“How do you know that this is a curse?” He wondered what she knew, what answers, if any, were tucked away in her possession.
“What else would you call it, Brett? It’s certainly not a blessing. It’s nothing that God in his infinite power has condoned. We are damned you and I, in more ways than you think.”
She pulled a cigarette from a pack stashed in her purse and lit it. As he watched her, she seemed crazy to him. Her personality seemed to change, to fluctuate from the bright end of the spectrum to the darker one. Had she always been this way, or was it the result of being a shifter? Was this what he could expect within the next twenty years?
She continued...
“It was a young and lonely life, keeping a strange and dark secret all to myself for as long as I had. I’d refrained from any social life. I didn’t participate in school activities, nor did I have any close friends. I’d gone off alone whenever I needed to, away from Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian. They just assumed that I was a loner, a girl who needed her space, a girl who had issues. And then, along came Antonio, every lonely girl’s dream.
“He was gorgeous, charming, sexy, and those eyes were enough to turn any girl’s head,” she said, her eyes glancing upward, remembering the past. “He could’ve had any girl he wanted, any girl, yet he chose me; why, I’ll never know. Maybe it was because he knew I would follow him anywhere, maybe because he felt that he could have complete control with me.”
“But did he?” Brett asked. “That’s not how his cousin, Andre, tells it. He said that it was you who had a hold over Antonio, not the other way around.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, scoffing. “He also told you that he thought I’d attacked Antonio with a knife—stupid fool.”
“Wait a minute,” Brett said. “How could you know that?”
She told him all about how she’d been following him ever since she heard about Herb Haller. She told him about how she’d watched him, Susan, and the others from the woods.
“You’re not the only one with the wolf talent,” she said, snickering. “Then, I followed you all to Appleton. I was there in his living room.”
He face must have displayed his confusion.
“Come on, Brett,” she said. “You must have done it yourself in your life. As the old saying goes, ‘what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall.’”
He felt a flash of heat. She’d been the fly that he nearly swatted into a smear of insect guts. Only once had he shifted into the fly, but never again.
“The fly,” he said. His voice floated away in astonishment.
“That’s right,” she said. “One lucky swat and you would’ve been an orphan.”
“So, you’re conscious of what’s happening to you when you’re in another form?”
“I assume you haven’t reached that point yet?” Her words stunned him. “You will as you get older. The unconscious mind eventually becomes one with the shape. No longer will you experience instances where you awaken, unsure as to what happened.”
He just stared at her, unable to speak.
“Anyway, as I was saying about Antonio, he was the one person that I came to trust at that age, the one person I could tell anything to, and he would stand by me, protect me, and defend me. Antonio was the one person who I’d thought would understand. It seemed somehow easier to open up to him. So, I revealed myself to him.”
“He knew that you were a shifter?” Brett said.
“It was one of the worst mistakes I’d ever made in my life. One night, after we made love, I showed him; I shifted into the wolf. I’ll never forget the look of sheer shock, the baffled terror on his face, the fright in his eyes. Then, he watched as I changed back, and from that moment on, he seemed afraid of me.
“I thought that he would understand. I also thought that he might know something about what I was. Surely, he’d heard the old legends. The legends had been told in many cultures, even his. He came from an old-fashioned family that was steeped in its histories and legends, yet he still looked at me like I was some abomination sent straight from Hell. We remained together, but he was distant from me, silently seeking a way out.
“And then, I’d discovered that I was pregnant. You were the result of that night in question. He was alarmed; I could see it. Not only had he been a young man confronted by the unexplainable, but he was now the incumbent father of what might turn out to be the same horror that he’d laid down with; the same as the cursed thing that had changed into a wolf and changed his sly, cunning eyes to dark frightened orbs.
“He ran to his daddy, hoping to find a way out, but it hadn’t been that easy. Silas had hoped that he would live up to his responsibilities, make him a proud grandfather, even though his family saw me as the ‘crazy girl.’ Antonio felt trapped, confined to his duty, and obligated to keep my secret at the same time. I also began to suspect that there was someone else, a girl who’d hung around at his track meetings. One night, we had a huge fight about that and everything else.”
Her voice began to quiver, recalling the pain of her adolescence.
“The pressure began to build during the fight,” she said. “It was becoming too much for me. I couldn’t control it. I’d shifted into the wolf, and as the wolf, I chased him through the countryside. When I caught up with him, I attacked him. The wolf sunk its fangs into his left leg, piercing through the flesh and very close to the bone. The wound to his leg was deep, and the injury was permanent. His days of track and field had abruptly ended.
“And of course, he went back and told his family that I attacked him. But I hadn’t meant to hurt him, at least, not like that. A week had passed with no word from him. I was miserable.
“Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian could tell that something had occurred between us. Secretly, they’d been hoping for it to end. They despised Antonio as much as his family loathed me. Then one night, I got a phone call from him.
“He’d asked me to meet him in a small, secluded grove adjacent to his house. We used to rendezvous there all the time and make love under the moonlight. He said that we needed to discuss how we were going to handle things, and what was best for the baby. He sounded understanding, forgiving, ready to talk things over.
