Moonburn

by Alisa Sheckley

  And then I heard an odd sound, like a high-frequency hum, and I focused again. Bruin appeared surprised by something. He looked down at his hands, and they began to blow away, as if an invisible wind were scattering him like dust. The hum grew subtly louder, and Bruin looked up at me, narrowing his eyes, as his arms and legs disintegrated, and then he was gone in a dark swirl, leaving me alone.

  Or maybe I had been alone the whole time, hallucinating, in shock from the car accident.

  Except I knew that I wasn’t dreaming. You’re a werewolf, my mother had said. Don’t you believe in the supernatural? I did now. And I certainly believed in manitou.

  I crawled toward my handbag, which was lying a few feet away, trying not to imagine the damage underneath my pants leg. My right foot felt loose and liquid and unutterably fragile. There was a moment of panic when I couldn’t find my cell phone, and then my fingers closed around the smooth metal shape, and I murmured to myself, see, it’s going to be fine, help is coming. I flipped the phone open, leaking tears of self-pity.

  There was no signal. Fuck. I imagined the news report: and as she lay dying in a ditch, cars whizzed past her, never hearing her cries for help. Stay calm. Find the car. That would make a better story; the intrepid young woman, her foot badly broken, still managed to drive herself to safety. Assuming I could find the gas pedal with the airbag lying all over the place.

  I looked around me, trying to get my bearings. It was hard to tell without my glasses, but it seemed to me that the trees were taller, thicker, older than I remembered. I dragged myself back toward my car, then stopped. My trusty Subaru wasn’t there. And neither was the road. In its place, there was a small hill, no more than ten feet tall and some thirty feet around.

  Okay, I was disoriented. I’d gone the wrong way. But if I climbed the hill, I’d be able to get my bearings. Assuming I could see that far without my glasses. Don’t analyze. Act.

  Fighting back waves of pain and fatigue, and trying not to picture what I was doing to the fractured bone, I pulled myself up the incline. I noticed the unnatural smoothness and symmetry of the earth under my hands, and thought: This isn’t a natural hill, it’s a burial mound, the kind some Native American tribes used to inter their dead.

  Sweating profusely, my leg throbbing horribly, I reached the top. It took me a moment to catch my breath enough to sit upright, and when I did, I began to whimper. The road could not have been more than a few feet away, but it was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I seemed to be in the middle of a vast, primeval forest, filled with enormous oaks and chestnuts and elms, their bare branches interlocked like skeletal arms. As I watched, the trees budded, blossomed, and leafed up, a sudden and unnatural spring that filled the air with a fierce, almost overpowering sweetness. I recognized chestnut trees, but as far as I knew, no giant chestnuts had been seen in this country since the nineteen fifties.

  Towering above them all was a cathedral of a tree, a giant chestnut almost a hundred feet high and some ten feet around. Its delicate, oblong, pale green leaves interspersed with creamy white blossoms, the tree looked like something out of a fairy tale.

  And maybe it was a fairy tale, because as I had learned in school, these trees didn’t exist anymore. And neither did the vast elms I could see. They almost all died out earlier in the century, the chestnuts from a blight brought in from Asia, the elms from Dutch elm disease. Once upon a time, animals had relied on chestnuts as a major food source, and Native Americans and colonists had kept from starving by peeling and eating the sweet nut. Their wood had been used to build this nation, and nowadays most people didn’t even realize that they were gone.

  I knew that the roots of the chestnut survived the blight, and from time to time, a small tree would emerge from the forest floor. But without another tree to cross pollinate with them, these young specimens were weak and unable to flower. Which meant the majestic trees I was looking at couldn’t possibly be real.

  And then I thought: Even if they are there, how can I see them? Without my glasses, I should only be able to make out what’s right in front of my face.

