Still Life With Shape-Shifter

by Sharon Shinn

  I remember my father yelling, “Of course not!” into the phone, but surely the questions made him uneasy. The truth was, as I realized when I was a teenager, he had married Gwen without knowing very much about her. He’d never met any of her family members, even at the wedding; she only had one or two friends, and those she practically left behind once she became his wife. She was a deep mystery in a charming package, and the police were right to believe there were secrets in her life that would explain her disappearance and that she would come back on her own.

  I have no idea what she told my father about those early absences, how she explained her actions and convinced him to trust her again. I’m certain she continued lying about her motivations until finally, left with no other options, she unwillingly told him the truth. But for a while, her strangeness, her erratic behavior didn’t matter. Because eighteen months after she married my father, when I was ten, Ann was born. And she became the center, the heart, the lodestone of everyone in the house.

  I had never been around babies before and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew from TV shows that they cried all the time and from commercials that they smiled when you put them in fresh diapers. And Ann did indeed wail whenever she was unhappy, and she did indeed go through an astonishing number of Huggies. Gwen had had an uncomplicated delivery but she recovered slowly, so I quickly learned how to change the baby, how to calm her, how to feed her. From the beginning, I considered Ann my responsibility at least as much as she was my father’s or Gwen’s.

  And I loved her more than I loved anyone else in the world.

  I was probably eleven or twelve the night I lay awake thinking fairly deep existential thoughts. I had heard noises downstairs—which turned out to be my father and Gwen talking in the kitchen—but I had initially worried that the sounds were caused by burglars. My first thought was that I would hide in my closet so they wouldn’t find me. My second thought was that I must get Ann and hide her in the closet with me. Otherwise, I knew, they would steal her; there could hardly be a greater treasure in the house.

  From imagining criminals breaking in to rob us, I went to thinking up other disasters. Fires, tornadoes, unspecified apocalypses that leveled the house and rendered the whole neighborhood a smoking ruin. In every scenario, I was the one to grab Ann and flee with her to some compromised haven. Gwen and my father were left behind to blow away or burn.

  In the years since then, I’ve heard other people talk about their own complex childhood fantasies, in which they run away from home or find themselves tossed out without a penny. They describe elaborate story lines of camping in the woods, living on ants and mushrooms, building huts, finding water, carrying on their lives unencumbered by parental supervision. I’m sure it’s some kind of ritual of passage; I’m sure it’s the child’s way of testing out the ways he or she will behave as an adult.

  But mine feels different to me. It is not so much a wishful fantasy as willing acceptance of a clear-cut duty. Ann needed someone to take care of her, watch over her, protect her, guide her, love her. I was obviously the only one qualified for the job. I’m not sure there was a time you could have asked me, from the minute she was born until this very day, when I would have given a different answer to the question Who does Ann belong to? She’s mine.

  And that’s why it is killing me to think she is in danger and I cannot help her and I cannot find her, for I cannot live if she is lost.

  * * *

  Debbie offers me a ride home, but the AAA guy shows up at five minutes to five and changes the tire with no fuss. I’m on my way home a half hour later, squinting against the setting sun. I make three turns through the heart of Dagmar, then I’m on the first winding loop of Bonhomme Highway, the two-lane road that will take me all the way to my door. It’s early March, so the trees that crowd up against both sides of the road are still mostly bare, but I’m starting to feel a little hopeful. It can’t be much longer until spring, can it? One day soon, the branches will bud and blossom and explode into greenery. One day soon, winter will surely be gone.

  Ann has been in my mind so strongly all day that I start wondering if there’s a reason. Is she on her way home? Will she be waiting for me when I pull up in front of the house? Will she be sitting on the front porch, curled up in the chilly spring sunshine, or will she have remembered where I keep the spare key and let herself inside? You’d think the hope, or the uncertainty, would have sent me home at a faster rate, eager to see her and hug her thin body to mine, but instead I dawdle. I stop at the grocery store to pick up coffee and fruit and bread, items I don’t really need; I pause at a service station for gas though I still have half a tank left.

