A shiver caught me up. I was so cold. My fingers were blue gray against the white quartz. I stood and moved uphill to a slightly more level place and stripped, tossing my wet clothes across a branch, careless even with the jacket and boots. I opened my knapsack and pulled out my sleeping bag, glad that the pierced and tattooed greenie t="oed grewho sold it to me had insisted that I buy the best rainproof brand. I dried off as well as I was able and climbed inside the bag, zipped it closed, and tied off the hood that protected my face. A minitent.
Encased, I curled into the fetal position and stared at the rock, unable to take my eyes off of it. My shivering eventually eased. The day died. As long as there was light, I stared at the white quartz boulder. With the thin vein of gold running up its side.
Dreams began the moment darkness fell, the night wet and chilly and utterly black. I was so deep in the chasm that there was no sky, no moon, no stars, not even clouds to spit out the rain. Yet rain still fell. My body vibrated, shuddering with tremors that I felt in every muscle, every nerve fiber, every cell. My flesh sparked and tingled, itching and painful, like a bad sunburn. In my dream I untied the sleeping bag and looked down inside. At my body.
If clouds were made of light instead of water vapor, they would look like this, like me, all sparkly silver, thrust through with motes of blackness that danced and whirled. The vaguely human-shaped mist coalesced, thickened, and eddied around me. Was me.
In my dream I stared as night rain beat down on the sleeping bag. I saw the snake in my body, deep in my cells, thousands of snakes, millions, each a double helix of snakes, twisted and writhing. And I saw the other snake, in my memory. The snake of the voice. The snake of the presence.
And I . . . shifted. Changed.
The grayness enveloped me. My body bent and flowed like water—or like hot wax, a viscous, glutinous liquid, full of gray light and gray shadows and black motes of power. The bones beneath my flesh popped and cracked. Pain arced through me like lightning. I heard my grunting scream, muted for lack of breath. The agony was a blade, slicing me bone from bone, nerve from nerve, fiber from fiber. Agony that went on and on. Whirling like a tornado of torture.
My breathing changed.
The light that was my body grew brighter, the dark motes within me darker.
Both began to dissipate. I slept.
Day came slowly, rain dropping with sharp splats onto the wet ground. Night bird sounds gave way to morning birds.
Hard to catch. Not enough to eat. My stomach rumbled, low growl of the hunter.
I crawled from bag, leaving behind earrings and gold necklace on wet cloth. I stepped from the sleeping bag, unsteady on four feet. Paws. With claws. I flexed my claws out, happy to see them clean and bright, slightly yellow in pale dawn. It had been long. Many years. Many moons. She was in control too long this time.
I—Beast—stepped down the slope to water, to a pool gathered in a shallow basin below the white boulder. The rock that tied us together as one. She did not remember why. But I—Beast—did. I am good hunter. I forget nothing.
I lapped at pool ak med at pnd then, hungry, snatched at human-bag of human-food. Bloodless, dead meat. But here. With strong claws, tore into bag and into other bags, scattering smoked meat across ground. Wolfed it down. Salty. Cold. Satisfied for now. Sat, grooming, above the water pool. In its reflection saw a mountain lion sitting, eyes golden, with human-shaped pupils. Puma concolor. Mountain lion. Big-Cat.
Heard scurrying in leaves. I froze. Slow steps sounded from downhill. Dainty. From upwind. Four legs. Tiny hooves. Smelled deer.
Leisurely sniff. Hunger rumbled. Prey. Slow hunch. I curved into earth. Wary, cautious placement of paw, paw, paw, silent into lee of white rock. Deer came down for water. Paused, head up, eyes going wide. Tensed.
I launched. Up. Claws out. Lips pulled back. Killing fangs exposed.
Deer leaped.
In midair, I twisted, a sinuous move, claws out. Sinking deep. Blood flooding like life. Struggle of prey, legs flailing. With a single wrench, snapped neck. Doe quivered. Died. Flesh in jaws was strong with muscle, wet with blood. Taste flooded my mouth.
I held. Unmoving. Feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling. Long moments later, her heart stopped, I dropped her, licking mouth and bloody paws and claws. Looking around for any who would steal.
Theft happened here once. Theft of prey and theft of life. Now this was a good place. Alone. With blood-food. I screamed. Claiming this place. My territory. Mine! Satisfied, I settled to the throat of the deer and ripped into warm meat.
Cat Tats
Rick raised his head, the tendons in his neck straining. Nausea roiled in his stomach and up his throat at the slight movement, and he dropped his head back. He was lying faceup. The rafters were barely visible over his head in a dusky, gloomy light. The familiar scent of hay and horses was strong in his nostrils, but it wasn’t the hay of his parents’ barn. There was an acrid undertang to this scent, as if the box stalls hadn’t been mucked out in a long while, and it was musty, as if horses hadn’t used the premises recently. He rolled his head to the side and saw a shaft of light filtering through dusty air, falling through a wide crack in the wall. No. Not Dad’s barn. He’d never let it get in this condition.