Everwild

CHAPTER 26 Home

The house did not look like a home her family should live in-but then, no home that didn't include Allie would seem right. As she approached the front door, she double-checked her dowdy clothes, and her newly styled hair-now auburn instead of the salt-and-pepper it had been. If she didn't know better, she really would think she was her fourth-grade teacher.

She stood at the front door for what felt like forever, reaching for the doorbell, then pulling her finger back, reaching, then pulling back, until finally she pulled back a little too late, and succeeded in ringing the bell anyway.

Footsteps from inside. The door opening. A familiar face. A little careworn, a little tired, but Allie still knew that face. After three years Allie was standing in front of her mother.

"Mrs. Wintuck, I'm glad you could make it."

Allie had to keep from hurling herself into her mother's arms. She had to remember she had a role to play. She was Allie pretending to be a cat woman pretending to be a teacher from New Jersey. "Please, call me Sarah," Allie said, and stepped into the house. The foyer opened right into the living room. All their old furniture was there, with a few new additions.

"Make yourself comfortable," her mother said. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Some water would be nice."

Her mother went off to get some water, and Allie went to work looking around the room, searching for any sign that her father was still part of this picture, but there was so much to take in, she didn't even know what she should be looking for. He was in photographs, but then so was she. A high school graduation picture sat on the mantel. It hadn't even occurred to Allie that her sister, April, would now be away at college. While time had stopped for Allie, everyone else's lives had moved on.

"I've ordered Chinese food," her mother said, coming back from the kitchen with some bottled water. "I hope you don't mind; I didn't get home from work in time to cook."

"That's perfectly all right, I'm just glad to be here."

"We're glad to have you."

We! Her mother said we! "So… your husband…"

"He's picking up the food on the way home. He should be here soon."

Allie practically collapsed into the sofa, full of sweet relief. So he had survived! If nothing else came from this meeting, at least she would have that! But then-what if it was a new husband? What if her mother had remarried? A sister in college, a new house-a lot can happen in three years. She had to know.

"Was he… badly injured in the accident? I hope not." Allie clenched her toes, preparing for the worst of all possible news. Then her mother said.

"It was a difficult rehabilitation, but he pulled through."

Allie released her breath, not even realizing she had been holding it. She felt her face flush with relief. Her mother took it for thirst, and sat across from her, pouring the bottled water into a glass for her. As Allie reached for the glass, she saw that her hand-the cat woman's hand-was trembling, so Allie took the glass with her other hand instead.

"I must say, I was surprised to get your e-mail," her mother said.

"As soon as I heard you were here in Memphis, I knew I had to contact you. You know, Allie was one of my favorite students."

Her mother smiled slimly. "Really."

Allie searched her memory for a poignant moment to share. "I remember for Mother's Day, we had a poem that each student was supposed to paste into a card they were making-but Allie insisted on writing her own poem-and when it was done, half the class wanted to use her poem instead of the original one!"

Her mother looked at her incredulously. "I still have that card. And you're telling me you remember that?"

Actually, Allie remembered the poem itself, but realized that reciting it might be just a little too weird. "As I said, she was a favorite student."

"What else do you remember?" her mother asked. The tone of the question seemed just a little bit off. Allie didn't think much of it at the time.

"I remember… I remember one day she came to school sad, because you and she had a fight that morning. Something about a neighborhood boy you didn't want her to spend time with. She never told you, but she was sorry- and you were right, he turned out to be a real creep."

Her mother furrowed her eyebrows. "That wasn't in fourth grade."

How stupid! thought Allie. Of course it wasn't. Allie found herself getting increasingly nervous, and as she did, that hand kept trembling more and more. "No, it wasn't," Allie said. "But sometimes Allie would confide in me, even years after she had left my class."

Whoo! Lucky save. Allie lifted the water to her mouth, and noticed that both her hands were trembling now.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, fine. Not to worry." Then the glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the hardwood floor. It was the blasted cat woman! Allie was losing control. How long had she been in her body now? Three hours? Four? Quickly she bent over to pick up the broken glass, but her hands were shaking too much. "How clumsy of me!"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

Now they were both on their knees picking up the broken glass, and when Allie looked to her mother, Allie found herself suddenly hissing through gritted teeth.

"Help me-she's stolen my body!"

Her mother just stared at her, not sure how to react. "What did you say?"

Allie was slipping on the ice again. The cat woman was not only awake, but she knew! Allie had to remain in control at all costs. She grappled with the woman inside her mind, forcing her down, and said, her voice a strange warble. "You'll have to forgive me. I'm prone to sudden outbursts. Tourette's Syndrome, you know. Some days are better than others."

Then came the blessed sound of a phone ringing.

"I should get that," Allie's mother said, a little coolly. "Leave the glass, I'll take care of it."

She crossed the room to pick up the phone, while Allie buried her face in her hands.

Stay out of this! she silently told the cat woman. You'll get your stupid body back!

– -Who are you? What do you want from me?- It's not your business! Allie bore down and pushed her deep again.

Her mother was on the phone now. Allie now sat on her shaking hands, and forced a fake smile as her mother turned back to her.

