The Turning Season (15 page)

Moments later, she appears in the hallway, palming a light switch to illuminate the dark space. “That was cutting it close,” she observes, bending over to pick up my clothes, my purse, and my shoes. “I take it you didn't expect to change quite so rapidly.”

I burble a response, which is unintelligible, and she sighs. “I'll put your things in the guest room,” she says. “And I'll make up a bed for you in there. Though, of course, you can sleep anywhere you like.”

Alonzo squats down beside me. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

“Your coach said they just had dinner,” Bonnie tells him.

He glances up at her. “Yeah, but sometimes it takes so much energy to change that you're starving right away.”

I mew politely, my way of conveying that,
Yes, please, I'd like a little something to eat. Some of that fish would be especially nice.
Bonnie sighs again.

“I think you're right,” she says. “So perhaps you could get out a food plate and a water bowl.”

He stays on the floor a moment longer. “What about the animals?” he asks me.

Mwwrrr,
I reply.

He thinks about it a moment, then holds his hand out, palm up. “If Daniel's there and the animals will be all right, touch my hand,” he says.

I bat at his fingers with my right paw, careful to keep the claws sheathed. He pats my head before coming to his feet again. “Everything's fine,” he says to Bonnie, and then saunters toward the kitchen.

Because in this shape I'm unable to summon the level of anxiety that I know the scary world requires, I find myself agreeing with him. Everything
is
fine. I follow him down the hall.

S
unday passes in a hedonistically leisurely fashion. In the morning, Aurelia finds me still half asleep on the bed in the guest room and pauses to scratch under my chin.

“Look at you, your fur is almost the same color as my hair,” she says. “Did you do that on purpose?” Then she laughs because she knows that I have done no part of this transformation on purpose.

“I'm sure you'd like to go back to your own place as soon as possible, but I don't think it will be today,” she goes on. “Bonnie's at church this morning, I've got a Women in Law luncheon this afternoon, and we usually try to make sure Alonzo does homework on Sunday evenings. Is it okay if we take you back tomorrow? We did go fetch your Jeep this morning, though, so it's in our driveway as I speak.”

I offer a chirping little meow meant to express agreement, and she grins. “Guess it doesn't matter if you approve or not,” she observes. “Not much you can do about it anyway. See you later.”

After I've refreshed myself with another nap, I go exploring, eventually locating Alonzo in his room on the second floor. He's sitting at his desk, reading a book, though his expression indicates it's something he's doing because he has to and not because he wants to. I tense my muscles, gauge the distance, then make a perfect leap from the floor to the desk. Moving with great delicacy, I pick my way through the books, pens, action figures, and electronic devices scattered across its surface until I come across a stack of papers that might be completed school assignments. The perfect spot. I sniff at them briefly, then settle on top of the pile, wrap my tail around my feet, and look around me.

Alonzo's room has a lot more personality than it used to. When he first moved in, every single item in it had been picked out by Bonnie or Aurelia, from the furniture to the bed coverings to the books on the shelves. It was about a year before he added anything he chose for himself—an
Avengers
poster, hung so that the only way to see it was from inside the room with the door closed. Since then, he's slowly amassed a more personal collection, but the additions are sparse. A stack of comic books. A handful of DVDs, most of them with science fiction themes. Another poster, this one featuring some sports star I don't recognize.
Lord of the Rings
memorabilia.

None of it looks like something he loves so much he couldn't leave it behind if he had to vanish in the middle of the night.

“Don't mess up my homework,” Alonzo admonishes me, but otherwise doesn't seem to mind my intrusion. He even reaches over to pat me on the head and allows me to nuzzle his wrist before he goes back to his reading.

Maybe an hour goes by before I hear Bonnie's footsteps in the hallway moments before she sticks her head in the door. “Have you seen—oh, there she is. I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

“She's fine,” Alonzo says, not a trace of doubt in his voice. He understands that on a level that Bonnie, despite her long association with shape-shifters, simply cannot. It's the transitions that are so hard, at least for some of us; the existence itself, assuming you're in a safe place, is almost carefree.

“How's the book going? How many chapters have you read today?”

