Othermoon

by Nina Berry

  Morfael tapped his staff five times on the floor, one time for every shifter tribe still in existence. He bowed his head, and the five council members did the same. I watched them, trying to gauge how they might feel, until the rat-shifter peeked up from under her brows and gave me a playful frown. I hurriedly bowed my head.

  “Welcome to this special meeting of the Western Regional North American Council, Morfael,” said the lynx-shifter.

  “Greetings, Chief of the Council, Lady Lynx,” said Morfael in a dry formal tone, exactly as he had at my first Council meeting.

  “At the request of my wolf-shifter colleague, we will dispense with further formalities and get down to business,” she said. “First, I’m sorry to report that my colleague in the Asian Council has no information that can help us trace Desdemona’s family. No one there has been in touch with a tiger-shifter in over two decades, and they have no reports of an abandoned tiger-shifter child. I’m sorry, Desdemona. I had hoped to have news for you.”

  “Thank you for trying,” I said. It wasn’t surprising, but still it hurt to hear that even at the highest levels, no one knew who my biological parents were. And yet I almost felt something like relief too. It was like I didn’t know what to feel.

  The lynx said, “We’ve all heard there was some excitement at your school earlier this winter, and that you have now reconvened in a new location. I hope the transition is going smoothly.”

  “Excitement!” The wolf said, in something like a bark. “You call Tribunal attacks on school grounds, helicopters crashing, and the burning of a Tribunal compound ‘excitement’? How about disaster?”

  “And I hear you’re now harboring a member of the Tribunal,” said the hawk.

  “Amaris has changed her allegiance,” said Morfael. “I am satisfied.”

  “She’s the daughter of the Tribunal Bishop Ximon, our most avid enemy,” said the bear, her brow furrowed.

  “Amaris suffered more at the hands of her father than any of you ever have,” I said, unable to keep still. Caleb moved closer to me supportively. “Morfael knows she’d do anything to help us against him.”

  “Do not assume you know how much others have suffered,” said the lynx, startling me a bit with her chastising tone. She’d been my biggest proponent before. “Bishop Ximon is directly responsible for the deaths of many, long before you came on the scene.”

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered. She was right. There was no way for me to know who had suffered and how. But they had no idea of the hell Ximon had put Amaris through.

  “If this reckless child isn’t prevented from provoking him, Ximon will be responsible for many more deaths,” said the hawk.

  “Provoking him?” The lynx frowned at her monitor. For a moment, I could see the predatorlike focus in her round dark eyes. “As you may recall, it has always been Ximon who’s provoked violence and disruption. He ordered the kidnapping of Miss Grey before she even knew she was a shifter. And he ordered the attack on Morfael’s school without provocation—an attack on children from each of our tribes.”

  “Miss Grey is a tiger, so her kidnapping is no concern of the wolves,” said the wolf in his gruff voice. “And if she hadn’t been at the school, Ximon’s attack never would have happened.”

  “Yes,” the hawk said, steepling his long fingers in front of him. “If others in the Council had voted differently last time, Miss Grey would not have stayed at the school, and that attack would never have happened.”

  “So now the Council is to blame?” The rat-shifter adjusted a loose lock of her shiny black hair. “Who else besides Ximon would you like to condemn, bird?”

  “It is a little like criticizing a rich man for having a nice house when it gets robbed, rather than the thief who broke in,” said the bear. “One of my tribe was kidnapped in that raid on the school. He might not have been restored to his family if Miss Grey and the other students hadn’t rescued him.”

  “Not to mention that the Tribunal compound was destroyed, and Ximon forced to flee and regroup,” said the lynx. “Miss Grey and her friends achieved more in that rescue than any other shifters in the last two hundred years.”

  “Only because we all worked together,” I said. “Think how much more we could achieve if every member of every shifter tribe cooperated like that.”

  The rat nodded, looking thoughtful, but the wolf snorted derisively. “The result of this so-called cooperation is that the homes of many of the students in the school were raided the other night by the Tribunal. Laurentia’s mother killed one intruder, but another got away.”

