**Transformation
**
by Renee Carter Hall\[/center]
Jason opened his eyes, disappointed again.
He had been close. He *knew *he had been close, he had felt the shift beginning, but something had jarred him out, the same way he sometimes jerked awake just as he was falling asleep.
Anyway, his leg was cramping, and it was hard to clear one's mind when just sitting on the floor was so uncomfortable. He stood and stretched. The panther in the poster on the opposite wall seemed to be snarling at him, mocking him.
Close, but not there. Weak, ignorant, helpless. Ordinary.
Human.
\* \* \*
Jason didn't have the kind of room one would expect of a suburban sixteen-year-old. No cars or fighter jets or sports trophies, no posters of rock bands or skaters caught mid-trick.
Instead, the walls were covered with pictures and paintings and drawings of animals, mostly big cats, cut from magazines and old calendars, or printed off the web. The poster of the snarling panther took up most of one wall, and next to it hung a large papier-mâché jaguar mask crowned with blue-green feathers.
The rest of the wall space was taken up by a large bookcase stuffed full, the books stacked and wedged in to take up as little space as possible, each spine bearing a title with the word "animal" or "magick" or "shaman" somewhere in it. Jason was only a voracious reader on the narrow subjects that interested him.
An abalone shell sat on the windowsill, with a half-burned bundle of sage among the ashes, and next to that, an oil burner supported by a trio of Egyptian cats still held a few drops of musky scent. The room smelled sweet and dark and earthy. It had taken a long time to convince his parents that the odd scents wafting from their son's room were not coming from some new kind of drug. They didn't understand, of course, but they left him alone, and that was good enough.
It wasn't a typical teenage bedroom, except in one crucial respect: it reflected his every desire and ambition, everything he was, and everything he wanted to be.
That poster, for instance.
The poster had haunted him from the first instant he saw it in the music store. He had been flipping through the painfully small section of new age and world music--which for some reason always had to be placed embarrassingly close to easy listening--when he looked up and saw it across the store. There had been only one left, and he bought it, his hands shaking as he held out a crumpled twenty and took his change. It was meant to be his; he was convinced he'd been led there for it.
The panther had dark green eyes--like his--and its ebony coat matched the color of his short hair. But the panther had rippling, sinewy muscles and claws like silver daggers on its outstretched paws. Jason, meanwhile, still had the body of a seventh-grader. He had grown taller, sure, but it only made his scrawny frame look lanky and awkward instead of lithe.
He avoided mirrors. The poster was the only one he needed.
Now, tired and frustrated, he threw himself on his bed and opened his sketchbook. He wasn't much of an artist--not good enough to be interested in the classes at school, but who wanted to spend hours drawing spheres and cones anyway? He could copy from pictures well enough, though. Lately he'd been working on an anatomy drawing, a human hand and arm on one side, a big cat's paw on the other, with the muscles and tendons shaded. He traced the lines idly with a soft pencil, wondering exactly how one would become the other, and what it might look like halfway between.
His computer pinged at him, and he went to it.
**chaseison:** hey
He pulled the keyboard out.
**onza\_89:** hey
**chaseison:** sup?
**onza\_89:** the usual
**chaseison:** got something to tell you
**onza\_89:** what
**chaseison:** not here
**chaseison:** can i come over
**onza\_89:** sure
**onza\_89:** whats it about
**chaseison:** everything
**chaseison:** you'll see
Chase showed up on his bike about ten minutes later. Both of them had learner's permits, but neither had driven that much. Chase didn't seem all that interested in getting his license--he had that way of not seeming interested even in things that were really important to him. It was an aspect Jason tried desperately to imitate, but most of the time when something really interested or excited him, he wound up acting as eager as a stupid puppy.
Jason tried to tell himself that he wasn't all that eager to drive because it was this foreign, human *thing* that felt alien and artificial and mechanical to someone like him. The truth was, it scared him, kind of--but he wasn't about to tell anyone that, not even Chase, who he could tell everything else to.
