Authors: Susan Palwick
I’m frightened now. Dr. Krantor’s voice is calm, reasonable. He’s very matter-of-fact about the prospect of torturing me, and Pippa isn’t here as a witness. He’s probably bluffing. Coercion would probably compromise his data. But I don’t know that for sure.
“Rodney?” he says.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him. I have to buy myself time. Now I know why Stuart bowed and scraped. People are so much bigger than we are.
“Good enough,” he says, his voice gentler, and reaches into the cage to give me another piece of the excellent cheddar. “Have a good night, Rodney.” And then he leaves.
I stay awake all night, fretting. I try to find some way to escape from my cage, but I can’t. I wonder if I could escape from the maze; I’ve never tried, but surely Dr. Krantor has made the mazes secure, also. I don’t know what to do.
I dread the morning.
But in the morning, when Dr. Krantor usually arrives, I hear three sets of footsteps in the hallway outside, and two voices: Dr. Krantor’s and a woman’s.
“Why do you have to take her on this trip in the middle of the school year?” Dr. Krantor says. “And why do you have to talk to me about it now?”
“I already told you, Jack! Michael’s family reunion in Ireland is in a month, so if we go we have to go then, and I need you to sign this letter saying that you know I’m not kidnapping her. I don’t want any trouble.”
Dr. Krantor grumbles something, and the lab door opens. Dr. Krantor and the woman — Pippa’s mother! — come inside, still arguing. Pippa comes inside too. Pippa’s mother walks to the computer; Pippa races to my cage.
“How
do
I know you aren’t kidnapping her?” Dr. Krantor says. “Pippa, there’s more of the new cheese over here, if you want to give Rodney a nice breakfast.”
“Pippa,” I whisper, “he threatened to torture me! Pippa — ”
“Shhhhh,” she whispers back, and opens my cage, and reaches into one of her pockets. “Don’t make any noise, Rodney.”
She’s holding a mouse. A white mouse, just like me. Pippa puts the new mouse in the cage and we stare at each other in surprise, nose to nose, whiskers twitching, but then I feel Pippa grasp the base of my tail. She lifts me, and I watch the new mouse receding, and then she puts me in her pocket. I hear the cage close, and then we’re walking across the room.
“All right, Jack, here’s the itinerary, see? Here on this map? Jack, look at the map, would you? I’ll tell you every single place we’re going; it’s not like we’re spiriting her away without telling you.”
“But how do I know you’ll really go there? You could take her to, to, Spain or the South Pole or — ”
“Michael doesn’t have a family reunion in Spain or the South Pole. Jack, be reasonable.”
“I’m bored,” Pippa says loudly. “I’m going outside.”
“Stay right by the front door, sweetheart!” That’s Dr. Krantor, of course.
“I will,” she says, and then I hear the lab door open and we’re out, we’re in the hallway, and then we go through another door and I smell fresh air and Pippa lifts me out of her pocket. She sits down on a step and holds me up to her face. “Mommy and I went to the pet store last night, Rodney, and we got another mouse who looks just like you. He was in the cage of mice that people buy to feed to their snakes. Being here is better for him. Daddy won’t feed him to a snake.”
“But your father will torture the other mouse,” I say, “or worse. When he realizes it’s just an ordinary mouse he’ll be very angry. Pippa, he’ll punish you.”
“No, he won’t,” she says cheerfully, “or Mommy and Michael will say he isn’t taking good care of me.” She puts me down on the warm cement step. I feel wind and smell flowers and grass. “You’re free, Rodney. You can have your very own adventures. You don’t have to go back to that stupid maze.”
“How will I find you?” As much as I yearned for freedom before, I’m terrified. There really are cats and snakes and mousetraps out here, and I’ve never had to face them. How will I know what to do? “Pippa, you have to meet me so I can tell you my stories, or no one will know what happens to me. I’ll be just like all those other mice, the ones whose stories just stop when they stop being useful to the main characters. Pippa — ”
But there are footsteps now from inside, forceful footsteps coming closer, and Dr. Krantor’s voice. His voice sounds dangerous. “Pippa? Pippa, what did you do to the rodent? It won’t talk to me! I don’t even think it’s the same mouse! Pippa, did you put another mouse in that cage?”
