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Welcome back once more for another monthly newsletter! This is going out a little late due to the change in presidency, which also means that things might be a little light on new information for this month.

June is, of course, Pride Month. There have typically been interviews done with writers who are lgbtq+, and I do not intend for this month to be any different. Obviously, things are a little delayed due to the hand-over, but I intend on reaching out to writers over the next few days in order to get some Pride Month spotlights released. If you believe you would make a good person to spotlight, please reach out to us.

You can find all kinds of submission calls for Furry writing in our Furry Writers’ Market! Currently, these markets are open.

• CRINKLE: A Littles Anthology – Deadline: June 15th, 2021
• The Rebel Diaries: An Anthology -Deadline: June 30th, 2021
• Wolves Gay – Deadline: July 30th 2021
• Furward Slash: A Furry Adult Techno-Horror Anthology – Deadline: November 30th, 2021
• Pirating Pups – Deadline: November 30th, 2021
• The Nightmurr Before Christmas – Deadline: October 1st, 2021
• #ohmurr! – Deadline: Ongoing
• Zooscape – Reoccurring submission period.
• Isekai Me – Deadline: When full.

Note that Zooscape will, as of the December 2021 issue, be a fully professional rate, as dictated by the SFWA. This means 8c/word on all accepted submissions, up to 5000 words.

As with the previous update, we are currently still finding our feet with this new role. Over time, we plan to have plenty more information included in these updates. New book releases will also be included with the anthology openings.

Until then, stay safe in these difficult times. Get vaccinated if possible and keep writing!

J.F.R. Coates

Who still connects to some furry IRC networks? Which networks are those? I'm more or less regularly on Furnet IRC.

Another popular web comic gets put together on dead trees for you! This time it’s Living With Mochi. “When architect-turned-cartoonist Gemma Gené first met her pet pug, Mochi, she felt as if time stopped. This dramatic moment and her adoring relationship with the rambunctious pug led her to begin chronicling her adventures with Mochi in a series of incredibly cute web comics that have gained a social media following of half a million loyal readers. The comics chronicle Mochi’s life from puppyhood to adulthood, featuring Mochi’s unrequited dog friendships, his jealousy of his two dog-brothers, and his love of food. Readers and dog parents will love this humorous tale of a sincerely loyal friendship between one grumpy pug and his adoring owner.” Full color, it’s available now in paperback from Andrews McMeel.

image c. 2021 Andrews McMeel

Hello everyone!

Just a quick post for those of you who have been unaware of the recent developments with the guild, we now have a new president and vice-president.

Firstly, I would like to thank Linnea for all the hard work put in during the last year. The Furry Writers’ Guild has really improved as an organisation in this time. We hope to maintain this momentum.

For those who do not know me, I am J.F.R. Coates. I will be assisted by Kate Shaw as my VP. We are both looking forward to seeing how we can help further the guild, as well as maintaining the work put in during the last year. We do not want to see the guild taking any steps back, even if the steps forward we make may be small.

Over the next few days and weeks, we plan to set a firmer vision of what we want to achieve over this term. If there are any thoughts and suggestions for where you – the members – wish to see the guild go, then we are very happy to hear you! Please do contact us, either through the guild email or twitter accounts, or feel free to contact me directly via telegram at @JayFR.

I am aware the June Monthly Update has not gone out. I’ll get my head around everything involved with the transition, and aim to have something out during the week.

Thank you for reading. I am looking forward to this task of leading the Furry Writers’ Guild.

Here’s to a successful year ahead!

MOOBARKFLUFF! Click here to send us a comment or message about the show!

Special guest The Tater joins us this week and talks with us about their life in the fandom, their artwork, and other things. Bearly shares a short clip of his 13 yr old self. The English language is strange and unique. Taebyn shares a story about being a bunny, and we share some really bad jokes. So join us for a rip roaring good time!
The Tater mentioned several things in the interview, here are the links:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9792-dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder#:~:text=Dissociative%20identity%20disorder%20(DID)%20was,The%20condition%20is%20further%20explained

https://linktr.ee/TheTater

https://t.me/taterinkblot

Support the show

Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, Cheetaro, TickTock, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting S2E6 - The Tater, Young Bearly, Words, Storytime, Really Bad Jokes

The new all-time fursuit auction record is worth a nice car or some people’s yearly income. (Highest commission is a different number.) It’s been 3 years since the last record by MixedCandy: A look at furry business with a $17,017 record fursuit auction price, July 2018.

Shifting winds of tech and business helped make this possible; it has to do with porn, politics, and payment providers. We’ll get into that… but I’m sure that wasn’t on the mind of Zuri Studios and Sabi, the owner/maker based in the Czech Republic with a fluffalicious folio of “god tier fursuits“. (This auction is a contract to create one, not an existing fursuit.)

Sabi just found out there’s no business like sew business.

Record fursuit auction for @Zuri_Studios closes at $50,000 on @TheDealersDen! War between 2 bidders in the last 17 minutes rocketed up the price from $24k, which already beat @mixedcandy's $17k record from 2018. Huge win for an artist and the potential of the art. Congrats zuri! https://t.co/SaJNlma9ZV pic.twitter.com/1fweGwQNO3

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) May 29, 2021

$100K fursuit when?

Tripling the record since 2018 gets steaming hot takes on social media. How can any suit be worth so much? 

Like any painting or original object, it’s because something’s rare and someone’s willing to pay. (Try offering less for this one!) The price isn’t just the worth of one costume; it’s for years of school and practice, growing clients and a business, and developing networks for knowledge, trade and materials. Fursuits aren’t art to hang on the wall, they’re eye candy you hug at cons. When live events thrive, it makes a market. But you don’t have to fight for this fursuit when there’s makers for many budgets, who share free DIY maker knowledge. There’s more room for makers to be pro-fans when one can get such a big reward.

But how does that kind of purchasing power come from furries?

Cryptocurrency investing rides a wave of regulation

The answer starts here: Pornhub and Xtube purge millions of videos, telling furverts to “beat it”. It goes with furries making six figures with erotic art or working on Onlyfans, but getting squashed by the SESTA/FOSTA law that shifts liability onto websites. It’s the same friction all sex work faces, like bank account freezes, denial of licenses and high cost to exist. Let’s call the friction vs. demand for service the fap-gap.

Porn is huge, and the fap-gap brings capital flowing in if it can make things smoother for a profit. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency is developing payment with less friction. Together they bring Venture Capitalists investing in a new coin.

$CUMINU (based on the Etherium blockchain):

• In May 2021, this concept-coin appeared with a newly registered website and social media channels.
• It ties to the porn industry to create a pay system that serves adult business users in the fap-gap.
• It has experienced rich investors and is aiming for long term utility, not just a get-rich-quick meme by nobodies.
• It will have a platform to use it: “A mix of Pornhub, Only Fans and Cameo that offers a new adult social experience.”
• It’s being launched with big porn stars and mainstream influencers way bigger than furry fandom.

DISCLAIMER IN CASE OF HOT TAKES: THIS STORY IS NOT AN AD. Crypto has a huge problem with burning energy. I don’t use it. I don’t recommend speculating. I also don’t think sex work, regulation, or crypto is going away. This is simply reporting what happens and why. (See “A Furry’s Guide to Cryptocurrency” and beware of scams and bullshit.) When you’re armed with info, go ahead and write editorials.

Talking to auction winner Myst Dingo

Whatever your take on cryptocurrency, this sounds real and it’s funding the $50,000 fursuit buyer, Myst Dingo. Rumors ran wild because Myst was seen advertising $CUMINU; people guessed he might have even founded the coin and bought the fursuit as a stunt to push it. Those rumors aren’t true. Myst is just an individual investor who anticipates doing well and the suit is minor in comparison. Like someone buying a fancy car but an artist gets paid.

Myst Dingo responds:

Hehe, the coin is what give me the cash. It’s run by someone whose already rich. I’m open about it because it’s who I am. I’ve never been a fan of folks who throw cash around pretending to be loaded but it’s family or whatever. In the end, I got lucky. And Zuri deserves it. I’m supporting the token because the NSFW space gets really bad rates and taken for a ride from payment providers. It’s time to go to a platform where they have no control and pass those savings to the girls (and guys) who put themselves on display every day. We’ve even had issues with this kinda thing in the fandom if I recall.

As for a pump dump or whatever. Naw, they intend to and are making something game changing. It’s not my coin, it’s just one I got lucky on.

The ultimate plan, should things pan out is to build a charity/philanthropy YouTube channel. Similar to MrBeast. Figured I was in a position to give a single artist 50k, so that’s a heck of a start. Then it also makes sense to have that level of quality should this coin turn into what it can be. Then I can start giving out tens to hundreds of thousands for videos. I’m not taking credit until the suit is fully paid off. Full transparency, it’s 5k a week for 10 weeks. I’ll pay it off immediately should that token spike to a certain level.

Also, there’s no other maker I’d do this for.

Congratulations to one of the kindest souls I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with@Zuri_Studios has always focused on creating the absolute best she can, and has always carried herself with such an immense level of humility

She deserves every bit of what was paid today

— Myst Chaotic Dingo Energy (@mystDingo) May 29, 2021

A mix of market and fandom

This was a big event for The Dealers Den, the furry auction site. They also want to offer alternative payment options along with card or Paypal: The Dealers Den plans to rebuild with unprecedented features and Blockchain technology. However they don’t take a closing fee – which would be thousands an auction site like Ebay – which makes not-for-profit service.

Keep in mind fursuit making isn’t a get-rich business, one fursuit isn’t a goldmine, and it’s not a payday for a big corporation. Fur isn’t more rare, and freely shared knowledge of makers didn’t get more exclusive. The market isn’t cornered. The sale was paid in USD (not crypto) by an investor who’s already here. More than anything else, the source of money is a topic. With payment in USD, what’s an artist supposed to do about that?

Is this bad for the fandom? Readers can hash out the merits of artists getting paid by unorthodox means. Will the fandom be pissed about problems with it? Of course. Can they help solve the problems so artists can succeed without being in the doghouse?

(6/7/21: A few closing lines and link added.)