  I don’t want to go home, that’s the truth. I don’t want to get closer and closer to my house and feel my chest tighten with hope. I don’t want to skid onto the gravel bed at the edge of the lawn so fast that the rocks spew up from my tires. I don’t want to run to the door, almost dropping the keys in my nervousness, calling out her name. I don’t want to dash from room to room, checking, just making sure, thinking maybe she’s asleep in her bedroom or maybe she’s outside, running barefoot across the back acres. I don’t want to go home because until I know for sure she isn’t there, I can still believe she might be.

  But just in case she’s there, I have to go home.

  The last mile of my journey takes me past Markham Manors, Kurt’s new development, where more than half the homes are still under construction. As I always do, I drive straight past, keeping my eyes fixed on the road. When I swing the Cherokee onto the gravel patch, I note that parts of the lawn are starting to show green, the front gutter looks loose—and Ann is not perched on the small front porch, waiting for me. My groceries are in two sturdy cotton bags, and I carry them in one hand while I shake the house key loose in the other. I’ve promised myself I won’t call my sister’s name as I step into the house, but I can’t help myself. Ann? Ann? Are you here?

  There’s no answer. There’s no blond girl sleeping on the sofa, in her room, in mine. There’s nothing in the house at all but old furniture, older memories, useless worry, and helpless love. I feel my chest cave in with the oppressive G-force of disappointment. Grocery bags still in my hands, I lean my head against the chilly white surface of the refrigerator and forbid myself to cry.

  * * *

  I have not been home for more than fifteen minutes when there’s a knock on the front door. My heart gives a painful squeeze. Could that be Ann? Was I right, after all, to expect her home tonight, simply wrong about the timing? I lay aside the newspaper and jump up from the couch, trying not to run, reminding myself that Ann would not be content with a single polite knock but would be pounding the wood, ringing the doorbell, calling my name. This will be a local kid selling magazines or a siding salesman here to tell me my house looks like it needs a lot of work. No one I want to talk to.

  So I’m already wearing a closed and somewhat forbidding expression as I open the main door, keeping the screen door shut and latched. “Yes?” I say coldly.

  The person I see through the mesh is a stranger, a man who might be in his early thirties. He’s not too tall and so good-looking that I instantly think I’ve seen him somewhere, maybe in a movie or television show. His hair is dark and just a little shaggy, but the careless style softens a face that is classically handsome—straight nose, firm chin, molded lips, the eyes a soulful brown. He’s wearing jeans and a bulky fisherman’s sweater, but I can tell he’s got a slim, wiry build. He’s in good shape. Not a jock, like Kurt, but he takes care of himself, works out at the gym, maybe runs, plays volleyball in a neighborhood league.

  “Are you Melanie Landon?” he asks.

  Dagmar is a small town. Even when strangers come to your door, they’re usually related to someone you work with or went to school with or meet every week at the store. The fact that this guy has to ask the question means he’s a true out-of-towner. There seems to be no point in denying my identity, but my voice is frosty as I reply, “Who’s aski
ng?”

  “I’m Brody Westerbrook.”

  The name is as teasingly familiar as the face, but I can’t place it. “And what do you want, Brody Westerbrook?”

  “You’re Melanie Landon, aren’t you?” he says. When I don’t answer, he steps a little closer to the door; I get the impression he wants to press his nose against the screen and peer inside. “The sister of Ann Landon?”

  My breath catches in my throat, and then, before I know what I’m planning, I’ve pushed through the screen door to join him on the porch. “What’s wrong with Ann? Is she hurt? Where is she?” The words come so fast they trip over each other like clumsy puppies.

