Darklands (Deadtown #4)

I STOOD IN THE UPSTAIRS HALLWAY OF GWEN’S COLONIAL-style home, knocking on a door decorated with a hand-drawn sign that proclaimed NO BROTHERS ALLOWED. When I’d arrived, Gwen was in the kitchen picking up Cheerios that Justin, her two-year-old, kept dropping on the floor from his high chair. She hadn’t said much, just that Maria was still in her room.

“Maria?” I knocked again. “Maria, it’s Aunt Vicky. Can I come in?”

I heard a thump on the other side of the door, but it stayed closed. “What are you doing here?” Maria’s muffled voice asked. “I thought you go to bed in the morning.”

“Usually I do. Not always. Your mom said you weren’t feeling so great and thought maybe I could help.”

“I told her not to call you.” A pause. “Nobody can help.”

“Let’s talk about it and see. It’ll be easier, though, if you open the door. Now that I’ve driven all the way out here, I’d hate to go back home without seeing my favorite niece.”

“You want to see me? Fine.” The lock clicked and the door flew open as though an explosion had blasted it off its hinges. Maria stood there, one hand on the door, her chin jutting out defiantly. “Okay, now you can see me. Happy?”

“Yeah, I am. Although I’d rather see a smile on that pretty face.”

Maria’s eyes were red and puffy. Her lips quivered as she drew in a shaky breath. “Don’t tease me, Aunt Vicky. I can’t take it right now.”

Gently, I put a hand on her hair. She flinched but didn’t pull away. I stroked her hair, then put a finger under her chin and tilted her head upward. “Tell me what’s going on. Why do you think I’m teasing you?”

“Look at my face!” Her voice caught on a sob. “Will it stay like this?”

“Well, it’s a little blotchy from crying. Otherwise, you’re as gorgeous as always.”

“Really? I don’t look different to you? But—” She frowned and touched her cheek.

I was pretty sure now I knew what was going on. “When you woke up this morning, I bet you felt strange, not like yourself.” She nodded. “Tell me what you saw when you looked in the mirror.”

“This!”

“Tell me.”

“A cat’s face. But not like a real cat. It was me, with my hair and eyes. But I had pointy ears and my nose and mouth were like a cat’s. And gray fur. And whiskers.” She ran over to the full-length mirror that hung on the wall. “It’s still there! Why did you tell me it was gone?”

I leaned against the doorframe and watched her. “It’s an illusion.”

She peered into the mirror, her hands moving over her face. Then she shook her head. “It’s not! It’s real. I can feel it.”

“I’ll show you. Do you have a camera?”

She picked up her phone from the nightstand and handed it to me. I used its camera to snap a picture, then handed her the result. She stared at the image, mouth open. Along her cheeks, her fingers traced whiskers that weren’t there.

“See?” I said. “The same Maria we all know and love.”

“But I can feel the whiskers,” she said. She looked in the mirror, frowned, and looked at the photo again.

“Like I said, it’s an illusion, one you can see and feel. But only you can. It’s called a false face. It’ll pass, and you’ll feel normal again. And the next time it happens, you’ll know what’s going on.”

Maria held up the phone and took another picture of herself. She studied it, then looked up. “Why didn’t anyone tell me I’d get a false face?”

Good question. I’d promised Gwen that I’d help Maria make the transition to shapeshifting, but walking the line between helping and taking over was tricky. I didn’t want to muscle in on Gwen’s parenting, but at the same time Maria had a right to know what was going to happen to her.

“We should have told you. I guess neither your mom nor I expected you to start experiencing false faces yet. They usually show up six, maybe eight months after the first shapeshifting dreams, and those only started a month ago, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re ahead of schedule. We would have told you if we’d known it would happen so fast—honest.”

“I was scared.” Tears welled but didn’t spill over. “I thought I was going to stay like that, like some kind of freak. You know, because mom’s Ker…Kerth…like you are.”

“Cerddorion.”

“Right, Ker-THOR-ee-on.” She pronounced the word slowly, drawing out each syllable, like she was tasting it as she spoke. “Cerddorion,” she said again. “And Dad’s human. What if I get stuck in between?”

