by K W Taylor
Desperation and irrationality set in all too quickly. Frantic telephone calls to ask people if the club is haunted. Everyone believes the king has fallen off his rocker, and he no longer rules in his own castle.
Thoughts are shorter, briefer, more random and disoriented. Like the zipping city lights, his mind has become so speedy with despair that it’s all a big blur. Choppy days and nights, but then finally he sleeps.
He awakens one night in an unfamiliar bed, with the woman sleeping peacefully beside him. He is understandably startled, and as he cries out, she awakens. Pleasant smile. She speaks.
“Hi.”
Soft, quiet, nonchalant. She rolls toward him and tucks a hand under her pillow, gazing at him kindly.
Speech leaves him for long moments until a stream of questions spills forth: who is she and how he got here and where has she been all his life?
“Right here, silly.” And then there’s another kiss, even scarier than the first.
Do you want to think that she’s his beautiful bride of many years, that this was all a nightmare? Go right ahead, if that comforts you. Or maybe, simply, there are people with a certain separate air that renders them so dazzling that you simply must possess them, just as you might want to possess a butterfly or a bird, or something even more fragile and tenuous. Ephemeral people who are bubbles, clouds, air ...but far more dangerous.
The truth is, he opened his eyes to find her gone again. He goes mad with the wanting, the needing of her, the knowing that she cannot be possessed.
There are some things even the king can never have.
ORNITHOLOGY
Terry wore black turtlenecks and grey slacks with a slim leather belt nearly every day. He had the requisite fringe of hair around a shiny, Freud-bald head and close-cropped beard of an academic. Tortoise-shell spectacle frames. Pipe. Italian shoes. Hearty laugh and genial—if insincere—manner. He had money. Jeanette liked feeling taken care of. She was the same age he was but looked older, which she feared contributed to his other descriptor. In addition to “fiftysomething,” “scientist,” and “well-to-do,” one could add “philanderer” to the résumé that was his life. Before Terry began collecting cell phones like they were a cadre of ancient stamps due to appreciate in value, Jeanette had already begun to suspect something when every other call during the day was a hang-up. Terry never seemed to get hang-ups, but he sure got a lot of calls at home from journals she’d never heard of looking to interview him or beg him for book reviews.
Wouldn’t those places call him at work? Jeanette ignored things but wasn’t stupid.
She spent her days doing all kinds of appropriate things for a woman in her position. Giving instructions to the housekeeper. Volunteering for non-controversial issues—the opera, the Junior League, nothing about immigrants or children, heaven forfend, and the arts couldn’t be too multi-cultural or edgy ...and never, ever anything to do with animals, for God’s sake. Which, matter of fact, no religious or political affiliations, either. Neutral, safe, bland, but still useful. That’s a good girl. Pat pat pat.
But she did do work with animals, to spite Terry, just not live ones. Or dead ones, for that matter. She wasn’t going about learning taxidermy after all. No, she painted. Again, since it would be unseemly to paint anything too powerful, challenging, or offbeat, she painted lush, huge canvases of realistic animals in the wild. Lions, panthers, leopards...almost always huge African cats, sometimes with backgrounds and sometimes with just the hint of the jungle or desert around them. Sometimes just an eye or a nose or a mouth, a tail or paw. But still, always photorealistic, always rendered with utmost precision and attention to detail, never cartoonish or abstract. And yet her buyers found her work more impactful than cheesy, more stirring than a bland Kincaid landscape. This was somehow, sometimes upsetting imagery, and even Jeanette herself didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the glint of the fangs, the courage in the eyes, the upheld line of a lioness’ proud chin and chest thrust forward to greet the setting sun. Whatever it was that made her work popular, it was something, and over the years it meant she had her own money, too.
She did other things with this money, things unrelated to the opera and housekeeper. She took pottery and archery and other strange classes Terry didn’t understand. Exercise trends that came and went but involved less sweat than was distasteful for a woman her age. Pilates. Ballet. Tai Chi. Yoga.
