Chapter 8
“Ashlee. Language,” my sister complained as she passed my doorway putting fresh linens into the guest bathroom.
“Is JR home?”
“It doesn’t matter if JR’s home or not. We don’t talk that way in this house,” she said, obviously forgetting the F-bombs she had dropped the other night in between Cosmos with Sheri and Renee. My sister has an inflated sense of propriety until she’s had a few and then she can swear like a sailor.
“Sorry. But, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even have that assignment. I brought that contact with me and now he’s going to try to pull it right out from under my bullet-ridden ass! I don’t think so!” I shot off an email to my contact in Cancun. “Let’s see him try to fu-, I mean, screw with me,” I snarled.
“You’re such a lady, Ash,” my sister remarked. “And could you please remember to rinse and wipe the tub after you bathe. We have hard water here and it’s not easy to get the stains out once they’ve set in.”
“I thought I did,” I said, looking up at my perky-nosed sis from where I lay.
She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me.
“Obviously not well enough,” I said as she went back down the hall and into her bedroom. “You know, the way you run this house, I’m surprised you don’t ask for military corners on all the beds,” I muttered.
“I heard that!” Her voice floated back toward me.
“Bite me.”
“I heard that, too!”
“Love you.”
This time, nothing. Yeah, sure. See? Selective hearing.
I got up and ran myself a bleach bath, then peeled out of my clothes and stared at myself in the mirror. Like my sister I bordered on petite, but I was much more athletic and she hung somewhere around model thin. I’d gotten soft not being able to work out and I was determined that within the next week, I was going to actively pursue some kind of toning regimen.
I turned around and tore off the bandage, wincing as the tape peeled another layer of skin. The wound, which started larger than an everlasting gobstopper, had finally shrunk to the size of a quarter and filled in quite nicely. There was still discoloration and would probably be a slight scar, but surprisingly, it wouldn’t be unsightly. Not that anyone that mattered had seen my ass lately.
Which made me think about Will.
I stepped into the bath and settled in, taking the latest Nora Roberts with me. I loved to read in the tub and since baths instead of showers were now a regular part of my routine, it gave me time to catch up.
I had just cracked the spine when Mother materialized in the toilet. Again, I would say “on the toilet,” but as usual, her aim just wasn’t that good.
“Mother!” I hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.” She had that gleam in her eye that told me she was up to something.
There came a scratching and whining at the door and I looked at her, exasperated. “How come he always knows you’re here?” I asked.
“Animals are more sensitive to energies and emotion than we give them credit for,” she replied. “Or it could be the dog thing again.”
Hmph. I laughed. Maybe I should get my own miniature Schnauzer. Use him as an early warning system. Warning. Dead Mother Approaching.
“So, Mommy dearest, tell me again how I managed to get lycanthropy and Amber only got allergies?” I settled back for a bath-time story.
“Once upon a time, your great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother Louisa Scott was visiting relatives in Scotland,” Mom began.
“Hence, the Scott in our name.”
“Am I telling this or you?” She sank deeper into the porcelain bowl.
I bit my tongue and smiled as she continued with her obviously fractured fairy tale. Never tells it the same way twice, no matter how many times it’s been. I keep hoping she’ll slip and tell me something that sounds true, but hell, how would I know? Nah, I’d know. I’d feel it, right?
That’s what I keep hoping.
Mom continued, “The story goes that she was out picking wolfsbane and moonflowers in a fairy circle one starlit night in the Highlands when Titania took umbrage and caused her to fall into a deep sleep. While asleep, Titania enchanted a passing wolf into the circle and turned it into a man, who lay with Louise and on that night she conceived. Upon returning to America, much to her husband’s delight, who thought that they couldn’t have children, she gave birth to twin girls, the first of many sets down through the generations. One twin is always a lupine, the other, an oracle of some kind: a seer or a prophetess. I don’t know what happened this time around to your sister, except for the nightmares and migraines, and the fact that she always seems to win when they go to Vegas, and she has a keen eye for fashion trends…anyway. You’re the one with the more demonstrable powers. Which reminds me of the reason I’m here.” She pointed at the ceiling. “Full moon’s coming up soon and you’re going to have to make a shift.”
