Still Life With Shape-Shifter

by Sharon Shinn

  He pats his chest in the general vicinity of his shirt pocket. “If not, I can always call my new friend Kurt. I bet he’d come get me.”

  I laugh. Not the worst way to end this long and tumultuous evening. “I bet he would.” I step away, backing up toward the house and waving good-bye. “Drive carefully!” I want to add Talk to you later! but it just sounds too friendly and I can’t have him thinking he’s completely won me over. But I stand on the low slab of concrete that functions as my front porch, and I wave and watch until he’s back on the road and out of sight.

  Then I sigh and unlock the door and step inside. And Ann uncurls from the couch and throws herself at me across the room, and the dreary menacing everyday world, without any warning at all, spins into a glittering brightness that hurts my eyes so much I start to cry.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JANET

  I have decided I need to write it all down. In part, to make sense of everything for myself, as if chronicling the events of the last twenty years could ever do that. In part, to explain those events to anyone else who might be surprised or bewildered or horrified by what I have done. I do not plan to disguise my identity, but I will omit some details about times and places. I don’t want anyone to be able to trace my footsteps and discover where I have gone.

  Once I have gotten it all on paper, the trick will be figuring out who to send the story to. There are so few people who love me enough to worry about what I might have done. And yet I cannot stand to take these actions without leaving behind some kind of powerful record. Though the story itself is so powerful, so primal, I almost feel as if it would write itself in the soil and stones—speak itself aloud in the winter air. I almost feel that if another woman stood where I am standing right now, she would only have to grow still and look around, and she would know without being told exactly what had happened. If I gave away details, if I drew her a map to this spot, would she understand then? Would she nod, and put her hand against her heart, and say with conviction, “I would have done exactly the same”?

  * * *

  At times it seems to me that I didn’t start to live until I met him. If I try, I can remember the earliest days, the trailer in Arizona, the apartment in Michigan, the farmhouse in Iowa where the straight rows of corn stretched out so far in one direction that you literally could not see the end of them. I can remember the fights, the screaming, the sound of my mother playing the piano, the smell of my father’s cigar smoke, but only when I exert great effort. Most of my childhood is packed away in boxes that I have stored in the cellar of my mind, and that I never take out, and that I never want to sort through again.

  But I remember every minute of my new life. My true life.

  It was night the first time I saw him—past midnight, I’m sure. A half-moon was just rising to remind me that, dismal though the world was, it could still produce wondrous illuminations. I was sitting on the back deck, cross-legged on the wood itself, careful to avoid the three rotted planks and wearing jeans and socks against the possibility of chiggers. It was a warm Midwestern June, and the air-conditioning had broken the week before. The inside of the house was unbearable for so many reasons, only one of them being the heat. In another few moments, I planned to stand up and make my way to the sagging chaise-style lawn chair unfolded on the edge of the deck, where I hoped to fall asleep.

  When I saw movement deep in the shadows of the yard, at first I thought a possum or a raccoon might be trotting across the lawn, headed toward the garbage cans snugged up against the house. But it was too big, and it moved too slowly, to be one of those common nighttime creatures. A dog, then, maybe. The neighbors’ collie from up the street was always getting loose. She was a pretty dog, but old and untended. It was clear her owners didn’t care if she died of heartworm or if she got hit by a car. More than once I had kept her in our own yard for a day or two, combing out her matted fur and making sure she got a few decent meals.

  My father hated dogs, though, and he always chased her away when he realized she’d been hanging around too long. Once he shot at her with a BB gun, but he was drunk enough to miss. After that, I snuck food to the collie’s house without trying to entice her to stay at mine. She hadn’t come back on her own, either, unless she had returned tonight.