It was in yoga that week that it happened. In the last ten minutes, the teacher began shavasana, as per usual, and led the group of middle-aged women through a series of meditative breathing techniques. Toward the end of the pose, her eyes closed, Jeanette thought she felt the fluttering of air moving above her. It was not unusual for the teacher to get up during this pose and do gentle massage on the students’ shoulders. When no cold but gentle hands fell on her clavicle, Jeanette frowned to herself in confusion. A second later, the teacher called out the instruction to roll to the right; her voice clearly came from the front of the room. The young woman had not moved. As Jeanette opened her eyes, she saw that none of the other students had, either.
She shrugged it off. Nothing had happened; it was a trick of the breeze, the light, the end-of-the-day fatigue that plagued her often.
Except that it happened again that night as she tried to read herself to sleep. Eyes growing heavy, she felt a presence flutter over her. Terry was at a conference—supposedly—and none of the kids were visiting. She drifted off before being able to determine what it had been.
The next day, she found herself sketching at a blank canvas. She had a photograph for reference of the eye of a sleek brown panther. And yet somehow, an hour later, she was staring at the distinct form of a sparrow, its head cocked to one side, its wings folded against its body.
Jeanette was stunned. She never painted birds, wasn’t particularly interested in them and never gave them much thought. She certainly would never try to draw one without some sort of model to work from, and yet she’d succeeded in depicting it with great detail. “Huh.”
There was a flapping somewhere. She froze, felt her heart plunge to her stomach. A buzzing, tense sensation seized her chest. She tossed out a whispered curse.
A shadow zipped along the wall of her basement studio, a shadow of bird’s wings mid-flight. There were no windows on this level.
Jeanette didn’t know what to do but leave the room, the house, drive. Somewhere, anywhere. She found her way to the art supply store, then to the market. Normalcy, errands, safe places with bright lights and many people. Coffee shop. Bakery. Post office. Wine shop. Anywhere and everywhere she could think of to get bits of business done, she did, carting home bags and packages that they didn’t quite need yet but which were at least not the frivolous boutique purchases of—
“Angela!”
The other woman owned a yellow Corvette, obnoxious and loud. She was patting at her hair with French-tipped fingers and gazing at herself in her rearview mirror.
“Jeanie!”
“Jeanette, actually.” This correction was ignored as the other woman exited the Corvette.
“Can I help you with that stuff?” Angela looked dubiously at the bags.
Jeanette shook her head. “Just get the door for me, would you? It’s the gold key there.” She handed over her keychain to Angela, who obliged.
“I would’ve let myself in, but.” She laughed. “Had to go and change the locks on me!”
“Yes, how silly of us.” Jeanette deposited her bags on the kitchen island. “So what brings you here? The kids aren’t home, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I just needed to chat with your current, my former real quick, nothing big.” She grinned and shoved her sunglasses up like a headband. Angela had deep wrinkles around her eyes, and the skin there was a shade lighter than the rest of her face.
Raccoon tan, Jeanette thought.
“‘Bout what?” Jeanette asked, starting to put the groceries away. She hoped it came out light, not accusatory.
“Eh, al
imony things, nothing to worry yourself about.” She made a squealing noise. “Oh, Jeanie! You still drink Lambrusco? That is so. Freaking. Cute!” She held the bottle up. “I used to down this stuff like it was water back in college!” She exhaled a nasal sigh. “Jesus, I had no taste back then. Such a silly goose!”
Jeanette gently took the bottle from Angela, saying nothing.
“God, I think it’s adorable that you don’t put on airs,” Angela went on. “You’re so real, Jeanie! You’re so down to earth! Good for you!” She patted the air in front of her like a pony preparing to trot.
Jeanette slid a cardboard sleeve of water crackers into the pantry. “It’s so great we can get along like this, Angela,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Innit?” Angela was now tapping away at a text message. “So, is Ter due home soon, ya think?”