“I know I have to, but I don’t wanna,” I whined. “It’s such a pain in the ass. Hurts like a son of a bitch. And it’s totally disgusting.”
“Yes, well. Either you choose the time and the place, or the change will choose it for you. And you know what happened the last time you let that happen.”
“I know. I know. I went through a whole herd of sheep before I tired out and changed back. Thank God I didn’t hurt anyone. The only good thing about the shift is that I seem to lose most of my body fat when I turn back.”
“It’s a metabolism thing,” my mother said. “And you should be grateful. Some women would kill to have your bone structure.” She floated over to caress my face with icy digits.
“So, how many days have I got?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. Believe me, I always knew. I sighed and tapped the hot water faucet with my foot to heat up the by-now-lukewarm bath.
“Ten days before the next cycle,” my mother said.
“Bummer,” I mumbled.
“Oops, gotta run.” She apologized and condensed to a small drop of water that plinked into the bowl.
“Aunt Ash?” came JR’s voice through the door. “Who are you talking to?”
I cringed. Great. Now even my nephew thinks I’m a freak.
“No one, honey. Just to myself. Do you need something?” I asked sweetly, testing the air.
“No. I was passing by and Spanky was sitting here listening to you talk and I thought it was really weird. I almost thought there was somebody else in there with you. Anyways, I need to brush my teeth and my toothbrush is in there.”
“Nope. Nobody but me, myself and I. I’ll be out in a sec.” I said and stood up, dried off and let the kid have his space, retiring to my room and puttering on my laptop while I thought.
Ten days. Cripes. First the dog, now the kid. And a full moon coming up. I really needed to figure out how I should handle the next change. I supposed I could just do what I used to when I lived in town, which was to leave the basement window unlatched and set so I could enter in whatever form I happened to be at the time.
Only this house had no basement, unlike the one I’d grown up in. You know, the one where Will was now. The one where, if I could just get my head screwed on straight, I could probably stay over and do the same thing. Only, how was I supposed to sneak out of Will’s bed without him noticing?
I thought about drugging him. Hey, it was a plan, but there had to be a better way. Maybe I should just go home to my place in the City and take my usual laps around Golden Gate Park.
I was still thinking about this when my email beeped, and I brought it up without even reading the subject line.
Oh, great. Another one.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I AM STILL WARNING YOU ABOUT WHAT MY EMPLOYER WANTS TO DO TO YOU FOR SOME REASON. LIKE I SAID BEFORE I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE WHAT IS SAID ABOUT YOU BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER SO JUST BEWARE. THERE IS CERTAINLY A CONSPIRACY
SURROUNDING THIS SO TRUST NO ONE NOT EVEN THOSE CLOSEST TO YOU AND DO NOT DO WHAT ANYONE WANTS EVEN IF THEY WANT YOU TO.
SINCERELY,
A FRIEND
I felt like I was back in first-year creative writing class, willing to drive icepicks into my eyeballs rather than suffer through another round of insufferably sophomoric prose. Yeah, I know here in my diary I take liberties with the language but holy freaking Grammar Girl, what are they teaching kids these days in English class?
Then I forced myself to focus on the meaning and ignore the execrable delivery.
It seemed as if he, if it was a he, was trying to give me a friendly warning that someone was trying to force him to do something to me, along with the implication that someone close to me was not to be trusted.
Master of the obvious, right? But I was no detective, and besides, nothing other than these emails themselves had appeared to threaten me since I had returned to Knightsbridge. Also, there was a kind of lunatic, conspiracy-nut quality to the messages that made me think the sender wasn’t really all there.
So.
I had to figure out whether or not to tell anyone. After a moment’s thought, I moved the email to my saved file and decided not to say anything. It would just get everyone spun up again and worried about nothing. I would just have to keep my eyes open and stay away from animal control officers, biker chicks, local hunters or old flames trying to entice me to crawl back into the cozy shell of my former life.
MoonRise Page 8