I find myself trembling as badly as I would if a cat were coming. Pippa stands up. The sole of her sneaker is the only thing I can see now. From very far above me I hear her saying, “Run, Rodney.”
And I do.
Time’s the problem. Time and arithmetic. You’ve known from the beginning that the numbers would cause trouble, but you were much younger then — much, much younger — and far less wise. And there’s culture shock, too. Where you come from, it’s okay for women to have wrinkles. Where you come from, youth’s not the only commodity.
You met Jonathan back home. Call it a forest somewhere, near an Alp. Call it a village on the edge of the woods. Call it old. You weren’t old, then: you were fourteen on two feet and a mere two years old on four, although already fully grown. Your kind are fully grown at two years, on four feet. And experienced: oh, yes. You knew how to howl at the moon. You knew what to do when somebody howled back. If your four-footed form hadn’t been sterile, you’d have had litters by then — but it was, and on two feet, you’d been just smart enough, or lucky enough, to avoid continuing your line.
But it wasn’t as if you hadn’t had plenty of opportunities, enthusiastically taken. Jonathan liked that. A lot. Jonathan was older than you were: thirty-five, then. Jonathan loved fucking a girl who looked fourteen and acted older, who acted feral, who
was
feral for three to five days a month, centered on the full moon. Jonathan didn’t mind the mess that went with it, either: all that fur, say, sprouting at one end of the process and shedding on the other, or the aches and pains from various joints pivoting, changing shape, redistributing weight, or your poor gums bleeding all the time from the monthly growth and recession of your fangs. “At least that’s the only blood,” he told you, sometime during that first year.
You remember this very clearly: you were roughly halfway through the four-to-two transition, and Jonathan was sitting next to you in bed, massaging your sore shoulder blades as you sipped mint tea with hands still nearly as clumsy as paws, hands like mittens. Jonathan had just filled two hot water bottles, one for your aching tailbone and one for your aching knees. Now you know he wanted to get you in shape for a major sportfuck — he loved sex even more than usual, after you’d just changed back — but at the time, you thought he was a real prince, the kind of prince girls like you weren’t supposed to be allowed to get, and a stab of pain shot through you at his words. “I didn’t kill anything,” you told him, your lower lip trembling. “I didn’t even hunt.”
“Gestella, darling, I know. That wasn’t what I meant.” He stroked your hair. He’d been feeding you raw meat during the four-foot phase, but not anything you’d killed yourself. He’d taught you to eat little pieces out of his hand, gently, without biting him. He’d taught you to wag your tail, and he was teaching you to chase a ball, because that’s what good four-foots did where he came from. “I was talking about-”
“Normal women,” you told him. “The ones who bleed so they can have babies. You shouldn’t make fun of them. They’re lucky.” You like children and puppies; you’re good with them, gentle. You know it’s unwise for you to have any of your own, but you can’t help but watch them, wistfully.
“I
don’t want kids,” he says. “I had that operation. I told you.”
“Are you sure it took?” you ask. You’re still very young. You’ve never known anyone who’s had an operation like that, and you’re worried about whether Jonathan really understands your condition. Most people don’t. Most people think all kinds of crazy things. Your condition isn’t communicable, for instance, by biting or any other way, but it is hereditary, which is why it’s good that you’ve been so smart and lucky, even if you’re just fourteen.
Well, no, not fourteen anymore. It’s about halfway through Jonathan’s year of folklore research — he’s already promised not to write you up for any of the journals, and keeps assuring you he won’t tell anybody, although later you’ll realize that’s for his protection, not yours—so that would make you, oh, seventeen or eighteen. Jonathan’s still thirty-five. At the end of the year, when he flies you back to the United States with him so the two of you can get married, he’ll be thirty-six. You’ll be twenty-one on two feet, three years old on four.
Seven to one. That’s the ratio. You’ve made sure Jonathan understands this. “Oh, sure,” he says. “Just like for dogs. One year is seven human years. Everybody knows that. But how can it be a problem, darling, when we love each other so much?” And even though you aren’t fourteen anymore, you’re still young enough to believe him.
