Moonburn (10 page)

Something flickered in Magdalena’s dark almond eyes. “What are you doing?”

I took a step forward, shaking my finger in her face like an avenging nanny. “I have had just about enough of you today. What is it, you came here looking for a fight? Well, let’s go for it, then.”

Magda grabbed my right wrist. “Get control of yourself.”

“Get your hands off me!”

“You are shifting, Abra. Look!” She thrust my hand in front of my face. The nails were darkening, lengthening, changing shape. And so were the bones.

Abruptly, Magda turned, putting her arm around me and turning me toward the freezer section. It must have
looked as though she was comforting me, but she was effectively shielding me from the little audience we’d attracted. Looking over her shoulder, I spotted Marlene of the dragon lady nails and Jerome in his
Little House on the Prairie
shirt—two of the biggest gossips in the county. Oh, God, this was going to be all over town by tonight.

“Deep breath. That’s it. Slow and steady.” In teacher mode, Magda was almost reassuring. For the first time, I had a glimpse of what must have attracted Hunter back when Magda was a senior wolf researcher and he was a journalist chasing a story.

“Thank you.” I took another breath and shuddered.

“You are all right now?” Her accent was more pronounced.

I nodded. “I’m sorry. I seem to have less control of my temper these days.”

“Of your temper. And has your … cycle been irregular?”

I didn’t need to respond.

“I see. And do you have any idea why this is happening now?”

I looked at Magda. Up close, there were fine lines visible between her brows, fanning out from the corners of her eyes. It made me like her better. “No.”

The hand that had been loosely holding me across my shoulders tightened, and I winced. “The lycanthropy is progressing. I would never have expected it, but there it is. You are in season.”

For a moment, I was so stuck on the first part of the sentence that I didn’t understand the end. When I remained silent, Magda frowned and said, “Don’t you get it? In season. In estrus. In heat.”

According to my mother, every romantic relationship is a reaction to the one that came before it. Since my mother is Piper LeFevre, iconic sex symbol, her theories about romance carry some weight in the world. Women’s magazines still quote her, usually with the picture from
Lucrezia Cyborgia
with my mother in that tight, clear plastic space suit.

The magazines might think twice about their sources if they knew that my mother renounced men about fifteen years ago. More recently she swore off women as well. Still, she did tell me that she’d always worried that Hunter didn’t love me enough, and that being with him had turned me into a caricature of myself: the studious, earnest, geeky girl that’s a staple of teen movies, complete with long hair, big glasses, and boxy wardrobe.

She’d been right about that. For all I knew, being celibate made her an objective oracle on love and romance.

After the very public scene with Magda in the Stop and Shop, I was willing to take a chance and pay Mom a visit. I’d be the first to admit that it was also a way to postpone having to talk with Red. So instead of a steak dinner, Red got a message on his cell phone: Had to run off to my mother’s at the last minute.

I realized that leaving like this was the sort of thing Hunter used to do to me, but I couldn’t help it. I recalled
Red’s ebullient mood after my lost night, my feeling that there was something he had neglected to tell me. I didn’t trust Magda, but I knew she was perfectly capable of telling the truth when it served her purpose.

Presumably she was as wrong about the Limmikin as she was about gypsies. What did a Romanian wolf researcher know about Native American shapeshifters, anyway? I tried to remember everything Red had told me about his family. Last year we’d meant to go north, to visit his surviving relatives in Canada. But then I’d gotten the position with Malachy and we’d postponed our trip.

But hang on a moment. It was Red who insisted that I go ahead and begin my new job immediately. Maybe he’d had second thoughts about my getting to know his people.

I may have had my reservations about my future with Red, but until this moment, I’d never questioned our past together. I’d always felt that I could depend on him to be open and honest. It was one of his chief attractions, after all of Hunter’s secrets and subterfuges.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

And even though I knew I could have called up my friend Lilliana for advice, I didn’t feel up to exposing the fact that I was involved in yet another dicey romance.

So I threw the groceries in the back of the car and drove up to my mother’s house, flipping around the radio dial until I found Natalie Merchant singing with bruised eloquence about jealousy. This was followed by yet another rendition of Faith Hill singing about how good she and her husband had it so I turned the radio off. The sky was overcast and gray, but as I approached Pleasantvale, the clouds and mist cleared and I caught a glimpse of the half moon, pale and almost translucent around the edges. The sight of it was a reminder, and I took stock of my body, but as far as I could tell, the
change was still weeks away. Which was odd; usually, I felt a pang, like that of ovulation, in the middle of my cycle. Maybe changing last night with Red had used up the lycanthropic hormones. Which meant there might be a bright side to my having a complete memory blackout.

As I turned off the highway, all traces of snow and ice on the ground disappeared. My mother lived an hour and a half away, and seventy-five miles south the air was warmer, the houses larger and built more closely together.

In general, Pleasantvale was a very upscale community, although my childhood home was situated in the one remaining working-class enclave. It looked singularly out of place, surrounded by mixed-family units with names like Paradise Heights and small houses crammed together with mismatched fences and clashing holiday lights. When I was a kid, I’d thought that our neighbors’ homes reminded me of strangers stuck sharing a table at a hotel banquet. Our own home was like a movie set. A movie set for a gothic romance, to be specific.

Modeled after El Greco’s house in southern Spain, it was a fabulous, whimsical villa, and I have some hazy early memories of my parents entertaining other Hollywood types. There was always a cloud of cigarette smoke perfumed with women’s eau de toilette and men’s aftershave, and I could invariably find my father playing director behind his elaborate wet bar, while my mother passed around some fussy, fatty, now defunct appetizer: rumaki, or liver wrapped in bacon and doused in soy sauce, clams casino, pigs in blanket. The main course was often something gimmicky and low rent, like spice-your-own chili or stab-your-own cheese fondue. I remember sneaking into the living room in my pink flannel nightgown and fluffy slippers, risking third-degree burns to jab my skewered bread into the pot when no
one was looking. When I was back in my bed, I could hear my parents, shouting with laughter late into the night. Being an adult, I remember thinking, was going to be a lot of fun.

