Still Life with Shape-shifter by Sharon Shinn Page B

thought it might be sixty degrees by morning. A chilly temperature for sleeping outside.
    I eventually went inside, moving stealthily in case someone was still awake. I had barely stepped out of the kitchen when I heard another heavy thud upstairs, and the sound of my father’s voice raised in frustration. My mother responded with a rush of angry words, though I couldn’t make out what either one of them said. I slipped into the living room, picked up an old quilt folded over the couch, and headed back outside to sleep in the lawn chair as best I could until dawn made its sullen appearance.
    I felt dull and somehow disappointed from the moment I woke up, though at first I couldn’t figure out why. It was a Monday, always the least congenial of days, and this one had a particularly prosaic, unglamorous feel to it. As if the parties and amusements of the weekend were over; now it was time to admit that the dull, undifferentiated days, unexciting as they were, constituted ordinary reality.
    Time to return to McDonald’s and ask to work a few shifts this week. Time to think about going back to school in the fall, when I would enter my senior year. Time to start behaving like an adult with responsibilities instead of a teenager with an exotic fantasy life.
    Time to realize that the wolf might never come back.
    My boss gave me a stern lecture about missing a whole week, then signed me up for twenty-five hours in the next seven days. I took a stroll through Walmart on the way home, looking at notebooks and pens and folders before tossing through a few of the sundresses and jeans on the sale racks. I’d need to work more than twenty-five hours if I was going to afford any upgrades to my wardrobe. I always dressed in the least memorable clothing I could find—neutral colors, nothing fashionable, nothing daring—as part of my campaign to be completely invisible in my classrooms. Even so, some of my jeans were so old I didn’t think I could wear them for another year, and I only had two shirts I actually liked. I’d have to buy a few things just to get through fall semester.
    Dinner was unexpectedly cheerful, as my mother had gotten a raise, and my father had received a big commission check. My mother hummed in the kitchen as I helped her clean up after dinner—“Ode to Joy,” always a good sign.
    “You know what, Janet? You and I should drive into St. Louis next weekend and go shopping,” she said when I mentioned my visit to Walmart. “We could go to one of the fancy malls there and buy you some really pretty stuff. What do you think?”
    “Sure,” I said, since it seemed unlikely she would remember this plan by morning.
    She lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper. “We won’t take your father. It’ll be a girls’ day out.”
    “Sounds great.”
    After the meal I saw her go into the living room, where my father was sprawled on the couch watching TV. She snuggled up next to him and began kissing his cheek, murmuring something that made him burst out laughing. After a moment, he reached for the remote and turned the television off.
    I picked up a magazine and headed outside.
    Not intending to, I fell asleep before the sun had even gone down and woke up a few hours later, chilly and a little disoriented. Oh yes—outside, waiting on midnight, waiting on moonrise, waiting on a mysterious visitor who might never return. I slipped inside briefly to use the bathroom, grab a sweater, and gather my usual supplies, then I was back on the deck, shutting the door behind me. I’d left the kitchen light on, and its warm yellow glow spilled out onto the wood of the deck, picking out all the warped boards and the route of June bugs waddling by.
    Stepping out into the grass, I stared toward the back of the property, where nighttime and braided shadows made it impossible to see. Yet there was movement there, some stirring of leaf or branch as a creature moved soundlessly through the dark, and I didn’t think it was just my