  I had to think for a minute when she used London’s true name. None of us called her Laurentia anymore.

  “We need to rid ourselves of this girl, the one who started all of this,” said the hawk. “Who knows what fresh scheme Ximon is planning?”

  “That’s exactly what we need to find out!” I said. “Together, children from each of your tribes, along with Caleb and Morfael, stopped an entire Tribunal force intent on capturing or killing all of us. Arnaldo Perez, in his eagle form, brought down their helicopter single-handed. If we can do that, think how much more you adults could do if you just tried.”

  The bear and the lynx were nodding while the rat took her hair down and began to reassemble her bun, a slight smirk on her face. “Imagine a world without the Tribunal trying to wipe us out,” she said. “Or maybe my bird and wolf friends prefer to live in fear?”

  The wolf growled a little to himself, but said nothing. My heart lifted. It seemed as if the Council members were still three to two in my favor. Maybe it was possible for the vote to go my way.

  “Yes, I think the rat representative, the bear, and I see eye to eye on this,” the lynx was saying. “Shall we cast our votes on whether Desdemona Grey should be allowed to stay at Morfael’s school for the rest of the year?”

  “I’d like to inform the Council of just one more point, if I may,” said the hawk, lowering his hands and staring balefully into his camera. “Last night an eagle-shifter named Rafael Perez was taken to a jail in Wickenburg, Arizona, on charges of child abuse. His two sons, Luis and Cordero, were put in county foster care and will remain there unless a close relative willing to take them can be found. You see, someone anonymously called humdrum Child Protective Services yesterday morning and told them Mr. Perez was beating his children. When they arrived, they found physical evidence of abuse, and both sons eventually told authorities it was at the hands of their father.”

  My heart was pounding so hard that I almost couldn’t hear his last few words. Morfael turned his head toward me, fingers tightening on his staff. I felt Caleb’s fingers cool against the hot skin on my arm. I was burning up from a thousand different emotions. But I stared right into the camera, determined not to look away. I wasn’t going to run from what I’d done.

  “An anonymous caller reported him—to the humdrums?” said the bear, her eyes widening.

  “I wonder who that could be?” said the wolf, bushy eyebrows thunderous over deep-set eyes now fixed on me.

  “The oldest Perez son, Arnaldo, was nowhere to be found,” the hawk-shifter continued. “The youngest Perez boy claims Arnaldo was kidnapped by a group of teenagers, while the middle son says Arnaldo went with them willingly.”

  A small silence fell. I fought the urge to tell them I’d been that anonymous caller, and that someone should have called for help a long time ago.

  “So it’s possible that Arnaldo called the authorities himself,” said the lynx.

  “Are Mr. Perez’s sons telling the truth?” asked the rat.

  “Who cares if it’s true?” the wolf shouted. “Did you hear him? Two raptor boys are in a humdrum foster home! I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “I was in a humdrum Russian orphanage till I got adopted by a humdrum,” I said. “I’m lucky to have found the mother I have.”

  “Lucky? Look how you turned out!” the wolf said, snarling. “Disobedient, head full of crazy ideas . . .”

 
“Make no mistake, this is an unacceptable situation,” said the hawk. “These boys are no longer connected to their tribe, and the bird-shifters have lost three of their kind in a single stroke.”

  “They’re not dead!” The words burst out of me before I could think. “No one’s lost. Mr. Perez drinks too much and he beats his sons. It’s awful! Everyone here knows that. Now he’ll have to stop hitting them. He might even get help to stop drinking.”

  “I knew it was you who made the call,” said the hawk. “As soon as I heard the news, I knew.”

  “Your people should have made that call long ago!” The words spat out of me with a savageness that surprised me. I was angry, furious that those kids had been left to cope with abuse and alcoholism on their own. “If you gave a damn about those kids, you’d have gone in and taken them out yourself.”

