Going Through the Change

by Samantha Bryant

  atricia watched them leave. The man strode down the street still cradling the woman in his arms. It was like a scene from an action movie. Patricia made note when they entered a small white cottage three houses down. She’d have Suzie look up the address later and see what she could find out, that is, if Suzie would even talk to her after the way she ran out. She knew she’d have to make it up to her intern when she came back.

  The man and woman had been a strange pair, indeed. The woman had been frightened of even the mention of Cindy, and the very handsome man seemed to be on a rescue mission. The woman had obviously been through something awful. She had clung to the man with a naked panic that was painful to watch.

  The woman was very small, barely five foot tall, probably not more than ninety pounds, what Patricia’s mother might have called “a slip of a girl,” but the large, muscular man with the soft brown eyes seemed to have some trouble holding her. Strangely, it wasn’t like he was going to drop her, but more like she was going to fly out of his arms. He seemed to be helping to hold her down. That couldn’t be right.

  Patricia was very confused about what she had just seen but didn’t know where else to go. She’d come here looking for help from her friend and unofficial doctor, but she’d walked in on something that gave her a hollow feeling in her gut. She decided to stay, anyway. She and Cindy went way back. She’d wait and find out Cindy’s side of things.

  Cindy was unconventional, to say the least. After all, a silenced gun had been one of the lab instruments she’d used with Patricia, and without asking her permission first. Patricia had just about ripped the good doctor a new one about the risk she had taken, but Cindy had been very reassuring. “There was no doubt what the result would be, Patricia. I was just gathering the final evidence.” Patricia had eventually calmed down. No harm had been done after all, and they’d learned something important about her condition. Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary action. Maybe what was going on with Blondie and He-Man was just a misunderstanding, an overstepping of bounds.

  Of course, giving Cindy the benefit of the doubt didn’t mean Patricia wouldn’t snoop around while she was waiting. It was good to see things for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

  A quick walk around the rooms of the first floor didn’t reveal much. There was a lot that didn’t seem very much like her old friend at all. Like Patricia had noticed on her previous visits, there was lots of lace and chintz and other materials that must still be there from when she had inherited the house from her mother. If Cindy had decorated herself, the house would have been all modern and glossy. Chrome and glass, maybe. Not florals and lace, certainly.

  There were some oddities, but nothing Patricia could learn anything from. There was a strange pattern of dirt on the rug in front of the sofa that almost looked like burns in the shape of feet. There was a bird perch sitting by the window, but no bird, just a series of small leather straps dangling. The bird must have escaped. The windows had very heavy draperies that blocked out all light. Patricia wondered if Cindy had become very paranoid about her privacy or if she was having vision problems that made her light sensitive, perhaps migraines.

  All this conjecture was just making Patricia even more impatient. She flipped the curtains closed again and stalked away. The huge yellow spikes that had destroyed her blouse had finally gone down, but her skin was still scaly and bumpy. Where was that woman? When Patricia had fled her office, she had driven almost straight here, taking a moment to throw the cape around herself, happy she had neglected to take it back inside after the charity gala the weekend before. She had been sure Cindy was the one person who could help her. It hadn’t occurred to her that Cindy might not be home, or that she might really be up to no good. Counseling herself to wait and see, Patricia went back to examining the house.

  The books on the shelves were science volumes interspersed with romance novels with covers that made Patricia smile to herself, and other books with titles Patricia couldn’t parse because they were written in Chinese. She pulled down one of the Chinese ones and tried to flip through the pages, but couldn’t manage with her claw hands. She tore a page when she tried to catch the book as it slipped from her fingers. It showed a diagram of a person’s tongue with arrows pointing at different parts of it. It made Patricia think of old pseudoscience trends like phrenology, one step removed from the truly absurd things like astrology and palm reading.