“He’s away,” Jeanette said, “but he’s supposed to come home tonight. Late, though.”
“Eh, I’ll get outta your hair, doll.” Angela slid off the stool she’d perched on at the kitchen island. “I’m staying down at this totally adorable B&B.” She handed Jeanette a slip of paper. “Call, text, email, whatever. I’ll just need to see Ter tomorrow, ‘kay?”
“Sure thing.” Jeanette put the note up on the fridge with a plain black magnet. “Do you know the way out?”
Angela waved her off. “Got it covered, hon. See ya!”
Jeanette engaged the alarm after Angela was gone. There was a sudden pounding at the back of the house, and she immediately shrieked. The pounding only lasted an instant. She ran to the sliding doors leading to the deck and garden.
On the floor of the deck, having pummeled itself into the glass, was a dead sparrow. Blood seeped into the redwood slats of the wood.
That night, Jeanette felt something lie next to her in bed. When her eyes flew open, she expected to see her husband there. His pillow was empty. The mattress was covered with undisturbed sheets.
I’m going crazy, she thought.
A splotch of mottled white and black in the shape of an ink blot appeared on her windshield the next day, despite her car being locked in the garage all night. Terry’s side of the bed had still been empty that morning. Jeanette had an opera committee meeting. On her way there, she checked her messages, tried Terry’s cell (the one she knew the number for, anyway), and, out of desperation, called Angela.
“Nope, he never called!” Angela replied. “Wait, is everything okay?” The little girl patina slipped a little. “Hon, did he seriously never come home last night?”
“I’m sure his flight was delayed, his phone battery died, whatever,” Jeanette said. “It’s fine. Look, I’ll call you after my meeting. It’ll be okay.”
The meeting went by in a whoosh of fundraising gobbledygook. Jeanette barely heard the committee chair’s voice. The other women’s faces were blurs. Nothing made sense. She staggered out of the conference room feeling drunk and nauseated.
She managed to make it home, make it back to her basement studio, where she listened, anxiety-riddled, to message after message from a fearful, weeping Angela. She wanted to scream at Terry’s ex-wife that he wasn’t hers anymore, that this other woman needed to let go, get on with her life, stop hanging onto things that she no longer possessed.
The police were slow to come. Jeanette did not react badly, did not ask questions, but rode in the back of their cruiser to the morgue. As evening fell, she was staring down at the body of her husband. There were bruises around his mouth. His front teeth were chipped. The attendant left the sheet covering everything but his face, but Jeanette took his left hand in hers. “His ring’s gone,” she observed. Terry’s wrist was rubbed raw, little fibers dug into the skin amongst his arm hair.
“It’s in evidence,” the attendant said. “You’ll get it back once they’ve finished investigating.”
There was more raw skin around Terry’s neck.
“He did this to himself,” she said flatly.
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Oh, he had help,” Jeanette interrupted. “Someone tied him up, someone gagged him, what have you, but this, this is what he came to, this is what he wanted, he wanted to be ...“
What? What did he want to be? She didn’t know. She let the words drift off, drifted out of the morgue, drifted back home after hours of questions.
She slept horribly. Shapes on the ceiling, shapes against the lampshades, shapes fluttering and flapping around in her brain until at last she screamed, sweat-soaked, and sat upright in bed. Jeanette tore at her nightgown. There was a buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, then knocking, then darkness, then pain. Jeanette’s arms were being pulled out of their sockets, bones grinding against bones, muscles ripping and tearing, bending and being pummeled like clay, like pizza dough, like viscous, gelatinous goo into some other shape. Her breastbone burst out of her chest, ribs poking through skin and blood pooling around her torso. Legs shattered, everything from hip to knee fell away, pelvis angling itself down on her shins. The skin ruptured and blistered off what remained of her legs, and the bones sloughed off layers of blood-tinged white calcium to reveal darker, spindlier material. Follicles of hair shoved themselves out of Jeanette’s scalp and fell to the ground, leaving a dark shape that looked familiar. Helpless against blinding pain, she dimly recalled the dead bird on her deck. Was that only a day earlier? It seemed years now. She stretched against the agony and—
Suddenly it was gone. The pain gone, her body shredded and pared down to a succinct, smaller, lighter self. A self covered in feathers, bright, bright red. This was her new self.