  His face shows comprehension and dismay as he realizes what he’s done. “No—no, I’m sorry, I don’t have any news about her, I was just—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  For I’ve turned aside to hide my face, but I can’t stop the tears from welling up, and they’re followed quickly by great tearing sobs that feel as if they’re ripping my ribs apart. I put one hand over my eyes, one hand over my mouth, trying to stuff the tears back inside, but they won’t stop. I hear the ragged, forlorn catch of my breath, and if I had any energy left to be embarrassed, I would be mortified at the display I am making before a total stranger.

  He’s mortified enough on his own account. “Miss Landon—Melanie—I am so, so sorry. Could you—would you—why don’t you sit down? Can I go into the house and get you some water? Would that be okay?”

  I can’t speak an answer, so I shake my head and try to blunder back inside, but I’m crying so hard I can’t even manage that much. I stumble into him and he automatically raises his arms to help me catch my balance. And then, as if he doesn’t know what else to do, he tentatively puts his arms around me and draws my head against his shoulder.

  God help me, it has been so long since I’ve allowed myself to weep in somebody’s arms that I rest my cheek against his sweater and let myself cry. He smells like cotton and aftershave and some kind of deodorant soap. He’s just the right height to comfort me, taller than I am by three or four inches, and I can feel how easily he braces himself to take my weight as I sag against him. He’s not hugging me, not exactly, but he’s wrapped one arm loosely around my waist and he’s patting me with his free hand, and for a moment, just a heartbeat or two, I believe that maybe everything will be all right.

  And then I pull back and straighten up and spare a moment to think how horrific I must look, with a splotchy face, reddened eyes, and running nose. “I’m so sorry,” I say with the shreds of dignity I can gather. “I’ve had a very bad day.”

  “I’m the one who should be apologizing,” he replies. “If I’d thought—I just didn’t realize—maybe I should come back some other time.”

  Once you’ve wept in a man’s arms, it’s hard to rudely demand that he state his business or vacate your property. “Some other time might not be as different as you’d hope,” I say with an attempt at lightness. “If you promise me you’re not a serial killer, I’ll invite you in for a soda or a glass of water.”

  He hesitates, which I think is interesting. He’s obviously come here looking for something, and my breakdown has no doubt led him to believe I’m in a vulnerable state; now would be the perfect time for an unscrupulous man to push his advantage. “I’d love a soda,” he says after a moment, “but I’m not so sure you’re going to feel like talking to me once I tell you what I’m here for.”

  I raise my eyebrows, but a sense of foreboding acts within me like a wash of adrenaline. I feel my tears start drying, my muscles cording to land the punch or withstand the blow. I wipe my sleeve across my face to clear away the last traces of moisture. “So why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” I ask in an even voice.

  He gazes at me steadily. He really does have a beautiful face, and the earnest expression just makes it more appealing. “I’m a journalist,” he says. “Well, I used to be. I quit my job a couple of months ago so I can work on a book. I want to write about something most people don’t even believe exists.”

  “Oh God,” I say.

  I recognize him now. Brody Westerbrook, of course. He was the Channel 5 news reporter who broke that awful, that terrible story about a series of murders that happened last year in the western St. Louis suburbs. All the deaths were attributed to some kind of mysterious animal that forensics guys couldn’t identify and eyewitnesses couldn’t describe. When the police and the park rangers finally tracked down the marauding creature, it was loping through the cluttered wilderness of Babler State Park. A news helicopter offered a live feed as the animal experts trapped it and shot it with tranquillizers and who knows what other kinds of drugs.

  And right there, on-screen, on television sets all over the metropolitan area, that wild animal transformed into a human being.

  “I want to write about shape-shifters,” Brody Westerbrook says. “And I think your sister Ann is one of them.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I invite him inside after all. I am too tired and too forlorn to do anything else. For a moment, I debate getting out the bottle of leftover wine in the refrigerator, uncorked just last weekend when Debbie and Charles were over and maybe holding two more small glassfuls, but I’m already thinking badly, and I don’t need to cloud my mind any further. I pour Cokes for both of us, and we sit, warily, on either side of the old, scarred, oak table. I see Brody Westerbrook surreptitiously glancing around the room, noting the shabby furnishings, the scratched hardwood floors. This isn’t a place you’d live if you had any money.

