I sighed. “I think—I think there was—well, I don’t absolutely know it was a cobey, but it was something. At the park. This afternoon. It was pretty electric. And the army hammered down.”
Val looked at me. I looked at Takahiro’s long-fingered hands holding onto his blanket. The silence got kind of thick. “I hope you will tell us about it some time,” said Val at last.
Maybe. Just not right now. I could hear Val really wanting to know, and I should tell him, but I was thinking about how beautiful Taks’ hands were. When he’d been a bony little boy his big hands had been part of his strangeness. But they were elegant and graceful now, even holding a ragged old blanket closed with one of them, and petting my hyper dog with the other.
“About half an hour ago many of the gruuaa left abruptly,” Val said. “I did wonder if that was to do with you, Maggie. Shortly after that the quality of the sweep changed, and I could see it was causing Takahiro increased distress.” Val stopped and waited again.
Takahiro said reluctantly, “Yeah. The first whatever—sweep—was like olly-olly-oxen-free on the playground. The second was like they’d got the bloodhounds out and were coming in after you.”
“At this awkward juncture Elaine knocked on the door and said there was a man in a military uniform who wanted to talk to ‘everyone in the house,’ which meant Takahiro as well as me. I could not risk that he might know that Takahiro was here. This man—Major Donnelly—asked me many questions, most of which I did not know the answers to, but I did not like that he was asking. I have suspected for some time that I may be on a list of potential malefactors—that if anything unusual happened in this area they would wish to re-examine me. Until last night I found this ironic. Today . . . I was as stupid as possible without, I hope, being deliberately rude.”
Takahiro said softly, “Val’s English got very bad.” He was almost smiling. Mongo was in one of his rubber-skeleton poses, licking the hand that was petting him. Dog therapy. It’s good.
“Yes,” said Val. “Very bad. I might not have gone to pieces quite so quickly except that I knew what was happening to Takahiro by then, and I wanted the good major out of the house before it did.”
Takahiro’s head snapped up. “How did you know?” he said. “How did you know?”
Val patted his shoulder. “I have met your kind before, of course. They are not widespread anywhere on this world, I believe, but we have a few in Orzaskan and the rest of the Commonwealth. They frequently have a talent for magic.”
I remembered the sense of something trying to stop me from going to the shed—and the go-away-stay-stay-stay once I was inside.
“As the change approaches, there is an unmistakable smell.”
“Hormones,” said Takahiro bitterly.
“They peak just before the change becomes visible,” Val went on, cool as spring rain. “It was rather close by the time we finally saw the good major through the door again. I’m afraid that’s when Mongo escaped, although he did us a favor—the major had the decency to be embarrassed, and wished to help Elaine catch him. I escorted Takahiro back out here where—er—there is less to break. But you were remarkably self-restrained.”
“I might have killed you,” said Takahiro. “You don’t know. You go nuts when the change comes.”
“You were not nuts at all,” said Val. “I have seen much worse. And it is in the highest degree unlikely that you could have killed me.”
There was something about the unshowy way Val said this that made me for the first time feel that I was seeing a little bit into Val’s old life. Perhaps including why his government had ordered him and not someone else to do . . . what they’d told him to do. Why Casimir’s mom thought what she thought. How it wasn’t an accident—or a coincidence—that eight hundred zillion gruuaa had followed him into his new life, even though he hadn’t known they were there. Or that Newworld, even though they let him in, maybe had him on a list.
“It would—I would—” Takahiro sighed, a long, long, weary sigh. “Thank you. It’s—more awful when you’re alone.”
“Yes,” said Val. “I have been told that by other young weres. But—have you not finished your training? If Maggie hadn’t come home soon I was considering going through your wallet for the name and phone number of your mentor. I hadn’t done it immediately only because I hadn’t decided how to manage the conversation with someone who might not be your mentor. I assume it is not your dad?”
Takahiro gave a creepily bark-like laugh. “No, not Dad. Dad’s not—like me.” There was a pause, but Val was clearly waiting for more. “I don’t have a mentor,” muttered Takahiro to Mongo. “I just . . . cope. Mostly.”
Val stood up. He looked like he wanted to pace but there wasn’t room. He sat down again, this time on the chair. “That’s . . . inhuman, if you will forgive the term. I am sure weres are uncommon in this country, but . . . in Orzaskan it is illegal for a young were not to have a mentor—an authorized, trained, experienced mentor.”
“I had my mom. Till she died. Then they forced my dad to take me.”
I didn’t mean to but it burst out: “Forced?”
“Yeah. I’m why he left, you know? When he found out.”
Val rubbed a hand over his face, as if wiping the look of pity away before Takahiro saw it. “It’s genetic. Both partners must have the gene to produce a shape-changer. He may not be able to change himself, but he has to have known he carried the gene.”
“If he knew he had gene, he is not saying,” Taks said jerkily. “But my mom is—was—kitsune. She say—says—he knew before he married her. I don’t know if he’d’ve liked me any better if I changed into fox. But I changed into good old unmistakable Newworld timber wolf and he freaked out.”
“But he’s your father,” I said—and kind of realized, as I said it, some of the echoes of what I was saying, with Val standing there.
Takahiro shrugged. “Yeah. And he pays housekeeper me—to feed me. But I was ten when Mom died and they sent me here. I was a little old for leaving in basket at police station door. My mom’s family didn’t want anything to do with me. They hadn’t been happy about her marrying gaijin. When I turned wolf, they cut her off. Me too of course.”
“But—don’t you—I mean, when—”
“Don’t ask me about the full moon,” said Takahiro even more wearily. “Full moon is no big deal. I mean, you do feel it, but it’s about as dangerous as having a bath. It’s worry and stuff makes you turn. You want to know why I’m such a grind? Why I get straight As in everything all the dreeping time? It’s not because I’m so incredibly brilliant, or because I like studying my brains out. It’s because I can’t afford to be worried about tests. Just in case.”
Val said gently, “Your mother must have taught you how to turn voluntarily?”
“She tried. But I’d figured out my dad left after he found out I was ’shifter, you know? I think it kind of shorted out system. I think also it was different for her—woman and fox—although she never said so. She used to say, it’s okay, we try again later. . . .”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. There was a faint tap on the door, and my mother’s voice said, “Are you all right in there?”
Val opened the door and my mother looked in. “Oh, Takahiro, I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said. “You were right about Maggie,” she added to Val.