  I shot a look at Morfael, expecting him to tell me to be quiet. But he said nothing.

  “That call was not yours to make,” the bear said. She was looking very uncomfortable, like she was sitting on something hot. “You should have contacted us first. The raptor Council member would have taken the matter to his tribe. . . .”

  “And done nothing!” I threw my hands up in the air. “The same way you’ve done nothing about the Tribunal. You’re so afraid of anything different that you’re paralyzed.”

  “Afraid?” The wolf leaned forward menacingly. “You dare call us cowards?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, fuming. “All I’ve ever seen from you is fear—fear of the Tribunal that sends you scurrying into your holes. Fear of the other tribes, which prevents you from working together to get rid of the threats.”

  “Tiger arrogance,” huffed the wolf. “You’re not the top of the food chain here, girl!”

  All at once the anger whooshed out of me like air from a balloon. I felt very tired, and sad. Caleb’s warm hand found the small of my back reassuringly. His eyes were shining, bright with shared anger. His lips were pressed together tightly. He’d promised Morfael he wouldn’t say anything, and he hadn’t, but it was wearing on him. Our shared gaze gave me some strength.

  “I’m speaking as a human being,” I said. “To other human beings. If we don’t come together, the Tribunal has already won.”

  Their faces were too much of a mix for me to read: anger, confusion, pity, compassion. It didn’t matter. I was doomed. I’d exploded at them, and pushed myself into exile.

  “Are you human?” the hawk asked pointedly.

  My head jerked up. I stared at him.

  “I hear you have a second animal form,” he said.

  “What?” The lynx looked at me, shocked. “That can’t be true.”

  “It is true,” said Morfael. “But it is not unprecedented.”

  “If it’s true, then what is she?” The rat peered at me through her camera lens. “Is she tiger or cat? Humdrum or otherkin?”

  “Or something else entirely?” the bear said. “Is she some new threat?”

  That was it. The hawk had done his job well, turning even my allies against me. I looked over at Morfael, about to tell him to just end this already. I knew my fate. But Morfael didn’t look ruffled or worried. In fact, his pale, alien face looked vaguely pleased.

  “Desdemona is only a threat to your old way of thinking,” Morfael said. “The truth is that any one of you could also take an alternate animal form if you learned how.”

  The wolf laughed outright. “Are you trying to use this to recruit more students, caller of shadows? This is the death of your school, and you know it.”

  “The death of one thing leads to the birth of another,” said Morfael coolly. “You could shift into a fox if only your mind allowed it, just as the Lady Lynx could generate a cougar form.”

  The rat looked skeptical, but at least she didn’t look furious, like the rest of them. “Are you saying I could be a mouse if I just believed it?”

  Morfael nodded. “Or a squirrel or gopher. I advise you to try for other rodent forms first.”

  “First?” The bear’s voice shot up into the stratosphere. “Are you saying any of us could be . . . anything?”

  Morfael didn’t reply, but he was smiling.

  I looked at Caleb, blinking. He shook his head at me, wonder on his face.

  “I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” said the hawk. “I’m a hawk-shifter, nothing else, and never want to be. I ask the Chief of the Council to bring a vote now on whether Desdemona Grey should be allowed to remain at Morfael’s school.”

  “Very well.” The lynx’s voice was dull, full of misgiving. My heart sank. “I must, with regret, vote against.”

  “And I,” said the bear-shifter, shaking her head. “Most unfortunate, but this girl is clearly a bad influence.”

  “I vote for her to stay, for whatever that’s worth,” said the rat. “I’m sorry, Desdemona.”

  “You all know how I feel,” said the wolf. “Throw her out!”

  “And my vote makes four against.” The hawk’s voice was smug. “Pack your bags, tiger-shifter.”

