I ran through the hospital, got in my car, and started hitting the steering wheel, crying. Finally I calmed down and drove back to Claire.
The clock hit 3:00 p.m. as I arrived home; Claire was at the kitchen table, the oxygen tank at her feet. “Where’s Heath?” Her voice cracked.
“He needs you at the hospital. You have to get up.”
“Look at me,” she said. “I can hardly stand up.”
“I’ll watch William. Get a taxi to take you. Heath knows we made a deal to hide your cancer from him. He attacked me again, trying to call an ambulance on you. They won’t let him out now.”
She started crying. “If I go, they’ll hospitalize me. William will find out.”
“This is what you need to do.”
“Okay.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I’m sorry for all this.”
Claire left in a taxi, and I picked up William from school. At dinner, when he asked where his dad was, I told him he had an urgent work issue and wouldn’t be home that night.
“You okay, Mom?” the boy asked while we watched cartoons after dinner.
“Of course.”
I held him close, wishing I could protect him from the next few days when his world would fall apart.
My phone buzzed, and I kept the screen hidden from William.
Claire: Heath’s okay. He believes our story.
Me: Did you tell him about the Change?
Claire: I said that we’re unrelated lookalikes. One thing at a time. He doesn’t blame you.
I doubted that.
Me: What now?
Claire: I’m in hospice care, and they’re running tests for Heath’s sake. Take care of William for the moment. I need more time with Heath.
Me: Take as much time as you need. You’re doing the right thing.
Claire: I know.
* * *
The next morning, I received a text while sipping coffee and watching William with his remote-controlled helicopter outside.
Claire: Heath here. Sending you a number to call. Larissa is William’s babysitter. She’ll pick him up for school. He’ll stay with her tonight. Come to the hospital after.
After calling Larissa, I told William he’d be spending the night at her place.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s up north. I’m going to join him for a night. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
William muttered under his breath, slammed drawers, and threw things around as I helped him pack. When Larissa arrived, I tried to hug him, but he turned away. Larissa shrugged. They drove away.
Back inside, I packed Claire’s sketchpad, colored pencils, and fresh clothes. Anything she might like, or I’d need.
An hour later, at the hospital, I took the short elevator ride to where Heath said they were. A nurse remarked how similar Claire and I looked as I neared her room. Slouching in a chair next to the door, a security guard with a bored expression fixed me a warning look.
“I’m Claire’s sister,” I said.
“I can see that.”
“Are you here because of…Heath?”
“Yes, ma’am. Go on in.”
Inside the room, Claire’s thinning figure made my heart heave with hopelessness. Wires and tubing were like tentacles sticking to her face and body. The ridges of her cheeks sat sharp, and her dejected blue eyes matched the oxygen-deprived color of her lips. Heath stroked her hair.
She cracked a smile upon seeing me. “Jay,” she said in a whisper. Heath jerked his head to look at me, but there was no hostility in his expression. He turned back to Claire.
I approached my dying friend and held her icy hand. She passed me her phone. “Press play on the video.”
One had already been selected, and as it began, I gasped. There I lay in my old bed, Rosie’s bed, Changing into Claire. Rosie’s old nose shrank into Claire’s feminine one, and her gray hair turned black and filled out a mild widow’s peak.
“I showed that to Heath,” she said. “Forgive me.”
Heath watched me, and I didn’t know how I felt at him seeing me writhing in pain.
“I love Claire,” he said, “and as she wishes, I want you to come stay in our family home.”
I couldn’t detect any insincerity in his tone.
“William already suspects…” I whispered.
“Yet…you look exactly like his mother.”
I met Claire’s faded blue eyes. “Then we’ll tell him I’m your twin sister.
Her eyes brightened for a moment. “I think that’s best as well.”
The doctor strode in holding test results. I excused myself.
Outside, I inhaled deeply, settling my nerves. Heath’s distressed voice travelled from inside the room. Claire had long had the opportunity to accept her fate. He hadn’t.
Heath burst out of the room and faced the wall, rubbing his eyes with his hand. He glanced sideways at me. “She’s being moved home tomorrow. Home care is our only option now.”
“You’re allowed to go?” I asked.
“Given the circumstances. Yes. We’ve been assigned a nurse to supervise Claire, and she’ll report back about me.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder, but then he stepped forward and pulled me into a hug, which completely surprised me.
“Sorry,” he said, letting me go. “It’s just…awful seeing her like this.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“Claire wants you with her until the end,” he continued. “She likes you. And I want to get to know you.”
“Me too,” I said. The tension retreated a little. “I’ll—” I lowered my voice. “I’ll cut my hair, dye it, try to look different. For Will’s sake.”
“Good idea,” he said. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going back.”
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
His eyebrows rose. “Okay. Bye. And thanks.”
I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for, but as I drove home I savored the solitude that allowed me and them to have some grieving time before the end days.
* * *
After visiting the salon and leaving looking like an alternative, punk version of Claire, I returned home.
