Otherkin

by Nina Berry

  The only classes I did well in were history, botany, and shifting. As quick as November was to shift, she had a hard time resisting when Morfael forced us to change form. I did better.

  Caleb tried to talk to me exactly once. He found me alone in the library, researching my history paper. He sat down in the chair across from me, cleared his throat, and said, “Hey.”

  I didn’t respond. The yellowing book page in front of me suddenly made no sense, but I kept running my eyes over it.

  “I was hoping we wouldn’t leave it like this,” he said, his hands clasped tensely together. “I consider you a friend.”

  “Friends are honest with each other,” I said. “I’ve never lied to you. Can you say the same thing?”

  He looked down. I pretended to keep reading.

  “I would tell you if I could,” he said, his voice very quiet. “You should know that.”

  “Why should I believe anything you say?” I asked. It felt horribly good to see the hurt my words brought to his eyes. “Now, this paper about the Javanese chieftain tiger-shifter isn’t going to write itself.”

  His jaw clenched. He nodded and got up. My pleasure in hurting him drained away, and the room felt cold without him.

  Things got awkward when Morfael told us that Caleb was going to try to force us to shift the other way—from animal into human form.

  “That’s what the Tribunal does, not callers of shadow,” said Arnaldo.

  “If you can learn to resist the powers of the objurers, you may be able to save yourselves and your families if they come under attack,” said Morfael.

  “You’ve brought an objurer into this school,” said Siku, his deep voice rising. “He is one of them!”

  “Callers and objurers are two sides of the same coin,” Morfael said, his own powerful voice cutting through Siku’s emotion. “Caleb has training in both calling forth the shadow and in pushing it back to Othersphere. Most callers do not have that opportunity, and you are very fortunate to have him here right now to help you prepare against the Tribunal.”

  Siku didn’t dare speak out after that, but he silently refused to participate in the exercise. I wondered if Morfael would force him to shift, but he only ordered him to stay in his cabin for the rest of the day.

  The rest of us took our turns, one by one, moving behind the bushes, piling up our clothes, and shifting to animal form. I watched as Caleb concentrated, pointed his hand at London, and hummed, deep and low. I thought of the night I’d been stuck in tiger form, my mother standing over me with a gun. He’d saved me that night, helping me become human. Now I couldn’t even bear to speak to him.

  Black vapor shot from Caleb’s fingers and enveloped London’s silver wolf form, barely visible through the greenery. She whined sharply, and the bushes shook. Caleb dropped his hand, looking a bit pale.

  “London?” said November. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” came London’s human voice.

  As she got dressed, I studied Caleb out of the corner of my eye. After he’d helped me out, he’d suffered a few moments of disorientation. Now Morfael expected him to do it four times in a row. Did Morfael also weaken when he used his powers? Maybe as callers gained experience, they became more immune to the bad effects.

  Caleb stood very still, his eyes shut. He didn’t sway or say strange things as he had before, but I could hear a faint hum emanating from him like an appliance on standby. Morfael must’ve given him pointers on how to maintain focus.

  November went next and suffered the same fate as London, just as quickly. “This blows,” she said from the bushes. “How are we supposed to fight it?”

  I was racking my brain, trying to come up with a plan to do exactly that. Callers and objurers used vibration to manipulate shadow. There had to be something shifters could do to stop them.

  My turn. I stripped down where no one could see me and shifted into tiger form. I felt the fear, but I did it anyway. I concentrated on my inner tiger, lashing my tail against the attack about to come.

  Caleb’s drone rose into a call, and my body shuddered with it. The pool of darkness within me shrank from the sound, and at the last minute I tried to roar. If Caleb could use vibration to his advantage, maybe so could I. But it was too late. Seconds later I lay on the grass, human, naked, and grateful for the screening shrubbery. I dressed fast, fingers trembling. Being naked in the open like this was mortifying. I wondered about my attempt to roar. Would it have made any difference?

