The Turning Season (A Shifting Circle Novel) - Hardcover

CHAPTER ONE

I’m at the supermarket in town, trying to decide between two brands of apple juice, when the first fiery pains go ripping up my back. I panic. I almost drop one of the bottles in my haste to get it back on the shelf, and I simply abandon my half-full cart in the aisle. By the time I push my way past dawdling shoppers, make it to the parking lot, and stumble into my Jeep, the pains have gone from intermittent to continuous, and the visual migraine has kicked in. It’s as if something has taken a bite out of my right eye’s field of vision, leaving behind a circle of serrated tooth marks. Within five minutes, that circle will uncoil into a straight line of marching Vs and begin pulsing with gray and orange shadows.

Fuck! I think as I try to start the car, my hands so shaky that I almost don’t have the strength to turn the key. This isn’t supposed to happen for at least another week!

Normally I have about an hour between the first tendrils of pain and the onset of transformation, but the timing is off, so who knows what else might be affected? I’m in broad daylight on the busiest street in Quinville on a Wednesday afternoon. Oh God, if I change here, everyone in the world will see me . . .

I finally get the motor to catch and I screech out of the parking lot and onto Highway 159 as fast as I can, cutting off some poor old woman in a beat-up sedan who’s trying to turn left into the grocery store. I’m calculating in my head. Quinville makes a modest clump of civilization along both sides of 159, but within five miles, the road will shake off the urban clutter as it heads back into open Illinois farmland. Say ten minutes to get clear of the worst of the traffic. Another twenty minutes till I reach the County Road W turnoff. If I can make it that far, I can just pull off the road, cut the engine, and wait for disaster to strike. Thirty minutes. Surely my body can hold on that long.

I’m stuck behind three cars at the longest light in town; otherwise, I would have been tempted to run it when it turned red. The back spasms have morphed into a slow, steady thrum, not unbearable, but the migraine is starting to build; I lean my skull against the headrest and let terror and pain fight for dominance. I squint against the sunlight and the flashing visual cues, wishing I had my sunglasses with me. Keeping my left hand on the wheel, I fish in my purse till I find my cell phone. The light changes to green just as I open my list of contacts, so I hurriedly push the first name that comes up.

It happens to be Celeste’s, and of course she doesn’t answer. “Listen, it’s Karadel. I’m heading home, and I’m about to change. Don’t know how far I’ll get. I’m going to need someone to come get me. I’m going to call everybody, so whoever gets there first . . .”

Traffic is slow enough to allow me to call and leave messages with Bonnie and Aurelia as well, but then we clear the last light and cars start moving at the speed limit. I’m too rattled to try to drive and talk at the same time, plus the pulsing lights of the migraine aura are making it hard for me to see the road. I toss the phone onto the passenger’s seat, clench both hands on the wheel, and concentrate on driving.

For about three miles outside of Quinville, Highway 159 maintains two lanes in each direction, divided by a sad strip of prairie grass and flowering weeds, but soon enough it will slim down to two lanes separated only by a double yellow line. Every driver’s goal is to get ahead of the slowest-moving vehicles before those lanes converge. Theoretically, you can pass cars at a dozen spots in the next thirty miles, but practically speaking, those opportunities are few because the oncoming traffic rarely lets up long enough for you to take the chance.

Like the red Camaro ahead of me and the black Escalade behind me, I’m in the inside lane going as fast as road conditions will permit, just praying that no one swerves into my path or comes to a sudden stop, because I’m in no condition to make defensive-driving maneuvers. I’m barely alert enough to recognize that I’m running out of road. The Camaro guns its motor and zips ahead of a rusted-out old Ford pickup, but I don’t react quickly enough, and the truck eases over in front of me at a maddeningly leisurely pace. I brake so hard that the Escalade looms menacingly in my rearview mirror, but nobody hits anybody, and we all continue down the road at a greatly reduced rate of speed.

The near-miss has dumped adrenaline into my veins. Great—now my heart is pounding as well as my head, and my hands feel rubbery on the wheel. I’ve lost much of my peripheral vision, but darkness hasn’t started encroaching on my eyesight yet. How much time left now? Fifteen minutes? Twenty?

Not nearly enough time to get to my house.

