Otherkin

by Nina Berry

  No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a doorknob or handle. Maybe the door didn’t open at all. Or maybe whatever lay behind it was dangerous. As the shapes writhed before my eyes, the door seemed to grow taller and more shadowy, vibrating with dark. Cold panic took hold of me. I breathed deep, forced myself to memorize that recurring dark sun symbol, then bolted down the stairs.

  On the nature walk, I kept thinking about the shifting dark sun rune. Morfael recited the names of local plants I already knew as we walked. But I had no idea St. John’s wort could deter the ability to shift or that hawthorn trees grew near places of power. After an hour, we made our way back to the school and I headed for the kitchen, starving.

  “We’ve got to shift before lunch,” said November. “Come on.”

  Again? I followed her into the girls’ locker room and shifted into a tiger for the second time that day. It was still terrifying, though now at least I knew I probably wouldn’t stay a tiger forever. Probably.

  This time we didn’t shift right back to human, but emerged in animal form, and Morfael led us outside. I had trouble tearing my eyes from Siku, nearly as big as a minivan in grizzly form. His brown fur was tipped with blond, his massive legs slightly bowed as he walked, the big black nails of his claws digging furrows in the earth. He looked awkward until Morfael ordered him to climb a huge tree. Siku’s massive form broke into an easy gallop, fast as a horse, and he sprang with surprising grace as high as he could up the sturdy trunk of the tree. The climbing wasn’t easy for him, though, and he scrabbled and grunted, biting onto limbs and sending a shower of shredded bark onto the ground below.

  Morfael ordered me to do the same up a different tree. I spiraled up the trunk, amazed at how all four of my legs worked independently to find a hold, smoothly pushing me upward as my tail swayed, providing balance. I’d felt like this as a kid, scrambling fearlessly up the old oak tree, never thinking I’d fall. It was still marvelous, my muscles working in concert, my fur shrugging off the scratches of random limbs and rough bark.

  Then Morfael shouted for me to stop. I stood aloft, fifty feet above the mottled tapestry of the school compound. A clot of earth coming from a burrow showed where November was completing her assignment to dig herself a hiding place. Arnaldo’s brown wings dipped and rose as he slanted and sliced between trees, where his ten-foot wingspan could get him in trouble. London’s silver wolf was running back and forth across the top of a fallen log, like a rough balance beam. Every now and then her paws slipped and she’d scramble to keep herself from falling as Morfael urged her faster.

  Not far off, I glimpsed a hunk of white metal that had to be Lazar’s stolen BMW. A tall form in a long dark coat stood by it, holding something to his ear: Caleb, and he was on his phone. I could just see his head nod and perhaps his lips move, but at this distance I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Who could he possibly be talking to? A spark of anger and confusion ignited in me, and I dug my claws deeper into the wood, whiskers bristling.

  “Very good, Desdemona and Siku,” Morfael was saying. Siku’s bulky form swayed the strong branches of the tree near me, about twenty feet off the ground. “Now come down.”

  This was the real challenge for me. Siku hadn’t climbed far, so all he had to do was hang from a limb and drop. His huge form rolled with the fall, and he got up uninjured, shaking the dirt off his fur.

  I was too high for that, and my claws curved the wrong way for me to go down head first. So I went down butt first. The cat in me didn’t like it at all. I stalled, eyeing the branches. But the girl in me had climbed a million trees before she got the brace. If I could do it without claws and a tail, then I sure as heck could do it now with them.

  Gripping a branch with my front claws, I let my back legs dangle until they found a grip on a lower branch. Front paws then let go and grabbed the lower branch. Repeat. It went fine for about twenty-five feet. Then my back legs missed their branch. My tail end swung out into the air as my front paws scrabbled at the tree limb. They slipped, and I fell.

  Even as panic flooded me, my head twisted until my eyes found the ground. My body followed my head, turning in midair, paws splayed wide, legs bent as I hit the earth right side up. The impact sent a shock along my legs and spine, but it dissipated in a heartbeat, leaving me shaken but unhurt.