It’s the male cardinal that’s colorful, she thought. She could still think, she was still herself, Jeanette, she still had a name, a husband—
Her wedding and engagement rings were grey circles on the floor near the remnants of her blood and humors.
She ran down the corridor, stretched her wings out as far as they would go, and flew.
PHLEGMATIC
“I don’t like to talk about it.”
He wilted. “And I don’t like change,” he said. “So we’re both out of our comfort zone.”
Erin sighed and flopped backward on the couch. Long legs stretched out across the cushion. Wes watched as she pointed and flexed her toes, the calf muscles tensing and releasing with each movement. He coughed and looked away.
“Not everything is because of you,” she said. “This started way before your sorry ass wandered into my shop.”
“Well, I figured,” he said. “I mean, I know I’m bad at this stuff, but I didn’t think I was that bad.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do I need to explain it again? I’d still like to date you. But I know that’s off the table.”
It was so quiet he could hear a clock ticking. As Wes looked up to see where it was, he spotted Erin’s cat padding out from behind the closet door. It was ajar, and a pile of tee shirts and jeans spilled out onto the dull, roughly-painted floor.
“You say that like it’s nothing,” he finally said. “This is huge, Erin.”
“I’d still be me.”
“But different.”
She sat up and crossed her legs. “Yes, different,” she agreed. “And, dude, I get it. I get that you’re into girls. But have you ever wondered?”
Wes looked at her. She had an olive complexion that glowed softly gold and huge, dark brown eyes. Her lips were pillowy, warm, and soft, but he didn’t know yet everything they could do. One front tooth was a little crooked, and he hoped with everything else going on that she wouldn’t change that as well.
He scooted closer to her, reaching out a hand to her cheek and stroking the backs of his fingers against it. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.
Someday there will be stubble here, he knew. He bent to kiss her, but it wasn’t passionate.
“I can’t promise anything,” he said, “but I like you, not just...”
Erin looked down and pulled away from him. “Don’t.” She stood up. “It’s more than
just this,” she said, gesturing at herself, trailing her hand in the air up and down the side of her body. “It’s also this.” She pressed her palm to her chest. “I’m going to be different. And I’m excited about that!” She beamed at him. “I’m scared, but I’m stoked, Wes.” She stepped back to him and picked up his hands, holding them tightly in her own. “But don’t promise to be anything intense after.” Her smile melted away. She took a deep breath and squeezed his hands harder. “Let’s take a break. Let me get through this, and then later we’ll see.”
He started to open his mouth, but she barked out a noise of protestation. “No,” she said. Her jaw was tense. “Just friends.”
He laughed, the sound coming out angrier than he wanted. “I’m not going to be your type, am I?”
She didn’t reply.
Pseudanor
First snow meant the first transformation of the year.
When the full moon cast its glow on the sparkling ice, the human would shift, change. Hair melted into a honey spackling of fur, coursing down a leonine body with paws, claws, and teeth where there once were hands, skin, utter normalcy. Eyes would go almond-shaped, the pupils moving from round to oblong. And this would be the human’s fate every night, from first snow to last, from dusk to dawn.
This was why she was alone, always a solitary figure. As human, she would drift silently with book and bag. As cat, she would crouch, hunt, slink. Staying alone was necessary, for when she changed, the cat would slice and tear and devour. No mere mortal man could handle such a risk to both of them. And the cat—the lion—burst through every cage and prison she designed for it.
No, not it. Herself. She both hated and loved that the cat was herself, too.
The cat knew where to press on the cages and where to unlock and how to reach the weak points in the wood, the metal, anything. And so she stopped trying to be contained and just roamed.