Shifting (9 page)

“All right.
Buenas noches
, then, Magdalena.”

I stared at him.

“It means ‘good night,' ” he explained.

“Oh. 'Night,” I replied, taking a step toward the front door. I paused. “José?”

“
Sí?
”

“Aren't you going home?”

He laughed. “There's work to do. Naalyehe and I will be here another hour at least.”

“Oh. All right.” I didn't bother to ask for a ride home. I knew the way.

I stepped out into the cool, dry New Mexico spring night. The air felt amazing on my sweat-dampened skin. Overhead, the stars shone brilliant, looking close enough to touch. I stared at them as I started the slow walk toward home.

I'd gone two blocks when I realized I had forgotten my jacket. I wouldn't have cared, would have just kept going, if it didn't have my house key in it. Groaning, I turned around and began walking back.

Naalyehe was mopping the floor when I walked into the restaurant.

“Why are you back?” he asked, glancing at the bracelet on my wrist.

“Forgot my jacket and house key,” I explained, hurrying to the back room. “Bye,” I said a second time.

“Be safe, Maggie Mae,” Naalyehe said.

For the second time, I trudged wearily toward home. The occasional passing car lit up the dark night as I hurried along the city streets. It wasn't until I was out of downtown and walking along a lonely, deserted stretch of road that I realized a car kept driving by—the same car. My palms started to sweat.

The car crawled by a fourth time. My blood flowed double-time as I stared at the glowing red taillights. When the brake lights flashed crimson, I stopped walking and watched the car pull to the side of the road fifty yards ahead. It flipped a U-turn.

I was off the road and crashing through dry, brittle weeds. The car inched to a stop at the very place I'd been standing.

I crouched behind a narrow-trunked juniper and listened. A car door opened and slammed shut. Feet thumped on cement and then began snapping sticks and swishing through weeds.

My blood turned to ice as a dark figure picked its way toward my hiding place. Who in their right mind would follow a lone female into the woods on a dark night? Only a murderer or rapist. I needed a dog for protection. Or pepper spray.

I had a thought. An epiphany, actually.

Call me freaking crazy, but I unhooked my new bracelet and then tore off my clothes, right there in the woods, in spite of the fact that I was alone with a (possibly) murdering rapist. I was mad with fear and totally desperate.

And I had a plan.

I closed my eyes and thought of Shash, his lean body, long black-and-white fur, the smell of him, the sound of his barking. Then I willed myself to become him.
Forced
myself to change. My hearing sharpened, then my sense of smell. My fingers shrank, claws replaced my nails, and my teeth grew long and sharp. I fell to all fours, growling at the shadow slinking through the trees, then darted forward, barking.

A shrill scream broke out in the night. The shadow turned toward the road and started to run, but fell with a heavy thud and noisy expulsion of breath. The scent of soap and lavender drifted on the air, but I couldn't quite place where I'd smelled it before. Then I heard the voice.

“Please, good doggy, don't hurt me!” she begged. It was Ginger. I could hear her heart jumping in her chest, hear her labored, terrified breathing, smell the acrid tang of fear. “I was just trying to find my friend to see if she wanted a ride somewhere! Don't hurt me.”

A high-pitched whine left my throat. I had to make sure she wasn't hurt. With my ears flat against my head and my tail wagging, I slowly walked toward her.

Ginger jumped to her feet, ran to her idling car, and drove away.

I hung my head and tucked my tail between my legs. If I had just stayed on the side of the road and found out who had been following me, I would be in a car on my way home at this very moment. Instead, I was a smelly old dog three miles from home.

Joy filled me and my tail began to wag so hard my entire butt wagged with it. Had I been human, I would have danced a jig, would have jumped for joy, screamed with elation. I had changed! It wasn't the full moon, yet I had changed! Because I wanted to! And not only that, I had changed into Shash … on purpose.

