Still Life With Shape-Shifter

by Sharon Shinn

  But while no one else was around, I had a chance to lug the twenty-pound bag of dog food out to the edge of the property. We lived in a small town that crouched on both sides of Highway 55 as it wound its long, monotonous way from Chicago to St. Louis. Most of this part of Illinois was filled with croplands, and the undomesticated areas were mainly given over to prairie grasses, scrubby trees, and the marshy lands that developed around meandering creeks that flooded every spring. But our neighborhood opened up onto a few acres of woods and underbrush that folded into short, rocky hills—not the best farmland, and not good for much else, either. “It’s a fucking wildlife preserve out here,” my father had snarled when the raccoons and possums and squirrels began parading through the yard during our first month in the house. But my mother and I liked to watch the animals hunt for food or chase each other through mating season. She bought a book about identifying birds, though I think she only opened it once or twice, when she was sitting on the back porch and sipping a glass of wine. I was the one who put out stale bread in the fall and birdseed in the winter—and now I was the one to put out wolf-feed in the summer. The thought made me smile.

  I ripped a hole in the top of the bag and left it on the very back edge of the property, in the V of a couple of deadfalls. Returning to the house, I washed the supper dishes and put them away. Then I made sure my mother traveled safely from the bathroom to the bedroom, where she flung herself facedown on the bed under the ceiling fan and asked me to make sure her alarm was set. It had to be ninety degrees upstairs, and just the effort of climbing the steps had made me break out in a sweat.

  “Maybe you should come outside for a while, at least until it cools down,” I said.

  She just grunted into the pillow. “It never cools down.”

  “Well—you want me to get you an ice pack? Put it on the back of your neck.”

  Her laugh was muffled against the pillows. “Sure. That would be nice.”

  I went downstairs and came back up in five minutes, but she was already asleep. I pushed aside her long black hair to set the ice pack on the top knob of her spine. She didn’t seem to notice.

  Back downstairs, I poured myself a glass of iced tea and carried it outside, along with a book and a flashlight. Once I was sitting in the lawn chair, I spent more time holding the cool, sweaty glass against my cheek than I did drinking the tea, and even so I passed the evening on the worn, gritty edge of wretched.

  Darkness fell a little after nine. My father returned at quarter to ten.

  The wolf came at midnight.

  I had fallen asleep at some point, but I woke up as I tried to shift positions and nearly fell out of the lawn chair. I turned on the flashlight to check my watch; the hands stood at 12:04. Then I swept the beam around the perimeter of the yard.

  The wolf was standing about ten feet away.

  I swallowed a squeak and scrambled out of the chair, which collapsed noisily behind me. It seemed rude to keep shining the light at my strange visitor, so I tilted it down, toward my feet, but then I couldn’t tell exactly where he was. The waning half-moon had barely poked its head above the horizon, and it wasn’t going to be much help anyway. I took a deep breath and stepped off the porch, surrendering to hope and faith.

  A few paces into the grass, I came to my knees, propped the flashlight on a branch, and extended my right hand. “Did you come back so I could bind your foot again?” I asked in a soft voice. “Do you think the Neosporin helped at all?”

  There was the faintest rustle of movement, and the wolf’s lower body moved into the circle of light. Three thin, sinewy legs covered in black fur—one carefully retracted leg covered with dirty gauze. Anyone who had happened to spot him from a distance must have thought he bore an unusual marking, a single milky-white paw. If he had been careless enough to let anyone catch sight of him.

  “Let me take a look at that,” I said, still in a soft voice, and he obediently lowered himself to the ground and rolled to his side. I was beyond being astonished by my ability to communicate with him. I simply cut away the bandage and picked up the light to examine the wound.

  It actually seemed as if it had improved in the past twenty-four hours; at any rate, it wasn’t worse. As before, I wiped it with alcohol, smeared it with ointment, and wrapped it with gauze. As before, the minute I was done, the wolf pushed himself to a seated position and watched me with an unwavering regard.