  But no. The shaggy shape moved closer to the porch, into the faint fey light of the insufficient moon. I had given up on fear a few years ago since it never seemed to keep me safe, but a tingle of primeval warning set all my nerves to dancing. It was a wolf, lean and a little mangy; it moved in a graceless, jerky pattern as it approached the deck. I quickly realized why. It was holding its back right leg curled up toward its body, an indication of an injury or infection or some kind of pain. Its mouth was open, and its tongue lolled out; I saw the narrow ribs heave in a shallow, incessant panting.

  It came to a halt about five feet from the porch and stared at me.

  I stared back.

  I’d never seen a live wolf before, though my mother collected drawings and figurines of them, claiming the wolf was her spirit animal. This one seemed smaller than most, which might have suggested it was female, but for some reason, even when it was too dark to tell by looking, I was convinced it was male. Maybe it was merely young. By dim moonlight, I couldn’t pick out many white markings against its dark coat, but its eyes were a chatoyant amber, a peculiarly light color against the dense blackness of its face. If night had decided to take animal form and come visit me, this was what it would look like.

  I waited for the wolf to gather his strength and bunch his muscles and leap for my throat and kill me. My nerves had quieted; I was at peace. I lifted my chin just enough to show him the long, smooth line of my neck. I kept my hands down at my sides. I didn’t even bother looking around for a weapon. I would rather die this way, all at once, I thought, than the way my mother had been dying for years.

  But the wolf didn’t leap, didn’t move, didn’t even settle on his haunches. He merely stood there, waiting, watching me with his unreadable yellow eyes. He even stopped panting and closed his mouth, shutting away the display of sharp white teeth. All I could hear were the summer sounds of crickets and bullfrogs and voluptuous green leaves whispering on a light breeze.

  The wolf gazed at me as if, with all his being, he was wishing he could speak.

  If he was not going to kill and eat me, perhaps he wanted something else from me. I kept my gaze on him as I tilted my head, considering. “Are you thirsty?” I asked in a soft voice. “Hungry? If you’re hurt, maybe you haven’t been able to hunt. If I go in to get you some food, will you still be here when I come back out?”

  Impossible that he could understand me, of course, but he made the smallest sound, almost a sigh, the sound a dog makes when it’s about to settle at your feet after a long day of running. Moving cautiously, not wanting to startle him, I rose to my feet and glided across the deck, soundlessly opening the door into the kitchen. There was a pound of hamburger defrosting in the refrigerator and any number of big Tupperware bowls in the drawer next to the stove. But I went first to the bathroom just around the corner from the kitchen and rummaged in the cabinet. Could you treat a wild animal’s wounds with the rubbing alcohol and Neosporin you’d use on a human? Would he even let me get close enough to try? I didn’t know the answer to either question, but I gathered the supplies anyway, stuffing them in the pockets of my jeans. Then I grabbed a flashlight from the hall closet and tucked it under my arm before tiptoeing back through the kitchen to pick up food and water.

  When I stepped back outside, the wolf was exactly where I had left him. I approached carefully, not certain if murmured words of reassurance would calm him, as they would a dog, or incite him to attack. But I spoke them anyway, a meaningless stream of nonsense uttered in my most soothing voice. Hey there, my name’s Janet, I want to be your friend . . . brought you something to eat . . . you know I would never hurt you . . .

  The first thing I set down was the container holding the water, and he limpe
d over to lap it up in an eager, noisy way. He kept drinking even as I unwrapped the beef and laid it in the grass beside the Tupperware bowl, but his eyes cut over to verify what his nose must have told him had appeared. Dinner, and no effort spent catching it, either. A few more licks at the bowl, which was almost empty, and his head swung over to investigate the meat. Almost immediately, he tore into the soft red mass and consumed the whole package in a few efficient gulps.

  Close-up, I could see that his fur was dingy and matted. There were brambles in the long hair and probably ticks, too, buried under the layers. He looked lean and exhausted, and I wondered how far he had wandered from his home territory. I didn’t think wolves roamed far enough south to visit central Illinois—but I only based that opinion on the times my mother had begged my father to move the whole family to Minnesota, where she might spot a wolf in the wild.

