“Your shirt?” the Otter prompts me.
Right, because he’s naked — we’re talking full frontal and backside exposed. Only a few yards away is public parkland. Even with the stormy weather, anyone from the festival might wander this way. I peel my shirt off, toss it at him, and ask Kayla, “You all right?”
She stands and wrings muddy water out of her clothes. “All right enough.”
Once he’s in nearly human form, though still furry, the Otter’s able to get my shirt over his head. He’s short enough that it falls almost to his knees. “Evan,” he says. “I’m Evan.”
Evan is trim but soft-bellied and has spiky light-brown hair.
I ask, “Where are you from?”
“Bartlesville, Oklahoma.” He points to the carousel. “Somehow I got over there.” Which is enough of a mystery that you’d think it’d occupy his full attention.
Instead, he takes three swift steps to Kayla, reaches for her arm, catching her off-balance, and bends her back in a passionate clinch.
It’s a move I’ve considered once or twice myself, big with the romantic drama, but not right after the girl in question has nearly drowned and vomited.
WHEN I REGISTER EVAN’S TONGUE slipping into my mouth, I jerk back and flip him hard over my shoulder. Behind me, Yoshi laughs as the Otter flies into the murky river with a splash.
Undaunted, he lunges back up, bobbing in the tumultuous water. “I must have you! I must taste your every crevice and —”
“Evan!” Yoshi shouts. “There will be no crevice tasting. Wake up and smell the eye of newt. You’re bewitched!”
“Bewitched, besotted, all I am, sweet lady Cat, is burning for your love.”
Somebody flunked his Shakespeare unit.
Hyperaware of my revealing wet top, I hold up my hand in warning. “I don’t care if he might’ve saved my life. I cannot deal with this.”
When I run in Cat form, I always wait to shift until I’m on the forest side of the water, deep inside the cover of the brush and trees. It’s like entering another world — dark, private, safe. But the river doesn’t seem like much of a welcome mat anymore, at least not when it’s trying to kill me. After several tedious moments, Yoshi — alas, no longer shirtless — returns from escorting the Otter to retrieve his stashed clothes. Was it only last night that we searched this same patch of woods for Peter’s? Nakedness has never before been such a pressing concern in my life.
Yoshi announces, “I warned him that if he touched you again —”
“I can take care of myself,” I insist as Aimee and Junior come into view, far downriver. I realize the fact that Evan rescued me negates my point, but I dare Yoshi to challenge me on it.
“I know,” the Cat replies with a tight grin. “I told him you’d shred his junk like a scratching post.”
I did not need that mental image. “Where did Evan go?” I ask, wandering alongside Yoshi toward the paved path.
“I pointed him up toward the festival to get some chow.”
Fair enough, but I don’t like the way Yoshi’s studying me. “What?”
“You sent Darby the Deer home?” he asks, like I haven’t already said so.
I sink onto the metal park bench. “My parents did. What were we supposed to do, keep him?” When Yoshi doesn’t reply, I add, “Why? What difference does it make?”
“He’s enchanted, and you’re responsible for him.”
“And for Evan? And Peter? And you?” I exclaim. “I didn’t ask for this to happen.”
“You’re a Cat, and you shared that information with a human —”
“Who’s dead because of it. I loved Ben. Don’t you understand that? How is it that I haven’t been punished enough?” I don’t need this right now. I get up and jog away from Yoshi to meet Aimee and Junior and his cat. Keeping me in sight, Yoshi lets me go.
Sure, it’s fine to tell Aimee what you are. She’s fine with it. She’ll rush to help you with your shifter-related, fatal mystical crisis, whereas Ben . . . caused it.
Moments later, I’m blinking back tears as Aimee greets me with, “What did Yoshi do?”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“You’re too fond of that word,” Aimee observes.
It’s impossible to skirt the festival without being seen. It’s spilled over into the neighborhood. People are everywhere. Yoshi and I are still drying out and look a little river-battered. Cuts. Scrapes. My hair is a disaster.
“Well, what do we have here?” Sheriff Bigheart wants to know, giving Junior a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Aren’t you hot in that getup, son?”
