Chapter 7
Grey sat on his bed yet again, home on a Friday night. In his hands, he held a chunk of wood and a small knife, gently shaving away the solid wood, curl by curl. His goal was to carve a harpy eagle, a gorgeous bird with feathers that fanned as it spread its wings and long, curved talons. His problem was that he just wasn’t interested; carving had always been his father’s passion. Grey had only taken it up because his dad insisted, but he found it extremely tedious. It took days to get anything that even resembled the basic shape of the subject, and even then, one wrong move meant the artist had to start all over again.
He looked at his father holding his own block of rough, freshly scavenged wood and saw the peace in his face. The tedium of the task seemed to be exactly what spoke to his dad. It was an excuse to sit and say nothing for hours, to hold a piece of nature in his hands, and an opportunity to focus all his energy into a small whittling knife and the grain of the wood. Grey sighed and tried again, picturing a gorgeous harpy eagle in his mind. They flew in straight, perfect lines and skimmed water expertly, plucking a big, tasty fish from a lake or a river gracefully and carrying it away.
With this image in his mind, he looked at his wood again and saw…wood. He shook his head and put his feeble attempt at art down on his shaky little table by his bed. “Daddy Bird,” he said, “I think I need to go for a quick walk. Clear my head.”
“Hm.”
“Will you be alright? You need anything?”
“Mm.”
Grey gave up and walked out the door. Whatever. For the millionth time, he thought to himself, “I should just leave him. Strike out on my own and see the world. He wouldn’t even notice.” He walked off, enjoying the fantasy of discovering the unknown world around the city, finding other lost creatures and creating a community of his own – one that would never stay in one place for too long. No politicians, no media, no settlements. Just the big blue sky and endless horizons.
The fantasy always gave him a pang in his ribs. As much as he loved daydreaming about the possibilities outside the city, he knew what he was really dreaming of: a life without his dad. He wandered over to the fence border, past the little shacks that stayed open late selling this and that, whatever junk they could steal from the edges of the city. He nodded to some friends but didn’t slow down. His feet carried him up and over to the edge of the settlement and then higher, into the larger, steeper hills that surrounded all the shifters and supposedly kept them safe.
Deep in this part of the landscape was the place Grey knew he needed. His private space. As he walked, he considered shifting and flying up, but he knew that any transformation outside the settlement would be seen as an act of rebellion. Not that anyone was watching. Law enforcers had become lazier by the day, all of them confident that the massive relocation of the shifters had successfully broken their spirits.
He came up to his little hiding place. It was a little nok hidden in the curves of the land. A small, bent tree marked the spot, bowing to him as he approached. He walked up and smelled its bark, then looked up into its branches. He always held out hope that one day he would see a little nest in there, but it had yet to happen.
The ground around the tree had something that he had never seen anywhere else. It was a soft, feathery plant that opened like fingers coming from a palm and spread out low. He touched it and marveled at how similar the little green leaves felt to a baby’s hair or the tiny plumes on a young wing. He leaned down to smell it, putting his nose deep into the center of the biggest one.
The tickly plant was cool and soft. He wondered what on Earth it could be, if maybe there had been more of it before the war. He sat down on top of his little patch of green and looked up into the sky, hoping the night above him might have something to offer. The red moon stared back down at him, not revealing anything.
Grey relaxed and leaned back against the tree, closing his eyes. His spine vibrated in a steady pulse as he sat there. What was that? It wasn’t an earthquake; the ground wasn’t swaying. This was something else.
In the back of his mind, he felt the tickle of a memory, then slapped his forehead as it came to him. The party! He had completely forgotten. He’d been dismissed from work that day as everyone was preparing for the banquet and didn’t need the usual messages. He was so tired that he’d fallen dead asleep as soon as he got home, and by the time he woke up he had forgotten everything about his social life. He felt the ground and felt the little blades of green carry the vibrations of the party up into his hand.
“It’s underground,” he thought. Looking around, he tried to see a little bit of light leaking from a cave or rock, but there was nothing. “Hmm…”
Grey stood and walked forward a little, then changed his mind and went back to the other side of the tree, but that wasn’t right either. He turned left and kept walking, and felt the vibrations grow stronger. Confident in his choice, he continued in that direction. He wasn’t usually a fan of parties, but he wanted to attend this one and just forget his life for an hour or so. He hoped there would be some bottles there; those were his favorite.
