The Mountain's Shadow

“But you are smart enough, Joanie-cat,” he’d told me. “You just need to see what’s right in front of you.”

I looked at the books I’d pulled off the shelves. Claude Lecouteaux’s Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages. Lycanthropy Case Studies and The Mysterious Disappearance of Hillary Baehr by a colleague of mine, Iain McPherson. Iain was a Scottish researcher who had devoted his life to seeking out and studying lycanthropes who developed CLS as children. We had met at an international conference, had immediately felt the connection of kindred spirits, and had kept in regular contact until I had lost my job. We had an agreement to share what we knew. I wondered what he would think about what I had discovered here at Crystal Pines: not just lycanthropes, but actual werewolves. The final books behind the seashell cat were Herbology by someone I’d never heard of and The Genetics of Lycanthropy and other Rare Psychological Disorders by—and it hurt to read his name—Robert Cannon.

The first book made sense, as it presented a fascinating summary of the possible origin of werewolf legends in the Middle Ages. The ancient Scandinavian people had a different understanding of the soul. The spiritual part of a human had three parts: the fylgia, or psychic double, often seen as a female representation of the self that can act prophetically; the hamr, an aspect of the soul under the control of some people, which can take on a different form and travel when the individual is asleep; and the hugr, which can motivate the hamr or can represent universal principles of behavior. Some believed werewolves were actually the peoples’ hamrs, their spirits taking on another form after they left the body to carry on works that may or may not be diabolical.

I had seen physical transformations, not just behavioral. The books on the table indicated my grandfather was also looking into the old legends, that a person didn’t physically transform, but rather their spirit did. Once in animal form, the person could then effect physical change on the environment such as carrying objects and wounding others. The problem was that whatever happened to them in that form also happened to their human body. Hence the stories of someone cutting off a werewolf’s paw and the person, usually a witch, waking with a severed hand.

Iain’s books detailed modern cases. In one, a woman named Hillary Baehr had displayed lycanthropic symptoms but then had completely vanished from a locked padded cell in 1956. No sign of struggle or forced exit were evident, and investigators could never get any of the staff to admit to aiding her. It was one of the earliest cases of a psychic, in this case Hillary’s sister Bethany, being brought in to aid police. All Bethany could tell them was that Hillary’s energy had changed. The case so fascinated the psychiatric community that it was still used as an example of poor facility management. Iain had studied it from a different angle and put it in a context similar to that of Lecouteaux’s book. I had no idea how Herbology fit in. Robert’s book had posited the premise that certain ethnic histories predisposed individuals to psychological disorders, and he used lycanthropy as being present in people descended from the Scandinavians as his primary example. His argument was that, due to immigration and emigration and a host of other factors, these disorders were becoming rarer because they were dependent on a certain combination of genes: one to make them susceptible to the disorder, and another to make that first gene express. If both genes were recessive, it would take a multigenerational process for them to activate the syndrome. So far all he had was theoretical family charts and formulas. I had been working on a similar project to map out the factors associated with CLS when the lab had caught fire.

How all this fit together with Charles Landover’s disappearance, I still needed to figure out. However, before I could begin to make notes, there was a beep. I hadn’t noticed the intercom on the desk.

“Doctor Fisher?” Gabriel sounded like he was miles away.

“Yes.” My exasperation and having been knocked out of my focus was evident in my voice. It wasn’t so much as a “yes” as a “leave me alone!”

“The sheriff is here.”

Chapter Nine

I took a deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth to ease my frustration. “I’ll be right out.”

I put the books in the desk drawer to my right. Not that anyone would be able to tell with a glance what I had been working on, but one never knew how nosy the cops would get. I reminded myself that the sheriff had a legitimate reason for being there: a woman who had gone missing had died in my home. I couldn’t hide amongst my books if I was going to prove my innocence.

I walked through the den and surprised a forensic team member in the act of wrapping the leather couch to be transported to their lab in Little Rock. I hated to lose it—it had been my grandfather’s, after all—but I decided I’d rather not be reminded someone had died on it. I made a mental note to talk to Gabriel about whether we should replace it with a different style of furnishing. When I walked into the kitchen, Lonna was pouring the sheriff a fresh cup of coffee.

“Nice of you to join us, Doctor Fisher.”

“Thank you for stopping back by, Sheriff.” Gads, I hated being fake, but it wouldn’t do to get the man riled up at this point.

“Ms. Marconi was telling me she slept through all the excitement last night.”

“She’d had a long day.”

“She also can’t account for your whereabouts after approximately nine p.m.”

“I can assure you I had my coffee on the balcony with Gabriel and went to bed.”

He took notes as I talked. “When did you wake up?”

“I don’t have a clock visible from the bed, but it was probably about two a.m., maybe a little later.”

“What woke you up?”

“I’d been sleeping fitfully, so it was one more awakening.”

“Any idea what disturbed your sleep?”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “My life has just been turned upside down, Sheriff. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes, right.” His ears turned pink. “Did you hear anything?”

“I heard a noise from outside, something moving the gravel on the driveway. Then footsteps downstairs, an exclamation, and then the front-door bolt being unlocked.”

“Anything else?”

“I wanted to see what was going on, so I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and put on a robe. The running water kept me from hearing anything else.”

“And then what happened?”

I filled him in from that point, but instead of mentioning the black wolf, I just told him Louise had been trying to warn me about something, but she’d not been able to articulate anything. He took notes. Finally, he asked me, “And what made you pass out in the kitchen?”

“I’m not an M.D., Sheriff. I get a little squeamish at the sight of blood.”

He shook his head with a superior smirk for the poor little woman who couldn’t take blood. “And you’re a doctor?”

“A different kind.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“The boys’ll take the couch. Just in case, you know.”

Before I could ask, “Just in case of what?” Gabriel interrupted. “I would say it’s pretty obvious what happened. She appeared here on the lawn and died on the sofa.”

“I don’t really think it’s necessary to take the furniture, Sheriff,” Lonna chimed in. “If you need to see it again, you can come back.”

He hooked his thumbs in his belt and planted his feet. “These orders come from above me, people. I’m just doing my job.”

“I’ll send you a bill,” I muttered.

“I’ll, ah, also need those clothes you were wearing last night, Mr. Gabriel.”