Were-

by Seanan McGuire

  She shuddered and worked the rest of the honey out of her hair.

  When at last she finished, she straightened her dress and pulled on her socks. She was still tying her shoes when the door opened and Mister Donovan stuck his head in.

  "Your mother’s here."

  "Okay."

  "How’s your headache?"

  "It’s better. Thank you."

  He nodded, held the door open while she finished with her shoelaces, got to her feet, and walked to where he stood.

  "Why is your hair wet?"

  She blinked. "I was…I thought maybe putting cold water on my head would make me feel better. Sorry."

  The corners of his mouth drooped, making him look like a walrus. "It’s all right. You’ll just…You’ll need to explain that to your mother."

  "She won’t mind."

  He didn’t comment and they crossed the hall to the office. Missus Crandall still sat at her desk, her attention on the papers strewn there. Bailey’s mother sat in the same chair Bailey had been in earlier. She stood as they entered. Bailey ran to her and threw a hug around her waist, breathing in her perfume.

  "Mommy."

  "Hi, Peanut. Are you okay?"

  "I’m better now."

  Her mother touched her wet hair. Bailey pulled back a little so that she could look up into her mother’s dark eyes. They remained that way for a second or two, and then her mother gave the slightest of nods, chestnut hair bobbing.

  "I’m sorry to trouble you, Missus Browne," Mister Donovan said. "But I’m afraid Bailey’s gotten herself into a bit of trouble. Again."

  "I see. What kind of trouble?"

  "Perhaps we should speak about this in my office. Bailey you can wait out here for another few—"

  "No!" Bailey said, clutching her mother again. She turned her head toward Missus Crandall, hoping her mother would understand. All the while, the old secretary kept her eyes on her work.

  "Bailey and I will talk about this eventually, I’m sure," her mother said. "I don’t see any harm in letting her hear what you and I have to say."

  Mister Donovan scowled at this, and Bailey thought she heard Missus Crandall make a tsking sound. But the principal shrugged and waved them into his office. Bailey grasped her mother’s hand.

  The principal sat behind his desk. Bailey and her mother took the chairs opposite him.

  "Well," he said, exhaling the word, "I’m afraid Bailey has hurt another student."

  "How?"

  "She bit him, which should come as no surprise. You and I have had this conversation before, Missus Browne. The first week of school, Bailey bit Emily Takada. Her parents, of course, were very upset. I believe they would have liked to see Bailey expelled."

  "You believe," her mother repeated. "But they never said as much, did they?"

  The principal shifted in his chair, gaze dropping to his desk. "No, they didn’t."

  "In fact, as I understand it, they told you it had all been a misunderstanding, and they asked you to drop the matter."

  "That’s true."

  "And as you know, Bailey and Emmy are friends now."

  "Best friends," Bailey said.

  Her mother glanced her way and held a finger to her lips.

  "Yes, I’ve noticed that. They do seem to get along quite well. And as far as I know, the Takadas consider what happened an isolated incident."

  "Exactly—"

  "But it’s not," Mister Donovan said. "Just two weeks later, she bit the Gallagher girl. Her parents were so angry, and so disturbed by the incident, they pulled Sarah out of our school and sent her to Saint Mark’s."

  Bailey chewed her lip. She liked Sarah. She missed her.

  "That was…a regrettable choice on their part."

  "But understandable," the principal said. "And today, less than a month later, Bailey has hurt another of her…her friends. This time she bit Jonathan Golding on the arm. Jonathan spent much of the afternoon in the nurse’s office, and again, I can tell you that his mother is every bit as angry as the other parents have been."

  "I’m very sorry to hear that. Obviously, I hope that Jonathan isn’t too badly hurt, and I’d be willing to reach out to his mother and talk to her myself."

  "I don’t know if that’s wise just now, but I do appreciate the offer." Mister Donovan pushed his glasses up on his nose. "The point, though, is that this can’t continue. The school is responsible for the safety of all students, and at this point, Bailey has established a pattern of behavior that poses a threat to that safety. By all rights, I ought to expel her today."