I trotted over to my pile of clothing and picked up my jeans and T-shirt, careful not to spill the tips from my jeans. Somehow I managed to get my shoes by their untied laces, but couldn't get the jacket into my mouth. Although, with a dog's sense of smell, I could come back for it another time. And besides, I was clothed in a fur coat.

I ran home.

In Mrs. Carpenter's yard, I willed my body back to its normal shape and I … changed back.

“Yes!” I whispered, silently clapping my hands. For two years I had been shifting at the most terrible times. I had no idea that it could be a voluntary transformation.

I got dressed in the dark, grinning, until I remembered my key was in my jacket pocket. The smile fell from my face and my shoulders slumped.

The house was dark and Mrs. Carpenter's truck wasn't in the driveway. I walked to the front porch and rattled the door handle. Locked.

I sat on the porch swing, weighing my options—wait for Mrs. Carpenter, or go back for the jacket? Then another brilliant idea came to me. I had changed into a housecat before, and a dog. What if I could change into something really
fast
—a natural runner. Like a cheetah?

For the second time that night, I stripped, folding my clothes into a neat pile and setting them on the swing.

I tried to remember exactly what a cheetah looked like—the long, rangy, superthin body and gold, feral eyes—then willed myself to take its form. Slowly, agonizingly, I felt myself begin to change. The shifting of shapes felt awkward, like trying to fit a square package into a round box. And then I was a big, lean, spotted cat with really long sharp claws, amazing night vision, and a tail as thick as my human wrist.

Then I ran.

I don't mean ran, but flew, glided, soared over the land with more speed and grace than I'd ever imagined. I was like water rushing over a smooth surface. My body was so fine-tuned and fast, I could imagine how it would feel to drive a Ferrari one hundred miles per hour. Trees blurred as air slipped over my speeding form.

In mere moments I was at the spot where I'd left my jacket. I picked it up carefully, for I had felt my razor-sharp teeth, had licked them with my sandpaper tongue.

I started the gliding sprint toward home and arrived long before I was ready to stop running. The desert night called to me, begging to be explored, but exhaustion clawed at my muscles and hunger gnawed my feline belly. If I kept running, I would find a wild animal to track and eat, raw and bloody and still alive as my teeth tore into it. The thought made me queasy. It was definitely time to change back.

The transition from big cat to human was so easy, I lost my balance and fell to my knees on the front porch. Not bothering to get dressed, I got my clothes from the swing, unlocked the door, and stumbled inside.

13

Over the course of that week, I discovered three things.

First, it was better being invisible than the main attraction at school. Everywhere I went, girls whispered about me behind their hands and boys whistled and leered. The male half of the freshman class thought I was something pretty special, daring each other to ask me for my panties, or out on a date, or standing as close to me as they dared while someone covertly snapped our picture with a cell phone.

Second, Bridger O'Connell treated me like we were perfect strangers, like I'd asked. And it was miserable.

Third, I could change into
almost
anything.

By the time Friday rolled around eleven different boys had asked me if they could have a pair of my panties. Seriously, even if I'd had a pair or two to spare, there was no way they'd be getting them.

I went directly to work after school, so by the time I walked out of the Navajo Mexican, I was dead on my feet and aching to get home fast so I could fall into bed until noon the next morning. The last table I'd waited on was a group of cowboys wearing sweat-stained cowboy hats who'd talked nonstop about their horses. Horses were fast.

Behind a screen of scrawny bushes that grew in front of a bank, I stripped down to my birthday suit and thought of a beautiful black horse—black to blend with the night. I told my body to change, felt my long hair start to grow longer, my front teeth lengthen … then I hit a brick wall, metaphorically speaking. Nothing else changed. With my tongue, I prodded my very horsey teeth. My fingers trailed through my new waist-length hair. The change had definitely started.

I tried to change into a horse again,
forcing
my feet into heavy, rock-hard hooves, even though they didn't want to change. Again, I got stuck. I thought myself out of horse shape, back to me, but my hooves did not turn into the soft human feet I was born with. And my teeth didn't shrink back to normal, or my hair—as if I'd tried so hard to shift, I was stuck that way permanently.