  “Did you find the dog food?” I asked. “But, hey, as long as you’re here, would you like more ground beef? Just stay where you are.”

  He was still waiting for me when I returned with food and water. He didn’t fall on either with the same famished gratitude as he had the night before, but he still polished off a pound of hamburger and most of a bowl of water. Then he lifted his head, licked his lips, and turned that yellow gaze on me once again.

  I couldn’t help it. He seemed so intelligent, so tame, that I had lost most of my fear, and I had an almost uncontrollable urge to reach out and stroke that dense black fur. Slowly, so he could see what I was doing, so he wouldn’t be startled, I extended my hand, palm up, showing no threat, only invitation. He lowered his head to sniff at my palm; I felt the cold black nose against my skin, the faintest exhalation of his breath.

  Then the swift, unexpected flick of his tongue against my wrist.

  I stifled a gasp and held my hand motionless. He lifted his head and met my eyes for so long that gold and black began to reverberate in my head. Then a sound or a movement behind him caught his attention. His whole body tensed and he whipped his head around to stare at the empty property in back. Without another glance in my direction, he whirled around and bounded off.

  I was left kneeling in the dark, my hand outstretched, my face blank with wonder.

  * * *

  The wolf came back every night for the next week.

  I had begun taking long naps in the afternoon since I was getting very little sleep at night; the air-conditioning hadn’t been fixed, but a cold front had moved through, making the house habitable again. I was supposed to have a summer job working at the local McDonald’s, but I conveniently forgot to sign up for any shifts for the week. My father was mad, but my mom just shrugged, and said, “Let her cook and do housework for a while. You’ll see, she’ll want to go back to her job.”

  And I did—I was always looking for excuses to get out of the house—but not right now. Not this week.

  Every time the wolf returned, I checked his injury and rewrapped his wound. I could tell he was healing, and by the sixth night he was putting weight on his back leg again. “Pretty soon now, you won’t need me,” I told him as I tied the gauze that night. “Your foot will be fine—you’ll be able to hunt—you can go back to Minnesota or Canada or wherever you came from, and you’ll be able to take care of yourself.”

  He opened his mouth in a slight pant, but I didn’t get the impression he was trying to cool down. Rather, he looked like he was grinning. As if the notion of leaving the state was so impossible that it was actually amusing, if he could only explain it to me.

  “But I’ll be here anyway, if you want to come back,” I said softly. “Even when you’re healed—even when it gets cold—I’ll still come outside two or three times a week, late, like this, and see if you’re around. Feed you if you look hungry. So come back if you need me.”

  He still regarded me, still panting. Now I thought the expression on his face looked considering. What would he ask me for, if he could speak? Can you offer me a place to sleep when the weather drops below zero? Or maybe My mate had a litter, but she can’t keep them fed. Can you bring a few dozen pounds of beef to our den?

  Or maybe nothing.

  “At any rate, you need to come back at least one more night,” I told him. “I think I can take the bandage off for good tomorrow. And then—then you can do what you like.”

  A noise in the house caught his attention. I recognized the thud, the curse, and the clattering sound that meant my father had come downstair
s for a late-night snack and bruised himself against a half-open kitchen drawer. I glanced over my shoulder to see if there was any reason I’d need to go inside, and when I looked back at the wolf, he was gone.

  I sighed and came slowly to my feet, switching off the flashlight so I would be invisible from the house. My father had turned on the stove light in the kitchen, and in its eerie glow I could see him bumble from the refrigerator to the sink, eating a piece of leftover chicken without bothering to get out a plate. He also knocked back a shot of whiskey before turning out the light and, I presumed, heading up to bed.

  I stood there a long moment, debating whether or not I should go inside and sleep in my own room. Once the wolf disappeared for the night, he never came back, and the air was cool enough now that I thought it might be sixty degrees by morning. A chilly temperature for sleeping outside.