  Bailey gaped at him, and then at her mother. She didn’t want to be expelled. She liked this school. She liked her friends.

  "But you’re not going to," her mother said.

  "I’d rather not. I’m going to insist, though, that you take her for counseling. I can give you a list of therapists in the area who deal with behavioral issues of this sort. And I think it best that Bailey not come to school for a day or two. Maybe not until Monday."

  "A suspension."

  "Yes." The principal turned to Bailey. "That’s a lighter punishment than I could have given you, Bailey, and I won’t be so lenient again. This has to be the very last time. Understand me? If you bite anyone else, you can’t come back to this school ever again."

  Bailey’s eyes welled and she didn’t trust herself to say anything. She simply nodded. A tear slipped down her cheek.

  Mister Donovan and her mother talked for a short while longer, but Bailey didn’t listen to much of what they said. She had almost been kicked out of school, and she had to be more careful. That was what mattered.

  When she and her mother left the office, Missus Crandall was no longer behind her desk. Bailey was glad. That would be the best thing about not biting more people: she wouldn’t have to see the old woman as much, or hear her dried leaf voice.

  But as they left the school and walked through the parking lot to the car, Bailey spotted Missus Crandall crawling out of a small, green station wagon.

  "Mommy?" she whispered, hiding behind her mother.

  "It’s all right," her mother said, taking her hand and walking on, her back straight. "She can’t do anything to us."

  "I know what you are!" Missus Crandall said, pointing a bony finger at Bailey’s mother. "I know what all of you are."

  "And I know you, Helen Crandall," her mother said, allowing a growl to creep into her voice. She opened her mouth just enough to let her bear teeth show. "Your hunters and my kind reached an understanding long ago. Your church is nothing but a remnant of something long dead."

  "We don’t need hunters. Faith is weapon enough." The words were brave, but Bailey heard a tremor in her voice.

  "I think we both know better. Your faith won’t protect you if you ever trouble my daughter again." She growled a second time and the woman shrank back against the station wagon.

  "Come on, Bailey."

  They climbed into the car, Bailey in her booster, her mother behind the wheel.

  Her mother steered out into the street and adjusted her mirror so she could look at Bailey. "So who is Jonathan?"

  "A boy Emmy likes," Bailey said. "He’s nice. He’ll make a good bear. As good as Emmy."

  "All right. But no more, Peanut. You heard Mister Donovan."

  "I know. But I want someone else. Just one other bear. For my party."

  "Another party?"

  Bailey nodded, smiled. "Before winter. With s’mores. Bears like s’mores."

  "Cubs do. That’s for certain. Well, you can’t make any more bears at school."

  "Then can we invite her over?"

  Her mother turned a corner, checked her side mirror. "I suppose," she said. "What’s this one’s name?"

  "Chloe," Bailey said. "She has blond hair, but I still think she’ll make a very good bear."

  CRY MURDER

  April Steenburgh

  It starts as an itch over every inch of the scalp—that prickly sensation that comes with the need for
a shower and that no amount of scratching will alleviate. It moves down the neck, bringing a shiver and gooseflesh in its wake. It’s not long after that joints will start to ache, throat goes dry, and it becomes impossible to hold still.

  It usually starts just around dinner time, when the day is settling into evening, a familiar warning that tonight will be just a bit awkward. It was an awkward I was familiar with, at least. And that my family was used to. It was not so hard for a young woman to explain away being just a bit off as being “that time of the month.” Honestly I had never found a phrase that killed each and every line of inquiry as quickly or completely.

  It was my time of the month, just not the one I was alluding to.

  It was expected that I would rush and jitter my way through dinner, hardly eating anything. It was understood that I would go to my room early, begging biological indiscretions as to why I was unable to settle in for living room lounging with my parents and younger sibling. My family respected that, bore my idiosyncrasies with indulgent smiles and well wishes. They would most likely be a bit put off by the way I hauled open my bedroom window, slipping the screen free with skill borne of repetition, the way I hung my head out into the autumn night panting like a canine.