  At any rate, his torso was pitiably thin under the rough coat, and his forelegs looked downright stringy. Summer seemed like the time a wild animal would fatten up, not slim down. Maybe he just wasn’t very good at hunting. Maybe his back leg had been permanently damaged some months ago, and he was on the very knife-edge of starvation.

  Maybe he was rabid and as soon as he finished his meal he would bite me and infect me and I would die an agonized and writhing death.

  In those days, I saw death around every corner.

  But if the leg was the problem, maybe I could do something about it. I switched on the flashlight, which caused the wolf to flinch away as if I had swung at him with a golf club, but then he steadied. He lowered himself to his haunches and regarded me in the reflected light. I pointed the beam down toward his chest, then between his back legs. As I suspected, male.

  “I’d like to look at your leg,” I said, still in that soft voice. “So don’t snap at me when I touch you, okay? Maybe I can help you heal. Okay?”

  He didn’t answer, of course, and his gaze never wavered from my face. I muttered, “It would be easier if you would lie down and turn on your side.”

  Practically on the words, he dropped his forepaws to the ground and rolled to his left, his injured back leg now fully exposed to my view.

  I felt my nerves twitch to life again; my whole body cooled with spooked surprise. He could not possibly have understood me. He was just tired—and now, replete with a meal, sleepy. And he lay on his left side because he knew from experience that lying on his right side would cause more pain. That was all.

  “Good,” I murmured, still in that reassuring tone, and dropped to my knees. “Just stay like that. And don’t move—don’t pull away—and don’t bite me. I’ll try not to hurt you. And maybe I can do you some good.”

  I played the flashlight over the back leg, finding the foot a mess of clotted blood and strips of skin. I couldn’t tell if it had been chewed or caught in a trap or even torn by a rifle shot, but it didn’t surprise me at all that he couldn’t walk on it.

  I found a fallen branch and propped up the flashlight so the beam illuminated the injury. “Don’t bite me,” I said again as I soaked an old washcloth with alcohol. “But this will probably hurt.”

  The minute the wet cloth touched the ripped flesh, his leg drew away, and his whole body shuddered. But he didn’t scramble to his feet, either to attack me or to flee. He did lift his head a couple of inches off the ground to give me one long, fierce look. For a moment, I froze and stared back at him. What message was he trying to convey? Was he warning me? Beseeching me? Assessing my speed and swiftness to determine how fast he would have to move to catch me if I ran?

  Then he rested his head on the ground again and stared straight before him. On a man, that expression would mean gritted teeth, a girding of the gut against an expected onslaught of pain. I licked my lips and touched the alcohol to his foot again.

  This time he did not move.

  He did not resist at all, over the next few minutes, as I disinfected the wound as best I could, as gently as I could. In my household, it was a common thing to deal with injuries; I was completely inured to the sight of blood. Once I was done with the alcohol, I spread so much Neosporin on the wound that I emptied the tube, then I wrapped the whole thing in a cocoon of gauze. A couple of hours of contact with the rich soil of Illinois’ farmlands would destroy the pristine white of the dressing, but even so I thought the antibiotic properties of the ointment might make a start at fighting off infection.

  “Good. Done,” I told him, my voice brisk as my task was completed. “Though it would probably be better if you had that bandage changed every couple of days.”

  As I spoke, he rolled back to an upright position and came to his feet, though he kept his back leg curled up behind him, several inches from the ground. I could not rid myself of the notion that he was actually listening to me.

  “I’ve been spending a lot of nights outside lately,” I told him. “Come back anytime after midnight, and everyone else will be in bed. I’m usually in the lawn chair.” I actually pointed. “So if I’m already asleep, come over and wake me up.”

  I spared a moment to think about how unnerving that would be, startled from a dream by a black nose against my cheek, opening my eyes to find this dark face, these amber eyes, hovering over me.

