Julia - Back in town

[moonshadows]

"Do you have anything nice to wear in that trunk?"

"Mother, I am not opening the trunk, okay? Just stop asking."

"Fine, you don't want to show your mother your dirty underwear, that's fine. Just tell me you have something nice to wear in the duffle bag, then."

I turn to the doorway where Mom stands with her arms crossed. "Why?"

"You're coming with me to a party on Carpenter's Knot. We'll be leaving early in the morning to surprise the guest of honor and coming back late Sunday night. Bring a gift, and I want you on your best behavior."

I haven't been back for a full day and already I'm being ordered around. "Are you at least going to tell me who the guest of honor is?"

"Her name is Audrey. You don't know her. Vince, Dave, and the Chief will all be there."

Oh, a regular party crew. "So you're bringing me because Audrey's about my age and she'll need someone to keep her sane."

Mother scowls. "Just remember to be on your best behavior. I may not have given birth to you, but I'm still your mother and as long you live in my house-"

"-I obey your rules," I sigh. "Fine. I'm still not opening the trunk."

 

The boat only feels crowded. The tension between the Chief and his son fills half of one side and on the other, Uncle Vince and Uncle Dave are bickering. That leaves me and Mom to lean against the back in stoic silence. I feel like I'm a child again, forbidden from stepping out of line without permission, and jet lag is the only reason I'm even awake at this hour. Mom crowded me on board so fast I didn't have time to look for the Cape. Probably just as well; it's been more than ten years. Duke probably doesn't even remember me. Stupid persistent teenage crush.

We bustle out and up to the hotel in a half-chattering, half-silent line, boxes held in hands and bags slung over arms. They all get piled onto a luggage trolley and hidden in the room across from the fancy sitting room to the right of the main door, where the trappings of a staidly festive party are set out. This would be where Mom was while I was dead to the world, no doubt.

"She's coming!" hisses Uncle Dave urgently, twitching the curtain back down.

We all crowd together behind the door, shushing and hissing and falling suddenly silent as a female voice I assume is Audrey announces, "This place gives me the creeps," and the door opens. Then we're all shouting "Surprise!" and my mother is handing a party hat to-

...to...

My eyes zoom in on familiar patches of facial hair, lock onto unruly locks of hair above cheekbones I haven't consciously been able to picture in years, the Mac Tonight curve of jaw and chin and I am so, so screwed because Duke Crocker is somehow even more attractive than I remember him and I've grown from a skinny little teenager to a skinny little woman and now I know why Mom warned me to stay on my best behavior.

I have got to move out.

"...I didn't even expect it from the girl I don't even know! Hello."

"Julia Carr, Eleanor's daughter," I answer automatically, most of my attention on Duke maneuvering around the other guests. "I just got back in town."

"She was in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps," Mom butts in.

"Darfur, actually." I haven't been in Ethiopia in three months. "With Doctors Without Borders." Not as a doctor, which will be a disappointment but not a surprise to Mom. I don't intend to tell her what position I've been filling.

Audrey glances between us briefly, noting the tension but not saying anything. "Well, thank you. Thank you for coming."

Like I had a choice. I smile anyway. "I brought margarita mix?"

Either she really likes margaritas, or she's desperate for a female friend her own age. "Will you marry me? Please?"

My train of thought is suddenly derailed by an arm around my shoulders and Duke saying, "Julia here had the biggest crush on me when she was just a wee lass."

"Please." The disavowal is reflexive after all the teasing I heard. I turn to face his collarbone, afraid to lift my eyes despite how badly I want to do it, certain my face is bright red because he's close enough that I can feel his body heat, smell his skin, and his arm is very solid around my shoulders. Mom's going to have kittens. In for a penny...I reach up and touch what passes for his beard lightly, drowning when my eyes meet his, my smile no doubt giving away more than I wanted but I can't bring myself to care. "I put up with your hipster chin fuzz so you'd tell me cool traveling stories."

He looks past me to Audrey and my mother, more satisfied than the cat that got the canary and washed it down with cream. "She loooooved me."