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

Don’t look now, but Stan Sakai’s world has gone pear-shaped — almost literally! It’s time for Chibi-Usagi: Attack of the Heebie Chibis, a new full-color graphic novel premiering this month from IDW. “Stan Sakai’s beloved rabbit samurai has won countless fans over his 35 year history, thanks to a clever blend of thrilling action, heartwarming characters, and realistic portrayal of Japanese culture. Chibi-Usagi brings these fun and thoughtful stories to middle-grade readers as a original graphic novel packed with adorable art and captivating energy. While fishing for freshwater eels, Chibi-Usagi, Tomoe, and Gen rescue a Dogu, a clay creature from Japan’s prehistory. The Dogu’s village has been enslaved by the Salamander King and his Heebie-Chibi minions and are forced to work in their mines. Chibi-Usagi and his friends must rescue the Dogu people and eliminate the threat of the Salamander King forever in this feature-length story of adventure, humor, and slippery eels.” It’s written by creator Stan Sakai, of course, with art and more writing by Julie Fujii Sakai. In trade paperback.

image c. 2021 IDW Publishing

On this episode we have Ash Coyote and Ash Eagle, about their documentary called The Fandom. Find Ash Coyote on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashcoyote And Ash Eagle: https://twitter.com/furryfilmmaker Find the Fandom documentary on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0QaTW3kEY Find us on Twitter: @South-Afrifur, https://twitter.com/southafrifur, on Tumblr, http://south-afrifur.tumblr.com/, and on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/southafrifur Also, for more local news, check out the Zafur forums! http://forum.zafur.co.za/

Nuka and Roo chat with Nazanin Nourmohammadi about professional development, resumés, and more!





NOW LISTEN!
SHOW NOTES
SPECIAL THANKS

Nazanin Nourmohammadi

PATREON LOVE
The following people have decided this month’s Fur What It’s Worth is worth actual cash! THANK YOU!

Premium Tier Supporters

Jarle, the Spirit Wolf

Get Stickered Tier Supporters

Nuka goes here

Kit, Jake Fox, Nuka (Picture Pending), Ichi Okami, Taz

Fancy Supporter Tier



Rifka, the San Francisco Treat and Baldrik and Adilor and Luno

Deluxe Supporters Tier

 

Guardian Lion and Katchshi and Koru Colt (Yes, him), Wolf in a Barrel (picture pending), Ashton Sergal

Plus Tier Supporters

Skylos
Snares
Simone Parker
Ausi Kat
Chaphogriff
Lygris
Tomori Boba
Bubblewhip
GW
Moss

McRib Tier Supporters

August Otter

 
MUSIC

Opening Theme: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Closing Theme: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Chill Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!) S9 Episode 9: Roo’s Resume Ruckus - Nuka and Roo chat with Nazanin Nourmohammadi about professional development, resumés, and more! - NOW LISTEN! SHOW NOTES SPECIAL THANKS Nazanin Nourmohammadi - PATREON LOVE The following people have decided this month’

Animation Magazine let us know about a new animated TV series called Housebroken, which just premiered on Fox. Housebroken is “…a new animated series which centers on Honey (Lisa Kudrow), a standard poodle who runs group therapy sessions to help animals from her neighborhood manage neuroses brought on by their owners and each other. The show’s super hip voice cast includes Nat Faxon as a sloppy St. Bernard, Will Forte as a sex-positive tortoise, Sharon Horgan as an aging Persian cat, Jason Mantzoukas as a street-smart cat, Sam Richardson as a co-dependent cat, Tony Hale as a sweater-wearing terrier with OCD, and Clea DuVall as a know-it-all corgi.” There’s more information still gathering on Wikipedia, too. Woof.

image c. 2021 Fox

It is the 24th century, and humanity has colonized the stars. Aliens and robots are as commonplace as interstellar travel, while mercenaries and pirates casually jump between spaceports looking for work to do. Living together on their spacecraft The Serendipity, Clarity is a free-living, nostalgic human who agrees with Irohann—a pragmatic yet caring and seemingly anthropomorphic fox-like alien called a Heffen—that they’re running out of money and therefore need to expand their services to clientele. One of whom is an AI calling herself Wisper, who had recently transferred her consciousness into an empty robot and desperately needs the mercenary duo, plus four others, to escort them to a nearby research base in order to rendezvous with a ship that will help them reach a stranded expedition crew near a deadly pulsar. These four other passengers include an insectile physicist named Am-lei, her elephant-like wife Jeko, a lapine alien pilot named Roscoe, plus a sentient swarm of bugs and flies that calls itself Mazillion. Seemed like a simple drop-off mission, right?

Unfortunately for the protagonists, things are not as they seem. After losing The Serendipity partly through their journey and finding out that Wisper has kept things from them, Clarity and Irohann reluctantly join the AI’s rescue operation. However, it isn’t a rescue mission to save a crew, but to save the colonized reaches of the observable universe from an experiment gone wrong. Will they be able to make it to their destination in time, let alone survive?

This is the overall plot of ENTANGLEMENT BOUND, the first book in Mary E. Lowd’s epic space opera series set within her Entanglement Universe. And boy, is it epic! Within the decent span of over three hundred densely packed pages, the author balances plot, characters, comedy, and heart into what will hopefully become a more popular example of space operas done well.

Despite Clarity herself being an outgoing and a very likable protagonist, whose decisions and care-free lifestyle are easily identifiable even to those rooted on Earth, my favorite character in ENTANGLEMENT BOUND has to be Irohann. Although his backstory could have been explored further or perhaps spread out across the novel instead of info-dumped early on, it is still an incredible backstory, nonetheless. It shows all the different layers of what is perceived to be a simple yet wise and pragmatic deuteragonist. The events of his previous life, while distant as far as he knows, still clearly affect his present to the point where there are positive and negative ways his past shapes his relationship with Clarity.

Otherwise, Wisper is a great artificial intelligence of a character. Her dry and almost sarcastic humor is almost reminiscent of Dorothy from the anime “Big O”, and Roscoe seems like an old rabbit-like explorer who is in over his head while Am-lei and Jeko are a subtle power couple. Mary E. Lowd somehow even made Mazillion an interesting hivemind of indiscernible origin, and Cassie—a space whale horrifically amalgamated into a biological spacecraft—with a personality too endearing for a harsh universe. What makes these characters so engaging is that the reader can wholly believe they are the protagonists of their own grand narratives, like each of them have enough history in them to be given a book. In fact, the backstory of Irohann is well-deserving of its own novella as a prequel.

Smaller details from the characters having "pocket computers" to "solar biologists" who believe that stars are actually sentient to public space stations having a "grav-bubble playground" where children can play in zero-gravity help make the setting of ENTANGLEMENT BOUND stand out from the standard space sci-fi stories out there. However, there are still clear homages to classic stories such as Star Wars, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as well as animated shows like Final Space. In fact, given the similarities and visual themes of the animated show, this reviewer would be shocked if Mary E. Lowd had written ENTANGLEMENT BOUND without having watched one episode of Final Space.

Aside from a few noticeable grammar hiccups early in the first quarter of the novel, Mary E. Lowd’s writing shines through the rest of the pages to the very end. What began for Clarity and her friend Irohann as a simple escort mission gradually turned into an adventure across the galaxy and beyond, testing their long friendship and the relationships they forged with the crew to the very ends of space. ENTANGLEMENT BOUND is the kind of novel that appeals not just to readers who like furry fiction, but also to readers who enjoy the idea of a space epic that will leave them sitting on the edges of their seats.

Entanglement Bound, by Mary E. Lowd

How do I make friends in the fandom?

Hey there Papa Bear! My name is Papaya, I don't consider myself a furry, but an anthro enthusiast (that's a story for a different day). I'm more of a right leaning person and I've found it difficult lately to find similar people like me. I don't mind if my friends are furries or if they're anthro enthusiast like me, however I'm wondering what is the best way to go about making some furry friends. It's been hard lately with such a divide, I'm scared of sharing my views with someone who will blast me on Twitter just for having an opposing view.

Papaya

* * *

Dear Papaya,

I'm not too sure what the difference is between an "anthro enthusiast" and a furry. My first thought was that you meant you didn't participate in furry activities like going to cons and meets, but then you want to make furry friends, so ... I dunno. Anyway, my thoughts about politics and religion are that it is best to keep such topics out of the conversation unless you know somebody very well and feel confident you can discuss such things without causing hurt. As you are aware, these days, especially in America, the right and left have become super-polarized without much room for compromise or moderation. In my Greymuzzles group, I set up rules that religion and politics be kept out of the posts, and that has been pretty successful at keeping the peace in the group. That's rule 1. To make new friends in the fandom, simply join any furry social media group and look for people who share your interests. Then, strike up a conversation with them. It's really not complicated. Then, once you get to know them well, you might open up the conversation to a wider range of topics. Not all furries are left-leaning. There are many conservative and even hard-right furries out there. For example, if you are a gun enthusiast, you can find furries who enjoy hunting and target shooting. Furries are a diverse group of people and you can find people who share your views and hobbies if you look hard enough.

Good Luck, Anthro Enthusiast ;)

Papabear

Speaking of furry invasions: outside the fandom, a furry encounter became the star of the internet show globally. For news reporters, reporting outdoors puts them live on the scene and exposes them to what mother nature has to offer. A Russian news reporter for MIR TV learnt that the furry way when a dog came […]

中文：兽圈大入侵：优步广告中惊现福瑞，兽圈主流化步步稳进? Español: La invasión furry: Los furries aparecen en un anuncio de Uber; ¿ganando terreno para convertirse en la corriente principal?

Starting off from Australia, Aurawra has changed their convention venue, after their local government has reserved their convention hotel, the Novotel Sydney International Airport hotel, as a quarantine site for airline staff for a period of time that crosses the furcon’s planned dates end-July. Novotel Sydney Olympic Park is their new venue, which is an […]

TigerTails Radio Season 13 Episode 14 Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf For a full preview of events and for previous episodes, please visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show.

by Joanna Galbraith

“Word spreads quickly about the Festival di Notte and every animal in Florence is cordially invited.”

In the Florentine hills below Fiesole, where the land is quilted with olive groves and stitched with high stone walls, where every house has dark green shutters and facades of yellow yolk; there lives the rooster of Villa di Notte who crows throughout the day.

Lustily squawking as he struts his stuff, no one understands him apart from the chickens.

‘Hush,’ they coo as he begins to crow. ‘Today he begins the Seventh Circle of Hell.’

It is the rooster’s dream to reach Paradiso; His father only made it as far as Purgatorio.

