by Sharon Shinn
“Not as much as we wanted,” I correct her gently. “I think she gave us as much as she could, and when it was all gone—” I shrug. “So was she.”
“When did you find out about her? When did you know she was a shape-shifter?”
“After you were born. After you changed for the first time. She used to sneak off for a week at a time, every few months—just be gone, not tell us where. It made Daddy crazy, at least the first couple of times. She never told him where she went or why. I think he must have just assumed she was going on benders or something. He stopped asking her about them, but he would get this—dark look every time she disappeared. Each time she came back, he was a little more remote. Like he’d realized he couldn’t trust her anymore, but he still loved her, so he had to figure out how to accept her absences.
“Then you came along, and everyone in the household adored you, and at first we thought it would be okay. I mean, Gwen was crazy about you. Some days she carried you around, even when you were sleeping, because she just wanted to look at your face. And Daddy never said it out loud, but I’m sure he was thinking that, now that you were here, Gwen wouldn’t abandon us again. You’d keep her home. But you were about three months old when we got up one morning, and she was gone.”
I’m quiet a moment, and Ann doesn’t say a word. She’s picked up another photo, this one showing the two of us in matching Christmas outfits. I think our grandmother had selected them and mailed them from Texas because I was too old to want to dress like my little sister, and neither my father nor Gwen managed that kind of organizational planning. I’m scowling, probably because I hate the dress; Ann, of course, is smiling.
“You were six months old the first time you changed shapes,” I say. She’s heard this part of the story a million times, but she doesn’t stop me as I launch into it again. “I’d put you down for a nap and you fell right asleep. I went to the bathroom, and when I came out I checked to make sure you hadn’t woken up. And there in the crib was a little white puppy, curled up asleep, right where you’d been.”
“What did you think?”
“I spent a couple of minutes not thinking at all. Just staring. But, you know, I was only ten years old. I think kids tend to see the world as it is, not how they expect it to be—they’re more open to magic. I knew I had put you in the bed. I knew that no one had had time to come in and steal you and leave a puppy in your place. So I knew it was you. I just didn’t know what to do about it.”
“So you ran downstairs to tell Daddy and my mom—”
“And Daddy said, ‘What? Don’t be ridiculous.’ And Gwen started crying.” Wailing and sobbing and carrying on in a way I had never seen a grown person behave. I was actually more afraid of Gwen’s histrionics than I was of the transformed little sister sleeping peacefully in the upstairs bed. “She started moaning, ‘It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault, I was afraid this would happen.’”
“And what did you think then?”
“I don’t know what Daddy was thinking, but I remember very distinctly what was going through my head. I’d read too many fairy tales, maybe, with evil witches and jealous women trying to poison their stepdaughters. I thought Gwen had mixed up some kind of terrible potion, and she’d meant to give it to me, but somehow you had gotten it by mistake. It was so weird—I had that thought with such clarity—even though I really liked Gwen and she’d always been very good to me. It was just the old archetypes exerting their power, I guess.”
“So then she finally calmed down enough to speak—”
“And she told us what she really was. Said that whenever she left the house for extended periods, she would go somewhere and become an animal—usually a bird, an eagle or a hawk. Said that she came from a whole family of shape-shifters, though she never saw her brothers or sisters anymore. That she knew she might pass on the genes if she ever had children of her own, but she’d taken the risk anyway because she loved us so much, she wanted to make a family with us.”
“What did Daddy say?”
“He was watching her like he thought she should be committed to an asylum. I mean, it was obvious he thought she was either insane or she was making the whole thing up. He started talking in this calm, reasonable voice. ‘Now, Guinevere, you know that transmutation of people into animals is physically impossible—’”
“Transmutation,” Ann repeats, savoring the word like a piece of chocolate.
“That’s what he said. You know the way he would talk. ‘I’m afraid this must be some elaborate fantasy you’ve concocted. Maybe you’ve been under too much stress.’ And she yelled, ‘Stress! I’ll tell you about stress! Living a lie like this for so long, afraid you’d find out, afraid you’d stop loving me—’ And a lot more like that. I’d always hated being in the room when adults were arguing, so I just went back upstairs and sat on the floor in your room. I thought maybe you’d be a baby again but, no, still a dog. I got a book and sat there and read for the next half hour, while they kept fighting downstairs.”
“Why didn’t he just ask her to change shapes and prove she was telling the truth?”
“Oh, I think he did. But Gwen didn’t have that ability—at least she said she didn’t—at least, I never saw her change shapes. Neither of us did. I think the only reason Daddy ever came to believe her was because of you.” I pause for a beat. “I believed her right away. I don’t know why.”
“So then what happened?”
“So finally they both came to your room. Gwen was still crying, but in a quieter way, and Daddy had developed this sort of stony calm. I could hear him talking as they came up the stairs. ‘You’ll see—Ann will be in her crib and she’ll be perfectly normal, and then maybe you can stop spouting this nonsense.’ And they walked in the room, and there was a puppy in the bed, and Daddy stopped as if he’d been shot by a bullet. Then he started shouting at me. ‘Where’s the baby? What happened to the baby?’ And I said, ‘I think that is the baby.’ And he actually jerked me to my feet and slapped me. He’d never done that before. Never did it again. But he was so afraid—he really thought you’d been kidnapped or that I’d thrown you out the window or something. And he shook me and just started roaring at the top of his lungs. ‘Where is the baby?’ And then—”
“Then my mom pointed at the crib, and said, ‘Look! Look!’”
