Shapeshifted

“You’re hot. You should sit down.” Fully inside my house now, he took my shoulders and directed me toward my couch.

“I’m totally, utterly okay,” I said, letting him push me down. “Can I have your hand again?” Looking at me strangely, he offered it over, and I pressed it to my face again. “This is a good hand. I like this hand.”

“Okay. Edie. You need to calm down. Wait here, okay?” He freed himself, closed my door, and went down my hall. I was there for an hour or twelve, but then he came back and handed me a wet washcloth.

“What were you doing with my cat?”

“Edie. You’re sick.”

“No I’m not.” I would totally shake my head to tell him no, only my neck hurt so so bad.

“Yeah, you are.” He reached into his phone for a pocket. Or the other way around. “We need to get you some help.”

“Fine.” I was tired. Now that I was sitting down again, the sleepiness was taking me.

He smiled at me, a warm light in his eyes. “See? You’re still fine.”

“I’m not sick.” I looked up, petulant as any child fighting sleep. “I hate you.”

“You are sick. I know you don’t hate me.” He held his pocket to his ear.

I remember saying, “Don’t tell Olympio anything,” and then I thought I was going to pass out.

I’m pretty sure I did. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Wherever I was when I woke up, it smelled like smoke—not like cigarette smoke, but like hippie smoke, herbal stuff, and pipe tobacco. A dim lightbulb hung overhead. The ceiling was dingy, stained yellow with smoke and neglect, the walls mostly hidden by colorful banners with phrases in Spanish. I recognized the names of a few saints, and there were posters for soccer tournaments from 1973. There were statues on a cheap table at the back of the room, skeletons wrapped in robes and holding scales and scythes, like the background of a pretentious metal album. Something crinkled beneath me as I moved my head—and sitting up, I realized I’d been lying on tinfoil.

“What the—where—” I patted at my pockets, looking for my phone. My mom. I had to call my mom—but the last things I remembered didn’t involve putting on pants.

“El durmiente despierta,” said a voice in Spanish. A man I didn’t recognize was watching me. He was smoking a pipe, sitting among the statues, and the light in here was so dim I’d thought he was one. He had one whole leg and one that jutted out and ended, amputated at the knee; a crutch leaned on either side of his chair.

“Where am I?” I skittered backward from him, wrinkling the foil.

“Edie—” A familiar voice from behind me. I turned around and saw Hector at the door.

“What is this?”

“You were sick. So I brought you here.”

Olympio peeked in behind him. Suddenly I knew where I was at. “Oh, God. Take me to a real hospital.”

“You don’t need a real hospital now! My grandfather cured you!” Olympio pointed at the strange man behind me. I looked back, and he tapped out his pipe into a wastebasket by his good knee.

There were no windows in this room. “What time is it? Tell me.”

Hector found his phone inside his coat pocket. “Three A.M.”

I’d taken an Ambien at ten P.M. No way I was awake now. Oh, shit. “How long was I out for?” I stood, unsteady, my feet slipping against the tinfoil I’d been lying on. Now that I was standing, I could see it was in the shape of a cross.

“A whole day. You were very sick.”

My mother had probably been freaking out for almost two days. She already had one derelict child—she didn’t need two. “I need to get home. Right now.”

“It’s only been a day. I’m sure your cat’s fine. And I’m your boss, it’s not like I’m going to fire you. You were really ill.”

There was a wetness on my neck. I reached up and found a poultice there. I pulled it off, and it crumbled in my hand. It smelled like tobacco. “Jesus Christ!” I flung the remnants of it down. “If I was really ill, why the hell did you bring me here?”

Hector’s face darkened, but it was Olympio who spoke first. “Hey! I told my grandfather that you were cool! Worth saving!”

There were still pieces of what looked like wet spinach stuck to my hand. I looked back at Olympio’s grandfather, who was stoically contemplating what an asshole I was. I took in a few huge gulps of air to calm down. “It isn’t—I’m sorry.” I made sure to look at his grandfather. “I’m really sorry. Thanks for healing me. I think. But I’ve got some other things I need to be doing with my time.”

He leaned forward and held out an egg to me.

“Don’t touch it,” Olympio said. “He’s just showing it to you.”

I thought it was stone, black marble in the shape of an egg, until Olympio went on. “The egg holds what my grandfather took from you. The badness, muy malo, very bad. He put it into the egg to protect you. And when you leave, he’ll take care of it, so it’ll never attack you again.”

Olympio’s grandfather spoke, and Olympio translated. “But he won’t be able to stop you from putting new bad stuff back inside yourself.”

“Thank you,” I said, as sincerely as I could, then turned to push my way through the door.

* * *

Hector followed me down the hallway and stairs as I raced my way out. I didn’t know where I was going, I just needed to get home.

Halfway down the hall I realized that those had been statues of Santa Muerte in his room. I should have asked him about her. Of course. If anyone had a direct line to obscure supernatural entities, it was a man who took badness out of people and put it into gothic Easter eggs.

I made it out of the building, hitting the street almost at a run. “Hey—slow down!” Hector called after me. I darted through a group of people standing, and they laughed, either at some joke or to see a lost white girl on the lam. Hector caught up to me.

“Where are we? I need to go. I have to get home.” He reached out to feel my forehead, and I ducked away. “I’m fine. I just have to go.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Me? Why did you take me to him? What was that about?”

We were underneath a sputtering streetlight, and Hector’s face was full of concern. “He was the best doctor for the kind of illness you had.”

“Does he cure cancer?”

“No.” He pulled back as if I’d hit him. “Do you have cancer?”

“No. My mom does. I was supposed to go see her the other night.” I went through my pockets, looking for my phone or anything at all, but then realized that when Hector had gotten me out of my house, he probably hadn’t thought to bring my purse along. “I’m sure she’s worried sick. Sicker. You know?” I laughed at my own poor joke.

“Edie—I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s why I started working at your place. I couldn’t bear to be at the sleep clinic one more night, once I knew. I couldn’t just sit there, not doing anything. It’d drive me insane.” I looked around, trying to figure out where I was, where the nearest train station would be, only I didn’t have any money on me. I whirled on him. “I need to go home now. I have to call her tonight, even if it wakes her up.”

“Or you could just ask me for my phone?” He held it out to me.

He was right. I’d had my mother’s phone number memorized since we’d moved in second grade. I stuck out my hand without saying anything. Hector dropped his phone into it, and I dialed.

“Mom? Peter—Peter, yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I was really sick. No, I’m better now, thanks. Really sick. This