The Shape of Desire

by Sharon Shinn

  He nods. “Yeah. I don’t usually stray too far. Don’t go more than a hundred miles from St. Louis, as a general rule. So I go by her place once a week or so.”

  I tilt my head. “And turn human?”

  He smiles again. “Not usually.”

  “So she—what?—she talks to you while you’re in animal shape, and you understand her?”

  “Something like that.”

  That’s evasive enough to make me wonder if the Romano kids have other supernatural powers: telepathy, ESP, mind-reading abilities. If so, Dante has never mentioned them. I decide I wouldn’t believe it if even William claimed it was true, so I just drop that line of questioning. “How’s Lizzie? Did you see her?”

  “Yeah.” He shakes his head admiringly. “She’s something special. Cutest thing I ever saw. And not afraid of me at all.”

  I decide not to follow that opening, either. “Well, you can tell Christina I got in touch with Dante and I’m going to meet him in Kansas City next week. So neither of you has to worry.”

  “Good to know,” he says, nodding. He doesn’t add aloud the thought that is clearly visible on his face. I wasn’t worried to begin with.

  I’ve now pretty much exhausted any conversational topics I have in common with William, so the sound of the doorbell is almost a relief. Except…the same question arises that I asked myself the first time I got an unexpected summons this morning. Who would just show up at my door before nine o’clock on a weekend morning? I give William a considering look.

  “If this is my mother or my cousin—I have no idea how I’m going to explain you.”

  He shrugs. He’s not worried about my reputation any more than he’s worried about Dante’s safety. “Tell them I’m the neighborhood homeless guy and you take turns feeding me breakfast on Saturdays.”

  “You certainly look the part,” I retort, “but they would consider the behavior out of character for me.”

  “What, you don’t take in stray people?” he asks. “You’re willing to take in stray dogs.”

  Which is the first time this morning I remember the white husky sleeping in the dishwasher box alongside my house. The husky that I am half-convinced is just as human as William. “Shit,” I say under my breath. The doorbell rings again and I come to my feet. “This better be someone trying to sell me magazine subscriptions so he can finance his way through college.”

  It’s not, though. It’s Brody Westerbrook.

  And his cameraman.

  For a moment, I am too dumbfounded by the sight of them to do more than stare through the layer of glass, the layer of screen, that separate me from disaster. I hadn’t really thought they would come to the house; that was just one of those stories that you tell yourself to whip up a level of fear that’s already beyond the level of sanity. Brody is on the porch, a microphone in his hand. His colleague is a few paces behind him, standing in the grass, his camera pointed straight at me. A red light is blinking above the lens. I don’t know for sure, but I think that means the camera is recording.

  “Good morning, Ms. Devane, I’m Brody Westerbrook from Channel 5 news,” he rattles off, speaking loudly enough that his words will penetrate through the storm door. “I’m doing an investigative piece on the series of murders we’ve had in the St. Louis area over the past six weeks, and I understand you’re a coworker of the woman who recently lost her husband—”

  “Go away,” I say.

  He steps a little closer, although he’s already close enough that he could fog the glass with his breath. “Wouldn’t you like to share your thoughts on—”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Please go.”

  He raises his voice. “You do realize that all these murders—and possibly more that we haven’t been informed about—have been committed under mysterious circumstances by wild animals—”

  “If you don’t go away right now, I’m calling the police,” I say, hoping I sound threatening instead of hysterical, which is how I feel.

  I sense a shape materialize behind me, and suddenly William is at my side, sliding my cell phone into my hand. “You heard her,” he says. “Get out.”

  Brody’s attention instantly shifts William’s way. He opens his mouth to ask the same set of questions, but I see him hesitate and reconsider, taking in William’s ragged appearance and subtle aura of menace. Even I feel a sudden prickle of unease at William’s proximity; he radiates a cold, coiled danger that was entirely absent as we shared our breakfast.

