by Hal Schrieve
“All those people were agreeing with what he said, though. I can’t believe that.” Aysel blew her nose in a napkin. She looked up at Z. “I got . . . haha, I guess I got really scared.”
“That makes sense,” Z said.
They sat there while Aysel ate her muffin. The woman behind the counter switched the TV station over to a soap opera, the theme song for which played loudly and drowned out any noise from outside.
Aysel used a telephone to call her mother and let her know where she was. Azra drove up fifteen minutes later, and Aysel gave her a guilty shrug through the window. Azra stood outside against the car in an olive sweater, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling. Aysel got in and the two drove away down the street.
Z thought that maybe Mrs. Dunnigan would still be at her bookstore. They wanted to go home with her if she was. The town didn’t feel safe. On the way to the store, Z walked a little farther than they had to so they wouldn’t have to pass City Hall again. Z wondered how many people were like Mr. Salt. The afternoon was cold and darkening to an ash color. Steam fogged up windows on the street. Far away, the noise of a crowd continued, almost louder than it had been when Aysel and Z left the rally. Finally Z reached The Reading Circle, with its cracked and taped-over window and the display of were-wolf rights literature untouched in the display case. Z opened the door, their joints cracking. They trembled with relief to find the narrow stacks of books inside pristine, and Mrs. Dunnigan sitting peaceably by the register like it was a normal day.
“Darling! It’s good to see you,” Mrs. Dunnigan said from behind the counter. “I’ve been fretting all afternoon about where you were.”
“Me too about you,” Z said. “We should close up the store. I think these are the kind of people who won’t like your display.”
“I was waiting for Sal to come help me board up the windows,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “But I don’t think he’s coming. I think I want to stay here and protect the place.”
“Did you see the crowd?” Z asked.
Mrs. Dunnigan looked about to answer, but at that moment the bell on the door jingled.
“Hello,” Mrs. Dunnigan said brightly.
The man who entered was one of the people from out of town, Z could tell. He looked around with a mixture of confusion and something else. The expression was the kind people made when they were ready to be angry but had not heated up yet. He was wearing one of the anti-werewolf shirts from the booth Aysel had stolen from. He walked over to the counter and put both of his large hands on it, and stared Mrs. Dunnigan down.
“I’ve heard about this shop,” he said to her.
“Well, that’s very nice,” she said, her eyes flashing.
“People say you hosted some kind of pro-werewolf get-together in here.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a piece of paper, which he squinted down at. “You sell books supporting werewolves, shapeshifters, and monsters living without treatment,” he said, reading from the paper. “That true?”
“We also have a section on LGBT rights and HIV education,” Mrs. Dunnigan said, her voice steely. “As well as the Mexican labor movement.”
“Look,” the man said. He looked a little bit taken aback by the tone of her voice. “The folks I’m with think it’s inappropriate to talk about werewolves not needing treatment just after someone’s been killed. The Salem Anti-Monster Action Council wants to make this town a safe place for people who aren’t monsters, not people who are.”
“I’d like it to be a safe town for everyone,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “But speaking of town, you aren’t from Salem, are you?”
“I’m from Eugene, ma’am,” the man said. “Close enough for me to be worried about what’s happening here.”
“I’m just interested,” Mrs. Dunnigan said, “in why they’ve sent you to tell me this. This Salem Anti-Monster Action Council.”
“There are some others on their way,” the man said. “In an hour or so. They sent me to ask you if you would like to issue a formal apology, or if you wanted to publicly state that you supported monsters.”
“I won’t issue an apology,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “I think what you people are doing is very silly and wrongheaded and vicious.”
The man cast his eyes around uneasily. As he was doing so, he saw Z. He gave a start. “Oh Jesus,” he said. Z winced and turned away from him and edged around the corner of a bookshelf. They crouched, pretending to be browsing.
“Oh Jesus indeed,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “That’s just what I thought when I saw you walk in.” She looked down at her watch. “You said they would be coming by in an hour, your friends?”