  The brisk air soothed the itching for a moment, pulled the frantic fog from my brain. It brushed across the cold sweat that covered my body until I started to shiver. The shivering was nothing more than a prequel to the shakes and then bone-shifting and crunching convulsions that rippled and ripped through me. It hurt like a bitch every time. But there is nothing a good preening session cannot solve, and preening was always almost frantically in my mind as I settled out of my human shape and into corvid. It is wonderfully satisfying and soothing, rearranging each and every feather, making sure everything is in place and well oiled. One good shake and a hop to the windowsill later and I was ready to enjoy the evening.

  Crows don’t usually fly at night. Nor do they generally appear as the result of a monthly inconvenience. I was a bit atypical—enjoying feathers and flight once a month, dealing with community college the rest of the time. Well, the community college thing was only for another year—I could expect a monthly experience as a crow for the rest of my life. After a quick stretch I took to flight.

  I was not pecked in the eye by a crow, or scratched by irritable corvid claws or anything like that. I am pretty sure I put the wrong feather in my mouth as a child and that was all the juju it took to get me feathered monthly. Turns out shape shifting is a communicable disease.

  A communicable disease that came with social obligations. I flew over to the town Department of Transportation building and settled onto a fence post, taking a second to assess who was here already. Eric was poking around in the leaf mulch pile, probably looking for something to eat. That guy could, and would, eat anything that moved. I was a crow of distinction—I liked my snacks dead and cooked, preferably cooked on a grill, but a bit of asphalt on a hot summer day would do. The sisters, Ashley and Kim, were chattering up a storm next to what looked like a pile of food waste that had missed the dumpster. Probably trying to pretend they weren’t considering a snack themselves. Jack, an older crow who was constantly missing at least one wing feather, was perched on the fence a few feet away from where I had settled. He was the head of our strange little family, and was usually accompanied by Melody, his somewhat grumpy partner and matriarch of the murder. She drifted in with a croaking rattle, our cue to join her where she settled by Jack on the fence.

  The evening had officially begun. And by the look on Melody’s face, it was a good thing I had gotten my Psych homework done early.

  Everyone settled onto sections of fence with a bit of chatter and grumbling, and as we turned our collective attention towards Jack, I noticed little Anthony was absent. Enthusiastic, excitable Anthony. Melody gave a full-body rustle and shake, croaked out her displeasure before calling the evening to order. I fluffed once with a bit of reflexive anxiety, then flapped my way to her bit of fence.

  We were bigger than common American Crows, and it showed the most when we perched, when our claws were visible, when we were suddenly put to scale with mundane things like the planks of wood that made up fence posts, light posts, trees. Melody was larger than most of us, and prone to wicked jabs of the beak if the mood struck her, so I did my best to perch far enough away to be out of reach, but not far enough to be considered rude. She eyed me, head turned to the side, for a long moment, then clacked her beak and proceeded to let us know our evening was booked.

  We had to go find out why Anthony had missed our family “dinner.”

  We were usually a tight group, my murder of were-crows. Everyone, no matter how new to the feathers you were, knew it was important not to miss the monthly family meeting. Natural crows were social creatures and were-crows were no different. We usually caught up on what was going on with each of us in our mammalian skins during our full moon soirées, touched base, let everyone know everyone else was doing well. If someone wasn’t doing well, we did what we could to alleviate the situation. Anthony was newer, smaller, and never missed our gatherings.

  We were a Halloween fanatic’s dream as we took to the sky with a rustle of feathers and rattle of beaks at Jack’s command, dark wings cutting across the moon-bright sky. We were silent as we flew, apart from the occasional “no luck” or “all clear here.” We cut through the territories of sleepy local crow families who called out at our passing, wishing us well, wishing us luck, offering no answers. Until we caught the sound of alarm cries coming from a few blocks away.

