by Kelli Kimble
So, the ladies were still a little sore with me.
When everyone had their plates, Patty stood up on the fireplace hearth and tapped a fork to her mimosa glass.
“Everyone, everyone. I just want to take this opportunity to thank Siggie for graciously accepting the board position. We’re all glad to have you here.” She raised her glass.
“Alpha Nu forever,” they all chanted together. I bit my lip. I’d already forgotten that custom.
“Siggie and Iris have moved into their new room,” she made fleeting eye contact with me before sliding her eyes back to Siggie. “And we’re happy to have them here.”
There was a polite round of applause.
“Speech! Speech!” Lucy called out.
“Oh,” Patty said. She seemed surprised and a touch hurt that listening to her talk wasn’t enough. But she recovered quickly. “Yes, what a good idea. Siggie, why don’t you come up here and say a few words.”
Siggie dabbed a napkin to her mouth and set her plate on a side table. She locked eyes with me as she moved up to the hearth and my heart clenched in my chest. This was it. She was going to try and convince them again. Had I agreed to shift my form last night? I might have. I frowned down at my nylons. My fur was going to itch under their confinement.
“Hi, everyone,” Siggie said. “I want to thank you for the opportunity to stay in the house. My father’s wallet wants to thank you, especially.” A rumble of laughter rippled through the room. It was cheaper to pay the rent at Alpha Nu than the dormitory charge. She cleared her throat. Here we go. I set my own plate aside in anticipation.
“I believe that a board member should be about action. With that in mind, I want to start my time off initiating something right away. Tonight, I’d like to invite a guest speaker. He’s an expert in world history, and an entertaining fellow. I hope you’ll all stop in tonight to hear him.”
“That’s a terrific idea, Siggie,” Patty said. Patty’s eyes bounced around to the other board members, apparently trying to remind them that they should be doing similar things for Alpha Nu. “What time will he be speaking?”
Siggie locked eyes with me again. I raised my shoulders. I had no idea what time Mr. Anu planned to return home.
“Six o’clock?” Siggie asked.
Patty misread the question. “Six o’clock it is. Can I get a volunteer to provide light beverages and snacks?”
Shirley raised her hand. Note to self: do not drink whatever Shirley provides. I was already feeling a little light-headed from the mimosa.
Siggie was moving to return to her seat when Mimi raised her hand.
“Yes, Mimi?” Patty asked.
“Siggie, what’s the speaker’s name and credentials? I’d like to make some posters to hang around campus. Maybe some of the history students would be interested.”
Siggie sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “I think this should be just for Alpha Nu members. He’s, um, shy.”
“All right,” Mimi said, apparently not realizing that was a lame excuse. “Then I need details for the members. I need to initiate the message tree.”
“His name is Mr. Anu,” Siggie said.
Mimi scribbled something on a tiny pad of paper she’d extracted from her pocket. Her level of preparedness made me want to scream. “And what school is he from?”
“School?” Siggie was locked in a stare down with Mimi, though Mimi didn’t seem to realize it.
“Yes, he’s a scholar, right?”
“Actually,” I said, “His expertise is a little more experience-driven,” I said. “He’s travelled all over the world.”
“Wait,” Patty said, her voice cold enough to chill her mimosa. “Is this a friend of Iris? Is this somehow related to her little prank?”
Abort, abort, abort.
“Now that you mention it,” Siggie said, wringing her hands together. “He is a friend of Iris. He’s actually her guardian, while her parents are away in France.”
“Your parents are in France?” Gilda gushed. Of course, the smoker in the group was fascinated by that.
“Hush, Gilda,” Patty said. “You’re missing the point.”
Siggie’s eyes were pleading with me to do something. But I stood there like an idiot instead.
“This Mr. Anu character who is your guardian,” Mimi said. “That sounds an awful lot like the sort of nickname one might have to cover up that their name is actually Anubis.”
All eyes swung to me. The few people present who were not on the board had confusion in their eyes. Everyone else smelled angry. Even Siggie. I sighed. This was it. I had to show my alternate form.
I stood up. “I have something to show you. I want you to think about how I could accomplish this if I’m not what I say I am. And I want everyone to remain calm. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”
Patty turned away from me. “I think we’ve had about enough of . . .” but the rest of what she said was drowned out by the screams of the rest of the ladies. Except Siggie, who had a smug grin on her face.
I was standing there in my alternate form. The urge to stand on my toes had pulled my heels from my shoes and the claws had torn through my nylons. They now encased my legs from the ankles up, and with my fur filling them out, they looked remarkably sausage-like. I held up my hands in a calming gesture.
“Ladies, it’s just—” I stopped when the plate that Shirley threw hit me in the snout. The plate fell to the floor and shattered.
“Ouch,” I said.
If things weren’t already crazy, they were now. Chairs overturned and hair was pulled as they all tried to make a hasty exit by knocking the others out of their way. Seeing that they weren’t going to relax, I returned to my human form.
A piercing whistle stopped everyone. I clamped my hands over my ears. It hurt. I looked for the source. Siggie.
