Shifting (6 page)

I folded my arms over my chest and stood in the middle of the dance floor, waiting and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. But I could hear them.

“Look, he couldn't stand her dress anymore. He ditched her.”

“Dude, O'Connell's got more guts than you could string on a fence—he left her on the dance floor.”

I tried to shrink out of existence. When that didn't work, I dodged dancers and found a shadowed place close to the refreshment table to disappear. The song ended and another started. And then another.

Finally, when more than twenty minutes had passed with me skulking in the shadows, I went to the door Bridger had left through and entered the dark school. The loud music muted as the door closed behind me.

I stood with my back to the door, waiting for my eyes to adjust. And when they did, I started down the long, empty hall.

The hidden moon did little to light the window-lined hall, seemed to create more shadows. My sandals echoed with every step I took and my heart started to pound. I caught myself jumping at nothing and looking over my shoulder more than once.

“Bridger?” I called as I approached the end of the hall.

A dark shape moved up ahead, framed by an inky window. I stopped walking and squinted.

“Bridger?” I whispered.

A female chuckled. She stood and the eerie gray window silhouetted an ample Cinderella ball gown.

“Who's there?” I asked, taking a step backward.

“You're not so tough in the dark, are you.” The person moved away from the window and a swishing sound followed her.

“Danni?” I guessed.

“Uh-huh.”

I turned to go back the way I'd come. There was no way I wanted her to know I couldn't find my date.

“If you're looking for Bridger, he left,” she said. So much for her not knowing.

“You're so full of crap,” I said, my feet slowing.

“I'm serious. He ran out of here like his dad's car was on fire. Go check the parking lot if you don't believe me.”

“He wouldn't leave without telling me,” I said, but my statement sounded weak, even to my own ears. I wiggled my toes in my cheap sandals. Would he leave without telling me?

“He would if he knew about your past.”

9

I ran back to the gym door, shoved it open, and pushed my way through the crowd, ignoring their condescending looks and mocking remarks as I searched for Bridger. Not finding him, I burst through the doors leading outside and gulped the cool, damp air.

I trotted through the parking lot to where Bridger had parked the red sports car. And found an empty parking space.

Tears filled my eyes and anger burned in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't angry with Bridger, though I had every right to be. But I was too busy being furious at myself for caring about him. Mad that I'd started to count on his interest in me making life a little bit nicer, because now that things would be going back to not so nice, I'd feel the difference every single day.

I looked down at my inappropriate dress and hated myself for wearing it, for giving in. Yanking the tulips from my wrist, I chucked them across the parking lot as hard as I could.

My anger mixed with the pull of the moon and the hair on the back of my neck bristled. My nails began to sharpen.
Bring it on,
I thought, reveling in the fact that my stupid Wal-Mart dress was about to get shredded.

I stepped between two cars and crouched. My skin shrank and squeezed against muscle and bone. I gasped and fell forward on my hands and knees. My ribs expanded and the dress strained against them. The fabric, unable to withstand the pressure, ripped noisily and the dress hung limply against my shoulders. The night sounds intensified and my brain filled with sharp, primitive instinct. The change was complete.

But something was different. I
tasted
every scent on the air—new things growing, a distant skunk, a hundred different scents of car air freshener, rain trapped in the clouds. My eyesight and sense of sound weren't as acute as normal, either. I looked down at my paws and whined. I wasn't a tabby cat. I had big, black, furry paws and short, blunt claws.

Even though my brain flowed with dog-instinct overload, my appearance was a shock. Since the very first change I had always been a cat. But tonight, judging by my shaggy black-and-white-spotted coat, I was probably the spitting image of Mrs. Carpenter's border collie, Shash.

I turned my nose to the sky and inhaled. The desert smelled alive despite its lack of vegetation, as if it held secrets in its dirt, air, even rocks. Another smell mingled with the desert's scent and my stomach rumbled. I trampled my prom dress and left it, torn and filthy, in the parking lot, and ran to the cafeteria Dumpster. With my front paws braced against the Dumpster's side, I inhaled, drooling over the thought of eating rotting corn dogs and Tater Tots wriggling with maggots. If I could just jump high enough …

Desperate to withstand the temptation, I started running again. As I passed from the school parking lot to the suburbs, I knew a dog was going to start barking, as if our minds were connected. The night exploded in barking and howling. A flicker of worry danced in my mind. What if the other dog attacked? But then the night called to me.

