Become Your Fursona

Ryan jumped backwards, staring down at the street. He thought lightning had struck right in front of him.

Everyone, everything stopped, except for the seagulls overhead and the distant rumble of stormclouds. The crumbling skyscrapers and abandoned cars weren’t moving, but neither were the anthros out on the street. They were as frozen as he was, and he could do nothing as booted footsteps ran up, until a thick hand grabbed him by the collar and shook him.

“What are you doing here?” The man’s voice was muffled. Ryan looked up and saw not ears and whiskers, but a face-concealing gasmask with a shiny black visor. He was a human, like Ryan — like he was for now — and he was wearing some kind of gray and white urban camo gear. It looked like he’d come off of a military base.

Ryan was instantly scared. Military gear meant he was a Tea Partier, or with a militia or something. They had to be trying to claim the city. But if he was with a militia, then why did his nametag look … Chinese, or Korean? And what was with his strange accent?

Ryan coughed and tried to collect his wits, clutching his smartphone tight and hoping the man wouldn’t confiscate it. “I’m hunting for an animal … ”

The man shook his head. “What is your name?” he demanded.

He just blurted out his first name. “Ryan.”

“Rye-ann, this place is for Earth workers.” He shoved him backwards and let him go. “Go back!”

“But I-”

“Go back!”

Ryan stood there in a daze, watching him walk back across the street to where a woman in similar gear was standing. They were talking, but he couldn’t make out what they said; they were carrying some kind of machines over their shoulders, but he couldn’t tell if they were rifles or vaccum cleaners.

“‘Earth’ workers?” he thought, crouching behind a car. His reflection looked back at him, a lanky human teenager’s with messed-up hair and a worn-out shirt and backpack. He put it out of his mind as soon as he saw it, and dug in his pocket for his empty soulcrystal.

He got it out and looked through it and the car windows, and winced as an anthro bird walked past them, his feathered tail glowing with bright blue anima. But in the humans across the street, there was nothing … nothing but a tiny pinprick of light, a soulcrystal in the man’s pocket. What were they? he wondered. Robots?

Whatever they were, they were in his way. He tapped the screen on his smartphone, still glancing through the car’s windows at them, and checked the map of this area. Someone had posted a fox sighting in this neighborhood just last night, and he’d gotten up early so he could go look for it. But now the city was crowded all of a sudden — he had to have seen at least two dozen people so far — and these gun-toting, uniformed jerks thought they owned the place.

He couldn’t fight them, not that he wanted to. But a fox lived right here near the shelter downtown, if all these people hadn’t scared it off. How was he going to find it if …

Something splashed, behind him. He turned to look, and saw a red fox’s face looking up at him over the puddle it was drinking from.

His heart started to pound.

Slowly, Ryan reached for his backpack, sideyeing his reflection to guide his shaking hand. The zipper seemed loud — too loud — and the fox cocked its head at him as he reached in and got out his imprinter. It was heavy and awkward, machined steel with sharp edges, and he cut himself trying to fix the soulcrystal inside.

The fox had taken a few steps towards him. “Please don’t have rabies,” he thought, as he stood and aimed the imprinter with both hands. Through the lens on its back he could see the fox anima, thick and swirling and crimson like blood, and as he held down the lever on the side it started to flow towards his gem. Not enough to kill the poor thing … just enough to make him what he longed to live as. Or at least, to bring him as close as it was possible to get.

Ryan’s heart raced. He couldn’t think straight, and could barely hold the imprinter still. Seconds stretched on to infinity, but he only needed a few more of them before-

“What are you doing!?” It was the man in the uniform, behind him.

The fox bolted, and the stream of anima wisped away.

Before Ryan could think, he ran after it.

We had to take the stairs, because my wings couldn’t fit in the elevator.

It was embarrassing. I tried holding my arms high at first, trying to keep the feathers from trailing the steps, and it looked like I was pantomiming being led off in chains. But then I came to the landing, and even though it was on the outside of the motel it had an enclosed ceiling that my feathers were brushing against. So I had to backtrack and try again, walking backwards while holding my hands in front of me as though I were jogging or boxing.

“You look like Rocky in reverse,” Jen said, watching me from the landing.

“Hush.” I gritted my teeth, as I felt my wings brush the walls of the stairwell. I couldn’t see them, but I already knew they were curved outwards from my arms. I’d found that out yesterday.

I pressed my hands together like I was praying, trying to keep my wings close enough together that they didn’t bump into anything. “Now you look like you’re doing penance,” Jen observed, as I got up to the landing.

“Hush.” She went up the stairs the rest of the way, as I carefully rounded the landing without bumping my wings into anything. I stopped for a moment to look out over the parking lot, at the sides of buildings and the freeway in the distance, and I started to feel claustrophobic. I focused on the white puffs of breath in front of me instead, and started working my way up the second flight of stairs.

“I’m serious, Arrow.” Jen still called me by my screen name. “You’re being OCD about this. It’s like Mister Monk Becomes a Yokai or something.”

“I am not a yokai.” I finally got up to the second floor, beside her. “And I didn’t ask to have my nerves backfire like this. If my insurance was any good I’d be seeing a doctor about it, not this … this … friend of yours.”

Beneath her scarf and stocking cap, she was trying not to smile. I followed her eyes down to my hands, which I was still holding out in front of me.

“This isn’t funny!”

“Okay, then.” She started off down the walkway, on the side of the motel. “This way.”

I followed her past the rows of numbered doors. Trying to calm my nerves, and ignore the strain in my wrists from holding my hands up so long. I could just let my “wings” drag, of course, but it didn’t feel right. It was like walking up to a wall, and feeling your face plant into it from a foot away. I didn’t know how to describe it, except that it was just really unnerving.

I rounded the corner, and saw Jen stop in front of her friend’s room. I hurried to join her, but just as I did one of the housekeepers came out of a door ahead of me, and started pushing her cart past. I pressed myself to the railing with my arms out in front of me, but my inside wing wasn’t close enough, and I felt the cart slide slowly and painfully past it. My face contorted, as I felt my feathers get pulled back and break, and I squeaked in pain just as she went past.

Jen stood there a moment watching me from down the walkway, as the housekeeper rounded the corner. Then she came up and saw the pained look on my face. “What’s wrong?”

“It hurts,” I said through my teeth, my eyes still locked on the ceiling.

“Do you need me to scratch it for you again?”

“Yes!”

She started to do so, and I recoiled. “Not that way!”

“Which way, then?”

“Towards … that way,” I said, pointing. “Away from me.”

She moved her hands through the air out in front of me, trying to smooth my feathers back into place without being able to see or feel them. It stung at first, but after a moment I let out my breath as the pain stopped.

I stifled a grin. I could feel her massaging my wing, and it actually felt kind of nice.

“Is that better?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She stepped back, and I stood away from the railing, still holding my hands out. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Her friend wore a white sweater and blue jeans, and had vaguely asian features. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, sweeping food wrappers into the trash from the desk where her laptop was set up. “I’ve got ten more articles to write if I want to make this week’s rent.”

I looked around at the inside of the room … cardboard boxes piled against one wall, canned goods stacked next to the microwave. The coat rack was crammed full of clothing on hangers, and her laptop was old and beat up. She switched off the TV, then tossed the remote on the bed before looking up at me. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

Jen took a deep breath. “Arrow, this is Katherine Sato; Kath, Arrow Quivershaft.”

She held out her hand, and I looked back down at her. I’d been peering at the display set up on the nightstand … it looked like there were ceramic figurines of some kind, set up around a large “jewel” that I was pretty sure was made of glass.

I shook her hand carefully, stepping back a bit so that my feathers didn’t bump into anything. “Uh, hey … ”

“So you decided to take a new name?” she asked, letting go.

I just looked at her blankly.

Jen coughed. “I think it’d work great for him … but no, that’s just his screen name.”

“Oh.” Kath cocked her head at her. “I thought you said he was a yo-”

Jen coughed again, louder and more insistent, and I could feel my face turning red. “I see,” Kath said, examining me as if she were looking for something. Looking closely at my hands and arms.

I clenched my fists, and tried to think of a polite way to put this. “Can you help me, or not?”

“That depends,” she said, “on what you want to be helped with.”

“I want this to stop.” My eyes were drawn to the jewel on the nightstand again. “I want these feelings to go away, so I can get back to my life without worrying about … bumping into things with nonexistent body parts.” My face was still red. “Can you help me with that?”

“Absolutely.” Kath nodded.

“You can?” I stared at her. After getting talked at by Jen on the ride here, I’d thought I was going to get a hard sell on converting to yokaiism.

“Yep.” She sat down at her laptop, and typed in a URL. “I just want to make sure that you know what you’re dealing with, first.”

I sideyed Jen, as she sat down on a bed piled with more clothes. Then I looked back at the screen. It was a website for an Android app, and there was a big QR code — like a blocky bar code — to the side of the page. “You’ve got a smartphone, right?” Kath looked up.

“Yeah, one sec … ” I raised one of my arms, stepping around awkwardly to keep my wing from brushing the wall, and carefully got out my phone from its case. Then I brought up the barcode reader and scanned her laptop’s screen, and my phone asked me if I wanted to install the app. I tapped “Okay.”

“What is this?” I asked.

“An augmented reality app. It layers a visual overlay onto your phone’s camera view, so you can see things that you otherwise couldn’t.”

“Like what?” I watched the progress bar as it installed.

“Try it and find out.”

I started the app, holding my phone towards the wall in both hands. It was dark there, so I turned towards Jen where she sat on the bed. Then I stared.

She was looking up at me, bemused, but that’s not what I was staring at. I could see my wings — huge brown and tan primary feathers, protruding out from my arms. One of my fingers got in front of the screen, and I could see a bird’s scaly, taloned digit. (The jewel on the nightstand looked normal, though … I checked.)

“How is this possible?” I asked, waving one hand in front of the lens. My hand felt the same as I clenched it, and wiggled my fingers around. But it looked like a hawk’s foot, shaped like a hand.

“It isn’t,” Kath said.

“What do you-” I jumped back, dropping my phone. I’d turned to look through it at her, and had seen a white fox’s face, and three fluffy tails right behind her.

I stared at her, pressed back up against the door, as Jen reached down and picked up my phone. “That wasn’t because of the app,” Kath said, calmly, as though she’d expected my reaction. “You can already see people’s real selves. You just needed an excuse to try.”

My heart pounded, and I could feel sweat form on my fists as I kept them held out in front of me. “But you didn’t even tell me that that’s what it’s for,” I argued. “How was I supposed to know?”

“You knew.”

Jen was holding my phone out to me. I took it, carefully, and looked through it at Kath again. Her fox-form seemed blurred and out of focus now, and it hurt my eyes to look at it. I turned the phone off.

“Okay … ” I took a deep breath, trying to make the words come out right. Fighting down panic, and fidgeting with the phone in my hands to distract myself. “This is not what I came here for. I don’t want a lesson in yokaiism or what I’m ‘supposed’ to be. I just want to go back to being myself.”

Kath was unperturbed. “This is yourself.”

“I’m leaving now.” I reached for the door, feeling my feathers rustle as I did so.

“No, Arrow, wait … ” Jen stood up, and put her hand on my wrist. “She’s right, one way or another. Even if this is just your brain playing tricks on you, then that’s still a part of yourself.”

I looked at her, trying to control my breathing, and wondered if she could see just how scared I was.

“You know they’d just put you on drugs at the hospital, even if you could afford to be treated. So let’s see what Kath has to say, alright? Why don’t you sit down and tell her how this all started.”

I let Jen guide me to where she’d been sitting, on the bed next to the heater, careful not to bump my feathers against things. Then, slowly, I let out my breath and let my arms rest at my sides, feeling my wings touch the bed. Jen stepped over them, and came to sit down a few feet away.

I looked up at Kath. Just for a moment, I could see the fox muzzle that I’d seen through my phone. Then I saw her face, expectant and nonjudgmental. Waiting for me to begin.

I looked away and closed my eyes, trying to think how to start. “I’m not sure if you know what I do for a living … ”

“I don’t.”

“I give tours on an historic submarine. An old naval vessel.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The sailors who lived there … it wasn’t like Star Trek or something. It wasn’t even like today’s subs. They were crammed in with barely enough room to move. There’s a reason that we can’t give tours to handicapped or overweight people. The corridor’s only a couple feet wide, and just getting in and out of the bunks, or the tables in the ship’s mess … it takes some doing.”

“Are you claustrophobic?” I heard her ask.

“I wasn’t before this … ”

“What happened?”

I swallowed, tensing up as I remembered. “I was giving a tour … ”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was in front of everyone else. A whole tour group … like a homeschool group or something. Kids and younger teens. They weren’t playing on the equipment or anything, but they were asking a ton of questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like … how the equipment worked, and stuff. I don’t remember. It was getting harder and harder to think.”

I couldn’t hear her say anything, so I just went on. “It started with this itching, all over my forearms. I couldn’t stop scratching. I was getting embarrassed; I mean, I was wearing short sleeves and all. Then I felt them.”

“Your wings?”

“Yes.” My heart pounded harder as I said that. Up to that point, I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that that’s what they were.

I went on, starting to shake and to sweat. “I could feel them pressed against things, crammed up against the walls. I couldn’t reach out and demonstrate stuff anymore. I couldn’t … I could barely move.” I was losing control of my breathing, and had to take a couple of deep breaths. “I had to get out of there. I couldn’t explain why, I just needed to. The whole tour group had to go back outside and make way for me. And the kids made rude jokes about what they thought I needed to do, but I didn’t go to the bathroom; I didn’t even head for my car. I walked.”

“You walked off the park grounds?”

“Yes. I didn’t even explain to the manager. I couldn’t, I was messed up so bad. I was scared, I didn’t know what was happening to me … I mean … okay, I knew. Okay? I knew what was going on, but I was scared. I was scared that it’d keep going, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

“I had to give him a ride back to the dorms,” Jen said. “He called me when he was halfway there.”

As long as I was spilling my guts in front of them anyway, I decided to just keep going. Opening my eyes now, and fidgeting more with my phone. “It was knowing that made it so terrifying. If my legs had just given out all of a sudden, I wouldn’t have been afraid; not at first. I would’ve been upset, and confused, and then heartbroken when I realized I’d have to adjust. But this … ” I moved my hands to gesture at myself, and could feel my wings as I did so. “This is what I … what I’ve … ”

“What you’ve always wanted?” Kath asked.

“Yes, and I know it makes no sense for me to be so upset like this. Okay?” I fought back a shiver, as I saw her tails swish in my peripheral vision. “I’ve been a furry for years now. And awhile back I was on a huge reading kick about yokai … wondering what it’d be like, and stuff. Reading people’s stories.”

“Did you know what species you were?”

“Nnn … ” I gritted my teeth. Then I sighed, slumping my shoulders. “I knew what species I wanted to be. What caught my attention the most. I made my fursona a red-tailed hawk … ” I started sweating again, as I said it. It felt like the words were sacred.

“And?”

“And that’s it. I never ‘came out;’ I never posted on any yokai boards or anything. I just went back to being a furry.”

“How come?”

A chime sounded on Kath’s laptop. She walked over and closed the lid, and I looked away so that I wouldn’t see her; her fox muzzle, and her tails. I swallowed, waiting for her to go back to her chair, and went on. “Well, partly because of how silly it was. They never prove anything, I mean; it’s just like a religion that way. And besides that, they’re always some cool, awe-inspiring species, like raptors or dragons or something. How come there aren’t any cockroach or warthog yokai?”

“Maybe the kinds of people who are born with those spirits aren’t given to introspection,” Kath offered.

“Yeah, see?” I held up my wing. “That’s a ‘faithful’ answer. That doesn’t answer my question.”

Kath ignored that. “You said that was only part of the reason. What was the rest of it?”

I looked down at the floor, as my face turned red. “Because I felt like I didn’t deserve it.”

“Oh?”

I was turning the phone over and over in my hands. “I’ve been up close, next to an injured red-tailed hawk, before. They’re not … they’re huge,” I blurted out, talking until my brain caught up. “They’re like two feet tall, and they look so streamlined and perfect. They can fly, for goodness’ sake! I see them soaring overhead, and it’s like I remember what it was like. And I want to join them, so bad.”

“So because it meant so much to you, that’s why you had so much trouble accepting yourself as one.”

“Yeah, I-” I paused. I felt my skin crawl, as sweat broke out all across it. She hadn’t talked about turning into a hawk, she’d talked about accepting that I already was one.

“I don’t know,” I made myself say, my voice shaky.

“So what do you want to do?” Jen asked.

And I knew the answer, of course. I knew what I’d dreamed and fantasized about. I just wasn’t ready for this. I couldn’t; not with my job, not with the classes I needed to take. Not with my life the way that it was. But more than that, it was scary because I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know what I’d become, or what it would feel like. I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to go back.

A change like this sounds wonderful when you dream about it. But when you have to face it, it’s terrifying.

I took a deep breath, then another. Trying to calm my nerves, and to think of a reasonable course of action. “I … I want-”

The power went out.

The heater shut down, and stopped blowing hot air behind me. The only light in the room came from the curtains, filtered through shade trees outside, and the soft glow of Kath’s sleep-mode laptop. She sighed, and I saw her outline facepalm.

“A brownout?” Jen asked.

“Looks like it,” Kath deadpanned.

I squirmed. “I should go … ”

I heard a puff like a furnace starting, and saw a flickering glow. Kath was holding out one hand, with a … cigarette lighter? … in it, but I only saw the flame, as though it was dancing on her fingertips. And as she talked, I saw the outline of a thin, vulpine muzzle, and saw hints of movement in the air behind her. Where her three tails were swishing.

“Listen.” My heart pounded, as I strained to hear what she was saying. “Your ‘problem’ is not going to just go away. I tried, when I was younger. But something always reminded me, and I fought and fought until I broke down, and realized I couldn’t anymore. Not and still be myself. I’ve seen people who’ve put this behind them, but they had to become someone totally different, so you’re going to change one way or another. It’s your choice what form that takes.”

“Okay … ” I was shivering, and not from the cold. My gaze was fixed on the twitching outlines of her tails, because I couldn’t look up at her face.

“Maybe you don’t have to change all the way right now. Maybe there’s a way you can live with yourself and still be this self. But whatever it is, you’re not doing it right now, because if you were this wouldn’t have happened.”

“So you think I should-” I stopped, as Kath got up. She walked right in front of me, to open the door, and as she did her tails smacked me in the face. I saw them, and felt them, and I jumped in my seat and tried to brush the fur out of my face.

When I looked up, and saw her in the light from outside, she just looked like a normal woman. “I don’t know what you should do,” she said, putting one hand on her hip. “But my guess? You’re a bird of prey, and your instincts triggered when you were locked in a submarine. Maybe that’s not natural for you.

“Maybe you need to fly.”

“OPENING SOON!
The CITY CREEK CENTER — Salt Lake City’s premier retail destination, with over 500,000 square feet of nationally-recognized chain stores!”

That was on the sign next to the doorstep where Alexandre Britos sat, huddled and shivering. He had the shape and build of a tall, skinny human, but his face was shaped like that of a fox. A pink fox, with white fur around and beneath his muzzle and short, bright blue tufts on top.

It was a cold, snowy Christmas Eve night. The air was thick with huge, fluffy snowflakes, forming halos around every streetlight and headlight. And in between the rush of traffic, just across the street from the Center, Alexandre could see the walls of Temple Square, and the forest of Christmas lights just beyond them.

There were humans there; white, upper-middle class humans, taking pictures in front of the lights and the live Nativity scene. Enjoying the night, if they had the clothes to not look out of place. Holding hands, if they were of opposite genders. Celebrating the eve of Jesus’ birth, and the holiday sale on at Deseret Book.

Alexandre flattened his ears. He still didn’t understand why they’d thrown him out of there. He’d just found these books that someone had left by themselves on a table, and decided to be helpful by putting them back in their places. How was he to know that they’d get upset at him for putting the Book of Mormon in the fiction aisle? It wasn’t like he’d tried to just take something without paying for it; he’d learned his lesson after the hot dog incident.

You know why they were upset, he thought to himself. But he didn’t want to think about it … it didn’t seem real right now. The whole world had seemed kind of fuzzy all day, and it wasn’t just because he had fur and a tail. He clutched the tip of it, trying to warm it, long past having given up on his ears. And he wondered if it was safe to go out yet, and if anyone was still looking for him.

Alexandre got up when he heard voices, coming from the door behind him. Then the door opened, and he jumped around the corner, pressing himself to the wall. For a moment he wanted to run, but then curiosity got the better of him — who’d needed to be inside a mall that hadn’t opened yet?

“Thank you for your time,” a male voice was saying. It sounded clipped and professional. “I know we’ll get to common ground somehow.”

“I’ll bet you do,” another male voice said. This one was higher-pitched, and sounded annoyed.

“Merry Christmas,” the first voice said, although it didn’t sound like it meant it. Then the door slammed shut.

After that, there was silence.

Alexandre peeked around the corner, trying to squint through the snowfall to see who it was. Then he stared.

The person who’d just come out was not human at all, but had the face of a cat; some kind of wildcat, with small and thin facial features and long, tufted black ears. They flattened, as he glared across the street with his arms folded. And his tail swished, as he shivered beneath his coat and jeans.

Then he noticed Alexandre. And if he noticed that neither of them looked human, or that Alexandre was staring at him in a confused panic, he did not mention it. “Hey,” he said, his ears unfolding.

“Hel-lo,” Alexandre said, not sure if he should run or not.

“What’s your name?” the cat asked.

Don’t tell him! said Alexandre’s instincts. They were still in fight-or-flight mode, and had just been rehearsing a lecture he’d seen, about how you should always plead the 5th Amendment when you were questioned by the police.

“Uh … ” he said, overwhelmed with these strange new fox feelings, that were making him skittish and hard to calm down. “Uh … no comment,” he finished, and swallowed.

“I see.” The cat took a few steps down the stairs, as if to take a closer look at him. “Are you alright?”

Alexandre’s fox instincts, as well as his human sensibilities — that had never seen a real-life anthropomorphic animal before that day — were still scared and on edge. But he could sense that this … person, meant him no harm. And so he tried to calm down.

“I … um.” Alexandre realized that he had been hunched over as though getting ready to bolt, and made himself stand up straight. Then he put one hand behind his head, embarrassed. “It’s a long story … ”

The cat reached down and brushed off one of the lower steps, then sat down and gestured towards the space next to him. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you want to talk about it?”

He sat down next to the cat, eyes locked onto his face and ears, trying to tell if what he was seeing was real or not. Even after what’d happened to him, he still wasn’t sure. Especially after what’d happened to him. How could he be sure anything he saw was real?

The cat noticed and returned the look. “So, where are you from?” the cat asked.

“Logan.”

“Do you work anywhere?”

“I’m still a student.” Alexandre looked up. “Uh, how ’bout you?” His eyes flicked up towards the door. “What’s up with them?”

“Oh, them.” He rolled his eyes. “They sorta brought me in as a consultant.”

“They, as in the church? I mean the, uh-”

“Yeah, the LDS church, I know they’re the ones building the mall.” He gestured across the street at Temple Square. “They wanted me to come take a look at it.”

Alexandre gave him a funny look. A corporate consultant in street clothes? He looked more like a vagrant. And his species …

The cat grinned. “Yeah, I know. I’m not really their type. I tried to tell them up-front, but they insisted. Even though I was with the GLBT protests outside their temples this fall.”

“I … guess they didn’t know you were there, huh?”

“I do kinda blend in, in a crowd.” His tufted ears twitched.

Now Alexandre was bewildered. Between this cat and what he’d gone through that morning, it was starting to make him question his sanity. What had happened to him? Was everyone going to start looking like an animal?

“So yeah, uh, consulting … ” Alexandre fidgeted. He had to come up with something to say, that would keep this cat here long enough that he could figure out what was going on. “What did they want you to look at, exactly?”

“Oh, the indoor stream, the retractable roof, the underground parking lot … ” The cat’s tail swished and brushed snow off the step, in the way that a hallucination could not. “The million-dollar condos … ”

“And they, uh, they … ” Alexandre made himself look away from the cat’s tail. “They wanted you to tell them how they were doing with them?”

“No, they wanted me to smile and say how excited I was and tell them all that I loved it.” The cat spoke through clenched teeth. “They didn’t want to hear what I really had to say.”

“Ah … ” Alexandre looked closely at the cat’s fangs. “And what did you have to say?”

“I told them they should sell the whole thing, and donate the money to charity.”

Alexandre choked, and coughed for a moment. “Yeah, they wouldn’t want to hear that, alright!”

“At least they finally asked.” The cat folded his arms. “I would’ve loved to hear from them a long time ago.”

“Uh … huh.” Alexandre watched him tap his clawtips impatiently on his sleeves.

He looked up at Alexandre. “So, did you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

“Huh? Oh, I, uh … ” He grinned nervously. “Is it that obvious?”

“Oh, yes.” The cat nodded. “You’ve been on edge the whole time I’ve been talking to you.”