When Chase came in, it was like bringing a candle into a cave. He was all easy, loose energy, with blond hair in his eyes and a skater's build, not big or heavily muscled, but athletic in a lean, wiry way. He had the golden fringe of a beard just starting at his chin, and his eyes were a brown so light that they glowed like amber.
Chase could have been friends with anybody, Jason thought, and he would have wondered sometimes why Chase even bothered to hang out with him, except that even wondering that felt like he might jinx it. Chase had been something of a loner when he'd showed up at school the year before. Jason had been a loner, too, but not by choice. Then one day, Chase had said "Cool shirt, bro," to Jason in the cafeteria, nodding at the jaguar on the front, and somehow they'd started talking and hadn't stopped since.
Chase was the only one who didn't act like Jason was weird or obsessed--or *po*ssessed--or simply nonexistent. Instead, he was interested in all of it, too, maybe not as much as Jason was, but not just humoring him either. Chase had taught him how to meditate and how to interpret his dreams, and they spent hours hashing out old myths and legends of shapeshifters and skinwalkers, discussing Aztec and Egyptian gods, and spinning out theories of etheric energy and the true nature of matter.
Chase had always taken him seriously. So if he said he had something important to tell, Jason was ready to listen.
Chase sprawled elegantly on the floor, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Despite the relaxed posture, he looked nervous, and Jason's heart picked up, because Chase *never* looked nervous. It must be something big, which meant…
"So what's up?" Jason asked finally, trying to sound nonchalant and failing as usual.
Chase swallowed. "This is harder than I thought it'd be," he said, as if to himself. He closed his eyes. "Look, I'm not moving, I'm not dying, and I'm not in love with you, so chill. I just… thought I knew how to say this, but now I'm not sure."
Chase opened his eyes, and Jason saw a wash of--tears?--over the amber. There was no sign of them in his voice when he spoke again, though, so maybe he'd imagined it. "I have to tell somebody, and you're the best one. The only one."
Jason sat motionless, transfixed by suspense and the pride of being chosen.
Chase took a breath that seemed to use all the air in the room, then sighed. "It's real, Jase."
A minute passed before he could speak. "What's real?"
Chase waved a long arm at the posters. "They're real."
Jason frowned. "Shapeshifters?"
Chase nodded, still looking at the ceiling.
"You've *seen* them?"
Another nod.
"Seen--what? What are they like?"
"Jaguars. Remember the stories of the capiangos, from South America?" Jason nodded. "Like that, kind of."
Jason had to remind himself to breathe. "Where?"
"Here."
*"Here?"*
"Right here." Chase sat up. "You're looking at one, bro."
Jason stared at him. A minute passed, then another. Then Jason turned away, muscles clenching.
"Dude, come on, listen," Chase was saying, but Jason wasn't listening.
"I never thought…" He would *not* let his voice shake. "Of all people, I never thought you'd do this to me. I thought…"
"Jason."
Something in Chase's voice made him turn.
"I'm not teasing you. I swear it. By everything we've ever talked about, I swear it."
The two faced each other, Jason with every breath burning in his chest, seething with rage and humiliation, Chase with an expression that was almost desperate in its pleading. An expression, Jason noticed, that was oddly earnest. Chase had never made fun of him, and he'd had every opportunity he could have wished for to do it.
Anger melted away, and trust seeped back in. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew, now, that Chase wasn't lying. "You're serious."
"It's a recessive trait," Chase said quietly. "From my mother's side, way back. Ancient."
"How many…?"
"I don't know for sure. Dozens at least. My mom's the only one I know right now. There are clan meetings, every year, but I'm not allowed to go until I'm eighteen.
"I've never told anybody," he continued. "It's too dangerous to tell anybody. But I had to tell you. You're the only one who could understand--what it would be like. What it *is* like. Beautiful and exhilarating…" Chase looked at the floor. "And lonely…"
Jason sat on the bed. His gaze drifted to the open sketchbook and lingered over the drawing. The human hand. The cat's paw…
Jason looked back to Chase.
"Show me."