  “Sir—” Brody begins, but William whips the door open and knocks the microphone out of Brody’s hand before the rest of us have even reacted. Then he punches Brody in the chest, hard enough to make him stumble backward. He moves so quickly that the cameraman doesn’t even think to come to his colleague’s aid. He just stands there, staring, the camera blinking its red eye.

  “I said, get the fuck out of here, asshole,” William spits out. “And don’t come back.”

  Brody straightens up and stands still for a moment—proving, I suppose, in some macho way, that he is not afraid—and then he nods once, short and sharp. He bends to retrieve his microphone, then jerks his head toward his cameraman. They cross the lawn to where the white NBC van is parked in the street. William steps inside and through the glass we watch in silence until they’ve climbed in and driven away.

  Then he closes the door and turns to me with an amiable smile. “And here I thought you were exaggerating,” he says.

  That quickly, he is the old William, loose and relaxed and ever so slightly amused. But my head is suddenly filled with images from that fight between Ritchie and Dante, three weeks ago, right here inside the front door. I will take your fucking head off, Dante had said, and he’d meant it. I have no doubt at all that, if Brody had provoked him, William could have done some major damage to the reporter.

  Why have I never seriously entertained the idea that shape-shifters might kill a man? These two incidents have made it chillingly obvious that they could. The only question left is whether they would.

  “Yeah,” I reply, making no attempt to erase the shakiness from my voice. “I kind of wish I had been.”

  “I don’t think he’ll come back,” William says. “But if he does, call the cops. He has his rights and all, but so do you.”

  I nod. I’m still so unnerved by the whole brief exchange that I can’t think of what to say. “Okay. I’ll do that.”

  He sticks his hands in his worn pockets and glances around, as if looking for any items he might need to collect before he goes. “Well, I guess I found out what I came here to find out,” he says. “Let Christina know if you need me for anything, and I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll do that,” I say. We both pause for a moment, as if debating whether or not we should hug each other, and then he just shrugs and goes out the door. He shuffles off the porch, along the driveway, down the street. I stand pressed against the glass, feeling its icy smoothness against my bare skin, and watch him until he’s out of sight.

  This has been one of the strangest hours of my recent life, which has been filled with odd incidents.

  Not until I turn back to the breakfast table and think, I could feed the scraps to the dog, do I remember that there is, in fact, a dog to be fed. With a muttered curse, I throw on a coat, stuff my feet into boots, and hurry out the side door to check on the husky.

  But she’s gone. The food bowl is empty, though there’s about an eighth of an inch of ice at the bottom of the water bowl. The blankets remain piled inside the box and I am gripped by the ridiculous notion that the dog did her best, with teeth and claws, to fold them neatly so as not to leave a mess behind.

  I glance from the makeshift doghouse to the spot where I saw the wolf’s eyes in the middle of the night. When did she leave? This morning before I woke up? Last night, when the presence of a dangerous predator made her cede this territory without a struggle? When William arrived this morning—or last night? I wonder again if William was the creature I had spotted on the lawn, if he stayed
to guard me through the dark hours of night. Could he have told me, if I’d thought to ask him, whether the white husky was a shape-shifter like himself?

  Am I romanticizing all of this, seeing magical creatures and terrifying monsters where none truly exist? Perhaps even Brody Westerbrook is harmless.

  Perhaps I am losing my mind.

  Lost it a long time ago, I think. Wearily, I pull the blankets out of the carton, then fold it down to a manageable size, and lug all the dog gear back to the basement. But I leave all the pieces—the box, the blankets, the bowls, the bag of chow—at the foot of the stairs. That way I can get to them quickly in case I need them again.

  The rest of Saturday holds no other excitement. I should be grateful for that, but instead the hours pass with a sort of sticky, unendurable slowness. I find it hard to concentrate, hard to settle, hard to function. But I do manage to get the house clean and finish off piles of laundry that have accumulated. I also pack two suitcases—one filled with my clothes, one filled with Dante’s—and leave them in the trunk of the car. I top off my gas tank; I make up an emergency ration pack of bottled water, soy bars, and apples, and this goes on the front seat for easy access. I have looked up the phone number of the Marriott in Kansas City and programmed it into my cell phone, which I obsessively recharge every few hours. I want to be ready to leave the moment I hear Dante’s voice.