  “Your first fall as a cat,” said Morfael, walking up to me. “Well done.”

  Praise from Morfael! I should have felt exhilarated. But the thought of Caleb on the phone kept intruding. Back in human form, I joined the others in the library for a history lesson. Caleb was there, his face shuttered. I sat as far from him as I could. He was keeping something from me, something big. The thought made my throat ache.

  Morfael began talking about something he called the Schism, when the Tribunal had split from the Catholic Church in the sixteen hundreds and went completely underground. At first my mind wandered, distracted by worries about my mother and Richard and how we could ever lead a normal life again.

  Then I realized what Morfael was saying. Witch hunts in America and Europe took on a whole new meaning when you realized that the women accused of being able to turn into cats and birds were shifters. Even Dracula had a basis in truth, since the original Vlad Tepes had actually been a bat-shifter.

  Our homework was to pick a famous person and prove whether they were a shifter or not. I was so intrigued I almost didn’t mind the work.

  The afternoon passed in a haze of martial arts exercises and drills on getting dressed and undressed fast in groups segregated by gender and with Caleb excused. We had lessons on how to start a fire without a lighter and how to keep warm in the woods if you were stuck in human form, and pointers on recognizing locations of power.

  Another shift was required before dinner. I whipped off my clothes as fast as I could for practice, then hunkered down and closed my eyes. Might as well try to find my connection to Othersphere while I was here. I directed my thoughts to that dark place and found it. It felt exactly as full of dread and anxiety as it had before.

  As I plunged through that frightening black window, a by-now familiar surge of power raced through me, and in seconds I stood once again in tiger form. I looked down at my paws and flexed the claws to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  “You’re getting good,” said November. “Stop it, or I’ll lose my crown as best shifter at school.”

  I butted my head against her shoulder. She shoved me away with a nervous giggle. I shifted back to human a moment later and got dressed for dinner.

  Caleb looked at me a couple of times as we ate. We hadn’t talked all day, which felt wrong after all we’d been through. Our legs were really close under the table. I could’ve rubbed my foot against his calf. But I didn’t. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to push me away again.

  During cleanup, I could feel how near he was in the tight space of the kitchen. As we finished and began filing out, he put a gentle hand on my elbow and tugged me back.

  “Hey,” he said in that intimate nonwhisper tone that made my stomach flutter. “Tell me about your mom.”

  “She’s fine,” I said, not quite looking him in the eye, and told him what Mom had written about the Tribunal.

  “Leave no trace for the unbelievers to find, that’s Ximon’s way,” Caleb said, leaning against the counter. “Where did your mom and Richard go?”

  “She didn’t tell me where, in case the e-mail account gets hacked.” I leaned against the opposite counter. Avoiding his gaze meant my eyes had to trace the small veins in his biceps, his smooth brown skin, how his jeans hugged his hips.

  “Your mom’s tough,” he said. “I see where you get it.”

  “I’m adopted,” I said. “I didn’t inherit . . .”

  “You think genes are the only things you can inherit?”

  I accidentally looked up and met his smiling gaze. Warmth stole over me. “I guess not,” I said. “She wasn’t tough enough to stop Richard from hiding out and waiting for the Tribunal t
hough.”

  “He what?” He leaned forward in surprise. “But they’re okay?”

  “Yeah, Ximon and his group didn’t see them, but Mom and Richard watched him arrive with some other guys in a white van. Lazar’s sister Amaris was there too.”

  He straightened. “Oh?”

  “Mom said she was upset at Lazar’s injuries, but then she laid her hands on him, and seconds later, he sat up, looking fine.”

  He leaned back again. “She healed him.”

  “She can do that?” I said. “I don’t get it. How does that fit into being an objurer? Can all of them do that?”

  “She’s not an objurer or otherkin,” he said. “Once in a generation, a healer is born. Amaris is the youngest in the world. She’s still learning how to harness her ability.”