\* \* \*
The overgrown hollow at the edge of the park was pitch-black in the moonless night. The closest light came from a flood light over by the playground, buzzing and flickering and casting tangled shadows from the swings and jungle gyms. Jason had brought a little battery-operated lantern, and it cast a weak blue-tinted pool of light around them.
Chase undressed quickly and nonchalantly, slipping out of his T-shirt and shorts and placing them to one side. Jason envied him that comfort--if dressing in the locker room while showing as little as possible ever became an Olympic event, Jason would take home the gold for sure.
Chase looked at the lantern and sighed. "This would be *wicked* in firelight…"
He shrugged, then crouched like a sprinter in the starting blocks, one leg bent and the other stretched behind him, head down, fingers splayed.
Jason waited.
Chase breathed slowly in, slowly out, twice, three times.
Jason's jaw clenched. If this was a joke after all--
Then Chase's muscles wrenched and changed, beginning at his shoulder blades, his spine twisting, the change working its way down his arms and legs--muscles and tendons pulling up, stretching out, as if he were a clay model being molded into a new form.
The pelt came next, fur washing over his skin in a wave of gold and black. Chase's hair pulled back into his scalp, and Jason caught a glimpse then of his friend's expression. He couldn't decide whether the grimace was one of pleasure or pain, but it burned itself into his memory.
Jason found himself so mesmerized by the small changes--the fingers shortening into toes, the claws extending when he stretched, the tail sweeping out in a swift arc like a cracked whip--that by the time he looked back at Chase's entire form, the change was complete.
He felt like breathing a string of soft, awed curses, but his mind had suddenly forgotten every word he'd ever known, and there was no breath left in him to shape sound with anyway.
The jaguar--Chase, he should call him Chase; it was still him, after all--looked no different from any animal Jason had ever seen at the zoo or on TV or in pictures. Had he walked into this scene right now, he would never have known that the big cat pacing slow circles in the lamplight had, only moments before, been human.
Jason sat down without entirely intending to, landing in a tangle of underbrush and dead leaves. The jaguar padded up to him, mouth open, breath loud in the nighttime quiet. This was what Jason had always hoped for at the zoo--some recognition, some sign that he and the animal were connected in some way other than just his desperate imaginings. Some sign that he had been Chosen, either now or long ago, when the stars foretold his birth…
But he wasn't chosen. Chase was.
Chase reached out a paw and pressed it against Jason's chest, holding him in the jaguar's gaze for several heartbeats. Then he stepped back, moved away to crouch at the edge of the light, and changed back, the same process in reverse. When it was done, Chase was human again--as human as he'd ever been, Jason corrected himself--lying in the grass, the lamplight hazy blue on his skin.
Chase stood and dressed slowly, looking as if every muscle hurt. The only other time Jason had seen him look so wiped out was the night they'd stayed up until sunrise trying to beat *Castle Morbid 3*.
When Chase was dressed, he sat down in the grass facing Jason, his expression wary but also with a hint of relief, of confession.
"So?" he said.
The underbrush was rustling. Jason started, thinking someone had come up on them, then realized it was because he was shaking. He felt as if he'd climbed to the top of a hill and looked out at a golden city laid before him, a place where he would be king, where every desire would be fulfilled and every wish granted.
His mouth was dry. He swallowed twice, and when he could speak, the words echoed over and over in his mind.
"Teach me."
\* \* \*
Jason slammed his bedroom door--pointless when the house was empty, nobody to hear it, but still satisfying.
This room had been his sanctuary, his shrine, the womb from which he'd be reborn. Now every picture, every drawing, every half-realized hope mocked him.
He snatched at the closest picture and crumpled it in one fist. The tape he'd used pulled off flecks of paint with it. He clawed at the next one, then the next, ripping them, yanking them down, sometimes crumpling them so tight his knuckles ached, sometimes tearing them in pieces, leaving ragged shreds on the wall where tape and thumbtacks still held.
His face was wet. He would have roared if he could have, but no human sound could have given his feelings breath.
