by Jade White
Daniel was also a very grabby and very physical sort of baby. He liked to grab and pull on everything in sight: people’s hair and fingers and clothing, and everything else that came within reach. Amazingly, he would grab and pull the cushions from the sofa with a strength that Tara did not necessarily think a baby of less than one year old should have. He would grab Tara’s shoes when she took them off. He would grab carpets and pull them along the floor. Tara had to get rid of the potted plants in the living room; he would pull on them and turn them over, spilling plants and soil everywhere.
When she put him on the bed, he would grab and wrestle with the pillows and pull down the sheets. This behavior so drove Tara to distraction that she soon bought him an entire menagerie of stuffed animals and created a penned-in area of the apartment for just them and him. She would sit fascinated and watch him wrestle and roll around with his stuffed giraffes and buffaloes and deer and antelopes—wrestle with them and bite them all over. Tara did not know why, but seeing him in play this way unnerved her as much as it entertained her. It was as peculiar as the sounds he made.
His favorite stuffed toy, the one he did not bite, was the stuffed lion that was just as big as Daniel himself. When he could not sleep, when he sat up and made his non-crying noise but was not hungry, Tara settled him down by bringing him the lion. This one plush beast, Daniel would grab and hug tightly in his arms, and he would curl up with it and drift off into a peaceful nap or a night’s calm sleep. Tara was relieved that the lion always worked. She hoped it would continue to work until Daniel got bigger. It made her little man that much less of a handful.
Tara’s research before he was born told her that a child usually began to walk between the ages of nine and twelve months. Daniel was on his feet two months early, another unusual thing. Now he was both grabbing and walking.
This changed the nature of their playtime, for as soon as he gained the full use of his legs, Daniel took to running and jumping and climbing. When he wanted to be picked up and held, he would run to Tara. When they sat playing on the floor or on Tara’s bed, he would lunge at her and tackle her and they would roll about in a mock wrestling match. When he grabbed a toy and Tara played with him by trying to snatch it away from him, it became a tug of war. Sometimes she would let him win, only to start snatching at the toy again and resume the little mother/son “conflict.”
Sometimes she would get the toy away from him and he would throw himself at her, and they would struggle for possession of it until she allowed him to wrest it from her grasp or she ended up snatching him and smothering him with hugs and kisses, turning Daniel into a squirming, kicking, giggling mass of little boyhood. Playing with her child made Tara feel at least a little like a child herself. And perhaps, she thought, that was one of the reasons people became parents. Perhaps that was one of the things that parenthood was for.
And then, late one afternoon just a short time after Daniel’s first birthday, when Tara entered the den with a bottle of milk for Daniel and marched towards the playpen where she had left him, Daniel was not there. Just a step away from the bars of the playpen, she halted in her tracks and looked down into the spread of toys on the mat, where her son should have been—and did not find him. What she found made her drop the plastic bottle onto the carpet. A myriad of emotions, none of them good, froze her in place: confusion, disbelief, shock, horror, absolute and total incomprehension.
What lay on its side, looking up innocently at Tara, was not a little boy. It was not even human. It had tan-colored fur all over, and four legs and four paws, and a twitching tail. It had puffy rounded ears sticking up from the top of its head—a head that was not that of a year-old child. It had a snout and whiskers, and eyes of a shape that was not human, but a blue-green color that Tara knew very well.
Tara felt as if she leapt out of her body and leapt back in again when she heard herself scream: “Daniel!”
As if in response, the lion cub in Daniel’s playpen stood up and reached up with broad lion-club paws, supporting itself leaning against the bars of the playpen, still peering up into Tara’s face with eyes the same color as Daniel’s eyes—and his father’s.
Clutched all over by horror, Tara staggered a step away and looked frantically all over the den at all the places where Daniel might be, wondering desperately how he might have gotten there, terrified that he might not be there at all, terrified that someone, for some reason, had broken into the apartment and taken her child and left this…creature…in his place. She looked under George’s old desk, and in the space between the bookshelf and the wall.
She dashed to the closet and flung it open to find nothing but Daniel’s clothes and some boxes of diapers and other baby supplies. She dropped to the floor and looked under the crib and under the little sofa where George sometimes sat, and she sometimes sat with him. Mad with growing confusion and fear, she crawled up onto the sofa and sat, panting, crying, looking over at the animal in the playpen. And she sobbed out her little boy’s name: “Daniel…”
Then it happened. The lion club, its eyes still fixed on her, let out a sound that was as familiar as the color of its eyes, a sound that she had heard so many times when Daniel was crying—which she now recognized as the plaintive mewling of a baby lion. Tara’s mouth dropped open with the realization that Daniel’s training pants were lying on the mat in the playpen, ripped and shredded to pieces—because the lion cub had torn and clawed its way out of them.
No sooner did this realization hit Tara than she watched, dumbfounded, as the cub blinked at her and changed its form. The fur disappeared, the tail contracted, the paws turned back to little boy hands and feet, the head morphed from feline to human. What stood leaning naked against the playpen bars was now once again a one-year-old boy.