  I eventually went inside, moving stealthily in case someone was still awake. I had barely stepped out of the kitchen when I heard another heavy thud upstairs, and the sound of my father’s voice raised in frustration. My mother responded with a rush of angry words, though I couldn’t make out what either one of them said. I slipped into the living room, picked up an old quilt folded over the couch, and headed back outside to sleep in the lawn chair as best I could until dawn made its sullen appearance.

  I felt dull and somehow disappointed from the moment I woke up, though at first I couldn’t figure out why. It was a Monday, always the least congenial of days, and this one had a particularly prosaic, unglamorous feel to it. As if the parties and amusements of the weekend were over; now it was time to admit that the dull, undifferentiated days, unexciting as they were, constituted ordinary reality.

  Time to return to McDonald’s and ask to work a few shifts this week. Time to think about going back to school in the fall, when I would enter my senior year. Time to start behaving like an adult with responsibilities instead of a teenager with an exotic fantasy life.

  Time to realize that the wolf might never come back.

  My boss gave me a stern lecture about missing a whole week, then signed me up for twenty-five hours in the next seven days. I took a stroll through Walmart on the way home, looking at notebooks and pens and folders before tossing through a few of the sundresses and jeans on the sale racks. I’d need to work more than twenty-five hours if I was going to afford any upgrades to my wardrobe. I always dressed in the least memorable clothing I could find—neutral colors, nothing fashionable, nothing daring—as part of my campaign to be completely invisible in my classrooms. Even so, some of my jeans were so old I didn’t think I could wear them for another year, and I only had two shirts I actually liked. I’d have to buy a few things just to get through fall semester.

  Dinner was unexpectedly cheerful, as my mother had gotten a raise, and my father had received a big commission check. My mother hummed in the kitchen as I helped her clean up after dinner—“Ode to Joy,” always a good sign.

  “You know what, Janet? You and I should drive into St. Louis next weekend and go shopping,” she said when I mentioned my visit to Walmart. “We could go to one of the fancy malls there and buy you some really pretty stuff. What do you think?”

  “Sure,” I said, since it seemed unlikely she would remember this plan by morning.

  She lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper. “We won’t take your father. It’ll be a girls’ day out.”

  “Sounds great.”

  After the meal I saw her go into the living room, where my father was sprawled on the couch watching TV. She snuggled up next to him and began kissing his cheek, murmuring something that made him burst out laughing. After a moment, he reached for the remote and turned the television off.

  I picked up a magazine and headed outside.

  Not intending to, I fell asleep before the sun had even gone down and woke up a few hours later, chilly and a little disoriented. Oh yes—outside, waiting on midnight, waiting on moonrise, waiting on a mysterious visitor who might never return. I slipped inside briefly to use the bathroom, grab a sweater, and gather my usual supplies, then I was back on the deck, shutting the door behind me. I’d left the kitchen light on, and its warm yellow glow spilled out onto the wood of the deck, picking out all the warped boards and the route of June bugs waddling by.

  Stepping out into the grass, I stared toward the back of the property, where nighttime and braided shadows made it impossible to see. Yet there was movement there, some stirring of leaf or branch as a creature moved soundlessly through the dark, and I didn’t think it was just my longing and my imagination that created the illusion. Deliberate motion—a shape taking on mass and substance—something approaching me from the back of the lawn.

  He came just close enough for his silhouette to be visible in the reflected light from the house, then waited. I knew that hesitancy, I knew that limp, I recognized that soul.

  But it was not a wolf who had materialized out of the darkness. It was a man.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MELANIE

  God help me, Ann is in love.

  It’s the second thing I learn as we sit cross-legged on the couch, eating ice cream and talking late into the night.