Sometimes the villa dog comes down to listen; scratching his back on the dry stone wall. He cannot follow what the rooster says (for like most dogs he does not speak Fowl) but he enjoys the camaraderie that comes with each show. Even the olives stop growing when the old rooster crows.

Now this dog is a proud fellow with a thick Shepherd’s mane. Eyes like two toffees: brown, melting stones. His name is Palmerino. He wishes it were not.

‘Oh to be a Leonardo, a Michelangelo, a great Cesare. Anything would be better than such a limp Palmerino.’

‘You should be grateful,’ scolds the plump villa cat. She speaks perfect Hound. She can speak Wild Boar, too.  ‘I am called cat. Nothing fancy about that.’

Sadly, the inhabitants of Villa di Notte do not sense Palmerino’s despair. They think his pout looks like a smile, his grimace just a grin. They think he likes to hear his name. They shout it all the time.

‘Don’t be hurt,’ consoles the cat. ‘They don’t mean to be unkind.  Besides, you know how little they understand about their villa world.’

Palmerino nods at the cat’s prudent words: he knows that she is right. How can they know about his name when they know so little else? Like how their sheep play Blind Man’s Bluff amongst the cypress trees or how their goats enjoy pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey although the donkey is far less keen!

Or how their chickens are so erudite, their rooster so verbose.

And that they have a cat with more tongues than lives and a dog with a lofty dream. A dream that extends far beyond his name — a dream to reach the sky. To stand up high on his own hind legs and walk a steady mile.  To shake the paws of all his friends instead of sniffing bums. Not that he minds the sniffing part (he quite likes it truth be told) but he knows it lacks sophistication; it just isn’t how it’s done.

‘Yes indeed,’ sighs Palmerino to himself. ‘How can they know I need a more gallant name if I am to walk upon my hind?’

* * *

As it turns out Palmerino is not the only dog who wishes he stood tall. The dark stone streets are full of such creatures, hankering to drink their morning espressos from tiny porcelain cups or to lean, cross-legged, at Trippa Bars while swallowing down their lunch. Each animal is proud of their Florentine home – of their city’s glorious pedigree. They know of the Renaissance from a time gone by.  They dream of the Renaissance still to come; a rebirth of sorts for all animal kind when the light from their souls will finally shine.  A time when they will at last create.  A time that has not yet come.

They are patient though, these aspiring artists, as they wait for their beautiful day.  For they know how simple human folk really are (despite their invention of algebra) and how dangerous this can be.  Just look what happened to the poor Russian bears that tried to stand before their time; strapped into skates, dressed in pink tutus, condemned to circus life.

No. These Florentine animals will not make this mistake. They are content to wait until the time is right and steal any opportunities that they can.

Like Sunday nights at Bar Café Mingo where they meet to exchange ideas. Owned by a Perugian with a heart spun from silk, he lends his key to a wolfhound called Basso without a single word. He understands that these animals need to meet. Need to express their animal souls. He doesn’t even mind the muddy prints they leave around his cups or that occasionally an enthusiastic tail may break a glass — for so too can a careless arm

Now here in Bar Café Mingo all the animals come to stand upon their hinds. There are the cats who paint with their motley paws and the Arctic Hares who throw clay pots. There are the dogs with a penchant for archeology who bring in their latest digs and the sculpting frogs that spend their days in mud perfecting the animal form. There are the Beatnik goats clapping out their rhythms; the spiders weaving tapestries.  All celebrating together in a small Oltrano bar while the Florentines peacefully sleep.

Palmerino is a regular; he is good friends with Basso, but the villa cat she never comes.  She much prefers to stay at home and enjoy the open air. Besides her father was a rather famous poet who used to cause trouble in the bar. Not for his poems (though somewhat provocative in themselves); he was an alcoholic too. The cat is afraid of what a whiskey and cream might do to her as well.

‘So how was last night?’ she asks Palmerino whenever Monday morning rolls round again.

‘Wonderful. A flock of migrating geese dropped by and honked in a capella Holst’s – Mars, The Bringer of War. Can you imagine? Then they sang a piece which they had composed themselves during their long flight south. Quite spectacular really.’

‘I wish I could have heard it,’ sighs the cat wistfully, resting her head on her well-groomed paws.

‘You really should come to the bar some time.’

The cat shakes her head; the memory of her inebriated father swinging from bar room shutters is still too raw for her.

‘It’s a shame we can’t do something away from the bar. In the open air perhaps.’

‘Like a festival?’

Palmerino furrows his brow. ‘Yes, exactly.’

‘A festival would need a lot of space.’

‘There’s plenty of room out here.’

The cat shakes her head again. Visions of skating bears flash through her mind. ‘Oh no, the villa folk are kindly people, but they would never understand.’

Palmerino pouts.

‘Unless,’ muses the cat with a thump in her tail. ‘Unless we wait until the Dolomites.’

‘The Dolomites?’

The cat rolls her eyes. Sometimes Palmerino can be very slow.

‘You know when the villa folk go to the Dolomites. They do it every year.’

Palmerino’s tail begins to wag. Of course, the Dolomites! Ever year the villa folk go to the mountains for five days. Normally they take him when they go on holidays but never to the Dolomites. Apparently one of their Aunts is allergic to his fur and she makes a lot of fuss.

‘I shall announce it next Sunday,’ shouts Palmerino in great glee.

The cat raises a paw to the front of his nose.

‘Ssh my excitable friend, not so fast!  At least let me find out first when the Dolomites will be.’

* * *

Word spreads quickly about the Festival di Notte and every animal in Florence is cordially invited.  Even the castorino who live down by the Arno and are known for their less than salubrious smell!

‘There is plenty of room,’ Palmerino enthuses to the bar crowd. ‘Olive groves, hay barns, a swimming hole as well. We shall walk, we shall dance, we shall touch the moon with our paws.’

Both he and the villa cat work tirelessly to prepare. They arrange with the pigeons to string up fairy lights; they speak with the mosquitoes about humming Habanera.  A horse chef is invited to whip up delicious treats although she cannot make them by herself as her shoes are far too awkward.  Instead she employs some local rats with nifty, little hands to work as sous chefs in her stable kitchen; to follow what she says. She also invites a herd of local bulls to come toss great salads in the air and a family of squirrels come in to crack nuts and unscrew jam jar lids.

* * *

Finally, the day comes when the villa folk are to leave.  Palmerino slumps glumly while they pack their bags – just as any loyal dog should always do!

‘Not too glumly’ hisses the villa cat. ‘They might take you after all.’

Immediately Palmerino starts smiling instead. He trots to the car with a wag in his tail and watches, head tilted, until the car pulls away.

‘Now,’ he whoops joyously. ‘Let the festival begin.’

Soon the animals start arriving in droves, flocks and herds. Dogs walk gaily, paw-in-paw, hind-upon-hind, musing wisely about the speed of light.

‘Well of course the neutrino can go much faster. I have tested it myself.’

Pigs don party frocks spun by spiders. Chickens count eggs before their laid. The ducks perform Swan Lake to rapturous applause.  Champagne spills over and flutes are broken. They prove too delicate for animal hands.  But the shards are soon melted down and blown into glass jewels by a troupe of fireflies.

By the third night the entire villa is in disarray, but it is a delightful sort of chaos. The lady dogs are wearing waistcoats; the men are in high heels. A fox has come up with a new kind of trot. A frog has learned to jive. The rooster has finally reached Paradiso; he plans to tackle William Shakespeare next.

Palmerino watches with a puffed out chest. He feels so tall he can reach the moon.

‘It’s a success,’ he barks joyously to his fellow host.

‘Aye,’ replies the villa cat who has been learning Scottish from a highland cow.

Suddenly, however, a bright light shines down the road.  Two flying saucers is the first supposition, but alas it is something far more alarming than this. The villa folk. Returning early? Apparently the allergic aunt found a stray dog hair in her soup.

The cat quickly ushers the animals out the back gate while Palmerino slumps frozen in his spot. His head is slung low though his heart is undefeated.

The villa folk cannot believe their eyes. Their house, their garden an unspeakable sight.  Smashed up plant pots everywhere, spilt vats of wine, trodden in food, sagging grape vines. Sculptures made of cow manure. Intricate mosaics designed out of seeds. A woven tapestry of wild, blooming flowers. Remnants of equations scratched out on barn walls.

They search for poor Palmerino with his innocent, brown eyes.

‘Aw come here,’ they say kindly while ruffling his sticky head. ‘Fancy being caught up in such terrible chaos. Such terrible vandalismo! Brave doggy, good doggy let us give you a bath.’

And Palmerino is bathed and groomed and fed though nothing feels as good as standing on hind legs.

* * *

The following morning Palmerino wakes from a kaleidoscopic dream and ventures out into the garden. Everything has gone. Nothing remains. In the field burns a giant bonfire, almost touching the sun.

‘Next year Palmerino’ the villa folk say. ‘You will come to the Dolomites with us.’

And Palmerino pouts though they think it’s a grin.

‘O don’t be sad,’ consoles the villa cat. ‘They don’t mean to be unkind. Besides you know how little they understand about their villa world.’

 

* * *

Originally published in Stupefying Stories

About the Author

Joanna Galbraith (she/her) was born in Australia but currently lives in Tuscany with her two cats – Pirate and Dalmazio. She has written about singing fish, humming whales, and dancing polar bears as well as the occasional story about vengeful dustbins and eight-fingered snowflake spinners. Her work has been published in numerous publications, including the highly-acclaimed Clockwork Phoenix anthology series.

by Diana A. Hart

“According to the President, we’re just animals. And thanks to his Supernatural Registration Act, I’d been downgraded from NOAA researcher to Park Service mascot.”

The squeals of the horde grew closer. I pulled in a breath, thick with wood and old newsprint, and reared onto my hind legs. My knees ached as I staggered to the center of the room. Standing upright was a breeze as a woman, but I was in bear-form, and grizzlies sure as hell aren’t meant to walk that way. My muzzle wrinkled as I pawed my wide-brimmed hat into place and braced for impact.

A pack of first-graders rounded the corner, flapping coloring books and screeching like howler monkeys on espresso. I snorted. They made a beeline for the menagerie of stuffed wildlife that lined the visitor center walls. Somehow the National Park Service expected coarse rope and a burnt wood “Do Not Touch” sign to stem the tide. It never worked. I cleared my throat as the grade-school piranhas reached for their taxidermied victims. The horde turned toward me, and eyes and mouths went wide.

