by Sharon Shinn
Now he gives me a warm smile, full of tender fondness and intimate memories. “Sometimes you can be a little vulnerable,” he says. “Sometimes you need looking after.”
I will not let that smile melt my heart. “Really?” I say again. “And who got accosted in the park just the other day by a guy who looked ready to slit her throat right there in broad daylight?”
“That guy is a creep,” Celeste mutters.
Ryan is instantly frowning. “Yeah, I’m not happy about him,” he admits.
I glance at Celeste. “Did you report him to the sheriff, like I told you to?”
She shook her head. “I’d just as soon not get the law involved in my life if I don’t have to,” she says. “I’d just as soon not have Sheriff Wilkerson paying attention to me, if you know what I mean.”
I do know what she means; I don’t want Malcolm Wilkerson watching me any more closely than he already does, either. Still. “If this guy is going to be stalking you, you need some protection.”
“Or someone needs to teach this guy a lesson,” Ryan says. “Let him know he shouldn’t try to take advantage of pretty girls.”
“I thought Celeste already made that point,” I say in a dry voice.
Celeste is digging something out of her purse. “I Googled him the other day,” she says, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper. “Couldn’t find an address for him, but his brother owns that junkyard off 159.”
Ryan laughs. “I did the same thing!”
“Two great minds,” she says.
He leans in. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
She leans forward, too, so close their foreheads almost touch. “Time to drive by the Foucault homestead?”
He nods, and, at the same moment, they both sit back, satisfied smiles on their faces. “Let’s do it,” he says. “Right now.”
* * *
I think it’s a terrible idea to cruise by the Foucault junkyard, “just to see what it’s like,” and I know I shouldn’t even climb in the car with them. My one somewhat muddled thought is that they’re less likely to get in trouble if I’m with them. It’s odd that I’d think this, of course, because my presence has never before prevented either of them from pursuing unrestrainedly reckless behavior.
Bobby Foucault’s brother—whose name appears to be Terry—owns property on the other side of town from where W intersects with 159, so I haven’t been in his neighborhood that often. Still, everyone in Quinville knows where the junkyard is. It’s a little west and north of the Strip, the cluster of pawn shops, liquor stores, and adult entertainment emporiums that huddle together on the north edge of town. I suppose the thinking is that someone might steer his 1987 Chevy off the main road to Terry’s place, sort through the abandoned washers and broken-down muscle cars to find the perfect hubcap, then pause at the nearby establishments to pick up a sixpack and a dirty movie before heading home.
Of course, I’m probably being too harsh. Celeste says she’s browsed through the adult entertainment store, even bought a few things there, “Though the places down in St. Louis are nicer.” She’s also pawned a few things—mostly jewelry and small electronics presented to her by lovestruck boyfriends who didn’t get a chance to stick around too long—so she knows this corner of Quinville better than I do.
Ryan’s driving his convertible too fast for the road, so his tires squeal when he makes a hard left onto the unmarked road that leads to the junkyard. I’m in the backseat, huddled up against the chilly wind of passage, so I didn’t even know the turn was coming. I yelp in surprise, but they both ignore me.
“I think it’s about a mile up the road,” Celeste says.
“Have you actually been here before?” Ryan asks.
“Once. When I was seeing that guy who restored old Mustangs. It was a couple years ago, and I don’t think Bobby was around then. Only Terry.”
The area leading up to the property is lightly wooded, and between the stands of trees are swaths of failed crop experiments that have long since yielded to saplings and creeping ivy. Here and there, some distance off the road, I spot broken-down buildings—barns, outbuildings, single-family houses—that appear to have been abandoned. The whole scene looks like the perfect setting for a horror movie.