  More frightened now than I had been with the bear, I checked my cell phone, but it told me what I already knew: I was out of signal range. A memory intruded: me, twelve years old, stumbling into my mother’s room. Mom, something’s wrong with the floor. And my mother, laughing at first, then alarmed: You didn’t eat those candy dots, did you?

  Somehow I’d left reality behind again, and I was lost in a place where there were no rules and no logic and nothing to count on to keep me safe. And all around me, the snow fell in a steady rhythm that should have alarmed me more than anything else.

  Instead, despite everything, it put me to sleep.

  TWELVE

  “It’s all right, she’s coming around now.”

  I blinked, and for a minute I thought I was looking through the moonstone: everything was pale and hazy, with a faint blue shimmer around it. Then someone adjusted a hanging overhead light and I could see clearly. Red and Malachy were looking down at me. I was lying on an operating table. We were in one of the examining rooms, the one we used for the big dogs, mastiffs and wolfhounds.

  “What happened?” I tried to sit up, and Red put his hand on my shoulder. “Easy, now. Don’t try to move just yet.”

  “What’s going on?” My right leg was throbbing steadily, the pain seeming to wake up along with the rest of me.

  Red put his hand on my head. “You had some sort of accident on the way back from your mother’s.”

  Oh, God, the forest. The bear. “How did you find me?”

  Red smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I tracked you down, of course.”

  Forget foreign films and in-depth literary analysis. Sometimes dating a man with backwoods skills was truly rewarding. “Did I pass out or something? The last thing I remember was climbing to the top of a mound and howling at the top of my lungs.”

  Red exchanged a look with Malachy, who was wearing his white coat and looking even thinner than usual. “You’ve been unconscious for a while, Doc. We haven’t been able to wake you up, so Mal just shot you up with a little stimulant.” Red put his hand on my forehead, smoothing my hair away from my face. “I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. I didn’t even know you were missing at first. Kind of thought you might be taking some time with your mom, and I didn’t want to crowd you.”

  I tried to push my glasses up on my nose, then realized they were gone. “What are you talking about? How long did it take you to find me?”

  Red looked over at Malachy again. “You’ve been missing a week, Doc.”

  “What?” I stared at his blurry face in shock.

  “I didn’t really worry till the end of the second day, and then Mal called to ask where you were.”

  “I’ve been in the woods for a week?”

  Red reached for my hand. I had forgotten how calming his touch could be. “If you’d just been lost in the woods, I would have followed your scent as soon as we located your car. But there’s old magic in the forest, and nothing messes with trail sign like old magic. You’d gone and wandered into the Liminal, so it was like all trace of your scent just stopped cold about six feet from your car. Even with the animals helping, all I could do for a long time was narrow down the search area.” He nodded to something in the corner, and I saw that our red-tailed hawk was there, perched on top of a cat carrier, which the young raccoon was trying to unlock with his nimble little fingers.

  My leg was really hurting now, but I knew that I was missing something important here. “The Liminal?”

  “Strictly speaking, it refers to the threshold of consciousness,” said Malachy, strapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. “But Red uses it to refer to the boundary between realities.” Malachy paused as the cuff tightened around my biceps, then released.

  “Hang on a moment. How the hell did I wind up in a different reality? The last time I drove to Westchester, there was no sign that said last exit from this dimension
.” The rising note of hysteria in my voice kind of ruined the joke, but I couldn’t help it. I’d had a longstanding fear of accidentally ingesting LSD, but at least with acid, the crazy things you saw and heard weren’t real.

  Red took my hand. “It’s like I told you before, Doc. The boundary’s breaking down. All those houses going up on Old Scolder Mountain that was sacred ground for generations. We’ve cut clean into their territory, and now they’re moving in on ours.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. It made no sense, panicking now, but panic was what I was feeling. “How did you guys even find me?”

  Malachy stuck a thermometer in my ear. “I had nothing to do with it. Red went and sat cross-legged for an hour, then cut his arm and walked around, leaking blood until he found you. It took him about twenty minutes and a pint.”