“First of all, that won’t happen. The Cerddorion have married humans before. Some of their kids have been human, and some have been shapeshifters. But nobody’s ever been a hybrid of the two. So you don’t need to worry about that, all right?”

“Okay.” Her voice brimmed with doubt. “I guess.”

“You’re Cerddorion, Maria. There’s no question about that any more. So you will be going through some changes. The good news is that your mom and I have both been through those same changes, so we can tell you what to expect. There won’t be any surprises.”

“Today was a surprise,” she accused. “A bad one.”

“You’re right. We should have prepared you for it.”

“What else do I have to be prepared for?”

“You’ll get some weird feelings in your body, mostly in your arms and legs. Like growing pains. They’ll pass. And here’s something cool—you’ll get stronger and faster than other kids. Better coordination, too. You’ll be the best soccer player on your team.”

“Really?” She brightened at the thought. “What about dancing?”

That’s right. Gwen had mentioned Maria’s favorite activity was dance class. “Strength, stamina, coordination—those things are all important for dancers, right? If you keep practicing, they’ll definitely help.”

Maria struck a couple of ballet poses in front of the mirror. Then the frown returned. “What if I shapeshift in front of everyone? Mom did.”

So Gwen had told her daughter the story of how stage fright had caused her to shift into a mouse during the class play. No wonder the poor kid was worried she’d look like a freak.

“We’ll make sure that sort of thing doesn’t happen. I’ll teach you how to stay in charge. Remember I showed you how to control your dreamscape?”

Maria nodded, a smile playing at her lips. “I like doing that.”

“Shapeshifters can control their form, as well.”

“Then how come Mom turned into a mouse?”

Gwen really shouldn’t have told her that, not before Maria had experienced shapeshifting a few times. “It’s true that a very, very strong emotion can cause us to change shape. But there are tricks you can learn to keep that from happening. I’ll teach them to you.”

Maria’s forehead wrinkled. “But even you…Remember? I saw you turn into…into that thing. Up in New Hampshire.”

Oh, that. Yeah, it was true. When a crazy scientist had kidnapped Maria to use her in shapeshifter experiments, sheer rage had turned me into a Harpy—snakes-for-hair, ear-splitting screeching, garbage-truck stench, and all. Witnessing that shift had to be a million times scarier than any story Gwen could tell.

“Seeing me change like that must have freaked you out, huh?”

“A little.” She wouldn’t meet my eye, which showed me how much “a little” meant “a lot.” I’d rescued her as soon as I could—even in Harpy form, I’d managed to bring her home—but we’d only talked about the experience a couple of times. I’d have to sit her down, soon, for a heart-to-heart, make sure she was doing okay. With so much happening so fast in Maria’s life, there was a lot we needed to discuss. But for now, I’d stick to the matter at hand. “A shift like that is really unusual. A Harpy is one of the fiercest creatures there is. I turned into one so I could get you out of that creepy place and bring you home.” I sat down on the bed and patted the mattress. Maria sat beside me, and I put an arm around her. “I won’t lie to you. The next months are going to bring lots of changes. But they’ll follow a predictable pattern. Even if things happen faster than we expect, we know what’s coming next, and you can get ready for it. Okay?”

“Okay.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I’m saying that. It’s not like I have a choice.”

“That’s true. Not right now, anyway. But you will have control, once you learn how to use it. You might love shapeshifting. But if you hate it, you don’t have to do it—you can stay in human form all the time. It will be up to you.”

Maria leaned against me, and we sat like that for a couple of minutes, neither of us saying anything. Then she straightened suddenly, touching her face. She jumped up and ran to the mirror. “It’s gone—the cat face. I don’t feel weird anymore.” She turned to me, relief brightening her expression. “So what do I do the next time that happens?”

“False faces are like those shapeshifting dreams you’ve been having. Both are ways for your body and mind to adjust to the idea of changing. Sort of like practice before you start doing it for real. You practice dancing before you go on stage, right?”

She nodded.

“Same thing. It’s just practice. So the thing to do is remember it’s not real. No more than a dream is real.”

“But…”

I picked up the phone she’d left on the bed and tossed it to her. “You can trust this. If you start feeling funny or think you look strange, take a picture. The camera will show you the truth. Before long, you’ll realize that false faces are just that—false. And you’ll know that you’re still yourself.”