"Teach me," he had said, and maybe it had sounded too much like a demand, maybe he should have said "please" or something, offered something in return, but they were friends, weren't they--
--and Chase had looked surprised and said, "I can't. I'm sorry."
All the awe and amazement and possibility exploded. "What do you *mean*, you can't--"
Chase looked helpless. "I just can't. Nobody can. I was born this way; you have to be born with it. I'm sorry," he said again, and he really did look sorry, but it didn't help.
And Jason had looked at him and all he could see was the jaguar, the golden perfection shining like a coin from an ancient tomb, a treasure beyond any price--and not knowing what else to do, he had run into the night, as if the jaguar hunted him, without any thought to where he was going, though of course he'd ended up back home.
Jason paused, regaining his breath, and looked around. If he had been stronger, he would have tipped the bookcase over, spilling out all the dog-eared books bristling with Post-It flags, highlighted and marked up, all his notes in the margins, as if they were textbooks he'd been studying for an exam. Useless, every one.
The only things left on his walls now were the jaguar mask and the poster. He reached to the top of the poster, got the curling edge of the paper under his fingernails--and stopped.
*No*. The thought came in a whisper. *Not yet.*
Chase could have been lying about having to be born that way, but Jason doubted it. He could, of course, also have been telling the truth.
But he also could have been testing him. Seeing if Jason had the will, the desire, the strength. There had to be a way, and of course they couldn't just change any weakling who asked. You'd have to prove yourself first. That was how it worked.
He felt the panther's eyes on him, felt the jaguar's eyes on him, the real glowing gold of Chase's cat-eyes and the empty cutouts of the mask.
Whatever he had to do, he would do it.
He looked at the clock. 12:06. Chase would be in school tomorrow--he never missed--which meant that Jason would have to be there, too, unless he wanted to wait even longer.
There had to be something, he told himself as he lay in the darkness, watching car headlights sweep across his ceiling. There had to be a test, a ritual, a ceremony, something, even if it brought him to death before it resurrected him in his true form.
He dreamed of jungles.
\* \* \*
Generally, school was a place Jason avoided thinking about for very long, even when he was there. *Especially* when he was there. His days typically fell into one of three categories: humiliating, boring, or tolerable.
He walked through the halls with his head down, not looking at anyone or anything in particular. He imagined trees on either side of him instead of lockers, vines hanging overhead instead of the school spirit banner, and the sound of the river instead of the echoing calls of the students.
No, he thought. Monkeys, that's what they were. They were monkeys calling to each other, warning of his presence. He bit back a grin at the thought.
*If they only knew what I am... *
He cornered Chase at lunch, out on the little patio where the kids who went out to sneak smokes mostly left them alone.
Chase, as usual, was eating some kind of veggie wrap in a green tortilla. It had never seemed all that strange before--Chase had said something about meat messing up a person's aura or karma or something like that--but now, remembering the claws, the power in those jaws… Well, you just didn't expect to see a predator eating rabbit food.
Chase caught Jason's expression and grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I know. I'm not supposed to have red meat until I'm presented to the clan. They say it makes the cat harder to control, and I'm still too young." He shrugged.
Jason wondered suddenly if they should be talking about this out in the open, but a quick glance confirmed that no one was paying any attention to them. And anyway, he realized with an odd sense of satisfaction, anyone who *did* hear them would just think they were talking about their usual crazy stuff.
He wondered how to ask. He didn't want to just blurt it out… A simpler question, then, to start with. "What does it feel like, when you're changed?"
Chase thought for a moment before answering. "The cat's mind and my mind are both there. Separate, but…" He laced his fingers together. "Like this. It's both me, but the cat sees and understands everything differently. It was really confusing at first."
"When did you start?"
Chase took a gulp of his juice. "Mom says I changed at three months, and then a few other times when I was really little, mostly if I was scared or upset. But the first time that I remember, I think I was six or seven. That's when she started talking to me, about what we were."
"What do you do?" Jason almost whispered the question.
