by Cy Wyss
Eyeshine
Cy Wyss
Table of Contents
1. Spring Festival
2. Thieves
3. Repercussions
4. Ravine-ous River
5. Bedraggled
6. What Mutt Smelled
7. Oh, Brother
8. Pro Bono
9. Cookout
10. Funeral
11. Arrested
12. What Kitten Saw
13. Field Trip
14. Interrogated
15. Video
16. Nanci
17. Camping
18. Ruse
19. Suspect
20. Graveside
— 1 —
Spring Festival
People called Brooke Annabeth Taylor “PJ,” which stood not for pajamas but for Peeping Jane. She’d been a photographer and reporter for as long as the town could remember—at least since grade school—and her reportage was known for the most candid and impossible photos, like Peter Parker’s but from nearer the ground. Her job was made more difficult by her moniker because once people found out what it was, they shied away and wouldn’t tell her the secrets that are a reporter’s stock-in-trade. As she got older, it got harder and harder to convince anyone to give her a story. Now, at thirty, she was no longer “kitten cute” and able to wile her way easily into subjects’ confidence. Still, she managed to find a way. With her penetrating amber eyes and easy smile, people found her disarming. She loved her relationship as a freelance reporter with the town’s paper, and all the vagaries that life entails, such as being a night owl and an absolute bulldog for the truth. If she could have chosen her own moniker, it would have likely combined these: Owl Dog. It was particularly inappropriate, however, because she turned not into a bird or canine every night, but into a cat.
She had been a black tabby from sundown to sunup since shortly after puberty. She often wondered why other people didn’t morph into alternate beings for the dark hours, but was admonished very early on by a loving mother to never, never, ever speak a word of it to anyone. PJ liked to think that was because her mother had a similar power and had suffered, but it could have been due solely to the woman’s intelligence and sense of practicality.
PJ’s father had died when she was ten. The man was a scientist, an absent-minded chemist, and PJ was of two minds about his awareness. On the one hand, his cleverness meant surely he wouldn’t have been fooled by a mere wife, no matter how adept at deception; on the other hand, his absent-mindedness meant sometimes he forgot to wear shoes. So it wasn’t a stretch to think he might have no inkling about the bizarreness of his wife or daughter.
At sixteen, with PJ in limbo between childhood and womanhood, her mother suffered a tragic and debilitating stroke that took her life within months. PJ then moved in with her much older brother and his family. By then, she had become as adept as her mother at hiding her talent, in spite of the fact her brother was an FBI agent by that time, at twenty-nine, and extraordinarily difficult to deceive. It helped that after he witnessed firsthand the transformation from girl to cat, he immediately went into a long-lasting shock that consisted of utter denial. Instead of considering how her unique power could assist him in his life of crime fighting, he grounded her for a month and kept her largely confined to her room, especially after sundown.
PJ forgave Robert for locking her up, only because of her natural optimism and sense of personal grandeur. Honestly, grudges were beneath her, as were most things mere mono-modal humans did. She focused on her schoolwork and got all A’s that semester. Much later she discovered her brother had to take a polygraph test every year he was employed with the all-knowing government agency. PJ realized Robert had so thoroughly put the image of his sister becoming a black tabby cat out of his mind that he had convinced himself it wasn’t even a hallucination—it simply hadn’t existed at all. There’s no need to lie if you’re a true believer, and that was the most effective path for a forced deceiver. So PJ kept her secret, and Robert kept his job.
Fourteen years later, PJ was irrevocably known as Peeping Jane and Robert had traveled the country and come back in his forties to set up a one-man field office in Mayhap, Indiana. One day, PJ was out with her best friends Clara Goodwind and Vicky Donnerweise at the Mayhap Spring Festival when the sun dipped low on the horizon, threatening to bring the stars closer and the day to an end.
“PJ, why do you always leave just when things are getting interesting?” Clara said.