“Well, I, um … ” Alexandre swallowed. His face turned from pink to red as he tried to think how much to tell him, and how to make it not seem crazy. “My friends and I sort of got ourselves in trouble.”

“With your parents?”

“Er … with the police.”

“Sounds like fun.” The cat grinned, and Alexandre caught a hint of mischief in his eyes. “What’d you do?”

“We, uh … we were conducting kind of a social experiment. You know, like Candid Camera.”

“Do tell!”

“Well, uh … ” He didn’t want to tell the cat that it’d been to find out what random people saw him as.

His own friends hadn’t realized that he had become a fox, at first. They’d just thought there was something strange about him, until he had pointed it out to them. Then they’d looked closely at his face, and pressed their fingers to his wet nose and fox ears, and felt his bushy tail. Even though that tail had knocked something off of the coffee table in front of the last holdout, he still hadn’t gotten it ’till Alex had taken him by the hands, looked directly into his face, and asked him what he saw.

After that, they’d thought it was the funniest thing ever, and had tried all kinds of experiments on the way that their mind played tricks on them when they looked at him. And he’d gone along with it and laughed, because it was so much easier to laugh with them than panic and wonder What’s happened to me? He’d wanted to feel that things were alright, that this was nothing serious, and that he wouldn’t be stuck like this for the rest of his life. So he’d let things get carried away, and let himself get carried along with them.

The cat was still looking up at him expectantly. “I, uh … ” He looked away for a second. “Y’know that picture, where it’s like two people’s faces — but if you look at it the right way, it’s really a lamp?”

“Yes. So you wanted to know which one people saw?”

“Yeah, kind of-” Alex jumped to his feet in a panic, as two people came walking around the corner and down the sidewalk just past them. But the cat didn’t move, and the people turned to look but didn’t seem particularly worried.

He sat back down, feeling embarrassed. “Anyway, uh, most people saw the ‘lamp,’ but a handful of people could see the ‘face.’ Especially children.”

The cat smiled, and swished his tail happily. “I love kids.”

“You have any?”

“Lots.”

Alexandre gave the cat’s face a searching look. He hadn’t thought he looked or sounded that old.

“You were saying?” the cat asked.

“Well … the kids were fun. I really hammed it up for them.” He grinned, at the memory. “But I kinda got carried away … ”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I uh … kissed one of my friends on the cheek, just to be silly.”

“Except that he was a guy, and you were on LDS church property at the time.”

“Yeah, and they sicced the Gestapo on us.” Alexandre put his hand behind his head, embarrassed. “In hindsight, they probably wouldn’t have chased us so far if we hadn’t run so fast. But we kinda split up along the way, and well … ” He spread his hands out, helplessly. “Yeah.”

The cat grinned. “Sounds like you had more fun today than I did.”

Alexandre laughed. It was a relief not to be judged. “Yeah, well, maybe you should’ve tried that! Kissed one of those boardroom types and then run off. It probably would’ve gotten you further than talking to them did.”

“I should’ve!” The cat’s slitted eyes brightened.

“Listen, can I, uh … ” Alexandre looked down at the cat’s swishing tail, and coughed. “Can I ask you something real quick?”

The cat nodded.

“When you look at me. What do you see?”

“A person.”

“No, I mean … ” Alexandre cringed. “What species am I?”

“What does it matter?”

And then Alexandre knew that the cat was real, and that he could see him, and that he wasn’t just dreaming this up. “So I’m a … ” He gestured helplessly. “And you’re a … ”

“How does it matter?”

” … I’m not sure.” He looked down at his feet, at the boots that were a little too small for him now, and curled his squashed, frozen toes inside them. His dull claws dug into the soles.

The cat took a deep breath. “Alexandre, listen to me.”

“How do you know my name?” Alexandre was sweating.

“That doesn’t matter either. What does matter is that you’re a person, no matter what you look like or who you like to kiss. Or what part of the bookstore you think LDS scripture belongs in.”

Alexandre was looking down at his feet again now, his heart pounding like mad, unable to look up at the cat’s face.

“You’re not going crazy, you’re just realizing what kind of person you are. And I know it’s painful. I had a good job and a comfortable life when it happened to me, and then all of a sudden I started doing stuff that made no sense at all to the people that I grew up with. I got arrested, I got into trouble with church leaders, I got spat on and beat up and laughed at. But I had to put up with it all, because that was just the kind of person I was. Once I realized who I was, and what other people were, I had to do something to help them. No matter what trouble it got me into.”

“Tell me … ” Alexandre looked up at the cat, nervously. “Were you a carpenter before all this happened?”

The cat just reached over and hugged Alexandre. He hugged him back, crying into the fur on top of his head.

“That doesn’t matter either,” the cat whispered, scritching Alexandre’s back slowly.

Alexandre just nodded, his eyes squeezed shut and still crying.

“Don’t worry about how others see you. Just be yourself, and try to see everyone for who they are. Because that’s the only thing that’s changed about you today. All that’s changed is your eyes are more open now.”

“Okay,” Alexandre whispered.

“I’ve got to go,” the cat said, letting go of him gently and standing. “Merry Christmas, Alexandre.”

“Happy birthday,” the fox said, and swished his tail in the snow.

Laurel is slumped into the chair in her Sunday dress, with a shell-shocked look on her face. Beside her, her stepmom is red-faced, her cheeks puffy from crying. She has her arms folded and is looking straight ahead, glaring at the door to the bishop’s office. Other churchgoers walk past in front of them, ignoring them but knowing why they’re there.

The next day, Laurel’s high school Seminary teacher tells her class about how anthros, gays, and transgender people are sick, and they do sick things to each other. They only want to live their lifestyles openly so that they can shock people, and they only want to get “married” so they can have tax writeoffs. That’s why they pushed their agenda, to get the definitions of marriage and personhood changed in California, and it’s up to the members of God’s true church to stand up for what’s right. It’s up to the Latter-Day Saints to fight back.

Laurel barely makes it through the class period, then throws up in the bathroom outside. Someone comes in as she’s retching, and just as quickly backs out.

Laurel’s knees are shaking as she straddles the toilet seat, trying to catch her breath. She’s pleading with God in her head, begging him to make her whole. Begging him to take these wrong feelings away from her.

All of them.

* * *

“What does ‘endure to the end’ mean?”

I was sitting across from the nonmember girl, Sam, in the big wooden dining hall down by the lake at Girls’ Camp. It was my last year there as a camper, before I graduated from Young Women, and my new friendship with her was the one thing keeping me going this year. We had the table to ourselves, because no one else wanted to sit with us … or with me, anyway.

The double doors were open at both ends. Outside, the trees cast shadows across the pine needle-covered path. Flies buzzed around my second bowl of cereal, and I swatted them away before looking up at Sam, not sure I’d heard her right over the background commotion. “Huh?”

“Endure to the end,” Sam repeated, brushing her hair from in front of her glasses. “That thing you said people needed to do, when you were … ” She searched for the words, for a moment. “ … bearing your testimony, last night.”

I held one hand up, as I drank the rest of the milk in my bowl slowly. Trying to think how to put this. “It’s just that,” I finally said, setting my bowl back down. “We endure Satan’s temptations until the last day, when Jesus will come and bind him.”

“It sounds hard,” she said, while using fork and knife to cut sausage links.

I groaned. “You have no idea.”

“Perhaps I don’t. What does he tempt you to do?” Sam asked, dipping a piece of sausage in maple syrup and eating it.

“Well, you know that Heavenly Father wants us to be together in our eternal families,” I explained, “after we get sealed together in the temple. So Satan tries to make us unworthy to be in our eternal families, and he tries to keep us from starting families to begin with.”

“Ah,” she said. “So he was behind Proposition 8?”

I choked. “Er, what?”

“California’s Proposition 8,” she repeated. “Besides declaring anthros non-persons, it kept same-gender couples from starting families in that state, as well as invalidating opposite-gender marriages where one of the partners was trans. Was that Satan’s work?”

I stared at her for a long moment, trying to tell whether or not she was being facetious. “Um, no … ” I said. “That was God’s work.”

“I see,” she said, slowly.

“Transgenderism and transspeciesism are unnatural,” I hastily went on. “And what gays and lesbians are doing isn’t ‘starting families,’ it’s going contrary to God’s commandments.”

“Which of God’s commandments?” Sam had stopped eating, and was watching me now.

I squirmed. “That a man and a woman are supposed to get married, and start a family together.”

“What if I don’t want to marry a man?” Sam asked.

But then Sister Powers started shouting over the din, and presenting the day’s announcements. I folded my arms and listened to her, trying to think of what I would say when I next got the chance.

* * *

You’ll have to forgive me for being an idiot. Because it wasn’t until later that day that I realized what she had meant.

I guess I’d better confess, here, before going on … I have same-gender attraction too. I don’t just have same-gender attraction, though, I’m attracted to males also. And please don’t think it’s my fault. I had enough trouble convincing my old bishop of that, even after I showed him God Loveth His Children, that new pamphlet put out by the Brethren.

I didn’t choose to have SSA, or any of these other weird problems I have … the ones that made me squeamish inside, when she started talking about anthros and transgenderism. And while I’ve made some wrong choices because of them, it’s not too late for me. I’m not like those people; I’m not living their lifestyle, and I’ve never been transformed by anyone. I just have to repent for dwelling on these wrong things so much, and let God heal me of my sinful desires.

But you’re probably confused about what’s going on. So let me back up a bit.

*takes a deep breath*

This all started when I let my mom pick out my clothes. See, the problem is that my mom’s a nonmember — an apostate, actually — and she doesn’t believe in the Church’s standards of modesty anymore. So when I told her I left my suitcase at my dad and stepmom’s house, and didn’t have anything to wear to Girls’ Camp this year, she went out shopping and came home with all of these sleeveless tops and short shorts.

I tried to tell her I didn’t believe in wearing stuff like that. That it wasn’t just going to be girls there; that there’d be adult Priesthood holders to supervise, and they didn’t need to be tempted like that. She gave me this look like I was an idiot, and started in on a feminist lecture about equal rights and stuff, so I finally had to just beg her not to make me wear those because the other girls would shun me for it.

She said no, she wasn’t going back out to the store. And sure enough, my tentmate Katelynn (we’ve got two-person tents this year instead of cabins) just comes here in between activities to get things from the bags under her cot, then walks back out off the wooden platform the tent’s on without saying a word to me. No one’s approached me or said hi to me or anything, and Sister Powers, our Young Women’s leader, gave me this long guilt trip speech where she told me to think about how the Savior felt about what I was wearing.

I didn’t tell her that sounded like a really bad way of putting it.

She told me I wasn’t allowed to be one of the youth leaders this year, because I was setting a bad example with my worldly and immodest fashions … and I guess I can’t blame her for that. I just really wished someone would talk to me, which is why I was surprised to see that they were all talking to someone else who was dressed just like me.

You guessed it. Samantha.

I hope it’s not a sin for me to say this, but Sam is really cute, and I don’t just mean because of her outfit. It’s because she wears glasses (I’ve always had a thing for girls with glasses), and because she just seems so naive. She was asking such honest questions about the Church and Utah culture in general, and I could hear the other girls laughing as they explained things to her.

Meanwhile, I was trying not to think about her too much. And I was writing sappy, embarrassing stuff in my journal, about how I was struggling with these wrong feelings and wished that I didn’t have them. So of course, when she came up and said hi to me, I closed it up really fast and looked up at her, startled and red-faced.

“You’re Laurel, right?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah … ” I was trying to talk to her without letting myself look at her, and blushing as I did so. Oh my heck, I thought, she is so cute. But I pushed that away and asked “Uh, and you are?” I’d heard her name already, but I didn’t want her to know I’d been eavesdropping.

“Sam,” she said. “Why aren’t you out here? Are you not feeling well?”

“Uh, no, I just … ” I just couldn’t face being a social pariah, because of my apostate mom and the rumors about me and the fact that I was wearing immodest clothing. But how could I explain all this to a nonmember girl, in a way that she’d understand? And wouldn’t be insulted by, I thought. “I’d just … rather stay in here, is all.” I coughed. It was true, technically.

“Is it okay if I come in and sit down?”

I hesitated a second, then nodded, and she came in and sat down beside me. Like, right beside me, on the cot. Almost touching me. I scooted away from her immediately, and tried to make it look like I was being polite and giving her space.

She asked me polite, getting-to-know-you type questions. I don’t remember what they were, because I was too busy trying not to think how her shorts had rode up her legs when she’d sat down. I do remember that when she asked “What do your parents do?” I said

“My mom’s a homemaker. My dad teaches Institute.”

“Ah. What’s Institute?”

“It’s like a … it’s a college-level religion class,” I told her. I was going to say it was like grown-up Seminary, but I guessed she wouldn’t understand that either unless she’d been invited there.

“Oh. So they teach you about different world religions and things?”

“No … just this one.”

“How come?”

“Because … ” I could see her looking at me, a curious expression on her face. She really didn’t know. Another one of those things she was naive about, I guessed, and tried not to think how adorable that made her.

“Um.” I coughed again, trying to break out of that train of thought. “How much do you know about the Church?”

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?” She didn’t call it “the Mormon Church,” she said its full name, like it was honestly how she thought of it.

“Yes,” I said. “The Church.”

“I know it’s headquartered here in Utah … ” Sam looked up at the roof of my tent, like she was trying to remember the facts for a quiz. I wondered how much she’d learned just today.

“It’s got over thirteen million members worldwide,” she said, “most of them inactive. It teaches its members to give ten percent of their income to the church without question. Some of this money goes to build temples, which are like meetinghouses but are only for worthy church members. The rites performed in temples are done to seal families together for time and for all eternity.”

“Um … yes, very good!” I was embarrassed. I felt unprepared to deal with this new investigator, who knew a lot about the Church already and was learning fast. And she already knew about tithing and inactives … I didn’t know if she thought those were good or bad. How was I supposed to teach her if I didn’t know what she was ready to hear? What if I said something she wasn’t ready for?

I said a quick, silent prayer, that I’d know what to say. “Do you know why we can seal families together?” I finally asked.

“You can’t,” she said.

My mind went blank. “A-huh?”

“You can’t,” Sam explained, “because you’re a girl. You can’t hold the Priesthood, so you can’t perform the ordinances.”

“Oh, right, sorry … ” I looked away, red-faced. I hated being reminded of that, I really did. Both my gender, and the fact that I couldn’t hold the Priesthood. “I meant ‘we’ as in ‘the Church’ there, sorry.”

“Oh, okay. Why?” She clasped her hands in her lap.

“Because we … I mean the guys, sorry … they have the Priesthood. It’s the literal power of God, and the authority to act in his name. Only God can seal families together for time and for all eternity, so only the servants of God here on earth can do that for us. That’s why we spend so much time teaching each other and learning about the Church,” I finished. “Because it’s so important that we end up together, as eternal families.”

“Oh,” she said. “You care for your family a lot, don’t you?”

“I … ”

* * *

Laurel’s stepmom blows her nose on a handkerchief, from the seat next to hers, as the bishop opens his door. A boy that she doesn’t recognize hurries out without talking to Laurel, brushing past her in her seat.

Laurel looks up, at the balding man in the white shirt and tie. She swallows. “Hi, dad … ” she says. But the look on his face says that he’s not her dad right now. He’s Bishop Williams.

“Come in,” he says, turning around and heading back to his desk. Laurel gets up and does as he asks, and shuts the door behind her, feeling like she’s sealing herself into her own tomb.

* * *

I sighed. “I don’t know.”

The rest of the conversation was a blur. Samantha could sense my discomfort, and she moved on to something else … something about animals at first, but I got really tense then so she brought up something pop culture-y instead. Movies, I think. We talked about one we’d both seen.

She put her hand on my knee at one point. It felt warm and embarrassing. I didn’t stop her, though. I didn’t know how to politely ask. And I could tell that she wasn’t trying to flirt; she was trying to comfort me. She could tell I was in distress.

I couldn’t help thinking how good it felt that she was touching me like that. But then after Sam left, I got down on my knees where no one could see me and begged Heavenly Father to help me reach her. Begged him to help unworthy me to at least not stand in her way. I knew that I’d probably ruined my own eternal family, but I promised that I wouldn’t ruin hers.

When they had the nightly prayer and testimony meeting, around the fire in our ward’s campsite, I waited for a few other girls to share their thoughts about being at camp before standing up and bearing my testimony.

“I just wanted to say that I know the Church is true,” I said, knees shaking a bit as the campfire warmed me. Making me sweat uncomfortably. “I know that Heavenly Father restored it to the earth through Joseph Smith, and that he gave him the Priesthood keys to seal families together forever.”

I took a quick glance down at Sam. She was sitting there watching me, and actually listening.

I took a deep breath and went on, sounding less like a calm, reassuring Church leader and more like a scared little girl. “I know that we can be together forever, so long as we’re worthy and we obey all the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. And make and keep sacred covenants … and … and endure to the end,” I finished lamely, feeling the onset of stage fright. “In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

I sat back down in the back row, the only one there on my bench.

* * *

Anyway, I’m pretty dense to start with, and the butterflies in my stomach from being attracted to Sam (but not wanting to admit it) made me even slower on the uptake. So it wasn’t until I heard her talking ouside my tent, saying she’d never had a boyfriend, that it dawned on me.

Oh. My. Heck.

She had same-gender attraction too! No wonder she’d said that thing about not wanting to marry a man, at breakfast … oh, crud, did that mean she liked me? What if that hand on the knee was flirting?

I felt this weird churn in my stomach, like being flattered and sickened at the same time. It felt right and wrong all at once, and I wanted to dwell on it some more. But I also knew it was the last thing that I ought to think about.

But she’s been talking so much to me and asking me so many questions … I thought. Then I sighed.

I’ve got to tell her, I thought. I have to tell her I can’t talk to her anymore, and explain why. I’ll find someone else to help teach her the Gospel. It’s for her own good … heck, it’s for my own good.

Of course, as it turned out, I wouldn’t get to confess to her until much, much later that night. And I’d end up spilling my guts to her about everything else … literally.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re really cute as a fox!” Sam admires his fur, in the light of the moon from outside. Then she looks up at his face, and realizes the expression is not one of wonderment. It’s one of shock.

“Joshua … ?” she asks.

There’s no answer. He’s frozen as though in midstride, one hand still inches away from his face where he’d been scratching it. Breathing slowly through his muzzle.

“Joshua, are you okay?”

Sam’s feline tail twitches nervously, and she clasps her hands and fidgets during the long silence. She can smell sweat, and fear, and horrible pain coming from him.

“Uh, look, if this is about the feelings you had during your change … ” She looks away, still fidgeting. “It’s not your fault. A lot of people are sensitive to it like-”

He says something, and she can’t hear him.

“Er, what was that?”

“I SAID GET OUT!” He stands, his eyes burning and tear-stricken, and it looks like he’s about to throw something at her.

Sam jumps to her feet and hurries to the door, sweating and shaken, as he follows right at her heels. When she gets most of the way through the door he slams it on the tip of her tail, and she screams, jumping and losing her glasses. He opens the door just a crack, and her tail twitches out just in time for him to slam it again.

Dogs are barking all over the neighborhood now. A silhouette appears at the window across the street. Terrified and in shock, she reaches down to pick up her glasses and sees that they’re okay, before the pain in her tail catches up to her. Tears come to her eyes as she fights it back, cringing and clenching her teeth.

For a moment she wants to just sit there on the doorstep, cradling her tail and sobbing to herself. But she hears something slump heavily against the door, and a second later she hears Joshua crying. She hurries to her car instead, limping because of her tail and wondering what she did wrong.

* * *

Where had I gone wrong?

Was it looking up transformation stories, with vivid descriptions of changes? I’d hidden that all throughout high school … it’d been my deepest shame and my fondest desire.

How about looking up pics? I hadn’t worked up the courage to do that until I’d almost graduated … they were so shocking. Painful changes, mental changes, change-as-reward and change-as-sadistic-punishment. People being annihilated and replaced by something else, something more attractive, something that deserved to live unlike me-

I convulsed and froze that way, my face twisted in pain, every muscle locked up. It lasted a long few seconds before letting me go, and I gasped for breath and tried to gather my thoughts again. The floor was hard underneath me, and I leaned against the door for support.

Maybe it was when I’d started going to furmeets, I thought, still trying to catch my breath and holding onto the doorknob. I’d told myself there was nothing wrong with it. I’d told myself I was past all of that. But then Sam was there … and she was really a you are too now-

Another convulsion.

By now I was fighting back tears again. I’d almost torn off the doorknob. It wasn’t anything physical … it wasn’t anything to do with my new form or the bands on the fur around my neck and shoulders right now. It was fear, and pain, and awful, awful guilt.

My mind replayed the last few hours for me. Staying up late, letting down my resolve, reading those stories and being filled with such desperate longing again. Remembering that Sam was nocturnal … remembering her invitation. The one she’d extended so innocently, because she hadn’t known. She hadn’t known what I believed, what my family believed, what we’d been taught at church twice a week. She hadn’t known the Truth.

But I had, and I’d been so horrified when I realized what I wanted to do. I’d wanted to just turn my brain off. I’d wanted to forget. I’d turned off my computer, gotten up from my chair and started pacing my room miserably. But nothing distracted me from what I wanted so badly to do. So I called her, and nervously took her up on her offer. I made sure to let her know that this wasn’t a date, and the door had to be open at all times so we wouldn’t be alone together.

After that horribly awkward conversation, my mind cleared a little. I thought to myself Okay, self, you’ve bought twenty minutes to think about it. And when she gets here, you can just apologize to her and ask her to leave; maybe even tell her why, and invite her to come to church with you or something. Something good can still come out of this. And I paced, and sweated, and calmed myself down as well as I could, and imagined exactly how the conversation would go.

But then I heard her knock at the door, and it’s like my mind went all aslkjdf- And all I could think about were those stories, and how badly I wanted it, and this voice in the back of my head was saying Just once! Just for tonight! Just to see what it feels like! Please!

And I couldn’t say no.

So after she knocked a second time, it’s like I went down there on autopilot. Then I sold my soul for a minute of pleasure, and this horrible dustmop thing behind that’s my tail

I almost clawed my eyes out with that spasm.

I lay there on the floor gasping, looking up at the ceiling, hurting from where my foot had struck the stairs but too exhausted to move it.

Finally I dragged myself to my feet and limped up to my bedroom, whimpering with each step and trying to forget what I’d done. Imagining that I had a skin disease, or was wearing a tight, fuzzy coat.

It didn’t work. I cried myself to sleep, thinking of what my parents would say if they knew. Remembering all of the good times with them, and all of the family lessons, and knowing I’d betrayed their trust. My favorite hymns mocked me as I drifted off.

* * *

I dreamed I was seventeen again.

I was sitting on a hard, metal folding chair, in the gymnasium of the church that my family went to. I was surrounded by dozens of kids and a handful of adults. We were listening to the elderly preacher they’d invited to speak to the youth go on about the evils of our day and age … immodesty, homosexuality, disobedience to parents. When he mentioned Internet pornography I shrank in my seat, and realized how disgusting it was to imagine bodies changing like in the stories I read. I nodded, quickly, at everything that he said, beating myself up inside and silently begging God to help me overcome this evil.

“Isn’t this a crazy, mixed-up world we live in?” he asked, his leathery face wrinkling with a sardonic smile. “Where a man thinks he can marry another man … ”

He paused to let everyone chuckle.

” … and where animals think they should be treated like human beings.”

I froze.

“The scriptures say God gave man dominion over all lesser beasts,” he went on. “That means animals, whether they walk on four legs or two!”

Someone called out “Amen!” Meanwhile, I could feel sweat begin to pour down my sides. I was aware now that I was dreaming, I was aware that I was feeling this inside my dream because I was sweating in real life, and I wasn’t letting myself wake up yet because I had to listen to how wrong I was.

“God will not curse you with temptations that you can’t handle,” he went on, stalking the room and pointing out at us. “Not if you pray and submit yourself to Him. So if a woman becomes a cat, a cat that walks on two legs, it’s her own fault!”

“Amen!” more people shouted.

“And if that cat helps a boy become a fox, it’s his fault!” He stabbed his finger at me, and I looked down and started crying. “He has forfeited his rights and blessings as a human being, and has taken his place beneath man!”

“Amen!”

“And since animals don’t have souls,” he growled, “it means he has given his to the Devil, to be tormented by the flames of Hell for all of eternity.”

The crowd and the preacher drifted away, their response muted and faint, as the chair I was in was surrounded by darkness. Hot, firey darkness, and I could hear roaring flames as they began to lick at my-

* * *

I woke up covered in sweat, tangled in bedsheets and scratching myself furiously. I itched all over, and as I fought and squirmed and nearly fell out of bed I could feel my tail and my muzzle growing back out. I must have changed to a human while I was asleep, and now something was causing me to change back.

No! I thought. Stop! I want to go back to being a human! But the itching continued, and I threw off the bedsheets and tore off my shirt, sitting up and scratching hard all over. It didn’t feel good at all, unlike the first time. I was even starting to get nauseous.

