Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

  “Like the little book that Chaz gave me?” I propped up on my knees to see the stained, ripped pages.

  “This would be the great grandfather of that book. Had a hell of a time getting it for you.”

  Corners were missing. Pages had been ripped out. Some had even been burned. I could smell the smoke as Iris flipped through the pages, daintily lifting and setting down each page.

  Iris’s eyes widened when she found the page she had been looking for. With light fingers, she lifted out a sheet of white parchment from between the sheets.

  “What is this?”

  “Chaz said you wanted proof. Seem to have the panther part down. A little too well, I think, but as for the other part, the Perfect part. This is all I got. This is the Book where the Powers found out about you.” She turned the book around and pushed it towards me.

  And I pushed away and scurried back until I hit the kitchen counter. I knew it wasn’t going to bite me too, but I couldn’t be too sure anymore. “What?”

  “The people who sent Chaz to protect you. This is what they knew. This is why you were followed.”

  “This book was why I was attacked?”

  “And don’t you want to know why?”

  Of course I wanted to know why. Why little Violet Jordan who never hurt a fly. Why Violet Jordan who just want to write about the supernatural, not actually live it. “Sure, play to the curiosity of the cat. Low blow, Iris.”

  Her brittle finger and ridged nail pointed out a section of script. There was a break in the text. It looked like someone has been making a diary entry, then stopped and started writing poetry.

  “Who wrote this?”

  “Someone a long time ago.”

  I licked my lips and took a few steps towards it. Even at this distance, I could feel it, like a hot stove burner it radiated life. I reached out to touch the paper but my hand stopped and hovered over it. I could feel it’s power pushing against my palm. How can a book be powerful?

  I tucked my hands back under my elbows as I studied the actual text. “I can’t read it.”

  “It’s the Old Language of our People,” Iris said, pointing again. “You wanted proof. That verse about you.”

  A chill ran down my back as my eyes scanned the language. Somewhere in that swirly script was the reason I was plucked out of my life. Somewhere in that unknown language was why I was fated to get attacked in a back alley, turn furry, and be stalked by men in sports cars.

  I jumped up from table and paced behind the kitchen chair. Guess I finally met a book I didn’t like.

  “Calm down. You’re as nervous as a . . .”

  “If you say long-tailed cat, I’ll scream.” I paced, looking down at her linoleum tile, pulling my hair back up into a ponytail. “I was written about, Iris. It’s creepy.”

  “You were prophesied about. There’s a difference.”

  “One makes me a character. One makes me a Perfect, right?”

  Iris nodded as she watched me go back and forth. I scratched behind my ear and took in a deep breath. This was insane but hadn’t I asked for proof? This was proof. “Okay. What’s it say?”

  Iris slid the white piece of paper across the table. “Figure it out.”

  “What?”

  Iris sighed. “You’re just going to make everything difficult, aren’t you? Take the paper, figure it out.”

  “Do you have a dictionary or something?”

  “You have to do this yourself.”

  I slid down into the chair and looked at the script. Staring at the pages didn’t do anything. I flipped the book around and tried to read it backwards. “This is impossible.”

  “You’ll get it,” Iris said. “The powerful Wanderers can read the old language. Perfects can read their prophecy because it is connected to them.”

  This thing had my entire life written on it and it was in another freakin’ language. Yep. That sounds about right.

  I stared at that book for two hours. I wrote it, wrote it backwards. Even went all Da Vinci Code on it and got nothing but a flare in my carpal tunnel and a broken hair tie. All I knew for sure was it was the most beautiful language I’d ever seen.

  “I can’t do this,” I finally said, giving up. The table skittered across the kitchen table as I pushed it away in frustration and jumped up.

  Iris shuffled back into the kitchen. “Please let me know before you decide to redecorate.” She pushed the table back into its place and went to the fridge.

  “How the hell am I supposed to do this? I’m a writer, not a code breaker.”

  “Well, maybe if you would just realize that you’re one of us now, it might come a little easier.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? I let you drug me. Isn’t that enough?”

  Iris only grunted. “Apparently not.”

  “I need some fresh air.”

  When I hit the front porch, I sucked in a deep breath of Texas air. What the hell? Friggin’ A. I can’t just be a shapeshifting freak, I have to be a shapeshifting freak with a prophecy.

  “Hey Violet.”

  I jumped out of my skin and spun to see Chaz sitting on the railing of the porch. “What the hell, Chaz? Wear a bell!”

  He just laughed. “How’s it going in there?”

  “You were right about the Perfect thing.”

  “Isn’t that good news?”

  “No.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Maybe. When’d you get back?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Why aren’t you in there gloating?”

  “Because if I go inside, she’ll put me to work.”

  I wanted to smile, but I couldn’t muster even a twinge in the corner of my lips. I sat on the other corner of the banister and stared at my feet.

  “While I was in town, I researched dog attacks. Nothing in your area. Which tells me they are not dogs, if you catch my drift. And the car is still a wash.”