After wandering the big hills for a while, Grey knew he was close but just couldn’t seem to find an entrance. Finally, he sat on a flat rock and waited. If this was near the party, someone would wander in or out. Because the get-together wasn’t for the airbornes, Grey couldn’t just ask someone. Only the earthbounds, the organizers of the event, would have the details, and they would be closely guarded. Despite the fact that everyone got along, earthbounds still had their traditions. Sure, airbornes went to their parties anyway and they all had fun, but the idea was no flyers. Grey didn’t know why.
He sat in the cool night air for a long time, wondering if maybe he had made a mistake. Just as he was about to give up and go home, a piece of the ground lifted and two young, female wolf shifters climbed up out of the ground.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! I have to go right now.”
“But how do you know you’re in heat?”
“I just know, okay? Don’t I reek?”
“Not really. I mean, you smell different, but it’s not bad. I think it will be okay.”
“Oh my goodness! I can’t believe you. Here I am, surrounded by males and in total heat, and my so-called best friend can’t be bothered. You just want to stay and flirt with that flyer. He’s not even handsome!”
“No, come on. I’ll walk home with you. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure no guys bother you.”
“Don’t do me any favors!”
The two friends argued and wandered off, but their tiff had helped Grey immensely. They had forgotten to seal the entrance behind them, and now Grey could see perfectly how to get past the hard earth and descend into the fun.
The entrance was a long, narrow tunnel that Grey had to squeeze his big shoulders through at first. The lower he went, the bigger the tunnel became, and soon he could walk upright through rock cavern. He was going into an underground cave.
All around him, spires of pristine, cream-colored rock stabbed down from the ceiling and rose up from the floor, piercing the air from every angle. He reached out to touch a big one that was near a bend in the path but stopped himself. Up close, it was clear how fragile these gorgeous structures were, and he didn’t want to be responsible for them crumbling to the earth.
Now he was able to hear the shrieks and laughter of the people in full party mode. The lights of the gathering were flickering against the walls, and he moved towards them. Soon, he could see the little flames set into carved niches in the sides of the cave. Each was on a homemade candle with several little wicks poking out of their cylinder shapes so that they would burn all night. Most shifters considered the puddle of wax after a candle was done burning the sign of a party ending, so the business of slow-burning accessories was a big and booming one.
He moved forward toward the music. It had a familiar sound, like bubbles popping or rain falling. The crowd was visible now, and all of them were dancing to the poppy, fun beat of the music.
Earthbounds loved to dance. They normally leapt up from the ground with an arched back, then landed and threw their heads back with an enthusiasm that always astounded Grey. He was no dancer himself, but he loved to be around this kind of energy after a long time at home. His house was so full of negative energy, as if no one knew what fun or dancing could be. This was like being in another reality.
A few friends recognized him and did a double-take at the sight of him.
“Hey, flyer!”
“Flyer on the floor! Someone throw him out!”
“Who told? I swear, nobody in this dang community can keep a secret.”
Grey laughed off the comments and gave out a few hugs. While he knew they would like to think that they had their own secret sect, he also knew no one was actually angry that he was present. After some more ribbing, everyone went back to dancing and drinking.
“Bottles!” Grey tapped his friend Sam on the back. “Hey, Sam. Where can I get a bottle?”
“Right this way.”
His friend steered him away from the dance floor and over toward a little side room in the cave. There, two wolf shifters – a male and a female – had set up a little shop of sorts. They stood in the front of a pyramid of boxes, guarding their precious structure.
“Sir. Madame,” Sam said, patting Grey on the back, “I was hoping you could get my friend, Grey, here something to drink.”
The female put her hands on her hips and sized Grey up a moment. “What do you have for it?”
“If you’re looking for Bachmanns, I don’t have any. My dad keeps all our money and never lets me touch it.”
The two wolves smiled at one another. The male stepped forward. “Who said anything about Bachmanns? No one here has any. No, we want something that’s valuable to you.”
The two looked at Grey hopefully. He made a show of patting his pockets and wiggling his toes as if something might fall from his shorts or bare feet. “Sorry guys. Just my presence.”
“Don’t you work for the First Daughter?” The female shifter stepped closer to him and ran her fingers through his soft, feathery hair. “That’s you, right?”
He swallowed hard. This was the most attention a young woman had ever given him. “Um, yeah. Yes, that’s me. Why?”
She laughed softly. “I’ll give you one of our best bottles,” she gestured towards the tall, brown bottles that Grey knew had alcohol in them, “if you just share a secret about the first daughter with me.”
“A secret?”
“Come on,” she picked up a hand of his and compared it to hers, palm to palm. Grey was suddenly sweating very hard. “You must know something.”
“I guess I know something random about her.”
“Oh, goodie.” The male wolf was already over the whole interaction and just waiting for it to be over. “Spit it out.”