Finally I looked up, at the light coming in through the curtains and at the digital clock on my desk. It was almost 11. The space heater was on and the door was closed, and it was sweltering in my room.

I reached over and turned it off, then flopped back on top of my bed, groaning. Rubbing my eyes, and stopping when I felt pawpads. Then I lifted my hands from my face, looked at them for a long moment, and let them fall to either side of me, letting out my breath.

My body felt limp and lifeless. But my soul felt even worse, because I knew that I’d given it up to the Devil — traded it for empty pleasures, a form that would probably last for the rest of my life, and the knowledge that I had sinned against God and His image. And while God was forgiving to those who submitted to Him, there was no forgiveness for soulless animals.

I had no energy left. Not even enough to move. I just looked up at the ceiling and sighed, closing my eyes.

“Damn me,” I whispered. “God damn me to Hell.”

But he didn’t have to, I thought, because I’d already done it myself.

* * *

I don’t know how long I stood in front of the mirror.

I hadn’t bothered to put my shirt back on yet. It was a shock to see myself as an anthro, to the point where I had to pretend that it wasn’t me that I was looking at. The “fox” who looked back at me wasn’t miraculously fit, like in most of the drawings … he was in the same physical condition that I’d always been in. He even still had a bit of a stomach. Somehow, I’d always imagined that I would’ve gotten in shape before doing this.

His fur looked ragged, his face looked lifeless, and his shoulders sagged with the same weariness that I felt. I looked his red and white pelt up and down, too tired to feel any disgust. And when I finally reached my arm out and turned the light off, and saw a dim blue glow around his shoulders and neck, I sighed. Because it meant that I’d probably be looking at this fox in the mirror for the rest of my life.

“However long that is.” My voice cracked.

I swallowed to moisten the inside of my muzzle, and shuffled on out of the bathroom.

I pulled my shirt back on as I stepped off the stairs, and walked into the living and dining area, sunlight streaming in through the curtains. The opened boxes, unplugged electronics, and dishes still wrapped up in packing paper all seemed unearthly somehow. It felt like the place had been frozen in time, like I was stepping into a crime scene.

I’d been going to finish unpacking this morning, before registering for classes online. Somehow that seemed far away now.

Something felt off, but I wasn’t sure what until I slumped onto the couch and sat there still for a moment. Then I realized I could hear everything; the whirr of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clock, the buzz of the electronics in the kitchen behind me. The sunbeams coming in through the windows seemed brighter than usual, and I could feel my clothes on my fur, itchy and uncomfortably tight.

Is this why Sam’s usually human? I thought. But then I corrected myself. She’s not human, she’s … she’s …

I winced. I couldn’t do that to her.

I’m an animal, I thought, sinking back further into the couch. And it doesn’t matter if I can make myself look like a human. I don’t know how. I don’t care to learn how. I don’t care about anything anymore …

My tail was getting squashed painfully. I did care about that. I sat upright and adjusted it, and my mind went blank again for a few seconds. Then it reminded me of what I’d done, and I sighed and put my head in my hands.

An hour later I was still there on the couch, sprawled out along it, staring up at the ceiling and remembering. Imagining. The feel of the changes inside me …

… the shame that I felt inside …

… the first bits of fur poking through my skin …

… knowing I was awful and slimy to the core …

… feeling like this was what I had been made for …

… knowing I’d destroyed myself.

I was a fox, I thought! A red fox! I actually was one, and it was real and I could change back and forth any time that I wanted!

“I am an enemy to God,” I whispered, the corners of my eyes moistening. “I chose to fight against him. I don’t deserve to live, and I deserve to be cast into Hell.”

The memories began to merge. Instead of beautiful change pouring into me through Sam’s arms, I imagined firey, painful death. I imagined it tearing at me, consuming me from inside, liquefying my bones and roasting my internal organs. I imagined screaming as my skin and hair set on fire, and burning to ash as she laughed. Another soul claimed by the Devil.

The only thing worse than imagining that was knowing that it’d really happened. That’s what happened to my soul, I thought, while my body was being changed. I’m just a shambling shell now. That’s why I don’t have any energy left. That’s why it’s okay if I die.

That’s why I have to kill myself.

I stared up at the ceiling again, imagining it and wondering what the best way would be.

* * *

It took me a little while, but I finally figured it out. I didn’t know which cuts I’d have to make, but I thought I could just try them all and see which one did the job.

The trouble was, I’d have to ignore the pain long enough to do so. Worse, I’d have to actually get up and go to the kitchen to get out a knife. And because everything was still packed up, I’d have to dig through the boxes and find which one had them in it, and then find one that was sharp enough.

I wasn’t sure I could even stand up right now, let alone dig through boxes. I felt so drained it was a stretch just to lift up my arm, and squint at my claws. Too dull, I thought. No good. I let my hand drop back to the couch, and sighed.

That’s when the phone rang.

It could be Sam calling to apologize, I thought.

Or to demand an apology, I thought back to myself. To tell me her tail is broken and sue for damages.

Second ring.

Maybe it’s someone else, I thought. Will they still remind me of how worthless I am? Will they help me get the rest of the way there?

Third ring …

I jumped to my feet and ran around the couch to smack into the kitchen wall, and just barely grabbed the phone above me before it rang a fourth time and the answering machine picked it up. My shoulder absorbed the blow, and I slumped down next to the wall and winced before speaking. “Hello?”

“Hey, Josh!” It was a male voice, the voice of one of my friends from high school. It sounded like he was driving. The caller ID just said ” >>> MARK <<< ".

"Hey." I forced a grin.

"Didn’t go to church today?" he asked.

"Uh, no ... " I looked up at the clock. "Too busy ... unpacking. I guess."

"Yeah, don’t worry, we’ll both make it up. I’m still out on the highway," Mark went on. "Got a big moving truck I finally finished loading last night. Still can’t believe they’ve got us in duplexes this year. We’re moving up in the world!"

"Heh, yeah ... " I squirmed, and rubbed at my shoulder to try to make it stop hurting.

"Is something wrong?" Mark asked. "Your voice sounds kinda funny."

"Huh? Uh, no, uh ... " I coughed. "Maybe I’m getting a ... a something ... uh ... are you sure it isn’t your signal?" I broke out in a sweat.

"Yeah, it is noisy out here." He was silent for a long moment, and I could hear the sounds of his driving. He shouldn’t be driving while using a cellphone, I thought, even as I realized I knew what I had to say and tried to think how to put it.

“Listen, Mark, uh … ” I coughed again. “I hate to break it to you, but we’ve got a new roommate,” I sort-of-lied.

“They’re putting five in there?” he asked. “What kind of new roommate?” he went on, before I could stumble over his first question.

“The, uhh … ” I swallowed. “The slightly furry kind, if you get what I’m saying.”

Long, long pause. I burned and itched all over with sweat.

“They’re having us live with an anthro?” Mark asked. “But that’s dangerous! What about disease? What about parasites? What if he turns feral?”

I couldn’t say anything. I’d started to pant through my muzzle, and was slumped up against the wall, sitting down.

“And what about spiritual dangers? I mean, I know the crazy liberals who make the laws don’t give a flying flip, but you know what they do, Josh! This is … ” his signal broke up, ” … a religious college for heaven’s sake! Whatever happened to freedom of religion? Didn’t the Honor Code used to prevent being openly anthro? And now he’s going to be walking around campus that way, shedding in the cafeteria, dating human girls and trying to get them to live his lifestyle!

“This is what we were warned about, Josh. It’s a sign of the times, and it’s already starting. He’s going to try to corrupt us,” he finished, sounding dire and prophetic.

“M-maybe he already has … ” I continued panting, drawing in huge breaths, unable to stop myself.

” … what do you mean by that, Josh?” He sounded suspicious. “And what’s that sound?”

I hung up, then buried my face in my hands and started crying again. It lasted for a long time. The phone rang again, but I ignored it.

I’m doomed, I’m doomed, my whole life is over … It was separate from wanting to kill myself, and felt more real right now than Hell did. This hurt even worse, because it showed me that even if I wanted to go back to my old life, I couldn’t. Not anymore.

The cordless handset rang next to me again, as I huddled there in the fetal position. I wiped tears from my furry, fox face to squint down at the screen. The caller ID read “PETERSON, ANDREW.”

I picked it up, pressed the button and sniffled. “H-hey … ”

“Hey, Josh.” I heard a road map crinkle, and sounds of traffic from nearby, but it didn’t sound like he was driving. “Got lost and stopped at a gas station. The attendant doesn’t speak English well enough to give directions. Can you tell me how to get there?”

“Uh, s-sure … ” I sniffled again.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, uh, no, uh … ” I swallowed. “Where’re you at?”

He told me as well as he could, and I spent the next minute or so giving directions. It took my mind off of what was going on, and helped me to think more clearly.

“Thanks,” he said. “Glad you’re not at church today. I would’ve missed you.”

“Yeah … ”

The phone clicked against his glasses, as he shifted it to the other hand. “Listen, are you sure you’re okay? You don’t sound so good.”

I coughed. “I’m not … ”

“What’s wrong?”

“I, uh … ” I couldn’t say it. ” … I found out we’re getting an anthro roommate,” I finished, lamely.

” … that’s got you upset?”

“A-and Mark, he’s really mad about it … ” I sniffled, again.

“What, do you think he’s going to make you into one of them, or something?”

“I-”

“You know it’s not contagious. You know the changes are only temporary. The only ones who are changed permanently are the ones who have species or gender dysphoria, and they seek them out! So if you don’t want to become an anthro, it’s not going to happen!”

“But-”

Andrew swore. “You know what? I don’t know why I agreed to this. And I am not looking forward to a whole semester with you two. Can you and Mark at least try not to be bigots, for once?”

He hung up, leaving my muzzle hanging open in mid-word.

I slumped back against the wall again, sliding down until my feet touched the couch. My arms hung to either side, limp on the floor, and my hand let the cordless phone roll out of it.

I didn’t know what to do, or say, or think anymore. I felt like everything bad I’d been told about me was true, even if it contradicted itself. I was a bigot, and I was also a disease vector and a dirty, unclean animal. Plus I was going to Hell.

My energy had left me again. I wouldn’t be killing myself anytime soon, unless it was of starvation. Or a neckache, from laying down at this angle. But Andrew and Mark will be here soon, I thought. And I’m sure one of them will be able to do the job for me.

Either that, or make me wish I was dead.

Cold.

I was on my knees in the tunnel, going through my pack. My breath froze and crystallized in front of me, dusting its contents with ice shards. The heat lamp I’d set on the rock next to it was throwing shadows across my hands, as I tore through packets of rations looking for the sealed gel pouch.

My toes felt like ice, and my bare fingers were stiff and shook as I shivered. I alternated between holding them next to the heat lamp, and rummaging through my pack as fast as I could. Sweat dripped off of them and froze.

C’mon, where is it … Protein bars. Space blankets. Chemical heating pads. Cryo- there it was!

My fingers slipped, and it fell to the bottom. Argh! I cursed myself inwardly, as one hand dug through and held everything up, while my other hand reached down and grabbed it. Then I moved back up to the heat lamp really fast, shivering and trying to get the pouch open.

It had a brand name, but I didn’t care. It was cryoberry concentrate, and I needed it to kick my metabolism into overdrive before I froze down here. Shivering violently, I managed to tear open the pouch, then lifted my cloth mask just enough to squeeze the gel into my mouth.

I gagged. It was painfully sweet, and so tart that it burned. How many hundred times stronger than sweet cane was it? How much acid fermented in each berry? I’d tried to drink a cup of the juice once, and even after watering it down I couldn’t finish it. This was like an entire pitcher of the stuff in one mouthful.

I nearly spat it out, on reflex, but managed to force my mouth closed and tilted my head back, feeling the gel tear down my throat like bad heartburn as I swallowed. My tongue felt like I’d just drank scalding water, and I moistened my mouth, swallowing fast to clean it out. Then I cringed, gritting my teeth, fighting back the urge to vomit.

A voice in the back of my head told me If you hadn’t run off on your own, this wouldn’t have happened! I tried to remind myself what it was like back at camp; the loud, echoey snoring, the heat and sweat and itchy bedding, and the feeling of being suffocated. It’d been the second night in a row like that, and I’d already stayed up for most of it. I’d had to.

Was freezing and dying down here better than that? Probably not. I hadn’t meant to go this far, though. And I would’ve told someone if I’d known they would listen … if I’d known they cared at all. Or wouldn’t have just told me to tough it out, like they’d been doing.

I’d left markers, at any rate; chalk marks on the wall that had followed me all the way out here. Now I just had to follow them back …

… assuming I lived through this.

Cold was my next thought, followed by pain. I winced again, my throat tightening, fighting back tears behind my goggles. Then I pulled the mask back down over my face and put my gloves back on, still shivering. My feet were so cold they’d numbed, and my hands were still so cold they hurt, but the searing pain in my throat was starting to turn into warmth, and I could feel it beginning to spread.

Better get these out for when I need them, I thought. I pulled two handfuls of protein bars from my pack, and stashed them all in my pockets before zipping the pack up again and shouldering it. I was still cold, and still weary from hiking so far. But after all that I was wide awake.

I picked up the heat lamp and started walking back down the tunnel, stone and ice glistening in the lamp’s glow. Powdered ice crunched under my feet. I clicked the lamp shut, into flashlight mode, then looked behind me, away from its beam. It was surreally pitch-black just a few feet away.

When I turned around again, the first thing I saw was a bright orange chalk mark shining in the light, with others past it leading back along the tunnel. I was on the right track; the pedometer on my belt said that I still had a way to go, but I didn’t care … I could do this. I’d make myself do this. I had to.

The cold began to subside. I could feel my feet again, pins and needles inside like warm water had just been poured over them. It hurt, but I had to keep walking. The pain in my throat was harder to ignore, though, and so was the tightness in my stomach. It was no longer just from the acid; it was also the hunger pangs starting. I was going to need to eat soon, to fuel the furnace my body had turned into.

I was unwrapping the first protein bar when something stopped me in my tracks. The shadows didn’t look right, along the side of the wall. I went closer to investigate, and found a narrow tunnel leading back towards the main passage, which opened up and curved off in another direction some distance in. It looked icy and slippery, but I thought I could manage it even with my pack. Should I, though?

I walked over and shone my flashlight down it, trying to see where it went. It looked like it opened up after only ten metres or so, and-

What was that?

I looked at the ground, my protein bar all but forgotten. Something was there, partway lodged in the ice. Something that shone bright blue in the light.

I got down on my knees to inspect it more closely. It looked like a stone disc, its outer surface carved into segments. There was a rune engraved into each segment, and taking up most of one side was a bright blue jewel.

If you’re reading this where I think you are, then you know what something so out-of-place means. You know what’s about to happen. And if I’d been reading this there too, then I would’ve known in a heartbeat. But I’m not sure what I would have done.

But I didn’t know, so here’s what I was thinking:

Oh wow. Oh wow. How big is that jewel? Oh wow, I don’t believe it. How many grams worth is this? Who cares. I’m rich now! I’m so rich!

I started grinning like an idiot, the protein bar even further from my mind as my stomach twisted and growled. Should I tell them? I thought. It’d make the perfect comeuppance! My eyes widened. But what if they take it from me? What if they just take it and don’t even ask, just like they used to do … just like some of them used to, I corrected myself. No. This has to stay secret.

I nearly doubled over, as the hunger pangs overtook me. Then I knelt down right next to the protein bar, peeled the wrapper from it, and swallowed the entire thing at once, barely tasting it.

Another one followed, more slowly this time. It was chewy, and tasted of nut butters and vegetable oils. I stashed the wrappers in my other pocket, still chewing and savoring the second bar. Then I looked down at the disc, and wondered how on Tsoneria I was going to get it out of the ice.

I should have asked “how long”. It took me about half an hour.

I didn’t have a crowbar, or an ice pick. I had a few matches, but not enough to make any headway. The ice froze back, slick, and I had to be careful not to slip and stab myself as I hacked at it with my knife. Twice, I had to stop and grab another protein bar. I could feel myself growing uncomfortably warm.

Finally I grabbed hold of the disc and pulled, and the remaining ice broke away. Then I tried to stand up with it, only to be stopped short and nearly fell over. What the heck?

I looked closely. The disc had thin leather strips attaching it to the ice, tied around a loop at what must be the top. It wasn’t just a disc, it was an amulet; some kind of ornament. And the leather was buried deep in the ice.

I didn’t have time for that. So I cut the straps off, then held the disc up to the light, grinning excitedly. It was gorgeous, and I’m not just saying that because it looked valuable. The gem was as big around as my thumb, and the light played off it like a museum piece … I could imagine it displayed on a pillow, behind glass. Meanwhile, the stone around it was smooth, with no sharp edges except where the runes were carved. It looked finely made, and not manufactured.

I turned the stone disc around. On the back were intricate slots and grooves. I furrowed my brow, examining it. This side looked less like a piece of jewelry, and more like a piece of machinery. What was it for?

No clue, I thought. Oh well. I pocketed it, and started to go back when I stopped in my tracks. That side tunnel was beckoning me, and I don’t mean in a magical, mysterious sense. I mean something more like an OCD way. It was going to drive me nuts if I didn’t go down it.

You’d think I would’ve right away, just to see if it had anything to do with the gem and the disc. Or if there was any more where they’d come from. You have to remember, I had just spent the last couple of hours walking through the cold, then digging on my hands and knees ‘till my neck was sore. Plus I was hot and sweaty and uncomfortable inside my coat, now that the extract had taken effect. I really just wanted to go to bed, and tried to tell myself I could take everyone there tomorrow or something. But my OCD won out, and I sighed and walked down the tunnel.

Did I say “walked”? More like “squeezed” down the tunnel. It was iced over, and I could see stone past the ice but that didn’t help me gain traction. About halfway through I started to have trouble going any farther, and I panicked because I was alone and I didn’t want to get stuck here. But it turned out I’d just gotten my coat caught on something, and I got the rest of the way through, and looked out and gasped.

I was standing in a worked stone shaft going a hundred or more metres up, all the way to the mountain’s surface. The air in here was warmer than outside — the ice seemed to stop at the entrance — and the distant top shone like a gem in my flashlight, whole facets lighting up at once. I realized I was inside a hideaway; from above, that whole ceiling would look just like snow. I might be the first human inside this place, ever.

This is SO. COOL, I thought. Then I realized I was standing in darkness, and slowly shone the flashlight around.

Four-legged shapes prowled the darkness.

I jumped, banging my head on the wall and dropping the flashlight, going down on my knees to pick it up quickly. I fumbled with it for a moment before looking up again. My heart raced as I saw the shapes once more, and the shadows they threw on the walls. But then I realized they were statues … not living creatures, just statues.

I put one hand over my heart, trying to control my breathing. I was about to burn up, both from the heat, and the adrenaline racing through my body caused by the moment of fear. I yanked off my coat and mask, gasping in a few breaths through my mouth before removing my boots and my snowsuit. After that I looked around again, hearing my breathing echo like I was inside a cathedral.

The statues lined the wall of the wide, circular room, all of them big cats, all of them in different poses; walking, resting, cleaning themselves. I recognized a tiger, a leopard, and a lynx along one side before my eyes scanned over the rest of the room.

Beneath the stone rim that the statues were on was a large circle of dark earth, with glass lines embedded in it, radiating out from the centre. They looked interesting, almost runic, and the light played off of them … and something else in the room. Gems, set in the eyes of the statue at the far end. It looked like the leopard, but different … the carved spots were larger, the tail was thicker, and the shape of its face reminded me of a picture I’d seen once.  A snow leopard, maybe?

It was looking down at me.

The blue jewels in its eyes seemed to wink, as I shone the flashlight across them. I stepped towards it in my wool socks, beginning to tremble as I got closer. The light from my flashlight glinted off of the lines in the ground as I did so.

I started to feel very small, as my eyes darted between the carved floor and the cat statue watching me. I didn’t feel like a brave explorer, decked out in the best modern gear. I felt like an interloper. I could feel the echoes of the big cats who’d once lived on the mountain above judging me as though seeing a human creature for the first time. And I felt scared and contrite, and really sorry for disturbing them.

But I didn’t feel unwelcome. I didn’t feel like I’d done anything to anger them, and I planned to keep it that way. I stopped about halfway across the room, shining my flashlight discreetly up at the statues, casting big shadows across the wall. Then I took a step towards the statue at the far end again, but my foot caught on something and I tripped and fell.

I screamed! I just about had a heart attack, scrambling backwards on hands and knees and shining my flashlight all around, looking for the thing that’d just grabbed me. But nothing was moving; the statues were all still where they’d been. There was just an unusual spot on the ground where I’d tripped. A place where my light shone differently.

I crawled closer and examined it. It was a circular hole in the floor, right where the glass lines were radiating out from, a few centimetres deep and with grooves carved inside it. And it was about the same size as the disc.

No one ever thinks they’re in one of these stories. Few people realize the significance of the things that they see all around them, but even I wasn’t dense enough to miss the connection. And the second I realized it, my OCD told me to “Put the disc in the hole.”

My heart raced again. I tried to argue with myself. “What if that triggers the self-destruct? Or brings the roof down, or something?” But then I imagined a robber, his face hooded and eyes dark, grabbing things up all around the room, and running out into the tunnels. And in my mind’s eye, I saw the disc fall right where I’d found it.

It wasn’t a vision. It was just starting to seem like the most plausible explanation. And besides, the disc was obviously meant to be there. How could anyone fault me for putting it back? They’d have to be Fey, or something, to do that.

My last retort was that I wanted to keep the disc, so I could sell it. Living on disability didn’t leave me enough silver for anything, after I’d bought food, clothes and clean water. I had to rely on my friends for everything, even to pay for this trip. I wanted some independence … I wanted to at least be able to repay them. I looked up at the statues meekly, clutching the disc in both hands, as though trying to see if they judged me for this.

“You can take it back out once you’ve tested it”, my brain said. “Just try it once so you can see what happens.”

The statues were silent.

I cringed, squeezing the disc tight in my hands. For a long moment, I hesitated, then slowly knelt down to the ground, placed the disc in the hole, and ran like heck, nearly falling over in the process.

Nothing happened.

I turned back around once I bumped into one of the statues, breathing fast and looking back down at the disc. What hadn’t I done correctly? After a second it clicked, and my brain said “You’ve got to turn it in place. That’s what the grooves are for.” And I facepalmed, smacking my icy glove to my forehead, before shaking the ice from my hair. The statues said nothing as I walked back towards the disc.

Kneeling down next to it, I gave it a quarter-turn before something clicked. A glow shot out through the lines all around me, so fast that my breath caught, and so bright that my flashlight was drowned out. A bass hum vibrated the floor.

I knelt there, frozen in place, too scared to do anything else.

Sweat coated my sides and I watched as though dreaming, as more glowing lines crept up from the floor towards the center statue, illuminating its spots and markings.  Then there was a rumbling, growing steadily louder as the stone crumbled and fell away, revealing a real, living snow leopard underneath. I watched with wide eyes as it stretched out on the pedestal, extending its claws and swinging its tail as the rumbling faded, leaving only the bass hum beneath me, and the pounding of my heart.

The snow leopard peered down for a moment, its head cocked to one side as if curious, and I looked on in terror, the voice in my head whispering that I was going to die. Then it sprang.

I was out as soon as my head hit the floor.

A vast, cavernous space, like a canyon or aircraft hangar, blinding white light just past the edge. Wind echoes across the entrance, howling and amplified by it. And somewhere down beneath, footsteps echo, as he paces up the steel pathway to the stark, bitter world outside the Machine.

His black shoes and brass buttons shine, and the blue collar of his uniform is neatly pressed. A wrinkled hand comes up to the brim of his spotless cap, and beneath it eyes narrow, and a pinched mouth frowns. She is late, and he does not like to be kept waiting.

Two sets of tapping sounds echo all around him, then come up beside him. The tapping of metal legs stops as the tiny robot arrives next to him, but its fingers keep on tapping the typewriter keys attached to its front, as though it were programming itself. No paper comes out the top, but its lamp-like head looks up at him, questioningly.

He ignores it and turns around, as though to go back inside. But then …

* * *

“Hello?”

The man across the ledge from Feather squinted up at her, and frowned. For a moment she thought Is there something wrong with my dress? and adjusted her straw hat nervously. Then she realized that she’d kept him waiting awhile, and strode up to where he was.

“Hello!” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Feather-”

“Cowl,” he said, barely moving her hand with his own. “Mister Cowl.”

“Do you have a first name?” she asked, letting go hesitantly.

“Yes.”

She stood at attention, starting to sweat, as he examined her as if inspecting a uniform. “Your appearance is not appropriate for the inside of the Machine,” he said, as he paced around to her side.

Oh heck, there really is something wrong with my dress! “W-what’s wrong?” she asked, and wondered if the small creature beside her was typing out a list of demerits.

“This,” he said, and pulled off her beak with a THOCK. A human nose and mouth were beneath it, and she looked startled. “You’re meant to be a Handler, not an animal yourself. Please try to remember that.”