  “The vote is four to one against Desdemona Grey,” the lynx said formally, and bowed her head. “Good luck to you in the humdrum world. For you are no longer a member of ours.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The next few minutes were a blur for me, but before the lynx hung up, she made it clear to Morfael that I had to be gone within twenty-four hours, or they would ask the members of their tribes to boycott his school. His current students would be withdrawn, and he would personally be shunned by shifter communities everywhere.

  “I understand,” was all he had said, and ended the call.

  What the hell am I going to do now?

  I leaned against the desk, suddenly exhausted, my shoulder touching the computer monitor as Morfael shut it down. Caleb put his arm around me, and a spark flew upward from the screen followed by a loud pop.

  We jumped back as a thin thread of smoke wafted from the monitor.

  I sighed. “Sorry.”

  Morfael’s pale eyes traveled from me to the monitor and back again. “After you have some breakfast, you and I will have a private lesson. You can learn to manipulate this ability with technology.”

  “Ability? More like a curse,” I said. Then what he said sank fully into my brain. “What do you mean, lesson? They just kicked me out!”

  He just lifted his eyebrows and nodded toward the door. Typical.

  I followed Caleb out, feeling sick. I stopped in the doorway and looked back at Morfael. “Should I start packing tonight, or . . . ”

  “He won’t kick you out, will you, Morfael?” asked Caleb. “Those bastards can’t tell you what to do.”

  “We will discuss this later,” Morfael said, and the firmness in his voice pushed us out the door.

  “This can’t be happening,” I said as Caleb and I treaded up the stairs. “If I don’t leave in twenty-four hours, the Council says they’ll tell everyone’s parents to pull their kids out—and that’s it! I just started feeling like I belong in this crazy world, and now I have to go?”

  “I don’t know,” Caleb said. “If I could get my hands on that damned hawk-shifter . . .”

  “What about Mom and Richard? If I go back and live with them, that brings the Tribunal down on them as well. Maybe I should change my name, start a new life. .”

  “Only if you take me with you,” he said.

  I stopped on the stairs, turning to him, and he wrapped his arms around me. I buried my face in his neck. “I can’t lose you,” I said. “At least here at the school, we’re with each other. If I go back home . . .”

  “Your mother wouldn’t want you anywhere else,” he said softly.

  My mother. He was right. She’d die of worry if I went out on my own. “Okay, so I have to go back to Vegas.” I pulled away to look at his face, tugging on his coat. “You’ll take me to Vegas when I go back, won’t you? It’s not a short drive. And maybe you could stay with us somehow, for a little while.”

  He sho
ok his head. “Don’t go there yet. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “And just when we’re on the verge of maybe finding something out about Ximon!” I pounded my fist on the railing. Anger was creeping in under my despair. “Maybe I should have told the Council about the particle accelerator. Do you think that would help? I could go back and tell them there’s this huge new threat, and they’d see I’m just trying to help. . . .”

  “Tell them there’s a huge Tribunal compound an easy drive from the school?” He frowned at me. “That would just make them want to bulldoze this place.”

  I sighed. “You’re right. What am I thinking?” And I turned to continue up the stairs.

  “You’re upset,” he said. “So am I. But there’s got to be a way to figure this out.”

  At the breakfast table, London wouldn’t look at me or Caleb and hadn’t touched the lone fried egg on her plate. November was oddly subdued, casting sideways glances at Siku. Amaris dropped silverware with a nerve-shattering clatter at unexpected intervals, and Arnaldo was silent and glum. Only Siku was dribbling honey all over everything and eating with his usual gusto.

  I picked at my food as the uncomfortable silence spread out and settled in for the long haul. Finally, it was too much. I had to tell Arnaldo about his family before he heard it from someone else. He might never forgive me otherwise.

  “The Council gave us some news on your dad,” I said. Next to me, Caleb moved restlessly, realizing what I was about to do.

  Arnaldo looked up from his plate, eyebrows shooting up. “Why didn’t you say anything? What happened?”

  “I . . .” Nothing to do but just say it. “I called Child Protective Services yesterday, and they went to your house, found evidence, and arrested your father for child abuse.”