I shift my grip, take a deep breath, and stare so fiercely at the road ahead of me that my eyes would start burning if they weren’t already hot. Maybe five minutes to the turnoff. I can make it that far. I have to. The pickup has slowed to something like forty miles an hour, but that might be a good thing; I can sort of keep things together at this speed. To my left, an unbroken line of family cars, 18-wheelers, motorcycles, and SUVs whooshes past. The driver of the Escalade is riding impatiently close to my bumper, and I know he’ll take the first chance he sees to pass both me and the pickup. But even if the oncoming traffic were to thin down to nothing, leaving a straight and empty stretch of road bordered by cornfields on either side, I wouldn’t make the same attempt. I don’t think I have the hand-eye coordination. I don’t think I have the judgment. I’m not sure I could make it back on the road.

Then suddenly—finally—like the mile marker to heaven, I see the green sign for the cutoff to W. I don’t even bother with the turn signal, just peel off from 159 with a faint whine of tires. There’s hardly ever any traffic on W, which leads only to a few isolated homesteads like mine and huge tracts of undeveloped land offering a pretty equal mix of grass and trees. Of course, the isolation of the route is a mixed blessing on most days. The road is well behind on necessary maintenance, and the asphalt is an obstacle course of potholes, cracks, and failed repairs. I’ve increased my speed as much as I can without running the risk of hurtling off the road, but every bump and fissure jars me against the seat belt and slams my head nauseatingly against my spine.

Nausea—that’s usually the last symptom. Five minutes or less by now. The September day is chilly, maybe fifty degrees, but I hit the controls so the four automatic windows roll all the way down. The only thing worse than transforming in a public place in the middle of the day would be transforming in a locked car with all the windows up. No way to get out. I try not to think about what will happen if I change into something too big to crawl out the window. That hasn’t happened for a while now—years, really. Even a deer, even a wolf, would be able to squeeze through a car’s rolled-down window, wouldn’t it? I’ve never been a bear or a giraffe—a moose only a couple of times—and the elephant—well, that’s never happened again—

My stomach clenches and I slap my hand across my mouth. I don’t actually throw up, but I can feel the bile at the back of my throat. Almost time, almost time. I’d love to get another mile down the road, but the trade-off isn’t worth it. The blackness has started to build up at the corner of my vision, little lights are dancing through the pulsating Vs of the visual migraine, and I’m in so much physical pain that it’s hard to tell what’s slamming up from my backbone and what’s jackhammering down from my skull. Stop gambling, I tell myself, and wrench the Jeep to the shoulder. It’s really just a little strip of crumbling asphalt that drops into a low ditch of prickly weeds, but even a semi ought to be able to get past my vehicle without smashing it to pieces.

I leave everything in the front seat—my phone, my purse, my clothes—and exit through the passenger-side door. Immediately, I feel better. No matter what happens next, at least I won’t be trapped. At least I’ll be able to go crashing off into the undergrowth and look for some kind of cover until one of my friends comes to find me.

I’m crouching barefoot on the side of the road, but the pain drives me all the way to my knees. I can feel the dry knife-edges of the weed leaves slicing at my bare toes and ankles; I can feel the broken stone of the asphalt digging into my calves. But I scarcely notice. The migraine has enveloped my whole body. It is cracking my skull in two, it is pummeling my stomach, and I am bent over so far that my nose rests between my knees. If I move a fraction of an inch in any direction, everything on my inside will spill out, in vomit, in blood, in viscous leaking fluids of mucus, saliva, and brains . . .

One more powerful compression, as if a giant hand is squashing me from above with such force that I grunt involuntarily. And then it’s all over.

The pressure, the pain, the nausea. Gone, evaporated. I feel light, almost weightless. I feel lithe and strong and absolutely right. My body has once again survived a violent passage and rebirth and delivered me to a shape that calls to it as seductively as its own.

For a moment, I just revel in the bliss of well-being, then I take a moment to determine what I am. I extend my left arm, to find it covered with fluffy marmalade fur; I’ve unsheathed five impressively sharp claws, and a slinky tail wraps around from behind. A cat then—housecat, probably. I don’t feel large enough to be one of the bigger wild felines. I bunch myself up against the right front tire, but my arched back doesn’t even clear the wheel well.

Good. A cat is the best I can hope for. Mobile, self-sufficient, commonplace. I could fend for myself for weeks if I had to, make my way to my property under my own power, and never raise the slightest bit of curiosity from any passersby I might encounter.