“Y-yes, sir!” she said. Her leonine tail whipped back into the folds of her dress as though it had never existed, just as he walked back behind her.

He made a full circle, grim and dispassionate, the typewriting robot hurrying out of his way as he did so. Finally, Cowl nodded to her, then turned around and started walking back inside. “This way,” he said.

She hurried after him, low heels clicking on the metal floor, and looked over her shoulder at the small creature carrying the typewriter. It looked so out of place. She wondered if it was lost.

* * *

They step inside the steel elevator, and the folding door slides shut accordion-like. Then he pulls the lever, and it lurches to a start and descends. He’s already steadied himself on the handrail, but she stumbles a bit and nearly trips on her low heels.

Part of the elevator car is floor to ceiling glass. It looks out on a cavern, brown rock receding into the darkness, lights shone on its face by small spidery robots with welding tools. They’re patching up bundles of wire, soldering some of them together and removing others. And there are lights that play in the darkness, like tiny fireflies. They’re hard to make out until you look out there and realize they’re more robots, way off in the distance, so far away you can barely see them.

One of them does something to join two wires, and the whole network lights up brilliantly, multicolored light streaming out into the distance. Flickering, glowing, gleaming to life across a space as big as a world. And the spiders all look up and take notice for a moment, before getting back to their work.

The woman stares outside at it all, her breath fogging up the window. She’s captivated, he notes. And she continues to stare, transfixed, gripping the rail as the elevator car shakes.

She turns away and looks at him, a moment before another spider gets shocked by the wire it’s holding. It falls off the rock face and smashes into the ground, just as the surface comes up and obscures the window. “It’s beautiful,” she says to him.

“The Machine is possessed of a terrible beauty,” Cowl says, running his finger along the doorframe and frowning at the oil that stains it. “But which parts are beautiful and which parts are terrible is not for me to say.”

He braces himself again, and she notices a second too late and trips and falls backwards as the car slams to a stop. The door opens, and he steps forward and holds out one hand for her. She takes it, and he pulls her back upright, then steps out as she’s getting her feet back into her shoes. “This way,” he says.

* * *

They stepped out into a damp, underground grotto, phosphorescent moss and glowing mushrooms covering the walls about five feet out from the metal path. Their footsteps clanked on it, and her gaze lingered on sparkling spores drifting out from a cap. It wasn’t as spectacular as the cave she’d looked out on, but it had its own beauty.

They followed the glowing vines in the ceiling, around the bend towards the sound of water. Then they came to the source. The walkway hung out over a deep stream that went past, and turned into a roaring waterfall just below them. It was only about ten feet high, but the sound reverberated inside the chamber.

There was movement on the edge of her vision, and she looked out to see what it was. Then she rubbed her eyes, and did a double-take. There were flying snails, all throughout the cavern, hovering over the walkways and the bridge over the stream. One eyestalk stuck out from their shells, and they paddled the air briskly using tiny feet-like things beneath.

“What are they?” Feather said, stepping back as one floated past. It turned to look for a second and blinked at her, then resumed staring straight ahead as it paddled.

“Cordbiters,” Cowl said, frowning.

“Why are they called that?”

There was a shower of sparks, as one of them bit into the glowing vines using a mouth just beneath its eyestalk.

” … oh.”

“Kindly place them all in the cart, please,” he said, and she saw what looked like a mine cart on rails just past the walkway over the bridge.

“How do I get them in there?” she said, turning around. But he’d already stepped around the corner.

“You’re the Handler. It’s your job to figure that out.” His voice echoed, and his shadow receded across the wall.

Feather took a deep breath, then turned back around to face her task.

It wasn’t hard to move the “cordbiters” at all. They were light — as a feather, she thought — and their eyes widened and feet paddled frantically when she pulled them from their places. She turned one over in her hands to look at it, but it just retracted and huddled inside its shell.

The ‘biters were just big enough that it was awkward for her to grab hold of them in one hand, so she had to use both hands to move them. For a few minutes she ran back and forth, grabbing them up one at a time and putting them into the cart. But after she’d done this a few times, she came back and saw that they were just swimming lazily back out. The only things to keep them secure were two straps across the top, and the flying snails just swam around them.

A spark-spray lit up the cavern, as one of them bit into the vines again. Feather mopped at her forehead, chilly and sweating at the same time, and turned on the indigo backlight on her watch to check the time. A ‘biter peeked over her shoulder, curious, and stared at it for a long moment, the light reflecting off of its glassy eye. It turned to look at her just as she turned to look at it, and after a second it whipped back into its shell and lay still.

Feather’s eyes lit up.

A moment later she whistled, and it echoed off of the rock as all of the snails turned to look at her. “Hey! Over here!” she said, and held up her glowing watch in one hand.

As one, the snails stared at it. Then they started swimming towards her.

“That’s right … ” she said, moving slowly, leaning her arm down into the cart. The slower she moved, the less the snails noticed her, and the more they focused on her watch.

Steadily they moved towards her, crowding around and into the cart. The first ones made a circle around her watch and stared at it, transfixed. The next ones inside jostled to try to get a close view of it, and ended up peeking over the shells of the others.

Feather watched as the last of the ‘biters swam closer slowly, unable to see the source of the glow anymore. As she waited on it, one of the ones in the circle around her hand opened its mouth, inch-long needles shining in the glow.

She yanked her hand out just as it bit down on the air, then grabbed hold of the straggler and stuffed it down into the cart with the others. They all yanked back into their shells as she pulled the straps tight, and the shells clacked into each other with a sound like billiard balls.

Feather leaned up against the cart to catch her breath, tense and exhausted. Then she put her watch back on and checked the time again, before heading back towards the elevator.

Just before she rounded the corner, she looked back towards the cart full of ‘biters. Eyestalks peeked out of it, and blinked at her. She turned away, hoping that they’d be alright until somebody else could take care of them.

As she left, the cart began to move.

* * *

“Go on, shoo!”

A gothic-looking towering vault, with a high, domed ceiling far up ahead. Metal coils snake in and out of old windows, and long rays of light shine in, through the arches supporting the dome overhead. There are large, flamingo-like mechanical birds in Feather’s way, clustering around her on the floor, flapping their feathered wings agitatedly. More of them line the galleries, high above, looking down at her and the movement around her.

Mister Cowl sets his tea down, on a stand just beside the cart, and strides swiftly over to where she’s trying to get the birds to move. Some of them see him, and they start waddling away, their clumsy, hopping gait and bobbing heads making them move much more slowly than him. One doesn’t make it in time, and he kicks it out of the way with a “SQUAWK!” before gesturing towards the tea cart.

“After you,” he says, to a shocked-looking Feather.

She steps towards it hesitantly, looking back towards the limping bird. “Why don’t they just fly away?” she asks. “They don’t look like they’re meant to walk very far … “

“Because they’re stupid,” Cowl says, stepping back up to the cart and taking his tea and sipping at it. Behind him, a couple of birds awkwardly hop up spiral steps towards the galleries, right next to a door that’s marked “ELEVATOR.”

“They seem pretty animated for stupid creatures … ” Feather looks up, at the ones watching her still.

“A lot of things are.” He lifts a teaspoon. “Sugar?”

“Oh … uh, no thanks. I drink coffee.”

“Your loss.” He takes another sip.

The birds are still watching her. A few of them flutter their wings.

She looks away. “Anyway, uh … the ‘cordbiters’ are all taken care of. Did you need me to do anything with these birds, here … ?”

“No, thank you, madam. That will be all.”

She’s startled. “Are you-”

“Yes.”

“But it’s been less than an hour … ” She squints at the screen of her digital watch.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than you could dream of, and more situations in the Machine than you could ever attend to. But your time is tied to mine right now, and my time is limited.” He takes a long sip, and then checks the gold pocketwatch at his waist.

“Oh … “

Cowl snaps the watch shut, and pockets it. “Come back tomorrow at the same time,” he says.

“Alright … ” She nods. “I will, thank you.”

“Mind the birds.”

They cluster around her again, as she walks to the door that’s marked “EXIT,” and he finishes his tea as he watches her elbow through them. She’s still trying to be polite to them, he thinks. She’ll learn soon enough.

* * *

Feather disembarked next to her mailbox. A huge thing like a cross between a bus and an elephant galumphed away just beside her, smog coming out of its trunk. She coughed and waved it away, setting out across the dirt path, the forested hills in the distance just outlines against the sunset.

Gravel crunched beneath her shoes. She passed by a pond, and heard frogs singing and saw glowing dots floating in midair. One of her feet stepped in a puddle, but she shrugged and smiled as she walked past.

Her cottage was tiny, with circular windows and a treated roof that looked like brightly-colored clay. The electric light outside the front door buzzed as her silhouette walked up to the porch, growing lighter until her beak, tufted cat ears and lion’s tail could be seen clearly. She started to open the screen door, then saw her reflection in it and laughed, shaking her head to herself.

Kicking off her shoes, Feather dug out the keys from her purse and fumbled with them for a moment, trying to unlock the door. Then from inside the cottage came a pained moan, like a person struggling to keep from emptying her stomach. Feather’s eyes widened, and her beak fell off, revealing an open mouth. She hurried to unlock the door as her ears folded back into her hair, and her tail whipped back into her dress.

She left the door open, walking past the fireplace embers and holding her hands out to keep from bumping into furniture silhouettes. “Rissa-” she called out, before stubbing her toe on something and hopping around it. “Rissa, dear, are you alright?”

The door to her room was most of the way closed, a sliver of light all around it. It creaked as Feather pushed it open, and crept around it into Rissa’s room.

It wasn’t much bigger than a large closet, with barely enough room to stand behind her chair. Her shelves were lined with strangely-shaped toy models, and pictures and thick books of all different sizes. In her enormous chair, nearly swallowed up by it, a young girl in a white t-shirt and shorts was slumped back, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed.

Feather stood there for a long moment, watching Rissa fight off her latest attack. Rissa’s face was pale white, and just as the color seemed to be gone from her skin, it was gone from the rest of the room as well. The wallpaper was dull gray, and the shadows behind her bright telescreen and between the raised keys of her touch-typer were ominous. Crumpled up pieces of paper and old dirty dishes littered the desk, and even the toys and pictureframes on it seemed dark and menacing as they loomed over her.

There was no sound except for her breathing.

Finally she swallowed, spent another few seconds breathing fast to catch up and then tried to sit back upright. Feather moved in quick to help her, but she brushed Feather off and brought herself up, pulling the chair back towards her desk as she did so.

Feather tried to step up beside her, but the room was too narrow. It was a long second before she spoke. “Are you doing okay?”

The corner of Rissa’s head that she could see shook side-to-side. No.

“Is there anything I can get you?”

No.

“I made some soup this morning, before I left … ”

No. No. No.

Feather reached around carefully, to take the dirty dishes from her desk. As she did so, her eyes fixed on a (fading, black and white) photograph, of a very young girl standing in front of a magnificent four-legged gryphon. The gryphon’s beak and eyes were shining and its wings were spread proudly, and the girl was grinning and holding onto tufts of its fur.

Feather smiled, sadly. “Remember when we … ”

Her voice trailed off. She saw Rissa double-click on something, and begin to type on her ‘typer. The words appeared on the screen: Yes, I remember what it was like. You’re an excellent flier, when you let yourself be a gryphon.

“Someday, do you think we could … ”

But Rissa had already started to type. No, I don’t. Gryphons weren’t allowed at your school.

“Or at work.” Feather sighed, and looked down while Rissa kept typing. When she looked up, she’d already finished a sentence.

Or more or less anywhere. But it was fun while it lasted, she wrote. Kids should have fun and games. Grown-ups have more important things to worry about. Like tending the Machine, and their sick little sisters.

It’s okay. I’ll be alright. I’ve got schoolwork to do anyway.

Her eyes were still looking straight ahead, up at the screen, and her limp arms rested on the desk that was too tall for her.

Feather played with a strand of her hair for a moment; dry, dull, and lifeless. She let it settle, and remembered that it hadn’t always been that way.

“I’ll get you some water,” she said.

Rissa said nothing.

Feather finally stepped back around her chair, and went out and closed the door softly.

* * *

The next day, Feather got dressed in her work clothes (a pair of ratty old sweats and mudboots, perfect for the underground parts of the Machine) while Rissa was still asleep. Tossing her keys and other essentials into a fanny pack, she stepped out the front door quietly, into the cold air and hard dirt path lit by the sunrise. Then she jogged out to the stop at the end of the road, past the pond where the frogs were still singing; past the mailbox that hadn’t been visited yet.

And there she waited.

She set two new high scores on the games on her phone while she waited.

She kept checking the time, so she knew how long it was taking. After an hour and a half the sun had risen, and the frogs had hidden, and the air was starting to get warm. The mist had disappeared from the road, and so she stepped out and looked in both directions. Nothing.

If only she hadn’t had to sell her jalopy! Or maybe … but no. As much trouble as she’d get into for showing up late, Feather would be in even more trouble for showing up as a gryphon. It wasn’t just a thought, or even a feeling; it was a state of mind, and it was hard to break into and out of. It stayed with you all day, or all week even, and it got in the way when you tried to do things. Things like get along with people who weren’t as fond of magical creatures as Rissa was.

Feather waited a long time.

She spent the next few hours pacing up and down the path that led up to the stop, looking up from her phone whenever she heard an engine noise but never seeing the right one. Pretty soon it was getting uncomfortably warm outside, for someone who was wearing sweats, and she was getting uncomfortably hungry. So with a last look over her shoulder, she headed back towards her house, half relieved and half disappointed.

Feather considered calling her workplace to tell them what’d happened, but she knew that it’d do her no good; they almost never answered the phone, and even if they did they wouldn’t listen. So she was just putting her phone up as she got up to the front porch. The main door past the screen was open, and the smell of frying bacon was coming from inside.

She pulled the screen open, and took a deep breath of the sizzling grease smell. She thought she detected eggs, too. “Rissa?” she called out. “Are you making breakfast?”

“Brunch.” It was the electronic voice of her assistive communications device. “Would You Like Some.”

“Yes, thank you … ”

Feather stepped into the kitchen, and saw her thin, wispy sibling up next to the stove, one hand slowly stirring the eggs and the other hand typing on a small keyboard she had up on the counter. “What Are You Doing Home,” it asked.

She sighed. “They didn’t show up.”

“That’s Too Bad.” Rissa turned over the bacon without looking up.

“Do you need any help?”

They talked, and made and ate brunch together. Feather realized how much she’d missed talking to her; all these hours they could’ve spent with each other put into the both of their classes, instead. Then her job search, and now her new job. How much longer did they even have left? How much longer did she have left?

After brunch, Feather asked Rissa if she wanted to go out to the pond together. Rissa’s face was impassive as always, and her hair was tangled and unwashed. But she finally nodded to Feather, and after a few moments’ preparation the two of them stepped outside.

Rissa’s footsteps were fragile and awkward, and she was hesitant about leaving her sandals behind. But she finally stepped out onto the cool, wet grass; then, nearer the pond, let the mud squish between her toes. She ran her fingers contemplatively over a willow branch, her other arm holding her lightweight keyboard, while Feather picked ripe white swampmallows. Then the two of them ate them, sitting down by the pond, getting their feet wet and behinds muddy.

“Remember when Brianna was here?”

“Yes.”

“Those were the days.” Feather grinned, and splashed her feet into the water.

Rissa typed for a moment before hitting Enter. “I Was Thinking Of Different Days.”

“Oh?” Feather looked over at her.

“Before I Was Stuck In This House. Before I Was Stuck In This Sick Body.”

“I’m sorry … ” Feather said, but Rissa’s face was still blank. And she was still typing.

“It Doesn’t Matter. None Of It Matters. You Have Your Work. I Have My School. The World Isn’t Here For Us To Experience. We Are Here To Survive In It. Anything Else Is Secondary.” Rissa slammed the Delete key a couple of times, as she corrected what she was saying. Someone else might have dismissed that, but Feather knew she was frustrated.

A Nipper grabbed onto Feather’s foot, in the pond, and she kicked it away before looking back at her sister. “Aren’t there things that you’d like to experience?”

Rissa sat there for a long moment, staring straight ahead, before typing it out without looking. “Yes.”

“What are they?”

“It Doesn’t Matter.”

“Rissa … ”

“Your Work Is More Important.”

Feather knew then what she was talking about. But she had to weigh the consequences, in her mind. Would she be able to show up for work tomorrow that way? Would she be able to show up at all?

Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she hid her beak and her tail.

Maybe a coat would cover up the feathers.

Maybe shoes for her claws, and gloves for her talons, and wings pressed close to her sides …

“And I Have Work To Do As Well,” Rissa finished.

Feather took a deep breath before speaking. “Rissa,” she said, “would you like to fly today?”

Rissa was silent a long moment. Then she lowered her head and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she typed, long fingers stabbing the keys.

“Alright … ” Feather stood.

She closed her eyes and imagined flight; silky fur, and downy white feathers, and pointed ears and a beak. She imagined walking on all fours, wings outstretched on her back, seeing farther than anyone else can. She imagined herself as she’d once been, as she’d once let herself be, as-

HONK!

She jumped, and her leonine features grew back into themselves, retracting so fast she had whiplash and leaving her in a cloud of feathers. She was on hands and knees in the grass, breathing hard with exertion, looking up to see what had …

The bus.

The bus.

HO~ONK!

Feather looked up past her beak at Rissa, tail swishing behind her. Rissa’s face was impassive; guarded, again. She looked up at Feather, and then looked down the path towards the stop.

Feather jumped to her feet, brushing herself off and trying to get mud and grass stains off of her clothes. She walk-hopped towards her shoes and socks, one paw still leonine, then grabbed them up in one hand and hobbled towards the dirt path. “I’m sorry … ” she said, out of breath. “I’m sorry … ”

Rissa watched her go, barely moving or blinking, and waited until the engine had roared and then died away into the distance. Then she typed out a word, and hit Enter.

“Goodbye.”

* * *

Feather spent the entire ride next to a large, impressive man in a suitcoat. He sideyed her while reading his newspaper, as she tried to brush off the grass stains from her knees and mud stains from her hands and her bottom. And she grinned sheepishly up at him, sweating profusely and trying to make her beak and her tail go away.

They were still there when she showed up at work. Mister Cowl tugged on both, trying to get them to come off, but nothing happened except that it hurt. So instead he just frowned at her, and gave her a look that said What am I going to do with you now?

If he hadn’t seemed to have much time to babysit her yesterday, he had all the time in the world today. Cowl watched her wrangle the cordbiters, sweep up the dustbunnies, and shoo all the pogo-stickbugs into their pens. He took his tea while he watched her wrestle the birds in the atrium, the ones who were too stupid to know they could just fly up to where she was trying to get them to. He didn’t offer her a cup this time, and she didn’t ask for one, either.

He let her go at midnight on the dot, and by then Feather was hot and dirty and exhausted. She nodded off on the bus, and nearly missed her stop when they called it out. Finally she made her way up the long and winding dirt path toward her house, each step heavier than the last, and took a long, warm shower before tiptoeing into the kitchen to get something to eat.

There were no lights on in the house. Quiet snoring came from the door to Rissa’s room. Feather took an electric candlestick from the wall and flicked it on to look in the cupboards for dishes, then set it aside to get some leftovers out of the fridge. There were still cherry buns left over from yesterday’s breakfast, and she devoured two of them before realizing what she was doing.

As she threw her trash away, looking close with the light to see what she was doing, she saw something that caught her up short. It was the package to this morning’s bacon. The label said that it had expired awhile ago.

At this, Feather had to stop. Do I feel sick? she asked herself. I don’t think so … what if it takes awhile, though?

Then her eyes widened. What about Rissa? Is she doing okay? If something happens to her-

A loud snore punctuated her musings.

Feather looked up, and sighed. Calm down, Feather … you were always a worrier. She’s going to be alright, and you probably are too. If anything, waking her up in the middle of the night will be bad for her.

More snoring.

I’ll get up early and check on her tomorrow … I’ll set an alarm, and if her breathing seems irregular I’ll make sure she’s okay before leaving for work. And if something happens, I’ll take her straight to hospital. That’s what I’ll do …

SNO~ORE.

Feather took a deep breath. Right, then. On to bed …

Five minutes later she crawled under the covers, having forgotten to set the alarm.

* * *

A sound startled Feather awake. She jumped, under the covers, then flailed about for a moment, knocking things off of her nightstand before finding the lamp’s “on” switch. It took her another long moment of sitting upright, waking her brain back up, before she realized that what she’d heard was a pained human moan.

“Rissa?”

Another moan, louder this time.

“Rissa!” She got up.

The moans were coming from Rissa’s bedroom, but Feather didn’t go there right at first. There was a special tea Rissa drank, one that helped her with her digestive problems. If there was anything Feather could do to help, making that would be it.

“I’m coming … ” Feather called out, sliding her pink slippers on and shuffling into the house’s cold main room. She made for the kitchen and hurried to get the tea ready, as the moans became more frequent and more intense. This was the worst that Rissa had been in awhile, and it worried Feather.

Teacup and saucer in hand, Feather shuffled back out of the kitchen. As she did so, Rissa gave the most awful, pained, gagging moan that she’d ever heard, trailing off only slowly.

Feather laughed nervously as she pushed the door open, trying to quell her own fear. “I’m sorry, I know it’s taking awhile … ”

The sheets were rumpled, and the quilt had been thrown off. Rissa lay on her side, motionless, clutching her stomach with both arms. And it took Feather until she’d set the tea down on the nightstand to notice that she wasn’t moving. Or breathing.

” … Rissa?”

Feather nudged her arm gently. She did not move.

“Oh. Oh … ” Feather started to shake.

What was it? asked a voice in her head. Was it the bacon? But it couldn’t have been, because I don’t feel sick …”

Her feet had already started to move. She’d made it back to the kitchen and started dialing the emergency numbers on the phone when she realized she had to give CPR. So she ran back to the bedroom, falling and kicking off her slippers and stretching the phone cord, and got to the foot of Rissa’s bed before remembering she had a beak.

Hello? Hello? the phone said.

Feather tugged at her beak with her free hand, then smashed it into the door frame a couple of times. Nothing.

Sweat poured down her sides.

Hello?

Feather threw the phone down and screamed.

* * *

Insects glow and sing outside. The pond’s still surface reflects the moon, and a frog eyes one of the hovering motes of light and licks her lips.

Suddenly there is a noise, shrill and piercing and angry and pained. The frogs are silent, some of them turning to look towards the noise. Then there is another scream, a sound like an angry predator, and its dull bass roar shakes the earth. The frogs scatter, hopping and splashing to get away, and after a moment even the insects are silent.

Drywall smashes, wood splinters, and panes of glass break into shards. A taloned arm crashes through one of the outer walls of the house, then a whole section of roof lifts up, as an angry gryphon rears back and cries into the darkness. Its ears are pointed, its eyes are glowing teal gems, and its fur and feathers are pearly white.

Finally it reaches up and tears down the wall, revealing a bed with a crumpled human form on it — one which is now all covered in sawdust. The gryphon reaches down and tenderly takes it by its clothes in its beak, and then steps outside before transferring it to one taloned arm. Then it spreads its wings wide, wider even than the house itself, and takes off, turning around in midair and speeding towards the road and the bus route.

* * *

Feather knew the general direction the town was in, but she didn’t know any way to get to it except by following the road. There were no cars or streetlights beneath her, and the trees obscured the road markings. Moonlight glinted off of the upper branches of the trees, and their brightness stung her eyes. She could see in such detail; could feel the wind slice through her fur and feathers, and hear its roar over her racing heart. But the light on the trees nearly blinded her, as she tried to squint down at them to see where the road had gone, realizing too late that she’d lost it.

Feather looked back for a moment, dismayed, beak hanging open and wingbeats slowing. Then she looked down at the limp form in her claws, and held it close to herself as she pressed on, determined. She could feel Rissa’s body up next to her heartbeat, and she willed her own vitality to affect her somehow, to give life to her failing organs.

The lights of the town were far in the distance. She could see them just past the lights of the Machine. From here it was a giant shape, black and ominous, which blocked out a big chunk of the sky and blotted out the glow of moonlight beneath. Feather flew over the edge of the Machine to get to the distant town, and she found herself coughing from its noxious fumes. Then whiplike organic tendrils snaked out from below and tried to grab hold of her limbs, and of Rissa. She grappled with them, cutting them with her claws, and pressed herself even harder to fly past.

She kicked the last one free just as she finally cleared the dark area. But by now Feather was exhausted. The lights of the town were ahead, but they were still far away. Feather found her wingbeats slowing, her head drooping, her eyes squeezing shut in spite of herself. Feather shook her head and pressed on, conserving her energy, trying to stretch it to last until she arrived.

A whole minute passed as she barely flew at all, gasping air into her lungs, catching her breath. That minute stretched into two, and then three. The lights were closer, but not close enough.

