Still Life with Shape-shifter (29 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

MELANIE

T
his is the pattern we follow for the next four months.

Ann promises to be good, to keep her animal shape no matter what the provocation. But every time she reappears in civilization, after weeks of roaming the countryside in her canine state, she backslides. She becomes a laughing, willful, mischievous young woman who very quickly turns into a pale, exhausted, frighteningly weak human girl. She sleeps away two or three days. Once she wakes up, she is properly chastened. She apologizes, makes more promises, and disappears at William’s side.

And then the cycle starts again.

I try to thwart her. Though it nearly kills me, I decide not to visit Ann the fourth time she arrives at Maria’s. I listen greedily to all the details Maria can give me over the phone, but I don’t drive out to her house. If my presence is the lure Ann cannot resist, I will remove the temptation. I won’t let her see me. And when Maria calls me a few days later to say, “Well, they’re gone, and neither of them ever reverted,” I think my strategy has worked.

But that night when I come home from work, I find Ann slumped on the front porch, leaning against the siding, already deep in that drugged sleep from which there will be no waking her for days. I suspect she’s naked under the dirty tablecloth that William must have dragged from the patio furniture out back. He’s sitting beside her in human shape, wearing a pair of ragged jeans I keep for him in a bin by the front door, and he jumps to his feet as I come running up from the edge of the lawn.

“I couldn’t find the key,” he says. “And I couldn’t move her.”

He carries her inside and we go through the usual ministrations, cleaning her up, trying to get her to rouse enough to swallow some juice or water, wondering aloud what we should do. Once we’ve managed to get a nightgown on her and arrange her comfortably on the bed, William stands there for a few moments, just staring down at her still form. For almost the first time since I’ve known him, I see strong emotions on his face, but I’m not entirely sure which emotions they are. Fear? Anger? Loss? Pain? Love? All of them?

“She’s careless,” I say in a soft voice. “She always was.”

“It’s getting to be too hard,” he says. Shaking his head, he steps out of the room, and I hear the front door open and close. He moves so quietly that I probably wouldn’t be able to hear his footsteps anyway, but I imagine that he has melted into setter shape and gone soundlessly trotting down the road, not once looking back.

With all my heart, I hope that is not the last we see of William. But I find that I won’t be able to blame him if it is.

*   *   *

A
nn will not wake up.

At the end of the third day, when I have barely been able to get her to sit up and swallow water, I have become frantic. I break down and call Dr. Kassebaum again, even though I know there’s nothing she can do. There’s no answer at her office or on her cell phone, and my panic ratchets up a notch. Oh God, Ann needs medical attention, and no one else in the world can help me.

“We can take her to the ER,” Brody says, for possibly the hundredth time.

“I don’t know—maybe—I can’t think,” I reply, also for the hundredth time.

But Dr. Kassebaum calls back around dinnertime. “I’m sorry, I’m at a conference, and I’ve had my cell turned off,” she says. “Has there been any change since you left your message?”

“No—not that I can tell. She doesn’t seem to be actually comatose—I can make her take a few sips of juice or water, and she’s spoken a few words—but then she just falls back into this deep, deep sleep. I’m so worried. What if she—”

“Listen, I’m actually in St. Louis,” she interrupts. “I can pick up some supplies and come to your house in the morning. If nothing else, I can give her an IV and some fluids. But Melanie—”

“I know. I know. It’s just that she won’t—she says she’ll be good, then she—I don’t know what else to do.”

“We all make our own choices, and sometimes no one but us understands why we make them,” she says.

“She’s making the wrong choices,” I whisper.

“Maybe not for her. Give me directions to your house, and I’ll be there in the morning.”

*   *   *

I
f anything, Ann is worse the next day—her skin hot to the touch, the few words she utters impossible to understand. If I had not known Dr. Kassebaum was on her way, I don’t know what I would have done. Taken her to the emergency room, most likely. Thrown away a twenty-year-old secret in the desperate hope of saving her life.