She was a buxom woman with big hazel eyes and bright red hair. Her wardrobe favored items with cats in evidence or implied by pithy sayings, such as “Meow Happens,” which her pink tube top currently sported. The woman was Taft County’s prime cat rescuer, with a warren of dedicated chicken-wire pens covering her backyard and a full-time feeding schedule. When she wasn’t volunteering at the county’s humane shelter, she was ensconced in a network of gossips centered at the Mayhap Memorial Library. Clara was an assistant librarian but party to all the good stories the town could provide. PJ found her an invaluable source. If it happened, or was going to happen, Clara knew about it and would talk.
Vicky stood with arms akimbo and watched PJ inhale an elephant ear. She was a striking woman with hair even blacker than PJ’s and blue eyes where PJ’s were yellow. Vicky was tall and muscular, like a man, but lither and hourglass-shaped inside the bulky kit she wore for law enforcement. She was one of Taft County’s deputies, second in their force only to Sheriff Curtis Denning, whom she happened to be married to.
“Land’s sake, PJ, how do you eat like that? You know I’m active all day, but I can’t eat three of those things without being ten pounds fatter tomorrow. Do you just stay up all night on the treadmill or what?”
A loud cry of enjoyment crescendoed from the fairway before PJ could answer, which was just as well since her mouth was filled with fried dough and she wouldn’t have gotten more than a grunt or two out. She didn’t have the heart to enlighten her friend. Every night, indeed, she ran the treadmill of being feline. She wandered miles in the summertime, searched every nook and cranny of the county, chased rodents and vermin, and napped only fitfully and with one eye open under the shifting moon.
She popped the last of the ear into her mouth and said, “It’s genetics. Some people are luckier than others.”
Vicky and Clara groaned.
Clara adjusted her pink-rimmed glasses and slurped her sno-cone. “At least I managed to keep myself to just one Devil Dog. And sno-cones have no calories after noon—everyone knows that.” Clara was constantly watching her figure, which didn’t seem to keep her from growing more buxom by the year. At the rate she was going, she would be a round octogenarian with a radiant smile in fifty years. PJ thought things could be worse.
“So you two coming two weeks from today or what?” Vicky said.
She was having a cookout, a common occurrence in the warmer months, and the Taylors and Goodwinds were regular fixtures. Everyone knew the cookouts were as much a bid to stuff the people of Taft County with reasons why the Denning clan should hold on to the sheriff-hood for the indefinite future, but everyone came anyway. Vicky’s ribs were legendary, and Curtis’s beer was as tasty and free flowing as anyone’s ever was. Today was Saturday, and two weeks from today was going to be the first big Donnerweise-Denning BBQ of the season.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” PJ said. “At least until sunset.”
Vicky rolled her eyes. “Because you turn into a pumpkin at sunset, right? We’ll never get to see nighttime you. Isn’t Doc Fred helping you with that?”
Doctor Fred Norton was Mayhap’s most celebrated, and only, psychiatrist. Apparently he was a third cousin twice removed to the iconic Oprah Winfrey and had once listened to her problems with aplomb, inspiring her to go on and listen
eternally to others. He was given a brief mention in a book of hers, which was now out-of-print. For Mayhap, that was all it took to secure one’s place in the annals of town history. He even had a special shelf in the library to display his pamphlets on the pluses of positive putation, despite the brochures containing more than their fair share of buzz non-words.
PJ’s cover story for disappearing every evening, no matter the weather or event, was a rare and debilitating overreaction to darkness. Everyone thought she ran home to sit in a bright room under full-spectrum lights so she could make it through the dark hours with her psyche intact, her odd and entrenched phobia notwithstanding. Doc Fred made a perfect corroborator. His acute sense of professional delicacy meant he could never confirm nor deny PJ’s hints that he was treating her without success for her illness. Perhaps he had spent the last decades sketching her case study, which would no doubt be picked up by the professional societies should it ever come to a positive conclusion.
“Sorry,” PJ said to Vicky, “I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Oh, right. Shrink’s privilege and all that.”