Chase smiled. "I've got a hell of a scratching post in my room, remember?"
"That log? You said it was going to be a totem pole."
"Yeah, well, it kind of is." Chase drained the last of his juice, tipping his head back. Jason watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, reminding him of how Chase's muscles had moved and stretched as he changed form.
"I went to the park a few times, until Mom caught me there one night," Chase continued. "Ever since then, she drives us out to the state forest every couple of weeks or so, to let the cats roam awhile. She says the park's too risky. Too many people around, even at night."
"But we were there."
"Had to risk it that time. I could have changed in your room or mine, but there was too much chance somebody might walk in, and my cat doesn't like feeling cornered."
Jason shivered.
"Besides," Chase said, "it's easier to change with my feet touching the ground. It has something to do with the earth's energy. Indoors, I have to pull it up through too many levels… It's hard to explain."
Chase broke his brownie in two and handed half to Jason. "You don't know how sweet it is to talk about this. I've wanted to tell somebody forever."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
Chase ate his half of the brownie in one bite. "I had to be sure you were the right one to tell."
Hope fluttered in Jason's chest, and he realized he was smiling. "So… um… You said you have to be born that way. Isn't there… another way?"
"Not that I know of."
"I mean--you know--maybe something the clan could do? Some kind of ceremony?"
Chase looked uncomfortable. "Listen, if there was any way, anything… I mean, just to have a friend who could change, it would be…" He couldn't find a word and just shook his head, then smiled. "We'd tear the place up, you know it.
"But I've asked. Believe me, I've asked. I drove Mom crazy asking, when I was little. She said I had a crush on this girl named Amy in second grade, and I wanted to change her so we could get married and go live in the jungle together."
Chase toyed with the foil the brownie had been in, folding it smaller and smaller. "And after you and me started talking, I asked her again. I didn't tell her why. I thought, maybe there was a way, and she just didn't tell me then because I was too little.
"But there isn't," he finished. "Not getting bitten, or drinking water out of a pawprint, or anything like that. It's just… in the blood. That's all."
Chase looked Jason in the eye. "If I ever find a way, ever, I swear I'll tell you. But it doesn't exist."
The bell rang. Chase got up and stuffed his trash into the can. He looked back at Jason as if he wanted to say something else, maybe apologize again, but then he turned and swept himself into the flow of students, heading back to class.
\* \* \*
Jason paced his room, well aware of the irony in it--did Chase change and pace this way, when he couldn't leave his room?
He had been trying to meditate, but it felt pointless now. Why wait for some kind of vision when he knew, now, that it was real, when he'd seen the change with his own eyes?
He couldn't name the feelings that were rising in him, threatening to spill over, to ignite. His eyes were dry, though he felt that if he'd let it, the tight pain in his chest would become a sob. He was angry, he knew that much, that was easy.
It wasn't supposed to work this way.
It wasn't, his mind repeated, again and again, a child's tantrum. It wasn't, it wasn't, it *wasn't.*
To find out that it was real, that people could change, that he didn't have to be trapped in an awkward body useless for anything… And then, to find out that it wasn't meant for him…
It was a cruel game he was all too familiar with: snatch away his lunch, his homework, his jacket, hold it just out of reach--taunt him with it--toss it to someone else. And laugh.
And it was Chase dangling the prize this time, Chase who could have had whatever he wanted, Chase with his easy smile that made girls look twice when they never even noticed Jason was there, Chase with golden good looks who never got teased and could have started his own clique, let alone joining any.
Chase who had, who had always had, the one thing Jason wanted. The only thing.
It wasn't supposed to work this way.
He found himself standing in front of the jaguar mask, the one he'd made in art class three years ago, and as he stared into the empty eyes, an idea rose and gathered like smoke, each spiraling tendril of thought fading into the haze of the ones before.
There had to be a way, and there was. Of course Chase didn't tell him, couldn't tell him--who could blame him?
He breathed the revelation in like incense. Closed his eyes and savored it, felt it strengthen him.
Then he opened his eyes and dove under the bed.