“Hey! There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just Iris.” She pointed at me. Between their hurry to be the first to leave the room and the tipped over furniture blocking the way, nobody had actually managed to exit. It didn’t take long for everyone to gather the courage to glance my way. When they saw it was only me a ripple of relief went through the room.
“I know that was scary,” I said. “But it’s what Mr. Anu wants to talk to you about. If you don’t want to listen, that’s fine.” I shrugged. “You don’t have to admit what you are. You don’t have to rise to your potential. In fact, in my opinion, it would behoove you to resist Mr. Anu in every way you can. But he’s coming, and he’ll be here at six, and he won’t be put off.”
Siggie gave a sigh of relief.
“If you’d like to finish your breakfast in the other room, I’ll clean up this mess. I apologize for scaring you. Again. I was only trying to help you understand.”
I bent to pick up the pieces of Shirley’s plate scattered around my feet. The rustle of shocked people departing the room was the only sound.
A pair of hands reached into my field of view. I looked up to find Shirley on her knees, scraping up bits of scrambled eggs that had fallen from her plate when she threw it. “Can you do that any time you want?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Your fur . . . can I touch it?”
“Ew,” I said.
She laughed. “Yeah, that sounded better in my head.” She sat back onto her haunches and looked me up and down. “How does it work?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you physically growing fur and, I don’t know, retracting it? What makes you stand the way you did?”
“The changes are both physical and mental,” I said. “I mentally feel as though these physical characteristics about my body are true. And so, I physically portray them.”
“Huh?”
“My legs feel like dog legs. So, I stand as though I’m a dog.”
“But you don’t just feel like you have fur and therefore you have it.”
I shook my head. �
��No. The fur isn’t the same. I don’t grow it. It’s just there. And when I’m human, it’s not. That’s it.”
“It sounds like magic,” she said.
“Maybe it is. I never asked.”
Siggie came over with a garbage bag. I dropped the pieces of the plate into it as she held it open.
“That went a little better than I expected it to,” she said.
“You don’t have very high expectations,” Shirley said, dumping a handful of eggs and sausages into the bag.
“We’ve got to go see Mr. Anu,” she said. “He’ll come, right?”
“I can’t make any promises. But yesterday he said he’d come.”
“As soon as I’ve got this cleaned up, we’ll go see him.”
“Maybe you should change your nylons,” Shirley said. “It looks like you clawed your way out of those.”
I smiled. “I guess I did.”
Chapter 18
The turnout to Mr. Anu’s lecture was larger than I’d expected. Apparently, it was more than just Shirley who was intrigued by this morning’s display. Siggie set up enough folding chairs in the basement rumpus room for the entire membership and they were full. I kept checking my watch, nervous that he wouldn’t show.
Siggie nudged me with her elbow. “He’ll be here. He promised.”
“I know, it’s just not like him to be late. We told him the talk was supposed to start at six.”
“Yes, and he still has five minutes.”
The others were starting to whisper and get restless. There was a cuckoo clock on the wall, and I flinched when it struck six and the bird emerged six times, mocking me with its tweet.
A change came over the house when he entered, just at the last bird call.
“He’s here,” I said.
“How can you tell?” Siggie asked.
I didn’t answer. In a moment, a set of feet appeared on the stairs and marched steadily down. It was strange to see him inside with shoes on; stranger still that the shoes weren’t work boots. He was dressed in a nice tweed sport coat and grey slacks. He had a casual appearance, but his gaze was sharp and hard when he cast it across the Alpha Nu members milling around the room.
Patty followed him, her heels clomping on the wooden steps. Mr. Anu turned back to help her, raising a hand for her to hold as she descended the final few. Her face smoothed into a relaxed pose, until she reached the bottom, and he released her hand. Her forehead wrinkled but she didn’t stop to question it. She began to clap her hands.
“Everyone, please take your seats.” The crowd moved to do as she asked, and she nodded. “Yes, that’s it. All right. Siggie, would you like to introduce your guest?”
Patty eased into one of the last empty seats. Siggie squeezed my shoulder as she stood and made her way to the aisle down the middle of the room. At the front, she paused to say hello to Mr. Anu before she turned to the crowd.
“I know you’ve all been curious about what Iris has told you. Today I’ve asked the expert to come and speak to us. He’s lived all over the world and has a vast amount of experiences, which I’m sure he’d be willing to share. But he’s really here to explain to all of us what being an Anubian means. May I introduce Mr. Anu.” She waited until the polite applause died and returned to her seat.
Mr. Anu inclined his head. “Thank you, Sigourney. I’m most pleased to be here with you today. I understand that you have some questions, so I thought we might start with that. Does anyone have a question for me?”
Hands shot up around the room.
He gestured to someone in the front row.
“Yes, thank you, sir. Do you have the ability to change, like Iris?”
“I do. I bestowed that ability upon her. I could bestow it on any of you, as well.” He raised his head and sniffed. “There’s at least two or three of you who are already ready.”
“Can you show us?” someone shouted.
“I could. I’d rather we talked a little more, first. It can be a shock to see someone in their changed state.”
Patty raised her hand and Mr. Anu inclined his head at her. “Tell us what Iris means by saying we’re Anubian.”