The junkyard itself, which eventually comes up on the passenger side of the car, isn’t much more inviting. I’d guess it covers eight or ten acres, all of which are enclosed by a chain-link fence topped by a couple of strands of barbed wire. The wire sags down in a number of places and appears to be cut clean through in another, leading me to suspect that there have been a few break-ins recently, though I can’t imagine what anyone would want to steal. Cluttering up the lawn from end to end is a truly eclectic tumble of machinery and vehicles. I spot tractors, threshers, and items I can’t begin to identify in among cars, trucks, motorcycles, and Jet Skis. There are also a couple of mobile homes, and at first I think they’re part of the junk. Then I notice that one of them has curtains in the window and a light shining through the cloth, and I realize that someone actually lives there. Terry and his wife, probably. Maybe Bobby, too, unless the second mobile home—which is far more dilapidated but still seemingly whole—is actually functional.
Ryan slows to a crawl and we all gawk over the side of the car.
“Hey, look, that’s a 1992 Camaro,” Ryan says. “First car I ever owned.”
“Me, too!” Celeste exclaims. “Mine was red, except the front bumper was blue.”
“Mine was black. And orange, if you count all the rust.”
“If I still had it, I could come here and get replacement parts.”
They point out a few other objects that catch their interest. They seem to have completely forgotten what brought us out here in the first place. For my part, I can’t stop staring at the mobile home, the one with the lights on; I twist around to keep it in view as Ryan inches past. I keep thinking about the woman who was sitting with the Foucault brothers at Arabesque that night, the one wearing the low-cut black shirt and the closed expression. Did she marry into the junkyard or is that where she and Terry ended up after other unsuccessful ventures? Did she think it was a temporary stopping point or did she unpack her bags expecting it to be her permanent home? Did she come from a worse environment, so that this ramshackle space seems like a haven of comfort and safety? Would she drive past my haphazard property on the other edge of town and feel sorry for anyone who ended up living as I do?
Ryan comes to a complete stop before we’ve quite passed the property. “I must say, this is even more picturesque than I remembered,” Celeste says.
“All it’s missing is a starved-looking dog lunging at us from a chain that’s just a foot too short to let it jump the fence,” Ryan says.
“You’ve got it wrong,” Celeste answers. “It’s off the leash and it’s trained to kill anyone who comes through the gate after dark.”
“I’ve seen prisons more welcoming than this,” Ryan adds.
“I don’t—” Celeste begins, but breaks off when the door to the mobile home opens and someone steps out. Not the weary, unhappy wife I’ve had so strongly in my mind, but the proprietor himself.
I sort of remember him from the night at Arabesque, but he comes back sharply into focus now. Like Bobby, he’s tall and dark-haired, but more heavyset and not as good-looking. He can’t be more than thirty-five, but there are deep lines etched around his eyes, gouged between his nose and his lips. I’m guessing they’re the souvenirs of cigarettes and booze and a propensity to glare, as he’s doing right now. He comes a few steps closer to the street.
“Hey!” he shouts. “You want something?”
Just as I’m thinking that’s not the kind of friendly voice that would make me want to hop out of the car and go exploring through his offerings, a second figure sidles out of the trailer’s metal door.
“Crap, that’s Bobby,” Celes
te exclaims. “Let’s get out of here.”
Ryan hits the gas so hard that the convertible jerks into motion and we spurt on down the road. Not quite fast enough. I’m looking over my shoulder, and I see Bobby startle and then race toward the gate, shouting something and waving a fist. It takes no great intuitive leap to guess he’s recognized Celeste.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” I say as we jounce along the rapidly deteriorating road. Ryan is a fearless driver, but after half a mile, even he is forced to slow down to avoid potholes and buckled pavement.
“Do you think this leads anywhere?” Ryan demands. “Or should I just turn around and go back?”
Celeste has her iPhone out. “I was just getting into my map app,” she says, flicking through images on the screen and frowning at the options she’s given. “Well, hell. It looks like the road just ends. Unless this map is out of date.”
Ryan’s braking so hard I feel the seat belts cut hard swaths across my chest and stomach. Over his shoulder, I can see that the road indeed peters out ahead of us, the asphalt feeding into a stretch of dirt, then an empty field. When he’s slowed to a reasonable speed, he wheels the car in a wide 180-degree turn, though his tires drop off the edge of the road for one terrifying moment. “Looks like we go back,” he says.