A girl with mussed hair and a Last Unicorn t-shirt raised a chubby finger. “It’s—”

“That’s right,” I said. Well, rumbled, really. Being a grizzly kind of screws your “inside voice.” I jabbed a paw at them. “Remember, kids: Only you can prevent forest fires.”

A collective screech hit my ears. I winced and then they were on me. Most were well behaved, content to bounce up and down and jabber at me as if I were some woodland Santa Claus, but there’s always those few who mistake me for a jungle gym. By the time Kelsi and the chaperones arrived, a pair of boys clung to my shoulders and somebody dangled from my ruff. Their prim, proper, perfectly human teacher just laughed and took pictures.

I clenched my jaw and glowered at the woman. Her heavily moussed curls showed no signs of abuse, and her dress was shoeprint-free. Oh no, her little angels wouldn’t dare treat a normie like this, but shifters? A boy stuck his finger in my nose. I sneezed and wrestled him off my shoulder and plopped him on the floor. According to the President, we’re just animals. And thanks to his Supernatural Registration Act, I’d been downgraded from NOAA researcher to Park Service mascot.

The remaining shoulder-percher tried to steal my hat. Cooing over his cuteness, one of the chaperones blinded me with a camera flash. My pulse rose. I slapped a paw on top of my hat and weighed mentioning they were technically photographing a topless woman. I knew from experience it’d stop the pictures. I also knew it shrank my paycheck.

Instead I bit my tongue and locked eyes with Kelsi. The humanoid, five-foot-six raccoon had a child wrapped around each leg and her Stetson hung akimbo. My brow creased. What the heck is it with kids and hats? She shook her head and mouthed “Get on with it.”

I took a deep breath and bellowed over the din, “Do you know what the number-one cause of forest fires is, Ranger Rick?”

One of Kelsi’s leg-limpets wiped his nose on her calf. Her tail puffed from irritated to “just-shoot-me-now.”

“I dunno, Smokey,” she said, sticking to the godawful script.

I put a paw on my hip and frowned. It didn’t take much acting. My knees were screaming. “Well, that’s no good.” I flashed a sharp-toothed grin at the pair still yanking my fur. Their faces paled. “Do you know?” They just slid to the floor. My muscles unknotted. Finally. I rolled my shoulders and turned to the horde. “Can anybody tell Ranger Rick the number-one cause of fires?”

All of the kids babbled their guesses, including a shrill cry of “dragons.” My smile turned just a bit real.

The teacher finally settled her class in neat, cross-legged rows so Kelsi and I could give our presentation on fire safety, conservation, and how feeding the bears got people mauled. I’d done the routine so many times my brain just clicked to autopilot and let me watch the crowd during our show. Usually when Kelsi started juggling cans and tossing them in a recycle bin, the kids’ attention would drift, but every once in a while, you’d get that one child whose gaze stayed bright, boring into us with a hungry fire. Most wanted to be Rangers or scientists. Others were happy just seeing fellow shifters flash fur after the Registry.

My shoulders slumped. Today was just window-gazers and coloring enthusiasts.

* * *

After the Hoh Visitor’s Center closed, I shifted back to human form. Having thumbs and an athletic build was a welcome change from “nature’s tank.” I traded oversized trousers for human garb, grabbed my gear from my locker, and dashed for the trail, my grizzly-brown locks whipping in the wind. I grinned as the air kissed my face. There were a few hours of daylight left, enough to take some readings of the river if I hurried.

By the time I reached my favorite spot — a fast-flowing curve of water, shielded from intrusion by a steep hike and moss-covered hemlocks — the light had faded to a pale orange blush. Looming night and the glacier-fed river chilled the summer air. Goosebumps spread over my skin as I crunched along the gravel bar. A goldfinch sang somewhere along the far bank and the scent of evergreens and wet earth flooded my senses. My muscles relaxed as nature’s perfume washed away memories of pulled fur, sticky fingers, and painfully boring scripts.

I headed for a fire-downed hemlock. The charred tree was over a hundred feet long, trailing through the woods, across the bank, and into the river. I set my pack beside the dead giant and admired its blanket of ferns and spindly saplings. My breath slowed in quiet awe. Even in death the trees give life. Snags like this one allowed fresh growth and, when they dipped into the water, sheltered fish and other aquatic fauna. It was the latter I was really interested in.

I pulled out a flow meter and stake, then waded into the river. Liquid ice hit my calves. I gasped. Good money said it was about fifty degrees, but I’d check that last. My brain didn’t need any help on the “this stuff will give you hypothermia” front. I waded mid-stream, teeth chattering.

“You should be watching around you, Lily,” a deep voice rumbled. I clutched my chest and wheeled toward the sound. A black grizzly sat at the end of the snag, camouflaged by the tangle of branches, munching a trout as the water churned about his belly. He fixed me with moss-green eyes. “Dangerous, startling bears.”

“Jesus, Michail!” I said. My heart was stuck on ‘seizuring rabbit.’ “What are you doing here?”

His brow furrowed. “I was missing you,” he said, Russian accent deepening his rumble.

My chest squeezed. It’s been, what, three weeks? Four? Long enough I couldn’t remember. Guilt bowed my shoulders. I knew he couldn’t come by the visitor’s center — dodging the Registry had ended that years ago — so on my days off I was supposed to hike up Mount Tom Creek and meet him at our arch. I buried my face in my palm. “I’m sorry. It’s fieldtrip season…” The excuse tasted sour, yet I kept babbling. “They’re splitting my days off and I had to get readings before—”

Michail clicked his tongue. “Lyubov moya, no apologies for your research.” I heard the lip-curl in his voice. “You are more than carnival exhibit.”

I lifted my chin. “That’s Interpretive Ranger, thank you.” I was aiming for offended, but judging by the tilt of Michail’s head, I’d landed somewhere between ‘pouty’ and ‘pitiful.’ My lips tightened. Great. He dropped his trout and waded toward me. Double great. I averted my eyes and drove the flow meter’s stake into the riverbed. The last thing I needed right now was distraction and Michail was delightfully good at that.

“Lily.”

I attached a temperature probe to the post. “Bit busy, Michail.”

Small waves lapped my waist. His muzzle slid under my jaw in a cool caress. Eau de wet fur spiced the air. Most people would find the odor off-putting, but when you can turn into a bear — and have shared god remembers how many showers with one — it’s comforting. Homey, even. I inhaled despite myself.

“Zoloste.” His voice vibrated my bones. “I worry for you.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. This script was as familiar as my Smokey routine. He would start with “I escaped Motherland, fled Soviet persecution,” then move on to “Registry is seed of American tyranny,” and finish with another plea for me to join him as a nature-preserve-nudist. My chest lurched. Would it really be that bad? Wandering the mists, plucking fish straight from the rivers, dew settling on our fur in the mornings… I huffed and skipped to the end of our verbal dance.

“Running tells the normies harassment works. Makes it harder for the next shifter.” Checking my cables one last time, I slogged out of the river, shivering as wet clothes clung to my skin. Michail strode after me. “Besides.” I turned around and shrugged. “Playing Smokey earns brownie points, means Park Manager Dawson publishes my data.” Bitterness clung to my tongue. These days it was the only way I could get something in print.

Michail frowned. Well, as much as a grizzly can, anyway. “Appeasement only means you are on knees when knife comes out.”

My mouth went dry. I put my hand on my hip, as much to banish fear as to halt protest. “Did you come to argue with me or what?”

His jaw tightened. “…no.” Michail never liked backing down but after a few years and a couple of bear-brawls, he’d learned to let things drop. Still, it took a few seconds for his gaze to cool from ‘pissed’ to ‘smolder.’ He grinned. Paced closer. “There are better things to do.”

I laughed as he loomed over me. Lord, don’t let a hiker see us now. They’d think Michail was attacking and jump in to save me. “You’re terrible,” I said. “I have to take readings, remember?”

Hot breath brushed my neck. Water dripped on my skin in cool contrast. “As you Americans say, ‘all work and no play’…”

“You could help, medved,” I said and swatted his nose. “Make it go faster.”

He rolled his eyes playfully. “If I must.” A hearty shake sent water everywhere. I squeaked and threw my hands up.

Michail grimaced as the shift began. Soft pops of bone echoed over the river’s churn. Midnight fur gave way to rosy skin, exquisitely toned muscles steaming with shift-fever. His muzzle shortened and twisted back to the square jaw and high cheekbones I’d loved to trace in the mornings. Fading scratches and a thin new scar granted him a feral look.

I didn’t gape. Just… flushed more than I cared to admit.

Michail let out a whoosh of air and brushed back now-untamed hair. Warmth lurched through me. While I was stunned, he leaned in for a kiss. His tongue still carried the light, gamey tang of fish. Our lips parted, and he gently hooked my chin. “You were staring again, zoloste.” Hot-faced, I sputtered some excuse, but he just laughed and headed for my backpack.

While he rummaged through my gear, I touched my lips and rolled the taste of fish in my mouth. My eyes narrowed. Cutthroat trout? The sneak knew it was my favorite. He was tempting me, reminding me what civilization lacked. I crossed my arms. I wasn’t sure if I should beam or growl.

Michail produced my battered notebook. “I will record data for you, yes?” he said, leafing through the pages

I let my arms drop. It was too nice a night, the company too pretty, to stay stressed. “Yeah. Sure.”

He turned around and took up a wide-footed stance. A rakish grin left no doubt that the view was intentional. “So,” he said, twirling a pen. “Where is it you want it?”

* * *

Dawn brought crisp air and cold rain. Soaked and breathing hard, I jogged into the dingy locker room and threw my pack on the bench. Currently human, Kelsi peeked around her locker door. Minus raccoon-gray hair and mottled eyebrows, she reminded me of an Octoberfest ad: econo-sized bosoms, ample curves, and a smile that could heatstroke a penguin.

“Decided to camp out, huh?” she said.

I mumbled an affirmative and spun my lock.

“Hold still.” Kelsi plucked a leaf from my hair. “You brought a souvenir.”