“Two,” Alonzo says.

“Do you like it?”

“It's all right, I guess. It's kind of boring.”

“Maybe it would be more exciting if you read it out loud,” Bonnie suggests. “Karadel might enjoy the story.”

“Okay,” he says without much enthusiasm. “How much should I read to her?”

“How about ten pages? Then you can come down and we can discuss it while I make dinner. Aurelia ought to be home in a couple of hours.”

He nods and waits for her to leave before picking up the book again. Any other kid might pretend to do what he's told, figuring his foster mother wouldn't know if he'd actually read out loud to a cat or not, but of course Alonzo does it. He wouldn't dare upset the precarious balance of his life by rebelling; as far as he knows, this small haven of kindness where he has so miraculously come to rest could be barred to him if he makes the smallest mistake. He wouldn't risk it.

Alonzo's voice is soft.

Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend; drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend.

“You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The young lady is Miss Manette . . .”

The first name clues me in that today's assignment is
A Tale of Two Cities
. A story of brutality and hope, sacrifice and redemption. A glimpse at the cruelties people are capable of inflicting on each other, a reminder that the world still produces heroes, flawed and ordinary as they might be. Alonzo reads with little inflection, stumbling over some of the more complicated words, but with a dogged focus that makes it clear nothing will prevent him from finishing this particular task. For the first time since I've known him, I experience a profound sense of conviction that Alonzo will be all right. He doesn't know much about joy, he doesn't entirely believe in goodness, but he knows how to persevere. He knows how to hang on and keep going and power through. He learned long ago how to simply endure.

*   *   *

T
he half hour before dinner is so exquisite that I wish with all my little feline heart that I were human. Aurelia's home from her event, still dressed in a suit and heels, telling stories about her fellow lawyers in her usual dry and acerbic fashion. Bonnie's laughing out loud at some of her descriptions, and even Alonzo is grinning. The three of them are finishing up dinner preparations with the ease of long familiarity, moving between the kitchen and the dining room to set the table, carry in serving dishes, open and decant the wine. The whole event reeks of
family
, of companionship and affection and belonging, and it's something I've missed almost as long as I've been alive.

“It's a merlot, do you want a small glass?” Aurelia asks Alonzo. “You liked it the last time we had it.”

I know he's too young to drink alcohol, but there's something about the ritual that seems to please him,
Bonnie had told me not long ago.
I don't know if it's because it's something that we share with him, and that makes it special, or if it's because he knows wine is for adults, and he likes to think that's how we see him. We just give him a couple of ounces. I don't think it's hurting him.
I think it can't be hurting him if it helps convince Alonzo that he matters to them.

“Sure, I'll take some,” he says, and Aurelia pours an inch of wine into the gold-rimmed goblet. It's a casual family dinner on a random Sunday night, but trust Aurelia to have gotten out the good dishes. She requires elegance like other people require air.

Bonnie stands at the table, hands on her hips, looking everything over. “Have I forgotten anything? Bread! In the oven. Alonzo, could you take it out and put it in a basket? Then I think we're ready to eat.”

Almost on the words, the doorbell rings. “Oh, Lord,” Bonnie says on a sigh, but Aurelia's expression is almost angry. For someone who so willingly does battle on the public stage, she is ferocious about guarding her private time.

“I'll get rid of whoever it is,” Aurelia says, striding into the living room. Since I'm a cat, curiosity is my besetting sin, so I mince along after her. She opens the door and gazes out into the gathering darkness. “Yes?” she says in a forbidding tone.

“Hi. I'm Joe McGinty,” says the visitor. I'm so surprised at the familiar voice that I freeze midstep, then drop into a protective crouch. My tail twitches as I stare at the door, though I'm at the wrong angle to get a good look at the man on the other side.

“Yes?” Aurelia repeats, her voice even more frigid.

“I'm Karadel's friend. I was with her last night when she got sick.”

Aurelia's transformation is so sudden and so complete that you'd think she was a shape-shifter changing from ice princess to earth mother. “Joe!” she exclaims, now radiating warmth. “Yes, I've heard about how kind you were.”