“Well, get going,” Clara said. “I don’t want to have to carry around any pumpkins your size after dark, if you turn into one.”
“Alrighty. Toodles, people.”
— 2 —
Thieves
PJ checked her watch. She had just over fifteen minutes to get home before sunset. The festival was in Mayhap’s Central Park, which was only five blocks from her home in Stoker Hills. Every town, no matter how affluent, has its less desirable parts, and Mayhap was no exception. Just south of downtown was a trailer park, hidden in the dead-end Lunar Lane and called Stoker Hills. It was about twenty plots, small, with the usual assortment of glorified tin cans and corrugated metal that Mayhap’s less fortunate called home. PJ flattered herself that she didn’t have to live there—she had a small but workable inheritance from her late parents—but she chose to live among the welfare and working classes. She used to say, “White trash? I fit right in.” But nowadays, with the growing foment against the haves in America, she saw things differently. She had a ton of friends in the Hills and didn’t like to see them belittle themselves. You didn’t need money to be a star, live the American dream, or get yourself and your kids a decent education. Stoker Hills was proof of that, and PJ reminded everyone of that every chance she got. Her latest mantra was, “Salt of the Earth? I fit right in.”
PJ passed through the park gates and under trees until she hit the road south of Main Street and took to the cobblestones. Above her, the sky was indigo, speckled with gray clouds. It was the rainy season and had lately been living up to its reputation, but this particular evening the spring festival had gotten a break. It wasn’t raining, and none of the fluffy clouds looked threatening enough to ruin the fun.
As PJ passed Main Street, she looked down its length. Mayhap was famous for its Main Street. American flags and budding flowers hung from the lampposts. Along the cobblestone-lined street, midcentury architecture shone in the form of brick buildings, columned white-washed facades, and painted white fences. It was a snapshot of a stereotype, a throwback to a more innocent time. PJ loved her town. Main Street never failed to give her a warm feeling.
She passed the bank and the Dairy Queen and headed past Second Street to where First Avenue turned into Lunar Lane. As she neared the Stoker Hills gates, she encountered a small black cat. She stopped briefly to look at him. He was still a kitten and couldn’t have been more than four months old. He had bright yellow eyes, as bright as PJs, one of which was seeping gooey liquid.
“Hey there, little fella,” she said.
The kitten was sitting under a tree next to the sidewalk and simply stared at her. He made no movement to run away.
PJ leaned down toward him. The kitten stood up and backed away several steps, still staring intently into her eyes.
“Easy, there. You know, I think you might have an eye infection.”
The kitten was on the verge of running away.
“I can’t stop now, but if you find me tomorrow, we can get that taken care of.”
Amber-colored eyes studied PJ carefully, as if trying to understand her words. PJ knew she couldn’t successfully communicate with animals in human form. Her soothing tone would put anyone at ease, but of course the kitten didn’t understand what she was saying. She checked her watch again. She had to keep going. She could only hope she’d catch sight of the kitten again and be able to help him.
“Bye, little guy,” she said and hurried up Lunar Lane through the open iron gate marking Stoker Hills.
The sky was nearly navy by the time she made it to her trailer and got inside. She laid her backpack on the table and went into her bedroom, where she retrieved a much smaller backpack made from a black, stretchy nylon. It held travel shorts and a shirt, which worked out to no more than an eighth of an inch wide when tightly folded and packed—hardly visible against the fur of her spine once she transformed. PJ also grabbed a collar made of easily pliable black elastic. The collar had a purple gem amid a silver setting. The gem was actually a voice-activated camera she had programmed to recognize a certain system of throaty growls she could make as a feline. Her growling signals were no louder than the whispering wind on a dark night and meant she could capture whatever her amber eyes saw before her, as long as she held her chin up.