“Once the rally winds down. I imagine they’ll be pretty feisty.”
“The shop will be closed by that time.”
“They will still plan on coming by,” the man said.
“Well, how about you all leave a nice little manifesto stapled to my door, then,” Mrs. Dunnigan said.
“I don’t imagine that that is what they have in mind,” the man said. He turned toward the door, but then hesitated, and moved over toward Z. They were on their hands and knees pretending to look at the spine of a book called Les Guérillères. The man stood uncomfortably close for a moment, leaning over them. Z felt his eyes on their neck. They felt paralyzed. They heard Mrs. Dunnigan shift and start to come over, her feet tapping on the floor.
“Can I help you with something before you go, sir?” she said, resuming her customer-service voice with only a slight metal edge. “You’re right on top of our sizable French section, there.”
“I’m just going,” the man said. Z glanced up at him, and at the same moment they felt a heavy weight come down on their left hand, and heard a pop. It was not exactly painful for the first moment—there was too much surprise. They looked down and saw the man’s heavy boot lifting off their fingers. He walked toward the door and went out, striding heavily down the street away from the shop.
“Did he just step on my fingers?” Z asked slowly.
“Good fucking god,” Mrs. Dunnigan said, and Z almost laughed in surprise. They had never heard her curse. “Your hand!”
“It’s okay, I can barely feel it,” Z said.
“It’s mangled,” Mrs. Dunnigan breathed. She wheeled toward the door. “I’ll kill him,” she said, and started off.
“Don’t!” Z exclaimed. They lifted their hand and studied it. Several fingers were bent at an angle. “We should just board up the shop and go.”
Mrs. Dunnigan put her hand to her forehead. “Yes,” she said. “I guess you’re right. We’ll fix your hand as best we can when we get home. God, I want to kill that bastard.”
“It won’t do any good,” Z said.
The bus was nearly empty, and filled with an amber glow from intermittent streetlights that lined the route. Mrs. Dunnigan sat next to them with her hand over their injured fingers. They had boarded up the shop with the plywood panels Mrs. Dunnigan had in the back. Z tried to become mesmerized by the passing lights and forget what had happened that afternoon. It did not work completely. They glanced backward as the bus rounded a corner, and saw a thin pillar of smoke rising from the place where the rally had been.
“It’s burning,” Z said, their voice rising a little too much. “Something’s burning.”
“Shh,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “Let’s not look back at it. We can worry later.”
Z felt their chest draw inward painfully and clenched their good fist around Mrs. Dunnigan’s hand. They submerged the panicked yelp that was swelling in their throat and stared at the scratchy upholstery of the bus seats. They tried to think of something to talk about that didn’t have to do with the man from Eugene or the fire. They realized they hadn’t spoken to Mrs. Dunnigan much in the last few weeks, beyond the daily routine speech needed to communicate. It wasn’t the right time, or really the right place, but Z suddenly felt a question rise in their throat.
“Mrs. Dunnigan, I wanted to ask you about Cassie,” Z said.
“Cassie?” Mr
s. Dunnigan looked into Z’s eyes. There was a little bit of fear there.
“Well, I mean, for one, she’s the reason you have the views you have, isn’t she?”
“Yes. One of the reasons,” Mrs. Dunnigan said.
“Did you ever feel like maybe the other people were right? The people that say monsters should be locked up or sent away? That they’re dangerous?” Z didn’t say we. They were on a public bus.
“No,” Mrs. Dunnigan said quietly. “It’s about loving someone, and seeing them as part of your family. I think some people have the capacity to see different people as part of their family and some don’t.”
“With your marriage,” Z said, “and the way she could change gender.” They lowered their voice. “Did you ever feel like Cassie was both or neither? Or did she ever talk about not being sure about being a woman? It would have been easier for both of you if she were a man, right?”