\* \* \*
Chris, the guy who ran Dragon's Lair, hadn't wanted to sell it to him, not at his age, not without ID. But Jason and Chris both knew there wasn't much keeping the place open, and you still had to pay your lease even in a crummy rundown neighborhood mall. Not that many people went in for swords and pewter dragons and incense burners shaped like skulls. Chris had taken to stocking hunting knives and racecar merchandise just to get some sales.
Chris said it was real obsidian, practically a museum-quality replica, and worth at least three times the price on the tag. Hell, he'd added, it was worth that much just for the carving on the handle.
Jason knew well enough that an authentic obsidian knife would never have been so elaborate, but he had to admit, the snarling cat *was* impressive, even if the emerald eyes were probably fake. And as he'd looked at it, he'd felt a stray chill edge along the nape of his neck, and a vague tingling at the borders of his perception--a sensation he liked to think of as phantom whiskers. No matter what it was or wasn't, it was supposed to be his. So he'd put down what he had, and made payments every week when he got his allowance, and even manned the register a couple of nights when Chris wanted to go out with some girl. And soon enough, it was his.
Of course, he wasn't stupid enough to show it off. He wrapped it in an old pillowcase to protect it, put that into a shirt box from Christmas with a smiling snowman on it, and shoved the box under his bed until it hit the wall. Not the most original hiding place, but good enough for parents who weren't into the queasy ethics of snooping. He took it out every couple of weeks just to look at it, to remind himself that it was still there. Waiting, although he hadn't known then for what.
Now he dragged the box out, bringing several dust bunnies with it, opened the lid, and unwrapped the pillowcase until the knife lay black and shining before him.
He tested the blade and jerked back, a drop of blood welling on his thumb. He'd cut himself with it once before, on purpose, part of a ritual that hadn't worked.
He heard Chase's voice again, distant but clear:
*It's just... in the blood.*
Jason drew his upper lip back from his teeth. In a mirror, he knew, the gesture would look either grotesque or silly. But in his mind, he saw the thick white fangs, heard the hissing snarl as he bared them, saw the flashing fire of the predator in his own hard emerald eyes.
\* \* \*
"Silence," Jason said, and Chase nodded. Chase hadn't said anything about the pictures and drawings missing from the walls, and he didn't say anything as Jason took the papier-mâché mask from the wall and put it on, tying the black yarn behind his head. It focused him like a horse's blinders, paring his field of vision to the two narrow eyeholes.
Chase hadn't seen the knife before. Jason watched his eyes, pleased to see the uneasiness there when he brought it out.
*You didn't think I'd guess.*
He had told Chase it was a new ritual. A cleansing. And Chase, with an easygoing shrug, hadn't protested when Jason bound his wrists behind him with a length of hemp cord.
Now, as the drums on the CD player reached a crescendo, Jason laid the knife's edge against Chase's throat, just where the skin pulsed with each heartbeat.
He pressed the blade in, just a little, and heard Chase's breath hitch.
"Jase…" Softly, uncertain. Jason looked in Chase's eyes and was rewarded with the first flicker of fear.
This was what it was to hunt.
A red line welled at the blade's edge, finer than any pencil could draw. Jason could taste the blood in the air. He opened his mouth slightly, pulling in the scent.
Chase's eyes were wild now in a way that had nothing to do with his nature. "Jason," he rasped, "Jason, come on, it's *me*…"
Jason gripped the knife tighter, felt the emerald stare burning his palm. Oh, yes, there was power here; he could feel it filling the space between them, and if it couldn't be given, it could be taken, if you killed the one who had it…
Jason was on the floor before he knew what had happened. The knife fell soundlessly to the carpet. He should have bound Chase's ankles as well--
Chase was on his feet, unsteady with his hands still bound behind him.
"I thought you would understand," Chase said.
Jason grabbed the knife and scrambled to his feet.
"Go on, then," Chase said, panting, blood soaking into the collar of his shirt. "Anyone can take prey when it's tied up. That's not hunting. That's being fed."
