Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

Mom become more urgent. Say something, hurry. Turn around. Don’t leave it like this.

I lean forward, fighting every instinct to rush in, to bite Mom on the ass. Don’t be like this. Not now. I want to nudge Bunica, make her wait just another few minutes. Mom will give in. She’ll turn around. Just wait.

A shift at Bunica’s age is irreversible. It will take the last of her shifter magic, leaving her stranded in her animal body. Some who undertake this final shift don’t even survive the transformation. There are good reasons, I suppose. Some do it to avoid the long, painful decline of illness or old age. Some prefer the simpler life of their animal forms anyway, so why not make it permanent? Bunica fits none of those, so she’s got to wait. She just has to.

But she doesn’t. As several family members begin to raise their voices at Mom to turn around, to get one last look, Bunica wades across the creek. In doing so, her eyes find mine. It’s a moment that will forever be burned into my mind. Our gazes lock, her human eyes easily recognizing my fox’s eyes. She pauses just long enough to smile before shifting. Her nightgown drops in a pile, from which her dull brown fox shakes loose and wanders into the underbrush, a permanent addition to Newport woods.

Mom collapses, shaking violently. As Nolan and my dad carry her away and Ray crosses the creek to retrieve the nightgown, I realize that Ben is staring in my direction. I lower my head and back away.

But I’m not leaving yet. I know where to go. There’s a spot in the woods where an old fallen tree serves as a playground of sorts for animals, with hollow cavities to explore and mazes of branches to traverse like monkey bars. It’s where Bunica first taught me how to hunt, and where she listened to all my teenage tales of woe, sometimes about boys, but mostly about Mom. It’s our together place.

When I get there, Bunica is also just arriving, her short, gray legs half-buried in snow with each step. I bow my head, and she nuzzles her furry cheek against mine. There’s a sheltered spot in the fallen tree, great for sleeping. I follow her there, and she lies down, blinking slowly with fatigue. After I curl in beside her, she lays her head across my neck. I feel ten years old again.

When I wake, she’s gone. It’s not for good, I remind myself. Even though she wasn’t born here like me, these woods have become as much her true north as they are mine. She’ll roam and hunt and do all the things any fox would do here. I expect my family will see her now and then crossing through the wagon train or stealing scraps from the bonfire. But as for Dottie Davies, the original Double-D of Detroit, she is now passed into legend.

I retrace my steps with reluctance. Foxes don’t feel much by way of complicated emotions. Anything beyond fear and hunger becomes dull. I can still understand complex human interactions, but I won’t feel them deeply. Not until I shift back, and then everything will come flooding in. No need to hurry for that.

When I reach my bag, still sitting at the base of a white pine, I’m surprised by a whiff of that campfire scent. Was Nolan here? I sniff at my bag and poke it with my nose. He didn’t touch my stuff. The leaves, though, are definitely trampled, as if by boots. I look around, but I but see no one. I listen. All clear.

Can’t put it off any longer. After a final pathetic whine, I shift, and immediately my eyes fill with tears. My heart feels like it’s being squeezed as images of Dad and Mom and Bunica crash against me. Rummaging through my bag is nearly impossible through the tears, but finally I manage to extract socks and underwear.

Fighting back sobs, I stand to my full height to put pants on, and that’s when I get the answer to the mystery of the campfire scent. Directly at eye level—my human eye level—a set of car keys dangles from a branch just inches from my face. So that’s what Nolan was doing here. Granting me custody once again. I’m tired of fighting him about this. I’ll take it, and I’ll be grateful.

Dressing quickly, not bothering to tie my shoes, I hurry through the rest of the woods. With twenty yards to go, I spot it parked just beyond the trees: a 2006 Pontiac sedan, painted in Tigers blue and white. The front end is smashed, and the sides are scraped to hell from the last time I “drove” it (crashed it). For years, it was my Crap-pile, and then, after Nolan polished it up, it wasn’t a Crap-pile anymore, so I called it my Tiger. Now it’s neither. It’s somewhere in between. It’s Tiger Crap.

These are the thoughts going through my mind when a hand shoots out from behind a tree and seizes me by the throat. It’s Ben, and he’s in no mood to pull his punches. He slams me against the tree and tightens his grip on my neck. I feel my face redden. My feet kick relentlessly, but he is unmoved. The blank look on his face tells me I’m dealing with the psychopath Ben—the Ben who wouldn’t listen, even if I could talk. Only when I raise my hand high above my head with one finger pointed to the sky does he let up on my throat.

“Bullshit!” he growls. “What is that? A signal? If he was out there, he would have done something already.”

He may be right. It’s been a while. How long was I asleep at the tree? Jay could have left, gone looking for me somewhere, or fallen asleep. I shake myself back to my senses. What am I thinking? This is Jay. Of course he’s still out there, and