Darkest Fear

  It was hard to find time to practice together—apparently September was an especially busy time for luthiers. “It’s all the kids, going back to school,” Matéo had explained. “All their violins suddenly need repair or adjusting or even just tuning. This town is full of school bands and orchestras, and it’s crazy until mid-October.”

  Usually I worked five out of seven days at Ro’s, but my schedule was flexible—sometimes I had Sunday and Monday nights off, sometimes a Tuesday and a Friday, or whatever. I didn’t have kids or a school schedule to work around, so it was easier for me to change at the last minute. Privately, I allowed myself to pine for Rafael. I found myself thinking that it would have been so awesome if he had come to the Fécinte party, because then I would know for sure that he was haguari and he wouldn’t seem off-limits. Then I remembered that I didn’t want to date any haguaro at all. But it was all blending and fading, my objections to my species, my outraged rejection of everything I was.

  Slowly, little by little, I was seeing examples of how to be haguari, how to live a normalish life, how to have fun. It wasn’t that Matéo and Aly and our friends did anything different than my parents had. I think it was just knowing about all the others like us in New Orleans, knowing how many there were of us. I was starting to think that my parents either hadn’t known how many haguari there were all over the world, or that they had chosen to live separate from them on purpose. Surely they had to have known. Why wouldn’t they have wanted to be part of a bigger community? Why wouldn’t they have wanted me to know other kids like me, besides my own cousins who were still too young to change?

  One afternoon at the beginning of October, Matéo and I were practicing in my room. I could now meditate quickly and easily, and could isolate each of my muscles and my senses. I’d learned a lot since I’d been practicing with him, but still, for whatever reason, had never once managed to turn into a jaguar. We’d tried using cuvaje rojo and cuva rojo a couple times to jump-start the physical sensations, and they always worked. But on my own I simply could. Not. Change.

  I was fed up and discouraged. After weeks of work, I was no closer to being able to control changing than I was before. Suzanne had wondered out loud if it was like a foreign language, easier to learn when you’re younger. I’d wanted to smack her.

  “Do you still, still maybe . . . not like being a haguara?” Matéo asked. “Could that be why you can’t get there? ’Cause something in you just doesn’t want to accept this?”

  Near tears, I sat on the floor in my room. I was wearing a tank top and yoga pants, my hair hanging hot and heavy down my back. “I don’t know. I mean, I want to learn how to do this. I know I need to—just to feel safer. I’m doing this by choice.”

  “No, I mean, if you could choose to not be a haguara, would you?”

  I opened my mouth to say, “Of course,” but then thought it through. Thought about the amazing people I’d met, how easily people around me embraced their natures, how many people I’d met who were like me. My attitude had definitely changed. Definitely. So would I still choose to not be this? Would I still choose to have this cut out of me, the way I’d wanted when I was younger?

  “I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

  “Even apart from the change,” Matéo said. “Even without the change. As people we’re strong, fast, have lightning reflexes. We make beautiful dancers, incredible athletes, and exceptional soldiers. Our immune systems are amazingly strong. Isn’t all that really cool?”

  I hunched my shoulders. “Yeah, of course.” My folks had tried to tell me all this. Naturally, I had blocked it out.

  “Don’t you feel beautiful? Don’t you like being strong?”

  “Yes.” Another shrug.

  Matéo ran his hand through his dark red hair. “Vivi . . . you should have learned how to do this by now, frankly.”

  “I’ve been trying!”

  “It’s not working. We know you can change, because you have. But it’s like you have some internal block against it. If you were thirteen, I could teach you how to change in like three, four days.”

  That stung. My mouth opened, and feelings I didn’t know I still had came pouring out. “Of course I have an internal block against it! I hate everything about it! I always have! Just because you and your friends like to prance around all jungly doesn’t mean that I do!”

