The Turning Season Read Free

grip, trying to get a look at her face, and attempt to express my opinion.
What’s going on?
It comes out, of course, as a musical burble. I could as easily be asking for dinner.
    â€œI know, I know, he’s fourteen years old,” she says. She has known shape-shifters for most of her life and never seems ill at ease conversing with them in animal form. “But you know he knows how to drive. He can go on first in the Jeep and we’ll come along behind him. If he has any trouble, well, we’ll just pull over and leave the Jeep on the side of the road.”
    Of course I know Alonzo can drive. I taught him myself—in my Jeep, as a matter of fact—but we stayed mostly on my property and were never this close to a well-traveled road. It’s true I’ve never seen cops on W, but they’re constantly patrolling 159, and that’s entirely too close. Bad enough that Alonzo’s too young to get a license; he’s also African-American, and most of the cops in this district are white.
    When I try to get this point across to Bonnie, she just shrugs. “She’s worried that you can’t handle it,” she says to Alonzo.
    He nods. “I’ll be careful. Keys in the car?”
    â€œThat would be my guess.”
    He climbs out of the station wagon, unfolding his lanky body with care. He’s taller and skinnier than Bonnie, growing taller and skinnier every day, though I know she and Aurelia feed him enough calories to turn him into a linebacker. But it’s not just adolescent awkwardness that makes him move so stiffly. He was an abused child, a shape-shifter whose father feared and hated him, and I’m not sure we’ll ever know the extent of the damage done to him. Bonnie says his torso and limbs carry dozens of scars, though she hasn’t seen a physical reason for the precise way he moves and holds his body. But I’ve never seen him loosen up, even for a minute. Never seen him dance with abandon or run with joy. I don’t know if he can.
    I give up trying to argue and make myself comfortable on the seat still warm from Alonzo’s body. It’s a matter of moments before Alonzo starts the Jeep and edges it past the station wagon and Bonnie takes off after him. In this shape, I can’t accurately judge speed or distance if I’m not moving under my own power, but it seems to me that we’re traveling pretty sedately. If we don’t, in fact, encounter any police, we are home free, because Alonzo is the most careful driver on the planet.
    Bonnie talks for the duration of the trip. “I don’t know how long you won’t be human, but I thought I’d leave Alonzo with you for the next few days,” she says. “He can do the chores and feed the animals and call me if you need anything.” She glances over at me. “We’ve taken him out of school for the semester—thought we’d try homeschooling for a year and see if that goes any better,” she adds. “He does have a couple of friends, and they’ve been coming over in the evenings but the classes just weren’t—they weren’t—I don’t think Quinville Middle School is the right place for him.”
    Bonnie and Aurelia have been taking care of Alonzo for the past two years, ever since Ryan rescued him and brought him to us. They’re the perfect foster parents. Bonnie’s a retired teacher and Aurelia’s a lawyer, and they’ve fostered kids off and on for the past ten years, so they both know the system. Oh, it might seem like a black kid from an urban neighborhood wouldn’t find the best home with two whiter-than-white lesbians in a rural setting, but I can say this for certain: When he came into our lives, he wouldn’t speak. He was afraid to touch anything. He only ate when no one else was looking. He slept on the floor for the first three months, seeming to believe that climbing into the bed made up in the