“I walked to the grove, anxious, hopeful, wishing that he’d take me into his arms, and that we’d forget every angry moment that had taken place. That didn’t happen. I stood in the grove, watching his blank expression. That’s when he told me that he no longer wanted anything to do with me, that he wanted a normal life, a regular girl, not someone like me. He would do what he could for our child, but mostly, he would pray. Then, he asked me to leave him alone.
“I went wild. I released my fury on him. I punched him, kicked him, and spat at him. As I was cursing him, the change came over me again. I realize now that all of it had been premeditated. His sole intent was to trigger the change in me, to coax it out for someone else to see.
“The heat consumed me as the sweat soaked me. I ripped the clothes from my burning body and shifted into the wolf as he watched. But someone else had also been watching. When the wolf moved toward Antonio, your grandfather, Silas, walked through the grove’s hedges, his shotgun gripped in his hands.
“He fired the gun in the air, and the next thing I recall is running as the wolf and arriving back here on the farm. I’d always kept a change of clothes in the woods; it was one of the many ways I kept the secret hidden so well from Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian.”
The strangest realization entered Brett’s mind; the fact that he’d done something similar during the wee hours of Christmas Day.
“I had no idea as to what would occur next. Silas had seen me shift; I was sure of it. I feared that he would show up on the front doorstep of this house and tell Uncle Jack what he saw. He and Antonio now possessed the power to reveal my secret not only to Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian, but to the entire world. They had the power to destroy my life.
“It was three days later when Uncle Jack came into my bedroom and told me that Antonio�
�s family had vacated and vanished without a word. He’d said that it was all for the better and perfectly within character for a family such as themselves. They belonged to a traveling show, he said, and carnies would always be carnies. Good riddance. He said that we were going to raise the baby to the best of our abilities, and that you would have no better family than the three of us.
“But Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian remained unaware of my secret. Soon, I would be giving birth to a child who might be just like me. I didn’t know how to deal with it. Around town, people were talking about how the Anakas family had just left without a word, but the talk soon died down. I hadn’t heard a word from Antonio, or Silas for that matter.”
She puffed the last drag from her cigarette and squashed it out in one of the small glass ashtrays kept out back for smokers. She blew the smoke into the fresh summer air.
“My belly began to show early. Aunt Vivian had been amazed at how quickly you were growing inside of me. I was a young girl who’d never been pregnant, but even I could feel how rapidly the child inside of me was growing. I could feel that something wasn’t entirely normal, yet I dared not say a word. I waited anxiously for you to arrive; I had to see you with my own eyes.
“Uncle Jack and Aunt Viv had always taken good care of me, but never more so than while I was pregnant. That’s why it was so difficult making sure that they would never witness this unholy metamorphosis as it tortured my fragile body.”
“The shift came over you while you were pregnant?”
He was struck by this revelation, realizing in an instant that Susan had been right; Claudia’s premature labor had been triggered by a shifting. He thought of his tiny life as a fetus being temporarily sheltered in the womb of an animal, the same womb that would change back to its human form. Had he shifted inside her womb along with her? The thought caused him to stir. His mind felt like the vastness of space, as the answers to a million questions remained far away and unknown.
Another thought struck him: would he pass this stain onto his own children? Maybe not, he thought. Not if he killed her first.
“I would leave the house and make it into the woods as fast as I could,” she continued, nodding her head in the direction of the woods beyond the yard. “Unlike before, I’d experienced excruciating pain when I shifted. It was a sharp, shooting agony that felt like it was splitting the hemispheres of my brain. Then, it would wreak havoc on my body, attacking every muscle, joint, and bone from head to toe. I thought I would die every time I shifted while I was pregnant, but I didn’t. I would change into the wolf, but not the wolf of which I’d been accustomed. I shifted into a shuddering, expectant canine, unable to roam like before, and unable to stay in that form for long.
“When I’d return to the house, Aunt Vivian would assume that I was tired or not feeling well as a result of the pregnancy. She’d order me to go and lay down, which I would’ve done anyway. But the instance that really horrified me occurred less than a day before you were born. It was in the wee hours of the morning before the three of us were to drive to Langdon. Aunt Vivian wanted to stay behind with me, but I insisted on going. To this day, I can’t imagine what would have happened had I been home alone.
“At around three in the morning, the heat had engulfed me in a wave. I could feel the oncoming pain creeping up my spine on its way to my brain. I got out of bed, donned my housecoat, and snuck slowly down the stairs, careful not to wake Aunt Vivian and Uncle Jack. I made it into the woods once again, the pain becoming greater with each fragile step. Once I was safely hidden by the deep thicket, I removed my clothes as fast as the heat was consuming me and drawing the sweat from my body in a torrent. The cold October sting was nothing against the rising Fahrenheit that I felt.
“I went down on my knees. The prickling, tingling sensation of sprouting fur enveloped me as my vision sharpened and took on that familiar crimson hue. The previously unheard sound of a distant owl became clear. The pain was too intense not to let go, and so I did. The wolf had overcome me, and I spent a spell beneath the moonlight.