  When I’ve completed all my preparations for travel, I chop up ingredients for beef stew and place them in the Crock-Pot so they can simmer overnight. This is what I plan to bring with me to Kathleen’s tomorrow. Also some rolls and a small carton of strawberries that was ridiculously expensive. But strawberries always make me feel better, so I hope they will have a cheering effect on Kathleen as well.

  I do all of this with a nervous, jittery intensity that feels like the manic alter ego of depression. Once all my chores are finally done, I try to sit and relax, but neither books nor television shows can hold my attention. I spend a lot of time solving Sudoku puzzles and playing Scrabble against the computer. I wish I knew how to knit. I wish I could bring myself to take up smoking. I think if I could occupy my hands, then perhaps I could occupy my mind, or at least distract it.

  Sunday morning I head to Kathleen’s, arriving a little before noon. It is hard to think of a place in the world where I would less like to be. At the door I am greeted by her sister, who looks a little more rested but not much happier than she had last week. “Thanks for coming by,” she says, taking the Crock-Pot from my hands. “I hope you’ll stay and eat with us.”

  “Sure,” I say. “How is she?”

  Kelly just shakes her head. “She’s in the living room,” she answers, and moves toward the kitchen.

  I make my way to the room of blue hearts and ruffled curtains. Kathleen is sitting in a denim-covered recliner, wrapped in what appears to be a homemade afghan in a zigzag pattern of blue and white and sea-foam green. Mermaid, I correct myself, and almost smile. The television is on, though the sound is almost down to zero. Her eyes are turned toward the screen, but I don’t have the sense she’s really watching the program, which appears to be an old Law & Order rerun.

  “Hey,” I say. I seat myself on the corner of the couch that’s nearest her chair.

  Without lifting her head from the back of the recliner, she turns to look at me. I can tell her hair has been washed and she’s put on mascara, so she has at least made a little effort this morning, or Kelly has bullied her into it. “Hey,” she replies.

  “I brought you some beef stew. And some strawberries.”

  “Thanks. Ellen was here yesterday and she brought chicken chili.”

  “Mmm, sounds good.”

  “People must think I’m about to waste away. They keep trying to feed me.”

  I make an uncertain motion with my hands. “Well, they want to do something useful, but they don’t know what. Cooking makes them feel like they’re doing something. It helps them, even if it doesn’t really help you.”

  A faint smile touches her lips and fades. “It’s kind of weird,” she says. “I always felt sort of—left out—at the office. You know, like I didn’t really have too many friends there. I mean, everyone was polite, it was just…”

  Her voice trails off. I nod instead of speaking, since I think she’s got more to say.

  Her voice picks up strength. “But everyone’s been so kind. I mean, people I didn’t even think would recognize me in the hall have sent me cards and flowers and come by with food. Part of me wants to say, ‘Where were you before all this happened?’ But mostly I’m just amazed at how nice people can be.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I say. It’s hard to think of an appropriate response.

  “Even Caroline,” she goes on. “I mean, have you ever had a real conversation with her? I haven’t. But she sent me this note. About her father dying when she was twelve. He was murdered in a robbery, did you know that? And she was there. He ran a corner liquor store when she was growing up, and he was shot five times during a holdup. She and her mom were in the storage room in the back when the men came in—they heard the whole thing. She says that to this day she can’t go into an independent liquor store. If she wants alcohol, she buys it at the grocery store, or she sends someone else to get it.”

  I am blank with surprise. “No. I never heard that story. That’s awful.”

  “But she said I’d get through it. She said I might never get over it, but I’d get better. Like she did.”