Nope. Can't do this. Nope. I take the opportunity of Nathan retrieving the trolley to flee to the deepest corner the room offers and hide my face behind anything that presents itself. It's not the teasing, it's how badly I want it to be more than just teasing and how afraid I am that someone will see that. Someone like my mother, under whose roof and rules I am living for the foreseeable future.

From the safety of the corner, I watch Audrey talk to Nathan, presumably about presents, while Duke continues to look beyond pleased with himself and gives my mother a wide berth. It's almost funny, how she looks in Audrey's direction to make sure the birthday girl is otherwise occupied before glaring ineffective death at the smug gypsy. Then old man Carpenter bursts in like he's throwing doors open, and Mom forgets about Duke to go make nice with the host. I creep out to join the others, hoping to get a word alone with Duke or at least arrange a word alone, but he's hovering like he's waiting for an opportunity to talk to one or the other as Audrey and old man Carpenter start talking about someone named Lucy, and then the power flickers.

"Oh, the power is temperamental with the weather," he apologizes. "Uh, excuse me while I check on the generator."

The instant he's out of sight, Mom claps her hands. "Okay, everybody, let's take the presents to the table."

Ugh. She hasn't changed in fourteen years, but I have, and I remind myself forcibly of that as I open my mouth, but it still comes out weak and childish. "Do you mind if we get settled in first, Mom? Pick out rooms, that kind of thing, before you start...you know...cracking the whip?" Good, Julia. That absolutely sounded like a mature, assertive adult and not a whiny teenager. You have a spine, do try to keep that in mind!

Mom looks at me with that special blend of confusion and affront. "I'm not cracking the whip. I'm trying to get everybody organized."

It's a party, Mom. It doesn't need to be organized. But what I say is, "I'm just saying maybe ask first." Then, crossing my fingers because picking out a room is a glorious opportunity to get a word with Duke, "Anybody have a preference?"

Thankfully, there's a chorus of agreement, and Mom rolls her eyes. "Do whatever you want," she sighs.

Well, thanks, but I'm pretty sure you'd have kittens if I did. Plus, you know, he has a say in that, too. The uncles hustle past bickering about bunk beds and Mom follows, but I lag behind under the pretense of picking my bag off the trolley. Nathan and the Chief have a brief awkward discussion before he takes both of their bags and my excuse with him. I grab mine and glance at Duke, but I guess it was Audrey he wanted a word with so I slip upstairs with the intent of waylaying him when he follows.

Unfortunately, my mother had the same idea and herds me off to pick a room with hissing whispers of "my roof" and "best behavior" and something about causing a scene at Audrey's birthday party, but I'm not listening because it's clear she's going to pick a room right next to mine, so I try to find one with an open room to the other side. I don't so much as see Duke, and leave my borrowed overnight luggage on the bed in plain view, wishing I had chalk to mark the door because I'm not completely sure anymore where in this building we are. Then I let Mom herd me back downstairs.

I have got to move out.

The uncles have beaten us back to the "party room" and we sit in slightly-awkward silence broken by meaningless pleasantries for a few minutes, waiting for everyone to congregate again. Uncle Vince murmurs to me that I'll need to come and "catch up" with them once we get back, which just reminds me that Haven is the gilded cage in which I'll be spending the rest of my life - and that the gilding is brass. Duke wanders back in, takes in the tableau with the uncles on a couch, Mom on a chair, and me hovering nervously, and decides the opposite side of the room is the better part of valor. Which I can't blame him for, but that makes me even more restless. God, he's barely looked at me since the initial teasing, do I even have a chance? Maybe he's having a thing with Audrey and that's why they arrived together. Aside from the more logical explanation of Duke having a boat. I need to not jump to conclusions. It's been almost a decade and a half, he did say "when she was just a", meaning he doesn't see me as a wee lass anymore. I hope. Oh, god, do I hope because I am a strong, confident, accomplished woman and if I want to tell an attractive man in no uncertain terms that I think he's attractive and am open to the idea of casual sex, then I can absolutely chicken out because oh god my mother is watching me pace.

Fuck.

"Anybody seen Audrey?" Mom asks when the Chief joins us.

Duke half-raises his hand. "Uh, just long enough to know she was looking for Mr. Carpenter."

"I left my birthday presents in her room," Uncle Dave says smugly. "Figured she needed an outfit for the party. She's gonna look fantastic."