My appetite sparked in the afternoon, so I fetched the spinach and feta pie leftovers, the one Claire had made, which made me cry. Sentimentality bubbled within, knowing Claire would never cook again. I put the untouched food back in the fridge.
My phone buzzed.
Heath: We’re coming home early morning tomorrow. Larissa’ll bring William over afterwards.
Me: Okay. How’s Claire?
Heath: Hanging in there. See you tomorrow.
The edges of my sanity were fraying, so I went out the back and walked to the studio. As I wandered inside, I couldn’t make it past the paintings. I flicked on the lights and one by one dwelled on each of her paintings, trying to understand them and capture her view of the world. I wanted to carry her with me always.
At two in the morning, fatigued, I dragged myself down to the basement couch to sleep.
* * *
Heath and Claire arrived in the ambulance about 9:00 a.m. After carrying her upstairs, the medics helped her to bed, where the nurse took up her tasks by turning down the sheets, fetching her a glass of water, and arranging her pillows. Meanwhile, the medics set up her machines, then said their farewells.
Claire glanced at me and snickered.
“What?”
“Your hair’s ridiculous. And those clothes!”
Her amusement turned into a coughing fit that left her gasping. A minute later, she caught her breath.
“That’s enough excitement,” Heath said.
I gave them space by reclining in their lounge area, and tried to distract myself with a magazine. Their hushed whispers made me glance over the glossy pages to see them smiling and entwining their fingers.
The front door banged downstairs, and footsteps echoed up the hallway.
“Mom!” William cried out as he came into the room, but stopped shor
t.
“Hey, sweetie,” Claire said.
“Mom? What’s going on?” The tears started flowing. “Y-you promised me you wouldn’t die, remember?”
Claire shot me a withering look before turning back to William. “I’m here.”
William cried out and launched himself onto the bed to cuddle her. Claire nuzzled his hair and started crying.
After some time, the boy’s eyes found me. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Aunt Jay,” Claire said, “my twin sister. You met her when you were little.”
He snuggled back against her. I rose from my chair and went to perch on the edge of the bed. William watched me.
“Aunt Jay’s going to stay…a few months,” Heath said.
Larissa, who had been in the background keeping quiet until now, said, “You can definitely tell you two are sisters.”
Claire laugh-coughed. “I have better taste in clothes and hair. Ugh.”
“I’ll leave you all be,” Larissa said. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Bye, William.”
The boy quietly muttered his goodbye.
For three days, we kept saying goodbye. Love filled every moment until the end. Claire had tried to hide from death, and I had tried to hide from life. We’d both been wrong. Not one soul, not even me, could hide from either…although I might be wrong.
Maybe I will outlive normal people, only time will tell. The Change had finally brought life instead of loss, and rebirthed me to an existence surrounded by real love and acceptance. A place where I could finally lay down to rest and know that the future, the past, none of it mattered as long as I felt home.
A Word from K. J. Colt
Capgras Syndrome is a fascinating symptom which manifests as the inability to see the people around you as genuine human beings, or as the person you think they are. If it’s a loved one, you may begin to believe they’re a phony or imposter. The syndrome usually develops after head trauma, or as a symptom of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be somewhat explained as a person who assigns too much meaning to unrelated phenomena. For instance, a sufferer might think the television is talking to them, or that people are following them. Interestingly, Capgras Syndrome is almost like the loss of meaning (but specifically with faces). The meaning you once had about a loved one is no longer there, you know how you’re meant to feel, you have memories, and photographs, but because of the Capgras, when you look at their face you’ll feel nothing.
If a human could shift their body to take on the appearance of another person, for example a parent, then someone close to that parent like a son or daughter might start to suspect the person is unwell. Or fundamentally changed in some way. Or an imposter.
Jay, the protagonist of my story, can change into other people no matter what their body shape or sex. This happens every three months. Near the end of that three months she has strong urges to touch and be close to other people in order to obtain their biological or DNA information. That urge gets stronger and stronger until on the last day of the third month, she changes.
Of course, the story centres around Jay as a shifter and the difficulties she faces in maintaining that life, but my own fascination was in writing Heath, Claire’s husband, and how he would deal with Jay as his imposter wife. His mood swings, anger, and desperation in trying to understand why Claire was thin and pale and loving one moment, but healthy and stoic the next, fascinated me.
When people lose their sense of control on life it can trigger traits previously dormant. Perceived self-competence and efficacy is such an important part of our psychological makeup as human beings, and when the context of that competence shifts (as it does when Jay turns into Claire and doesn’t know how to act around Heath), it can destabilise psychological function and lead to erratic behaviour, as we see with Heath.
While the intellectual side of the story interested me, I think the relationships in this pretty unique situation are just as fascinating and captivating.
I hope you enjoy the story.