At first it’s fun. The secret’s a bond between you, a game. You speak in code. Jonathan splits your name in half, calling you Jessie on four feet and Stella on two. You’re Stella to all his friends, and most of them don’t even know that he has a dog one week a month. The two of you scrupulously avoid scheduling social commitments for the week of the full moon, but no one seems to notice the pattern, and if anyone does notice, no one cares. Occasionally someone you know sees Jessie, when you and Jonathan are out in the park playing with balls, and Jonathan always says that he’s taking care of his sister’s dog while she’s away on business. His sister travels a lot, he explains. Oh, no, Stella doesn’t mind, but she’s always been a bit nervous around dogs — even though Jessie’s such a
good
dog — so she stays home during the walks.
Sometimes strangers come up, shyly. “What a beautiful dog!” they say. “What a
big
dog!” “What kind of dog is that?”
“A Husky-wolfhound cross,” Jonathan says airily. Most people accept this. Most people know as much about dogs as dogs know about the space shuttle.
Some people know better, though. Some people look at you, and frown a little, and say, “Looks like a wolf to me. Is she part wolf?”
“Could be,” Jonathan always says with a shrug, his tone as breezy as ever. And he spins a little story about how his sister adopted you from the pound because you were the runt of the litter and no one else wanted you, and now look at you! No one would ever take you for a runt now! And the strangers smile and look encouraged and pat you on the head, because they like stories about dogs being rescued from the pound.
You sit and down and stay during these conversations; you do whatever Jonathan says. You wag your tail and cock your head and act charming. You let people scratch you behind the ears. You’re a
good
dog. The other dogs in the park, who know more about their own species than most people do, aren’t fooled by any of this; you make them nervous, and they tend to avoid you, or to act supremely submissive if avoidance isn’t possible. They grovel on their bellies, on their backs; they crawl away backwards, whining.
Jonathan loves this. Jonathan loves it that you’re the alpha with the other dogs — and, of course, he loves it that he’s your alpha. Because that’s another thing people don’t understand about your condition: they think you’re vicious, a ravening beast, a fanged monster from hell. In fact, you’re no more bloodthirsty than any dog not trained to mayhem. You haven’t been trained to mayhem; you’ve been trained to chase balls. You’re a pack animal, an animal who craves hierarchy, and you, Jessie, are a one-man dog. Your man’s Jonathan. You adore him. You’d do anything for him, even let strangers who wouldn’t know a wolf from a wolfhound scratch you behind the ears.
The only fight you and Jonathan have, that first year in the States, is about the collar. Jonathan insists that Jessie wear a collar. “Otherwise,” he says, “I could be fined.” There are policemen in the park. Jessie needs a collar and an
ID
tag and rabies shots.
“Jessie,” you say on two feet, “needs so such thing.” You, Stella, are bristling as you say this, even though you don’t have fur at the moment. “Jonathan,” you tell him,
“ID
tags are for dogs who wander. Jessie will never leave your side, unless you throw a ball for her. And I’m not going to get rabies. All I eat is Alpo, not dead raccoons: How am I going to get rabies?”
“It’s the law,” he says gently. “It’s not worth the risk, Stella.”
And then he comes and rubs your head and shoulders
that
way, the way you’ve never been able to resist, and soon the two of you are in bed having a lovely sportfuck, and somehow by the end of the evening, Jonathan’s won. Well, of course he has: he’s the alpha.
So the next time you’re on four feet, Jonathan puts a strong chain choke collar and an
ID
tag around your neck, and then you go to the vet and get your shots. You don’t like the vet’s office much, because it smells of too much fear and pain, but the people there pat you and give you milk bones and tell you how beautiful you are, and the vet’s hands are gentle and kind.
The vet likes dogs. She also knows wolves from wolfhounds. She looks at you, hard, and then looks at Jonathan. “A gray wolf?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” says Jonathan. “She could be a hybrid.”
“She doesn’t look like a hybrid to me.” So Jonathan launches into his breezy story about how you were the runt of the litter at the pound: you wag your tail and lick the vet’s hand and act utterly adoring.
The vet’s not having any of it. She strokes your head; her hands are kind, but she smells disgusted. “Mr. Argent, gray wolves are endangered.”
“At least one of her parents was a dog,” Jonathan says. He’s starting to sweat. “Now,
she
doesn’t look endangered, does she?”
“There are laws about keeping exotics as pets,” the vet says. She’s still stroking your head; you’re still wagging your tail, but now you start to whine, because the vet smells angry and Jonathan smells afraid. “Especially endangered exotics.”