I really hope I find out why Audrey is worth such a fuss, because my mother doesn't throw parties like this for just anyone. Did Duke find a room? Can I find his room? Can I sneak out later without my mother catching me?

"Oh, sweetheart," she says, as if she sensed me toeing the line of my best behavior, "would you get Vaughn and get him to find some matches? I forgot to bring anything to light the cake with."

Ah, yes. Send your daughter out of the room before she comes within arm's reach of That Crocker Boy again. "Aye, aye, Captain." My eyes go to Duke, hoping to see a ghost of a smile at my oblique inside joke, but he's staring off at nothing.

Nathan arrives finally and gets told to find Audrey, which will be a trick because he doesn't even know where his room is, much less hers, does he? But then she arrives wearing the kind of dress I'm sure looks better on the hangar than it does on me, with accessories to match.

"Sorry I'm the last one here," she says. "Took me a little bit to figure out this whole…glam…thing."

Uncle Dave left his presents in her room. This is...? As I pass him on my way out of the room, I lean over and remind him of when my birthday is. Then I go looking for the kitchen or something because how the hell am I supposed to find the old man in this place? I don't even know where I'm going, I should have grabbed a pocket full of cheese cubes and left myself a trail. At least there's probably nothing here that could eat it before I need it to find my way baaaAACK!

The girliest shriek I have ever heard in my life has left my throat and run screaming down the hall before I even register what I'm looking at, and then I can hear Duke calling my name and pounding footsteps and then everyone is there, staring in horror with me at...at...

"What the hell is that?"

I don't even know who's said it, I'm still staring like it's going to stand up on its deflated legs and lunge for me. The part of me that's not frozen in terror listens to the Chief explain that old man Carpenter was a chameleon, that it's shed his form and killed one of us, taken their shape, but all I can think is, skin. Not shape. Skin. Someone among us is a monster in stolen skin.

And I don't have any weapons.

Chief herds us all back to the party room and takes center stage, explaining what'd happened the first time he saw a chameleon. How to keep from being taken. But he's not...he's not saying anything about how to find...what to do with...there's things he's not saying and I keep quiet because I'm not even sure what it is I think he should know.

Duke questions the coincidence of us happening to be right where it is and it comes to light that we were lured here. Things get loud. Audrey shouts everyone into silence. I sit on my chair, feeling vulnerable, needing to ask people private things privately before I can trust anyone but I don't...I don't know what to ask Nathan, or Audrey, or the Chief...

Someone suggests calling for help, but it's no good. We're trapped. There's a boathouse, maybe there's something that can be used to escape? But no, Chief says, we can't risk letting it get back to the mainland and deep inside, I know he's right. We're trapped. We have to kill it. I don't have a weapon. Don't panic. My knives and guns are packed away, but there has to be something here I can use...and someone...

My brain finally registers what my eyes have been saying and I snap back into the moment in time to hear what sounds like Audrey, Nathan, and the Chief all going down to the boathouse together, leaving the mostly- and supposedly-vulnerable people alone here. If the chameleon is in the second group, we're screwed. It's probably in the first group, it wants to take out the biggest threats first. It can't be the Chief, or he wouldn't have told us everything.

"Are you armed?" I ask him, giving absolutely no shits about what I may have just interrupted. Everyone's looking at me, but I don't care. "'Cause she is. I mean, she's all be cool and whatnot..." I gesture vaguely at Audrey. "She's got a gun. How do we know she's not the-" for a second another word almost comes out of my mouth, but then it's gone. "-thingamabob," I finish lamely.

“I am not the thingamabob,” Audrey protests, her very tone declaring how ludicrous the entire idea is. Then she lists off personal details, which means absolutely nothing, as Nathan points out, because none of us know her well enough to verify if she’s telling the truth. Then she removes a gun from her purse and a second one from the thigh holster I saw under her dress, making a big deal about how she could have kept it hidden if she was the “bad guy”.

Big deal. I can kill a man three times my weight with my bare hands. If she was FBI, I don’t doubt that she can do the same, and that’s not even taking into account any chameleon powers she might have. Mom distributes guns and clips, tucking the bigger clip into her bra and handing me the little one while Dave and Vince get the matching guns respectively. Good; I know what to ask Uncle Vince to prove neither of us are the chameleon, I should be able to get the gun fairly easily.