Grey cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, looking deep into the female wolf’s soft eyes, “she really likes wigs.”
Suddenly, his hand was dropped as if it had something smelly on it. “What?” All the softness was gone from the female’s face. “Wigs? Who cares about that?”
“I told you it was random.” Grey looked back and forth at the two investigators. Neither looked pleased. “So,” he tried, giving her a goofy smile, “can I get a bottle?”
The female sighed and gestured to the male. “He can have a brown one.”
“What? Why? That was the worst secret we’ve heard all night.”
“Yeah,” she consented, but then gave Grey a secret little wink, “but he held his end of the deal.” She handed him the brown bottle and used a second one to open the little spiked, metal circle at the top of it, releasing a little shush of air. “Wigs,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That is kind of weird.”
Chuckling, she left Grey to stand with Sam and try the liquid inside his prize. He tasted it and smiled; it was what the humans called beer, and it was his favorite. He smiled at Sam who just rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the cave.
“Alright, you big dork. Let’s get back.”
The party was a good one. Most of the teenagers and not-quite-teenagers from the community were there, all of them happy and dancing. Grey drank and danced himself, though he was a bit awkward on the dance floor. Earthbounds loved to dance, but airbornes struggled with finding the beat of a song. He had heard once that the lack of connection came from spending so much time in the sky, even though Grey felt he was barely allowed to flap his wings. Whatever the reason, he just went ahead and let his limbs dangle in all the wrong directions as he flopped along to the music.
A band called Shredded Corpse was playing, and they were outstanding. The group had constructed a massive sculpture of metal, wood, and glass to play with long, carved sticks that curved up at the end or simply slap with their hands. One member simply shifted into a mole form and jumped from one metal trash can lid to another in perfect rhythm with the band, flying between each circle and banging into them like a flash of light.
Tina appeared at the entrance with a second girl that Grey didn’t know, but he could see right away that something was different about her. She had all of her clothing intact while everyone else was wearing shirts and shorts that had big pieces cut out of them. Also, her hair was big and curly and in an old style like one of their parents would wear. No one had such tall, poufy hair anymore. He wondered for a moment if she was Tina’s mother, but quickly saw that she was too young. Who was this girl?
He made his way across the dance floor, trying to get to the two girls as they greeted and hugged several friends. He kept getting pushed off the path by different dancers who either didn’t see him or just didn’t care. One girl smashed into him so hard that he tumbled to the ground and nearly spilled his drink.
“Hey!”
“Hi, Grey.” It was Larissa. She stood over him, legs open and a foot on each side, not seeming to care how incredibly sexual the pose was. “What are you doing on the floor?”
“You shoved me. Hard.” He held a hand up to her. “Come on, help me up.”
She cocked her head at him. “Why?” Instead of taking his hand, she sat down on the rock floor herself, crossing her legs and studying him a little more closely. “You look comfortable down here.”
All around them the dancers seemed to form a fence of dancing legs. She reached out and touched his face. “You must have gotten some beer from Link and Haddie. You’re nice and warm.”
Grey suddenly balked at the warm expression on Larissa’s face. “Are you flirting with me?” he asked. She just threw her head back and laughed.
“Me? Flirting? I don’t even know how.” She stood and finally pulled him up. “I mean, if I were flirting – and I wasn’t – there wouldn’t be any doubt.” She turned away and gave him a very coquettish glance over her shoulder. “Bye, Grey.” She moved through the crowd and disappeared. Grey just shook his head; that girl had always confounded him, but tonight more than ever.
Sam found him there, not moving and not drinking. “Hey, man. You alright?”
He shook the moment with Larissa from his head and shrugged. “I guess. I just had a really weird talk with that Larissa girl. The fossa shifter.”
“Oh, I know who she is,” Sam said, his shoulders shaking in his silent laugh. “We all do. She’s a little…what’s the nice way to say it…different?”
“Different. Sure. Hey, who’s that girl with Tina?”
Sam shrugged. “She must be new around here. No one seems to know. Weird hair though, right?”
“Very weird.” Grey looked around for the poufy hair again, but it had either ducked out of sight or left. He shrugged and went back to dancing. “I love this band,” he called over the music as a new song started.
“They’re great! That’s my brother in the center. The little one.” Grey turned to see a short, young kid who did look a lot like Sam. “Poor guy. Spent his whole life in this crap settlement. I don’t know if he’ll ever get out.” Sam took a drink of his orange and bubbly concoction, contemplating an entire life in the settlement. “Then again, will any of us?”