“I’m with the snow-cone people,” he replies in a cheerful voice. “I came early to help set up, but they’re caught in traffic behind a wreck on Highway Seventy-One.”
“There’s a wreck on Seventy-One?” is the reply. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”
It occurs to me that a cop won’t swallow any old story and has the means to fact-check it. “Are you sure it was Seventy-One?” I ask. Offering my best A-student grin, I explain, “He’s not from around here.”
“Uh-huh.” Pulling his phone out, the sheriff gives us a vague wave and moseys off. “Stay out of trouble, Kayla.” His voice deepens in warning. “You and your new friends.”
Yoshi points at Junior. “Let me or Aimee handle any future cover stories.”
He leaves me out of it. Apparently, I’m not smart enough to finesse my own hometown.
We find a nervous-looking Evan, drinking Dr Pepper out of a can and nibbling on beer-batter-fried fish on a stick. He looks fine. Only his hair is still damp. He makes no eye contact and angles his body away from me, even if he is sneaking glances at my butt and boobs. I’ll have to remember to thank Yoshi later for coming up with such an effective threat.
“Is there a dunking tank?” five-year-old Joey Bratton asks, eyeing me as he skips by.
“A filthy one?” asks Mrs. Bratton, handing him a bright red balloon.
Never mind that I’m all cut up and in the company of a head-to-toe furry kid. People are fine with that. My being wet, dirty, and in the company of strangers, including strange boys?
Fascinating.
I gesture toward a side street and lead the others behind Betty’s Baubles, which deals in all manner of rhinestone jewelry and cowgirl clothing but is best known for its jalapeño jam. “This isn’t going to work,” I announce. “I can bring Aimee home, maybe Yoshi. But Junior is —”
“We could go back to Granny Z’s,” Junior points out, snuggling his cat. “Me and Blizzard and Yoshi and Evan.” He strikes a rapperlike pose. “Boyz in the house.”
It’s not a bad idea. She did say we’d need the cabin and were welcome to it. It never occurred to me to leave Junior there alone, but I’m not about to introduce Evan to my parents, either. He may be a pervert only because he’s enchanted, but he’s still a pervert.
“What about Peter?” Yoshi asks.
My instincts are telling me he’s never far. I swallow hard. “What about him?”
Yoshi replies, “He’s unstable, dangerous —”
“I can be dangerous, too.” I take a step and rise on my toes so we’re nose to nose.
As Yoshi laughs — laughs — at me, the others take a giant step back. “Listen, kitten, you’ve got the equipment” — Speaking of perverts, is that a leer? —“but you don’t know what to do with it.” Somehow I get the feeling he’s not just talking about my teeth and claws.
“Time out.” Aimee shoves herself in between us and stares up at him. “You go to the cabin with Evan and Junior.” Addressing the Otter, she asks, “Do you have a phone?” At the shake of his head, Aimee withdraws hers and hands it to Yoshi. “You’ll probably need this. I bet my phone is the only one that wasn’t drowned. We’ll call you later.”
“Do I get a say in this?” Evan wants to know.
“No!” comes the answer from everyone but Junior.
Evan reaches for the dr
y phone. “I have to call my —”
Yoshi holds it away from him. “And tell your whoever what, exactly? You can’t mention the spell, and you can’t leave town until we get this all sorted out.”
“Who put you in charge?” Evan asks, puffing up.
Yoshi lets out a low warning rumble, and Evan seems to shrink inside his own skin. The male Cat’s not in charge, but there’s some kind of pecking order between different types of shifters. I’m grateful to be a predator species.
Not that Aimee, a petite human girl, seems the least bit intimidated. “Hopefully, we’ll have this cracked in no time,” she tells Evan in a soothing voice. “And between now and then, we can come up with a plausible explanation for your disappearance. I hate having to do that to your family, but right now you have to trust me when I say it’s necessary for your safety and ours.”
I can tell Yoshi doesn’t appreciate being dismissed. If he were in Cat form, his ears would be flat against his head, but he pivots, leading the other two guys away.
Aimee’s word carries a lot of weight.