Tara’s mind went tumbling back across the space of a year and nine months, and she relived as she had done so many times the days that she spent with Brenton, whose eyes were just like the eyes of the child staring so innocently across the room at her, no doubt wondering why his mother did not come and pick him up and feed him. She lived again those sweet but carnal days with the man who gave her a child. And as much as she tried to swat away the reality of what she had just seen, it kept coming back and connecting this moment with that time a year and nine months ago.
Tara had never ceased to marvel at Brenton’s ability to be hard and screw and come like nothing human. But until now, seeing their child morph from lion cub to human boy, the true reason had never entered her mind. How could she ever have thought of it? No reasoning human being would ever think of such a thing. Brenton could do it like nothing human—because he was nothing human.
During that night in Santa Monica and that week in Napa, she had shared the bed of something that every faculty of human reason said should not exist.
CHAPTER TEN
The horror hit Tara like a sudden, brutal punch in the stomach. The next thing she knew, she was half running, half staggering for the bathroom and slamming and locking the door behind her.
She hunched over the sink, in the grip of dry heaves, body shakes as if she had a raging flu, and ragged, choking breaths; and stared into the mirror at a face of blind, hysterical fear. Her arms trembled so furiously, braced against the porcelain of the sink, that she was afraid they would snap like kindling. The sight of herself and the image seared into her mind of what she had thought was her baby in the playpen overwhelmed her, and she exploded into tears. “My baby…!” Her sobbing almost turned to wailing. “My baby…!”
Tara could no longer stand up, even leaning against the sink. She crumbled inside and crumpled outside, sinking onto the bathroom floor and sitting there in a pitiful, sobbing, choking heap, wishing she could just tear her body to pieces for real to match the way she felt. She leaned back against the cabinet under the sink, raised her eyes to the bathroom ceiling as if to call out in despair and fright to a higher power, and from somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach, her soul, or both, came a scream.
It was the shri
ll scream of a woman feeling herself on the edge of madness, and it reverberated against the bathroom walls in a way that felt like tiny hammers in her ears and all over her skin. She screamed again, and again, until she feared the neighbors banging at her door, or worse, calling 911. What would she tell them if they did? What could she tell them? Having as much of an answer to that as to what she had found in the playpen, she crumpled all the way down onto the floor and lay there in a quivering, sobbing ball.
All that she could think of was Brenton: his charm, his kindness, his sensuality, the unimaginable pleasure that he had given her—and the gift with which he had unknowingly left her. The fact that he had done it without knowing began to stir other feelings in Tara. He did not know that she had left California with his child, and she had not told him—but there were other things he did know and had failed to tell her.
What kind of man was he to do that to a woman and not tell her? Evidently, he was not a man at all. Or he was something other than a man. Still, he had not uttered a word of it, and had left her to wonder now what it was that she had carried and borne and loved and cared for—and now sat in the den of her late husband, changing back and forth from her baby to… Tara could not even think of the words for what Daniel had become. It was something impossible turned to reality. And Brenton never told her.
She dragged herself up on the palm of her hands and lay there, shaking again, this time not with terror but with fury. If Daniel had become that, then his father must be able to become the adult version of that. He was a creature who had bedded her under the pretense of being a man. How dare he? Who in the hell did he think he was? A snarl as bestial as what she now knew lurked inside Brenton curled Tara’s lips: “You bastard. You inhuman bastard. You slept with me and used me, and left me with…with…”
Tara could no more form the words than she could summon the thought. Her anger still seethed and boiled inside her, clenching her teeth, wetting her brow with perspiration, reddening her skin. She was so enraged that she could have torn Brenton apart as if she herself were the thing he was. She actually imagined digging fangs and claws of her own into his flesh, ripping away at him, punishing him for daring to push himself inside her and make her pregnant with…with…
Again, her thoughts failed her. Pregnant with what? Sitting inside the playpen, knowing or comprehending none of this, likely wondering in his infant way where Mommy was and what had happened to her, was the most beautiful child on Earth. Beyond the door that Tara was now ashamed to have locked behind her was a little boy who effortlessly made everyone who saw him fall in love with him. A few steps away in the den was innocence and joy and love, and total beauty. It was Daniel. It was her baby.
She scrambled to her feet, feeling wobbly now after all the emotions that had come blasting out of her. Tara steadied herself against the sink again, this time to run some water and splash it onto her face. Looking at herself again in the mirror, she saw how livid and red she had become, and though her skin was gradually returning to its normal hue, she was still angry.
It was a somewhat less boiling anger, but it still bubbled hotly inside her and she could feel it was not about to go away. She still felt taken and used under false pretenses by something that—and she still could not believe the idea of it—was not really human. Again, the question churned and seethed inside her: How could he do this to me? How DARE he do this to me?