“I hope they aren’t in a truck coming after us right now,” I grumble. “Since obviously they know this road leads nowhere.”
“I think this car can outrun anything those hooligans might own,” Ryan says in a supercilious way.
“Off-road?” I demand. “’Cause I don’t know what they’re driving, but I bet they’d have an advantage if they chased you cross-country.”
He doesn’t answer, so I know he’s pissed, but I don’t really think they’re coming after us. I mean, I think they’d have caught up with us by now. Still, I’m not particularly looking forward to driving past their place again on the way to the highway.
Ryan stays at a relatively cautious rate of speed as long as we’re on the crappy parts of the road, but he accelerates when the pavement smooths out, which doesn’t happen until we’re almost in view of the junkyard. Then he floors it, and my guess is we’re going close to seventy as we zoom by the property.
Not so fast that I can’t see the two men pressed up against the fence watching for us. Not so fast that I can’t see Terry raise his rifle and take careful aim. Not so fast that we outrun the bullet. It grazes Ryan’s right hand where it rests on the steering wheel before plunging into the dashboard and shorting out some circuitry with a sizzle of smoke and a sharp electric odor.
Ryan yells in pain and swerves dangerously close to the side of the road, but rights the car at the last minute. Celeste is screaming and I’m cowering in the backseat, my arms folded protectively over my head. I’m terrified, I’m furious, I’m worried about Ryan, and yet the thought topmost in my mind is: This is a funny way for shape-shifters to die.
Not from the physical demands of our impossible lives. Not from the frightened village mob throwing rocks and firebombs. Not from exposure, dehydration, rabies, tetanus, encounters with feral beasts, or unfortunate brushes with animal control.
But from behaving like idiots. From being human.
CHAPTER TEN
As far as I can tell over the next few days, there’s no fallout from our brush with the Foucaults. Probably because none of the people involved mention it to anyone else. Obviously Bobby and Terry have no incentive to complain about us to Sheriff Wilkerson, and I’m kind of on board with Celeste’s reasons for not talking to the law. Ryan absolutely refuses to go to an urgent care center, so once we’re back at Celeste’s, I bandage his hand as best I can with the supplies Celeste has in her medicine cabinet. The wound looks superficial, but all sorts of possibilities for infection present themselves. Ryan promises he’ll seek professional help if there’s swelling, heat, or pain, and he also promises to come out to my place early next week so I can change the dressing.
“And I can pick up more of the serum,” he adds. “If you’ll have time to mix some up by then.”
“I’ll make it a priority.”
I don’t know how he’ll explain the bullet buried in the dash when he takes the car in for repair. I figure that’s not my problem.
I also figure it’s not my story. So when Joe calls me on Thursday and asks, “How was your week?” I say, “Oh, pretty quiet.” I probably should feel bad about the lie, but as I’ve been lying since I met him, it hardly registers.
“I’m hoping there’s going to be time to see you this week,” he says. “I’m coaching Friday night, and Saturday I agreed to take a shift at Arabesque. I figure I have to work there sometimes or they’ll quit asking.”
“Makes sense.”
“But I wondered if you were free Sunday? My buddy Mark wants to come and look over the other puppies, if that’s okay, but I don’t think he’d stay long.” There’s a beat. “I could hang out for a while, though, if you wanted me to,” he adds.
I hesitate for a moment because I’m starting to get nervous. By Saturday, it will be two weeks since I last shifted, and lately that’s been my limit. But the setting seems ideal. Even if I start getting warning signs that I’m about to transform, I’ll already be at my place and Joe’s already seen me come down with “migraines.” It shouldn’t be too hard to convince him to go.
“That sounds great,” I say. “See you then.”