"Yes… I see…" her mother said into the phone. "Is that so?

… Don't worry, I'll take care of it… I said don't worry… I know… me, too."

She hung up, and came back toward Allie, but she didn't sit down. "That was my husband," she said. "He just got off the phone with Sarah Wintuck, who's still teaching fourth grade in Cape May, New Jersey."

The slippery ice beneath Allie's feet became the edge of a glacier calving into the sea. She was in freefall now, and deep inside her the cat woman was screaming to be released.

"I don't know who you are, but I want you to leave," her mother said coldly.

"I… I just…" But what could she say? What could she tell her that would make any sense? "I have a message from your daughter!"

The hatred in her mother's eyes was so potent, Allie had to look away. "I want you out of my house!" she said. "Now!" And she didn't wait for her to leave. She grabbed Allie by her skinny cat woman arm, and pulled her toward the door. In a moment she was over the threshold again, outside the door, about to be hurled out of her parents' lives.

"Please!" Allie said.

"Help me!" shouted the cat woman.

"You think I don't know about you people!" said her mother. "You prey on people's hopes, telling them what they want to hear, and then you rob them blind! Well, you picked the wrong family to scam!"

Her mother's hand was on the door, ready to slam it, and Allie couldn't allow that. She had to say something to make her understand.

"They were arguing about the radio!"

And it stopped her mother cold. "What did you say?"

"When the accident happened, they were arguing about the radio-he turned it down, and she turned it back up. But it wasn't his fault! She wants you both to know that the accident wasn't his fault!"

Her mother's expression went from shock to horror to fury in the span of a single second, and then she said in a voice lethal with venom, "Whoever you are, I hope you rot in hell!" She slammed the door so hard it almost broke the jamb, and Allie could hear her bursting into tears on the other side.

Allie ran from the house, tears filling her own eyes, her whole body shaking, the cat woman fighting to get out, and there was a pain deep in her back, spreading down her arms.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to bring comfort to her parents, not anguish.

– -Let me go!- screamed the cat woman, and Allie refused, taking out all her anger on her. If the woman had only stayed asleep-if she had only stayed quiet, Allie would have talked her way out of this. Things would have gone differently if she didn't have to fight the cat woman for control.

This is your fault! Allie screamed in her thoughts as she ran. You couldn't just let me do this! You couldn't just let it be! They were on a busy street now-a commercial street full of shops restaurants and cars. Plenty of people to skinjack. Allie tried to peel out, disgusted with the cat woman and her body-but she couldn't do it. She tugged and twisted, but it was as if she was glued to the cat woman's frame. She had stayed inside her too long!

– -Get out of me!- I'm trying!

The pain in her back was moving to her chest. It was intense, and it was hard to breathe. She shouldn't have run so fast. Not in this body. It suddenly dawned on her that the cat woman was having a heart attack-Allie had given her a heart attack, and now she was stuck with her in this feeble failing body!

– -what have you done to me?- the cat woman wailed.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

She stumbled in the front door of a restaurant.

– -what have you done?- Shut up! I'll get us out of this, Allie told her.

The maitre d' looked at her in alarm. "Help me!" she said. It was all she could do to get the words out. "Heart." Restaurants did have emergency kits, didn't they?

The Maitre d' looked like a deer in headlights, then he glanced down at his reservation book as if the solution might be written there. He was useless.

Allie, with pain getting worse by the second, and darkness closing in around her, spied an electrical outlet on the wall. They used electricity to restart a failing heart, right? She grabbed a knife from a table, crumbled to her knees, and shoved the tip of the knife into the socket.

The electric shock sent Allie flying. She seemed to burst apart in all directions, and pull back together a dozen yards away. She fell to the ground and began to sink into the living world. She was herself again, and back in Everlost!

She stood, and turned to the cat woman being helped up to a sitting position. She looked bad, but not as bad as Allie thought she would. A waiter took her pulse, and seemed satisfied. Silverware in a socket wasn't the best way to jumpstart a heart, but at least it had worked.

"She stole me," the cat woman muttered. "She stole me…"

"Just relax," the waiter said. "You're going to be fine."

Half the people in the restaurant had already dialed 911, and the wail of an approaching ambulance could already be heard. It was out of her hands now, so she soul-surfed out of the restaurant, into a passing car, then another, then another, and didn't stop until she was miles away. *** The joy of seeing her mother should have been enough to take away the sting of her reaction. After all, how could her mother react any other way? How could she trust a strange woman who had not only lied to her about her identity, but seemed to know secrets that no one but Allie could have known? Of course she would have been horrified!

But that didn't make it hurt any less. The fact that she had nearly killed a woman barely even registered in Allie's mind. All that mattered to her was home. She still hadn't seen her father-but she knew this craving for home was even deeper than that, because, like skinjacking itself, a little taste of home was not enough. Against all reason, she hungered for it. She needed more than just closure, she needed connection. Coming here was a mistake, but now that she had opened this Pandora's box, it couldn't be closed. The only way to close the lid was to step inside and pull the lid down like the lid of a coffin.