But she restrained her feelings, putting a chain on them, ironically, as one might chain a wild beast. There was no place for these feelings right now. The pang of shame that she felt on realizing she had locked the door came back to her. She was a mother and had fled from and locked the door against her one-year-old boy. It was a blind, instinctive, panicky thing to do, and after all a very human thing to do. But she had done it all the same. She had run and hidden from her own baby. Leaving aside the question of what the hell kind of father Daniel had, what kind of mother was she?
Tara was a shocked, scared, confused, and very angry mother, that’s what she was. But now she would let none of that keep her from her child. Screwing up her courage, she unlocked the bathroom door and headed back for the den.
She was at the threshold of the den when she suddenly stopped again. She raised a hand to her mouth to suppress a gasp. What would she find when she went into that room now? Would it still be her little Daniel, or would it be what Daniel had become? With a gulp, she realized that what he had become was still a baby—a cub. Small, helpless, uncomprehending, innocent—just a cub, needing attention and comfort, needing love.
Oh my God, Tara thought. What was she going to do? Could she love that the same way she loved her human baby? What would she do when it got bigger? How would she keep him from changing from boy to cub? How could she keep this from other people?
Shaking her head, unable to deal with all the questions and all the uncertainties, Tara pushed them aside in favor of the one thing that was certain. In that room was her baby, and he needed her, now more than ever. She stepped into the den—and there he was, perfectly human, sitting up straight, as beautiful and angelic as ever. He looked at her with wordless questions in his eyes, and somehow his expression began to melt away all the tumult of emotions with which Tara had bolted and run into the bathroom.
She stepped closer to him and saw that his face was wet and slightly reddened, just like her own. As she neared the bars of the playpen, he cast the blue-green jewels of his eyes up at her and let out the sound of his lion-cub mewling once again, and for the first time the sound of it made Tara’s heart fall to pieces.
She leaned over the bars and reached for him. She hesitated only a little, wondering if he might change right when he saw her hand coming for him, and wondering what the triggers might be for making him change, and if she could learn them and predict when it would happen. What if he transformed while she was holding him? How would she handle that?
Somehow it didn’t matter. Her baby had been crying and she, his mother, had actually run from him. Tara made herself a vow that she would never, ever let that happen again. She tousled the straw-blonde hair of his little boy head—hair of the same color as his father’s—and rubbed the soft roundness of his little boy cheek, and felt the unique connection that exists only between mother and child, regardless of what she now knew her child was.
“Daniel, baby,” she softly said to him, “Mommy’s sorry. Mommy didn’t know. I didn’t understand. Daddy never told me.” She looked down at the boy who was now comforted by his mother’s voice and touch, and while the thought of Brenton and what he had not told her still made her angry, it did not make her as furious beyond reason as it had a moment ago. At the touch of her child, the greater part of what Tara felt was love.
“Come here, sweetheart,” she said, picking him up from the playpen and resolving not to put him down even if he did change. If she had to learn to handle a lion cub, so be it; nothing was going to stop her caring for and loving her little boy. To her relief, he stayed human and let her carry him over to the sofa. She sat him down there and went to the closet—keeping watch on him from the corner of her eye—and took another pair of training pants from a box inside it, and went back to the sofa and put the little garment on him.
Then she sat on the sofa and put Daniel in her lap and hugged him to her bosom, and Daniel curled up in her arms, and Tara was surprised at the wonder and astonishment that she felt when Daniel, snuggling contentedly against her, began to purr.
Yes, he purred, not like a human boy, but like a lion cub. He purred in her arms. Tara leaned back on the sofa, keeping her warm little ball of purring love close against her, and let out a long, puffing breath. “Oh, Daniel,” she said, “what am I going to do? What is Mommy supposed to do now? I wasn’t prepared to be your mommy, I know—but I’m totally not ready for this. My baby…my little darling. What is Mommy going to do?”
In spite of the warmth and love she now radiated at her child, Tara set her jaw into a frown, her question already answering itself.
She knew what she was going to do, all right. She knew exactly what she was going to do.
As soon as Daniel settled down into a nap, she was going to get on the phone and make a call to California.
_______________
Napa County Legislator Brenton Morgan left his office at the end of the day, jumped into his car, and drove home expecting another uneventful evening. The evening didn’t really have to be uneventful. There were possibilities in town—very appealing, female possibilities. There was the receptionist for the editor of the local paper. There was the hostess of his favorite restaurant, but she was likely to be working. That one lady bartender at the sports bar he sometimes frequented was always good company, as was the female trainer at the gym.
He pondered these and other prospects, and by the time he had gone through them all, he found himself pulling up in his driveway. Strolling the short way from car to house, he supposed he could just call someone. There was always someone to call. But it was looking more and more like the uneventful evening he’d expected on leaving the office. He somehow was not in the mood for company. He didn’t know why.
Since starting the campaign that won him the Legislative seat, Brenton had grown to enjoy quiet, privacy, and solitude more than he ever had in the past. Part of it was that when he was campaigning there was so much time spent knocking on doors and talking to the people behind them, making appearances, giving speeches and interviews. Even though he had delegated most of his business responsibilities, the campaign had kept him as busy as the realty firm did.