  As I passed Arnaldo on his way to take my place, I said, “Try making your own sound.”

  He stopped. “What?”

  “He’s using sound to make us shift,” I said, keeping my voice down. “If you make your own sound, your own vibration, maybe it’ll mess with his.”

  He frowned and kept walking. I sat down on the cold ground next to London, glancing at Caleb’s face. Strain showed between his dark brows, and I could tell how hard he was focusing to keep his breathing even.

  With a flapping of long brown wings, Arnaldo the eagle leapt up from behind the hedge and came to rest on the strong branch of a neighboring tree. It sagged and bounced under his weight as he fixed us all with a piercing gaze out of one eye.

  “He’s getting cocky,” said November. “He’ll fall for sure. Hey, bird boy!” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Can’t wait to see how your package likes it when you shift and end up sitting naked on that branch!”

  Arnaldo tilted his white feathered head and croaked as Caleb’s humming grew louder. His voice seemed to gather up all the sounds in the world to aid it. Even though the hum wasn’t aimed at me, my body thrummed with it, wanting to follow but not knowing how. As the intensity grew, nearing its peak, Arnaldo opened his cruel beak and screeched out a high, penetrating note, neck thrust forward.

  Caleb winced, and the pitch of his call wavered. The eagle cried out again, a blood-freezing scream so strong I could almost see it slicing into Caleb’s resonance, like a knife through a smothering blanket.

  The hum ceased. Caleb staggered back, his skin ashen. His eyes widened, glowing with gold shot through the black irises. His face went blank as he stared right at me with a look I didn’t recognize. His legs buckled beneath him.

  I was on my feet, moving toward him. As if in slow motion, he fell. All my anger at him fled as I got my arms around him in time to keep the back of his head from striking a rock.

  His black eyes were spiraled with gold. It almost made me dizzy to look into them.

  “The lost one,” he said, staring at me in awed horror.

  “Is he okay?” November was at my side. London approached hesitantly, and Arnaldo flew in to land heavily beside her.

  Caleb stared around at all of us, as if he’d never seen us before. “Vermin. Lupine. Raptor,” he said, his voice raw. “Beware. She is not one of you.”

  “What the hell?” said November.

  “You mean Dez?” said London. Everyone was staring at me.

  “Move aside,” said Morfael, his staff jabbing into the hard ground as he approached. “Desdemona, let him go.”

  I’d forgotten that my arms were still around Caleb. He felt cold, unfamiliar, and I wanted to press him close until he was warm again. But I lowered his head to the ground and took my arms away. The others moved back, but I stayed there, inches away, in case he needed me.

  Caleb gazed up at Morfael, eyes narrowing as if in recognition. “Shadow walker,” he said. “You are the guiltiest of all.”

  “Shhh.” Morfael made a hushing noise. I could feel the soothing vibration of it. Caleb’s eyes closed, but his face and body remained tense.

  Morfael knelt down next to Caleb and placed the tip of his skeletal finger between his brows. “Return,” he said in the same quiet tone.

  Caleb relaxed. Color returned to his face and he opened his eyes. They were once again black as onyx. “Guess I need more practice,” he said, his voice scratchy. I couldn’t help smiling at him in relief.

  “Take him to the
couch before the fire in my living room,” Morfael said. “Help him.” He turned to go, then stopped next to the eagle. “Well done, Arnaldo.”

  London and I helped Caleb walk back to Morfael’s house while November skipped ahead and opened doors for us. Caleb tried to walk on his own, but every few steps he’d start to fall. So we put his arms around our shoulders and propped him up along the way, finally letting him collapse onto the leather sofa before the fire. His eyes closed immediately and he fell asleep.

  “He has got the most ridiculous eyelashes,” November said, perching on the arm of the sofa.

  “Come on, ’Ember,” said London, moving toward the front door.

  “What?” November looked from her to me, then down at Caleb. “Oh, right. Fine.”

  The door shut behind them, and I knelt down by Caleb’s side, watching the reassuring rise and fall of his chest.