“Ah. You wish to know of your origin.” He steepled his fingers. “You are all direct descendants of me. Many times removed, of course. But there are signs. One of them being that all of you have a last name that somehow traces back to the word ‘dog’ or ‘wolf’. Iris’s last name is Hond, which translates to dog in Dutch.”
Siggie leaned over to me. “I didn’t know that,” she said.
“There are physical signs, as well. I believe Iris has noted to you that you have heightened senses. You can see, smell, and hear things with a sharper ability than your human counterparts. Also, you sometimes have an intuition about how someone feels or even about the weather.
“When the Egyptian gods had waned in their influence, I grew restless. I felt without purpose, and so I began walking the earth. I started to get close to Man. I didn’t stay anywhere for much longer than fifteen or twenty years to escape notice. Eventually I became so comfortable among men that I spent all of my time among them. And that is when I met Joanna.
“She is the human from which you descend. Each of you is equally human and Anubian. This is because you seek each other out. You crave the company of those like you.”
“It sounds like you’re talking about a pack of wolves,” Shirley said.
Mr. Anu nodded. “Indeed, the way you tend to cluster together is pack-like. That is an Anubian trait that has been . . . watered down, let’s say, by your human traits.”
“Where did you come from?” Shirley pressed.
“Ah. An interesting question. Not one I normally get. You must be the smart one of this group.”
From the front row, Patty cast an affronted look back at Shirley.
Mr. Anu continued. “My kind isn’t from Earth.”
I gasped, and everyone turned to look at me.
“See? Even Miss Hond has not thought to wonder. It is why the laws of physicality here do not apply to me the way they do to humans. I’ll likely be alive when your planet dies, whether that is from man’s destruction or the death of your sun.”
“How did you get here? Can you leave?” Patty asked.
“I was born here. And no, I don’t have the means or the will to leave.”
“Are there others like you?” someone else asked.
“There are others of my race, yes. But they have not chosen to walk amongst men.”
“How are we supposed to believe any of this without proof?” Patty asked.
“Fair enough. Come up here, please.”
Patty blanched. The stench of fear swept over the room. To her credit, she got up and went to stand beside Mr. Anu.
“Now. I know you are afraid . . .”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, interrupting.
Mr. Anu’s lips curled up on one side. “If you say so. Miss Hond. Can you tell us what you smell in this room?”
“Fear,” I said.
Two pink splotches appeared across Patty’s cheeks.
“Exactly,” Mr. Anu said. “Now. You are afraid, but I am adept at neutralizing fear. Allow me to demonstrate.” He held out his hand. “Touch my hand, please.”
Patty put her hand in his.
“Iris?”
“Her fear is gone.”
“How do you feel?” he asked Patty.
“I’m . . . calm. You might say serene.”
“Exactly. It’s my duty to guide souls to the afterlife. Humans fear the unknown, especially death. My touch is a calming force to make the journey through death bearable. If I let you go, you won’t be afraid anymore because you know now why I asked you to come up here. But you will probably feel some lingering anxiety.” He released her.
She pulled her hand against her chest and rubbed it with her other hand. “That’s strange,” she said.
“It is disconcerting to the living when they are aware of the influence. Quite often, though, they
don’t realize a correlation. Another thing that the living find disconcerting, my speed.” As he said it, he blurred and disappeared. “I’m over here.” He’d moved to the other side of the room. This was something he’d never outright demonstrated for me. The other day when he’d caught the wax fruit from the bowl, he’d done it, but not to this extent.
He walked back to the front of the room. “What other questions do you have?”
“How do we get like Iris?” Shirley asked.
“Ah. The path Iris has taken is not an easy one. She first had to come to terms with what she is. Then, she had to meet her soulmate and they had to, independent of me, initiate their bond.”
Siggie elbowed me in the ribs and gave me a knowing look. I tried not to roll my eyes.
“He also had to believe in what you are. Once that is done, if I am confident that the pair will serve me for the duration of their lives, they undergo a ceremony. It is not a trivial thing. If you survive the ceremony, then you’ll be like Iris.”
Every eye in the room was now on me.
“And one little caveat. You must bond with your soulmate before you are a fully grown adult. For most of you that is sometime between your seventeenth and twenty-third or fourth birthday. Some of you have already missed it. That’s not to say that you can never find your soulmate; it occasionally happens, as it did with Professor Cane. You can continue to live as you are. It only means that you cannot reach your Anubian fullest potential. There is always room for your human potential, though.”
I sucked in a breath. He’d never spoken of my human potential before I underwent the ceremony.
“Once you reach this fullest potential— then what?” someone in front asked.
“You’ll serve me as your god. And you’ll receive rewards in kind.”
The questions were coming faster and more aggressive now. “What kind of service?”
“You’ll guide dying souls to the afterlife in my stead.”
“So, we’d be able to do anything that you could do?”
“No. You’d be able to provide a calming touch, but only to those who are dying. And you will be able to guide their souls. You’d also be able to assume an alternate form, which is wolf-like in nature. Humans have come to think of it as a werewolf form.”