Heat crept up my neck. Traces of Michail’s bear musk clung to my skin. Add in twiggy locks and any shifter with a decent nose would know exactly what I’d been up to. Still, Kelsi didn’t cock an eyebrow or anything. Either she had the best poker face ever — unlikely, given her delighted squeals during Uno — or she had the nose of a normie.

Acting as if nothing was amiss, I opened my dented locker. “Just getting some early readings.”

“You should have taken longer,” she said and pulled up her sweater. Fabric muffled her voice. “Missed the first bus.”

“The job’s not that bad,” I said. Water dripped from my nose. A quick puff blew it away. “Free park admission, free uniform…” I pulled out my oversized pair of trousers. “Well, part of one, anyway.”

“It’d be better if the kids gave a crap,” Kelsi said and traded pants for short-shorts. Ranger Rick was always drawn commando, but she’d talked Dawson into letting her keep some semblance of dignity. “If I were you, I’d take a gig at the zoo.”

I paused. “…what?”

“Yeah, Woodland Zoo? They pay shifters to hang out in the enclosures.” She plopped her Stetson on her head. “If I wasn’t a hybrid-form, I’d do it. Put some glass between me and the little monsters.”

I nodded to the clock over the door. “The ones here in seven minutes?”

Kelsi’s eyes widened. “Crap!” She threw on her vest and the scent of raccoon filled the air. A pained gasp escaped as her tailbone popped and stretched to four feet of plume. Fur in place, she dashed into the darkened visitor’s center, shouting “I have to get the coloring books ready!”

I wasn’t expected to lay out activities for the kids, bears lacking thumbs and all, but I still hastily peeled off my clothes. When the kids arrived I needed to be in place with my back to a wall. Walking through the visitor center only turned the horde into piggy-back-hungry velociraptors. I waded into my pants and summoned the change.

An inferno swept through my blood, turning it to a furnace. Pain sledgehammered me into an ursine shape. Once the heat and shakiness faded, I lumbered for the door, claws clicking on the tile. A draft made me stop. Uh oh. I peered down. Sure enough, I’d forgotten to close my fly. I lolled my head back. Having thumbs would save my dignity but a wardrobe adjustment wasn’t worth shifting to human and back.

“Kelsi?” I called. Turns out swallowing pride makes your ears droop. “I need a zip.”

The next few hours continued to slide into what we called ‘retirement impetus:’ no eager learners, Q&A mostly focused on if we pooped in the woods, somebody turned our six point buck into a five-and-a-half, and a rug-rat spilled apple juice on me.

During a lull I went to the bathroom, pawed the water on, and wasted a tree’s worth of paper towels trying to get clean. All I really accomplished was soaking the front of my trousers. I grumbled and swatted the faucet shut. No kids, Smokey just gets super excited putting out fires!

Padding back into the visitor’s center, a wave of newsprint-scented air hit me. Gun-oil and fear came with it.

Ice whispered up my spine. Appeasement only means you are on knees when knife comes out. Pushing back Michail’s warning, I snuffled the air, certain there was a less-paranoid explanation. Dawson’s cologne teased my nose. I loped toward the scent, taxidermy animals staring after me with dead eyes.

Three Law Enforcement Rangers waited in the lobby. The trio projected that ‘everything’s under control’ vibe, but the tightness of their jaws told a different story. Dawson, back military straight, talked with Kelsi in a low and furtive tone. Her eyes were wide and her tail tucked.

I cleared my throat. “Everything okay?”

They turned. Worry darkened Kelsi’s gaze. Dawson’s was a flat, cold gray.

“There’s been an attack,” she squeaked.

“Hikers, near Mount Tom Creek,” Dawson said. His grip tightened on a Ziploc full of rags. Even sealed, I whiffed blood and grizzly. My throat constricted. Michail.

“Casualties?” I asked.

“One dead, two injured.”

My pulse thudded in my ears. He had to have a reason. “What happened?”

Dawson shook his head. “Group stepped off the trail, black bear charged them—”

“Grizzly,” one of the guards interrupted. “Said it was nine feet when it reared.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. My insides were a leaden mass. “There’re no grizzlies in the Olympics.”

“And Lily was here all morning,” Kelsi said quickly.

Dawson sniffed. “Misjudged size in the confusion. Standard fear response.” He took off his Stetson and rubbed his buzz cut. “Still. Bear that’ll attack people. . .” His unspoken intent roared in my ears. It needs to be put down. Nausea washed over me. Dawson kept talking. “When the next class comes, escort them on and off the bus and keep them in the visitor’s center.”

“What’s your plan?” I asked, voice shaking. Hopefully they would misread my concern and think I was fretting over the visitors.

“For now we’re closing the trail and escorting hikers to safer areas.” He waggled the bag of rags. “In the meantime, we’ve asked local hunters to bring their dogs.”

Bile filled my throat. Dogs. My legs ached, screamed with the need to run and find Michail before the law did. They’re bringing dogs. If I could just talk to him, let him explain, we might be able to convince Dawson that the attack had been provoked, an act of self-preservation. But if the dogs found him first—

“Lily.” Dawson put a hand on my shoulder. I jerked. “Until we bag this thing, no more readings, okay?” he said, trying to give me a little shake. Didn’t work. I was over eight hundred pounds. “We can’t lose Smokey.”

I nodded. Inside I was growling. “Yeah. Sure.”

* * *

Branches whipped my face as I ran. Rain pounded my Gore-Tex and roared in my ears. My pulse was louder. He has to be there. I kept running, lungs burning as I dodged roots and night-shrouded trees. Being a shifter let me see in the dark, but with hunters on the way I had to stay human, dulling my senses. Still, my nose was sharp enough so I could smell Michail.

His trail, sweet, musky, and male, twined along Mount Tom Creek, quickly eroding in the rain. A coppery tang knotted my gut. Blood. Shifters were spectacular healers, able to close most wounds in a few days, but we could still bleed to death. And in this storm there was no telling how much Michail had lost. I scrambled upstream, fear lancing my heart.

He has to be there.

A pair of familiar hemlocks loomed in the night. I let out a sobbing, foggy breath. The ancient trees straddled the water, undercut by the river ages ago, but instead of toppling into the currents they’d fallen against each other, their combined strength resisting the elements until time had fused them together. Branches reached as one for the sky while conjoined roots formed a slight shelter. I spied Michail inside the ancient tangle, hunkered over in human form.

“Michail!” I called, staggering closer.

His head snapped up. Pain rasped his voice. “Lily?”

I ducked under the roots, frigid water pouring into my shoes. Blood-tang filled my nose. Michail sat on a tangle of driftwood clutching a denuded, gore-coated stick. An unusual pallor haunted his skin.

His brow wrinkled. “Lyubov moya, why—”

“I smelled you on those hiker’s clothes,” I said. My throat constricted. There were… holes in him. On his side. His back. In the dark they wept black.

“Poachers, zoloste,” he hissed and dug the stick into a hip wound. I yelped and darted for the branch. A flash of metal stopped me. Michail held up the deformed slug, fingers stained. “Thought I was a prize black-bear.” He flicked the bullet into the gurgling stream. “Mudak.”

I swallowed bile. Self-defense. They’d tried to shoot him, and he’d fought back. I threw my arms around him, shaking. It was self-defense. “We have to get you to the Ranger’s Station.” From there we could summon a doctor, call the police—

“No.”

The word hit like a punch. I pulled back. “What?”

“I go back, my name is in Registry as bear.”

Temper warmed my blood. I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Damn it, Michail! You’re not running from Stalin anymore!”

“Chernenko,” Michail corrected. He shrugged. Winced. “And doesn’t matter. Judge says innocent, someone always says guilty. They find me by Registry and…” He put his fingers to his head and mimed a gunshot.

My jaw dropped. “People aren’t like that!”

Michail’s eyes narrowed. “Zoloste.  My father died for raising me Orthodox.” His words were sharp as a blade. “Because friends told Special Committee.” He set aside his stick and twined his bloodied fingers in mine. “Poachers will demand bear. Vengeance.” He squeezed. “You must come, run to Mount Tom.”

I pulled loose and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Michail, I can’t—” He lolled his head back and started to rumble. It died with a wince. My retort withered on my tongue. I touched his arm and waited while he expelled the pain in short, foggy bursts.

“What’s wrong?” I asked once he’d regained composure. Stupid question, really, but my brain was still rebooting.

“Shoulder,” he said, resting against a gargantuan root. It was the same one he’d carved our initials into years ago. “Cannot reach.”

My lips tightened. “Turn around.”

Moving gingerly, Michail presented his well-muscled shoulder. I pushed back my hood and leaned in close, fighting nausea as I gently manipulated savaged flesh. At least he’s human now. Translational injury would leave the bullet a centimeter or two below the skin, rather than inches deep in a bear’s beefy shoulder.

“They will never respect you, Zoloste.”

Dawson’s voice rang in my ears. We can’t lose Smokey. “I know,” I murmured. “But that’s not why I stay.”

Metal glistened in the wound. I fished the hunk out with the stick, Michail’s fists clenched the whole time, and flicked the bullet aside. I slid off the root, bark catching my jeans, and scrubbed my hands in the frigid stream. Michail just watched with sad, tired eyes.

“Then why?” he asked.

As I sat in the dark with blood on my clothes, the answer seemed… weak. And so very faraway. I took a deep breath. “Not everyone can run. Some of those kids—”

A howl drifted through the woods. My breath caught. Dogs. I whipped around. Michail was no fool. He’d already gotten to his feet, scanning the trees with narrowed eyes. “One, maybe one-and-half kilometers,” he said.

My chest squeezed. Not his first man hunt. I touched his cheek. Stubble pricked my fingers. “Dawson brought hunters.” My voice shook. “Go. The rain…” Stones filled my throat, but I choked them down. “The rain’ll wash out your trail.”

He grabbed my arm, nails lengthening into points. “No.” He nodded to my stained Gore-Tex. “Blood all over you. Dogs will come to you.”

“I know.” I flashed a smile I didn’t feel. “But they’re hunting a bear, right? Not like they’ll shoot a human.” Please, please God let that be true.

Michail’s grip constricted, his nails puncturing my jacket. Fear and anger warred in his eyes. I held my breath. Another howl rang in the distance. He grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. His fingers fell from my arm. “Chert voz’mi,” he whispered. He leaned in and kissed me deeply. This time I tasted only him. “Spring, if hunt is over…”

I rested my forehead against his. Pain raked my heart. “…I’ll meet you here.”