Feather took a deep breath and then pushed herself toward the lights, flying bulletlike at them with her limbs (and with Rissa) held close to her sides. After a minute the town spread out underneath her, buildings and lights and parked carriages, and she flew in between wisps of smoke coming up from the stacks of the buildings that were just near the hospital. As she was about to touch down she spread her wings like a parachute and flapped them with all her might, trying to slow down enough to land safely.

It didn’t work. She clutched Rissa to her chest as she tumbled end over end on the cobblestone street, crashing through men-at-work barricades and smashing a melon cart next to a wall.

Feather unfolded onto her back, her ears ringing and her feet covered in sticky juice. And on her downy chest lay her sister’s form, laying still as if sleeping.

* * *

Cowl opens one eyelid, unamused, at the flapping and beating sounds over his roof. Then he sits up in bed, at the bashing, crashing noises outside, which go on for a second and end in a THUD.

He lights a match over his nightstand, then touches it to the stub of a candle that’s still in its holder. After that he takes it and stands up, feet finding his slippers, and huddles in his nightclothes all the way to the front door, where he looks out the glass window. The window is murky and it’s dark outside to boot, but he can see something large just across the street, and people all ’round running up to it.

A hand grabs his coat and his blue cap, and he puts them on before taking his candlestick back up and shuffling on outside. Now he can hear people calling to each other, and he can see the commotion: There’s an enormous gryphon laying prone on the street, its wings flat to the ground and its chest heaving with exertion. It looks to see what the people around it are doing, as men run from the hospital carrying a stretcher.

One of Cowl’s eyebrows rises.

The doctors and nurses lay someone out on the stretcher, right there on the street, and start working on him or her. After a long moment, the gryphon heaves and stands up on all fours, scraping melon rinds from its feet and shaking itself dry. Cowl holds up a hand to protect himself, but he’s too far away to get wet, and the doctors don’t seem to mind.

They continue to work, and the gryphon watches them closely, its feathery head just over their shoulders. Cowl looks around at the street, at the dim lamps overhead casting shadows on them, and shivers before fumbling to check his watch. Another long minute passes.

Finally one of the doctors shakes his head and removes his stethoscope, and closes the fallen form’s eyes with one hand. The gryphon blinks, as through disbelieving, then again as it fights back tears. It screams, and the sound is so loud that everyone jumps, as it echoes off buildings and across town. Cowl drops his candlestick and cringes, peering through his arms as the gryphon’s scream dissolves into screeching sobs.

It takes Cowl a moment to realize what’s happened. Then he closes his eyes, and places his hat over his heart.

* * *

Wind blasts through the upper reaches of the Machine’s atrium, as “stupid” birds flock together from floor to rafters, huddling to stay warm. In the cold winter light Cowl takes his tea from beneath a thick coat, sipping at the hot liquid and stirring to cool it down.

A huge creature behind him snorts. Cowl’s teacup smashes to the ground, as he whirls around and presses himself up against the cart to look. Across the room from him is a feathery white gryphon, the same one from that night. The same one from the papers.

“H … ” He coughs. “Hello, Feather! G-good to see you again!”

Her claws click on the floor as she paces up to him. “Things h-haven’t been the same without you … ” he goes on. “How have you been? I’d offer you a cup of tea if you could take it that way … “

She glances over at the tea cart, then back at him, unamused. By now he is wringing his hat in his hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t express my condolences … about your sister.” He coughs. “Terrible tragedy, really … “

Feather looks away, and closes her eyes.

“You’re welcome to take time off for grieving purposes … ” He’s backing away, putting the cart between him and her. “Take as much as you like! And you can come back any time … “

Feather snorts again, derisively. Then she spreads her wings wide, feathers gleaming in the sunlight, eyes closed and head held high. Her beak shines.

She takes off, wingbeats echoing throughout the room, blasts of displaced air knocking Cowl onto his back and nearly tipping the cart. In lazy circles she flies upwards, through rays of light coming from tiny windows. And as she does so, the birds all look up at her, their glassy eyes comprehending.

They take off after Feather, circling with her, flying up into the light. And as she leaves the Machine and looks out on its vast gray expanse, giant tentacles stir but flop back to the roof, exhausted. They don’t have any strength in the sun. Not enough to fight back.

The birds land on them, and pick at them with their beaks. A second later, Feather joins in, her claws gleaming as she pounces.

I like wolves.

I’m writing that down first because it’s the hardest thing for me to say. You know how it is with some things. They mean so much to you that even if no one would think them odd to say, you feel like you’re exposing yourself just by saying them.

You’re probably scratching your head right now, wondering what’s got me so worked up. Okay, let’s back up and try this again …

I love wolves. Not in that way, you. I’m in awe of them. And I’m … I …

Oh, man. I can’t say that part yet. I’m sorry.

It wasn’t like this when I was little. When I was little wolves were just fun. I liked them a lot, but that’s all they were, was fun. My parents took me to the zoo and I’d read the whole plaque in front of the wolf exhibit. And I’d howl at them and they’d howl right back, and I’d grin to myself.

It wasn’t until life got hard that wolves started to mean more to me. The things I was going through, in high school and with my parents, were so taxing that I had to come up with a whole new way of coping with them. I didn’t have any human role models, because I didn’t know any humans like me … none that I wanted to be, anyway. So when I imagined something surviving what I was going through, it was a wolf.

They’re survivors, you know. Not bloodthirsty killers, survivors. And you could say that that takes away from their beauty … that they’re not mystic fairy-creatures, either. Just animals struggling to stay alive. But at the time, I couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful than a creature that could live through anything, without losing sight of the goal of survival. Without losing — or needing — hope, because it just kept going no matter what.

Wolves are beautiful because of the stress nature puts on them. And I knew I wasn’t … I couldn’t be as awe-inspiring as they were. But I could try. And in my best moments, I saw myself as one. I didn’t draw or write or roleplay online, but I invented my own separate life where I was a wolf on the inside, who just happened to have a human appearance and human reasoning powers. And my wolf-self didn’t understand why all these things were happening to me, or why people were so cruel to each other. But I forced myself to accept that I was this world’s omega, or punching bag. And that someday I’d get through it, and find my own pack.

That’s how much wolves meant to me … how much they still do. So whenever I find a wolf plushie in stores, or hear people talking about wolves on TV, or see anything else about wolves, I have to hide how interested I am. I don’t wear wolf t-shirts or accessories, and I don’t ever talk about wolves in casual conversation. Not because they’re not important to me, but because they’re so important I’m afraid of embarrassing myself. At best I’d get tongue-tied, and at worst I’d be making myself vulnerable to someone who could use that to hurt me. It’d be like a real wolf baring her throat to a wild dog.

That may seem surprising to you. But high school’s just as dangerous as any natural environment. Except that there’s nothing natural about it, and there’s no beauty or reason to it.

Wolves are shaped by their circumstances, and I was shaped by mine. That’s why they’re all majestic beings, and I was an unhealthy young human female, with a bad sleep schedule and a lousy chemical-filled diet. And that’s why I knew, deep down, that no matter how hard I tried I could never be like one of them.

So when I actually became one, I freaked right out.

There. I said it. I became a wolf.

As near as I can tell, I am one right now, in exactly the sense that I imagined it to help me to get through high school. I look like a human, and I’m pretty sure I think like I always have too. But I physically changed into a wolf, a real flesh-and-blood one that walks on four legs. Also some kind of two-legged hybrid. And whatever let me do that, I still have it inside of me. I’m a wolf inside right now, and I was outside just a few hours ago.

Does that make me a were-wolf? Or a skin-changer, or some kind of anime nature spirit? I don’t know, and I’m scared right now and I’m sweating a lot and I’m trying to write this all down really fast before I can lose my nerve. And I’ve got wolf ears and a tail right now, so maybe I am an anime character. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what’s happened to me. I’m grateful beyond words and terrified at the same time, and it makes my throat seize up and I start whimpering just to think about it.

Can’t write, I’m too scared …

Deep breaths. Deep, shuddering breaths … letting myself calm down. Swallowing, and gasping for breath afterward, still trying to settle down.

Settling … settling …

Okay … as you can see, I’m kind of a wreck right now. Hopefully, by writing this down I’ll be able to think clearly about it.

Let’s start with what happened last week …

* * *

It started last Sunday. I made the mistake of deciding not to go to church with my parents, and that set them off. We’ve been having these “discussions” about religion lately, and I really don’t want to describe this one except to say it was bad. They had a lot to say to me when they got back, and because I’m … er, because I was still living with them, I had to sit there and listen.

I should’ve known better than to protest. I should’ve known better than to do anything other than what they wanted me to. That’s what omegas do, they’re punching bags and they just take what they’re given …

Okay, that sounds really self-pitying on paper. But I’ve never been much of a rebel. I just happened to disagree with my parents, on religion, politics … just about everything. But I didn’t want to pick fights, I just wanted to ask honest questions. First so I could understand what was going on, and then later, when I’d made up my mind, to try to get my parents to consider a viewpoint besides their own.

That got them really upset, and every single time I’d be kicking myself afterwards. I’d tell myself how stupid I was for opening my mouth to them, or for being / believing differently from them. But no matter how many times I did this to myself, I couldn’t make myself not be different. I was stuck with my feelings and conscience just like I was with my hair or my legs, and in the house where I lived they were disabilities.

You could ask why I didn’t leave sooner. The fact that I was in high school and did not have a job helped. But that night, while they were watching TV, I put my boots and coat on and slipped out the back door. I had to get out and be by myself, and I was hoping not to come back until they had both gone to bed.

It was cold and wet out in the sticks where we lived. Fog shrouded the trees and obscured the road, dark grey in the dim evening light. I did not have a flashlight, but I knew where to go. I’d gone out like this many times.

Do you know what it’s like, out in the woods in upstate New York in midwinter? I mean when it’s not snowy. Inside it’s all warm, sickly smells, and angry guys talking on TV. But outside it’s just … quiet. You’re the noisiest thing out there, crashing through brush and crunching on fallen leaves, and every time you stand still you can hear lots of nothing. Your own breath is the loudest thing out there, and it freezes your lungs just like your fingers and toe-tips are already becoming cold. So you start moving and making noise again, and thinking about where you’re headed.

There’s a tiny clearing I like to spend time in. I mean tiny as in “about the size of your living room.” There’s a big rock in the center of it, like the size of a sofa or love seat, and there are pine needles all over the ground. The trees are so close together you can only see bits of the sky even when standing on top of the rock, which you shouldn’t do when it’s wet and dark out or you might fall and hit your head on something. But I sat on it and pulled my knees to my chest, and rocked back and forth just a bit.

It looked weird, but there was no one around and it helped me to destress. So I sat there awhile, rocking on top of my rock. And I’m trying to think of more ways to use “rock” in that sentence, but you’re groaning at me so I’ll just continue.

Anyway, that’s where it happened. Not a werewolf attack … nothing bit me, as far as I can remember. I just got started thinking about what it’d be like to be a wolf. Even a lone wolf, without a pack. This place would be my reality, I thought … this cold outside would be my daily experience. Not the noise inside. Not my parents.

I had no illusions about it. I spend lots of time outdoors. I’ve even been camping before, and not in a motorhome. I knew it’d be cold, and wet, and windy, and if I found some kind of shelter I’d have to defend it. I’d have to struggle for food and kill things to get it, and deal with things that wanted to kill me. I might even have to deal with humans, and they’d fear me worse and hate me more than they already do in real life.

I probably wouldn’t have lived as long as I already had, if I’d been a wolf. But somehow, it seemed more real to imagine myself as one, out here. It wasn’t “communing with nature” so much as reminding myself that wildness still existed, and it was out here all around us. And our little soap bubble of civilization, of organized cruelty, would be gone someday … whether because it popped or I left.

Someday I would live where it’s quiet, I thought. Someday I’d be myself, and do things that mattered, and actually live like the things out here do. Instead of living this fake high school life.

Like a wolf, maybe? came the thought. And I nodded, and unfolded and crouched up there on the rock, as if surveying the darkness for prey. I felt so alert out there, so alive and aware. So un-sheltered. And young things ought to be sheltered … but then, my parents’ lives seemed as fake as mine. I knew I didn’t want to end up like them.

What do you want to end up like? It’s like I imagined the words. So the next thing I imagined was myself as a wolf, standing there on the rock.

“Okay.”

This time I heard it. Not out loud, but so clear in my mind that I had to check, to see if someone was near me. I was slightly creeped out …

… but not so much as I was just a second or two later.

It started with a strange feeling in my stomach, and an itching on top of my head and in the small of my back. I reached up and around to scratch, and one hand brushed pointed, furry ears on top of my head, while the other took hold of a tail. It pulled, and felt it attached to my spine.

I froze. My brain took long seconds to process this. And before my conscious mind even knew what was happening, I became uncomfortably warm, and started sweating all over.

After that the real changes came, slow enough that I felt them happening but fast enough that they all blended together. And my mind underwent a change, too. It was called a nervous breakdown.

My thoughts were like “No … no, please! I don’t want this! I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry … help! Please help me!” And I started screaming and crying, but I don’t know what I said, or if any words even came out. I was scared to death, because this felt as bad as dying, if not worse.

I don’t remember everything that happened. I don’t even know where my clothes went. I just remember that my screams ended with a howl. And then I choked up and covered my head with my front-paws, crying and shaking and whimpering.

The feelings did not go away. My four-legged body was still there, and I was still in it, and nothing was changing or undoing itself. I screamed in anguish, and it came out as another, long howl. Then I started pacing the top of the rock, back and forth, bare paw-pads feeling the rough stone and lichen.

It’s over, I thought. Everything’s over. My dreams are shot, my life is … is … I tried to look back at myself, and saw only black, fluffy fur, and a nervously-wagging tail. I whimpered again.

This is not me, I thought. It can’t be! I mean, it’s something I like, but … how? Why? What happened? I’d planned to spend that evening outside in the cold, and then go back inside to dream about living this way. Not to actually be a … a …

It was too much. I broke down and started shaking and whimpering again, huddling there on top of the rock. The awe of seeing, of being this animal, just made what was happening all the more cruel. I could no longer use the thought of creatures like this to inspire me to face my challenges. Instead I had to face its challenges, and would probably die in less than a year. And everything I had looked forward to was gone.

Wolves in the wild can be playful and happy, and live what seem to be fulfilling lives. But if you’d told me that right then, I would’ve bitten your throat out.

* * *

I’m not sure how long I was there. Long enough to get cold, I know … long enough to feel the freezing cold wind start to blow around me, and fill my cupped ears and chill me through my fur. I flattened my ears and huddled there, paws and neck pressed down to the rock, tail twitching and freezing off out in the cold. (At least, that’s what it felt like. You know how your fingers and toes always turn into lumps of pain in the cold, even when you’ve got gloves and boots on? With tails, it’s worse.)

I knew I needed to take shelter. Even being just beside the rock, instead of on top of it, would have helped. But I was so scared that I didn’t want to move. It was like my brain had locked up.

It didn’t help that the whole world seemed alien now. I could see farther into the darkness, because it didn’t seem as dark anymore … more like a muted gray. But that only made me more conscious of how alone I was, and how there could be anything out there. I could see a dim glow through the trees — the light from a streetlamp, I eventually realized, way down by the road — and I could hear the car engines, whenever anything drove by off at the edge of our land. They hadn’t used to bother me, but now they sounded different; louder, more menacing. Angrier. At first I thought I was imagining things, but then I realized I was hearing frequencies humans did not. No one had bothered to make things appeal to a wolf’s senses, so even the familiar seemed jarring to me.

Don’t get me started on the smells.

I could only imagine what it’d be like to try to go home. I remembered when Eustace got turned into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and how he’d spelled things out in the sand. Some of the people I knew could get away with that, I thought. They had friends, parents, or siblings who would listen to them, even then. But I knew my parents wouldn’t. Everything they listened to, from their TV shows to their religious leader, taught them that things that weren’t normal ought to be hated and feared. They already didn’t like me that much, and I could only imagine how they’d react to this … if I even got the chance to explain.

So what options did I have left? Wolves had hard lives, and they needed years of practice to be able to live them. Even then, they didn’t live as long, and they rarely died of natural causes. I seemed to be healthy, but for how long? Was I seventeen in wolf years or human years?

I knew what I’d have to do to survive, if I couldn’t turn human again. I’d watched enough documentaries. And I was pretty sure I could live off of raw meat, if it was that or starve to death. I wasn’t sure if I knew how to do all those things, though. And beyond that was a bigger problem: I didn’t belong here.

There haven’t been wolves in New York in forever. So how long until some human saw me and decided to get rid of me, I wondered? It didn’t help that I looked distinctive — curse my fantasies of having a glossy black coat! And even if I stayed far away from humans, and managed not to get shot during hunting season, I’d still have to deal with packs of wild dogs and other dangerous animals. Animals that I wasn’t equipped to deal with, physically or mentally … any more than I was equipped to deal with what had just happened.

I say this because I also felt like I didn’t belong there, in that body. I was trying my best to ignore every feeling I got from it, because I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be having them. The sights and the sounds and the smells were inescapable, because they were part of the nightmare that I’d gotten into. But the feel of my pawpads and claws on the rock, of the shivers that ran down my spine to my tail, of breathing and swallowing inside my muzzle … these were all things that I tried to block out. I just couldn’t handle them.

That was another big part of the reason that I did not want to move. It was like acknowledging that this wolf body was there. And I knew that I had to, but I was so scared that I couldn’t make myself.

I finally had to disassociate. I was like “Okay, there’s this wolf here, and I need to move her down out of the cold.” Then I took a deep breath, and jumped down without looking, the wind rushing fast through my ears.

I nearly twisted my paw. As it was, I landed on it the wrong way. So I hobbled into the lee of the rock, walk-jumping over cold ground and feeling sharp pain that I tried to ignore.

It didn’t work. I whined, and flattened my ears, and pressed my feet, neck and stomach to the icy ground, trying to warm it up. I felt cold wind blowing across my nose, so I kind of scooted backwards a bit. Then I felt it on the tip of my tail, and I tried to move it out of the way but it just didn’t want to stay still. It was so cold that it had to keep twitching.

I whined again. Why couldn’t I be inside?

There wasn’t anything else I could do, so I waited. I waited for the ground to warm up … I waited for the wind to stop blowing. I waited for this wolf form I didn’t deserve (in a bad or good sense) to go away, and be replaced by my old one.

All that happened was the ground warmed a little, even as the moisture on the tip of my muzzle turned into ice. Despite that, I started to drift off, and I didn’t know if it was because I was sleepy or freezing to death. Would I be able to tell? I wondered.

In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter. Nothing made any sense anymore, and I didn’t have any better ideas for where to go to find shelter anyway. I let myself drift, and I welcomed oblivion, because it meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with this any longer …

* * *

… or so I thought.

I was still a wolf in my dreams. I can’t tell you how much that disappointed me.

I was in a huge clearing, the trees packed close in around it. The air was still, and the moon was full, and there were howls in the very near distance. Twigs snapped and leaves rustled around me, and I turned every way, trying to see where they were. But I only caught fleeting shadows.

I eventually heard crashing footsteps, but they were all headed away from me. The howls went into the distance. I sat there on my back legs, looking in the direction they’d gone, and feeling awful self-doubt. What was that? Who were they? Was I supposed to be going with them or not? I felt like I’d made the wrong decision, and I didn’t even know I was supposed to be deciding something.

The air all around me was quiet. I finally got up and paced towards the moonlight, towards a glint of it on the ground.

It was a lake. Either that, or a really big pond. I could see the treetops across it, but just barely, because the light on the surface was so bright. It would’ve been mesmerizing if it wasn’t so painful to look at.

I looked beneath it and saw my reflection, and my breath just stopped in my throat. It was black and fluffy and beautiful, with bright green eyes and a moist, healthy muzzle. It was me … the way that I’d always imagined myself. And its eyes were wide open with shock.

I stood there, frozen, not moving or taking a breath. And slowly, those eyes began to water.

I broke down and cried. And it felt weird and sounded unearthly, but I had to do it anyway. I wasn’t in a panic from what was happening to me, like last time. Instead, I knew what had happened, and I was tortured by it.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t always wanted this. If I hadn’t spent half my childhood pretending, and dreaming that I was a wolf. If I hadn’t read books and played games and watched TV shows about wolves, and lurked on online forums where people pretended to be wolves and kicked myself for not having the courage to join in. It wouldn’t have been as bad if they weren’t so beautiful that I knew I could never be anything like them.

And yet, here I was. It was too much for me. I cried my eyes out, and wished that I knew what I was or what’d happened or what I was supposed to do.

That’s when I heard the voice.

It was speaking in words, real words that I could hear with my ears. I just couldn’t hear them well enough to make them out distinctly. But it sounded like the one that’d spoken in my mind just before I had changed, soft and patient and kind.

Try as I might, I couldn’t tell what it was saying to me. But somehow, it didn’t matter. I stopped crying and sat there and listened, perfectly still from my ears to my tail. And it was like my whole insides melted, and became pure peace and contentment.

After all the fights I’d had with my parents, I didn’t know if God existed, what he was like, or even if he was a he. But it felt like I was sitting on his lap. And everything that I’d been worried about did not seem to matter anymore.

You could’ve told me right then that I was a wolf from now on, and I’d never be human again, and I would’ve been okay with that. As it was, I just knew that everything was going to be alright. It was okay for me to be this way, I was supposed to be this way, and I had always been this way inside … I think. That last part was a bit fuzzy, perhaps because it was so hard to accept. But I felt like I had been given a gift, and I was grateful enough to accept it. Sublimely grateful, and flattered.

I don’t know how long I sat there.

When the howls started again, my ears perked. Then I looked up and caught sight of them, in the distance. Eyes and ears and noses, and tufts of fur and wagging tails. I gave a happy bark and got up and ran towards them, and they ran off and I followed this time, followed them into …

* * *

Something tickled my nose. I woke up.

I was human again, and was huddled up next to the rock, with my clothes and my coat all in place. The wind had stopped, and the air was barely moving. And the ground was all covered in snow, at least a half-inch of it.

Another huge puff of it drifted right into my face, and started to melt. I reached up to brush it aside, but my mittened hand was all covered in snow, too.

I jumped up and shook myself off. There was a tiny brown patch of grass where I’d been sitting, and a lot of snow came off my back, my arms, the cap on my head. How long had I been there? It was still dark, but the sky seemed brighter somehow. Was it because of the snow?

The snow kept falling around me, quiet and drifty and wet. And I remembered my dream, and what’d come before it.

There was a poignant sense of loss, like I’d been handed a beautiful Christmas present and dropped it. But then I wondered if that all hadn’t been the present … if I hadn’t been meant to feel what it was like. If I hadn’t needed to, after those past few weeks.

I wondered who or what that voice had been, and what had really just happened to me. Then I started walking back towards the house.

A few minutes later, laying back in my warm, fuzzy bed, I couldn’t help but grin to myself. I tried to forget the transformation, and the feelings of terror and shock, because they’d been so traumatic that I didn’t want to relive them. They’d felt real, on a level that I didn’t want to acknowledge just yet. So instead I thought of the feeling of being a wolf.

I knew what it was like. If it hadn’t just been a hallucination, I’d physically been one. It was the greatest gift I could ever have asked for. I just never would have, because I’d known it couldn’t have been. And yet it had.

The feeling of peace I’d had afterwards overrode my desire to figure out what had happened … or rather, the nagging worries that I would’ve otherwise had, since there was no way I could figure it out. I didn’t know what had happened, and I was okay with that. I was just extremely grateful for it. And I knew that I’d always treasure it.

That night, when I fell back asleep, I thought that it’d been just a one-shot occurrence … like seeing a UFO, or being visited by a dead relative. The kind of thing that’s once in a lifetime, if that, and would never happen again.

I was wrong.

* * *

You know how mortifying it is when you get to school, and you find out you had your shirt on backwards and the tag’s sticking out? Okay … now imagine you had real wolf ears and a tail, and you didn’t know it.

I was in tears in the girls’ bathroom. I thought for sure that my life was over. And I was glad there was no one there to see me, not only because I kept tearing off more paper towels and blowing my nose onto them but because they were still there, and I didn’t know how to make them go away. I concentrated on them and tried to make them go away, and they finally did, but then they came back a minute later when I wasn’t paying attention. I had to consciously hold them in, while I was walking through public areas, then finally get outside the building.

I got so many absences that day.

For the rest of the week, I wore a cap and a long, baggy jacket into class. I looked like a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia or something. The only reason I got away with it was because the heating was flaky and everyone else was dressing warm too … they were just doing it in a way that made them less likely to get picked on. I still got odd looks and smirks and pointed comments and things, but at least now I knew why. I was just glad that apparently no one had realized what they had seen, and called in spacesuited government agents to take me away.

If that Sunday night had been the high point of my life, then the following week was one of the lowest. I still spent it the same way, trying not to be noticed at school and then trying not to be noticed at home. But I was more afraid than ever, and persistently depressed. And I didn’t dare go outside.