  “That was—wow. I wouldn’t have expected that from Caroline.” I wonder if Ellen knows this story. I wonder if Grant knows it. “I guess the only thing good about going through a tragedy yourself is that you can tell other people how to make it to the other side when it happens to them.”

  Kathleen stirs and then straightens up, pushing the chair around on its swivel base so she is facing me more directly. “I think I’m coming to work tomorrow,” she says.

  “Really? Are you ready for that?”

  “I think it would be better than just sitting here all day, thinking. I keep having the same conversations in my mind, over and over again. Asking Ritchie not to go. Insisting that he not go. Or going with him. Maybe if I’d been there, too, I could have picked up a branch and beaten it off—or called for help—or something.”

  My heart in my throat, I ask, “Has the coroner been any more specific about what kind of animal attacked him?”

  She shrugs. “They’ve tentatively decided it was a wolf, though they’re still investigating.”

  “I thought we didn’t have wild wolves in Missouri anymore.”

  “That’s what I said. But Kelly did some Internet searches and she found a few reports about timber wolves wandering down from Minnesota and Michigan. Apparently every year or so some bow hunter sees one when he’s out looking for deer.” She shrugs again. “Or, I don’t know, maybe it escaped from one of the wolf sanctuaries. I know there are a couple across the state.”

  Or maybe it was a man who just happened to take wolf shape that morning. “I guess it doesn’t really matter to you where it came from,” I say softly. “I’m just sorry it happened to be there the same day Ritchie was.”

  “Yeah,” she replies on a long sigh. “But at least the police are releasing the body now. I can have the funeral.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” I say, though good seems like the wrong word to apply to any part of this situation. “When will it be?”

  “Wednesday.”

  Unless something goes very wrong, I won’t be anywhere near St. Louis on Wednesday. “Oh, no,” I say, infusing my voice with regret and effortlessly conjuring a cover story. “I’ve already promised my mother I’ll take her in for a colonoscopy on Wednesday. I’m probably going to be spending Tuesday night in Springfield with her, too.”

  “That’s okay,” Kathleen says. “You’ve done so much for me already.”

  Including protecting the man who may have killed your husband. “I’d be there if I was in town, I really would.” />
  “I know,” she says.

  A moment of silence falls between us. She drops her head back against the chair, and I can tell, by the way her eyes lose focus, that she’s watching some internal memory play out. I cast about for something else to say, but she’s the one who speaks again, her voice low and dreamy. “We had a huge fight two days before he got killed. I told him I wanted to leave him. I told him I wished he was dead.”

  I’m in shock. In part because I’d thought Kathleen never stood up to her violent husband—in part because I don’t remember her sporting any new bruises the week before he died, and I can’t imagine Ritchie responding in a reasonable manner to such statements. Of course, he was still wearing the cast on his right arm; maybe that limited his ability to punch her. Though I suppose he could have bludgeoned her with it. I stumble through a response. “We all say things when we’re mad or upset—things we don’t mean. Just because you said it out loud doesn’t mean it was true.”

  She’s still viewing the rewind of that fight from a week and a half ago. “I meant it when I said it,” she replies. “I really wished he was dead.”

  “And what did he say?” I ask a little fearfully.

  She’s silent a moment. “He said,” she finally answers, “that I was the one who’d be dead if I ever tried to leave him. He said he would kill me if I tried to go.”

  We’re both quiet after that. As far as I know, Kathleen has never told anyone that Ritchie threatened her and beat her up. I had been under the impression that she hadn’t admitted, even to herself, what a scary and dangerous man he could be. I wonder if this is the first time she has ever said the words out loud. “I’m sorry,” is all I can think to say. “I’m sorry that that’s one of the last memories you have of him.”

  “I know he loved me,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He did. He just didn’t always know how to show it.”

  “I believe you.”

  Now her eyes focus, suddenly and with unnerving intensity, on my face. “But when they called? The police? To tell me he was dead? Maria, it’s terrible. But for a minute I was glad. I was glad he was dead.”