As they trail after Yoshi, Junior claps the Otter on the back. “You can say you ran away to join a traveling carnival! We’ll call you Otter Boy. I even know some carnies who’ll vouch for you.”
The drying mud on my skin makes it feel itchy. Ditto the scrapes where my skin has already begun to knit. Passing what was once Ben’s house, I say to Aimee, “You’re not afraid.”
“Of what?” she asks, glancing around the historic neighborhood.
“Me, Yoshi, Evan, your boyfriend, Clyde,” I reply. “Werepeople in general.”
“From what you and Yoshi have said, I’m not a fan of that Peter guy, at least not so long as he’s in a mystical state.”
“Mutual,” I reply. “But that’s about his behavior, not his species.”
Aimee’s smile is slight, almost apologetic. “It’s not like I’m joining hands and protesting down the streets of Birmingham or even starting up an ‘I Like Shifters’ page on —”
“No,” I reply. “You’re loving people as individuals. You’re loyal to them, you sacrifice for them, and not to score political points or to congratulate yourself on your sensitivity.”
It occurs to me that I could be friends with her for real. We’re already moving in that direction, and it’s not like with Jess Bigheart or practically everyone else in the world. I don’t have to risk that she’ll reject me based solely on what I am. I already know she accepts me.
I don’t have to worry that revealing my secret will place her in any more danger than she’s already placed herself in.
“Thanks,” Aimee says, blushing. “Let me guess. You scored high verbal on your SATs.”
“I did better on . . . why?”
This time the smile reaches her eyes. “Call it a hunch.”
I pick up my mail on the way into the house. One letter doesn’t have a stamp on it or, for that matter, an address: just my name. “I don’t recognize the handwriting.”
“Hmm.” Aimee sinks to her knees, greeting the yelping Peso. “Hey, little guy!”
Meanwhile, I open the envelope in the foyer. “It’s Peter,” I announce. “He dropped by while we were out.” I hand her the letter. “And left this.” The note reads:
Don’t underestimate the danger you’re in.
I will come for you when the moment is right.
It’s signed with a Coyote paw print.
Aimee studies the words and the mark on the paper. “There are scarier things in the world that a lone teenage werecoyote, but that doesn’t mean we should underestimate him.”
I snatch the note away. “Call Yoshi on my parents’ landline in the kitchen. Tell him to come back to the house. I’m going to brush, rinse, and take a very long, very hot shower. Maybe two.”
“LEAVE YOUR SHOES ON THE STEP,” Kayla orders at the back door, about a half hour after Aimee called to summon me to protect them. Not that she put it in those words.
I don’t admit what a relief that was. Or how much my ego appreciated it.
Kayla adds, “No mud on my mother’s rugs. Laundry and bathrooms are upstairs. Do not use the shower in the master suite; use the one off the hall. Once you’re clean, look in my dad’s wardrobe for an old bathrobe. Do not touch anything else in my parents’ room. Until you’re clean, don’t touch anything else — period.” When I roll my eyes at Aimee over her shoulder, Kayla says, “Go on. You’re nothing to look at and smell worse.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to leave Junior with Evan?” Aimee asks. “We barely know him.”
“We barely know Junior,” I point out, shucking my shoes off. “Besides, Evan’s an Otter. A randy one, but they’re known for their upbeat temperament.”
At her raised brow, I add, “Look, I’m not trying to stereotype. ‘Chipper Otters’ and all that. But he was decent company on the hike back to the cabin, though he did wax poetic about . . .” I try not to let my gaze fall to Kayla’s chest, but she catches me looking. “Your, uh, assets.” Smooth, Kitahara, very smooth. “There’s fresh water, plenty of food in the cabin cupboards, and fish in the pond. They’ll be fine until Father Ramos arrives to fetch Junior.”
“Speaking of which,” Aimee says, putting her hand out, “my phone?”
I return it to her, and she excuses herself to make the call.
By the time I return in Mayor Morgan’s frayed robe, the girls have raided the refrigerator for snacks. The microwave beeps. Aimee pulls out a ceramic bowl of steaming queso and sets it next to serving baskets of blue tortilla chips, veggie potato chips, and kettle corn.