  If he’s done enough research to find me, he knows that I can afford to move to a bigger house or simply install a few upgrades. A new couch, new curtains, refinished floor, modernized kitchen—all these improvements could add a great deal of charm to this old place.

  He catches me watching him, and smiles. “It seems like a comfortable sort of house,” he says.

  “That’s not what you were thinking,” I challenge him. I might have invited him in, but I’m still armored to the hilt; my guess is I’ll be challenging him a lot. “You were thinking it’s a dump.”

  He regards me with interest. “I pretty much always say what I mean,” he answers. “So why do you think it’s a dump?”

  Now I bristle. “I haven’t had time to pick out fabrics and—and interview general contractors and deal with all the mess of renovation.”

  He nods, as if I had actually answered the question he asked. “You should see my place,” he says. “I live in a studio apartment, and I’m never home, so there’s stuff just strewn from one end to the other. I pay someone to come in and clean, but there’s nowhere for her to put things, so she just makes the piles neater and scrubs the bathroom and goes home.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Seems like a television reporter would be able to afford something bigger than a studio apartment. Maybe even a house.”

  He smiles. “I don’t have time to look at real estate and pick out furniture and deal with all the mess of moving,” he replies.

  It makes sense that a journalist would perfectly recall your own words and use them against you at the first opportunity. I scowl.

  He goes on, “Anyway, like I said, I’m not a reporter anymore. I’m a freelancer. Lot less money. Mostly I’m living on savings. Not the best time to go house-hunting.”

  “I thought you were writing a book.”

  He nods. “Yep. But it’s going to be a while before that brings in any money, if it ever does. So I’m writing a few articles when the opportunity comes along. Editing a manuscript for a professor at Wash U. Stuff like that.”

  I open the bag of pretzels I got out along with the soda and shake a few thin salted sticks into my hand. “So tell me about your book,” I say. I can’t look at him when I speak the words.

  “I don’t know if you remember this,” he says, slowing his words to a storyteller’s cadence. Now that I’m not looking at him, I realize that his low-pitched, mellow voice is as attractive as his face. It would hav
e to be, I suppose, for him to be an on-air reporter. “But last November there was this extraordinary event. I was in a news helicopter as authorities caught an animal they suspected had been responsible for five human deaths in about three months. My cameraman had his lens trained on the animal as they brought it to the ground, and I could see the monitor. While it was lying there—while we watched—it changed. From an animal to a person. We caught the whole thing on tape.”

  I nod. “I saw it,” I say very quietly.

  He waits, but when it’s clear I’m not going to add anything, he goes on. “There was a firestorm of publicity, if you remember. I thought there would be panic, crazy folks wailing about the apocalypse, or aliens, or mad scientists conducting experiments on innocent people. But that’s not the way it went. Most people thought we’d doctored the tape. I mean, I saw some so-called technical expert do a whole segment on one of the other stations showing, frame by frame, how we had digitally turned an animal into a human being. It was jaw-dropping. We almost got cited by the FCC. None of the legitimate news sources took us seriously. They either ignored the story completely or condemned us for trying a sensational trick to bring up our ratings.

  “The bloggers liked it,” he adds. “That clip was the most-downloaded video on YouTube for a solid month, and everyone with a website and an agenda posted it. Then they posted their own ‘true footage’ of shape-shifters and Bigfoot and Loch-Ness-style monsters that lived in the murky old ponds down on the lower forty of their grandfathers’ abandoned farms. There was a whole contingent of people who believed we’d filmed a werewolf, and they kept issuing ‘health advisories’ about how to survive a werewolf bite without being turned into one yourself. We were even on the cover of National Enquirer a time or two. But the truth was, most people simply didn’t believe the event had occurred.”