All The Dark Places

17. This Is Not A Fairy Tale

     Ivy was naked. This would not be a problem, except that Ivy Bracks was outside, on a lawn chair, sunbathing in front of the Bracks cottage. Rosalind hated to admit that nudity made her feel uncomfortable, and once she examined that thought, she realized that she never before consciously realized that nudity made her feel uncomfortable. But Ivy was naked and taking in the sun and what was wrong with that? It was her house, her lawn chair, and her body. Still, she felt awkward when she cleared her throat to announce her presence. The girl pulled down her sunglasses and smiled. 

      "It is hot out today. You know, it never gets this hot around here. It's weird, don't you think?" 

      Blistering hot, in England... well, yes. 

      "Maybe it is environmental damage. I mean, from The Crush." 

      "The Crush? I like that," she tested the word in her mouth. "The Crush. It does describe what happened. I think we will all call it that soon. I'll make it happen. Like fetch." 

     Rosalind smiled at the Mean Girls reference and felt strange about a reference to a world that just weeks ago was normal, but now seemed worlds away. 

      "Ivy, is your father here?" she asked, averting her eyes, though Ivy didn't seem to care. 

      "He's out back in the shed." 

      "Oh. Well, um... I'll go and see him then." 

      "You shouldn't go back there." Ivy took off the sunglasses and glared at her. 

      "Why not?" 

     Ivy hesitated and drew a long breath. She sat up and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the raffia bag at her side, lighting one with a match that she struck on her thumb. 

      "He's got one of those things in the shed and it bit me." 

     She sighed in an exhale of smoke that clouded her strange face. Her eyes were set too far apart, her nose a little too high, her forehead a little too long. All this combined made her anything but ugly. She had the kind of intriguing face seen on European actresses. She was lanky though, her body wiry and strangely muscled. She reminded herself that this young woman hiked for miles every day, practiced at archery every day and likely lived a life on par with most athletes. 

      "Ivy, are you all right?" 

      "Do I look like I'm not all right?" 

      "No. You look... healthy. Where did it bite you?" 

      "On my wrist." She took another drag and offered a cigarette to Rosalind, who shook her head no. "I was trying to move it into a jar and it bit me three days ago. Dad has the one Deka caught out in the shed and he's been dissecting the thing." 

      "Why didn't you say something, Ivy?" 

      "Because right after it happened everything changed." 

Ivy stood up then, and her nudity seemed simply natural and no longer noticeable. 

     "You want to see something trippy?" 

     Nodding, Rosalind stepped back. Ivy seemed almost feline in her long, sleek grace. She stalked forward a few steps and raised one eyebrow over dark smokey eyes. 

      "You should stay back. Try not to freak out," Ivy warned. 

      She watched as Ivy Bracks stood to her full height, shoulders back. Goosebumps prickled over Ivy's freckled skin in a strange pattern, as if something moved just beneath the surface. Rosalind tensed and backed up a few more steps. Ivy suddenly hunched over unnaturally, some kind of force crunching her at the ribcage. It was ghastly to witness. Her legs curled under her, and she fell to the ground, her body half the size it once was and curled into a twisted mass in the fetal position. Rosalind held her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. Ivy's feet curled, her fingertips pushing into the flesh of her palm and breaking open the skin. Her body was pushing into itself, becoming something else entirely. A piercing howl came from what was just moments ago Ivy's mouth, but now was an elongated thing, patched with fur that grew at an alarming rate. Flesh split open and fell off of the body in grotesque chunks onto the grass, revealing fur growing in underneath. 

     The fur sprouted all over the strange mass of a body. It was an agonizing howl, something she had never heard before. Unnatural. The creature uncoiled and she could do nothing but fall backward, her hands gripping the lawn chair to secure herself. The furry creature opened upturned black glossy eyes; it's mouth stretching in a yawn. A wolf. A rather large wolf, even larger than Max. The wolf was covered in a wet sheen of blood and foulness. Unable to compose herself, she wretched and was sick at her feet. Ivy was changed. She had become a wolf. Adding to her nausea, the wolf bent it's massive head and licked at the offal on the ground, eating up chunks of Ivy's skin it had shed. The wolf was Ivy, and Ivy was the wolf. Slowly, she stood and stepped toward the wolf. Toward Ivy. The wolf growled, and she stopped in her tracks. The great beast tilted its head toward the left, and the gesture was strangely human. She instinctually understood the gesture for 'follow me' and she did follow in the wolf's path. 

     They made their way through the thicket of trees behind the Bracks cottage to a stream that fed into the lake. The stream widened to a small section just big enough for her to wade in up to her waist if she tried. The wolf wasted no time jumping in and cleansing itself of the offal that marred its fur. She found a perch at the edge of a large fallen tree trunk and watched in fascination. The wolf came bounding out of the water, shaking its body and casting off the water. Its fur was a silvery gray, likely lighter if it dried. It's ears twitched toward her. 

      "I don't know what to say," Rosalind said. "I don't know if you can understand me." The wolf nodded its massive head, and she covered her mouth. "This is spectacular. I can't even describe in words. This is amazing, Ivy. Oh dear God, you're not like this permanently, are you?" 

     The wolf hauled itself up onto a stone and jumped into the water again. It splashed there a while, and she could not take her eyes off the creature that was beyond a miracle, something pure magic. Then she saw the color of flesh, a flash of blood and hair in the water. Human hair. The wolf took on that crippled form again, twisting and shedding its wolf skin, a fresh and dewy pink human skin appearing under the fur as the silvery gray fur shed away from the body. The eyes changed. The palms uncoiled from paws to the hands of a lovely girl once more. Eyes opened. Mouth opened as if to stretch the human jaw into normality. A very naked Ivy Bracks stood in the water, stretching upward and sighing. 

      "Oh my God, Ivy... my God..." 

     Then the girl smiled and spoke, 

      "I told you it was trippy." 

      An hour later, Rosalind's hands stopped shaking enough to be coherent. Ivy had climbed up into the low hanging branches of a tree and was munching an apple as if nothing strange had happened at all. The only evidence of what just happened was a fresh pink glow to her skin, the pink and velvety skin of a newborn. 

      "Hey, you're finally coming around," Ivy said, jumping down and crouching in front of her, offering her a bite of an apple.She did her best to smile, truly enchanted and yet terrified by what had occurred. 

      "Ivy, you have magical powers for three days and now you try to hand me a red apple like the evil queen in Snow White?" Ivy smiled at that and Rosalind quickly added. "But it's OK. I don't think you're evil." 

      "Good, because I don't think you're Snow White."