He breathed into my hair. Kissed the top of my head. Fur sprouted from his skin, and he stepped into the river, using the water to hide his trail. I caught a whiff of fresh grizzly and then he was gone, swallowed up by rain and night.

Tears burned down my cheeks. “Run fast, medved.” I sniffed and wiped an arm across my face. It just smeared mud and bark everywhere.

Shivering, I waited and listened to the dogs. Their tone grew excited. Frenetic. Let them get right on top of you. I’d get only one chance, and the rain would strip Michail’s scent fast. I shucked my coat and picked up the gore-coated stick. Then I’d better leave a big damn trail.

Downstream, a flashlight winked between the trees. My pulse quickened. They’re here.

I leapt from the shelter, dragging my blood-stained coat behind me. Rain hit like cold, hard bullets. I ran into the wind and up a ridge, jumped over roots and crashed through every fern and huckleberry, lashing the foliage with Michail’s surgery-stick. By God, if those dogs couldn’t follow this mess they were useless.

Bays soon turned to keening barks. Branches snapped as the hounds gained behind me. My heart lurched. Not yet! I veered down a steep slope. Adrenaline surged through my body and spurred me on like some sort of daredevil mountain goat. I gasped for air. Wet dog hit my nose.

A huge mutt angled into my path, teeth flashing. I yelped and changed course. In my panic I smacked into a tree. I went ass-over-tea-kettle, bouncing off rocks and plowing down saplings, until my leg caught a boulder. Something crunched and pain exploded across my senses.

I screamed. Or vomited. Not sure which, but something definitely came out.

Agony throbbed through me, kept me on the ground until the hounds came. Hot breath and warm noses snuffled over me. One mutt kept barking in my ear. I just kept my eyes shut and gritted my teeth against the pain until somebody shined a flashlight in my face.

“Holy shit,” Dawson said. I groaned and blocked the glare, squinting between my fingers. His jaw hung slack. “Lily?”

* * *

While Kelsi juggled and sang to the kids about recycling, I sat in my own personal hell, claws twitching as I endured the twelfth day of Itch-toberfest. Dawson wasn’t able to replace Smokey and I needed to eat, so I’d agreed to heal up as a grizzly and had the cast applied in bear-form. I stifled a whimper. Stupid move, really. Fur took the itching from ‘torture’ to ‘Circle of Hell,’ and my painkillers weren’t doing squat. My ears flattened. The only plus to it all was that Dawson and the hunters had dragged me back to the visitor’s center, cancelling the hunt until an ambulance showed.

I glanced out the visitor’s center window, slumping like a fern in the rain. Hope you’re in better shape, Michail. It’d be another five months before I knew. A Law Enforcement Ranger, reeking of cheap cologne and gun-oil, loitered by the stuffed deer, examining Kelsi’s glue-job. I sighed and held up a recycling bin, doing my best to ignore him. And that’s if I can ditch my escort.

When Dawson had asked how I’d wound up in the woods covered in blood, I’d made something up about not having readings during heavy rainfall, slipping out, and running into the ‘Big Bad Bear.’ She’d been a mother with cubs, bloodied by her earlier run-in with the ‘hikers,’ so she’d attacked and chased me until I’d crashed down the hill and broke my leg. I stifled a huff. Dawson smells a rat, though. Officially Ranger Cheap-Cologne or one of his buddies were here so I didn’t sneak off and get hurt again, but a twenty-four-hour-shadow was less ‘caring’ and more ‘surveillance.’ Doubly so when you added in cold glances and high-caliber side arms. The whole affair had left me with whiplash; I’d been looking over my shoulder constantly and Michail’s warnings haunted me like perpetual swansong.

Kelsi pitched her cans into my bin one by one, punctuating her act. A few kids clapped. The rest popped up despite the protest of the teacher and swarmed me to croon get-betters and sign my cast with crayons.

“Aw, thank you, kids.” I wriggled in my seat, trying to relieve my aching rump. Turns out bear-butts aren’t designed to sit on wood crates all day. Who knew?

A girl with orange and black hair shouldered through the crowd. A faint scent of tiger wafted from her, spicy and sharp. Her yellow eyes were bright. “Miss Smokey,” she said.

The weight on my shoulders lifted. Finally.

“Smokey’s a boy, Whiskers,” one of the kids snapped.

Tiger-girl put her hands on her hips and shot them a withering glare. “Smokey’s a boar. She’s clearly a sow.”

“That’s right,” I said, surprise creeping into my voice. She knows her animal terms. I smiled and cocked my head. “Did you have a question?”

She nodded. “Well, you said fires were bad, but—”

A blonde boy, tall for his age, stopped signing my cast. His face pinched as he studied me. “You’re a shifter?” Disgust marinated every syllable. He flicked his head toward tiger-girl. “Like her?”

My muzzle wrinkled. How do you think I’m talking, kiddo? “Yeah . . . And?”

Kelsi shook a bag of candy and shouted over the buzz. “Who can name a native fish?” Chocolate proved more exciting than talking bears. The locusts moved to Kelsi, squealing ‘pink-eye salmon’ and other imaginary species. Only tiger-girl remained, glowering down at her sandals and clenching her coloring book, knuckles white.

My chest squeezed. God, how many times had I been in the same position? At her age I’d wanted to run away, hide from it all like Michail. Stones filled my gut. Of course she doesn’t have that choice. Tigers weren’t exactly local wildlife. “What’s your name?” I asked.

She sniffed and glanced at me. “…Antimony.”

“So, Antimony, what was this about fires?”

Dark clouds faded from her vision, letting some sparkle back in. “Well, Douglas-firs and fireweed need fire for their babies to grow…” That was an oversimplification, but she was in what, fourth grade? I nodded. Her posture slowly straightened. “And different animals need them for food and homes, right?”

“Correct.”

Antimony’s brow furrowed. “So fires are good.” She frowned and chewed her lip. “Well, sometimes.”

“That’s true,” I said, voice upbeat. “In fact, that’s part of my research.”

Her mouth formed a tiny little ‘O.’ “Shifters can do that?”

Hearing her disbelief, the raw strength of it, made my throat constrict. “Of course!” I leaned in conspiratorially and braced my paws on my knees. Bad move, really. Fresh pain shot through my leg. I grimaced. Antimony’s eyebrows rose, but thankfully she didn’t change the topic. I let out a slow breath and transferred all my weight to the other knee. “Some people told me that I can’t do research, or that because I’m a shifter it won’t go anywhere, but you know what?”

Antimony leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “What?”

“I do it anyway.”

Her lips twitched with the start of a smile. She jabbed a thumb toward the rest of her class. “So when they say I can’t be a scientist ’cause I’m a shifter…?”

I plopped the Stetson on her head. It seemed the right thing to do. Kids were obsessed with that hat. “You can be anything, Antimony, fur or not.”

She grinned so big I caught a glimpse of fangs. Pain, sweet and sharp, filled my heart and washed away the days until spring. I smiled too. This, Michail… this is why I stay.

 

* * *

Originally published in Writers of the Future

About the Author

Diana A. Hart lives in Washington State, speaks fluent dog, and escapes whenever somebody leaves the gate open—if lost, she can be found rolling dice at her friendly local game store. Her passion for storytelling stems from a well-used library card and years immersed in the oral traditions of the Navajo. She was previously published in Writers of the Future, Vol. 34.

Follow her on Twitter: @ DianaAHart

by Eleanor R. Wood

“You’re not here, but it smells of you, somewhere under the stone where I can’t follow.”

1.) The tree fort your friend built, that you so longed to play in, but instead only visited once. When you realized I couldn’t climb up and play too, you never went back. I marked it for us anyway.

2.) The shallow creek, where we splashed and cooled off in summer. Your smooth feet would slip on the rocks. When you fell and cut your chin that time, I licked it better.

3.) The wide open space of the park, where you’d throw the frisbee over and over and I’d bring it back to you again and again until we both fell, laughing and panting, to the damp grass.

4.) The school gate, where I was never allowed to follow, but had only to wait, senses quivering, until the surge of exiting humans narrowed to the blessed single point of the only one who mattered to me. Your delightful ruffling of my ears… the taste of your cheek, mingled with all the scents of the day.

5.) The woods, with their squirrel trails and muddy puddles so good to drink from. You always pulled me away, but if only you’d just tried a sip, once, you’d have known the rich flavors of the forest as I did.

6.) Your bunk bed, low enough for me to leap up with a scrabble of back feet so I could snuggle up with you and rest. I don’t remember when the resting stopped being only at night, but I still loved to curl up to you even when the sun blazed bright outside and the Mother tsked at me when she came in and out with strong-smelling drinks.

7.) The house, where we were supposed to only be together, until the time you stopped being there with me and so did everyone else and it was quiet and your scent was faint and my heart thumped with loneliness.

8.) The cold corridors that smelled strongly of the stuff that only came out if I had an accident indoors, where the Mother held my lead tightly and strangers smiled or frowned at me and then suddenly you were there, in a bed I’d never seen, and I leapt up and you threw your oddly weak arms around me and my whole body wriggled with how much I’d missed you.

9.) The house, again, alone.

10.) The place where grass grows and dying flowers lie, shorn from life, against smooth stone slabs in rows and rows. You’re not here, but it smells of you, somewhere under the stone where I can’t follow. The Mother cries when we come here. I cry too, because I don’t know how to find you.

11.) The fort, the creek, the park, the gate, the woods, the bed, the house. I go to them, because they are ours. I go to them because maybe, one day, you will be there again.

 

* * *

About the Author

Eleanor R. Wood’s stories have appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Diabolical Plots, PodCastle, Nature: Futures, The Best of British Fantasy 2019, and various anthologies, among other places. She writes and eats licorice from the south coast of England, where she lives with her husband, two marvelous dogs, and enough tropical fish tanks to charge an entry fee.

She blogs at creativepanoply.wordpress.com and tweets @erwrites.

by Aimee Ogden

“Before he learned to shift, he also would have said he could never love a bird. But here he is, and so is she.”