“And there you were, transforming right before our eyes.”
Since then, I’ve seen Ann alter shapes a hundred times, maybe more. It’s a strange, beautiful, unearthly sight that never fails to leave me both awestruck and greatly unnerved. But that first time . . . it was almost impossible for us to believe the evidence of our eyes. The husky’s white fur seemed to glow, then take on the faintest pink tint, then smooth itself into skin. It was like watching a Saturday morning cartoon, or a really good CGI movie. You know someone’s manipulating the special effects, but it looks pretty damn real to the naked eye. It took about a minute for the sleeping dog to become a sleeping baby, wholly oblivious to our shock and disbelief. She was naked; the diaper I’d put on her just an hour ago made a small, discarded shape beside her on the bed.
Gwen started crying even harder, and ran over to the crib to scoop Ann up in her arms. My father just stood there, shaking his head, and whispering “No” over and over. I do believe that’s the moment his brain started misfiring as overloaded circuits tried and failed to process what he had just witnessed. He was a man of science, but he had always considered science a rock, not a frontier; he could not believe it would present him with unexplored and impossible options.
I was young enough to accept miracles as commonplace. “I told you so,” I said. “You should apologize for hitting me.”
But he only gave me one long, agonized look and blundered from the room.
“How long did it take before Daddy just got over it and went on like everything was normal?” Ann asks.
“I’m not sure he ever really did get over it. I think part of him never entirely believed it was true—even though
he saw the evidence, at least in you, over and over again. I think part of him had this thought at the back of his head that he was crazy, that this wasn’t really happening. That he’d lost touch with reality.” Which made it easier for him to slip into dementia, not even putting up a token fight. Why bother? He was already delirious.
“But he loved me.”
I scoot over to drop a kiss on her sleek blond hair. “He adored you. He changed his life for you—moved down here, restructured his job, created a place where you could be safe. He didn’t love Gwen quite so much after that, though. He felt she’d lied to him, maybe even betrayed him. They didn’t fight anymore, and I think they still—you know—”
“Had sex,” she says.
I brim with laughter. “Yes, but I meant—they still cared about each other. But it put a rift between them. And then she started disappearing for longer and longer intervals, and he stopped caring that she was gone—” I shrug. And then he got sick and she went away and you grew up and here we are.
“I think she’s dead,” Ann says.
“What? Gwen? Why do you say that?”
“Because I think she’d come back for me if she wasn’t. Just to see me. I don’t remember her that clearly, but when I think of her, she’s always hugging me. Or laughing with me. Or singing to me. I remember her holding my hand and skipping with me down the middle of Bonhomme Highway.” She gestures to the two-lane blacktop that runs outside the front door. “You were at school, and Daddy was at work. It was early afternoon. She said there wouldn’t be any traffic, we’d be just fine. So we skipped down the road, running for the shoulder every time we heard a car coming. We almost got hit, like, three times.”
“I’m glad you never told me this story before!”
“But it was fun. It’s how I think of her. Happy. A little loopy. But—she loved me. So I don’t think she would have left me behind for good unless she had to.”
It’s never been clear to me which would be worse—thinking your mother was dead or thinking she’d abandoned you. But it’s obvious Ann has figured out the answer for herself, and I have no qualms about supporting her.
“I think you’re probably right,” I say softly. “Because nobody would ever abandon you of her own free will.”
The moment is laced with such sadness and sweetness that it almost feels sticky. I cast about for something to say to change the mood, but I needn’t bother; Ann’s already been distracted by something else in the box. She makes an oohing sound as she carefully lifts out a hand-painted ceramic bank shaped like an A-frame house, maybe a five-inch cube with a pointy top. There’s a slot in the roof to drop coins in, and a small, removable door on the front to provide access to the treasure inside. The door is held in place with a tiny padlock, just now snapped shut.
God knows why it has been stored in this box among photos and papers; I haven’t even thought about it for at least five years. “I remember this!” Ann crows. She shakes it gently to make the coins inside chime against the china walls. “Our special bank where we only put valuable coins.”
“Grandma used to send us real silver dimes and quarters, remember? The ones made before 1964. And we’d put them in here. I think there were a couple of silver dollars, too.”
She rattles it again. “How much money do you think is in here? Let’s open it up and see.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know where the key is.”
She gazes at the bank. “I don’t want to smash it to get the money out.”
“Of course we’re not going to break it! I think that bank was Grandma’s mother’s or something. I mean, it’s really old. It’s probably worth more than the coins inside.”
Ann holds the ceramic house up to her ear and shakes it once more, listening intently, as if she will be able to determine its exact contents through sound alone. “There’s something else in here,” she says with conviction. “Paper? Did we drop in dollar bills, too?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe Daddy did when we weren’t looking.”