“Anybody else?” Audrey asks challengingly.

Duke isn’t intimidated. “I’d certainly feel better if the other two badges weren’t packing.” He throws it into the center of the room, daring them to protest.

Nathan says his service weapon is in his bag. Chief claims he’s not armed, but he only shows us one ankle. Good; he’s armed and smart enough to not let on. If it’s Audrey or Nathan, he’ll be able to defend himself. And if it’s one of the rest of us…well…

I can kill a man with my bare hands. I don’t doubt I can kill a chameleon, too, although something in me squirms away from touching that. Well, it’s not like I wasn’t going to look for a weapon.

With the matter of weapons settled, the three officers leave for the boathouse. Naturally, Mom conscripts me to go to the kitchen with her and make a pot of coffee. Decaf, because no one needs to be any more jittery than we already are. I look for a good knife while we’re there, collecting mugs and helping ourselves to the cream and sugar because what does it matter? Old man Carpenter’s dead, his wife’s gone, who’s going to use it? But there’s nothing good, it’s all too big or too small, and anyway, Mom’s watching. She doesn’t know the things I’ve done, she wouldn’t understand. When we come back to the party room, the uncles abandon the cheese platter for the coffee pot.

Cheese…

There’s a cheese knife. It’s a good length, blade is solid, the curve on the end is a little weird but it will work for slashing and I can get it to work for stabbing in a pinch. It slices nicely into my back pocket just as Mom comes over.

“What did you do?” she asks, greatly suspicious.

“Nothing,” I lie.

“You took the cheese knife!” She’s utterly baffled by this.

I almost laugh. “If I did, why wouldn’t I tell you?”

“Who knows why you do half the things you do,” she says darkly, and I know she’s talking about Duke, about leaving to see the world.

“Really? Now? You want to…have this conversation now?” Because I am more than ready to have it. I don’t have to stay under your roof. But no, she backs down.

“I’m sorry.” Yeah, that’ll be the day. “Oh, I love you.” Here it comes… “Please. Let’s not fight?”

My mother is not the chameleon. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed, or relieved. Time to give her what she wants. “I love you too, Mom.” That gets me a kiss on the temple and she lets it drop.

And that’s when I notice that Duke’s gone.

I sidle up to the uncles. “Hey, you two have been in earshot of each other since we got here, haven’t you?”

They look at each other.

“Well, yes,” Dave says.

“So neither of you can be the chameleon because the other would have heard something, right? Did either of you hear anything suspicious?”

“No,” Vince admits slowly. “That was quite clever. You’ve been paying attention. We thought…”

“Mom’s not the chameleon,” I interrupt, not wanting to know what they thought. “She’s been watching me like a hawk and we just had a not-fight.”

“But what about you?” Dave asks. “Why do you like the color red?”

“Because it’s the tomboy version of pink,” I answer immediately.

They grin at each other. “That’s our little Julia,” Vince chuckles.

“Yeah, but that narrows it down to Nathan, Audrey, the Chief…and Duke.” Dave looks grim. “Any of them could be very dangerous, and Duke’s gone to the attic to poke around. Alone.”

“Because you were too chicken to go with him,” Vince says pointedly.

I glance around. Mom’s across the room. “I can test Duke, but you’re right, they’re all potentially dangerous but I don’t think it’s the chief, so that’s one down, and I learned how to be dangerous out there in the world, too. Give me the little gun, Uncle Vince, before any of them get back?”

“You know how to use this?” he asks as he hands it over.

It takes me seconds to assemble it and slip it into my waistband. “I may not be able to shoot the wings off a fly at fifty paces,” I assure them, “but I can sure as hell put one between the eyes of a man at twenty.”

“Given the circumstances,” Dave says, “that’s fairly comforting.”

Duke comes back a few minutes later with some tools in a sack an and old radio, which he sets on the low table. “No one touches this but me,” he announces in a hard, challenging voice as he sits on the chair I’d previously occupied. “I know I’m not the chameleon, so right now, I’m the only one I trust.”