  “Yay,” I said with a feigned celebration dance. “I’ve got a prophecy, a mysterious pack of dogs, and another stalker. This has really been a banner year for me.”

  “At least you have a prophecy. At least you have a direction.”

  I frowned. “How can it be a good thing? So far it’s just made me a target.”

  Chaz looked over at me with his golden eyes and my entire body tightened and chilled. But I was going to blame it on the puddle of moonlight I was sitting in. “I’m not in the Book of Prophecy. No one in my family is. We’re just a bunch of worker bees.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’re expendable.”

  “Chaz,” I jumped up. “No. You’ve got an amazing gift. Creeps me out a little, but it’s cooler than smelling people a block away.”

  “But you’ve got a purpose in the big scheme of things. A mission with an end. They sent people to protect you.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “You sound envious.”

  A dark shadow crossed his face as he looked back out across Iris’s back property. It was that dark brooding look that made my heart sink into my stomach. God. I’d done it again. Why can’t I just think for two seconds before I open my big mouth? The big Theys hadn’t sent help to his father and look what happened there. That’s what he meant.

  “You must hate me.”

  He was silent. His jaw clenched as he kept his eyes as far away from me as possible.

  “I mean, I’m a panther and a lousy one at that. And a city girl who was stupid enough to get herself bitten in a back alley, protecting herself with a shoe. A shoe.”

  There was a small twitch of something in the corner of his mouth as his jaw relaxed. That’s what I was going for.

  “I mean. They are pretty big shoes, but seriously, against a monster? See. Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Between me and you. I think that psychic might have picked the wrong girl.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he finally said.

  Every fiber of my being vibrated as his golden eyes landed on me, like a plucked harp str
ing.

  “You’re not a normal girl, Violet.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” I snorted.

  “Shut up and let me talk,” he said as he slid off the banister and ran his hands though his hair. “I’ve been sent to find a few of these Perfects. Dad called them ‘newbie runs’ when a Perfect was awakened because their time had come, their epic deed was about to pass.”

  “Are there a lot in Dallas?” I interrupted.

  Chaz sighed. “Not in years. There hasn’t been much hope since, he took over.”

  “And by he you mean . . .”

  “Haverty.”

  I don’t know why I was surprised that he could say the word. Probably because I couldn’t even think about it most days. Probably because if something besides an act of God had killed my parents, I’d have hunted them down to the ends of the earth. Still would.

  “I’ve never seen anyone accept all this like you.”

  “Not smart enough to know better.”

  “The shifting. The brushing. I see you, Violet. You’re the right girl. Now you’ve just got to step up to the plate.”

  “Step up to the plate? Are you giving me a motivational speech? Is this about to turn into Hoosiers?”

  He grunted. “If you’ve been called, then it’s here. Whatever They’ve got planned,” he pointed to the sky. “And you’re helpless to stop it.”

  “I’ll see about that,” I said. “They’ve never gotten on my bad side.”

  Chapter Eleven

  There once was a little girl who was very lonely. All she had were her books. She read everything she could at the library, so she started to read everything at the local bookstores. She read adventure, and horror, and literature and how-to manuals and self-help books. By the time she was twelve, she had read every book in every store down her block.

  Until one day there was a new store on the block. And when the girl found out it was a bookstore, nothing filled her with more joy. She threw open the door and relished the sound of the bell on the handle.

  The owner, a small old man, pushed his glasses up his nose and looked over the counter.

  “These books aren’t for little girls,” he said. “Get out.”

  “But your’s are the only books I haven’t read, sir,” the girl pleaded.

  “Go read Alice in Wonderland.”

  “I have. All of them.”

  “Go read Moby Dick. That’s safe enough for a little girl.”

  “I have, sir.”

  The man grunted. “War and Peace?”

  “Twice sir, once in Russian.”

  The man leaned down from his perch behind the counter to get a better look at the girl. “No. No Children.”

  I interrupted my mother’s story. “Mom, this one is the Neverending Story, I’ve already read this one.”

  My mother frowned and stopped rubbing my back. “Don’t you want a story? Isn’t that what you begged for? ‘Mom, I’m sick. Can you come tell me a story?’ ”

  “Okay, but you’re teaching me plagiarism.”

  My mother sighed and started back with her story.

  So the little girl pleaded and pleaded, day after day until the man finally said yes. “Only the children’s section.”

  “You won’t even know I’m here.”

  She skipped back to the section under a small lattice archway that read ‘Childrens.’

  The section was colorful and chaotic and she loved it. It was like a garden of books. And they were all for her.

  She decided that she needed to be organized about her approach. She would start at one end of the top shelf and work her way down to the stacks on the floor.

  Everyday after school she would walk to the bookstore, sometimes bringing an apple or brownies left over from her lunch to the grumpy man behind the counter and she would read for two hours a day until it was time to go home for dinner.

  One day she was sitting in the middle of the section, cross-legged on the floor, hunched over one of her books when something flashed in the corner of her eye. She looked up to find a floor-length mirror with only her reflection looking curiously back at her.