Lincoln is in the kitchen smearing peanut butter onto the last few crackers in the box, the ones that are chipped and cracked but still salvageable. He clicks the knife hard against the edges of the peanut butter jar, crinkles the cracker sleeves too, but he can still hear his mom crying upstairs, and Aunt Jen’s voice raised in counterpoint. He slams the cupboard door and for a moment there’s just the crash of wood on wood in his ears and not the noise from above.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that he has to pretend nothing’s wrong while one big long parade of wrongness marches up and down the stairs and through the hallways of his house twelve times a day. Mom came home to die and everyone wants Lincoln to act like she might just come waltzing down into the kitchen tomorrow morning to make everyone pancakes and complain about Congress.

There’s a thunder of footsteps on the staircase, but when he glances up hopefully, it’s just Aunt Jen, her arms full of wadded-up sheets. An acrid ammonia odor cuts through the background radiation of antiseptics. Lincoln breathes through his mouth as he puts away the peanut butter and tears up the cracker box for the recycling. Aunt Jen doesn’t greet him as she storms through the kitchen, but after she opens the basement door with one foot she pauses. “Sweetheart, get out the Lysol spray and the paper towels, will you?”

“I can clean the mattress liner.” He crushes the end of the plastic cracker sleeve in his palm, smashing the last few bits to dust. “I don’t mind.”

“I’ll do it. I’m just going to throw in a load of— Lincoln! What did you do?” The laundry cascades to the floor in dreamy, fluttering parachutes. Aunt Jen lunges to the counter to pull an envelope out from underneath the dirty knife. Her shirt hem collects a greasy wad of peanut butter, and leaves a brownish streak behind on the paper. Lincoln can still make out the words For your eighteenth birthday scrawled in shaky blue ink. “Jesus, Lincoln, can you not pay an ounce of attention to what you’re doing?”

As if he can do anything but pay attention to what’s going on. He knocks the plate of crackers into the sink and the plate strikes the stainless steel with a resounding chime that echoes on and on as it rolls on its rim and the sound drives him up the stairs, two at a time. He locks the door behind him and sits down hard with his back against it.

Muffled curses precede Aunt Jen up the stairs. She bangs on his door once, twice, three times. She shouts at him to come out and apologize and clean up his mess. He waits. Sure enough, after one more round of knocking, Aunt Jen swears again and storms away. When he puts his ear to the door, he can hear her apologizing to his mom for making her wait.

“It’s okay.” From his room, he can hear his mom’s soft words. She’s not crying anymore but the pain is curled up inside her voice, trying to burrow its way out. It would be better if she just set it free. “It’s okay, Jenny, I’m fine.”

Once, Lincoln’s mom washed his mouth out with soap. He can’t remember exactly what he’d said — some jagged-edged word he’d picked up at school and turned against one of the other kids, maybe? Afterward they both cried and she promised never to do it again. There’s not enough soap in this eternally scrubbed-clean, wiped-down house to wash away a lie like I’m fine. Lincoln pushes off the ground and flings open his bedroom window and shifts into the crow-shape as he launches himself outside.

In the crow-shape, Lincoln is still Lincoln, both more so and less: the pared-down outline of himself, only the essentials left. The Cliffs Notes version of his own brain. He sweeps the air with his wings, beating the ground farther and farther away, until the world is nothing but endless violet-stained sky.

When he’s in his human-shape, Lincoln thrashes to exhaustion against the cage of rules that constrain his shifting. When he’s purely human, it feels as if there should be a way to wrench the magic sideways, to break it or bend it into some new form. A way to heal, to cure, to bring to life. But when he’s the crow, things are what they are. A boy who is also a crow can’t steal the sickness from his mother’s body like a shiny trinket, and he can’t peck away tumors like glistening white grubs hidden within her flesh. He can only glide high above her pain, and his — and only for a little while at that.

Awk awk-awk. The familiar vocalization brings his head around to search for the crow it came from, and his body quickly follows. When his wings tip, he catches shear, and drops rapidly. He recovers, with a few vigorous flaps, and falls into Dove’s slipstream. She caws again, and he rasps out a response in kind.

Dove is the name he gave her — crows don’t have names of their own. A childish idea of a joke, at first. Before he knew how closely they would pull into one another’s orbit. But it fits, somehow. There’s a peacefulness to her. A promise that there can be an end to the war raging inside his skin. Together they glide through the afternoon, their shadows sliding one over the other.

They drop from the sky onto the sidewalk on Walnut Street, where a squirrel’s twisted corpse slowly cools with the fading sunlight. Dove hops close first, slices into its belly with her beak, and tears free a hunk of flesh. She tips her head back to swallow, then turns it to the side to fix him with one beady eye. He struts closer and joins her to gorge on the still-fresh meat.

Before he learned to shift, Lincoln-the-human would have turned up his nose at the warm delicate liver of a fresh kill. Before he learned to shift, he also would have said he could never love a bird. But here he is, and so is she.

With gore still streaked on his beak, he wants to fluff out his feathers, show her the gleaming black of his fine good health and the broad powerful expanse of his flight muscles. He wants to sing her a song to quicken the already flutter-fast rhythm of her heart, to stroke his beak through the wonderful dark mystery of her feathers and have her stroke his in turn. He doesn’t love her in the same way that he loves his mom or dad or Aunt Jen, or even the same way that he loved his eighth-grade boyfriend. This is something unique and different, and terrible for its fragility. If — when — Mom dies, the family might move. And even if they don’t — what if Dove builds her nest in Mrs. Riviera’s yard and she knocks it down with her cane, or what if a hawk snatches the fledglings on their first flight? The dismal possibilities stack up and Lincoln is small and powerless in their shadow.

Dove looks up from the picked-over squirrel and caws again. The sound sends Lincoln up and into the air, homeward bound.

* * *

No one hears him crash onto the roof and in through the window. Or if they do, they chalk it up to a typical teenage mood, slammed door or banging drawers. Lincoln doesn’t know what typical teenage anything feels like anymore and he’s tired of Dad and Aunt Jen trying to shove all his problems into his age, like a one-size-fits-all t-shirt that he can only squeeze one arm inside.

He stands in the middle of the room, trying to remember what he was doing before he was a bird: both now, and in a broad existential sense. A snarl from his stomach interrupts his ruminations. The crackers he abandoned earlier are probably still lying in the sink. He slouches down the stairs in search of those, or something better.

Dad’s at the kitchen table, hunched over a plate streaked with pasty lines of cooled cheese sauce. He looks up at Lincoln’s arrival, and the wrinkle between his eyebrows deepens. “Done sulking in your room? We’re happy to let you have your privacy, Link, but you make it hard to remember that when you act half your age.”

Lincoln isn’t the one who named his kid Lincoln so that he could call him by a nickname from a favorite video game; comments from Dad about immaturity don’t carry a lot of weight. He ignores Dad and lopes to the stove, where a large pile of noodles still wallow in sticky sauce. No need for a plate; he’ll finish what’s there. He takes the pot and the serving spoon to the table and drops to a seat at the opposite end from Dad. “No, thanks,” says Dad dryly, “I don’t need any seconds.”

A machine gun rat-a-tat of footsteps shooting down the stairs. Aunt Jen lopes into the kitchen. “Oh good, you’re both actually eating something with protein in it.” She puts her hands on the counter and stretches her shoulders and back through a series of quasi-yoga poses. “Lincoln, did you do your laundry yet? If you don’t have clean socks for school tomorrow I don’t want to hear about it at seven in the morning.”

“Yeah.” He stuffs his mouth with the serving spoon to make an excuse for not saying anything more.

Dad has his phone on the table, scrolling through apps with his thumb. “Finally supposed to freeze tonight,” he says cheerfully. As if talking about normal bullshit like the weather is a normal thing for this family to do right now. “Might kill off those damn mosquitoes.”

“Oh, no,” says Aunt Jen, and leans back against the wall. “I’m not ready for snow and all that yet.”

Lincoln pushes back from the table, one arm wrapped around the cold stockpot. “Can I eat dinner in my room?”

“No,” say Dad and Aunt Jen at the same time. Lincoln slumps in his chair and chews cold macaroni till his jaws hurt. He eats with his mouth open, so that his tongue smacks thickly and the macaroni glops between his teeth. By the end he’s made himself nauseous, but neither Aunt Jen nor Dad correct his manners, and he can’t hear them blabbing on about the weather and the neighbors and whether the stupid Packers are going to win this weekend.

* * *

After dinner he stands outside his parents’ bedroom door. His mother’s bedroom door, that is; Dad’s sheets are thrown out on the living room sofa. “I could read to you,” he says. He keeps his voice low, so that if she’s asleep she’ll stay that way, so that if she’s hurting too much to hide it she can pretend she’s not awake to hear him. He leans into the door as he speaks, and the cheap composite wood shifts against his weight. “One of your weird Mom books. Or A Separate Peace. We have to read that for English 9.” He waits for an answer. “A Separate Peace is bullshit anyway,” he says, lips against the white-painted grain. No one corrects his language or his literary opinions, and after a moment of floorboard-creaking silence he retreats to his room.

* * *

Lincoln lies in bed with the box fan in the corner cranked up to its maximum speed. His bedroom gets cold in the fall and winter, but he can’t sleep without the roar of the fan competing with the wind’s dull whine. Tonight, actually, he can’t sleep either way. He wrestles with the covers, pulling them on and kicking them off, until they’re a hopeless tangle. He shoves them off the edge of the bed with one foot and they land with a soft whuff on the floor. Now he’s too cold and too tired to get out of bed to tuck the sheets and comforter back in.

The branches of the oak tree scratch at the glass, inviting him to shift out into the night. The moon’s cold pale light crawls up his bare legs and leaves them itching. He wants to do the right thing. But he doesn’t know how to know what the right thing is, nor who, exactly, it would be right for.

When he was little, he thought that knowing the right thing to do was something you learned when you got older, part of the process of Becoming a Grown-up. Now he knows that grown-ups don’t know anything about what’s right and what’s not.

He doesn’t know, but he suspects, that sometimes there’s no right thing at all — only a thing that hurts the least.

* * *

Before the first Friday sunlight spills into his room, Lincoln is awake, perched on the footboard of his bed — still human, merely anxious. Already dressed for the day, he makes his hoodie zipper sing shrilly as he yanks it up, down, up again. As he huddles there, waiting for a decision to land on his shoulders, the first sounds of morning creep down the hallway: muffled footsteps, the flush of the toilet. Words, too quiet for him to understand. The pipes in the walls creak and grumble and Lincoln is in the bedroom window before his head realizes that his body has already long since decided.