But Dr. Kassebaum arrives before nine, dark and serious and professional, and despite the fact I know she cannot truly heal my sister, I am instantly calmer when she walks through the door. She’s carrying a leather satchel and a plastic bag that looks like it came from a grocery store, except it has a caduceus printed on the side. Looks like she stopped at a handy medical-supply store on her way to Dagmar.

“How is she?” Dr. Kassebaum asks, but I just shake my head and show her to Ann’s room.

She wants privacy, so I head back to the kitchen to make tea. Brody’s gone to get groceries, and William still hasn’t returned. I stand in the kitchen with the hot mug in my hand, straining to hear any sounds from down the hall. I feel as alone and abandoned as I have ever felt in my life.

Brody’s shouldering through the front door, bags in hand, as Dr. Kassebaum steps out of Ann’s room and heads to the bathroom to wash her hands. A few moments later, we all group around the dining table, drinking tea and eating Krispy Kreme donuts Brody picked up along with a list of healthier menu items. I eat two of them, almost without pausing to chew. My body is in such a high-stress mode that it’s gone through all my caloric reserves. I feel like I’m starving. At the same time, I feel like I could start throwing up. I suppose the two reactions have the same root cause.

Dr. Kassebaum appears to be ravenous, too, because she downs a whole donut before uttering a word, then she speaks with her usual precise gravity. “I’ve got her stabilized. Part of the problem today was dehydration, and the IV is helping with that. But she’s very weak, and I imagine it will be a few days before she’s up and moving around.”

I nod. “And once she is?”

Dr. Kassebaum looks at me directly. Her eyes are such a dark brown that they look too heavy for her fine-boned face. “She’ll need to make some pretty big decisions. I would expect her to recover enough strength to change to her animal form again—and, in fact, I would encourage her to do so, because she seems much stronger in that state. But I’d also tell her that that should be the last transformation she ever makes.”

It takes me a second to absorb that. “The last—you mean, she should take her husky shape and then never—never become human again? Ever?”

Dr. Kassebaum nods. “Every part of her human body is seriously compromised. Her heart is struggling, her lungs are struggling—they simply can’t attain the size they need to sustain her in this shape. I would expect that, if she makes the transition one more time from animal shape to human, it will be the last time she changes at all. I doubt she would survive the transformation for more than a day.”

I stare at her, and I cannot speak.

Brody reaches under the table to take my hand. “And if she takes her husky shape and
doesn’t
shift? How long will she have in that body?”

Dr. Kassebaum considers. “It’s impossible to predict these things with any accuracy. Six months at the minimum, I would think, and two years at the maximum. Most likely, somewhere closer to a year.”

“That’s not enough time,” I say.

Dr. Kassebaum nods. “I know. There’s never enough time.”

Brody says, “We haven’t been successful, so far, in convincing her
not
to change. Do you have any advice on what we can say this time to make her understand the seriousness of her situation?”

Dr. Kassebaum’s face warms to a sad smile. “My guess is that she understands very well.”

“She can’t,” I say. “Or she wouldn’t be so—stupid. So careless.”

Dr. Kassebaum surveys me with those dark eyes. “And if you were her, what would you do?” she asks softly. “Leave your sister behind?”

“Yes, if it would kill me to see her!”

She shakes her head. “She’d only stay away if it was killing
you
,” she says.

“It is!”

But she shakes her head again. I wonder if she’s right. If I were the changeling child, the one living the strange, shadowy double life, would I be able to stay away from Ann even if I risked death every time I arrived at her doorstep? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I cannot bear to be the siren that calls that bright soul straight down to her destruction.

“Is she awake now?” Brody asks. “Can you talk to her? Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

“She’s sleeping, but it’s a lighter sleep than when I arrived. I think she’ll wake up in a few hours and be more coherent. I can come back tomorrow if you like. But I’m not sure anyone but Ann is going to have any real input into her decision.”

I nod. “You’re right. You’ve done more than enough already. This is between her and me. I can’t thank you enough for rushing down here and—and—just for being there when I needed someone to talk to.”

“Feel free to call anytime,” she says. “I probably won’t be able to help much, but I
will
understand.”