“I just wanted to know—is she feeling better? She hasn't answered her phone all day.”

By this time, Bonnie has joined Aurelia at the door. “She's better,” Bonnie tells him. “But it might be a couple of days before she's fully recovered.”

“I saw her car outside,” Joe says. “Is she here? Could I come in and say hello?”

“Oh, I don't think that's a good idea,” Bonnie says, clearly caught off guard.

It's Aurelia, always more adept at lying, who expands on the answer. “She's sleeping,” she says. “She was awake all night—throwing up—really miserable. I think it was dawn before she fell asleep. She got up for a few hours, ate something, but she's back in bed now.”

“That sucks,” he says.

“I know, the poor thing,” Aurelia replies. “She gets these migraines—oh, every few weeks, I suppose. She has drugs, you know, but nothing seems to stave them off completely.”

“Will you tell her I came by?” he asks. “And maybe have her call me when she's feeling better?”

“We certainly will,” Bonnie says.

Then Aurelia, who truly has an evil streak, says, “Oh, why don't you come in and have dinner with us? We've just put the food on the table.”

There's a short silence while Bonnie probably tries to telegraph her disapproval and Joe probably tries to figure out if she's sincere. “I don't want to impose,” he says at last.

Aurelia opens the door wider. “Nonsense. We'd love to have you.” She turns her head to call over her shoulder. “Alonzo! Set another plate. We have company for dinner.”

*   *   *

I
spend most of the next hour crouched in a corner of the dining room behind a huge potted peace lily, watching Joe.

I'm tense, ready to spring, though I'm not sure if I want to pounce on prey or flee from peril. Human emotions don't always filter clearly through the animal instincts, so all I know is that I'm on high alert, and it's difficult to say exactly why.

Nothing about the meal itself would seem to offer any danger. Alonzo doesn't say much, though he answers direct questions, but the rest of them are all capable of carrying on a civil conversation, even with a total stranger. At first the talk is general as Joe politely inquires into Aurelia's line of work and they go over the ordinary niceties about weather and gas prices and road construction headaches. But I'm not surprised when Aurelia commandeers the conversation and begins asking Joe more personal questions:
Where are you from? Why are you here? What happened in Joliet?
Within ten minutes she's learned all the basics about his former job, his broken marriage, his family relationships.

“How do you know Karadel?” she asks next.

I think he surprises her. “Oh, that's right. She warned me about you,” he says.

She sips from her wine and arches those thin red brows. “How foresighted of her,” she drawls. “What exactly did she say about me?”

“That you'd be the one to interrogate me. If you thought we were dating.”

“And are you dating?”

“I hope so,” he answers, which makes her laugh.

“But how did you meet?” Bonnie asks.

“I was working at a new club in the Square. Checked her ID, learned she was a vet, asked if I could bring my dog out. We seemed to hit it off.”

“A new club,” Aurelia repeats. “Arabesque?”

“That's right.”

“Didn't they have some—altercation there a couple of weeks ago?”

He nods. “The night I met Karadel, in fact. One of her friends was involved.”

“Celeste,” Bonnie says. I see the look she gives Aurelia then, and it's not hard to interpret.
Better drop this right now.
Clearly she remembers all the details we told her about that night.

But Aurelia isn't done probing yet, poking at this fascinating new specimen, seeing how it reacts to unfamiliar stimuli. “Yes, Celeste! She said this yahoo took her out back and tried to feel her up and then she created a scene? The police were called? It sounded very dramatic, even by Celeste's standards.”

“Bobby Foucault. Not exactly a yahoo. More like someone who's straddled the line between deadbeat and criminal for most of his life. It's just a matter of time before he ends up in jail. I think he tried to do more than feel her up.”

“I wonder how she got away from him.”

Joe snorts. “
He
says she turned into a mountain lion.
She
says he's a crazy drunk. But she did scratch the hell out of him.”

Alonzo might not have known that part of the story, because he shoots a quick glance at Joe then trains his eyes on his plate. Bonnie's face assumes a masklike expression, but Aurelia wears the proper look of astonishment.

“He says she—what? Turned into an animal?”