Grey froze. He had almost forgotten that he hadn’t been born in The Hills. He had come from somewhere else – the city. He’d had a mother. His father had a personality back then. The blood drained from Grey’s face as he thought about forgetting. The time when shifters almost integrated into everyday society had nearly left his memory along with the belief that such a thing was possible. His knees went a little weak underneath him.
“Hey, there’s Tina’s friend. Let’s go say hello.” Sam pulled Grey over to her before he could respond. Sam’s ample size made it much easier for him to walk through the crowd, and he kept a hand on Grey, letting him stumble behind his imposing friend. Ahead of them was the girl with the old-fashioned hair smiling, drinking, and dancing. She had a beer as well. “Great,” Grey thought to himself. “We already have something in common.”
Sam planted himself in front of the young lady and held out a hand in greeting. “Hi. I’m Sam. Bear shifter. I don’t think we’ve met.” He said it all with a smile, but his direct approach still seemed to throw the poor girl. Her eyes darted back and forth as if she were looking for something, but then she gave up.
“Hi. I’m…er…Evelyn. I’m new around here.” She took Sam’s hand, and he pumped it up and down, then finally pulled her in for a friendly hug.
“Great! Always nice to see a new face in these old hills. When did your family get here?”
“Oh, just today. Tina was nice enough to invite me to the party.” She freed herself from Sam’s big hug and again looked around as if she were trapped. “You haven’t seen her, have you?”
Grey jumped in. “If I know Tina, she’s out and about in the crowd, catching up with everyone.” He held out his hand as well. “I’m Grey, by the way. Eagle shifter.”
“Hi Grey.” She smiled at him shyly, and Grey felt his heart do a little spin in his chest. She had the prettiest face, and so familiar.
“Have we met before?”
The question made her blanche, and she quickly spun around and grabbed two beer bottles. “Oh, who remembers? Beer?”
Her two new friends quickly accepted, and Grey suddenly found himself with a beer in each hand. Not ideal, but far from terrible. He took a drink from one and then the other and smiled up at Evelyn in between sips. She smiled back, but she kept looking away.
“This girl is kind of weird,” he thought to himself.
Finally, Tina joined them and happily took one of Grey’s beers off his hands. “Two is just greedy,” she teased him. “So, I see you’ve all met.”
“Yeah. These two guys are so nice,” Evelyn said a little too fast. Again, Grey squinted at her. He was sure he knew her from somewhere, but he just couldn’t place her. “Hey,” Evelyn added, “how about we all go dance? I bet you have some great moves, Sam.”
“Well, I can make the floor shake if I jump high and hard enough.” He winked at Evelyn, and she hooked her arm through his.
“I have to see it!”
The two went off onto the floor, and right away Grey understood: she’d been acting weird with him because she liked Sam. It stung a little, but then he shook it off. She was an odd one; Sam could date her all he wanted. Grey turned to Tina.
“So, your friend is…what’s the word? Interesting.”
“Cut her a break,” Tina said, sipping from her beer and swaying to the music. The band was speeding up a bit and playing faster, more intense songs. The little mole drummer flew between his metal cymbals at top speed in bursts of movement, then ducked into a little hole in the wall to catch his breath. “She’s new around here. And like the rest of us, she’s not here by choice.”
Grey nodded. “I guess there’s no clothing tax where she lived.”
“Nope.” Tina closed her eyes and shook her hips to the music. “Hey, I am loving this band. Aren’t they great?”
“Amazing. I’m very impressed.” Grey watched the crowd move and dance together and saw them all feeling the same joy, the same beat in their chests. It was a beautiful sight – all those bodies swaying and breathing together. He looked out at Evelyn and saw that she was melting right into the scenery. Her hair flew in every direction as she threw her head around. She spun just in time to hit Black Feather right in the face.
“Hey, look! Black Feather just got–” the sight of what happened next stopped Grey before he could complete another thought. There, in front of him, he watched as two people fell in love.
First, Evelyn’s giant head of hair slapped Black Feather right in the face. He never saw it coming. In fact, he appeared to be on his way to talk to Tina the second before it happened, but the smack in the face stopped him in his tracks. He doubled over, hand protecting his eyes, and Evelyn went completely red. Horrified, she bent down with him, her arm around his back and seemed to be apologizing.
As Grey watched them, they stood up together, Black still wiping his eyes as they watered and Evelyn clasping her hands, mouthing words like, “So sorry,” and “Please forgive me.” After a moment, Black started smiling, and soon Evelyn was smiling with him. The two of them talked through the end of the song, Evelyn forgetting that she had been dancing with Sam and Black shrugging off his intended conversation with Tina. The song ended, and the whole room went quiet for a moment.