I ran with a grace and agility no human can understand, past houses and farms and into the uninhabited desert. Even in the tar-black, fog-coated night, I could sense each tree as I approached it, could leap over fallen logs and fly over uneven ground. Cactuses and sage grabbed at my fur, poked me, tried to find flesh, but my fur kept me protected.

When the clouds dropped, releasing a deluge of fat, soaking drops, I hardly noticed. My outer fur shed the water before it came close to my skin.

Rain turned the dusty desert to a bed of mud. With my nose to the saturated ground, I continued exploring, discovering new scents—coyote, fox, snake, human, and dog. Once or twice I even overlapped my own scent.

I ran down country roads that led back toward town, through neighborhoods and across grocery store parking lots until I was in downtown Silver City, dodging the occasional car and running after cats. I spent hours with my nose to the street—it was like another world—when I sensed rather than heard the approach of another canine.

My head lifted, my front paw came up, and I pointed in the direction of the approaching animal.

Shash, his black-and-white fur slicked against his narrow body, loped down the road and stopped at my side. A low, pitiful whine echoed from his throat and he began pacing back and forth.

Where in the world did you come from?
I thought at him. I have no idea if he heard me, but he yelped and trotted off. Before he was a block away, he turned and looked at me over his shoulder, tail wagging. Waiting for me to follow.

We ran through the town and back into the country. It was easy to stay behind Shash because his scent, musky and strong, saturated not only the muddy ground, but every single twig, branch, rock, and blade of sagebrush he touched, not to mention the very air. I could have followed him with my eyes closed.

We wound our way through the bushes in a steady direction—home—when I smelled something that made me stop dead. With my snout held up toward the falling sky, I inhaled. My fur bristled and a sudden, primitive instinct overtook all human control:
Evil—RUN!

Up ahead Shash started barking—ferocious, murderous barking. As one, we resumed our sprint through the scraggly brush. And that is when I spotted the gleam of wet, mangy bodies through the narrow gaps in the trees.

Shash and I darted through the underbrush. Fear lent fresh speed to my legs. But whatever chased me was so unnatural, so malicious, it took sheer willpower not to lay on the ground, frozen with terror, and let them have me.

They were not the glossy, wet-coated dogs that they appeared to be. They were something more, something different. Wrong.

Though Shash and I ran at top speed, I could feel them behind me, could smell them when the wind shifted and hear their ragged breathing.

When one got so close I could hear its pounding heart, teeth snapped and pain seared my ankle. I fell, rolling on the muddy ground. The animal was on me before I stopped moving, its snarling, long-toothed mouth searching for skin through my thick fur. I bit back, something so natural I hardly gave it a second thought as wet fur filled my mouth. My teeth came down hard and I smelled blood before a single drop touched my tongue. And then the creature was off me and Shash was at my side. We tried to run, but my ankle was useless, my tendon severed.

Side by side, my head by Shash's tail, Shash's head by my tail, we waited. A large, menacing pack of doglike creatures crept out of the underbrush and circled us. There were all sorts of breeds, all larger than us. My lips pulled away from my teeth in a snarl and I tensed my hind legs, ready to spring. When a solid Doberman-looking animal leaped at me, I leaped, too, and we met in midair, both of our mouths finding the other's neck.

We crashed down and I landed on top of the rock-hard creature, shaking its neck with all my might. Hope, that I might actually kill the unnatural thing beneath me, lent power to my jaws and determination to my tired body—until the rest of the dogs pounced on my back.

Hundreds of teeth sank into my flesh, from my shoulders to my haunches.

A yelp screeched into the rainy night, the sound a dog makes right after it is hit by a car, a split second before it dies. When another yelp ripped through the night, torn from my throat, I realized
I
was the dog about to die.

With every ounce of strength I possessed, I bit and scratched the motley, stinking mound of animals smothering me, but I was outnumbered. The weight of death pressed me down and I couldn't get up.

An ear-deafening boom rattled the night, vibrating my bones and swallowing the rumble of animals snarling. Time seemed to pause as every set of teeth so intent on ripping my head from my body paused inside of my skin. The boom sounded again. A dog yelped. Teeth released my flesh and the creatures scattered so quickly, so silently, I almost wondered if they had existed at all.

A third shot rang out, this time from the opposite direction, and Shash whined a low, pitiful sound.

I whimpered and struggled to get up but was too hurt to move. A new scent entered my nose and a copper shadow loped over and began licking my snout. Duke. He whined and pushed at me with his nose. Slowly, shakily, I found the strength to stand. Duke began trotting away. Shash and I followed, though my hind leg dragged behind me, as useless as a stick caught in my fur.