  Cindy had often tried to convince Patricia to be more open-minded over the years, but Patricia reminded her that she was from Illinois. She was familiar with the smell of bullshit. Had Cindy stepped fully over into nutter-land? Was she going to offer to read Patricia’s star chart when she finally returned home? The tests the other night had felt scientific, using tools Patricia could respect, like petri dishes and microscopes, blood samples and chemistry. She hoped her friend was still the rational and reliable woman Patricia believed her to be.

  On the table in the kitchen was a small stone tea set just like the one she remembered from when she and Cindy had been college roommates. Patricia thought the tea smelled terrible, preferring her coffee, but seeing the tea set gave her some small reassurance that the woman she knew was still here. She felt calmer. At least until she went downstairs to the lab and found the broken door and shattered tube. Had the blonde been inside the tube? Had that man done this to the door? She didn’t see any signs of tools, and the handle was completely squashed. He must have been amazingly strong.

  What was her old friend up to? Cindy was going to be furious about the mess. She had always been a freak about her workspace.

  Patricia had just returned to the living room when she heard the sound of a car door closing and voices. She retreated to the window area behind the couch, and peeked through the blinds. She pulled up the deep hood of her opera cloak, hiding her still-scaly face. Cindy was not alone.

  Patricia watched as Dr. Cindy Liu walked into the living room, laughing. Another woman followed her three steps behind, her arms full of packages labeled “Scientific Svc. Co.” and “Medicines and Herbs” and bolts of cloth. They were having an odd conversation that seemed to be about alcoholic beverages and extremely hot temperatures. Cindy’s companion was a rather rotund woman around their age, with beauty shop hair, the kind so perfect it almost appears to be a wig.

  When Cindy turned to say something to the other woman, Patricia got a look at her face. She was flabbergasted. Cindy looked like a woman in her twenties. She didn’t look much older than Patricia’s intern. Patricia knew Cindy was nine years older than her. It had been a sore spot when they went out together in college and Cindy, age thirty, would get carded, but Patricia, barely twenty-one, wouldn’t. To look at her now, you would think no time had passed. This was getting stranger by the moment.

  If anyone could help her, it was Cindy. So, checking to make sure her cowl was in place, Patricia cleared her throat to get the attention of Cindy and her unknown companion. The chubby stranger gasped dramatically, and Cindy turned to see what was the matter. She stood looking at Patricia for long seconds, unblinking, and then stepped toward her. “Patricia? Is that you?”

  Not wanting to speak, Patricia inclined her neck, trying to nod without knocking the hood loose from her head and revealing her hideous face.

  “Helen, can you give us a moment? Just take the packages into the kitchen for now.” The woman, who was apparently named Helen―presumably the same Helen Cindy had gotten drunk with―didn’t like the imperious tone, nor being sent away, Patricia could tell. She got a strange feeling, looking at her. The woman certainly didn’t look threatening, all soft edges and dimples, but Patricia had good instincts for danger, and this woman was dangerous. Not a direct sort of dangerous, either, but the stealthy, stab-you-in-the-back sort of dangerous. Patricia had seen her kind before. She would bear watching.

  Once Helen was out of the room, Patricia pushed back the hood of her opera cape with one clawed hand. Cindy didn’t gasp or cry out, but her eyes grew wide
. She rushed to Patricia, grabbing her taloned hands and pulling her to sit on the sofa. When Patricia sat, she felt a leg of the couch give and knock the sofa off kilter, but Cindy didn’t even seem to notice. She was running her hands over the scales on Patricia’s neck and face, examining the area around her ears. “When did this happen?” Patricia was glad she had come. Her friend would help her. She was obviously concerned.

  “A few hours ago. In my office.” She shuddered at the sound of her own voice. It was so thick. Her tongue felt strange in her mouth. Her anxiety leaped again.

  “And you came straight here?” Cindy asked, her tone flat.

  Patricia’s ears perked up. She knew Cindy was never more interested in something than when she affected an air of unconcern. If she sounded bored, it was probably because she was fascinated. Cindy was extremely interested in what was going on with Patricia, and Patricia was no longer sure if that was a good thing. She’d come here for help, but now, she wasn’t so sure help was what she would find. Not after what she’d seen in the basement laboratory.