  “He’ll recover after a night of sleep.”

  Morfael stood in the doorway, leaning on his staff. A cold breeze blew layers of black clothing against his emaciated frame until he shut the door.

  “You made him force four people in a row to shift,” I said, fury sparking out of me. “You endangered him.”

  “You think I asked too much,” he said. “But he has grown in strength these last few days. If you and Arnaldo had not been so clever, he would not have succumbed to shadow.”

  “Don’t try to blame us.” I got up to face him squarely. “You’re the one who pushed him too hard.”

  “There is no fault,” he said. “Being a caller brings certain risks. Caleb knows this. And every time he pushes himself, his strength grows.”

  “What happens to him when he goes too far?” I said. “It’s like he loses himself. He says all these things that don’t make any sense.”

  “Don’t they?” said Morfael.

  That made me pause. “So everything he says is true? That would mean I’m the lost one and you’re the guiltiest of all.”

  “Any truth Caleb may have spoken might not be the truth as you or I would see it,” he said.

  “Okay, enough with the cryptic pronouncements,” I said. “Tell me now, does his mind get lost in Othersphere or something? What if he can’t come back?”

  Morfael didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed.

  “Return,” I said, remembering what Morfael had said to help Caleb a few minutes earlier. “Were you calling him to return from Othersphere?” I studied his strange, gaunt countenance. It gave nothing away, but something in my head clicked into place. It was exactly the opposite. “Or were you telling something inside Caleb to return to Othersphere?”

  His face changed. I had surprised him.

  “He opens himself to . . . things from Othersphere whenever he calls out to shadow, doesn’t he?” I said. “When he gets overwhelmed, he becomes a window for whatever’s over there at the time, and it sees us through his eyes.”

  Morfael did not respond.

  “Are you ready to tell me how I can go home yet?” I said, all the frustrations of the last week at last coming out. “You know so much more than you’re telling. I think it’s time you stop playing games and just tell the truth.”

  “It would be best for you to return to your cabin now,” Morfael said, his voice resonating through the room. My anger slipped away, and a sudden need to be in my bunk overtook me. “Thank you for helping with Caleb.”

  I was outside on the way to my cabin before I realized I hadn’t wanted to leave. So that was why shifters didn’t like or trust callers. I’d been so caught up in my curiosity and resentment that it was easy for Morfael to get me out of his hair.

  Damn him anyway! I was trying to protect my family and Caleb, and Morfael had brushed me aside. Why would he do that unless he had something to hide? All the more reason to find out what that dark sun rune meant, and anything else I could find.

  I almost bumped into Arnaldo, standing outside the girls’ cabin in human form.

  “Sorry!” I said, stopping abruptly.

  “How is he?” he said. Bundled up against the cold, he didn’t look so thin and gawky. He was tall, as tall as me. If he ever filled out, he’d cut an elegant figure.

  “Okay, I guess. Asleep.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, realizing that worry creased his forehead. “Morfael seems to think he’ll be able to learn from it, get stronger, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “Morfael’s probably pissed you figured out a way to counteract a caller’s ability,” he said. “Don’t let him get under your skin.”

  I laughed. “Is it that obvious?”

  He raised both brows and cocked his head as if to say, “Duh.”

  “All I did was ask Morfael what those things Caleb was saying meant. And instead of answering me, he used the old velvet voice and got me out the room!” I’d never talked to Arnaldo so frankly before, but I was too angry to care. “It’s like I’m some puppet he can make do whatever he wants.”

  “Welcome to caller versus shifter,” Arnaldo said. “Morfael’s a good teacher and all, but it’s not like you can trust him all the time. He wouldn’t hurt us, I don’t think. But he’s more than happy to manipulate.”

  “Don’t you ever get sick of all the suspicion?” I said. “The shifter tribes hate each other; they can’t trust the callers; they’re threatened with death by the Tribunal. What a crazy mess!”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice becoming thoughtful. “Sometimes you can’t even trust people within your own tribe.”