You’d think that after what I went through, I wouldn’t be like that anymore. But that’s the thing about … for lack of a better word, spiritual experiences. When you have them they’re amazing, and you feel like you’re on top of the world. And you are. But then you have to go back down into the world, and get slowly taken apart by the futility and despair. High school and what I went through in that clearing may as well have been in separate universes.

Okay … it did help me once. I was at school, and I was stressed out and scared, and I needed to be by myself but I had to stay there in class. And I couldn’t hear anything they were saying, because all I could think was how unbearable life was going to be if it was always going to be this pointless and cruel, and I was always going to have to hide these wolf ears and tail.

I started imagining some really creative ways of killing myself, because I hated it all and I was scared and tired and sick of it. But then I thought Why don’t I just run off and become a wolf instead? And, I mean, I didn’t know for sure if I could … but after that night, the world seemed just magical enough that I could believe it could happen.

Obviously, I didn’t do that. But just the thought that I could, that it was even an option, made me feel so much better. I just barely got through the rest of that Friday, and stayed up late that night researching wolves online.

(Did you know that the whole thing about pack organization, with alphas and betas and constant fighting for dominance, and omegas as Acceptable Targets and all … it’s never been seen in the wild? It only exists in captive wolves, when they’ve been thrown together against their will from all different families and backgrounds and made to stay there for no apparent reason. Then the assertive ones start jockeying for position, and the most passive ones get picked on cruelly. Remind you of anything?)

Anyway, I slept in late that Saturday, and when I got up my family was out of the house. Which meant I got to play my music really loud, and bake cookies and watch whatever I wanted on TV (which was usually nothing). Except this time, I drew all the curtains and let my wolf ears and tail show the whole time. It felt daring, but the longer I went that way the more comfortable I felt with it … I actually thought they looked nice, when I saw them in the mirror.

Of course I about had a heart attack when my family showed up, and had to pack up and clear out really fast. But that’s just par for the course.

I stayed up late again that night. This time I actually posted on one of those role-playing forums, and created a character and everything. I wanted to put what I’d learned to good use, and maybe become a bit more comfortable with myself and what’d happened to me. I was still living from day to day, and had only the faintest idea of what I had become. But I thought that this was a step in the right direction … and that at any rate, I’d have a while to figure things out.

As it turned out, I had only a few hours left.

* * *

I woke up to pounding on my door. My brain was still half-asleep, and it took me a long second to realize I was not still in my dream. The inside of my muzzle was completely dry, and it hurt when I tried to swallow.

Then I realized I had a muzzle.

“Rebecca!” More pounding. My dad’s voice. “Get up. You’re coming to church with us.”

I sat up with a start and looked down at myself. There was a muzzle in front of my field of vision, just like when I was a wolf. And my hands and my arms were covered in fur, the same black fur that I’d had then. My fingers looked gnarled and had dull claws at their tips, and they and my hands had thick pawpads.

The sensible thing to do would have been to try to change myself back, the way that I’d made my ears and my tail retract. The intelligent thing to do would have been to tell my parents I was sick, or come up with some other excuse.

Instead, I started to hyperventilate.

“Rebecca?” The pounding stopped. “What are you doing in there?”

I couldn’t control my breathing. I didn’t even have the strength to sit up, and just barely managed to scoot backwards and lean up against the headboard. I was having a panic attack, and there was nothing that I could do about it.

“Do you have someone in there with you?” He was stern.

I wanted to try to communicate, but I was so scared that I didn’t know what to say. And I was taking such deep breaths so fast that I couldn’t have made words come out, muzzle or no. Instead I whined like a dog, loudly, then stopped and held my breath because I realized what I’d just done.

“She’s got a dog in there,” my mom said. “Get the keys.”

I heard his footsteps go fast down the hall, and the jangle of keys on a keyring. The whole time, my breath was still caught in my throat, and my lungs convulsed and tried to draw air but it was like I was underwater. Then I heard the footsteps on their way back, and finally I took a deep breath before screaming “Don’t come in!”

It was the worst thing I could have done. Not that I had many options.

When they opened the door and saw me, they screamed. I screamed, and started to cry. Then my dad dragged my mom down the hall, and I got up and followed them all the way to their bedroom, trying to say something, anything coherent. Begging them to listen, to understand.

When I saw my dad loading the shotgun, I ran. I tripped and fell all the way down the stairs, got up without even feeling the pain, then wrenched the front door open and took off.

I almost made it to the end of the driveway.

* * *

I lay in a writhing heap in the snow. It felt like my whole back was torn open, raw skin and flesh exposed to the cold. I screamed and convulsed, as my blood stained the snow and my heat escaped into the air. Snow got into the wounds on my back. My pawpads were sticky and red.

My dad could have finished me off. I don’t know why he didn’t. I’m not sure what he was thinking. Did he realize what he’d done? Did he regret it? I may never know.

All I could think of was how hurt I was, physically and emotionally. My whole life, everything around me had made me feel that I was not welcome. That I was an aberration which shouldn’t exist. Now I knew that the world had finally killed me, and the fact that the blow had been dealt by my family just made it even worse. I wanted to die, to just make this awful thing that I was go away. And I was so furious at myself for still living, and for still feeling this pain, that I did the impossible.

I got up, on hands and knees. Then just my knees, arms wrapped tight around myself, claws pressed into my shoulders so hard that I drew blood. I shook, with fury and self-hatred. And I could feel something happening, but I didn’t know what it was until I finally stood up and screamed; at myself, at the whole world, at everything.

I wanted to make it all die.

For as long as I’ve lived at my parents’ house, there’s been this huge rock at the end of our driveway. I mean huge like the size of a coffee table. Except that it seemed smaller now.

I walked over and picked it up in both hands, and I flung it back towards the house.

My parents ducked, but my aim was off. It clipped the corner of the house, sending splinters flying, and demolished the swing set that had sat there broken since I was little. I screamed again, filled with hatred, and looked for more things to throw. But the only thing I could see that wasn’t attached to the ground was the old station wagon, and it was up too close to the house.

From the wagon my gaze went up to the porch, and my parents. And our eyes met.

I could have killed them. I wanted to kill them. But the fear in their eyes stopped me. They were helpless and terrified, and that made me hate myself even more.

I screamed at them, but it came out as a roar, awful and pained. If I could’ve translated it, it would’ve been something like “See what you did to me!?” And I couldn’t have, but I think they got the message.

After that I took off on all fours, down the road and into the brush.

* * *

I’m sweating and uncomfortable right now, just thinking about what I did and what must have happened to me. But I’m going to try to finish this, before I … do anything else.

I’m sitting in my “friend” Laurel’s house. And I used quotation marks there because I really don’t know her that well. She’s one of the popular girls, and we’ve barely spoken to each other. But she’s shared her lunch with me before, and she’s told her friends to stop teasing me. More importantly, she invited me to a party once, which is how I knew her address.

I showed up there naked and injured, completely in human form, and when she answered the door I begged her for help. She got a blanket for me and took me inside, and her mom checked on my wounds. My arms were still bleeding from where I had gripped them, but my back had completely healed over.

This was just a few hours ago. I’m staying here with her mom right now, writing this on their dining room table while she’s doing something in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure that she’s cooking, because something smells good. Anyway, she volunteered to stay here and look after me while Laurel and her brothers and dad are at church. My wolf ears and tail are out, because I can’t keep them in all the time … she hasn’t seen them yet, but I’m not going to try to hide them from her. I just don’t have the energy.

Laurel said that she’d try to find help for me while she’s at church. She goes to a different one than my parents do, so I believe her. I don’t know what she’s going to do; maybe they’ve got a battered women’s shelter or something. I told her my dad had fired a shotgun at me. I didn’t say what else happened.

They’ve been gone for a long time now. Long enough for me to finish all this. What kind of church is this they go to?

I hope she’s not talking to the police.

*sigh*

*deep breath*

*struggle to hold back tears*

I’m not going to be here when she gets back. And I don’t mean I’m going to run away. I wanted to, when I was at school, but I can’t anymore because now I know that I’m dangerous. I’m not just a wolf, I’m a wolf who’s not afraid of people, not as much as she ought to be. Who tried to kill them, and could do so again.

I’m scared that I’ll hurt someone. I’m scared that the rest of my life will be short and violent, and end with somebody showing me why I ought to be scared of humans. And I’m cursing myself for not learning that to begin with. For not accepting my place and the scraps I was given, and for begging and being uncooperative instead of thanking them for it. I should have done that. I should have learned. And now I won’t have the chance.

I’m not giving myself the chance.

I’m going to

Hello, Rebecca.

Your parents do not remember what happened. They believe that a wild dog attacked you. They’ll be surprised and relieved to see that you’re alright. You may decide whether or not you want to speak with them again.

You are not an abomination. You are different from the people around you, but you are meant to be the person you are. And you are loved, whether you know it or not.

There are other people like you. One of them will find you soon. You may decide to join them, if you like. Or you may live among wolves, or humans. There are places where both kinds of animals still run free. As long as you’re able to do so, you will be happy whatever you choose.

Please do not lose hope, or think that your life’s not worth living. Instead, please continue to live.

Thank you for listening.

* * *

I cut off there because they got back from church. Then we ate, and played on their Wii, and I spent the whole day at their house. I was tired and depressed at first, but somewhere along the line I forgot what I was planning to do. I’m sitting in bed now, in their guest room, huddled up next to the nightlight.

I don’t know who wrote that last part in here. It’s not my handwriting. And somehow I was able to keep my wolf ears from showing to Laurel’s family, so they can’t have known what I am.

My heart tells me it’s the same voice that spoke in my dream, only it’s taken me this long to make out the words. I believe it.

I don’t know if I’ll talk to my parents again. Or go back to school, or their church, or anything. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’m going to keep on living. Whatever that voice is, it gave me a beautiful gift, twice. The least I can do is to do what it asks.

I’m sorry for what I wrote earlier, and for the damage I caused. But I’m not sorry for being myself, right now. Maybe I will be again, later on, but I’ll try not to be. I’ll try.

If that voice is listening, thank you. I’ll wait until I hear from the person like me to decide what I’m going to do. And I hope that I hear from you again soon.

Good night.

TOCK-tick-TOCK-tick-TOCK-tick-TOCK …

The clock over the fireplace ticked, nearly drowning out the TV in the corner.

tick-tick-tick-tick-TOCK-tick-TOCK …

The female newscaster was standing in front of a bookstore. “But it’s now been two months since he’s sequestered himself away in that cabin, and there’s still no word from him or his publisher.”

TOCK-tick-TOCK …

A man in a suitcoat, in an office lined with books. The caption read MR. HOLMS’ AGENT. “I haven’t heard from him either! But I’m dying to read his new book, just as much as you are.”

tick-tick-tick …

A man in a winter coat, standing just next to the bookstore. “I was in line for The Rewair’s Orb, and I’ll be in line for the next one. They just need to say the word.” He grinned.

“What do you think’s taking him so long?” said the voice behind the microphone.

“I dunno. I guess his muse just hasn’t struck yet!”

TOCK.

TOCK.

TOCK.

The Great Author looked up with a start, from the pile of papers that he’d been buried in on his desk. His bleary-eyed gaze flicked back and forth, from the windows that looked out on the forest to the rough-hewn wooden inside.

They fixated on the clock.

He got up, sending papers flying everywhere. Then he jumped over his desk and stepped around the wicker furniture in the small living room, before grabbing the clock and sliding open the glass door to step outside.

* * *

SPLASH!

The Author’s muse raised one paw to shield himself. He was a short, stocky anthropomorphic raccoon, in a blue vest and a jaunty red cap. And he did not look happy about getting splashed.

He looked back behind himself, down the pier towards the shoreline, but the Author was already walking back to the house. The Author’s muse hmphed, adjusted his cap, and got back to fishing.

The water rippled from where the clock had been thrown in. But besides that, the lake waters were still. Evergreen trees reached shadows out to almost where he was, and the sun shone down on him, making the fur on the back of his neck warm even though his toes and fingers were cold. He opened the bait box and got out a sandwich, then started munching it, kicking his legs and showering crumbs next to his line.

His raccoon ears perked, as he heard the door slide open and closed back at the cabin. Then again a minute later, and footsteps crashed through the brush, shoshed through the sand, then clomp clomp clomped down the pier.

The muse pretended he didn’t hear anything.

The footsteps stopped a few feet behind him, and he found himself tensing up, waiting for another splash. But instead there was a sound like someone was unscrewing the lid from a jar, then pulling the cover off the inside. Something was set down beside him, and he tried to ignore it but a smell twitched his muzzle.

He sniffed at the air, then looked down beside him to see a glass jar filled with dark brown spread. “What is that?”

“Some kinda snazzy new peanut butter.” The voice came from behind him. “It’s made out of chocolate and hazelnuts.”

“Really, now.” The muse set down his sandwich, then dug a clawful of spread out of the jar and licked it clean. It wasn’t bad, and was very sweet.

“There’s more in the cabin,” the Author said.

“I’ll bet there is.” His muse began reeling in his line.

Behind him, the Author smiled.

The muse detached the fuzzy-shaped thing with eyes from the end of his line, and set it back in the bait box. Then he crammed the hook into the jar, and swung his line out into the lake, jar and all. It splashed, and his legs got all wet.

The Author’s face fell. “Geo, why must you be so unreasonable?”

“I’m not the one who’s being unreasonable, Mister Holms.” He turned around to scowl at the man, who looked younger than he sounded and was wearing a old sweater. “You’re the one who dragged me along on book tours, and signings, and interviews. You made me stretch out that story into a three-volume masterpiece, and now here you are back for more. Well, maybe I’m done for this year.” He turned back to his fishing. “Or this decade. Either way.”

“I thought you liked writing … ”

“I liked writing when it was fun.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun when you’re getting paid for it!” the Author shouted.

“Talk to the tail.” His ring-tail swished. “The rest of me ain’t listening.”

After a minute, the footsteps clomped back towards the house. Geo picked up his sandwich and took another bite, but it had been splashed with lakewater. He spat it out, and tossed the sandwich away. Ducks couldn’t eat peanut butter, he knew, but they’d all flown south for the year.

He wondered what a sandwich with that chocolate spread would taste like.

Geo was almost ready to go back to the house, when the door slid open again. He turned around to see the Author carrying a large duffel bag with him.

Geo’s ears flattened as he turned back to his fishing, listening to heavy clomps up the pier again. The duffel bag unzipped, and something big that smelled of oil and metal was pulled out. There were clicks and latches and bolts pulled back into place.

A last switch was thrown, and Geo’s raccoon ears perked as the Author spoke. “Alright, no more mister nice-guy. Come inside and help me, or face heat-seeking missiles!”

Geo tugged on his fishing line, and the pier rumbled and started to shake. The bait box rattled and nearly fell off, and the Author struggled to keep his footing. Then there was a SPLASH that washed over the pier, and Geo held his cap onto his head and gritted his teeth into the spray as an enormous black metal shape came to surface. It stretched across the horizon.

“Oh look,” he said. “I’ve caught a nuclear submarine. Now what should I do with it?”

The Author stared, as a hatch opened out in the lake and a confused-looking man peeked outside.

* * *

The Author slid the glass door shut behind him. The air smelled like cooked butter, and on the TV a loud ad was playing. He walked over and turned it off.

Out in the kitchen, a thing like a short, humanoid wolf wearing goggles floated up from behind the counter, as the microwave popped popcorn. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“If a guy in a fur hat comes calling in Russian, tell him we gave at the office.” The Author slumped down into the chair at his desk, sending a couple more papers flying.

The wolf-thing floated towards him, paddling in midair with his hindpaws. “Blender and I came up with something that might help,” he said.

“You and-” He looked up. The other was carrying a blender under one arm, its cord trailing just above the floor. “Oh, right. What is it, Zippy?”

Zippy set down the blender and picked up a big gun-looking thing, with a barrel half a foot wide and a bunch of lights and dials and gauges on it. “It’s the Inspiration Machine!”

“I thought that was your Annihilation Machine.”

“It was. I changed it. See, you just set it from ‘frappé’ to ‘blend’ … ” He swung the machine in the Author’s direction, and the Author dove under his desk, kicking his chair aside with a clatter.

“Don’t worry,” Zippy said, “you don’t use it on yourself!”

The Author peeked out from underneath.

“You use it on the thing you want to be inspired by. Like, say you want to recapture the excitement of your old novels. You just aim it at them, and- May I?”

The Author winced. “Knock yourself out.”

“Okay!” Zippy’s face lit up. “Just aim it at them and pull the trigger, like so!”

The BLAM sent the Author reeling and clutching his ears, and the shock wave sent half of his papers flying. Zippy was sent flying backwards and hit the refrigerator, and the punch bowl fell off the top of it and knocked him unconscious. It rattled to a stop on the floor as the Author stood up and took stock of things.

There was a huge burn mark on the front of his hardback copy of The Rewair’s Orb. He sighed.

Picking it up, he checked it over and stopped at the ad copy on the back. “Riveting! Spellbinding! George Holms’ Dementor-like creatures will capture your heart, if they don’t steal your emotions first. Evocative of Harry Potter and Twilight-” The Author groaned, and made a mental note to hunt the reviewer down with a spork. “-but able to stand on its own two (or four) feet, The Rewair’s Orb is in a class all its own.”

But was it, really? he wondered. The Author thumbed through his work, ignoring the scorchmark inside. Most Authors hated their older work, but The Rewair’s Orb had been written just a couple of years ago. He still liked it okay. More than that, he thought it was genuinely a decent book.

But in a class all its own? He’d have to think about that one. He knew it was good, of course. But it wasn’t substantially better than the stories he’d been writing online for years. In fact, he could think of one of two of those that he liked better than it. And the only reason its sequels had got written was because it had become a bestseller … a fact that seemed to have nothing to do with how good it actually was.

The Author turned pages absent-mindedly. Why am I trying to make myself write even more of this? he wondered. This story is over.

He shut the book, and set it on top of the old Thinkpad on his desk. His gaze lingered on the computer, and he remembered staying up all night reading fanfiction based on his work. Some of it had been scary, but some of it had made him think Why aren’t these people writing the next book? They know where it’s going better than I do. More than that, they’re enjoying themselves. I just want to get the wretched thing finished.

The Author mused on that for a moment before picking up the phone, as the microwave dinged and the smell of burnt popcorn seeped out of it.

* * *

A man in a suitcoat, in a room lined with books. He sat at his desk, leafing through a stapled-together manuscript. The bored look on his face changed to one of disgust when he saw the $100 bill in between the papers. He threw it all back on the slush pile, and woke his computer from sleep mode to send out another rejection notice.

The phone rang, and he reached over to hit the transfer button. Then he saw who was calling, and put it on speaker. “George!” he said, in a let’s-do-lunch kind of voice. “Good to hear from you! How’re things going out there on Lake Superior? Getting chilly this time of year, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, uh, listen … ” George said, in a lost-my-train-of-thought-when-I-opened-my-mouth kind of voice. “Is there somebody else who could do this book? ‘Cause I,” he coughed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

“Of course you’re cut out for it,” his agent explained. “Just look at the Rewair trilogy! You’re the only one who can do it.”

“Uh, no,” George said, “I’m not.”

His agent gave the phone a patronizing look. “Oh, really,” he said. “So who else is going to write the next Rewair book? Please, do tell.”

George coughed again. “Well, um, there’s this person called … uh … ” He mumbled something.

“Speak up!” his agent said.

” … LatinoFurry87,” George finished.

His agent blinked. “Huh?”

“That’s what he’s called on the Internet,” George went on, in a rush. “He wrote this story based on The Rewair’s Orb-”

“He’s not authorized to do that,” his agent broke in.

“Well, somebody ought to have told him that, ’cause he wrote it anyway.” George sounded exasperated.

“Tell him what ‘copyright law’ means,” his agent said, steepling his fingers and leaning back in his chair. “I think he could learn a lot.”

“Will you just let me finish?” George huffed.

His agent said nothing.

“He wrote this epic fanfiction based on my stories, and it continued the Rewairs’ tale better than I could have. I was done with it at the end of the first book, Malcomb, you know that. And it was like pulling hens’ teeth trying to stretch it out into a trilogy.”

“Or laying golden eggs,” Malcomb mused, looking up at the crystal-and-glass awards on his bookcases.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Carry on.”

“This boy — I think he’s a boy — is talented. He’s at least as good of a writer as I am, probably better. And my readers deserve better, or at least better than two-month hiatuses.” He spat out that last past. “Your job is to find the best talent. Find this boy, and sign him up.”

His agent tsk’ed, and shook his head. “No can do, George.”

A sigh. “Yeah, I expected as much. So go ahead. Tell me why we can’t do this.”

“Because they want a book with your name on it.” His agent stabbed a finger at the phone, leaning forward all of a sudden. “Why else do you think you get top billing over the name of your own freaking books?”

“So give him a pen name, or something!”

“Signing someone to ghostwrite for you would be like replacing Coldplay with lip-synchers. It’s just not done.” He folded one leg over the other as he sat back again.

“Well, what do you want me to do, Malcomb? Fill two hundred pages with drivel off the top of my head, and leave the other two hundred blank? Because that’s what the fourth Rewair book’s going to be like if I write it.”

Malcomb shrugged. “An Author’s gotta do what an Author’s gotta do. Just put something on paper. We’ll clean it up in editing.”

“Good Gates, man, do you realize what you’re saying? Whatever happened to ‘George, you’re the greatest,’ or ‘George, this is one of a kind?’ Does quality count for nothing? Does craftsmanship? What sets our published fiction apart from his fanfiction?”

“The fact that you’re getting paid for it, and what he’s doing is illegal.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“That’s what it’s been like as long as there’s been a market, George. I hate to break it to you, but it’s true.” His agent took off his suitcoat, suddenly hot in the enclosed room.

The voice on the phone was quiet. “Somehow, this was more fun before I was being paid to write garbage.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun when you’re getting paid for it.”

The Author hung up.

* * *

The evening was quiet as the Author went back down to the dock, the submarine having disappeared back into the depths of his imagination. No crickets were chirping; the waves were gentle and faint. There was only him and his muse … or in other words, he was alone with himself.

He stood there watching the raccoon fish for some time. So content … so unconcerned. So uninterested in anything that wasn’t fun.

The Author knew what was going on in his muse’s head as well as he did any of his other characters. And he knew what Geo was going to answer before he said “There’s nothing I can do to persuade you to help me, is there.”

Or did he? His muse surprised him with “Actually, there is.”

“Oh?”

Geo clicked a button on a remote in his bait box, and a hundred-foot neon billboard lit up out on the lake. It read “WRITE SOMETHING FUN.”

The Author sighed. “We’ve been through this already.”

“Yep, we have.” Geo clicked the sign back off. “And you still won’t see reason,” they both said at the same time.

The Author looked out at the lakewaters, still and silent and dark. “I guess I’ll have to write it myself, then,” he said. “And the next, and the next, and … ” A lump formed in his throat. He looked down at his muse, and realized that it would be for the last time.

“Remember what it used to be like?” he asked his muse. “The snark, the wit, the fantasy … ” And for a moment he was Geo, sitting there on the dock kicking his furry feet in the air, listening to this strange human state the obvious.

The Author shook his head, and brought himself back to reality. Things didn’t work that way in real life. If you were lucky enough to get famous IRL, you rode it as far as you could. Because you didn’t know when it would give out, and you’d be back to writing fanfics because no one would publish your work.

He looked down at the dock. Geo was gone.

The Author sighed, and began the long, slow walk back to his cabin.

* * *

He threw out the burnt popcorn, and microwaved some leftover spaghetti for dinner. After that he sat in the living room, polishing off the rest of the ice cream with a spoon while watching TV.

The Author stayed up too late watching it. In between he surfed the web on his laptop. He didn’t visit his online journal or microblog, or anything remotely related to his work. Just RSS feeds and webcomics, and leaving comments anonymously.

Finally he got ready for bed, still leaving all the lights in the cabin on. He left the downstairs light on as he climbed into bed, and left the door open enough to see. But after ten minutes of tossing and turning, he knew he couldn’t sleep since the light got in his eyes. So he slid out of bed, feet probing the cold hardwood floor for his slippers, leaving the covers still made to keep from losing their warmth.

The air was as chill as outdoors, except right by the space heater. He hurried like he was taking the trash out in winter, sliding up to the door with arms tightly folded and pushing it shut. Then he hurried back, and sat down on the bed and kicked off his slippers. First the one, then- wait, where did it go?

Something wrapped around his leg.

He tried to grab onto the covers but was pulled right off of his bed, kicking and flailing and clawing at the smooth hardwood as it dragged him underneath. A moment of struggle at the edge, and then he was brought face-to-face with …

A penguin.

“Heh-wo,” it said, and waved a flipper at him.

“Hi, Fluff,” he said, still gasping for breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

The penguin shrugged.

“M-may I … ” The Author gestured at the space outside.

Fluff said nothing, so the Author crawled back out on bare hands and feet. Then he jumped back into bed, and shivered for a moment before calling out to him. “What was that all about, Fluff?”

“Squaawk!”