  Patricia nodded warily. Cindy pulled a small flashlight from a pocket somewhere and shined it in Patricia’s eyes. Patricia grimaced and felt an odd fluttering sensation move up her cheeks. She knew it was the scales thickening like they had done in the office. She opened her eyes and looked into her friend’s face. It was rapt.

  “What is it about you, my friend? Why does it do this to you and not to the others?” Cindy seemed to be muttering to herself as much as talking to Patricia. Patricia was used to Cindy’s habit of talking to herself when she was thinking, but the mention of “do this to you” and “others” had her internal alarm bells clanging, especially in light of the apparent rescue she had interrupted.

  “Why does what do this to me? What are you talking about, Cindy?” Patricia pulled back from Cindy’s touch. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”

  “Could it have to do with your red hair? The mutation in your genes? Come. Let’s go down to my lab. I need to get some more samples.”

  Patricia didn’t rise, letting her weight hold them there. “Wait, Cindy. What’s going on here? When I arrived, there was a man here with a woman.” Patricia paused, trying to find a way to say what she had seen without sounding like she was attacking her friend. “The woman said you hurt her.”

  Cindy spun, the color high in her face and the pitch of her voice rising. “What did she look like?” Her tone was accusatory, and the shift in her mood sudden and shocking. There was something hawk-like in Cindy’s face that worried Patricia. She answered softly, not sure if the answer was going to make Cindy explode or calm her down.

  “Little, blonde.”

  “Jessica!” Cindy ran from the room, flinging open the door to the basement and running down the stairs like a woman half her age. Patricia knew when her friend saw the broken capsule, because she heard Cindy howl with rage. It was an animal noise, frightening and ferocious. She shuddered, unconsciously gathering her cape around her. The spikes on her back and neck rose again, pushing the cloak out around her.

  Helen came running from the kitchen, a box of Borax in one hand and a ball of fire in the other. Patricia sprang to her feet, poised to dodge or hit back, whatever was necessary. The two women stood sizing each other up. The ball of fire in Helen’s hand grew, and Patricia bent her knees and moved her balance to the balls of her feet.

  They could both hear Cindy in the basement. It sounded like she was having a temper tantrum, throwing things to the ground. They both heard crashes and cursing. Helen dropped the Borax on the small table at her side and clasped her hands together, extinguishing the fire between them. She glared accusingly at Patricia one last time, and then turned and hurried down to the basement, her lumbering steps making the old stairs creak.

  Gathering her opera cloak around her once more, Patricia left. She knew now. Her friend was quite mad. The woman she’d called her friend had kidnapped someone. Worse yet, she suspected what was happening to her was somehow Cindy Liu’s fault. She had to get back to her assistant, to Suzie. They could figure this out together.

  elen hung the final swath of cloth, labeled “7”, over the improvised clothesline in Cindy Liu’s front yard. This one was coated in a sodium silicate formula. The sixth piece had been dipped in a mixture that included borax, the others in ammonium chloride, alum, and several concoctions Helen couldn’t remember the details about. After the samples had a chance to dry, she and Dr. Liu were going to try them out against her flames. Helen was hopeful they could find a formula that would allow her clothing to survive when she used her power.

  Dr. Liu had given strict directions, including proper glove use and how to keep from contaminating one sample with another, but left Helen to do the tedious work of dipping each piece, labeling it, and hanging it to dry. She herself was cleaning up the mess in the lab the ungrateful girl, Jessica, and the mysterious man had left the day before. Once she’d calmed down, Cindy had explained how she was trying to help the poor girl regain her hold on gravity, and how she was worried Jessica might be mentally ill. She didn’t know who the mysterious man was that had made such a mess of the lab. Part of Helen hoped the man would come back. She’d burn the truth out of him for Cindy. Her fingertips twitched imagining the scene.