  Matéo’s eyebrows rose, and then his eyes narrowed. With no warning he scooped me up into his arms and carried me out of my room to the hallway. I was only two inches shorter than him but hoped I weighed at least forty pounds less. All the same, he carried me without effort.

  “Okay, put me down,” I began—

  —and then he dumped me over the second-floor railing.

  My gurgled scream was cut short, but the next split second seemed to take minutes. It registered that I was falling from a tall height, and that I would soon crunch down hard onto the wooden floor fourteen feet below. Oddly, my brain had time to process all this, to see the chandelier as I fell past it, to gauge how quickly the floor was zooming up to meet me. Without thinking I twisted in the air, and then facedown I landed on my hands and feet, limbs spread to absorb the shock. I didn’t go splat, didn’t hit my face—my hands and feet spread solidly on the floor and I stuck my landing. Apart from a slight stinging sensation on my palms, I wasn’t hurt at all.

  I looked up in amazement to see Matéo grinning at me over the banister.

  “You lunatic!” I yelled, scrambling to stand up. “You could have killed me!”

  “No,” he said. “I couldn’t. That’s the point.”

  I stood there, breathing hard, clenching my fists. He had shown me my innate nature, the nature that took over when my rational self blanked out.

  Then I became aware of it . . . a tingling, almost a clenching at the base of my neck, as if a thick muscle were quivering with electricity. My attention focused on it, I paid attention to it, and then I just . . . grabbed it. I felt that sensation and gripped it, holding it tightly, and wasn’t really surprised when my vision changed, I dropped to all fours, and my ears picked up the drip coming from the kitchen sink forty feet away. I didn’t let go, didn’t back away. For the first time in my life I recognized the jaguar part of me and followed where it led.

  It didn’t hurt, but it felt weird as hell. It wasn’t scary, but it was shocking. Within a minute I was my jaguar self.

  Fur scent my scent my black fur

  I’m strong fast like an arrow like a cold river that crashes onto sharp knifelike rocks

  I am night-colored night-scented with blotches of shadows on my shoulders my head my flanks

  The floor smells dry under me I leave my scent with my paw pads

  I hear a bird outside I could catch the bird could swallow it

  Sound above and ear twitch see heat smell heat

  He’s there watching me from up high

  I put my head back pull in air push out sound feel it rumble out roll through the air like waves

  They hit the wall they go up he hears them his eyes go wide

  He is my prey

  Behind me door flies open hits wall she comes out her blue eyes her dark hair

  I tell her stay back he is mine my prey I show her my teeth my strong jaws I tell her stay back she comes no closer

  His voice floats down “Beautiful” It sounds odd not like bird not animal but human

  He thinks I am beautiful I am

  He did this he threw me down I see his teeth he is laughing

  I am not laughing we do not laugh I will show him

  Stairs one big jump and one big jump and land on high floor claws gouge the wood

  Around this turn claws gripping wood fast fast he is smiling

  He sees my face sees how fast I come at him his smile disappears

  I hit him like a boulder in his chest hit him like a wave knock him down

  He falls heavy slamming into the ground the rug there the dust goes up into my nose

  His scent is
different he is changing

  I am standing on his chest his chest is roiling under me like the swell of a wave

  He smells male he smells like family like strong jaguar I know him

  Pull in air dust woolly rug scent pull in air it coils inside and curls like a fist

  It rolls out into his face he is growing strong he is writhing and changing

  Now he is golden he is jaguar

  My roar shifts his fur sparks light in his eyes the spark is lit in mine

  He is bigger and heavier than me the fight is on

  He is family I am so mad I am strong I smack him hard

  My bones shake my muscles ripple

  He snarls he shows his teeth I show mine I bite his shoulder the skin breaks

  It splits under my fangs separating like cloth his blood is warm and salty and sweet

  He knocks me off and slams my head shaking me loose

  My mouth drips blood he roars at me

  I am not afraid

  We hold on we roll we hit a big thing it scrapes the floor

  We hit a little thing it tips something cold and heavy falls on my back and breaks

