Shifting

Twenty

I didn’t want to do it, that’s what it came down to. It was like firing your favorite Auntie, but far, far worse than that. I felt like the traitor, not Wilton. I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t true, that somehow, the good lady had just been hurt, that’s why she limped. I told myself that anyone could have been depressed by the latest events, and that we shouldn’t give in to the witch-burning mentality. Then, of course, I had to wonder… Had they been burning real witches in Salem? Had they done it all not out of hysteria, but out of reasoned desperation? History had always been unkind to people in our situation. We were brutes, performing great evils by misplacing our fears.

The Captain was watching me coldly. I’m sure he knew my thoughts, but seemed to have no compassion for them. What had he done in his own dark past to be so cool now? Had he dragged half-sleeping men out of their tents in the night and executed them in the blowing sands of some forsaken desert? Had all feelings of guilt been burned out of his soul long since? I didn’t know, but I did know, as he watched me, that nothing I did would surprise him.

“Why aren’t you urging me to drag her out here and yank her boots off and cut her down if she’s hiding something in there?”

The Captain shrugged. “This is your show. You invited me here. It’s your play, kid.”

I looked at him, not sure if I should feel better or worse. “What if I decide to do nothing?”

He shook his head. “You won’t be able to do that. You’re a man of action. It will drive you nuts.”

That was true enough. Just thinking about it for five minutes had left me torn up inside and I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep without resolving this. Without knowing.

“What do you think the others will do?”

The Captain lit a cigarette. As far as I knew, he was the last smoker in Indiana, unless you counted Monika, who had only smoked once since I’d met her. “I don’t know. Most of them will follow your lead, whatever you do. But some, they might just go for her. Like that Mrs. Hatchell. There’s cold steel in that woman’s eyes.”

“What should we do with her, assuming it’s true? We should know ahead of time how we are going to handle it.”

He nodded. “Good thinking. As I see it there are three choices. You put a bullet in her head, or you exile her, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or, maybe, since most of her is human, you chop off the offending piece.”

I snorted and shook my head. “I’m not going to start chopping parts off of people.”

“Well, from our point of view, it’s the best way.”

“And why is that?” I demanded.

“We need her. She’s our medical personnel, all of them wrapped in one package. The only way the others will accept her-and this is a maybe-is if she’s minus whatever is in that boot of hers.”

I actually thought about it for a minute before shaking my head. “I just can’t see it. It’s insane.”

He shrugged. “So which of the other two choices do you prefer?”

“We aren’t sure that she’s done anything. So we can’t just kill her.”

The Captain nodded. “Banishment then. Like I said, it’s your show.” He tossed his cigarette down and crushed it with his boot into the parking lot, making a tiny fresh black spot.

I realized then that it was time to go inside and actually do this crazy thing. I wondered if she would show us willingly, or if we would have to grab her. I turned to the Captain before we went in and stopped him.

“What would you choose?”

He looked at me for a second. “You really want to know?

“Yeah.”

“I’d chain her to her office chair, lop her foot off with that saber of yours and then let it ride, to see if she returned to normal. If nothing else, we’d learn something.”

I shook my head and forced open our makeshift door. We’d cut it out of plywood and it didn’t really fit the half-demolished entry way.

Grim-faced, I entered the lobby. The Captain followed me like a headsman following his lord. I wondered which of us was the wise man and which of us was mad.

We did it privately, in her office. She had a drowned-cat look on her face when we both marched in there, looking very serious. I think she knew right away, but she played it straight.

“What’s the matter, boys? Not another storm.”

“No Doc,” I said quietly. I put my saber on the conference table between us. The Captain closed the door quietly behind us and stood there. Wilton’s eyes flicked over each of these significant elements of the scene.

“Well, something is up. Just tell me,” she said, and she almost snapped it, suddenly irritable.

I gestured brusquely toward her leg. “What happened to your foot, Doc? Some kind of accident?”

She crossed her arms, but otherwise didn’t move. She glared at both of us. “Yes, obviously.”

I nodded and took a step closer. “Been noticing that limp of yours.”

“There has got to be more to this dramatic show than that.”

I pinched my lips up tightly and looked at her. “We have to know, Doc. We have to see it.”

She nodded once, curtly, and sat down. “So that’s it.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

She took up her annotated book again and paged through it rapidly. “May I read you a passage?”

I glanced back at the Captain, but he just watched us both with dark eyes. He gave no hint as to what I should do.

“Okay, Doc.”

The Nisses of Norway, we are told, are fond of the moonlight, and in the winter time they may be seen jumping over the yard, or driving in sledges. They are also skilled in music and dancing, and will, it is said, give instructions on the fiddle for a grey sheep, like the Swedish Stromkarl.

Every church, too, has its Nis, who looks to order, and chastises those who misbehave themselves. He is called the Kirkegrim.

She closed the book and looked at us triumphantly. I could see she believed she had made some critical point. We stared back flatly.

“Dr. Grimm wrote that-you know,” her voice took on a note of desperation, “the German fellow who spent so much time compiling all the old folklore of Europe.”

“That’s a nice piece, Doctor, but I’m not quite sure what it has to do with-”

“Don’t you see? They aren’t all evil! There are good ones-and bad ones. All of the histories of these creatures that have returned to us during these dark times are filled with stories of both good and evil. Think of the angels of the Bible, the elves that helped the farmers…”

“Okay, I get it. And your point is well taken. Notice, we are in here without the rest of them. We have not told any of the others. We don’t plan to do you harm.”

“What do you plan, then?”

I told her that we had chosen exile. I even discussed the other possibilities with her, which we had rejected.

“Logical,” she said. “Flawlessly logical… Except that I’m not a threat!”

I shook my head. “I don’t think we can take the chance. We’d be remiss in our responsibilities. There have been so many mistakes already.”

“And you are making another one! But very well, I’ll go then. I’ll take a lantern and a bag of food, if you will allow me that!”

“Of course,” I said.

Without further ceremony, she pushed past me and made for the door. Her limp seemed more pronounced than ever. She walked with a peculiar gait, as if one leg was shorter than the other.

She came close to the Captain, who didn’t budge from his position in front of the door. The Captain gave me a look with raised eyebrows.

I sighed. “We have to see it, Wilton.”

She whirled on me and stood there, clutching her lantern. Her hands trembled. “Why?” she asked, her voice almost pleading.

“I have to see something. We have to know.”

She paused a moment, her eyes pleading with both of us. She saw no mercy in them. With laborious slowness, she bent down and pushed at her boot. The boot seemed too small or her foot too thick. I could tell as she pushed it off that it pained her.

“You should have let me shoot myself, Gannon,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, “when I had the courage.”

Somehow I was surprised when I saw it, even though I should not have been. There, at the end of her leg, thick course hair sprouted in a mix of brown and white about half way down her calf. At the terminus, where there should have been a foot, there was now a gray hoof.

The hoof was cloven and had three thick points to it.