They stared each other down, one moment, two. Then, jaw clenched, Jason grabbed Chase, yanked him around, and sliced through the rope.
Chase hit him low in the belly and spun away as Jason doubled over, trying to get his breath. When Jason looked up, he saw that Chase had begun to change. He couldn't tell whether it was intentional or born out of the stress of the fight, but it looked as if the change had stopped halfway. Chase was standing in a half-crouch, his skin dappled with shadows of the jaguar's rosettes, his nails lengthened to claws, ears flared and pointed.
His eyes, Jason saw, were the cat's… and yet, somehow, still Chase's. Amid the jaguar's gaze, he could still see intelligence, consciousness… and sorrow.
"All your life," Chase said, his voice strange from the shape of his mouth and chest, "all your life, you wanted magic. You wanted proof that something more existed. Now you have it. You could be happy just because it exists, just to get a glimpse of something beyond.
"But you want to kill it, you want it gone, just because you can't have it. Just because it isn't the way you wanted it to be. You don't want magic. You just want power. You want to make everybody pay. You want to make me pay for accidentally having what you want."
Jason wanted to shout back, that wasn't what it was. Kill him and he'd have the power, it worked that way, it had to…
*You don't want magic. You just want power.*
Chase snarled, a cat sound from a human chest, and slapped the knife from Jason's hand in one swift stroke. Before Jason could react, Chase held the knife, and Jason held his throbbing hand and waited.
Chase put the knife to his own shirt collar and cut the clothing from his body. As the fabric fell away, his fur released. He turned and opened the window, and by the time he turned back and dropped into a crouch, the change was almost complete.
Chase shoved Jason to the floor and tore the mask off with his teeth, filling Jason's field of vision with the jaguar's eyes. He edged a claw down Jason's shirt, tearing the fabric, then laid a heavy paw on Jason's bare chest, right where his heart was pounding.
It was hard for Chase to speak now, but Jason understood.
"You want to be more than human? Start here."
The change was complete. The jaguar held his gaze for several seconds, then turned and leapt through the window, disappearing like smoke into the night.
\* \* \*
The room was different now.
While Jason was away, his parents had taken down the panther poster and repainted the walls in a soft shade of peach. The faded blue-gray carpet was gone, replaced with a warm honey color. It was soothing, like being cupped in the curve of a seashell. He supposed that was why they'd done it.
He sat in the center of the room. A moment ago, the soft chime on the CD player had gently signaled the end of the meditation, and now he was sitting quiet and still, letting his thoughts float back to him one by one. Remembering.
He did not remember much of what happened after Chase left that night. He did not remember the wounds that had scarred his wrists, though they said someday he might. He knew that somewhere, there was an obsidian knife, museum quality, with his own blood dried on the blade. He wasn't sorry it was gone.
He stretched and laid back on the carpet; it was thick enough to be comfortable. The window was open, letting in a mix of birdsong and street sounds. He would go back to school tomorrow, to finish what was left of the year.
He would not see Chase there. Chase and his mother had moved, his parents told him, two weeks before. They didn't know exactly where; someplace out west, they thought, something about being closer to family. Jason had been--well, too sick for visitors, but Chase had left a gift for him.
They were wary of letting him keep it, but in the end they gave in and had it professionally framed. The print showed a jaguar lounging in dappled shade. Its eyes were oddly gentle, and yet they seemed to challenge him, in all the best ways.
His parents had been wary of the other item on his wall, too, and he guessed he couldn't blame them, considering. But they had hung the mirror without argument, and its wooden frame matched the print's, like a set.
He stood now and went to it, staring back at himself for a long minute. Green eyes, dark hair, thin frame. Human.
It was not all he wanted to be, not all he craved to become. But he couldn't deny what he was, any more than Chase could. Human wasn't perfect, he knew--far from it. But in the end, human wasn't the worst thing to be.
It wasn't a bad place to start.
This work and all characters (c) 2007 Renee Carter Hall ("Poetigress"). May not be reprinted or redistributed without written permission.