  There is dirt everywhere there is plant in my mouth there is plant in my ear there is dirt in my eyes but I don’t let go

  We roll and I kick his belly hard and he bites me but not too hard but he knocks me over

  He stands on me I kick his belly with my hind claws

  My back legs so strong so heavy with muscle he roars at me I snarl and kick again

  He hits my head and roars I kick again his fur comes off in my claws

  I feel his skin feel the peel of fur and skin in my claws

  He drops his head he takes my neck in his teeth he closes his teeth he shakes me hard

  Shakes my eyes closed his fangs puncture my skin I feel it my blood is tart and sweet-smelling he is crushing me

  I let go I go limp I let go my muscles soften and smooth out

  He shakes me pulls my shoulders off the ground the woolly rug stained with blood

  He thrashes my head back and forth my teeth click together

  I smell my blood I am limp I let go I said I let go I am a puppet

  My blood is hot and wet and I am sticky

  “What the hell are you doing?” A person yells that is Tink Tink is here the jaguar grunts Tink kicks him hard in the flank

  My cousin drops me I lie limp on the rug

  Matéo snarls at Tink he paces around me because he won

  He shows Tink his fangs red with my blood I have red fangs too

  “I will kick your ass,”  Tink says. “Move back!”

  My cousin does not want to he won his tail lashes back and forth

  He paces he watches as Tink moves close to me

  Tink kneels by my head I smell cloth I smell lotion I smell shampoo I smell him he is a person he is not my family

  I growl at him the sound leaking out of my throat

  “Stop it.” He is in charge and I lie still

  “Vivi, you need to change back so I can see your neck.”

  She is here with blue eyes and scent of lemons

  “Matéo! Come on! Help here!”

  I smell Matéo the jaguar then I smell person skin and blood and person hair

  My cousin sits on the rug I pant and try not to swallow dirt

  My head hurts my neck hurts my bones hurt my muscles hurt

  “Vivi, let go of the jaguar and reach for your other self, your human self. It’s right there. Feel it right there and reach for it.”

  He rubs my forehead my short fur flattens in all directions

  It is distracting my eyes roll to look at him

  I feel his finger on my forehead where my mother used to kiss me she used to touch me there I feel my short fur bending under his finger I feel like

  Like Vivi is standing there waving at me

  I see Vivi I go to her we join together we meld together becoming one . . . and then becoming her.

  Suzanne threw a bath towel over me. Soon I felt mostly like myself and sat up, holding the towel. My neck stung and felt sticky. When I put my hand up, it came away wet with blood.

  “You bit me!” I stared at Matéo accusingly.

  “I had to calm you down. Maybe I bit a little too hard.” He didn’t look sorry.

  “You bit my neck!”

  He shrugged. “You bit me first. That’s what happens, cub. When you attack someone bigger and stronger than you, you get bit.”

  “Hold still.” Tink had a washcloth and started wiping off blood. “Okay, it’s not too deep.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to hurt her,” said Matéo.

  No one seemed shocked or upset. Tink obviously felt Matéo had gone too far, but just a little.

  Tink slapped a couple of Band-Aids on my neck and grinned at me. “People will think you have a hickey.”

  “Ew.”

  “Tell ’em a vampire bit you,” he suggested cheerfully, and even Suzanne smiled.

  “Ha ha,” I said darkly, trying to gather my towel and my dignity.

  “You’re missing the important thing here,” said Matéo, “which is that you changed, and changed back, at will. You finally felt what you need to feel when you change form.”

  That was true. I really had, for the first time in my life. And I’d remembered something important: When I’d changed into a jaguar, I’d felt the muscle at the back of my neck that Matéo had talked about. It was where my father had always rubbed, kneading that muscle. I’d always thought he did it just because it felt good—it had been so casual, as he passed by, as we talked, as we watched TV. Now I saw that he’d been making me aware of what I needed to become a jaguar.