  “Does she acquire the healing from Othersphere? Or is it something else?”

  “Healing is much harder than shifting or calling something forth from shadow,” he said. “I’m not sure exactly how it works, but she pulls energy from Othersphere that makes the body whole. My mom had a theory. She said everyone in this world has a shadow double in Othersphere, a doppelganger. Somehow the healer finds the vibration of the healthy body of the double and uses it to create health in someone here.”

  I frowned, trying to work that out. “So, she sucks the life out of someone in Othersphere and transfers it to that person’s double in our world.”

  “We don’t know what it does to the shadow double,” he said. “We can’t cross over into Othersphere to find out. The Tribunal thinks it’s a blessing from God if one of theirs is born with the ability, and a curse from the devil if it’s one of ours.”

  “At least they’re consistent in their inconsistency,” I said.

  “Healers are rare, and very valuable. It’s a huge advantage to the Tribunal to have one working for them.”

  “Because they can’t heal like shifters can.” An idea struck me. “Is that why we heal when we shift? Are we drawing health or whatever from our shadow double?”

  “That’s the theory.” He cracked a half smile. “Smart girl strikes again.”

  I didn’t respond, torn between feeling good at his compliment and wanting to know the truth. Truth won. “Who were you talking to on the phone this afternoon?”

  “What?” His eyebrows arched. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”

  “I saw you on the phone while you were standing over by Lazar’s Beemer.” I mimicked his earlier stance, hand to ear.

  “Oh, then.” He looked away. “It’s not important.”

  “You had the phone to your ear,” I said. “That’s not how you play games or access the web.”

  “Or listen to messages.” His expression turned stony. “I keep old messages and sometimes I replay them so I can hear my mother’s voice. I told you it’s not important.” He headed for the kitchen door.

  The pain in his voice drained all the anger out of me. “I’m sorry,” I said. He kept walking, and I grabbed onto the back of his sweatshirt, making him turn around. “I’m really sorry, Caleb. It’s just . . .” I broke off, unable to figure out how the next part went.

  He studied me for a long moment. “Last night,” he said. “You don’t trust me now because of last night.”

  “I know you’re lying to me,” I said. “Not necessarily about the phone call today, but about the earlier one, and other times too.”

  His hand moved like he was reaching for mine, then pulled back. “I should’ve never let it go so far, but you’re a magnet.”

  I cleared my throat. My voice came out very small. “Why can’t we be . . . ?”

  “We just can’t,” he said.

  “Is there someone else?” I said. The last thing I wanted to hear was “yes,” but at least then I’d know what was going on.

  “I told you, it’s complicated,” he said, his voice taking on a firm “no more questions” tone. “Maybe . . .” He stopped himself, then shook his head. “The important thing is that you’re safe here. And maybe they’ll find out something about your birth parents. You need to forget about me. I won’t be here much longer.”

  I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. I tried to imagine being here without him, my one friend in this mysterious, lonely new world.

  Damn it, I wasn’t going to cry. Not in front of him. I clamped down on the hollow feeling and kept my voice cool. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “I’ll stay for a little while longer, but this isn’t a school for callers. Morfael’s been more than kind, but I have to earn my own way through the world.”

  “He seems to think you’re an asset here, teaching us about technology.”

  “It’s charity, and I appreciate it, but I’m not earning my keep,” he said. “And I have things to do.”

  “I get it,” I said. Anger circled around the edges of the pain inside me. “You’ve finished leading me on, so it’s time to go.”

  His face tightened as I walked past him, out of Morfael’s house and into the dark of the early evening. The other kids were back in the library, researching their papers, but I felt the urge to run, to scream. The cold autumn wind cut through my sweatshirt as I paced past the tree I had climbed earlier, a rising tide of emotion flooding through me. Fur would be warmer. And cat’s eyes would be better for a walk through the woods at night.

  I walked to the oak I’d climbed earlier and leaned against it, missing my own tree, the lightning tree, back in Burbank.