This was all she needed: a change of clothes and her camera. The shorts and shirt were practical necessities in case she failed to make it home before she morphed again come sunup. Summer was easy. Winter was much tougher. Having no fur once she transformed and only travel shorts and a T-shirt, she’d once almost frozen to death during the walk home after getting herself stuck in a shed two miles from home on a freezing January night.
PJ had thought about putting other essentials, like a credit card, in her cat-pack, but one morning she lost the pack after it was snapped off by a tree branch and fell into a creek. After that, she carried nothing but expendable clothes—and used more caution around tree branches. That time, she had been stuck naked in the middle of a field at sunrise. Fortunately, she had found an old blanket in a nearby barn and made it home without undue attention. All she needed was to have the nickname Peeping Jane replaced with something worse about streaking in the early morning sun. And, how would her brother, Robert, react? If she were found naked in a field far from home, she’d never be able to convince him foul play wasn’t at work and he need not investigate. That was one of the downsides of having FBI in the family.
PJ put the collar around her neck and the cat-pack on the floor. She sat near the door and watched the last light of day receding through the high branches surrounding her trailer.
At sunset exactly, she felt her shoulders give way, narrow and dip, and her pelvis lift. Her head flattened, and her ears raced backward and lengthened. Her snout elongated as all the while she was shrinking and shrinking out of her clothes, until the collar was no longer tight and the elastic held it gently against her furry neck. She squirmed into the cat-pack, nosed open her cat door, and stepped onto the small concrete stoop in front of her trailer. The air was muggy and hot; her fur seemed damp upon leaving her air conditioning behind.
She looked around. The sun had set, but the air was still alight with the grayness of dusk. As she reposed on her haunches, a woman walked by with a boy in tow. PJ recognized Maija Tate and her son, Alex. Although Alex was sixteen, he had the mind of a much younger child.
He pointed at PJ. “Mommy, look! A kitty.” He rubbed thumb and forefingers together hopefully. “Kitty!”
His mom had a grip on his other arm and dragged him forward relentlessly. “Alex, no. We’re not stopping for a cat.”
“Backpack. Backpack!”
PJ thought Alex was probably referring to the small black cat-pack she wore. She was impressed the boy could make it out in the dim light.
“No, Alex, we don’t need your backpack,” Maija said. “Mommy has hers. Now come on,
otherwise we’ll be late for the carousel. It shuts down at nine.”
The pair headed off toward the main gate, Alex shuffling along beside his determined mom.
PJ left her perch on her stoop and headed into the underbrush surrounding her lot. She was sniffing around when she heard the approach of a large animal. The animal wasn’t trying to mask the sounds he made crashing through leaf and vine on his way toward PJ. PJ’s whiskers stood to attention, and she sniffed the air in the direction of the commotion. Shortly, a Saint Bernard mix emerged from the trees and stood before PJ.
Hey, Mutt. What’s new? she said.
Nothin.’ What’s new with you?
It wasn’t that PJ could understand or speak animal languages per se, because they were so rudimentary compared to human language. Everything PJ thought in her head seemed to have a translation, but she’d noticed that the more complicated the thought, the simpler the resulting meows, and there were countless distinct ideas that seemed to have the exact same translation. She had no idea how her cat mind translated her very human thoughts into odd sequences of meows, yips, and growls. Chalk it up to the magic of her ability. She had spent some time writing and studying the translation process, trying to capture herself on tape and painstakingly making a dictionary. What she ended up with were the basics. As a person, she could reliably tell an animal five things: don’t groom here, food over there, enemy alert, sleep well, and I’m in heat, take me now—the last of which she never used in practice, of course. She had no interest in producing litters of freaks like herself. She didn’t figure she would be a great procreator and didn’t even want to imagine how her shifts might affect any pregnancy.
Mutt sat down in front of PJ. She noticed he still had his collar around his neck, and a length of cord ran down his side and away from him into the underbrush.
I see you broke out again, she said.
Uh-huh, uh-huh. Mutt’s giant tongue lolled from his mouth, attempting to dispel some of the evening heat.