  And then when Matéo had been talking to me, as I’d tried to change back . . . My eyes filled with tears. My human part was right in my forehead, where Mami had kissed me every day. She would kiss my forehead right there and then press it with her fingers, as if to make the kiss stick. I’d never put it all together. I would need to think about all this more.

  Suzanne handed me my watch and the clothes that I’d left downstairs. The ending up naked was obviously a huge drawback, I decided. There had to be a better way. In the meantime I had to get ready for work. Back to reality.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “WE’RE LEPERS,” JENNIFER SAID MOROSELY.

  “God, I guess we are,” I agreed. I pushed my computer screen farther away on my bed and lay down next to it. My head would be sideways, but Jen could deal.

  Jennifer had dated Cammie for almost two months, now that it was mid-November. But they’d recently broken up because Cammie was premed and always crazed with work and homework and they practically never saw each other. So Jennifer was feeling girlfriendless and like a loser.

  For myself, I’d told Jennifer about the thing with Rafael back in September. Since then, I’d gotten hit on three times at work by customers. One guy was actually cute and seemed nice, and I’d been tempted, but though I definitely felt a little more in control of myself these days, I still felt “other,” compared to regular people. So I’d said no. More than once.

  “Too bad Alex didn’t work out,” Jennifer said. “He sounded hot.”

  “He was hot. Is hot,” I amended. “I possibly would have gone out with him, as my only choice. But Aly forbade him to ask me, and told me he was a huge playboy who loved ’em and left ’em all over Louisiana. So it was a no-go.” Plus, he was a haguaro, and I was still unsure about dating a haguaro. Obviously I was setting myself up for eternal spinsterhood.

  “Maybe you could have been the one to change his evil ways.” Jen sounded wistful.

  I sighed. “We always want to think that—that we’ll be enough for someone to change. But it never works that way. Besides, an actual relationship with him wouldn’t have worked. He’s only in town about once a week. But I’m glad we’re friends. We went to Fellini Night at the Prytania Theatre last week.”

  “How was it?”

  “A lot like my actua
l life,” I said, and she laughed. I noticed that her face was thinner and she’d lost the deep tan she’d gotten in Israel.

  “When do you have to let Seattle U know for sure if you’re going next year?” she asked.

  “February. They said they’d hold my spot till then.”

  “And?” She raised her eyebrows.

  “No ands about it. I’m definitely going, of course.”

  Jennifer nodded and then dropped offscreen as she reached for something. “Why don’t you switch and come up here? It doesn’t have to be Columbia.” Her face reappeared and she bit into a Fig Newton. “There’s a million other schools here in New York. We could even be roommates, get an apartment.”

  “That would be so fun,” I said. “I don’t know. Still have my heart set on Seattle.”

  “But you were only going there because it was as far away from Florida as possible,” she reminded me. “You don’t need to do that anymore.”

  I nodded, feeling a familiar sadness. “Yeah. That’s true. I feel like I’ve lost all my reasons to do anything.” I hadn’t meant to sound so down, but Jen made a sad face.

  “I know, sweetie,” she said. “But now instead of just doing stuff to be the opposite of what your parents wanted, you get to find what you yourself actually want.”

  “That has occurred to me.”

  Her head turned to look offscreen, then turned back. “Oh my god, Vivi! I totally forgot! Look at this weird thing!”

  “What?”

  I heard the rustling of paper, and then her face centered on the screen again. She looked serious, but also unsure.

  “What is it, H?” I asked again.

  “It’s something I saw in the paper, the New York Times. I don’t even know why I saw it—I was skimming the page, and then this caught my eye. I wasn’t even sure I should tell you.”

  “Jeezum, what is it? You’re weirding me out.”

  “It’s . . .” She held up a newspaper page, but of course it was totally blurred and I couldn’t read any of it. “It’s, well, it’s someone who . . . died like your parents.”