  I recalled the burial mound, the thick, old growth forest that had seemed to go on forever. Then I noticed the bandage peeking out from the rolled-up sleeve of Red’s work shirt. “What did you do?”

  “Oh, this ain’t nothing. Just a trick to get back.”

  The thermometer pinged and Malachy removed it. “He made a deal. That’s how it works, I believe.”

  “Made a deal? With whom?”

  Red flushed. I knew he hated how his redhead’s complexion revealed everything. “Mal, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s not my area of expertise, true. But because so much of my research hinges on the areas where myth and medicine intersect, I have done a fair amount of reading about various mythologies.” Mal began to unbutton my shirt, and I swatted at his hands. “You do it, then. I need to check your heart.” Malachy’s breath was cool and tinged with something faintly metallic as he leaned over me to press the stethoscope to my chest. His fingers were like ice on my skin. Either this was what he was like when he was up past his bedtime, or whatever was wrong with him was getting worse. He traced a line on my neck, and I shivered. “How long have you had this?”

  At first I thought he meant the burn, but then I saw that he was lifting the moonstone pendant.

  “My mother gave it to me. Why?”

  Mal unfastened the chain and slipped it out from under my neck. “Because your skin is reacting adversely to the silver. Did you not realize you were allergic?”

  I shook my head.

  “Red should have told you.”

  I looked at Red, questioningly.

  “Hell, Doc, I didn’t know.”

  Malachy looked irritated. “Well, you should have done. Never mind,” he said, cutting Red off. “How are you feeling, Abra? Any pain?”

  “Not in my neck. What really hurts is my right leg. My shin.”

  “Scale of one to ten?”

  “Eight or a nine. I was mauled by a bear.” I glanced up at Red. “Except he wasn’t a bear.”

  Red took my hand. “I saw his tracks.” He smiled a little crookedly. “Both sets.”

  “I didn’t believe you before. Not completely.” I felt tears sting my eyes. Right now, I didn’t want to be on the outs with Red. I wanted him by my side, solid and steady.

  Red squeezed my fingers. “Lot of new info to take in, Doc.” His hazel eyes were level and knowing and just a little sad. I was just processing the implications of that look when Malachy took hold of my right ankle, and I stifled a scream.

  “I need to cut away your jeans leg.”

  “Okay.” I felt rather than saw Red move around to the head of the table, giving Malachy more room. I sucked in my breath as my calf was revealed. A piece of bone—tibia, probably—was protruding from a small hole. Open compound. “We’re going to need an X-ray.” Mal looked at me. “Ideally, a CAT scan would be in order, but we’ll have to make do. I need to know if there’s any possibility that you’re pregnant before we proceed with the X-ray.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” I said, a little bitterly. Red gave me a funny look, but I just ignored him as Mal cut through the waistband of my jeans, and parted the fabric, revealing my faded blue cotton underwear and winter white stomach. He inserted the scissors at the hem of my sweater, at which point I called a halt.

  “Hey, what about a modesty drape?”

  “Oh, good lord.” Malachy sighed. “Red, see if you can reach up for one of those surgical drapes in that closet. No, that one, to the right. Thanks.” As Mal draped the surgical cloth over me, he added, “Haven’t you become casual about nudity, yet? I find most therians develop a more animal sense of their bodies.”

  “Well, I’m still more woman than canine, so give me a break. And I’d like some goddamn painkiller. When are you going to give me a shot of morphine?”

  Malachy stared at me, then rubbed his temples. “I really do not have the time for this. What is the most common side effect of preoperative morphine on canines?”

  “Vomiting,” I said, beginning to understand. Mal’s crack about therians being nudists hadn’t just been another attempt to tease me. “What else do you know about my condition?” Because clearly, my boss knew a great deal more than I did.

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Don’t you know anything about your own condition?” Malachy turned to Red. “Haven’t you taken the time to explain her disorder?”