Mrs. Dunnigan held Z’s hand. “People often ask that about shapeshifters and fey and werewolves, you know. Except about their species. Trying to figure out where their allegiance is. Cassie could have shifted into any body, but she chose to be a woman, and to be a lesbian. She just liked it that way. There are other shapeshifters who choose to live in many bodies, though it’s true that makes people afraid of them.”
“Like people are scared of my body now.”
“You’re defying death. It frightens people who believe in death. People are worried that there will be a time when shapeshifters and fey overtake humans, overtake women and men, and make the whole world shifting or formless. When things like life and death will stop meaning anything.”
Z closed their eyes. “I kind of wish that would happen.” They looked at the colors on the back of their lids.
The town grew distant behind the bus. When the bus reached their stop the two stumbled on the curb and almost fell, and then shuffled as quickly as they could toward Mrs. Dunnigan’s home. Z was thinking of Aysel and her mother, of fire . . .
The night seemed longer than usual. Z watched the wall. They realized they were waiting for mobs to come and break down their door. But the hours dragged on and the smoky night became a mist that shrouded the shrubs around the apartment complex at dawn. The road outside Z’s room remained empty of cars. No mobs came.
Only an effigy of a werewolf was burned, everyone learned on the news Friday. Some students had made it out of socks and old sweatshirts and a Halloween mask and brought it out after all the speakers had finished. City Hall had not been notified that the effigy was to be burned, and now there were some minor felony charges being pressed against the people who had set up the bonfire. However, these all paled in comparison to what happened afterwards, when the crowd dispersed into the streets. Three Salem Homeless Beaten by Mob; In Critical Condition, read one headline on the cover of the Portland Tribune. Bookstore Ransacked. Z grabbed the paper and studied the story beneath it.
In the wake of the Thursday night protest, the copy went, crowds fanned out around the metropolitan area of Salem. The crowds spread leaflets which explained their views. They also attacked three transients who were sleeping in the doorway outside a warehouse near City Hall, after proclaiming them to be werewolves. Those responsible for the attack were described by witnesses as young college students. These transients sustained bruises and two broken bones before being removed to the hospital. None are currently suspected of any crime, though policemen will make inquiries. The anti-monster activists sought, according to one anonymous informer, to look for people who might be werewolves. Additionally, they broke the windows of a bookstore, the name of which has not been disclosed. One source said the bookstore was targeted for supporting radical pro-monster views. Charles Salt, a candidate for Chief of Regulations with the Salem Police Department who spoke at the rally earlier in the evening, clarified that the activists do not generally see themselves as violent or want violence. “It is in self-defense,” he said. “Citizens perceive themselves at risk, and take action to protect themselves.” Charles Salt continued that his campaign platform was based on giving citizens a greater feeling of security, so that outbreaks of mob violence become unnecessary. The police department responded to the popular discontent by issuing a statement early this morning saying they would be deploying a full-scale investigation into recent werewolf attacks, and to possible connections with terrorist groups. Chief Fuller of the Portland police will be present at a more comprehensive press conference this morning to elaborate on this plan.
Mrs. Dunnigan looked over the story, little puffs of breath escaping from her nose intermittently. She was stirring her coffee with a fork in the Friday morning light that struggled through the windows and lit up the aloe vera plant next to the sink. The paper folded and made crackling sounds against the crumb-covered table. She looked up at Z. Her wispy white hair was illuminated from behind and resembled a halo.
“Well, it doesn’t say they burned my place down,” she said. “Nice way to find out about it, though.”
“Are you going to close the store?” Z asked.
“Not for now,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “I’ve had this kind of thing happen before. Just after the ’92 election, for one, a few years ago. I’ve never closed it before. Besides, your mother wouldn’t have wanted me to.”
“My mom?”
“She and I first became friends at the store,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “She was political.”
“I didn’t know.” Z paused. “So if you aren’t closing the store, what are you doing?”
“I’ll get a concealed-carry license for my revolver.”
“Are you sure? That doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Z said.