The candles were burning lower, and the light was softening. The band followed suit by playing a slow, gentle melody that rocked back and forth. Black and Evelyn shyly reached for one another and started moving together to the gentle music. Grey knew he was staring, but he couldn’t look away. He’d never watched love grow before, and here it was springing up so quickly.
Soon, Evelyn had completely relaxed into Grey’s arms, her head against his chest and his head on top of her mess of curls. Black had a mess of a beard sprouting from his face, and it kept getting caught on the top Evelyn’s crazy hairstyle, but she didn’t seem to mind.
The two moved and swayed in a little circle as if they were the only two people in the room, not seeing the people who bumped into them, the eyes staring at them as the song ended, but they kept dancing. They also didn’t see Haddie from the bottle store walk right up and stare at Evelyn.
Haddie waited until the wig got caught on Black’s sorry excuse for a beard again, then stepped in and pulled her hair up.
“I knew it,” she cried triumphantly. “This isn’t a shifter. It’s The First Daughter. And this is her wig!”
A huge gasp went up from the crowd as Harper, daughter of President Bachmann, tried to grab at her fake hair. Haddie quickly threw it to a friend who threw it to another, and soon the mass of curls was bouncing its way through the crowd.
“No,” Harper tried, “I’m not. I’m someone else. Please, just give me back my hair.”
“Why?” Haddie challenged her. “You have such pretty, shiny hair, Harper.”
The crowd gathered around Harper. Grey joined them, hoping to reach her, but all he could do was watch as she looked from one astonished face to another. “I…I didn’t…I just wanted…I’m sorry, okay?”
No one responded. Instead, hands reached out to touch the human girl. Some leaned in to smell her and take in all of her bathed, well-fed presence. “Wow,” someone said. “She’s so soft.”
“Please don’t eat me!”
As soon as she said those words, Harper instantly saw that she’d made a mistake. All of the curious faces changed to offended, glowering ones. One person in the crowd scoffed a quiet, “Typical.”
Black leaned down to reassure her. “Um, we don’t eat humans.”
“Yeah,” Haddie jumped in. “If you ever came down out of that ridiculous palace, you’d know that.”
“I did!” Harper put her hand to her forehead and looked down at the ground. “I ran away from home. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Everything in the palace is so…just, like…intense. I had to get out. And Tina told me there was a party here and that she would get me in, so–”
“Tina? Tina Traxon?” Black looked over at Tina. “You invited a human to a shifter party?”
“What?” Tina around the room and then gave a big eye roll. “Oh, whatever. I know half of you in here sneak out to pretend to be human anytime something interesting is happening in the city. Now a human wants to pretend to be one of us. Deal with it, you bunch of hypocrites.” She looked away as if none of this was any of her concern and focused on chugging the rest of her beer in an attempt to get her own little party going again. No luck. Once her bottle was empty, she was right back where she started, face-to-face with a less than happy mob.
“Fine. I invited her. I snuck her in. Sorry, I just liked that she wasn’t scared of us and wanted to hang out. She wants to party with us. It’s cool.”
The crowd considered Tina’s last comment and little shrugs and head tilts started drifting around from one shifter to another. Black Feather put his hands on Harper’s shoulders, and she looked up at him with big, watery eyes.
“You’re not here to ambush us or spy or anything? Just hang out?”
“Yes, I swear!” She turned to the crowd and repeated her promise. “Really, I don’t want anything from anybody. I just wanted to have fun. Tina is the most fun person I know, so I figured a shifter party in a cave would be awesome. And it is. I mean, look around! You are all so cool.”
Immediately, the crowd scoffed. Cool? A bunch of shifters? This girl was reaching. They all relaxed and lost interest in their latest discovery. Sam signaled to the band to strike up the music again, and they complied with a hard, throbbing song. Everyone cheered and went back to the dance floor. Grey overheard a quick exchange between Black Feather and Harper, but by the time he was close enough to either of them to actually say something, they were already kissing.
Even though he knew it was weird, he stared at them as they exchanged a long, slow kiss. Both seemed completely enchanted by the other. They were each lost in one another, drunk on the taste of each other and neither even noticing Grey close by. A big lump rose in his throat. He tried to get it down with a swig of beer, but that just made him choke.
And then the earth shook, the ceiling cracked, and somewhere across the room there was a terrible scream. Grey dropped his beer, and the sound of the glass shattering on the ground was enough to transform him and send him out of the cave, flapping his little wings as hard and as fast as he could.
He never looked back to see what happened to Harper.