  Jack and Melody must have seen him first, as they shouted and turned sharply downwards, toward a small thing sprawled beneath a pine. They shed feathers as they landed, slipping out of their crow skin. Jack was a formidable man, large frame, heavily muscled, face lined and hardened by sun and wind. He gathered up the stiff, battered crow that was Anthony, cradling him close. Melody should have looked old and frail, her thin frame nothing but sinew and bone. But her eyes were something ancient and dark and right now very, very angry. We settled on the ground at their feet, quiet.

  “Erin.”

  Melody’s voice shivered through the air, hung like a threat. Even though I knew her anger was not directed towards me, I roused once before stepping forward and wriggling my way out of my feathers. Jack and Melody made it look easy—they were old crows and the moon was their friend. I had to really work at it, fighting my body’s desire to stay ensconced in the shape of a crow. Gooseflesh peppered my skin as I stood, shivers that had nothing to do with being naked in the fall air and everything to do with the quiet magic of a full moon and the look in Melody’s ancient eyes.

  “Yes, Melody?”

  I would give anything to be able to half-shift like Melody did, pulling feathers to cover socially less acceptable parts of her anatomy. Were’s have little body modesty—sort of impossible when you belonged to a social circle that was constantly slipping from one set of skin to another, a process that clothing did not participate in. But there was a certain sort of vulnerability associated with being bare-skinned that was hard to shake, especially when standing in front of a dead friend. But I was the oldest-in-feathers of the others, and as a result, a sort of second in command whenever Jack and Melody required it.

  Melody gestured with fingers crooked and boney enough to resemble claws, ordering me closer. Unconsciously walking on the balls of my feet with nerves, I took a few steps forward, stopping suddenly as my brain finally got around to processing what I was seeing. There were few things that truly scared me. A dead friend was terrible, but not terrifying in itself. The sight of the feather, large and barred elegantly in browns, tucked under Anthony’s wing, kicked in a panic that was very difficult to deny.

  There was an owl in our territory. “Owl. How did an owl find us?”

  Eric shuddered and almost slipped his feathers, body rippling as the moon pulled him back. Ashley and Kim huddled close to him, too new to try to ride the adrenaline of pure ter
ror back into human skin. There were few things that frightened my feather family—but the silent death that came with a were-owl definitely topped the short list. It was easy to forget, as we enjoyed the comfort of our suburbs, in our ability to move from one skin to the other, that there were other things out there that preyed on us. The human part of our brain was eternally convinced it was comfortable at the top of the predator chain. It was easy to forget that we straddled two skins, and had to account for them both.

  “We will find it.” Melody’s voice was hard. “We will not let it hunt in our territory, will not let it hunt us.”

  “They are killers of opportunity. So, we flush it out before it takes another of our family.” Jack, voice quiet as ever, shifted Anthony’s body in his arms. “Cry murder so that all can hear, rouse the natural crows. Come dawn we start the hunt.”

  “Now, we hold close and alert.” Melody brushed a hand across Jack’s neck before taking a step away. “We will roost here until dawn. Jack will take Anthony. Everyone will clear their day. And then we begin.”

  * * *

  Dawn after a full moon night was a strange shivery feeling, like coming out of warm water into chilled air. It always left me a bit short of breath and wondering why I couldn’t just curl up inside a crow’s body forever. But like all leftover bits of dragging dream, the allure of being a crow full-time dispersed after that first cup of coffee. Granted, this morning it was Dunkin Donuts coffee while sending a very apologetic email to my instructors via cellphone explaining the family trouble that had come up and my resulting absence from class today. I had grabbed my phone and extra clothes from home after I had snuck back in through my window and shed my feathers. I should have dared breakfast, too, as my stomach was busy shouting its displeasure as acidic coffee mixed with the bile that nerves were producing like a champ.

  I ignored the news playing on the screen in the corner of the Dunkin Donuts—it was a quiet reminder that in a few days we would start hearing stories about a missing person, about our Anthony. But they would be looking for a young man, not the battered crow skin he had been wearing when he died. They would never find him. His family would never know what happened. It infuriated me. My phone buzzed, letting me know I had a message.