Not long after came the realization that adult fun was paid for in blood. I stayed up listening to my parents shouting without laughter late into the night. The drinks no longer had names, and my diet of stolen appetizers was replaced by TV dinners. I used to read the product descriptions with great optimism: tender breast of chicken lightly breaded and fried, baby niblets of corn, crisp Idaho fries. I was aware that the reality was damp chicken, soggy potatoes and kernels of corn everywhere, but given a choice between fiction and reality, I went for fiction.

These days, my father owns a small hotel in Key West, and my mother has turned the house into Beast Castle, a not-for-profit refuge for abused animals. I admire my mother’s decision, but it didn’t make coming home a relaxing proposition.

“Thank God you’re here,” my mother said, as she opened the massive front door. She was wearing a purple caftan, just as she had in her hostessing days, and her dyed blond hair was pulled back with a barrette, revealing gray roots. She had lost weight, which I’d been nagging her to do for years. It made her look tired. And still, she was more beautiful than I would ever be.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“I think the husky has an impacted tooth.”

“I wish you’d said something when I called.” Knowing her as I did, I’d brought a variety of medications, just in case, but I hated being taken for granted.

“I didn’t know then. He just started acting funny when I gave him a bone.”

I followed my mother as she swept down the hallway, the ragged hem of her purple caftan trailing behind her.
Like my mother, the house was looking a bit seedy, with antique chairs listing to one side, and all the couches and curtains bearing claw marks. The medieval suit of armor in the main hall looked as though it were rusting around the edges, and the tiled fountain under the domed skylight gave off a strong smell of feline urine.

“So, Mom, how is everything? Besides the husky, I mean.”

“Oh, I’m going crazy. Two of the new girls never showed up for work today, and I’m expecting a new litter of kittens. And here’s Snowboy, poor fellow, he was being kept in a closet all day.” She pointed out the husky, who had his head between his paws and was regarding me with a baleful blue gaze. Like most wolfish dogs, he had a wider range of expression than smaller-faced breeds, but knew how to put on a poker face when he was in pain and strangers were watching. I held out my hand for him to sniff before rummaging in my large leather bag for my stethoscope. Hunter had given me the bag for my birthday, right before we’d left the city, and even though Red kept offering to buy me another, I still loved it too much to give it up.

I pulled the stethoscope out of my ears. “His heart sounds fine,” I told my mother. “Will he let me check his mouth?” Some of her rescue animals had some unresolved issues about being touched by strangers.

“Sure. He’s an angel, aren’t you, Snowy?”

I put my hand beside his muzzle, and Snowy snapped his teeth together, barely missing two of my fingers. “Jesus, Mom!”

“Snowy, no. Abra wants to help you. Go on, try again.”

I glared at my mother. “Mom, he’s going to bite me. Let me give him a sedative first.”

“Just for a little oral exam? You must be joking. Anyway, you’re a werewolf, aren’t you? You shouldn’t need
a sedative to control him.” My mother had been more than understanding about the news that I’d become a lycanthrope. In fact, she’d been ecstatic, demanding that I give her the chance to experience the change as well. But all my nip had given her was a small abscess, and I refused to try again while in wolf form. Being a wolf was a bit like being a three-year-old; you were still you, but a much more elemental, less civilized version. A version that couldn’t always remember why it wasn’t a good idea to eat an entire package of Nutter Butter cookies. A version that didn’t always know its own strength.

“Mom, it doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not? Don’t you have some wolfdog language you can use to communicate? Just growl at him.”

I rocked back on my heels. “First of all, there’s different kinds of growling, and a lot depends on body language. There’s I’m-scared-please-don’t-attack-or-I’ll-bite growling, and there’s I’m-the-total-boss-of-you growling, just to name two. And as long as I’m a person and not a wolf, I’m not sure I wouldn’t get the intonation wrong and tell Snowy here that I’m a total wuss.”

“So why not go wolfy?”

“Because I can’t!”

“Don’t shout, Abra, you’re making Snowy nervous.” My mother petted the dog, who was looking back and forth between us, like a child caught in the middle of a parental argument.

“Okay, one more time. I’m not a shapeshifter, Mom. As I keep trying to explain to you, I don’t have control over the change.” I paused. “And lately, I’ve had even less control than usual.”

My mother didn’t blink. “Have you hurt anyone?” Her voice was utterly calm and businesslike. She was always at her best in a crisis, which was probably why she tried to create one at every opportunity. “Do you think you might have hurt someone?”

“No, no. It’s nothing like that, it’s just …” I let out my breath, unaware that I’d even been holding it. “I don’t know where to begin. I met Magda in the supermarket, and she told me something that got me upset. I don’t know how much to trust her, but I also think Red might not be telling me something …” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I should take care of Snowy first.” I reached into my bag, and my mother put her hand on my shoulder.

“You know what? I think you need to come into the kitchen and let me take care of you first.”

“But Snowboy’s abscess …”

My mother, who never failed to surprise me, pulled me to my feet. “Come on, Abs. Let me make you—No, I don’t have any human food in the house. Let me take you out for lunch, and you can tell me why you look more upset now than you did when you found out Hunter was cheating.”

An hour later, my mother and I were sitting at the local diner, polishing off our goat cheese and spinach omelets. I had told her everything—my outburst at Marlene, Malachy’s unexpected scent, my feeling of unease with Red, Magda’s pronouncement. For the first time in days, I was actually enjoying my food.