The Author covered his ears for a moment. “Er, I didn’t quite catch that … ”

Fluff exclaimed a long chastisement at him, in the language of penguins that goes from melodic trills to harsh squawking. An exact translation would be as long as this whole story, but the gist of it was “Are you out of your mind!?”

“Fluff … ”

“Squaa-awk!”

“Fluff, listen!”

“Squawk!”

“Fluff!” The Author leaned on one elbow, and talked over the side of the bed as cold air seeped in to where he was. “Look, I know this is bad. Alright? I know what I’m giving up! But it’s not like I have a choice in the matter.”

“Hmph.”

“Do you see this place, Fluff?” The Author gestured around. “Cabins don’t just build themselves.”

“Squawk.”

“Build, buy, same difference. Not to mention, a couple of years ago I couldn’t have taken two months off if my life depended on it. Now I can just say ‘The book isn’t done yet!’ and no one can stop me from doing this. Who else is going to give them what they want?”

The penguin trilled something else, which basically meant “You know the answer to that.”

The Author slumped back, deflated. “Fluff … ”

No answer.

“Fine,” the Author said. “Let’s say I default on my contract and give up my rights to the book, so now anyone can write what they want based on it. And Latinofurry or someone else writes something amazing, and has fun with it, and makes a whole lot of money like he or she richly deserves. Everyone reads it, and everyone’s happy. But where does that leave me, Fluff? Because this isn’t about lakefront property, or having a car and an iPhone, it’s … ”

A questioning trill. Go on.

He sighed. “It’s about living the life that I want.”

The room was quiet after that. Almost ten minutes passed.

“Fluff?”

“Squawk?”

“What do you think I should do?”

Fluff coughed. “A-hem-hem-hem. Fish,” he said.

The Author groaned, disgusted. “No, Fluff, it’s not time for fish.”

“Fish,” Fluff insisted.

“Fluff, it’s the middle of the night! Can’t you wait until-”

“FISH!” he shouted.

The cabin creaked in the cold air. And the Author suddenly got a clue.

He got out of bed and looked out the window, shivering like mad as he did so. There at the end of the dock was his muse, fishing again by moonlight.

The Author scurried towards the door. “Where did I put my boots … ”

* * *

The Author peered out the ground floor windows towards the dock, as he was pulling his coat and boots on. His muse was still there, a shadow sitting at the edge of the dock. But as he hurried outside into the cold, hugging himself and moving quickly and wishing that he’d worn long underwear, he saw that the dock was abandoned.

“Geo?” The Author stopped at the end of the dock and called out to him. “Geo!”

There was no reply.

He ran out to the end of the dock. The moon shone on the still waters, which stretched out as far as he could see. But there was no anthropomorphic raccoon, no bait box, no fishing rod and line or nuclear submarine. There wasn’t even a hat.

The Author stood there for a long moment, gloved hands in his pockets, feeling very alone and dejected. Finally he sat down at the edge of the dock, and sighed a white cloud of steam. The motion sensor lights clicked off behind him, and he didn’t even turn to look.

“Missed my only chance … ” He leaned up against one of the pylons, and imagined a life of boredom and mediocrity. It’d seemed so compelling a moment ago. Now it felt like a death sentence.

“Maybe he’ll come visit if I work on a side project,” he mutterred.

“Like what?”

The Author turned around with a start, looking every which way, but he didn’t see anything. Then he realized where the voice had come from.

He was about four feet tall now, covered in black-and-gray fur. His feet and hands were bare, and he was covered in fur from his muzzle to the tip of his ringed tail. He reached up and pulled a red cap off of his pointy ears, and as he ran his claws and pawpads over the rough cloth half of him was in awe. The other half could only grin and say “Finally!”

He turned around and jumped into the air, waving his hat and calling out towards the cabin. A moment later the lights came on inside; then the motion-detector lights over the driveway turned on, as Fluff, Zippy, Blender and dozens more characters from his stories came crowding outside.

He threw in his line and reeled in his catch, and just as they all reached the pier the submarine surfaced, its long profile a silhouette in the dark. Dozens of hatches opened on top, with whirring noises and outlines of light. Then fireworks shot out into the night sky, and the crowd cheered.

Fluff directed the orchestra, as they played Geo’s favorite soundtrack. Zippy and Blender made juice drinks and smoothies, and served them to people from tables all strung with lights. Men in fur hats got out on the deck of the submarine, and set up beach chairs and watched the fireworks with binoculars. And Geo jumped up and down madly, controlling the fireworks by waving a baton in the air. They looped in circles, spun around in sync, dashed across the lake surface sending ripples out in their wake and exploded right above everyone, showering sparkles onto the crowd.

It was frantic. It was exhausting. And it was the most fun that he’d had all year.

* * *

Two hours later, teeth chattering in the cold, the Author stopped pacing back and forth on the dock. He looked over the story he’d typed on his phone, finger-scrolling on the glass.

It wasn’t long, but it was beautiful. And it had nothing to do with Rewair.

The motion-detector light came on as he walked back to the cabin and opened the door, savoring (slightly) warm air on his face. He closed it, inside, and set his phone down next to his computer, before writing a note on the paper beside it.

There were things that he needed to do, tomorrow. And people he needed to contact.

* * *

“What? Yes, I’m sure. I spoke with him just yesterday evening.” Malcomb grabbed another bite of his chocolate croissant, then spoke into the phone with his mouth full.

“No, there’s no end in sight … ” He swallowed. “But George knows what he has to do, and I’m confident that we’ll see some progress being made soon!”

A woman in an understated suitcoat poked her head in the door, and gestured frantically at the TV in the corner. What? Malcomb mouthed at her. But she wasn’t listening. When he stayed put, she finally walked over and turned it on, then set it to the right channel.

“ … has chosen a Creative Commons ‘Attribution / Share-Alike’ license,” the female voiceover said, as it showed people in bookstores and then a closeup of a copy of The Rewair’s Orb. “This will allow anyone who wants to to write and even publish stories set in his world, so long as they credit him for the original and use the same license for their own stories.”

Malcomb’s jaw dropped.

“He has already spoken with a different publisher-” Malcomb threw the phone’s handset at the wall, and his secretary jumped. “-and they are now conducting a search for authors, to find the fan who can write the next ‘official’ Rewair book. Mr. Holms also announced a forthcoming collection of unrelated short stories, to be called-”

The Author’s former agent got up and turned off the TV, then stood at the window looking out with his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t move or say anything else.

His secretary quietly picked up the handset, ignoring the pleas that came out of it, and hung it up on his desk. Then she walked out, closing the door behind her.

* * *

“¡Enriqué! Ven aquí! Estoy hablando con usted!”

“Sí, madre … ” A brown-skinned boy in a white t-shirt and jeans got up from the old family computer, and stepped around the piles of blankets and sheets on the floor to go out to the trailer’s front porch. He clasped his hands behind his back, listening patiently to her chastisement, then promised to take care of things for her before stepping back inside, as her attention turned to one of his younger siblings.

His cousin was still on the couch. She was watching an English-language morning news show. Enriqué tuned the words out, trying to concentrate on the scene that he’d just been writing. But then as he was sitting back down at the computer, he looked over his shoulder and saw on the TV a picture of a hardcover copy of The Rewair’s Orb … the same book he’d gotten two years ago for Navidad. The book that had changed his life.

He heard the words they were saying, but it took him a moment to understand them, and even longer for them to sink in. When they did, he found that he wanted to cry.

Instead, he pumped one clawed fist in the air, tears streaming down his slender draconic muzzle. Then he stretched his crimson wings, before hunching back down in front of the PC and writing the last of the scene he’d been working on. The end of a chapter … and the start of a new story.

Many thanks to my penguin-obsessed brother for the RP sessions that provided the inspiration for Fluff’s behavior.

The highway curves off into the distance, between mountains and badlands and mesas. Everything’s reddish-orange, dusty and dry, just like an old pickup truck.

There’s one right now, crawling along the slow lane. Minivans zoom right past it. Enormous tractor-trailers rush past, nearly blowing it off the road.

It doesn’t seem to care. The driver doesn’t, either. He tilts his weather-beaten hat to block out more of the sun, then turns up the AM radio as another tractor-trailer roars past. A high-pitched whine comes out of his speakers, intermingled with static.

He nods. “Right,” he says, even though no one is with him. “Uh-huh.

“Two of them? Wow. And one is a-

“Oh, heck.”

He looks up at the roadsign, promising food and lodging from six major brands. “Okay, I’m coming up on it now.”

The exit’s in a quarter of a mile. Driving one-handed, he reaches down and unzips the duffel bag next to him, before getting out a short-barreled shotgun. He touches a silver icon to it and breathes a short prayer, before returning his gaze to the road.

Two cars scream past him, driving the wrong way up to the Interstate, just before he gets to the exit. Honking and screeching sounds come from behind him, and he holds onto his hat, looking out the window for a split-second before coming down off the highway. More cars tear past at the intersection, and in the distance he hears screaming.

He turns left, heading towards the big travel plaza that’s emptying of all of its customers. Cars are pulling out fast and rear-ending each other, and people are throwing the building’s doors open and running for their lives.

He pulls into the parking lot just as it empties, and takes a spot around the corner from the entrance. Now he can hear snarling and animal breathing, and then a roar right before sounds of crashing and towers of things tumbling over.

He cuts the engine and leaves the keys in the ignition, then unbuckles his seatbelt and pushes the door open, grabbing his shotgun on the way out …

* * *

FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO

*squaaawk*

“I’m sorry, what?”

Rachel sighed, and looked around the main prep area to where Tara was staffing the drive-thru window. Her friend was busy counting out change for someone waiting outside, while trying to talk to someone else on her headset.

“Uh, it comes with pinto beans, cheese, guacamole, rice …

“Rice.

“Rice, with an ‘r’.

“No, not ice. Rice!” She dropped the lid to the cup she was filling, and kicked it aside before getting a new one and cramming it on top. “Rice!”

“What are you doing just standing there?”

Rachel jumped, almost ruining the order she was working on, and turned around to see the store manager — all 4’10″ of her. She had Hispanic features, and her nametag read “Alice.”

“Sorry … ” Rachel grabbed up handfuls of lettuce and cheese, and tossed them on before wrapping up the tortilla.

“The evening rush is starting,” Alice reminded her, in accented English. “I know this is hard for you and your friend, but you need to stay on task. You can take a break afterward.”

“I know, it’s just … ” How to explain Tara’s disability?

Rachel finished her prep work, then brought the tray to the counter. “Thirty-four!” she shouted, and someone standing two feet away took it. Without acknowledging him, she walked back to the line, stealing a glance at the drive-thru window as she walked back. Tara had her eyes closed and both fists clenched, and was silently counting to ten.

Rachel glanced up at the screen and began work on the next order automatically. She had it bagged up and ready for the take-out customer when she spotted the manager again. “Um, Alice … ”

Alice coughed, and indicated the bag. Rachel handed it to the man waiting at the counter before trying again. “Listen, my friend’s having a hard time over there … ”

An entire cup of ice and soda fell off the machine where Tara was trying to fill it, and she threw the handful of sauce packets she’d grabbed at the floor in frustration.

Rachel went on hurriedly. “Can I take over from her for a few? She can go get … something … from the stock room … ” Her voice trailed off.

She saw the look on Alice’s face as she considered her friend, and knew what it meant. “If she can’t even handle this, how is she ever going to make it here?” But Alice finally looked up at her and said “You take over for her, then. I’ll get the mop.”

Rachel let out her breath in relief.

She walked over to where Tara was leaning her forehead against the soda machine, eyes closed. Rachel could hear the static of the radio in her headset. “Tara?”

No answer.

Rachel took a deep breath, knowing how much Tara hated this, and shook her gently by the shoulder. She recoiled as if shot, and her radio headset fell to the floor. “-ello? Hello?” it squawked.

“Tara, I’m going to take over for you now.”

“I can’t do this,” she said, in a quiet and just slightly quavering voice that showed that she meant it.

“I know.” Rachel kept her hands to herself, even though she wanted to comfort her. “But tomorrow’s the weekend, and-”

“I hate the weekend.” She stared daggers into the soda machine, not looking at Rachel as she spoke. “I hate our stupid apartment we can’t even pay for.”

“Tara … ”

“Yes, I know how lucky we are to have jobs, but I just can’t do this!”

A car horn honked, outside the window, and Tara jumped and nearly fell to the floor. Rachel tried to help steady her, and she fought Rachel off as if by instinct.

“Go punch something in the stock room,” Rachel said, not realizing that she’d regret it. “I’ll cover for you.”

A long second passed, and even the radio headset was silent. Then, wordlessly, Tara walked back towards the stock room, a blank expression on her face. She jumped again when the horn honked a second time, but managed to catch herself.

Rachel consulted the screen on the drive-thru cash register, and finished the order for the person waiting outside. Then she put on Tara’s headset, rubbing hand sanitizer into her palms as she spoke. “I’m sorry for the delay, can I take your order please?”

Alice came up beside her with the mop and bucket as she started filling drinks, and began to clean Tara’s mess. They both looked to the side as they heard a muffled THWACK — THWACK — THWACK from the stock room.

“I told her to go punch something,” Rachel said, helplessly. “To let out some stress.”

Alice shrugged, and went back to her mopping. “If she damages anything, you’re paying for it.”

Rachel sighed. “I know.”

Another order filled, and everything was quiet … or as quiet as it got at a fast-food restaurant approaching rush hour, she told herself. Two people were working the line, one of them bringing her orders to pass through the window, and Alice was up at the front taking orders. The drive-thru window was starting to get hectic, but Rachel had worked it during lunch hour, and she hoped she’d be able to handle it.

Then they all heard the clatter of piles of things hitting the floor, and a second later Tara screamed in frustration. The line workers held back, but both of them were still frozen, looking towards the stock room as Tara began crying loudly.

Rachel scrambled to finish her order, counting out change and reaching through the window to hand it to the person outside. She jumped, at another clatter of things hitting the floor and another scream from the stock room, and dropped half the coins on the pavement.

Without thinking, she took off her headset and hurried around the line, past the workers staring as Tara’s screams became more bloodcurdling. The door to the stock room was just a crack open, and as Rachel rounded the corner and headed up to it all she could think was dead, dying, horrible pain, crushed beneath piles of boxes …

“Tara!” She threw the door open. “Are you alagplx-”

There was something in the stock room.

It was twice her size, and covered in fur, and tipped with gleaming claws. And as soon as it saw Rachel it growled at her from behind the sack of tortillas it’d torn into, a muffled sound that just about stopped her heart.

I’m going to die, Rachel thought. She had never felt such fear before, and did not understand what was happening to her in response.

Acting on instinct, she slammed the door shut, then fumbled the lock closed just as the creature barreled into it. The metal door dented.

“Mad dog!” she called out to the store. It seemed like the most sensible thing to say. “Mad dog!”

Another slam into the door. Why isn’t anyone running? Rachel was terrified. The whole world seemed like it was spinning around her, and she found herself braced up against the door half in a futile attempt to keep it shut and half to keep from falling over.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to take off around the corner, but slipped and fell on some rags that hadn’t been there before. Her co-workers gasped and jumped backwards, when they saw.

Slipping, kicking the rags away, Rachel stood up and screamed out towards the patrons who were staring at her in shock. “Mad dog! Run for your lives!”

Now her co-workers screamed and ran, and so did the people out in the dining area. Trays got flung aside, napkins went flying, people jumped over tables and slipped on their wrappers. Somebody hit his head on a chair, and got dragged outside by someone else.

She heard Alice saying something and coming out of her office, and ran in that direction. When Alice saw her, she froze in her tracks, her mouth hanging open.

Rachel stopped and looked down at her, trying to think what was wrong. How bad did I hit my head? Am I gruesomely injured? Covered in blood?

I didn’t think she was this short …

Alice turned and tried to run, but Rachel grabbed her by the shoulder. “Alice!”

She screamed and tried to break free.

Rachel took hold of her and spun her around. “Alice, stop … stop screaming and listen to me!”

She stopped screaming and started blubbering, dropping to her knees and pleading in Spanish. Rachel had to get down on her knees too, just to talk to her face to face. “Alice, listen! There’s a-”

She kept crying, hysterical.

Rachel took a deep breath. “There’s a mad dog or something in the storeroom-”

It roared, and slammed into the door again.

“I don’t have a cellphone! You’ve got to get outside and call 911, and-”

SLAM.

“And, like, the National Guard or something! I don’t know!” Rachel looked over her shoulder towards the line, then back down at Alice. She was still crying, and was now doubled over with her face to the floor and her arms over her head.

Rachel hurriedly pulled Alice to her feet and shoved her towards the front entrance. “Go! Get going already!” Alice stumbled and ran on short, shaking legs, not looking back as she did so.

Rachel followed, knowing the stock room door couldn’t hold the thing for much longer. Then she got to the glass pull-door leading out to the main floor of the travel plaza, and she tried to pull it open but it snapped off in her hand. She stood there, shocked, holding the entire door in one hand for a split-second, before she realized that This is too heavy for me! and dropped it. She leaped backwards onto a table, as it fell to the floor and cracked.

What just happened?

She crouched on the table, staring down at the door in shock, as the pounding behind her intensified.

SLAM

SLAM

SLAM-THUNK.

Rachel turned her head towards the counter, as the rumbling, deep bass GROWL filled the restaurant.

I am going to die.

* * *

As the man from the pickup truck ran around to the front of the building, shotgun in hand, his features changed. He held his hat in place as long, drooping hound dog ears came out on either side, and a tail poked through beneath the back of his leather jacket.

He ran up to the spaces for handicapped people just as a ball of fur exploded out of the front of the building, cracking the glass on one door and knocking the other off of its hinges. An enormous gray creature was fighting a smaller brown-furred one, grabbing and clawing with its forepaws and trying to hold it down. Their snarls were muted as they tussled, the large creature biting and clamping its jaws down and trying to rip out the smaller one’s throat.

The dog-eared man felt a shiver that made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, running all the way down to his tail. He suppressed it and took aim with his shotgun, waiting for the two creatures to break apart.

They rolled around on the pavement, first towards him (he backed up) then straight into an abandoned car, breaking the windows and denting the side. The brown one broke free just then and leaped over the car in one bound, running across the parking lot towards the dumpsters.

The gray one stood and roared at it, then picked up the car and lifted it high. Nine feet of monstrous dire wolf stood a truck’s length in front of the man, vaguely female and humanoid in shape but with a countenance that was pure animal.

He shot it.

The car dropped behind it towards the man, rolling and smashing across the pavement, and he dove out of the way and looked up to see where the creature had gone. It was clutching its side as red mist vaporized out of a hole in it, not mortally wounded but startled and turning every which way to see what had just happened.

It saw the man, and their eyes met for a second.

He fired again and missed, and it took off as soon as he shot at it, bounding on all fours away and around the corner. That was his cue. He ran back to his truck-

The car had skidded to a stop right beside it, upside-down, its left front bumper nearly holding the door shut. He took a deep breath, and then heaved the car sideways about a foot, before climbing in and slamming the door shut and turning the keys. The engine roared to life, and he backed out of the parking spot and turned around, headed around the building to where the orange one had fled.

* * *

The first shot panicked Rachel. She wanted to run away from them, but she looked behind herself and the dumpsters she was hiding behind and all she could see was flat orange ground. I’m trapped! she thought.

Then she heard the second blast and the scared yelp of the monster-thing, and its feet pounding the ground as it ran off. And she thought Wait, that was the police, or a hunter or …

She backed up against the dumpster and slowly found herself settling to the ground, shaking, as the adrenalin started to wear off. She heard the engine start in the background, but it didn’t even register because she was so scared. There wasn’t anything in her but fear and panic, with a thin layer of conscious thought on top, and she found that she couldn’t control her own breathing. She couldn’t even try, she was so scared. And she didn’t understand the strange feelings all over her body — couldn’t see the claws shrinking, limbs contracting and fur growing back in on itself. She could only look straight upwards and gasp for breath and think I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m horribly maimed, all my guts are leaking out, I’m-

Something fell on top of her, obscuring her vision, and she couldn’t even move but could only think Why’s there a blanket on top of me now?

Rachel shifted position, feeling gravel and pavement beneath her bare skin. And why am I-

“Get in!” someone shouted, over the roar of the nearby engine.

She sat there for a moment, not comprehending. Then, slowly, she stood up, holding the blanket and trying to straighten it out. Parts of it felt slick and wet, and she looked and saw that she was bleeding.

“I said-”

Rachel screamed and jumped, and hurriedly wrapped the blanket around herself as a man stepped around the side of the dumpster.

He didn’t seem bothered. “You ready?”

“I … uh … ” She was still short of breath.

“This way.” He turned around and headed back to the truck, that Rachel saw on the other side of the dumpsters as she went and followed him.

She saw something else, too. Is that a tail sticking out of his pants? As if in response, it wagged.

He climbed in, and she did too, carefully. The inside was as old and beat-up as the outside, with cracks on the dashboard and exposed upholstery coming out of a thick gash in the seat.

As soon as Rachel got in, one arm still holding the door open, she thought What am I doing? Why is this man here and what does he want with me? Is he some kind of-

Out of nowhere the creature jumped on the hood, tilting the truck forward and sending Rachel up against the dashboard, her face right next to its claws. She screamed and tried to back up as it roared and tore off the driver’s side-view mirror, trying to pry the truck open.

Something exploded right next to her. The windshield shattered, held in place around the cracks by the safety glass laminate. And the wolf creature was blown backwards and sent into the grass, writhing in pain.

“Hold this.” The dog-eared man handed her the shotgun he’d just fired, and she took it before realizing the door was still open. Setting the gun on the dashboard, she slammed the door shut while the man flipped a switch to turn on the windshield wipers. They creaked to life, and she shivered.

“You ready?” The man looked over at her. It occurred to her that he was probably younger than his truck.

“Uh … ” She looked up at the hole in the dashboard. The blood on it was starting to evaporate, and was misting off into the air like it’d never existed. And behind it, out on the grass, the creature was starting to crawl back to its feet, clutching its wounds and looking mad.

“Good.” He threw the truck into reverse and backed up quickly, the creature seeming to shrink into the background, until the back of the truck hit the curb and went up it and both their heads hit the roof. Then he pushed the stick to put it in gear and spun the wheel around, taking them out of the parking lot with tires screeching just as the wolf creature stood.

It loped towards them on all fours, closing distance fast as the truck sped towards the Interstate. All Rachel could do was watch it get larger, framed by the words “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR,” and think Hey, I’ve seen this movie before!

As they pulled onto the highway it lunged at them and grabbed on to the back of the truck. But the man spun the wheel until it was finally thrown into the grass, the back door flying off after it. Rachel looked behind her out the window, trying to see where it went, and finally spotted it standing upright and receding into the distance.

Only once it was out of sight did it occur to her that she had been panicking nonstop, and that she was about to hyperventilate. She swallowed and choked her breathing back down, taking deep, shuddering breaths and waiting for her heartbeat to settle.

“You okay?” the man said, glancing at her.

She nodded, too quickly.

“Good,” he said, and went back to driving.

When she’d caught her breath enough to talk, she looked up at him. “What was that thing?”

“Werewolf,” he said, as though it were obvious. As he spoke, his dog ears and tail shrank back into him.

She stared. “What are you?”

“Cynocephalus.” He didn’t even look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the road.

The truck was rattling from being pushed so fast, and it was hard to hear what he said. She gave him a weird look. “You’re a snuffleupagus?”

“see-no-SEPH-uh-lus. Means weredog.”

A pause. The truck continued to rattle.

“Well, w-where did you come from?” She adjusted the blanket, trying to warm herself and stay covered at the same time. “Did you know? I mean-”

He turned on the radio, to a shower of static.

“Hey, I’m talking here!”

“And you should be listening.” He held up his hand. “Now shush.”

She did listen. “ZZZwhirhummm-her First Cha-KSSSH-cked the werecoyote, but was fought off by-rttTTrTTT-are now heading east on I-40.”

She stared at the radio, confused, trying to make sense of it. Then all of a sudden there was a deep, resonant female voice, and it drowned out all other noise in the truck. “Hello, Rachel. Thanks to you and Bryce, no one was killed during Tara’s First Change. Your friend will be detained in human form by the county sheriff in two hours, and will be held overnight before being turned over to a privately-held laboratory. There, she will be drugged and killed, and her remains will be dissected. Thank you for listening.”

The voice faded back into static, and Rachel found herself laying limp on the seat, plastered in sweat. That had taken more out of her than the entire fight had.

“What was that?” Her voice was a whisper.

“A Harbinger.” He glanced at her. “What did he say?”

“She said … ” Rachel was still in shock. She tried to make herself sit upright, then looked at him. “Bryce?”

“Yes?”

She swallowed. “Uh, my name’s Rachel, just so you know.”

“I know.” He nodded.

“She said … oh man.” Her free hand went to her forehead. “That was Tara, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She … ” Rachel tried to make herself calm down. “Tara’s going to be locked up, and put in a lab and dissected.”

“Did she say when?”

