The Turning Season Read Free Page B

ushers Alonzo into the house to make sure I have human food supplies on hand as well, before she pushes back out through the door to tell me good-bye.
    â€œHe says he’ll be fine out here on his own for a couple of days, but I’ll call in the morning, of course, to make sure everything’s all right,” she tells me. “As soon as you’re human again, give me a call, and we can talk over a few things.”
    I don’t answer, of course, and she sighs. “Known shape-shifters for more than forty years and I still forget that they can’t
talk
to me,” she says. She comes close enough to scratch the top of my head with her short, blunt fingernails. “Catch you later.” Five minutes later, she’s gone, her car lights sending a brief searching arc of illumination across the barns and trailers and clumps of grass as she makes a U-turn and drives away.
    I hear Alonzo rummaging in the kitchen, then I catch the beep of the microwave. I wonder what he’s found in the freezer that appeals to him. I’m not a particularly inventive cook, but I like to make batches of chili and stew and soup and freeze them against the erratic onslaught of company. There are weeks at a time when I’m the only human for five miles. Then there are weeks when I have five or six other people staying on the property. I like to be prepared to feed them, at least till they’ve had a chance to lay in their own groceries.
    The door creaks and Alonzo steps outside to join me on the bench. It’s chilly, but that never bothers Alonzo; he likes being outdoors in all kinds of weather. He’s balancing two plates and has stuck a can of soda under his left arm. One plate holds a steaming pile of chili con queso so thick it doesn’t need a bowl. The other features a small mound of canned tuna and a slowly melting scoop of vanilla ice cream.
    The chili’s for Alonzo. The tuna and ice cream are for me. I don’t care much for fish when I’m in human form, but this shape loves it—and Alonzo, being Alonzo, remembered that.
    Ice cream I love in about ninety out of a hundred of my incarnations.
    The thoughtfulness makes me wish I could put my arms around Alonzo and give him a big hug, but instead I rise to my feet and prance around on the bench to show how excited I am about the prospect of a meal. He sits down, placing my plate on the bench where I can easily reach it and resting his own on his knees, then pops the top of his soda. We settle in to eat in companionable and satisfied silence. He must be as hungry as I am, because we’re done in about ten minutes, and—being Alonzo—he straightaway takes the dishes in to wash them.
    When he comes back outside, he’s already got his iPod in his hand and his earbuds in place; unlike Bonnie, he’s not going to attempt to make conversation. But he sits next to me again, which for Alonzo is a striking overture of friendship, and he gives my head a cursory pat. I feel my mouth stretch in a huge feline yawn, exposing all my wickedly sharp teeth, and I lick the last trace of ice cream from my whiskers. I’m tired again, and I curl up in a ball beside Alonzo, close enough so my back rests against his thigh. He lays a gentle hand along my rib cage and I hear him laugh out loud when I begin to purr.
    I think, for this short period of time, anyway, Alonzo is actually happy. All in all, the day that started so disastrously has brought with it its own extraordinary gifts. Not at all what I expected.

CHAPTER TWO

    T he next two days pass harmoniously enough, with Alonzo taking Bonnie’s phone calls every morning and evening, spending a couple of hours a day caring for the animals, and the rest of the time playing video games or reading. He’s not a natural reader, but Bonnie has insisted he finish a book a month and she’s told me he’s found a few authors that he actually admits to liking. Most of them appear to be