I forced myself not to freak out and started getting dressed. But when I tried to shove my hooves into my jeans, they got stuck.

“You've got to be kidding me.” I whistled through my horse teeth.

I slung my jeans and useless tennis shoes over my shoulder and clopped along the road, praying no one would stop to offer me a ride. I couldn't have explained walking home with hooves. Or wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties while carrying a perfectly good pair of pants. Where were the freshman boys with their cell phone cameras now?

Finally, I reached Mrs. Carpenter's house. My hooves echoed like thunder on the front porch. Inside, I stomped to my bedroom as fast as I could. My feet shook the whole house—you can't tiptoe with hooves. I worried Mrs. Carpenter would wake up and investigate. But she didn't.

I didn't bother showering; I was too upset. And besides, I didn't know how stable horse hooves would be on the shower floor. Instead, I stared at my face in the dresser mirror for hours, watching my buckteeth slowly, millimeter by millimeter, shrink back to their normal size. My hooves grew into regular human feet again, too. And by the time sunlight was squeezing into my bedroom window, my hair was its normal length, halfway down my back.

Mrs. Carpenter went to church on Sunday while I slept in, still exhausted from the horse incident. After church she planned on doing service at a soup kitchen by feeding the homeless, so I had the house to myself all day. I folded laundry. Did homework. Worked in the garden. Cleaned the bathroom. The day wasn't half over, and I was stuck in a house with no TV, no computer, and a bookcase filled with western romance novels older than me.

I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the lazy tick of a clock, and fell asleep.

I jumped awake, pulse hammering, as if someone were standing over me, breathing on my face. The cot groaned beneath me as I struggled to sit. My room was nearly dark, the only light a pale evening glow squeezing into my room through the closed blinds. And the room was empty.

“Hello? Mrs. Carpenter?” I called out. The ticking clock was my only answer. I pulled the purple quilt under my chin and wondered what had woken me—until I heard the hoarse, raspy howl of a hound.

“Duke?” I whispered. As if they'd heard me, Duke and Shash started barking bloody murder, like there was a fox in the barn. And I was the only one here to chase it out.

I scrambled up off the cot and jammed my feet into shoes, then ran through the shadowy house and out the unlocked front door. But when I got out into the long-shadowed evening, I realized my mistake. It wasn't Duke and Shash barking—the barn was silent. The noise was coming from the woods that surrounded Mrs. Carpenter's property.

I stood frozen in her driveway, listening. Evening wind ruffled through my hair and danced through the pine boughs, and the barking stopped. And then, as if my animal instincts tapped momentarily into my human brain, I understood what was happening. The dogs that had attacked me were trying to track my scent. And they were close.

Without warning, the howling and yapping started up again, lots of dogs this time instead of two, the noise coming from all directions. The wind had carried my scent to them.

Duke and Shash started barking and scratching at the barn doors. A light shone on me, followed by the sound of something approaching on the gravel drive. I whirled around, certain I was about to be eaten.

Mrs. Carpenter's baby-blue truck crawled along the driveway. She parked it and shut off the lights.

“Maggie Mae, how are you, dear?” she asked, climbing from the truck. Her feet crunched on gravel, the only sound left in the darkening evening. “Maggie?”

“We've got to get inside,” I said, my voice trembling. I steered Mrs. Carpenter to the front door and bolted it behind us.

“Is everything all right?” Mrs. Carpenter asked, her eyes wide.

“Yeah. I mean no—I don't want you to catch a chill. It's a bit windy out there.” I glanced out the front window. “Have you heard anything from animal control?”

“Nothing new,” she said, frowning. “But I'll call them tomorrow morning if you'd like. Have you had dinner yet? I'm famished.”

I shook my head. But I had no appetite.