  The first is that she’s alive. And healthy, too, by her own account, though I think her face is drawn, and she’s painfully thin. Other than that, she looks good. She must have arrived a few moments after Brody and I left because she’s had time to shower and change into some old clothes I keep on hand for her. She’s even applied a little makeup, borrowing my rouge and mascara, so she looks flushed and vibrant. And happy, oh my God, so happy. I feel myself fill up on that happiness, refuel in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible even half an hour ago. I was weary and sad. Now I feel like I could run a marathon or dance through the night.

  “In love,” I repeat. “So tell me about him! What’s his name? What’s he like? Where did you meet him?”

  “His name is William Romano. I met him out at Elephant Rocks a few months ago, and we’ve been together practically every minute since, except when I was visiting you.”

  Elephant Rocks is a state park some distance southwest of Dagmar. As you might expect, it features a tumble of humongous boulders that look like elephants if you’re not too much of a stickler. “Met him in the park? Like, at a campsite? He borrowed matches or something?”

  Her laugh trills out. “No—silly. We were in animal shape, and we recognized each other.”

  It takes me a moment to digest this. “You can recognize other shape-shifters just by looking at them?”

  “Not when I’m human, but when I’ve changed, and they’ve changed, yeah, I can. It doesn’t happen very often.”

  “So—” I’m not sure how to ask the question. I’ve just spent an evening with a dangerously attractive man, doing that careful dance of invitation and rebuff; even using the tools of language and visual interpretation, I couldn’t swear I’d taken an accurate measure of his personality. How do you perform the courtship ritual with a man when you can’t even speak to him or read his expressions? “How does that work exactly? How do you get to know each other when you’re both dogs?” I feel my expression change. “Or—well—is he a dog?”

  Surely no one else on the planet who’s asked her sister about a new romantic interest has ever been forced to pose that question.

  Ann laughs again, the sound so light and merry it echoes through the room like a wind chime. “Most of the time. A golden setter. Sometimes he’s a wolf or some other creature.”

  Ann has never taken any shape other than that of a white husky. My first reaction is surprise that this William has multiple alter egos. My second reaction is that I don’t know much about shape-changing in general, and there might be as many varieties of it as there are practitioners. “Really? He can be more than one kind of animal? Is that common?”

  She shrugs, not interested. “I don’t know. I’ve only met a few others.”

  Something to explore on another day. “So. William,” I prompt her. “Wha
t’s he like?”

  “He’s quiet, and he seems shy, but he’s really not. He just doesn’t like people very much. He stays in animal shape most of the time unless he’s visiting his brother and his niece. He’s so smart. He knows all the parks in the St. Louis area, he knows where you can always find food and where you can find a protected area to spend the winter and how to earn money doing odd jobs if you need money and—well, that doesn’t explain it very well. He’s just—I feel safe with him. I feel like nothing will go wrong when he’s around.”

  I admit, the first items on her list of virtues don’t impress me much, but those last few sentences win me over. I’m an enthusiastic supporter of anyone who can keep Ann safe. “Is he cute?”

  She giggles. “I think so. You’d probably think he was raggedy. You know, his hair’s long and he doesn’t shave very often and he looks kind of—I mean, I don’t think he’s had an easy life. And it shows.” She puts her hands to her chest in a mock swoon. “But I love his eyes. And I love his face. And I love his smile.”

  “You’ve got it bad,” I say, shaking my head. “So tell me more about him—how you met and how you got to know him and all that.”

  She resettles herself on the couch to get more comfortable. “Well, I was in the park late last fall. And I got injured.” She gives me a fleeting look and decides to gloss over this part. “It wasn’t serious. But it slowed me down. And I was digging through trash one afternoon, trying to find something to eat, but I couldn’t find much, and my ribs hurt, and I was hungry, and I was about to give up for the night. And then William showed up.”

  She pauses as if to remember the scene. “He’s bigger than me, in animal shape, and you never know about wild dogs because they can be mean. So I backed away from the trash, in case he wanted it, but he just kind of watched me. After a moment, I realized he was human, and he wasn’t going to fight me, so I let him come close enough to sniff me.”