  Red flushed. “I’m the guy you call when you need to get rid of a pest, remember? I don’t know what the hell is wrong with giving morphine. And since I’m not into the Guido look, I wasn’t aware that there was anything wrong with wearing silver. I just thought it wasn’t too healthy to have the stuff shot into your gut.”

  Malachy slid a photographic plate underneath my calf, which made me yelp. “Right. So, let’s begin with the basics. You are aware that theremorphism is caused by a rare virus, the most common strain of which is lycanthropy. Most commonly, transmission occurs through the exchange of bodily fluids—blood and semen.”

  “Hang on a moment, Mal,” said Red. “I think you’re overgeneralizing, here.”

  “I’m trying to give an overview. But, yes, there is a genetic component, which determines who is affected and how much. In certain families, such as your own, Red, a specific strain can dominate, appearing in different individuals from early childhood on.” Malachy lifted the X-ray camera and positioned it over my leg. “In early-onset lycanthropy, the children stabilize fairly rapidly and retain a fair amount of cognitive awareness in either form.” Mal gave me a level look. “In cases such as yours, however, there tends to be a fair amount of disassociation between states.”

  I took a deep breath, pressing my palm to my chest. “Meaning that I’m never going to be in control of my wolf?”

  “Bullshit,” said Red sharply, making me jump. “It’s just practice, is what it is,” he added in a more measured tone. “Give it a few more years, Doc, and you’ll be planning your evening menu while you’re out stalking rabbit.”

  “That is completely unsubstantiated conjecture,” said Malachy, moving around the table. “What is established is that for anyone infected as an adult, the disease is progressive and, in the female, marked by neurological changes and greater divergence of lupine and human persona concordant with the onset of estrus.” Malachy paused. “In the male, changes in brain chemistry are somewhat dependent on placement in a pack hierarchy. Sensitivity to silver is a common side effect in either gender, and there is a clear correlation between viral activity and the lunar cycle. I am intrigued by the effect that this town seems to have—I’ve been calling it the Northside factor in my notes.” Malachy’s voice trailed off and he bent his head, rubbing his temples as though a headache had come on suddenly.

  “Are you all right?”

  He made a grunting sound, then raked his hand through his tangled black curls, looking as though he would like to tear his hair out. “I’m fine.” Malachy straightened up and filled a syringe with a blue liquid. “Unfortunately, the wider medical community has never had much time for my theories, or my research.” He uncapped the needle. “Which is why I have been forced to conduct so many of my experiment
s in less than optimal conditions.”

  “Hang on a moment,” I said, more than a little unsettled by these revelations. “What’s in that hypodermic?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not for you.” Without batting an eyelash, Malachy rolled up his sleeve and injected himself in the arm. After a moment, he sighed, then removed the sharps and disposed of them in the medical waste container. “Red, you need to release Abra’s leg and stand behind this door whilst I take the X-rays.”

  “Actually,” Red said, not looking at me, “you might want to hold off on that.”

  “Is there a reason why—ah.” Malachy came back into the room and lifted the camera up and out of the way. “We’ll have to work with a manual assessment, then.”

  I started to ask what Red meant, and then comprehension dawned. Any chance you might be pregnant, Malachy had asked. The standard query for any woman of childbearing age about to receive radiation. And there was that night that I didn’t remember, when I’d woken up to find Red fairly glowing with happiness and excitement.

  “No,” I said firmly, not looking at Red, even though he was still holding my leg straight. “There’s absolutely no reason why I can’t have an X-ray.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Red, which sent me over the edge.

  “Funny, but it seems like neither of you know quite as much about my condition as Magda does. Or did you two just not care to mention that nonalpha females aren’t fertile?”

  The two men exchanged glances. For once, Malachy didn’t launch into a scientific analysis, and Red didn’t try to reassure me. Instead, everyone focused on small tasks, like getting the photographic plate under my leg and setting the switches.