She sets it down and stares at it thoughtfully. “I wonder if we could pick the lock. It doesn’t look that complicated.”
“Well, go ahead and try,” I invite. “But I don’t think I’m enough of a criminal mastermind to do it, even if it’s simple.”
“I bet there’s fifty dollars in here, easy,” she says. “Maybe more. And aren’t silver coins worth more than their face value?”
“I have no idea. Anyway, why do you care? You don’t even spend money.”
“I just like the way it feels. When I was a kid, I had a big jar of pennies—remember?—and I’d dump them on my bed and just dribble them through my fingers. I could do that for hours.”
She shakes the bank again and I pluck it from her hands, crossing the rug on my knees to set it on the coffee table next to the couch. “You are going to break it if you keep doing that. I’ll take it to the hardware store sometime and see if I can find someone who can make a key for it.”
She pouts ostentatiously. “I’ll be gone before it’s open.”
I try not to be hurt by this hint that she’s not planning to stick around very long. “Well, I’ll make you a promise. I won’t sell or spend any of the silver coins until you’re back again.”
“You better not.”
The phone rings just then, startling me, and I jump up to answer it. Ann says, “Oh, I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” I say over my shoulder.
“Someone called while you were in the shower.”
I hold up a finger—Tell me later—as I pick up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Would you like an estimate on having your carpets cleaned? Our technicians will be in your area tomorrow—”
I hang up without answering. Rude, I know, but not as rude as intruding on my time with Ann. Still on my feet, I turn back to her, still sprawled on the floor. “Who called?”
“A guy? He said he had a package for you? He told me his name—” She searches her memory. “Brady Westinghouse?”
I feel every surface of my skin tighten with chill. “Brody Westerbrook?”
“That’s it.”
I come sit near her, perching on the edge of the couch, holding my body very still as if too much random movement will cause my limbs to detach and clatter to the floor. “He has a package for me? What package?”
“I don’t know. He just asked if he could drop it off later today—”
“He what?”
She’s startled at my frantic exclamation, and her big eyes open wide. “He asked if he could come by. I said I thought we’d be home. What’s wrong?”
“Did he ask you who you were?” I say urgently.
“No—well, he knew who I was. He said, ‘Are you Ann?’ And of course I said yes.”
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” I say, kneading my hands together. I don’t know what to do. Run from the house right now, drive Ann somewhere safe? But where’s safe? What if he shows up just as we’re leaving and follows us wherever I go? What if we tear out of here before he arrives, and he parks on the gravel edge of the lawn and simply waits for us to return? It’s clear this isn’t a guy who gives up easily. I don’t know how long I will be able to evade him.
Ann’s scrunched over to touch my hand with hers. “Melanie—what’s wrong? Who is it?”
“That guy—that reporter I told you about. The one who wants to write a book about shape-shifters.”
Astonishingly, she laughs. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! You scared me! I thought it was, like, a doctor bringing you bad news or something. Or—you know—one of those bad guys in movies. Someone who was going to beat you up for not paying back the money you borrowed.”
For a moment, I am so supremely irritated at her suppositions that I actually forget to be afraid of Brody. “What? You think I’d get mixed up with—forget it. Look, we have to get out of here. I don’t want him talking to you.”
She shrugs and seems to settle more comfortably on the floor. “I don’t think it’s such a
big deal. Hey, maybe it’s a good thing. He sees me, I act normal, he goes away.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type who just goes away,” I say grimly. “And, anyway, you never in your life acted normal. I don’t know why you think you can start now.”
That makes her laugh. “You just watch.”
“So—did he say when he’d get here?”
“Yeah, like, in two hours?”
She doesn’t sound certain, but I glance at the wall clock anyway. When was I in the shower? It has to be almost two hours ago. “That means he’ll be here pretty soon. Look, just—just don’t say much. Smile a lot. Guys forget everything else when a pretty girl smiles at them.”
“Maybe I should take my bra off,” she suggests.
“Ann!”
“Well, maybe it’ll distract him.”
I lean over to put my hands on her cheeks and press hard enough to make her mouth purse into a fishlike O. “Just don’t sit there and tell him what it’s like to be a shape-shifter, okay? Just promise me you won’t do that.”
Her voice is distorted by the way I’m holding her face. “I promise.”
From outside, through the front door, I hear the muffled sound of a car motor, then wheels crunching over gravel. I drop my hands and stand up, ready to run or rumble. Flight or fight.
“Company,” Ann says, and flows to her feet.
I force myself to walk calmly to the door, but I’ve opened it before Brody’s even made it up the lawn. The first thing I notice is that he’s not driving his little Honda. What’s parked next to my Jeep is a small blue pickup with a dent in the front fender and a sprinkle of rust across the hood. I’m able to summon a supercilious smile by the time Brody has stepped onto the small porch and greeted me with a smile of his own.
“New set of wheels?” I ask politely. “And so environmentally friendly, too! What happened to Earth Day Every Day?”
He looks rueful. “I had to take my car in to the shop. This is my neighbor’s truck. It didn’t seem like the time to be lecturing him on fuel efficiency.”