I wonder if this transformation is purely random or if my serums are actually taking effect. I have been trying—with limited success—to guide my body in the choices it makes, to channel it into more socially acceptable creatures when the imperative to change takes it over. I have, in fact, been injecting a specialized concoction for the past few weeks, hoping to become this very animal. Perhaps this is proof that I’ve been successful—to a point. Perhaps the early transformation came about because of that very concoction. Perhaps I have staved off one side effect only to incur another.

Worries for another day.

As always, once I enter animal state, I find it difficult to focus on the everyday, ordinary concerns that usually preoccupy my mind. I’m still me, I have my own memories and my same powers of reasoning, but all the familiar obsessions seem distant and unimportant. New imperatives claim my attention—usually, depending on the shape I’ve taken, revolving around finding food and finding safety. I’m easily distracted by scents, sounds, movements on the periphery. I’m much more focused on the challenges of the immediate present.

Which, I have to confess, is sometimes a relief, considering how much my human brain usually frets over the unsolvable troubles of the future. Sometimes descending into the wild is like a brief vacation from my chaotic and all-too-demanding existence.

But right now I can’t afford to give in to the cat’s impulse to go stalking through the high grass toward the promising rustle of bird wings. I can’t go chasing after butterflies and bees. I’m still far from home, and someone should be on the way to get me. I need to be here and relatively alert whenever that someone arrives.

I face the car, bunch my muscles, and make a smooth leap through the open window on the passenger’s side. I’d forgotten about the purse and phone and clothes I’d left on the seat, so I skid through them in a sloppy landing, then hop over the gear shift to the driver’s side. The afternoon sunlight has painted a golden square on the fabric, and both the warmth and the color are inviting. I pat at the cloth with my left paw, find it suitable, then drop down into a contented curl, wrapping my tail around my head. A nap is the best way to pass the hours, stay out of trouble, and conserve my strength, all at the same time. I feel my narrow jaws open in a gigantic yawn, then I resettle my face against my paws. I am instantly in a light, untroubled sleep from which I know I can wake at a moment’s notice.

Cats really do have the best lives. If I could choose, this is the shape I would always take.

No. If I could choose, I would always stay human.

*   *   *

I’m not paying close attention, but I think it’s about a half hour before I hear the sound of a car that doesn’t just zoom past, but actually slows down then rumbles to a stop as it pulls over right in front of me on the shoulder. I instantly come awake and scramble up, setting my paws on the top of the steering wheel so I can peer out the windshield. Shapes and colors are weird, distorted, so I have to concentrate to pull out human memories to compare against the images I’m seeing now. But I recognize the battered old station wagon even before the door swings open and the driver steps out.

Bonnie. My luck is in. By far the most reliable of my friends, she has not only shown up to rescue me, she has no doubt phoned everyone else in our circle to let them know their services aren’t required—hell, she probably picked up groceries, paid my electricity bill, and arranged to have Highway W resurfaced while she was at it.

She doesn’t spot me right at first, so as soon as she slams her door, she stands beside the car for a moment, hands on her hips, and looks around, as if wondering where I’ve gotten to. She’s probably six feet tall, 140 pounds if she’s just finished a big meal, angular, knobby, impatient, brilliant, and totally unaffected by anyone else’s opinion. Her short, curly black hair is showing a few singular strands of gray, one of the few clues to the fact that she’s just over sixty. Her eyes are dark brown and even when she’s laughing, her expression is fierce. If she were a shape-shifter, which she’s not, she’d be a bird of prey, I’ve always thought. Hawk. Falcon. Eagle. Something you wouldn’t mess with. Something that rarely, if ever, failed.

I drop to all fours, gather my muscles, and leap through the open window to the street. The motion catches her attention and she sees me. Relief crosses her spare features as I trot over.

“Karadel. Thank heavens,” she says, bending down to pick me up. In human shape, I don’t often seek out casual physical contact, but this particular body craves affection. I like how she cradles me against her thin chest; I respond with a low purr of contentment. She takes a moment to pet my head and scratch my chin, but Bonnie’s not one for lingering on niceties, especially when there’s work to be done.

“Let’s get you home,” she says, opening her car door.

I prepare to jump inside, but my claws catch on Bonnie’s arms to halt my forward motion when I real...