  She wouldn’t mind scorching that lizard-woman, Patricia, for her, either. She had a bad feeling about her. Cindy insisted she was an old friend, but old friends have more hold over you, which makes them dangerous. History isn’t always a good thing. Even before she’d seen her demon-face, she’d hesitated to leave Cindy alone with her. Cindy was too trusting. She needed someone to watch out for her. Helen could be that person. She was getting really good at manipulating her new power. She’d gladly use it to protect her new friend.

  Just as Helen hung the last piece of cloth, Cindy stepped onto the porch, a cardboard box of broken glass in her arms. Her dark hair was pulled up into a jaunty ponytail on top her head. Dressed for cleaning, she wore a simple soft, purple T-shirt over gray capri pants with plain black sneakers. She looked all of twenty-seven years old. Helen looked down at her own billowing pink T-shirt and green cargo pants and sighed over her own girth. How did Cindy do it?

  Helen suspected Cindy must have been experimenting on herself with some kind of aging reversal formula. It made sense from the woman who invented Surge Protector and who had a flying rat in her living room. Cindy was some kind of genius. Helen suspected Cindy was also a little crazy, but it wasn’t such a bad thing, having a crazy genius in your corner. She was certain crazy was better than boring, which is what her life had been up till now.

  The crazy genius brought the box to the rubbish bin at the end of the garden path and was walking back to Helen just as a police car pulled up. Helen looked at Cindy, raising a small ball of fire in one hand and a questioning eyebrow. Dr. Liu shook her head, a small quick motion that somehow still seemed imperious. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve got this.”

  Helen was disappointed, but she dropped the ball of fire and stomped it out with her foot. She stepped closer to the house, staying just out of view in the eaves of the porch.

  Cindy turned gracefully, bringing her hands to her chest in a decidedly girlish gesture. “Oh, officer! You startled me.”

  “Pardon me, miss. I’m investigating a complaint this morning.” The officer pulled a fancy cell phone from his chest pocket and pushed some buttons on it. “Are you Cindy Liu?”

  Cindy giggled. Helen was astonished. The officer looked up from his phone, a puzzled expression on his young face.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, officer,” Cindy said, resting her long fingers lightly on his bicep. “It’s just funny that you would mistake me for my Auntie Cindy.” She gestured at his phone. “How old is the woman you are looking for?”

  The officer looked at his device again. He actually blushed. “Sixty-seven.” He grinned sheepishly. “I see your point.”

  Cindy leaned back on one foot, thrusting a hip forward and tilting her
head up at the officer, emphasizing her small size. Helen had to give her credit. She was good. She decided to sit on the porch steps and watch the show.

  “I’m Chen-tao Zhang,” she lied smoothly. “Cindy is my Auntie. How can I help you, Officer?”

  “There’s been a complaint against your aunt,” the officer said, again consulting his notes on his phone. “I’ve been asked to investigate.”

  “Investigate what?”

  Was Cindy actually pouting? Helen had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter.

  “I can’t say, miss.” The officer stiffened his posture, and Helen could see he was fighting to hold onto his professionalism. “Can I come in and look around?”

  Cindy put a finger against her lips, apparently thinking, and, at the same time, making sure the young man noticed her mouth. “Well, I don’t know. Auntie’s not home right now. I’m here to help run her errands. I don’t think I should let someone in her house without talking to her first. She’s a very private woman.”

  Suddenly, she gasped a little. “Wait! Is she in trouble? Are you here with a warrant?” She placed her hand over her heart in a theatrical gesture that also drew the young man’s eyes to her breasts.

  Helen couldn’t see Cindy’s face from her angle on the porch, but from the officer’s reaction, she was sure Cindy had gone all doe-eyed and frightened looking. This young man didn’t have a chance. He was faced with a seemingly twenty-something girl, with all the craft and knowledge of her sixty-seven years. Helen wanted to cheer aloud.