For more information on my words please visit my website at www.KJColt.com. Or subscribe to my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/vrX-r
She’s Such a Nasty Morsel
by Julie E. Czerneda
LIKE MANY YOUNG BEINGS, it came as something of a revelation to me that my elders had been young once themselves. Or at least younger, with all that implied about having made choices--or mistakes.
It was the latter which intrigued me most. Or formed the single defining aspect of my own life--whichever way you preferred to look at it.
Me? I’m Esen-alit-Quar, Esen for short, Es in a hurry or from a friend. During my first few centuries of life, however, I was almost always: “Esen-alit-Quar! Where’s that little troublemaker?!”
Not that I ever intended to cause trouble. In truth, I went to great lengths to avoid causing anything at all, understanding that anything which attracted the attention of my elders was not going to end well.
Unfortunately, I possess a curiosity equal to any hunger of my flesh. Half answers, hints, suggestions of “you’ll know when you’re as old as we” only fanned that curiosity, particularly as I found it hard to believe I’d ever be as old as any of my Web. The Web of Ersh. We were six, led by the oldest and thus first among us, Ersh herself. Unimaginably ancient. Different. The center of all things. And the most likely individual to find fault with me at any given moment.
Or the second-most. For Ersh had younger sisters, daughters of her flesh: Ansky, Lesy, Mixs, and Skalet. It was Skalet who took my occasional missteps as her duty to announce--or even better, cause.
Me? Oh, I sprang from Ansky’s flesh, not Ersh’s. Worse still, I wasn’t a sister/daughter--or whatever one called a relationship in which being given life was more like amputation. I’d been born.
How was this possible? The question would prompt Lesy to giggle. Solitary Skalet would scowl and confer in anxious scents or other means with the like-minded Mixs. Ansky herself would smile and say it took practice.
The subject of my origin was one I knew not to bring up around Ersh.
There was no one left for me to ask, for we six were unique and alone among all other forms of life. Only we were Web beings, able to manipulate matter and energy--more specifically, our matter and our energy--in order to disguise ourselves.
And to hold information. We were that as well. Our Web’s noble purpose was to gather and retain the accomplishments of other, ephemeral intelligences within our almost immortal flesh, shared only with Ersh, to be assimilated by her and then passed, in the amount and content she saw fit, to each of us.
The least of that bounty to me. Which didn’t help quench my curiosity, leading me very early to seek my own answers. Why? was my favorite conversation starter, perhaps because it made my elders flinch.
Now when Ersh deigned to offer the answer to a question, one had no choice but to live with the consequences. But my curiosity was so vast--or, more accurately, my ability at that age to imagine such consequences so limited--that I would continue to push Ersh for answers long after any other of my kin would wisely back away. It didn’t help that those answers were most often doled out to me, in typical Ersh fashion, not when I first asked, but rather when she felt knowing them would educate me even more than in their substance.
So it was with war.
* * *
War wasn’t a new concept to me. I’d assimilated the cultures, histories, and biologies of thousands of intelligent species from Ersh. I was familiar, if never comfortable, with war as a fact of life for some, the inevitable end of life for others.
What was new was the warfare lately shared by Skalet. Even filtered through Ersh, her memories of the Kraal’s battle for Arendi Prime and its aftermath were like a stain, affecting my every thought. How had a web-being, sworn to preserve ephemeral culture, become so very good at waging its wars?
Not that I thought the question through in quite those terms. With what Ersh would doubtless consider a selfish fixation on my own life, I wanted to
avoid learning any more than I had to about war and destruction. In particular, I didn’t want any more lessons on the subject from Skalet.
Skalet probably felt the same. Certainly she made it abundantly clear our sessions together were a waste of her talents in tactics and strategy. When Ersh wasn’t in range, that is. Otherwise, as well argue with the orbit of Picco’s Moon as one of Ersh’s decisions about my education.
Still, there had to be a way. Rather than grumble to myself, I decided to go to Ansky. However, it is the way of our kind that we literally have no secrets from Ersh. Something which hadn’t actually occurred to me when I decided it was safer to approach my birth mother than the center of our six-person universe.
My chance came during Ansky’s turn to make supper, a tradition at those times when our odd family gathered in the same place, in this case, Picco’s Moon.
Carved, like the rest of Ersh’s home, from rock almost as old as she, the kitchen was a sparse, practical room, able to accommodate a variety of cooking skills while safely housing a maturing web-being prone to explode without notice. When it was just Ersh and I, food came out of the replicator and the counters became cluttered with what had her attention at the time, from greenhouse cuttings to bits of machinery. When Lesy played chef, gleaming porcelain of unusual shapes appeared, and woe betide any who disturbed her delicate--and often unidentifyable--concoctions. I was definitely forbidden entrance.
Ansky, being more competent and Esen-tolerant, greeted my arrival with a friendly, if absent-minded, wave of welcome.
“I can help,” I offered, grabbing the largest knife available and curling lip over fang in mock threat. Assorted vegetables were already cowering on the countertop.
The Shapeshifter Chronicles Page 13