Brody carries all of Dr. Kassebaum’s paraphernalia out to her car, so when I hear the door open again, I think he’s stepped back inside. But when I glance up, I see it’s William who’s returned. He’s in his human form, possibly even more disreputable-looking than usual. Or maybe it’s the expression of misery on his face that makes him appear more tattered, more unkempt than ever.

He’s standing by the door as if he’s ready to bolt back outside if I say the wrong thing, but he doesn’t ask me a question. He just looks at me, and for a long moment, I just look back.

“I called Dr. Kassebaum,” I say, and he nods, so I guess he saw her either as she arrived or as she departed. “She says this is the last time Ann can be human. Next time she shifts from dog to girl will kill her.”

He flinches—a very small motion that I think conceals a very hard blow. His voice is rough but even. “Maybe she should stay human.”

“Dr. Kassebaum says she’s healthier in her other form. She’ll live longer—but still not very long.”

He thinks that over and nods, once, slowly. “Is she still in her room?”

“Sleeping for now. But Dr. Kassebaum thinks she’ll be more herself when she wakes up.” I can’t tell if he’s waiting for my permission or not, but in case he is, I add, “You can go on in and wait with her.”

He nods again and strides down the hall into her room.

This time when the front door opens, it
is
Brody. I don’t say anything, I just walk over and step into him, like I would step into a closet where I want to hide. I close my eyes, I burrow into his shirt, I try to shut out the world and all its calamitous knowledge. His arms come around me, and he brings me in tight, but he doesn’t speak. He is the best haven I have, but there is no safe shore. The lightless seas are storm-tossed and treacherous, and even if I open my eyes, there will be no land in sight.

*   *   *

I
t takes Ann a full week to recover her physical strength though she is laughing and joking by the end of the next day. I make all her favorite meals, one right after the other, not only to tempt her lackluster appetite but to prove to her, in some unspoken fashion, that I love her enough to invest the effort.

“Wow, chicken tetrazzini
and
double fudge cake? You’re the best sister ever!”

“I’ve been worried about you. This is my way of showing gratitude to the universe.”

The three of us decided, in one thirty-second conversation, to wait until Ann was almost back to normal before we shared Dr. Kassebaum’s conclusions with her, but she knows something’s up. Brody and I, at least, have been both overly solicitous and insincerely cheerful, and I haven’t delivered the furious scolding she knows she deserves. Maybe William has been more honest about his level of fear and anger, but if so, he’s expressed himself in private.

At the end of that seventh day, as I’m clearing away the cake dishes, she leans her elbows on the table, and says, “Okay, what gives? You’ve all been acting like I’m going to break apart if I so much as bump against the wall. So what did Dr. Kassebaum tell you about me?”

William and Brody are still at the table. I briefly lock eyes with each of them, then pull out my chair and sit down again.

“She said your body can’t tolerate being human. That you need to change back to your husky shape and stay that way. And that the next time you shift
back
to this shape, you’ll die.”

She opens her eyes wide. “
Wow.
Didn’t anyone ever tell you how to deliver bad news? ‘I hate to tell you that your parrot’s been sick—’”

I make an impatient gesture. “You don’t seem to hear or understand when we sugarcoat things. I thought if I was blunt, I’d get your attention.”

She tosses back her hair. “It’s not much different from what she told us in the spring. Be careful. Hold my shape. Be good, or you’ll be sorry.”

“And you haven’t been good, and now you better be sorry. If you were a cat, you’d have used up eight of your lives. I don’t know how many lives dogs have, but—”

William speaks up unexpectedly. “One. One life. And you’re at the end of yours.”

Ann is unimpressed. “Or so Dr. Kassebaum says. She doesn’t really know.”

I lean across the table, my expression intense. “Well, judging by how long it took you to recover from this transformation, I’d say she’s making a pretty good guess. Listen to her. Listen to all of us. Stay human a few more days, say good-bye, then change shape and
stay changed
. Don’t risk yourself—
don’t end your life
—by coming back to the form that your body can’t sustain.”

She stares at me in disbelief. “How can you say that to me? How can you tell me to never see you again?”

“I’m not saying that! I’m saying I should never see you again in this body. Come back as often as you like—in your husky form.”