“I’m sorry this is so small,” I said, reaching towards her. She struck at the wire with an odd, fluttering snarl and I jerked my hand back; but when she left the paw on the wire, flexing it, I reached in and stroked the back of her paw-then swallowed. Her claws had to be over four inches long. Jesus. They felt hard and cruel under my fingers; but the monster paw seemed to relax under my touch. “It was the largest they had, and you’re… bigger than I remembered.”
Cinnamon blinked at me slowly, then yawned and withdrew her paw.
Trembling, I stood and stepped back from the cage. “Get some sleep if you can,” I said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to get ready for school on Friday.”
Cinnamon just stared at me, and after a minute I turned and walked away.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
I made busy work for myself around the apartment-turning on lights in other rooms, putting Cinnamon’s rags in the washer, taking off my own worn clothes, putting my vestcoat in the hamper for the drycleaners. When I unlaced the corset, I saw the hole Philip had poked at. It went clean through the front, though I had no wound in my belly.
Half of me felt lucky to be alive; the other half just felt pissed. I had no idea how the expensive handmade garment could be repaired, and I didn’t have the coin to drop on a new one, not between Cinnamon’s tuition and the payments on the blue bomb. The Valentine Foundation welshing was really messing me up. I should never have bought that car before seeing the first cent of my winnings. Now, everything was harder.
I dumped the corset in the hamper and went to the kitchen. I laid down canned food for the cats, wondering where they were; probably somewhere in the apartment, tucked up into frozen little balls, more scared of Cinnamon than I was.
I had no idea what to feed her in this state. Perhaps I should run to the store and get… what? Raw meat? Hell. I threw away the pet food can reflexively and glared into my separated bins. There weren’t enough recyclables to warrant the drive. Stupid City of Atlanta, all they picked up was trash. At least that was full; taking it out gave me some semblance of normalcy.
I stomped down the stairs towards the trash can and stopped halfway down. “Hello, Mrs. Olsen,” I said, feeling rather than hearing her presence beside me.
“Hello, Dakota,” Mrs. Olsen said. Her long hair only looked grey against the soft folds of her long purple sweater. She had cultivated a spinsterly appearance after her husband had been killed in Iraq, but she had a son not much older than Cinnamon on his first tour over there. She smiled, her cherubic face dimpling as she lifted a wastebasket filled with papers, aluminum cans, and an old phone book. I strongly suspected she’d left it by her own back door and waited to take it out so she’d have an excuse to talk to me. “You know you can call me Donna.”
I watched her dump enough recyclables to finish off my own separated loads and shook my head. “All right, Donna,” I said, marching down the stairs. “I’ve just always felt odd calling you anything other than Mrs. Olsen. I guess it was the way I was raised..”
“Now, Dakota,” Donna preened, as I dumped off my own trash. “You’ve been here too many years for last names-and to think you’ll be gone soon. I will miss you.”
“I did want to talk to you about that. Did you get my message-”
“I’ve got the nicest young couple ready to move into your flat,” she said, leaning forward and letting her voice drop to a whisper. “Lesbians, if you can believe that.”
“Imagine that,” I said, smiling.
“I’m really glad to help them,” she said, gesturing with the garbage basket. “They even offered to paint my flat rather than pay a security deposit.”
“But I’m willing to bet you’ll just let them skip it,” I said. Donna had done the same for me, a few years ago, when I’d been hard up and needed to find a place after splitting with Saffron. “Did you get my message? Can they push their move date back-”
A piercing screech erupted from the top of the stairs, followed by a loud crash. Donna’s head jerked up suddenly at the horrible yowling alarm that wailed out of my flat and the weird, freakish chirping that followed. “Oh my God, I think something’s killing your cats… ”
And before I could stop her, she dropped the wastebasket and bolted up the stairs.
“No, wait,” I said, following her. I reached for her sweater, but my fingers closed on the air as Donna really put on speed, bursting the door open and turning on the light. She froze in there, then jerked back so I almost ran over her.
Cinnamon remained in her bowed-out cage, but awake, alert, snarling, as two of my cats yowled back at her. Little black-and-white Xanadu stood not three feet away, spotted back arched so high it looked like someone was pulling up on her belly with an invisible coat hanger; big old raccoonish Rafael was crouched down by the kitchen door, curled up as tight as he could get, with food bowls and recycling hampers tumbled every which way around him. Cinnamon snarled again, then saw me and, eyes wide, struck the cage with her paw in a sudden plea, emitting the freakish chirp we’d heard below-like a monster bird crying for its mother.
I relaxed a little. The cats had just padded in to get their food, then everyone freaked. No one had hurt anyone; it was just another period of adjustment. Something else to get used to.
But not, apparently, just for us.
“Oh my God,” Donna cried. “You have a tiger-”
“She’s not a tiger-” I said, but Donna kept babbling.
“-brought it into my house,” Donna said. “A pet tiger! ”
At the word pet Cinnamon’s head jerked up and she growled, making Donna press back against me. I raised my hand. “Down, Cinnamon,” I said sharply. “You’re not helping.”
“Cinnamon… ” Donna said, turning to me, eyes wide in horror.
“She is a tiger, but she’s not a pet,” I said. “This is my daughter, and she’s a-”
“A were- tiger,” Donna said, shrinking back against the wall. “I’ve heard of such things, but… werewolves are bad enough, but were- tigers… ”
“There’s nothing to fear,” I said, turning off the overhead. “You’ve met Cinnamon.”
“Yes, yes, yes, I have, ” Donna said, fear becoming anger. “And you had her standing not three feet from me showing her off like she was a normal human being.”
“She is a normal human being,” I said, realizing as I said it how ridiculous it sounded with Animal Planet near bursting out of a cage before us. “With a condition. She gets furry-”
“This may be all very funny to you,” Donna said, straightening up, adjusting her sweater, but still plastered against the wall as far from Cinnamon as she could manage. “But it’s not funny to me! Not funny at all! Lycanthropy is a disease. It’s contagious! I want you out of here-”
“But we’re not ready. In fact, we need to extend our lease,” I said, rubbing my brow. I knew where this was going. “I told you in voicemail, our closing date was pushed back.”
“I don’t care what happened to you,” Donna said. “You bring this thing here into my home, this thing that could infect me, and expect me to shelter you? I want you out!”
I exhaled sharply. “ Fine,” I said. “We’ll be out Monday, like we agreed.”
“No,” Donna said, drawing herself up. “I want you out now, now, now!”
“Donna,” I said. “We have a lease-”
“I don’t care!” she said, voice growing more shrill. “I won’t have this diseased thing in a home that I own for one more instant! You get her out of here or I call the police!”
“Donna-”
“Get out! Get out! Get out! ” she screamed. “I’ll not have a monster under my roof!”
A Frosty Family Dinner
“Mom,” Cinnamon said softly in the passenger seat. “Why did you fold?”
The last few days had been a blur. Finding a hotel. Smuggling Cinnamon inside. Turning the tiger back into the schoolgirl; losing the schoolgirl within the school walls, if only for the day. And dealing with the awful, awful mess left by the werehouse fire.