  “Some of us don’t even have a tribe at all!” I said, and couldn’t help laughing at my own emphatic tone. “God, listen to me. I’m ranting.”

  A smile flickered in his eyes. “Look, I’m here because I wanted to say thanks.” At my clueless look, he continued, “For giving me that hint on how to stop Caleb from forcing me to shift. I should’ve thought of it myself—canceling out one frequency with another. It’s so simple, it’s elegant. Most kids would’ve kept it to themselves, you know, not wanting to give anyone else the advantage.”

  “Maybe I wanted to use you as my guinea pig,” I said.

  “No, you were being nice,” he said firmly. “So I thought you should know something. Even a clueless geek like me can sense the tension between you and Caleb. But he’s hung up on you. Big-time.”

  His eyes beneath the heavy overhang of his brow were sincere. “What makes you say that?” I asked, heart beating fast.

  “He says your name in his sleep,” he said, and turned to go. “Have a good night.”

  After he left, I don’t know how long I stood there, staring off into space.

  CHAPTER 19

  The next day Morfael took us out into a glade in the woods and blindfolded us. The person who found a book he’d hidden there and handed it to him would get the grade on their history paper bumped up a notch.

  The one good thing about these exercises was that they drove every other thought from my head. I had to focus on the task at hand so hard, I couldn’t spare any brain cells on my parents, Caleb, Morfael’s deception, or the words “lost one.” Silence dropped over us as we all stilled.

  Morfael had shown us a worn blue hardback and hidden it somewhere in the clearing. I pictured the area in my head.

  The book had to be inside the blackberry bushes to the east or under one of the rocks, I decided. A flat-topped rock was just a few yards away, so best to check it first.

  I’d gotten pretty good at moving without making a sound, but then so had everyone else. November’s breathing hit my ears before her footsteps. I stepped up the pace and made it to the rock, sliding my hands around the base to see if Morfael had left anything there.

  Across the glade I heard Arnaldo and London exclaim in unison, probably as they somehow collided. There was nothing around the base of my rock. I touched something soft and pulled away with a gasp, then realized it was November’s arm.

  “Sorry!” I whispered.

  She giggled. “This
is so dumb.”

  It struck me how right she was.

  “What if we all tried to find the way back to school instead of looking for some stupid book?” she whispered.

  “Or, what if . . .” I raised my voice so that it would carry across the glade. “The book’s not at this rock on the north side.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” hissed November.

  “Morfael never said we couldn’t cooperate during these exercises,” I said in a normal tone. Everyone in the glade would be able to hear me. “And he hasn’t stopped me so far. Has anybody checked those bushes to the east yet?”

  Nobody responded.

  “I’ll check them,” I said. “Arnaldo and London, if you’re over by that big rock, be sure to check the crevices.”

  I didn’t bother to hide the sound of my footsteps as I walked to the east side of the glade, arms outstretched.

  “Actually, I’m at the big rock,” said Caleb, his voice catching slightly with hesitation before growing in volume. “Nothing here.”

  My pulse raced when he spoke. He’d jumped right in after me, but then he was the reckless type. The others might be too cautious to follow.

  A pause developed. I moved forward slowly. “What else is over there?” I said.

  London cleared her throat. “Wasn’t there a fallen log?”

  “I’ll search that next,” said Caleb. His boots thumped over the dried grass.

  Another pause, then:

  “London and I have the two low rocks on the southwest side covered,” said Arnaldo.

  “I’ll check the big pile of leaves over here,” November called out.

  My mouth widened in a smile no one could see. That was everyone but Siku. I had no idea how to draw him in.

  The bushes couldn’t be far now. I leaned forward, bumped my hands into something large, and recoiled. “Whoa! Who’s that?”

  Foliage thrashed, then Siku’s voice said, low and rumbly, “I made it to the bushes first.”

  “Cool,” I said, a rush of happiness warming me. Even Siku was in it now.