“Sometime tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“I, uh … ” She watched as he got out a water bottle from a sack on the floorboard between them, while he was driving, and sipped at it one-handed before offering it to her. She shook her head, then immediately nodded and drank from it before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“I don’t know when,” she went on, as he took the bottle from her and put it back where he’d gotten it.

“Did she say who’s taking her?”

“The county sheriff … ”

“We know where to find her, then.” He nodded, eyes still on the road. “I can take you there tomorrow morning.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” She indicated herself. “I just … ”

Rachel stopped, because she realized that she was about to say I just fought off a werewolf one-on-one. And as Bryce slowly looked over at her, she realized what else she had heard on that radio.

Werecoyote.

* * *

After that, a peculiar feeling of numbness overtook her on their way into town. And it wasn’t her injuries; she barely managed to check (they had healed over and vanished). It was more like shock, and fear, and embarrassment.

Once they got into town Bryce stopped at a drive-thru, then let her eat while he went into a department store to pick up some clothes for her. She was so numb it took her a minute to take the food from him even when they had already parked, and then she still had to make herself speak in order to tell him her size.

Even letting a guy know how overweight she was wasn’t as mortifying as the knowledge of what had just happened. She knew what werecreatures were, or at least she thought she did from movies and pop-culture references. And they were just so … intense. Their minds were more animal than human, and they gave in to their feral sides and underwent grotesque transformations.

She’d seen it in movies, and it’d made the hair on the back of her neck bristle. The thought that it’d happened to her, that she’d been (that she was) one of those things changing on camera for shock value, was so alien that she just wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out.

Rachel glanced up at the parking lot, and at her reflection in the mirror above the windshield, and saw that she had furry, pointed ears sticking out of the top of her head.

She panicked as though a swarm of bees had landed on her, messing up her hair and pounding the ears to make them go away. It hurt, but she didn’t care. She finally felt them retract, along with the tail that’d come out at the same time, but by then she was covered in sweat again and was losing control of her breathing.

They saw- somebody- I-

Holding still with terror, she flicked her gaze to either side, scanning the parking lot. No one seemed to be watching her. And she was far enough from the main entrance that there weren’t many people there anyway.

Rachel finally took in a long, shuddering breath, and then covered her face with her hands.

I can’t deal with this …

The thought that “Rachel = horror movie creature” was still too much for her to bear. So she found herself imagining a real coyote as a defense mechanism. She’d seen them before on her mother’s land, and she knew they killed sheep and rabbits and things but she ate meat too, after all. And they’d always seemed so skittish, or at most curious. They were so small, at least compared to a wolf.

She imagined a coyote with drooping ears, looking like a forlorn puppy dog, and she laughed nervously because she knew That’s me. That’s what I am right now. She let herself be that thing, not physically but inside; she let herself identify with it, and was scared with it and scared as it. All the movies she’d seen fell away … all the monsters and grotesque transformations. All that was left was her, and she was a coyote and herself at the same time. And she let herself be okay with that.

Rachel felt like a scared animal, and all she wanted to do was curl up and wait for this all to be over. But she started to smell the food Bryce had bought her, now that she was aware of her surroundings again. So she sat upright and unwrapped it, careful to keep herself wrapped up in the blanket, and ate slowly and deliberately. It wasn’t from the kind of restaurant she worked at, but at this point she thought that was just as well.

She remembered as though through a thick haze what it’d been like in her last seconds there, and how she’d tried to get everyone to safety. Had she changed by then? She imagined herself as this monster (she didn’t know what she looked like) coming out into the kitchen and roaring at everyone, thinking she was telling them to run for cover. They must have been terrified, she thought, and laughed and shook her head sadly as she thought of Alice. She must have been terrified.

Bryce unlocked the door and got in just then, saying something about having bought multiple sizes and stashing bags full of coat hangers behind the seat. She just nodded and kept eating, not wanting to think about anything else.

By the time that she’d finished, they’d pulled up to a motel not far from the department store, and for a second Rachel was fearful. But when Bryce came back from the office, he handed her her own cardkey and told her where her room was.

“Clean up and get dressed,” he told her. “And set your alarm for an early start. We’ve got to be there first thing in the morning to keep Tara from being dissected.”

“Okay,” she said, and nodded. It seemed so unreal to her now.

He got out and went to his room, taking his shotgun and a satchel from under the seat with him. After a moment, she opened the door and got out herself. Then she grabbed up a few bags of clothes, holding them in the same hand that was holding the blanket around herself, and locked and shut the door and went up to the door to her room.

The first order of business was to clean herself off. She picked out some clothes to wear, and took a long shower. But as she was looking in the fogged-up mirror, after she’d finished drying herself, she saw the shadows of ears on the top of her head. And she felt her tail wag nervously, inside the towel she’d wrapped herself with.

By this time she wasn’t scared so much as disgusted. Are those going to keep surprising me like that?

But something occurred to Rachel. And so she thought of her ears and her tail as parts of herself, and focused on making the rest of herself like them. It happened so fast that she tripped on her new reverse-jointed legs, and just barely caught herself on the counter.

She could see her muzzle, and feel the thick fur on her hide. Her breaths came in from a long way away from her face, and her chops were held open as her tongue hanged out, sweating in the hot air.

Rachel looked down at her hands, and saw thick pawpads and dull claws. Looking at them from the back, they were shaped like human ones, but were furry and fuzzy and had strange finger-joints. It was unreal, and she knew that she was examining herself … she didn’t feel uncomfortable this way at all. But it reminded her of the times that she’d spent playing with her mom’s dogs when she was little, and feeling their paws and examining them up close and ruffling their fur before running outside.

A thought came to her, and she wiped a spot on the mirror clear so she could look into it. What looked back looked exactly like a coyote’s face, its muzzle hanging wide open and its fur all messed up and wet.

Rachel laughed, and it came out as a bark. She held the next laugh in, clutching her wet furry sides and giggling to herself. That hadn’t looked like a scary creature at all … all she was was this doglike thing crossed with a human. Dogs were okay and people were okay, so she was okay with herself. And as she looked at herself in the mirror, after cleaning the whole thing off, she couldn’t help but think that she looked nice this way, even if her fur was wet. It was thick enough that she could probably go out just like this, if it wouldn’t startle people.

She didn’t think she seemed very powerful this way, though, and could tell she was still slightly overweight even through the fur. She thought she was maybe a couple of inches taller, but that was probably because of her digitigrade legs … and she remembered being taller, back at the restaurant. And taking a door off its hinges.

Rachel opened the door a crack, trying not to let all the steam out, and tested its hinges a tiny bit. Then she pulled on them with more force, but she barely even heard them creak. It seemed just as solid as it always had. How did I do that? she wondered. That were- er, when I fought Tara, she was HUGE. How did I even survive that?

She tried making herself change further, but realized she barely knew how. Maybe it was some kind of instinct … I remember being so scared at the time. Maybe adrenalin does it? She didn’t know.

After making sure the curtains were closed, Rachel took a deep breath and stepped out that way, as her werecoyote self, her bare paws touching the carpet. Then she turned the television on, and alternated between watching it and testing her new self out, walking and moving around just to see how it felt. For a minute she jumped on one of the beds, and even jumped in between them, but she stopped there because she didn’t want to give the cleaning lady too hard of a time.

Just before she fell asleep, she lay sprawled out on top of the blankets (her fur was thick enough), watching a movie on television. A man was turning into some kind of fuzzy, plastic makeup-y creature, that she thought was supposed to be a werewolf. And his girlfriend was screaming … at how bad the special effects are, Rachel thought.

Heh, she thought, and her tail thumped onto the bed next to her a few times. That’s so dumb. She didn’t feel threatened by it at all, because she knew it was nothing like her.

Finally, she turned off the TV, then rolled over onto her side and went to sleep.

* * *

Rachel woke up to a knock at the door. She cracked open one eyelid, and cocked her ears towards it. Huh … it’s not even light out yet, she thought.

The knock again, more insistent. “Get up!” Bryce’s voice.

“Okay, I’m coming … ” She drowsily uncurled from the nest that she’d made in the covers and hopped down, only to find that her legs were not working. Rachel let out a yip as she fell to the floor, and tried to stand up but collapsed again.

What’s happening? Rachel looked up and saw herself in the mirror next to the door, and her mind went blank. Instead of the coyote / human hybrid that she’d seen last night, there was a full coyote on all fours.

“You alright?”

“I … don’t know!” She said it and then wondered how she had. My lips- er, muzzle moved, and I heard sound come out, but …

How come I can talk this way, but Alice couldn’t understand me back at the restaurant?

“Well, do you need me to come in there?”

But Rachel had already changed back to her half-coyote self. “No, thanks, I should be fine … ”

Her brain took a moment to process what’d happened. Then it took another long moment to remember what’d happened the day before. She looked herself over in the mirror, but instead of the familiarity from last night there was only a gnawing uneasiness, which threatened to escape in a whine.

She took a deep breath, holding it in for a second and letting it out. Then she shook her head. I should get dressed.

A few minutes later she’d changed back to her human self. She had just finished putting on one of the outfits that Bryce had gotten her, so that she could try it on, when he knocked on the door again. She ran out, bags of coat hangers in hand, the tags still attached to her loose shirt and jeans.

It was cold outside. Breath escaped from her nostrils in white puffs, in the light of the overhead streetlamp.

“I’ll turn the heat on in the truck,” Bryce said.

“What about the … ” But as she spoke, he pulled out a small, gleaming metal item from his pocket, and waved it over the holes in the windshield. The glass creaked and hissed as it fused back together.

” … what was that?”

“A Token of friendship.” He held it out to her. It was a tiny silver medallion. “From the Harbingers.”

“Oh … ”

He closed his palm around it, and put it back in his pocket. “Let’s go.”

Soon the bags were stashed behind the seat, and the truck was rumbling back the way they’d come at just barely the minimum speed limit. It shook, and she shook with it and the cold, and rubbed her hands right next to the heater vent.

Bryce, in his thick leather jacket, was unaffected. “You can change to anthro, if you like. To keep warm.”

“What’s that?”

“Anthro means ‘human.’ It’s like a human with animal features, or an animal walking upright.”

“Ohh, right … I tried that last night. Won’t it … ” Then she noticed she already had ears and a tail.

“Nah, it doesn’t mess up your clothes. Only the war form does that.”

Rachel looked out the windshield at the road. The sky was dark and moonless, and there were no headlights approaching. So she let herself become half-coyote. She felt her fur bunch up underneath her clothing, and her shoes tightened so she kicked them off. “How does it … ” She felt around back. There was a hole for her tail, somehow.

He glanced over and nodded. “Works every time.”

Rachel was still shivering, but she could feel her fur coat’s warmth. She’d need to ask him to turn off the heater soon. “So what’s the one with ears and a tail? Or does it have a name?”

“Kemono.”

“Kimono?”

“Kay-mo-no.”

“Uh-huh.” Rachel said it under the rumble of the truck’s engine. She raised her voice to ask “What does it mean?”

“It’s basically Japanese for ‘person with animal ears and a tail.’”

“Oh.” Rachel tried to adjust her clothing, and found a tag in the way. “Uh, could you turn the heat off please?”

He did.

She looked out the windshield, to see if there were incoming cars. It felt daring to be out in public looking like this, but if somebody saw her she knew she’d be mortified.

Something Bryce had said caught up with her, though. “What’s war form?”

“A form for war.”

She sideyed him. It was easy to do, since her eyes were more on the sides of her head.

“You know,” he said. “War. As in killing people.”

Rachel squirmed.

It seemed he could tell she didn’t understand. He looked over at her before continuing. “You know there’s this chemical called adrenalin, that puts you into fight-or-flight mode.”

She folded her arms, embarrassed and miffed. “I know.”

“When a werecreature feels that way, bad things happen.”

“Bad things?”

“Like nine feet of death cutting through everything in its way.” He looked straight ahead as he spoke to her. “Sometimes you can reason with them. Sometimes you can’t. Best to try after you’ve gotten out of the way.”

Rachel looked straight ahead too, reliving the attack. Remembering the terror. When she’d seen the monster, she hadn’t stopped to think about anything … what it was, how it’d gotten there, what’d happened to Tara or if it had eaten her. Everything she’d done, including locking the door and trying to warn everyone, she’d done on autopilot. Or if not fully on autopilot, then close.

I wonder what Tara felt like? she wondered.

I wonder how she’s feeling now?

* * *

Tara felt like a lost, forlorn puppy. She lay curled up on her cot in the concrete prison cell, wearing an orange uniform and bundled up in a thin blanket. Her eyes were closed, but she hadn’t slept the whole night.

The drunken man two cells over was still calling to her. She covered her face and her ears, squeezing tears out of her eyes. Go away, go away, go away …

In her mind’s eye, she saw the puppy she imagined herself as sitting at the table, in the “special” school she’d been sent to after her diagnosis. “Pick up the spoon,” her teacher said.

The puppy stared up at her, confused.

A hand came down and took her paw, and set it down on the utensil. “Pick. Up. The spoon.”

The puppy barked. Then a shadow loomed over her, and she cowered. The hand picked her up and tossed her into a pen, and she tumbled to a stop, shook her head and looked up. Shadows over her gestured and fought.

“Your daughter’s progress is too slow.”

“She’s not my daughter! My daughter’s been taken from me!”

She paced in circles, head low and ears and eyes towards the things casting the shadows. As she paced, she grew to the size of a small dog.

“Talk to me! Why won’t she talk?”

“She’s just too slow. Look, she doesn’t even understand what we’re saying.”

The “dog” looked up, and sighed.

She grew into a young adult wolf, gray and fluffy and lean. And she looked up, as a hand was held out towards her face. At first she held back, hesitant, but then she leaned forward and sniffed it.

It grabbed her, and she fought and squirmed as it forced her into a harness. Then she looked up at the enormous sled dogs all around her, towering over her and forming neat lines.

A whip cracked and they took off, and she ran as fast as she could trying to keep up with them. Her lungs ached, and her heart pounded, and her legs felt like they would give out. But a voice kept saying Go! Go! Faster! Faster! You think you can rest now? There is no rest! Run! Keep running! Don’t ever stop!

The voice sounded like her father. “You think I’m going to pay to support you once you turn eighteen? Think again.”

The voice sounded like her mother. “Honestly, Tara, what’s so hard about this? These are the best years of your life!”

The voice sounded like the people at school, and she cried and fought to forget what they’d said.

She lay there curled into the fetal position, arms pressing the pillow against her ears and the back of her head. Her lips moved silently as the voice found physical form. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless.

Why can’t you just control yourself? she whispered. What are you going to do if you have one of your meltdowns in public? You could go to jail for that!

Everything turned into a haze.

Tara sat up with her back to the wall, hugging her pillow between her chest and her knees. She rocked back and forth, eyes closed and lips continuing to move.

* * *

That’s how she was an hour later, when Rachel came in to rescue her.

The door down the hall opened. But all she heard was snoring, from the drunken man two cells down. She couldn’t hear any footsteps until they were right in front of her.

“Tara,” Rachel whispered.

She looked up. And then she stared. It looked like an animal given part-human form, stuffed into clothes with the tags still attached. Tara felt her insides turn to ice.

“Tara, it’s me! Remember?”

Slowly, Tara shook her head, and clutched the pillow to herself.

“Do you remember the fight at the restaurant?”

She nodded. Then she shook her head. Her wide eyes did not leave Rachel.

Rachel sighed, and leaned her head up against the bars. “Tara, you’re a werewolf. You shifted to what’s called ‘war form,’ and you almost killed everyone there at the store.”

Tara began to shake.

“I’m a werecoyote, and I helped a cyno … cyn … a weredog hold you off. Now we’re breaking you out of here. Come on!”

Tara shook her head quickly, eyes closed, still shaking.

“Why?”

Tara’s lips started moving long before even Rachel’s furry ears could make out what she was saying. ” … should be destroyed, should be destroyed, should be destroyed … ”

“What? Tara, stop saying that!”

She shook her head, eyes still closed. ” … should be destroyed … ”

Rachel sighed, and listened for another long, painful moment before speaking. “Tara … ”

” … should be destroyed … ”

“Tara, listen to me!”

She shook her head quickly.

“It’s not your fault, okay? You didn’t know. None of us did. And you shouldn’t have been there to begin with. It was loud, it was chaotic, they wouldn’t let you sit down … it’s no wonder you lost control. There weren’t any accommodations for your-”

“I shouldn’t be here,” Tara whispered, sniffling.

“I know, that’s why we’re breaking you out!”

“I mean in the world. At all.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “If I can’t put up with the same things that everyone else can, then I just ruin things for everyone. Or end up hurting other people. And now I’ve k- … I’ve … ohh … ” She started crying into the pillow, pressing it close to her face.

It tore Rachel apart to watch her. Can coyotes cry? she thought. She found out she could.

Rachel swallowed. “Tara, you didn’t kill anyone. Okay?”

“How do you know?”

“I know you wouldn’t have. You only fought because you were frustrated and you were being held back. And a … ” She stopped, unsure how to say it.

Tara looked up.

Rachel sighed. “I heard the voice of a higher power, and it told me that you didn’t kill anyone.”

“A higher power should kill me,” Tara whispered, looking away.

“A higher power created you, Tara!” Rachel’s muzzle hung open in between sentences, because she was perspiring like mad. “It made you autistic, and it made you a wolf. And wolves aren’t meant to be caged.”

“I could hurt people … ” She looked up at the wall, as if examining it.

“And they could hurt you too. But at least you know that your actions can hurt other people. At least you try not to hurt them. They don’t even realize when they hurt you. Or when they’ve forced you into a situation where you can no longer control yourself.”

She said nothing.

Rachel’s eyes flicked up to the door leading out. “Tara, they’re going to dissect you.”

She said nothing.

“Tara, please come!”

Rachel’s ears perked, as she heard footsteps and doors opening outside the hall. But Tara just rocked back and forth, seemingly dead to the world, until the door to the hall was flung open.

The drunken man snorted, and woke up.

“Well, what have we here?” a male voice said. It didn’t sound loud and gruff, like the trooper who’d picked her up last night, but silky and polished like a city man. Tara glanced up to see it, but the cell wall blocked her view.

Rachel backed up against the wall. “I, uh … ”

“Shoot her.”

The cell block was filled with LOUD, and the wall was splashed with red. Tara instantly jumped to her feet.

* * *

He looked like a recent grad from business or law school. Clean-shaven, with a suitcoat so black it was glossy, and a large onyx gem set into a ring. It gleamed as he straightened his tie, enjoyed Rachel’s shocked look and smiled.

Beside him were two literal stuffed shirts. They wore uniforms and carried rifles, but they were not human. Inside the clothing and past the sunglasses were thick masses of water shaped like people, their features rippling with surface tension. The overhead light became swimming pool shadows around them, but they themselves didn’t look glossy enough to be CGI.

“Go in,” the man said, looking over at them. “Get them both.”

The two walked up to the bars to Tara’s cell, stopping in front of it calmly. One of them walked through the bars, its clothes folding and its rifle held in between them. The other stood outside and watched.

There was a gunshot, and the man winced. Then water came splashing out of the jail cell, drenching Rachel (who scooted back) and the other “guard,” who raised its gun. It shot twice as the bars were pulled open, then the rifle was yanked out of its hand and sent flying down the hall.

The man ducked, ignoring the startled look of the drunk in the cell just beside him, and looked up to see a female werewolf in war form biting down on the “guard”‘s neck and tearing. It splashed apart, clothes collapsing and water sloshing across the floor towards him. And the wolf looked down at the coyote for a second before looking up at him and growling, one hand pressed to the floor. It was a low sound, that shook the walls and seemed to come from the earth itself.

The man drew a gleaming silver revolver on her, sweat beading across his forehead, and took three tries to pull the catch back. Then he swung around as he heard footsteps, and saw a dog-faced man in a leather jacket.

“Boy,” the dog said, “do you think that’s going to stop her?”

The growling intensified, and there was a scrape as claws dug into concrete. The suitcoated man looked back.

“You’d better run now.”

* * *

The chase would’ve lasted about one second if Tara hadn’t had to slow down to go around Bryce. As it was, the suitcoated man barely made it out into the foyer before she grabbed him, held him up till his head hit the ceiling and roared right into his face. He screamed.

She held him there for a long moment. Breathing on him, glaring at him, remembering all the people in suits who had made her life miserable. The grip of her claws tightened.

Finally she flung him into the wall. He smacked into it and hit the floor, taking some of the plaster with him and landing next to the stunned sheriff, who was gagged and tied up behind a desk. The man did not move after that.

She stood there clenching and unclenching her fists, squeezing her pawpads with her claws. She did not move as Bryce helped Rachel out into the foyer, and then leaned down to check on the suitcoated man.

“Still alive,” Bryce said.

Rachel coughed, painfully.

“We’d better get going.” He looked up at Tara.

She followed them outside, watching as they climbed into the truck, knowing that it was too small for her now. Tara looked up, out at the mountains in the distance and the miles of flat country between them, and it was dark out but she could see as well as if it were daytime. Deep breaths of cold air cooled her tongue and chilled her insides, and she realized that she’d never felt more alive.

The wind rustled her fur and roared in her ears, and she couldn’t hear what Bryce was saying to her. She jumped into the truck’s flatbed, and it creaked angrily and she heard him yelling at her to get out. So she did, hopping down and crouching next to it.

It started up and pulled out of the parking lot, and she ran after it, out onto the highway. On two legs at first, then on instinct she switched to all fours. It wasn’t like crawling on hands and knees; it was like running, but twice as fast. Each set of limbs propelled her, and picked up where the other left off. She didn’t know how fast she was going, but the sense of speed was incredible, and she felt momentum carrying her so strongly that she knew she’d flip over if she tried to stop.

Wind pressed on her like an invisible curtain, and she squinted into it as it pressed her fur against her. Concrete wore and rubbed at her pawpads, and she veered off into the brush, the dry grass whipping her neck but the earth softer under her paws.

The truck began to speed up, and she pushed harder into the wind, grinning and enjoying the game. But then it went even faster, too fast for her to keep up, and the distance between them increased. She finally slowed down, slowed and came to a stop, just as two police cars sped by. And for a second she wanted to chase them, but she took one step and knew that she couldn’t. Tara was breathing hard, taking in deep breaths one after the other, her lungs burning and heart racing.

She forced herself to take slow, stiff steps one after the other, to keep knots from forming in her arms and legs. After what seemed like only a short time, her heart rate settled down, and she stood back upright and dusted off her hand-forepaws. Then she looked down at them, and herself.

Tara didn’t recognize herself. Her shape was still vaguely humanoid / feminine, but she was covered in thick fur. And it wasn’t just that; she was partway shaped animal-like. The joints of her arms and legs suggested a creature meant to run on all fours, even though she was standing upright.

She turned around and examined herself in the light of the crescent moon. The grass was much shorter next to her than it usually was, and she knew she was still in the war form, even though she had calmed down. Even after that run she felt like a coiled spring, powerful and ready to leap and run and climb without stopping. She had never felt anything like it … but there was this sense of familiarity, of having seen or felt or known this before. As though she was rediscovering it.

She clung to that feeling, and willed herself to believe that this was okay. That it was normal, or at least normal for her. Because if it wasn’t, she didn’t know what she would do.

Something startled her, and she whirled around, instinctively baring her claws and scanning the highway for movement. What had happened? What was it?

Tara heard it again, like a voice whose breath was the wind. She held herself still, slowly looking around with her eyes, scenting the cold air and cocking her ears in all directions.

Finally she heard it, as though the whole world was speaking to her and she stood atop its vocal chords. It was a male voice, high-pitched and gentle somewhere past the force it conveyed. It was so powerful that it shook her, and she fell on her hands and knees. “Hello, Tara.”

It was quiet for a second, and she shook her fur out of her face and tried to catch her breath. In less than a minute, she’d gone from feeling enormous to tiny and insignificant.

She coughed. “H-hello?”

It spoke again, and she braced herself against it, scared because of how strong it was. “The person you injured will recover. Your friend will recover as well. She and Bryce will escape from the people pursuing them, using the Tokens that have been prepared for them.

“You will be spoken to again tomorrow, and again as courtesy dictates. If you follow the instructions given to you, you will not hurt anyone more than is needful, and you will never be caged again.

“Your life has been a hard one. It is good that you are set free.”

“Th-thank you,” she whispered, her face now covered in tears.

“Thank you for listening.”

The voice went away.

* * *

Tara sat there in the grass for some time, huddled into a ball against the cold and the intense emotion. Crying into her own fur, and sniffling and rocking back and forth. For a moment she imagined seeing herself from the outside, and thought how hard it was to imagine a creature like this acting the way that she was. But she had to, because it was the only way she knew how to react. It was the only way she had strength to.

She finally stood up, sniffling, still taller and stronger than before. Much of the strength had left her, because of the experience that she’d just had, but she felt it returning slowly. It was only a matter of time.

As the sun rose, she started walking away from the highway, towards the mountains. The voice would speak to her again, she knew. Maybe she’d find out what to do … maybe she’d find out how to change back, or to catch up with Rachel.

Either way, maybe she would be okay.