His arms fold into wings and the weight of him falls away. He pumps against the air, pushing higher and farther away, and casts his raucous call for her. The shape of her caw is carved on the banner of his breastbone, and he hopes the same is true for her.

But when he flies over the town, casting his shadow across the sloping roofs, she does not lift into the air to meet him. The cold air burns his lungs and his croaks grow hoarse. It’s mating season and there is no such thing as an engagement ring between crows. He’s never offered her a proper courtship display. She might even think him another female, a companion but not a mate. Perhaps she’s already taken a partner.

Crows bond for life, but no one ever promised the life would be his.

Disappointment fills the hollows of his bones, makes him heavy. He swings groundward, toward a knot of other crows hopping about in the Piggly-Wiggly parking lot. There’s a moment in between his dropping into their orbit and his realization of what gravitational mass has pulled them close. A moment when understanding tries to hide its head beneath its wing.

The flies are not confused. They congregate at their feast and their brisk vibrations are a hymn of gratitude. This twisted wreck of spilled guts and loose feathers is their daily bread. One crawls across the glassy black pearl that was once an eye. Lincoln waits for a blink that will never come. He looks at his warped reflection so that he doesn’t have to read Dove’s name into the twisted lines of ribs and the frozen curl of claws.

“Kraaa,” says another crow, hopping closer to the corpse and then back again. The caw might mean mine-mine-mine or car or man-child, but in context the most likely meaning was cat. Lincoln flaps his wings hard, but doesn’t leave the ground; several other crows scutter away from him. Context: Dove’s splintered bones and dull fly-picked viscera.

Flies. The flies have to leave her alone. She’s dead but that doesn’t mean they all have to pretend it’s all right, that the shape that held her is nothing now. He hops to her and pecks viciously at the one on her eye. It takes wing with a shrill whine and instead of chitin he gets a gelid burst of salt-sweet liquid.

Of Dove.

Only his flapping wings save him from tumbling over backwards. He beats them harder, blocking out the sun that dares to shine on these bloody bones. A sky that would let her tumble from its grace doesn’t deserve her. Cat, he cries bitterly, or perhaps it is mine-mine-mine! that he shrieks. He covers her with his body and here next to her, on top of her, he is saturated in the sweet-rotten smell of her. He preens a stray feather from her neck and sets it free. Then he puts his beak to the torn strip of flesh at her throat and rips it free. When he cants his head back it tumbles down his throat, carrion-love, fetid and nourishing.

Mine.

More.

The sweet web of her pancreas, the tang of her liver. He is collecting the bits of her and even as his beak works on this purest and most frightening instinct, his body moves too, his cloaca shoving dryly against the hollow ruins. Everything is wrong but everything is right too, as right as it can be, him without her and her within him. His cry rakes his throat raw.

“Awk awk-awk.”

He shatters the air with a beat of his wings and staggers back. Dove stands on the other side of the corpse from him, and cants her head. “Awk,” she repeats, curious, concerned.

Alive.

His gorge rises, sorrow refusing to be washed away by nauseous relief. He staggers away, dragging his wings as if they are broken, as the other crows scuttle back and forth and croak their confusion. Dove follows, hopping after him. She stops with an alarmed cry when he shifts. He’s a boy again by the time he clears the parking lot and though he has no too-heavy wings to bear up against, he runs all the way home as if they are still there trailing behind him.

* * *

He climbs the downspout to get back up to his room. The gutter shrills its alarm when he puts his weight on it, but it holds long enough for him to drag himself in through the open window. No one comes to ask about the noise, and Lincoln doesn’t make it any farther than the floor below the sill. He puts his arms over his head and wets the carpet with confused tears.

A knock wakes him from a shallow, huddled sleep. His neck hurts, his left arm tingles numbly. “Honey,” says Aunt Jen through the door. “Your dad’s at work and I have to get to the grocery store before the lady from hospice comes this evening. I hate to ask it of you, but since you’re home from school already…” Her words fall away. She doesn’t know how to ask even this smallest and most precious thing of him.

She doesn’t say anything else, just stands there; he can see the shadow of her feet beneath the door. He rises on hollow-boned legs and crosses the room and when he opens the door she stumbles as if she were leaning against it. “Lincoln,” she says, and worry hides itself in the folds of a familiar frown. “How late were you up last night?”

He looks aside and his dresser mirror deals him a glancing blow: the skin around his eyes as red as open sores, whites spiderwebbed with pink. When he shrugs, his skin shifts paper-thin across his bones. He could tear it away and leave Aunt Jen with nothing but a handful of black feathers. If he clings to the crow-shape for good, there will be grief. However hard he beats his wings, he can’t fly away from that, but crows at least know how to say goodbye. They know that it needs to be said.

The hairs on his neck prickle, as if they would rather be feathers. He leans into that electric possibility, the safety of knowing that he could be elsewhere. That he could be Dove’s. If he needed to be. If he wanted. His hand finds the doorjamb and the hollow-core wood whispers promises of home. “I can keep an eye on things. It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

She smiles without really letting go of the frown. “Okay. If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay,” she says again, and once more before she turns. “Okay. Thanks, sweetheart.” Her body turns toward the stairs and her head follows last, so that her gaze clings to him a little longer. Then it breaks free and she hurries down the stairs, her frayed ponytail bouncing shoulder to shoulder.

Lincoln waits for the dull chatter of the keyring, the slam of the door, the distant thunder of the Hyundai’s engine. Only then does he pad downstairs.

The workaday noises of the kitchen — the fridge’s frustrated dust-clogged fan, the dishwasher’s sloshing — swallow up the sound of his bare feet on the linoleum. He’s a ghost in this space, but not his own ghost. Someone else’s.

The box is in its customary place, shoved up on top of the microwave, out of sight but never out of mind. When he takes it down, the peanut-butter-stained letter lies on top of the pile. He sits at the table and takes that one out first. The envelope is heavy, and not only with words; its paper is thick, the color of milk with a little bit of coffee, the way Lincoln drinks it. His finger slides into the tiny open space at the corner of the flap and he pulls until he hears the seal start to rip. Then he freezes. There’s a sharp-edged comfort in resting here on the moment’s cusp, a cage of hollow bones around him that knows his shape and that he could shatter with a shrug. He could be a boy or a bird. He could fly high over his grief and let his shadow skim over it lightly, or he could let it hatch and learn to love what emerged naked and raw from the remains.

He jerks his wrist, and tears the envelope.

The paper whispers as he draws it out and flattens it on the tabletop. I wish I could know you as an adult. But that man, whoever he is, casts a long shadow backward and I can see you in its outline — He takes out another envelope and rips into it, all hesitation sublimated by the pressure here. When you meet that person, whoever they are, and you just know — Another envelope. The kind of father you’ll be — Another. When your dad takes you out for your first legal drink, don’t let him drag you to Priestley’s, that’s an old people bar! Tell him I said he has to —

All around Lincoln lies a flock of torn white wings. One last letter waits in the bottom of the box. This one is stark white, a plain cheap letter-sized affair, flimsy and light under his touch. It’s not even sealed and there’s a word on the front he hasn’t seen before: If.

If I have to leave you early

He unfolds a piece of lined notebook paper. Its left margin is uneven where the shredded remnants of spiral binding have been cut away. He moves his fingers over the paper as he reads and the deep imprints left by the pen guide him as he goes.

My dear Link,

It’s Thursday, the fourth of June, and we just got back from the doctor. I think you already know something’s wrong, but I have to find the words to tell you that the news wasn’t what we were expecting. And it wasn’t good. So maybe if I can figure it out here, first, I can find a way to say it out loud. Maybe that will make it real. I’m not ready for it to be real yet. I’m not ready to imagine not watching you grow up, find your way in the world, make a space for yourself in it.

He tears the letter in half, tears it again, crushes the pieces down into points and shoves them into his mouth. He chews, the paper communion-wafer soggy on his tongue, and swallows, and shreds the envelope too to follow it down. His lips and tongue burn with paper cuts and the paper presses uncomfortably against his gorge. A fullness, a certainty, him without her and her within him, a part of him, the ink-curled shape of her pain running in his veins.

* * *

He opens the door without knocking. She lies in bed, neither asleep nor awake but some crepuscular state in between. A pen droops between her fingers and a piece of stationery rests on her lap; when he looks at it, the ink marks have the size and shape of words but none of their meaning. There haven’t been new letters for a long time now — or at least, none that have arrived in the box downstairs.

Sun streams in through the windows, and there’s a draft from the bad fitting. In the old birch outside, there’s a flicker of movement. A stir of black wings, perhaps, or maybe just the wind in the branches. Lincoln closes the curtains to close off the cold air, and replaces sunlight with the small familiar glow of the overhead light.

He takes the pen and paper away first and sets them on the nightstand, in between bottles of pills and boxes of vinyl gloves. She mumbles an objection, but doesn’t reach for what’s been taken.

The bed isn’t the queen-sized one where Dad used to sleep too, but a smaller one, the kind with sides that fold up and where the mattress can lift to make a recliner or lie flat like a bed. Dad’s shape is still here though, the valley of his shoulder and side carved into the thin mattress in the little space left beside Mom. Lincoln crawls into that hollow. He moves carefully but the bed judders when it takes his weight and he sees the tremor that crosses her face. He swallows his sorries and lays his head on the pillow. He doesn’t want to imagine his life without her either. He touches her hand, waits for a flinch or frown, and finding none, clasps it tighter. For the space of this breath, at least, she is still his, and that is a small silent celebration of its own.

Her chest rises, and rattles as it falls again. Tears slide out from beneath her shuttered lashes. Lincoln kisses her cheek, and salt-fire burns his lips. For a moment, the faraway light in her eyes burns a little brighter. Then she closes them again, and lets her head fall to the side. He closes his too, and lets her grief lick away the marrow of his bones to make room for itself beside his own.

 

* * *

About the Author

Aimee Ogden is a former science teacher and software tester; now she writes stories about sad astronauts and angry princesses. Her short fiction has also appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, Analog, Escape Pod, The Dark, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and her novellas Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters and Local Star are forthcoming in 2021 from Tor.com and Interstellar Flight Press respectively. A graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop, she also co-edits Translunar Travelers Lounge, an online magazine of fun and optimistic speculative fiction. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her family and a very good dog named Commander Riker.