“I’m all right,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “It’s you who needs to be careful. Make sure you bring people to protect you next time you go hang around in public. That Aysel girl is strong, but I don’t know if she would be very good against a mob.”
Z shrugged and looked down at their blue flower-pat-terned plate. Half a well-blackened sausage still sat uneaten in a puddle of runny egg yolk and rosemary.
“This sort of thing always makes me nervous,” Mrs. Dunnigan added. She fiddled with the large silver hoop earring that nestled in the velvety brown skin of her right earlobe. The left earlobe held a pearl earring. “I expect they’ll have stolen things. Sal will be nervous. We won’t make any sales. Maybe I should just close up shop for a while.”
“It makes me nervous, too,” Z said. They ate the rest of their sausage and drank the milky coffee Mrs. Dunnigan had put in front of them. “People at school agree with what’s going on.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Dunnigan spat. “They’re all the children of these people, these violent nasty people. You stay clear of them unless you’re with me and my revolver. Keep yourself safe.” She brandished her coffee fork at Z, and dripped brown onto her newspaper.
“I already do,” Z said. “I mean, I try.” They bit their lip. “Do you really have a revolver?”
“Somewhere in the front hall closet,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. She stood up and took her cup to the sink. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to carry it. I used to in the eighties all the time, even though I didn’t have a license then.” She sighed. “I suppose I have to go in now. Take care of whatever they did to the shop.”
On the intercom that morning, before the Pledge of Allegiance, it was announced that the police would be conducting a search of the school sometime next week. Z skipped second period and instead stood in a janitor’s closet, swaying slightly but not sitting down on the cement floor. They smelled their wrists, their hair obsessively. Did they smell dead? They pulled up the collar on their shirt. The lamp in the closet flickered.
Tommy and Z walked to the cafeteria together at lunch. Tommy had cut his hair the previous night, and it was now shoulder length. The long yellow halls echoed with the noise of people and the screech of rubber shoes on linoleum.
“I like your haircut, Tommy,” Barbara Walsh said to Tommy from where she stood in the lunch line, a
s Z and Tommy passed. Barbara was thirteen years old, probably no more than eighty pounds, and shorter than Tommy, but her voice carried.
“Thank you,” Tommy said, raising his chin higher. Z could hear his heart begin to pound as Barbara’s friends and the boys around them began to laugh.
“It really reminds me of a fairy I saw in a picture book as a kid. Is that what you were going for?”
Tommy swung his head haughtily around—his soft hair flipping— and turned away.
“Or was it a fairy princess? I can’t recall.” Barbara’s voice rose an octave on the word princess. “I wonder if princesses are above the law around here. I wonder what the police will say.”
Z felt a prickle of anger beneath their skin and in the stitches on their neck. They turned to Barbara. “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem. I was saying I liked his haircut.” She giggled.
“Oh, really.” Z crossed their arms over their chest.
“Z, leave it alone,” Tommy said softly, looking around uncomfortably.
“Tommy looks great and you all can go eat mud,” Z said. They spun around and grabbed Tommy’s skinny arm, hooking it around their own, and tried to move away. Behind them, Barbara laughed. Z felt like hurting her, but there were lunch ladies all around them, and Barbara wasn’t the only one giggling. They bit their lip, feeling the skin peel.
Someone passing Tommy and Z abruptly stepped in front of them, their foot catching the end of Tommy’s long cloak. Tommy gave a little gasp and stumbled into Z. The person in front of them—it was one of Charley’s friends— spun around, quickly. The contents of their tray—a fish burger, a large container of runny ketchup, and carrots in ranch dressing—collided with Tommy in a heavy, wet thunk. It happened so fast that neither of them registered what had occurred for a few seconds. Tommy dropped his lunch box. Z, who had caught the spray from the impact, wiped their eyes. People around Tommy and Z were watching them, giggling. The container of ketchup had hit Tommy square in the face before spinning down his front. It was now oozing onto the linoleum at his feet.