched at the dirt and pine needles with her toes.
“I don’t ever want to see you in Pumpkin Falls again.”
“I can’t just disappear,” she said. “Mom and Daddy would be frantic.”
“You can check with them before you go there to make sure I’m not coming at the same time. You can make up any story you like about why we’re avoiding each other. It’s your problem.”
“Okay.” It was little enough penance, and we both knew it.
“It’ll be a while before I go home for Pesach again,” I said. “Did you arrange for me to lose my voice?”
“I’m sorry about that.” Her voice sounded almost ashamed and small enough to suit me. “I didn’t think it would bother you so much. I only wanted to make sure you stayed put at Mom and Daddy’s and didn’t go running down to North Carolina to be with Michael. I knew you had a gig in Las Vegas on Tuesday.”
My mouth tightened and curled down. I hated when anyone who wasn’t in the music business used a word like “gig.” Well, mostly, at the moment, I hated Wendy. And I still had a gig in Vegas on Tuesday. It wouldn’t be the same without Michael. And what would become of me in the long run? My career? My heart?
“Amy? What do we do now?”
“There is no ‘we.’ Go away.”
It took her a moment to realize I wasn’t singing at her any more, hadn’t been since I asked the painter’s name.
“Go where?”
“I don’t care.”
“Can—is it okay if I shift?”
“I told you, I don’t care. Just go.”
When she had loped away, head down and long tail dragging, I got up from the log and walked to the center of the clearing, where I could see more of the sky. The moon, two nights past full, was still riding high in the sky. The tears began to fall, and I didn’t need to be a wolf to howl.
About the Author
Elizabeth Zelvin is a New York City psychotherapist and author of the Bruce Kohler mystery series and the Diego Mendoza and Admiral Columbus historical series. Her short stories have been nominated three times for the Agatha Award and once for the Derringer Award for Best Short Story. Liz is also a singer-songwriter whose album of original songs, Outrageous Older Woman, was released in 2012. Learn more about Liz on her author website at http://elizabethzelvin.com and her music website at http://lizzelvin.com.
Works by Elizabeth Zelvin
Novels
Death Will Get You Sober (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
Death Will Help You Leave Him (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
Death Will Extend Your Vacation (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
Voyage of Strangers (A Diego Mendoza and Admiral Columbus Novel)
E-Novellas
Death Will Save Your Life (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
Shifting Is for the Goyim (An Emerald Love Mystery)
Short Stories
Death Will Tank Your Fish & Other Stories
"Death Will Tank Your Fish" (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
"The Silkie"
"Dress to Die"
"The Saxon Hoard"
"Choices"
"Death Will Tie Your Kangaroo Down" (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
"Death Will Trim Your Tree" (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
"Death Will Clean Your Closet" (A Bruce Kohler Mystery)
"The Green Cross" (A Diego Mendoza and Admiral Columbus Story)
"Navidad" (A Diego Mendoza and Admiral Columbus Story)
"The Emperor's Hoard"
"Girl Feeding Birds"
"A Breach of Trust"
"Death Will Fire Your Therapist" (forthcoming)
Music
Liz Zelvin: Outrageous Older Woman (CD or mp3)
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