  “But don’t show up before nightfall,” I added. “My dad’s got five guns in the house, and they’re all loaded. And he likes to shoot things he doesn’t understand.”

  The wolf swung his head as if looking at the house for a moment and considering its inhabitants, then turned it back to make eye contact with me again. The flashlight was still on; I could see his whole face clearly. It was fuller than a collie’s but just as intelligent. The triangular ears were pointed straight up—again, as if he were listening to me. He was so close I could see the layered pattern in the yellow eyes. And they watched me, as if he was waiting for me to go on.

  I moistened my mouth again. “I’ll put out water every night,” I said. “In case you come back. But farther back, toward the edge of the property. I’ll put out food, too, but—” I shrugged. “There are a lot of squirrels and possums around here. It might be gone in half an hour. Of course, I guess you could eat the squirrels and the mice,” I added with halfhearted humor. “So it wouldn’t be a total waste.”

  I faltered to silence. What was I expecting? A reply? An acknowledgment? The longer I knelt there, face-to-face with the wildest creature I had ever encountered, the more surreal the whole evening felt.

  “Well,” I said, and switched off the flashlight. Instantly, the world seemed plunged into bitter blackness; you would not have thought such a small light could be so profoundly missed. I heard, or felt, the wolf shake himself, as if he, too, was feeling the strangeness of the night and trying to cast it off before trotting back into his dangerous life. I cannot be the kind of soft creature who takes food from a human’s hand or I will never be able to survive on my own. I had recently learned the word anthropomorphizing in an English class, and now it rose unbidden to my mind. It was the first time I truly understood what it meant.

  “Well,” I said again—but realized I was speaking to an empty lawn. That stealthily, without my noticing it, the wolf had slipped away.

  * * *

  I expected there to be some repercussions in the morning when my mother couldn’t find the hamburger in the refrigerator, but I was lucky. She’d been too drunk to remember she’d taken it out of the freezer to thaw, so she spent most of the breakfast hour slamming through the kitchen, swearing under her breath and demanding what she was going to make for dinner. She had the Crock-Pot out, and a few cans of tomatoes and beans, so I supposed she’d planned to have chili stewing all day.

  “I’m going to get home late,” she fumed, “and your father will be hungry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll stop at the store after school and pick up something to make. Just give me money.”

  You never had to persuade my mother to accept help. She always closed with you on the first offer. “That w
ould be great. Here’s a twenty, is that enough?”

  “I guess. Unless you want me to get milk and cereal and other stuff, too.”

  “All right. Thirty bucks. But I’m not going to the store again until Saturday, so you better make it count.”

  “Okay.”

  I knew how to stretch a dollar—I’d learned that lesson during the lean days in Iowa. So I stopped at the discount supermarket instead of the upscale one, where my mother preferred to shop these days, now that she and my dad both had jobs, and there was a decent amount of money coming in. I bought two deluxe family packs of hamburger, five pounds each. I knew I could rewrap them and stuff them in the back of the freezer, and my parents would never realize they were there. I picked up a bag of dog food, too, though I used my own money to buy it since it would have eaten up a huge chunk of my limited budget. I reasoned that a starving wolf wouldn’t be too picky, and if the meal was good enough for a dog, it probably wouldn’t hurt a wolf. More Neosporin, more gauze, a few apples, some bread, and I had my supplies for the week.

  Though half of me believed I would never see the wolf again.

  And all of me hoped I would see him that very night.

  * * *

  Dinner was an utterly silent meal, an improvement over the shouting of the night before, but the air-conditioning still wasn’t working, so the house was miserable. My father left with a muttered explanation about playing poker with the boys. My mother took a romance paperback and a bottle of Riesling to the upstairs bathroom, where I heard her draw water for a cool bath. I knew from experience she could soak in the water for more than an hour; sometimes she even fell asleep in the tub. I often worried that she would slip too low against the porcelain and drown, too wasted to fight her way clear of the water. I would check on her several times in the next sixty minutes to make sure she was still alive.