I hadn't gone ten paces when I froze. A rottweiler, eyes glazed, mouth gaping, lay in a growing pool of blood. I shuffled around the dead body and followed Shash and Duke.

We passed the school bus stop and loped toward home. It wasn't long before Mrs. Carpenter's brightly lit barn and house came into view. On three legs I hobbled toward the open barn door. Inside, I fell onto a pile of straw, every inch of my body hurting, and slid back into my own shape. I lay curled in a trembling, naked ball and wondered how I was lucky enough to be alive.

Beside me Duke and Shash whined.

“Dear Lord almighty, if you're a Skinwalker, I'll shoot you before I ask questions.” It wasn't until Mrs. Carpenter spoke that I realized she was in the barn, too.

Shocked and horrified, I looked up to see her standing over me with a rifle in hand.

10

“What's a Skinwalker?” I asked, waiting for her to kill me. Duke whimpered and, ears flat against his head, slunk in between Mrs. Carpenter and me.

She lowered her gun and grunted.

Something soft and rose scented draped my shivering body, stinging the scrapes that covered my skin.

“We need to get you inside, child, before you catch your death,” Mrs. Carpenter said, as if I had been out working in the garden on a rainy afternoon. She pulled me to my feet and helped me slip my arms into a bathrobe. Her bathrobe. She wore nothing but an old, thin nightgown. Without a word, she tied the pink terry cloth belt around my waist.

Mrs. Carpenter tilted her head to the side. After a silent moment, she picked up the rifle and walked over to shut the barn doors.

“Shash, Duke, come,” she commanded. The dogs left my side and ran to her. “Is it safe? Is that pack of mangy animals gone?” she asked the dogs and pushed the doors wide. Both dogs sniffed the air and wagged their tails. In spite of this, Mrs. Carpenter dropped another shell into the rifle and pointed it outside. “You go first, Maggie Mae,” she said, motioning me outside with the gun barrel.

As I passed her, I couldn't help but wonder if she was going to shoot me in the back.

“Hurry, Maggie Mae. Before that pack of unholy mongrels comes back!” I hobbled to the house. Shash and Duke ran with me, Mrs. Carpenter a step behind. When we entered the dark living room, Mrs. Carpenter slammed the front door and locked it before flipping on the light.

“Now let me take a look at you, see if we need to go to the emergency room,” Mrs. Carpenter said, setting the gun on the dining room table. “Some of those bites looked pretty deep.”

I dropped the robe to the floor around my bare feet. After being picked up nude so many times by random police officers, modesty wasn't really an issue anymore. Naked was naked.

Mrs. Carpenter's eyes grew wide as she took in my bare form, and I wondered if I had gone too far, standing naked in front of her.

“Turn around,” she instructed, staring. I turned. “Lord have mercy! Let me see your knuckles.” She grabbed my hand, examining the wound I'd gotten from Danni's tooth. “I can hardly believe it,” she muttered, looking at my body again. “Your hand … it's still hurt. But the rest of you …”

I looked down and gasped. Not a single scratch remained on my pale, mud- and blood-streaked skin. I lifted my leg and twisted my injured ankle. It was good as new. I was healed.

“You may not be a Skinwalker, but you're something unnatural,” Mrs. Carpenter said, stepping away from me. “If my dogs didn't seem to like you so well …” Her voice trailed off as she studied me with wise, yet terrified, eyes. But there was something else there. Shock.

I looked at my naked self again and tried not to cry, but I couldn't help it. I looked so normal, so human. But I was an abomination. An animal. A freak. Loud, ugly sobs joined the tears. I covered my face with my hands and tried to hold it all in.

“Oh, Maggie Mae, forgive my hasty words.” The soft robe enfolded my naked body, and then her arms, warm and gentle, embraced me. “Dear child, what are we going to do with you?” she whispered, running her hand over and over my wet hair.

I hadn't been held this way—like I was loved—since my last family member had been killed. Not only loved, but loved by someone who felt nearly like a mother.

She tugged my hands from my face. “Maggie Mae, dear, why don't you take a shower.”

I nodded. With the robe held tightly in place, I hurried to the bathroom.

After a scalding shower, I put on my nightshirt and, in spite of the predawn hour, went to the kitchen. The light was on and I could smell food. I was so ravenous, my stomach was trying to turn inside out.

Mrs. Carpenter eyed me warily, like the day I'd come to live with her, but she didn't say a thing—just passed me a bowl of boiled wheat farina with cinnamon and raisins. I took it to the dining room table.

