Carrie Jones: Entice

Eventually, I stand up and go in the house and do a little more research and planning. Betty comes home before her shift. She turns tiger and patrols the area, then scratches at the door to come inside. I let her in and step back as she enters. I know she still loves me when she’s human, but I’m not so sure about her tiger self.

The cold air rushes in, so I reach around her to shut the door. At over four hundred pounds, she fills up the space between the door and the stairway. All ten feet of her bends and faces me. She opens her mouth. There is blood on her teeth and her breath reeks like copper and Dove soap. She has killed.

“Got one, huh?” I say, trying to sound flip. “Right outside?”

She bobs her head up and down and brushes past me into the living room. Her massive paws trail snow inside.

Something in my stomach feels sick. “How do you know it was a bad one? And, um, not a good one?”

She doesn’t answer, just plops down in the middle of the room and lifts her right front paw. There’s a piece of wood splintered in it.

“You want me to take it out now? Before you turn?”

She just looks at me with those massive amber eyes. Her head is so huge.

I breathe in deeply and sit on the floor in front of her. “Do not bite me.”

She rolls her eyes.

“What? You’re all tiger now… I don’t know.” I smile at her so she knows that I’m teasing-kind of.

I take her paw in my hands. It’s so huge, easily as big as my entire face. The claws are about three inches long. Examining it better, I can tell that the splinter is a piece of branch slanted in. It’s lodged in pretty deep from the pressure of her walking on it.

“You’ve pushed it in pretty good. I think I need both hands.” I lift my knees up and rest her paw on them for stability. With both hands I grip the branch. “On three. One… two…”

I yank. She yowls, but the wood pops right out. I slam my hand against the wound and apply pressure. Her fur is cold and wet and thick.

“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I give her a smile. “Does it hurt much?”

She purrs and then pushes her paw through my hand into my chest, knocking me down on the floor. She stands above me, all four hundred pounds of her.

“Gram?” My voice is embarrassingly high-pitched.

Her head comes down to mine and her tongue darts out, licking the entire length of my face. She bats her paw against my hip and purrs again.

“Eww. Wet.” I laugh and she leaps over me, heading into her bedroom, where she’ll change back into human. I watch her fine tiger self go. She wiggles her tail.

“Grandmothers.” I grunt loud enough for her to hear me, but she doesn’t respond.

When she comes back into the living room, I’m still cruising the Web on her computer looking for clues about Astley’s mom.

“Any luck?” she asks. She’s wearing her uniform.

“What’s the cliché Mom is always saying?” I ask.

“Needle in a haystack.” She sits down next to me and leans forward to peruse the screen. Then she turns and examines my face. “Thanks for the help with my paw.”

“Glad to see you brushed your teeth.”

She laughs. “Had to. Pixies taste horrible, like soap.”

“Good to know. And you’re sure it was a bad pixie and not one of Astley’s? Because-”

“It was stalking Devyn.”

“Oh. Not protecting Devyn? Like trailing him to keep him safe?” I offer.

She grunts and crosses her arms over her chest. “Zara, I could smell the need on it.”

“Okay.” Shuddering, I stare at her wrinkled face, those bright, active eyes, her soft, short gray hair. “You’re so beautiful as a tiger.”

“Not as a human, huh?” she teases and slaps my thigh.

“Shut up.”

“Did you just tell your grandmother to shut up? Brat,” she jokes back and stands up, stretching as if her human form is just too confining. She grunts. “I should have been a cop.”

I have no idea where this comes from, but I go with it. “Why?”

“Because then I could be out patrolling instead of stuck at the station waiting for an ambulance call.”

“Can’t you just take out the ambulance?”

“Keith is on duty tonight. He’s the driver. You know we can’t go out alone.”

“Can’t you just tell Keith?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. How do you tell a guy like Keith that you’re a weretiger and that you need him to drive the ambulance around so you can hunt for pixies?”

“You just tell him,” I suggest, pushing myself away from the computer and giving her my full attention. “And then you show him.”

Her face closes up and she looks suddenly fragile and old-and very human.

“You are very human, Gram.”

She smiles. “You say that even after seeing my paws and my teeth?”

“Yeah.” I fake shudder and mock the lines from Little Red Riding Hood: “What very big teeth you have, Grandmother.”

“All the better to eat pixies with,” she plays along and smiles.

I grab the throw pillow on the couch and hug it.

She reaches over and kisses the top of my head, then whispers so faintly that I can barely hear her, “You are very human too.”

“I hope so.”

She harrumphs and stands up. “How about I burn us some dinner before my shift starts.”

End of conversation.

One missing Maine boy has been found alive but with amnesia and serious injuries after having disappeared for more than two weeks. Parents hold out hope that their missing youngsters will see the same outcome. -NEWSCHANNEL8

A noise startles me out of my super-long couch nap. I groan and stretch. Someone knocks on the door. The sun has set and the clock says it’s seven. Even early in the evening our town seems deserted and haunted. The roads wander around dark corners. Trees crowd the edges. Snow reflects the moonlight like a silent white mirror. I peek out the window, and for a moment I think it’s Nick, but that is impossible.

When I open the door, Astley simply holds out his hand in the darkness. I take it and step outside almost hypnotized, not really even caring that I’m wearing this extra-large gray L.L.Bean sweatshirt and the bunny pj bottoms that Is gave me. I just go with him into the snowy cold. Something about the dark trees beyond our lawn makes me twitch a little. My foot slips on the snow. Anything could be out there.

“Betty’s in the shower,” I whisper. “What are you doing here? Did you see the Frank guy? Or my father? Are they lurking out there?”

“No. I have not.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “There has been no sign of your father.”

I guess I’d been holding my breath, because it all comes out of my mouth in a big rush. I don’t know if I’m upset that he’s missing and maybe dead, or relieved, or scared, or what. My feelings about him are so jumbled. He was manipulative and weak, but he tried so hard to be good. He let my mom go free, without turning her. I know he did.

Astley waits for a second before he speaks. Maybe he can tell that I’m trying to get a handle on my emotions or something. He glances toward the house and takes a step away from the door. “I want to show you our people.”

“Our people?” I say as his fingers tighten around mine. The world seems to shift on its axis, tilting me into a more confused state than I’m already in. “I’m not sure I really want-”

“You are our queen, Zara. It is time you met your pixies.” His other arm wraps around my waist. “We shall fly.”

“We have to be quick. Betty will-”

He nods. “I know.”

Flying is cold and swift. We swoop over the tops of trees and through the snowflakes. It has been snowing lightly for days and it still hasn’t stopped. I honestly don’t think it ever will. I long for the warm streets and bright sun of Charleston, my old home. I can almost smell the flowers, see the poinsettias that everyone along the Battery puts out for Christmas, the bright white lights along the porticoes. Life was so much easier then. I push the longing away. Below us the roads cut through trees. Town snowplows hustle as quickly as they can, clearing the way for cars and people. I hang on to Astley as he brings me to a clearing in the woods that’s not too far away from the high school. When we get closer, I can spot headstones of varying heights, in white, black, and gray. It’s a cemetery. The pixies are gathered in between headstones. Some even stand on monuments. They each seem to have some sort of light source. It’s a dizzying array of shadows and fabric, movement against the stark white snow. Fear pushes into my throat. As we start losing altitude, everyone turns away from us as if refusing to acknowledge our presence.