“Before dawn, I awoke on the ground in the woods, naked and waking from an almost remembered dream. I realized where I was and what had happened. I got dressed and crept back inside the house, unnoticed by Aunt Vivian or Uncle Jack.
“A few hours later, Aunt Vivian came into my bedroom. I hadn’t slept. Uncle Jack suggested going to Langdon alone and letting Aunt Viv stay home with me, but I needed to get out. I needed to get away from the constant, rigid routine. They both reluctantly agreed, and we left for Langdon. We never thought that I would go into premature labor; I hadn’t been due for another few weeks.
“Once we arrived in Langdon, I could feel that something had changed since the night before. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but you were kicking and rampaging inside of me, fighting to get out. I tried to relax myself; I knew that it was too early. Then, as we were heading out to dinner, I felt an ever so slight trickling down my leg. My water had broken.
“Aunt Vivian took one look at me and knew that the baby was coming. You’d been ready, but not me. I screamed out in a new and greater pain that wracked my body only a mere twelve hours after I shifted in the woods. I was certain that the consistent onslaught of pain I endured would kill me, yet it hadn’t.
“You were born in that unfamiliar hospital, faster than I could register everything that was happening. You were the tiniest thing I’d ever seen in my life. They all tried to calm me, telling me that babies were born prematurely all the time, but you being early hadn’t been the only thing that concerned me. I worried about how what I was could’ve possibly affected you. My greatest fear was that I’d passed on this cursed inheritance. At first, I feared giving birth to a baby that shifted during the delivery. Later, I wondered whether my tiny baby would shift in the incubator, making me the hand that rocked the cradle of the bizarre.”
She paused, narrowing her eyes and staring out at the woods. She looked back at him.
“They’d all been shocked at how fast you grew,” she said. “They all assumed that you were some sort of miracle child. I began to feel a certain sense of hysteria after it all. I even insisted that you weren’t mine. I knew why you’d been growing so rapidly, yet I didn’t want to face it, nor could I prove it. I know now that it was in the blood, the blood of the skinwalker.”
The irony of her words left them both in silence. He watched as she pulled another cigarette from the pack in her purse and lit it. He noticed the resignation on her face, a stoic and undeterred conviction. He realized, for the first time, that she knew a great deal about the curse that they shared. She was obviously much more intelligent that Uncle Jack’s description had pegged her. She puffed the smoke away from him and continued...
“When you shifted into the puppy, I finally discovered the impending proof that I’d been looking for. I’d already known, deep inside, that you were like me. Still, it came as the shock of my life. Then, I realized that I had to handle it in a certain way. So, I ran outside and yelled for Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian to come in. I thought that if they discovered what you were while you were young enough, they’d keep and endure your secret; you were just a baby.
“And then the damnedest thing happened...you shifted back before we returned to the house!” A mad, repetitive giggle erupted from her, the sound of which sent a chill down his spine. The laughter went on for seconds and was soon silenced by the next drag of her smoke.
“I’d managed to keep the secret from both of them all of my life,” she said, her eyes unblinking in recollection. “I mastered ways of shifting somewhere away from this house and making sure they saw nothing. Besides, why would they have believed it? I’d known that even if they found out about you, they would love, and keep, and protect you always. They’d done the same for me, though they hadn’t known what I was.
“My father had left me here one day with the two of them and never came back,” she said, looking at him. The look on her face questioned whether or not he’d know
n. Once again, her lower lip slightly quivered in its attempt to force back the hurt.
“I know,” he said. “Uncle Jack told me.”
She looked away and sneered with disgust.
“My father knew that something was mentally off about me,” she said. “Who knows? He may’ve even had a slight hint of what I was. Either way, he hadn’t been able to handle it; he was a drunk. But, Brett, I was young and unstable. I still hadn’t known everything there was to know about what I am; I still don’t.
“I’d been a mother with a mental illness, bearing a horrible secret. I couldn’t have given you an untainted life. I thought of myself living, worrying, and trying to hide my own cursed shifting along with my child’s. I would’ve been spilling my own poisoned life into yours.
“Soon, the tension began to build on a daily basis. I felt myself falling deeper into my bi-polar darkness. All of it had been too much. I prayed that someday you’d forgive me.”
Brett felt the roller coaster of emotions inside of him. He felt the ironic sensation of understanding and yet not understanding. How could she have given up her child so easily?
“I knew all along that Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian would’ve given you a far better life.” Her voice quivered, and she swallowed hard, but she was right; they had given him a better life. He listened as there was more to the story.
“At first, I’d gone to a halfway house that secretly took runaways off the streets. I told them that I was a runaway, and they took me in. I was there for almost two years, until I became a legal adult. Then, I had to seek out my own way, but I always kept watch over you. I was watching through a bird’s-eye view at your seventh birthday party.
“It wasn’t long after that when I hooked-up with a much older man, another one of my young and naïve mistakes.” She looked at him with an expression of guilt. “He was the one who left that note about you for Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian.”
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