  She went back to reading.

  But the next time it happened she swore that the reflection was slower than hers.

  The third time it happened she freaked out and was out the door before the book from her lap had even hit the floor.

  The next day, she peeked into the section and only saw herself in the mirror. There was a book in the middle of the floor. It was the only one there, as if the section had been cleaned.

  She approached the book with great apprehension. It was the book that she had been reading yesterday. The page was marked with a red ribbon.

  She watched the mirror as she sat cross-legged in the middle of the section. Slowly she put the book on her lap and opened it. Her reflection in the mirror did the same.

  She pulled the ribbon out and put it on the floor. She’d read about a page when she looked up at the mirror to see her own reflection playing with the ribbon. She sat frozen for a moment as she watched the girl of her reflection smile and wave and then lean forward to press her hand on what looked like her side of the mirror.

  The girl slowly leaned forward to touch the surface of the mirror.

  “Hi,” the reflection her chirped. “I really like this one. Can you keep reading it?”

  The girl just sat in awe. When she touched the mirror, her own voice echoed inside her head. “If you are reading it, then it appears on my side and I can read it.”

  “What are you?”

  “A mirror.”

  “But you look like me.”

  “I look like lots of things.”

  The girl pulled her hand away from the mirror and thought for a moment. This was crazy. But she had read crazier things.

  Her reflection smiled and patted the surface of the mirror again. The girl reluctantly put her hand back against the cool surface.

  “Do you think that you could show me the pictures from your side?”

  The girl pulled the book to her lap again and flipped the book around to show her the picture at the beginning of Chapter 12, where they were in the book.

  As the girl watched the reflection clap silently, she saw that the picture was different in the mirror. On her side it was just a girl and a horse; in the mirror, it was a raging steed and a princess.

  “Why? What?” the girl said as she kept looking between the two pictures.

  “The truth of everything is reflected in a mirror,” her reflection said.

  I woke up in the middle of the field in back of Iris’s property. Stark naked, I gasped and covered myself. It had to be close to morning, the moon was low in the sky and the birds had begun to sing.

  “Iris!” I called out. Surely she would be here somewhere and it wasn’t like my pale ass skin was hard to lose in this light.

  “Hold your horses.”

  The woman shuffled through the high grass and launched my terry cloth robe at me. I quickly shoved my arms through the sleeves and tied the belt around me.

  “Chaz hasn’t taken the book back yet has he?”

  “No, tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  It was insane. I knew that it was insane. My mother wove stories almost every night before I went to bed. Some were simple; some would take whole weeks to tell me and every night I would lay on my stomach while she rubbed my back and created the most beautiful worlds for me.

  But me standing in front of a mirror with an ancient book was insane. But then again, so was what was in the book—and my current life. Maybe walking on the crazy side was just what I needed to do.

  “When you say you dreamt the answer, was it like a prophetic dream?” Iris asked as she shuffled behind me in white slippers.

  I chewed on my lower lip as I got everything into place. “It’s just a story my mother told me.”

  “So, why do we need to do this at 5 a.m.?”

  “Fine. Go to bed then. But you’ll miss my de
scent into madness.”

  Iris put her hands on her hips and snorted. Just then, Chaz stuck his head in the doorway. His hair splayed out in all different directions and his lips were swollen with sleep. “What’s the commotion?”

  “In my world we call it ‘Crossing the Threshold.’ To everyone else, I’ve just officially gone insane.”

  Chaz rubbed his eyes and then ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m going back to sleep.”

  But he walked into the room and helped me with the full-size mirror in Iris’s bedroom. I’d sat cross-legged on the floor and put the book in my lap. I flipped open to the page, my page, and took in a deep breath as I turned it around in the mirror.

  I didn’t realize that I had squeezed my eyes shut until I had to pry them open to look at my reflection in a mirror.

  Nothing. There was nothing new about the text. Now it was just gobbledygook backwards. There was no Jabberwocky here, just an Alice on the floor looking like an idiot.

  “Anything?” Chaz asked. He lifted up his too tight T-shirt and scratched at his hip, nudging his sleep pants a little too low on his hips.

  I diverted my eyes quickly and rested my head on the binding of the book.

  “I’m sorry, honey.” Iris said with a warm hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t we work on it tomorrow?”

  My head stayed on the book. That was it. That was all I had. I finally looked up to see Chaz watching me in the mirror.

  “I’ll see what I can hunt down,” Chaz said as he turned to go. There was a glint of moonlight off his watch that threw light onto the mirror.

  I knew that I was tired, but not tired enough to hallucinate the quick flash of something across the pages of the book.

  “Moonlight!” I jumped up and tossed the book on the bed. “Get the mirror into moonlight.”

  Chaz helped me pull the mirror in front of Iris’ bedroom window. There was just enough light left to reflect back a puddle of light on the floor beneath the window.

  I hoisted the book again, turned to the page and again sat cross legged on the floor.