On Sunday, Joe arrives at about three in the afternoon, his truck closely followed by a gold van. Inside the second vehicle I can spot an adult who looks to be in his forties and enough kids that I keep losing track. Eventually, they’ve all piled out and I do a quick head count—three girls and two boys ranging in ages from about seventeen to ten. The dad’s got salt-and-pepper hair, a thick mustache, and a weathered face that I instantly like. The kids all have that lean look of teen athletes and the restlessness of people who have been cooped up in a small space for far too long. I can tell that all of them are yearning toward the enclosure where the dogs have started up an excited chorus, but they’ve been raised too well to scamper off without permission.
Joe makes introductions. “Karadel, this is Mark Carson. He owns the trucking company I work for, and he coaches basketball with me.”
Mark’s handshake is warm and firm; his smile is irresistible. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Oh, please call me Karadel! And these are all your kids?”
He laughs. “Well, they’re all mine, but it’s not all of them. There’s two more already old enough to have left the house.” He identifies them quickly and I nod and smile, though I have no hope of matching names to faces.
“I hear you might want to adopt a couple of puppies,” I say.
“We might,” Mark says.
“Dad. You promised!” the youngest girl wails.
“Well, you gotta see if you like them first. See if you bond with them. Dogs, you know, they have personalities, just like people do.”
“And these particular dogs have tons of personality,” I tell them. “Come on. Let me introduce you.”
That’s enough to send the kids racing over to the enclosure, and in seconds they’re sticking their fingers through the fence, petting the eager little muzzles that are poking out through the chain-link.
“Remember the big one is mine!” Joe calls after them.
I smile at Mark. “You’re going to have a hard time telling them no after this.”
He grins. “Already bought a couple dog beds and a bag of puppy chow.”
Eventually, we’re all inside the enclosure, and there are so many dogs and kids running around that I actually feel dizzy from the motion. Joe’s made a point of separating Jinx out from the others, giving him undivided attention, and Jinx loves it. He watches Joe’s every move, chases after every ball Joe throws and brings it straight back, then dances at Joe’s feet, waiting f
or the next opportunity to show off his adorableness. Mark’s down on his knees, letting the smallest dog gnaw on his knuckles and tugging on the silky ears. I feel like I’ve had one of those signs printed over my driveway—Puppies! Free to good home!—and people from the good home have fortuitously arrived.
“Can we have them, Dad? Can we have them?” the youngest girl is asking.
Mark looks over at me. “I’m guessing they’ve had all their shots?”
I nod. “I’ve started the distemper and parvo. You’ll need to come back for rabies shots. And if you bring them back in a few weeks, I’ll spay and neuter them for free.”
He looks down at his daughter. “Then we can have them.”
I try not to be depressed as the girl and one of her brothers gather up the puppies and carry them out to the van, arguing over who gets to sit in which seat and who gets to hold the animals on the way home. But as Mark backs out and waves one last time, I feel my heart shrink down and my throat close up and tears sting at the back of my eyes. I wave back, but it’s the puppies I’m saying good-bye to, not the Carson clan.
It doesn’t help that, when I turn back toward the dog run, Joe is standing at the fence, Jinx in his arms, and the puppy is whining and pawing at the chain-link as if he desperately needs to chase after something precious that has been whisked away.
“Well, I don’t know who looks sadder,” Joe remarks. “You or Jinx.”
I put a hand to my heart and manage a laugh. “I’m going to start crying. How stupid is that?”
“Well, if you didn’t love them at least a little bit, you’d be a terrible person to be raising animals, so I think it’s sweet,” Joe says. “But I’m kind of worried about this little guy. Can we let him out of the corral here?”
“Yeah—I don’t think he’ll wander too far from you this afternoon,” I say. Just in case, I whistle for Scottie, who’s usually a stabilizing influence on the younger dogs. He’s sleeping in the sunshine pooling at the side of the barn, but he climbs to his feet and trots over as I open the gate to the enclosure and Joe sets Jinx down on the ground outside. They sniff at each other, and then trail behind us as Joe and I stroll over to the house and settle onto the bench on the porch.