Due to a sleepless night, with Duke and Shash restless in the barn and barking half the night, I passed Monday morning in a groggy daze. Students watched me, but their whispers didn't register. Only cobwebs filled my brain. By lunchtime I could hardly keep my eyes open. Instead of sitting with Yana, I wandered outside to the rear courtyard and sighed, for the sun's warmth seemed to soak into my skin and make it impossible to keep my eyes open. I took ten steps and lay down in the sunny grass.

Like a reptile, I curled up and fell asleep.

I mentioned before that I am not usually a deep sleeper. But I slept like a rock on that grass. It wasn't until a shadow blocked the sun that I jerked back to consciousness, flinging my arms in front of my face, expecting to smell dog breath and feel fangs.

“Are you all right, dear?” a white-haired man asked, staring at me and holding a rake.

I slowly eased my arms down from my face. “Just taking a nap,” I explained, blinking sleep from my eyes.

“A nap during class?”

Class? It wasn't still lunchtime? I looked around the courtyard and felt embarrassment creep through me. Beneath one of the farthest trees sat a spectator.

“Um … thanks for waking me,” I said to the groundskeeper. I walked toward a shady circle of grass and sat down, then peered toward the farthest tree to see if I had been forgotten. He was still staring right at me. Well, two could play the staring game.

He sat perfectly still in the shade of the tree. His skin looked unnaturally white against his midnight hair. And even though he'd ditched me at prom, it didn't hurt to look at him. Seriously, he was a visual feast. Pure eye candy.

He raised his dark eyebrows. I felt my cheeks start to flush, so I looked at my watch.

“Dude!” I blurted, shocked. It was almost one thirty, way past the end of lunch. I had been asleep a long time. I stood and started walking toward the school, making a point not to glance at Bridger again. Behind me I heard a shoe scuff cement and then someone fell into step beside me. My heart started to flutter. I knew if I looked up I would be gazing into a pair of black eyes.

Don't get attached,
I thought.

“What I don't get is why Danni's so convinced you're a prostitute.”

Of all the conversation starters, he would have to pick that one. I stopped walking and looked at him with a smirk, ready to brush him off, but my heart lurched and stuttered. Standing so close, I realized how much I had missed his friendship. I glared into his eyes, eyes so dark a shade of gray, his pupils got lost. A smile danced across his face and I realized I was staring at him again. I blinked and cleared my throat, trying to remember what he had asked me. Oh, yeah—prostitute.

“Well, it's a long story,” I said sarcastically. A warm breeze blew my hair across my face and I breathed in the smell of Bridger O'Connell. I took a second deep breath and fought the urge to close my eyes. He smelled … wonderful, like clean clothes and soap and joy.

Don't get attached!

I took a step backward. He was cramping my personal space and making it impossible to think.

He took a step forward and leaned toward me. “I could use a good story,” he said, grinning. My heart started to patter, like rain hitting a window.

“I never said it was a
good
story,” I corrected.

“So, it's a bad story? Even better.”

“It's not a bad story, either. I'm not like that, Bridger. Look, I have to get to class,” I snapped, turning toward the door. He walked beside me and our fingers touched. I tucked my hands into my pockets.

“I'm really sorry about prom, Maggie. Is there any way I can make it up to you? Any way you can forgive me?” he asked.

I paused and looked at him again. The way the sun hit his hair made it look as shiny and black as a crow's feathers, but there were hints of gold in it, too. He raised his black eyebrows and I realized I was gawking at him. Again.

“Well?” he prodded, the smile gone from his face.

Well what?
I wondered, tearing my gaze away from his. “Oh. Yeah. Whatever. You're forgiven.” I bit my tongue and groaned inwardly. Had I seriously just forgiven him?

“So, we're friends again?” The breeze was back, stirring the scent of Bridger into the air and blowing my hair into my eyes. He brushed my hair from my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. I had to fight the desire to press my cheek against his hand.

Don't get attached!
I mentally screamed.

I shrugged and pushed the door open. He didn't follow me into the school.