  Why was shifting so scary? So far it had been safe, and I’d proven I could shift back to human.

  Don’t be afraid of yourself.

  Maybe I was starting to understand what Mom meant by that. It was easier to pretend I was fine, that I was strong, that nothing hurt me. Facing up to the reality of who I might be was much scarier.

  A longing to run through the grass and feel the night air started up like a purr inside me. I wanted to leave the pain of everything behind, even for just a few moments. I pushed through the fear and shifted in a heartbeat, and all the cool scents of the forest washed through me. A breeze ruffled my fur, and I cocked my ears to catch the skittering insects among the leaves.

  A small voice in my head worried. You shouldn’t be able to shift four times in one day.

  But I didn’t want to think about that now. Digging my claws into its bark, I climbed up into the rough arms of the oak, just as I had when I was a kid. Cradled there, I felt homesickness and fear of the future overwhelm me. Some of the oak’s dying leaves brushed my whiskers, and I let myself believe I wasn’t alone.

  CHAPTER 18

  A week passed in a blur of shifting, classes, workouts, meals, and avoiding Caleb. I met Raynard, the burly fifty-ish caretaker who came every other day to do the laundry, mend things, and grumble under his breath. We weren’t exactly introduced. He grunted at me when I said hello as we filed past him hosing down the cave floor one morning. It was hard to picture that schlubby figure getting romantic with anyone, let alone the elegant, alien Morfael.

  Morfael’s decision to teach us to use the weapons the Tribunal used against us lead to lessons in gunfire. It made sense to teach the shifters modern warfare, but I had to watch and listen to Caleb when he made us put on gloves and shoot the silver gun we found in Lazar’s BMW. Having him so close made me ache all over. Maybe that’s why I fared the worst on the shooting range, although I also hated the noise and smell of the gun. Even with the gloves on, the silver burned my hands. I couldn’t wait to shift after that to heal my itchy red skin.

  The others didn’t have the same level of sensitivity. After some initial fumbling, Arnaldo turned out to be a deadeye and got a little obsessed. During free time he got the key to the gun locker from Morfael and coaxed Siku to throw rocks and bottles so he could shatter them like a skeet shooter. Raynard groused but replenished our supply of bullets two days later with dozens of boxes.

  Every morning I woke expecting to find Caleb gone. But he was still there at th
e end of the week, participating in all the physical exercises, making us rebuild the motorcycle, then teaching us how to drive it. Part of me wished he’d just go away already. I’d never get over him practically living with him like this. In spite of everything, I still couldn’t take my eyes off him whenever he was around. A couple of times as I sat on the bike, his hand brushed mine, showing me how to brake or accelerate. I concentrated so much on keeping my face blank that I kept stalling out the motor. But he persisted until I could at least get the bike going and stop it without falling off.

  I found several books on runes in the library, but none of them had a symbol in them like the dark sun on Morfael’s door. I tried to get a good look at his staff, to see if the same rune was carved there. But it never seemed to leave Morfael’s hand. His bony fingers covered up too much to see anything in detail.

  November paid special attention to the lesson in which Caleb showed us how locks worked. She became the first to pick a padlock. She did it so well that Caleb challenged her in rapid succession to open the lock on the front door, a briefcase, and the BMW’s trunk. After some initial fumbling, she managed all three. Later she batted her eyelashes at him and asked him to make her some lockpicks of her own. I fought off nauseating pangs of jealousy when he gave them to her the next day.

  London kept as quiet as I did during these lessons. But then, she was always quiet. During Morfael’s lectures on plants, animal species, and anatomy, she took detailed notes, and she always got full moons on those quizzes. But she never raised her hand when Morfael asked us a question. Sometimes he’d let the silence hang for minutes, scanning our faces. He seemed to scrutinize her the longest, but she kept her eyes down, pen moving. Once I caught a glimpse of a sketch she left out on her bunk. She had drawn a perfectly proportioned schematic of the musculature of a wolf.