The bowl was empty in less than a minute, warming me from the inside out. Mrs. Carpenter refilled it and sat beside me, searching my face, my clean hands, my eyes.

“I'm still the same girl I was yesterday,” I said, my voice ragged from crying. “You just know more about me now. But I haven't changed.”

Mrs. Carpenter shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “I keep telling myself that. But what exactly is it that I now
know
about you?”

I shrugged and swallowed farina before answering simply, “I change at the full moon.”

Mrs. Carpenter looked at me in exasperation. “Why, thank you for stating the obvious, but
what
are you? Why do you …
change
?”

“I've asked myself that very same question every single day for the last two years. Since this started happening. I don't know why I started to change or what I am.”

“Well, who else knows about this? This changing?”

“No one. I'd be turned into some sort of top secret medical experiment if anyone did. Unless, of course, I was lucky enough to be locked away in an insane asylum for the rest of my pitiful life,” I snapped. “Your son already thinks I'm crazy without that little tidbit added to my mental shortcomings.”

Mrs. Carpenter nodded, her face thoughtful. “I see. Now, tonight you looked just like Shash. I couldn't tell the two of you apart. Why's that, do you think?”

I shrugged again. “Ever since I started changing, I always looked like Mrs. Montgomery's big orange tabby, my foster mother's pet. Maybe I turn into whatever animal I'm closest to.” A smile tugged the side of my mouth. “It's a good thing you don't own a cow.”

“Well, at least you weren't a wolf. Or a grizzly bear,” Mrs. Carpenter said with a shiver. “I would have shot you without hesitating if that had been the case.” She looked at me with a frown. “Tell me about how all this started.”

“I changed for the first time one month after my sixteenth birthday. I was fostering with the Montgomery family and had gone to a party with some kids from school. They were totally bad kids, but I was desperate to fit in. There was alcohol at the party and I wanted them to like me. So I tried alcohol for the first time—tequila.” Mrs. Carpenter's eyebrows shot up. “Don't worry. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

“I got wasted and passed out. When I woke up, it was the middle of the night. I had been dumped in someone's front yard and all I wanted to do was catch rats. I didn't even realize I wasn't human at first—just slunk into the night, dragging my shirt with me. I killed and gorged on rats till dawn.” My stomach turned as I remembered the taste of rat fur, blood, organs, and bones.

“When I changed back to myself, I was standing in some slummy alley between two buildings, naked, and vomiting up undigested chunks of rat mixed with tequila. I couldn't remember how I got there, thought maybe I was lying in bed having a really horrid nightmare. Until a dirty homeless man tried to attack me. I kicked him in the crotch, ran out into the road, and was almost hit by a police car. That was the first time I was picked up for indecent exposure.” I looked at Mrs. Carpenter. She was leaning toward me, eager to hear more.

“I thought it was the alcohol that made me change. I haven't touched it since, but when the moon's full, I still change. And I can't control when I change back.

“That's why I have a police record, why I am found naked in the streets. I don't mean to change, don't even want to. But it is as unavoidable as my period, and when I change, I can't take my clothes with me. I leave them behind, if I don't accidentally drag them away.”

Mrs. Carpenter looked positively smug. “Well, I knew you weren't up to no good when they found you naked in the streets. My gut told me you were a decent girl, and my gut has never been wrong. And Ollie thinks you're a prostitute!” She began laughing, a full-bodied chuckle. “You, a prostitute!”

I smiled. I'd never even been kissed.

“So, can you only change when the moon is full, or any time you want?”

“Only at the full moon,” I said, but then remembered the day in track when I'd tripped on the hurdle. My vision had sharpened and my nails had grown into claws. “Honestly, I've never
tried
to change. I try to
avoid
it.”

“Well, mercy, Maggie Mae. You've been dealt a hard lot in life. I hope you make sense of it one day, because I sure can't. I don't know what to do with you now.” She looked at me with haunted eyes. “Aside from calling animal control about that pack of wild dogs, I suppose there is nothing to do, is there? Unless you want me to lock you in the barn on the night of the next full moon?” She shuddered. “You're a good girl. I'll just keep reminding myself of that.”

She looked rather dazed as she took my empty bowl to the kitchen. When she came back, she said, “Let's not move you out to the barn just yet. Not until animal control has taken care of the dog problem.”

I sighed. I might have been brave when it came to taking a punch, but I was relieved at the thought of staying in the house. Taking a deep breath, I asked the question that had been troubling me since she'd found me in the barn. “What's a Skinwalker?”

Her lips thinned and she wouldn't meet my eyes. “Forget I said that name. Speaking of them draws them near.”