Right now Aimee’s is our only personal phone that works, though the girls have slipped mine and Kayla’s into a zippered plastic bag filled with white rice in hopes that it’ll draw out the water. I’m not optimistic that it’s going to work. Lifting the bag, I shake the rice around like I’m breading chicken. “At least my phone was cheap. I can pick up a new —”
Kayla slams a hefty beef sausage onto a plate, cracking the ceramic, and then gasps at what she’s done. Aimee purses her lips, and though I don’t read people as well as she does, I can smell the frustration and anxiety coming off Kayla. She’s not quite at her wit’s end, but she doesn’t know her own strength. It visibly shocks her back to her previously composed self.
Kayla holds up one finger, takes a deep breath, and prompts, “Aimee?”
Straightening in a kitchen chair, Aimee reports, “Father Ramos is leaving Chicago after he ‘puts out a few fires.’ He hopes to pull in here tomorrow night around ten-ish, depending on traffic. He’ll call when he hits town limits.”
“That’s one problem solved.” Kayla hands me the note from Peter. “Technically, it helps that the shifters being teleported by the carousel are drawn to me —”
I scan it.
“Except that we aren’t all friendly,” I say, finishing the note. Son of a bitch — what a psychopath. I sniff the piece of paper. It carries the faint scent of Coyote and cheesy fried chicken. Peter has been at the fest downtown. He’s walking the streets, not cowering, Coyote-style, in the shadows. He’s confident and unashamed.
I set the note on the table beside the popcorn. It’s written on the back of a deposit slip in blue ball-point ink. Now we know Peter stopped by the First National Bank of Pine Ridge, which means he’s probably been video recorded.
Given this documentation and the number of pics of Kayla on his phone, it wouldn’t be hard to prove he’s been stalking her. Still, that could draw unwelcome attention (and too many questions) to us as well, so I file that away as a plan of last resort. I never thought I’d consider turning a fellow wereperson over to human law enforcement, but if that’s what it takes to protect Kayla, I’ll do it.
Aimee asks, “What about the carousel figures? How could we track them down?”
As I circle around to the counter and pluck a knife from the cutlery holder, Kayla swings into the chair beside Aimee’s. The Cat girl says, “The Stubblefield sisters pro
mised to resell them outside of Bastrop County.”
“Stubblefield,” I echo, moving to slice the sausage. “That name sounds familiar.”
“Sassy older ladies, sisters . . . They own Stubblefield’s Secrets on Main,” Kayla informs me. “It’s the two-story storefront across from the cotton-candy booth, the one with the antique birdcage on the sidewalk.”
Still carving the sausage, I say, “What with their Old West design, the carousel figures are fairly unique items. Can I borrow your computer?”
“In my bedroom,” she replies. “The password is CalTech1891.”
I’m sure she’ll change it later. But I should have a few minutes to poke around.
The ornately carved staircase groans as I jog up to Kayla’s room. Within seconds, I’ve booted her laptop and logged on. I do a main file search of “Benjamin Bloom” and pull up dozens of photos. Whenever Ben’s not looking at the camera, he’s looking at Kayla.
Every humanoid species — Tasmanian weredevils, yetis, Homo sapiens — has its own variation of body language (though we werepeople are reared to mimic the latter’s). The way he’s smiling, touching her arm, his eyes . . . I can almost see why Kayla trusted him with her secret. Poor kid. When their relationship went south, it must’ve felt like a meteor hit.
My instincts tell me he never meant for all this to happen. He never meant to put her in danger. However screwed up in the head, Ben loved her. On some level, she knows that.
It must make all of this so much harder.
I click to open the browser’s search history, highlight, and delete.
“I’M SORRY ABOUT YOUR BOYFRIEND,” Aimee says again. “I mean, your ex-boyfriend.”
“I’m fine,” I repeat. I don’t know these people. I owe them because it’s my fault Yoshi’s here and Evan, too, and Darby in Fort Worth and even Peter, wherever he might be, and of course Aimee came on Yoshi’s account. But I don’t owe them the whole truth of Ben and me.
I’m not sure I even know the whole truth of Ben and me.
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