She sits. So does he, some distance away. She licks her snout. Her other self, the daytime, two-legged self is struggling, she wants words to explain, but she only has this body, so she lies down, tucks her tail, waits.
And so does he. Rest, just rest.
She is uncertain, confused, curious, not sure this is safe. But his manner is calm. Her other self urges her, sleep, sleep . . .
Rubbing my face, I woke from strange dreams. I didn’t always remember my time running as Wolf. Images, the taste of blood on my tongue after a hunt, flashes of vision. This time felt particularly odd, unreal. Then I remembered a name: Coyote.
I sat up, forest dirt covering my naked side. My hair was a tangle, and I itched.
A young man sat across from me, leaning up against a beetle-eaten pine tree with sparse boughs and dried-out needles. He wore a blanket over his shoulders but was otherwise naked. I took a breath, and yes, he was my quarry, the coyote. Were-coyote. I’d never met one before.
“Hi,” I said, sitting up, hugging my knees to my chest. About twenty feet separated us. Just enough to really look at each other, far enough away to not feel threatened.
“Hi,” he said back, without enthusiasm. His straight black hair fell to his ears. He was lean, muscular. His dark eyes were wary.
“I’m Kitty,” I said, and waited for him to introduce himself.
He stared. “Of course you are.”
Cormac jogged up, then stopped, looking back and forth between the two of us. The coyote flinched, but held his ground.
“Who are you?” Cormac demanded, and I was sure the were-coyote would flee again, so I interrupted.
“Cormac, I think that envelope is for him.” He had the envelope tucked under one arm, he’d gone back for it, as if he suspected he might need it. Under his other arm, he held a bundle of clothes. “Are those my clothes? May I have them, please?”
He handed them over. I dressed as quickly and smoothly as I could, which wasn’t very, wiggling to pull up my jeans. I just shoved the bra in my pocket.
“You haven’t been a lycanthrope very long, have you?” I asked the coyote. He glanced away, picked at the edge of the blanket. “That’s why you’re out here, hiding. While you figure out how to keep it together.”
“Feels safer here,” he said.
“We have a message for you,” I said. “I think. Cormac?”
“Fine. Take it off my hands.” He tossed the envelope to the guy, who fumbled with the blanket for a moment but managed to catch it.
Warily, he opened it. Inside, several folded sheets formed a letter. The guy held it up. The outside of the sheaf of pages had one word written on it in block letters: COYOTE. Brow furrowed, confused, he unfolded the pages and started reading.
Cormac’s face was expressionless, as if he was just done having opinions about the whole thing. I went to stand next to Cormac, scuffing my bare toes in the dirt. He’d forgotten my sneakers when he’d picked up the rest of my clothes.
“What do you think this means?” I asked softly.
“I don’t really care anymore, as long as the check clears.”
Well, deciding not to think about it was certainly one solution. The coyote kept reading. Then he glanced up at us.
“Well?” I asked. “What’s it say?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “But . . . thank you. This is important.”
“But what is it?” I pleaded, almost whining.
“Sorry.” The young man seemed more at ease than he had a moment ago. He leaned back against the tree, snugged under the blanket, and regarded the pages of the message like it had told him something wonderful. Maybe if I was fast enough I could grab it from it. Run away with it just long enough to see what it said. Maybe.
“Well. What’s your name, then?”
He offered half a grin. “Can’t tell you that, either.”
A key from fifty years ago. A safe-deposit box from ten years ago. A guy who wasn’t born yet in the first case and would have been just a teenager in the second, and certainly not living anywhere near where the postcard had marked his location . . . “None of this makes sense. It’s not, like, time travel—”
“I’ll say this much,” the were-coyote said. “Mr. Crow sends his regards.”
I fumed. Clenched my hands into fists and set my jaw. I wanted to yell. “And who is Mr. Crow?”
He just grinned, for all the world like a coyote yipping in mockery.
I glared a challenge. “My Wolf could have totally taken you, if she’d wanted to.”
“I’m sure she would,” Coyote said, grinning.
“Kitty, we should go,” Cormac said.
But I hadn’t gotten the whole story. I wanted to know. I said, “My pack runs in the foothills south of Boulder. You know, if you ever want to come visit.”
“Maybe I will. But he’s right, you should get going.”
Cormac was already walking away. In the end, I knew a wall when I saw one. And this guy . . . he had a big story, I could tell. As much as him not telling me might drive me crazy, I couldn’t do much about it. So I followed Cormac back to the tiny cabin, found my shoes, and we left.
We spent the drive back in silence, at least until we hit I-70. Returning to the reality of big highways and traffic seemed to break a spell.
“It’s not time travel,” he said, abruptly.
“No,” I confirmed. “It’s not time travel, because if time travel existed, then it would always already exist and would never not exist and we would know about it.”
He stared at me. “I don’t think I understood a word of what you just said.”
“It’s not time travel,” I reiterated.
“So what was it?”
“Coyote and Crow,” I said softly. “Tricksters. We’re in someone else’s story.”
He tilted his head, as if listening. Amelia, explaining to him, maybe. “It’s probably for the best we don’t know more,” he said finally.
“Probably, yeah.”
“It’s probably messy. Messier.”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t really want to know.”
“That’s right.”
“Goddammit,” he muttered.
We stared ahead, driving away from the westering sun.
Sealskin
RICHARD'S HAND WAS SHAKING. The noise, the closed space, the lack of easy access to the door were all getting to him. He pressed the hand flat on the polished, slightly sticky surface of the bar. The webbing between his fingers, mutant stretches of skin reaching to the middle joints, stood out. The hand closed into a fist.
Doug noticed him staring at his own hand. “Ready for another one?”
“No, I think I’m done.” Richard pushed away the tumbler that had held Jack and Coke.
“This is supposed to be a celebration. I’m supposed to be congratulating you.”
“I’m thinking of getting out.” He hadn’t said the words out loud before now.
Richard appreciated that Doug didn’t immediately start arguing and cajoling.
“Can I ask why?” Doug finally asked.
He offered a fake grin. “Well, my knees aren’t going to last forever.”