None of us argue the point. The other three sit down, but I have a knife in my pocket and I continue to wander restlessly until the Chief comes back with the two potential chameleons. Maybe it’s premature, but I’ve mostly ruled Duke out. The chameleon took out the land lines, it would be counter-productive to try to fix an old radio instead of working on those.

“Well?” asks Mom as they come back in, shaking rain off.

No boat, no raft, nothing but lanterns and roaches, says the Chief. Duke says he had better luck in the attic, and Nathan almost-chides him for not sticking together, but when Duke announces that he might be able to fix it and no, he doesn’t need any help, there’s no protest.

Nathan suggests we look for the body. Chief suggests we split into teams to do it, and sends his son with me and Mom. It’s like everything is conspiring to keep me from having even a few private words with the man whose opinion has meant more to me than all of Haven’s, and who’s done more for me without asking anything in return…

Sullenly, I follow my designated teammates as we start searching for a body I really don’t want to find for reasons I can’t articulate. The longer we search, the more I think about finding Nathan’s body…having to go for the knife, or the gun…

I can feel mindless, animalistic terror start to claw at the back of my mind as the horrifying thought dawns on me that maybe, when we find the body, we won’t be able to identify it because the chameleon’s taken the victim’s skin to wear.

“Julia? You okay?” Nathan looks wary but concerned and no, I’m not okay.

“I don’t want to die,” I tell him, because it’s easier than trying to vomit up the tangle of wordless and half-formed fears that’s really bothering me. “Not here, not like this.” That, at least, is closer.

That gets Mom’s attention, and she leaves off checking under dust sheets to come over. “You’re not going to die,” she chides, like this is an amusement park ride and not a game of hide-and-seek with a killer. “Stop talking like that. We’re with you.”

Oh, goody. A middle-aged woman who has no idea of what her daughter is capable of and will be a liability in a fight, and a man who may in fact be the monster we’re hunting. “No offense, Mom, but that’s not real comforting.”

She gives me the offended-confused look again. “Why not?”

“What would you do if it was me?” The words burst out of me. “Huh? What if I were the face-stealing monster? What would you do, Mom?”

If her reaction is anything to go by, she’d die with a look of hurt confusion on her face.

“Take it easy,” Nathan says calmly. God, how can he be so calm?

“We’re looking for a dead body,” I point out hotly, “and one of us is a monster.” Please let it be Audrey. Please let the Chief deal with it. Please don’t make me… “This isn’t a movie, Mom. There isn’t going to be a hero coming to the rescue and a happy ending for the protagonists. Think about how many characters survive this kind of movie! I’m clearly not the female lead, I’m The New Girl and I don’t have a hunky Love Interest to…traipse off into the sunset with!” I’m also no longer using my Indoor Voice, but ask me if I care. “Are you the hunky love-interest male lead, Nathan? It’s either you or Duke. Should I start…confessing my deepest fears so we can bond but not do anything else until the monster is dead, and then share a single silhouetted kiss? You shouldn’t want this to be a movie,” I snap at my mother, “because if it were, the writers would kill off either you, or the Chief, or both for the emotional impact! Especially if they decided to overlook the blonde in favor of the skinny little brunette and make me the plucky female lead!”

The door behind me opens and another girly shriek makes its way out of my throat, only to be mostly bitten back as I see the Chief behind said blonde who would so be the female lead.

“Hey,” Audrey says, and damn her for looking good in that dress, “is everything okay?”

“I think we should switch teams,” Nathan deadpans.

No one moves, uncertain who exactly Nathan is referring to, and then Mom comes up and puts her hand on my arm. “Don’t fight me, okay?” she says, hugging before I can do more than open my mouth. Then she pats me on the arm again and walks out of the room.

Chief follows her, leaving me with both the potential chameleons. Either I’m going to die, or someone is going to seriously regret picking on the skinny little Carr girl. Hell, maybe it is Audrey, and Nathan will come to my rescue Love Interest style, and then I’ll have to tell him I’m not interested because I’m not a Good, Wholesome Girl, I’m a tiny assassin who is now the only person in the room with not one, but two weapons.

…I have a gun. And a knife. That’s more than I’ve had in other situations. I can do this. I’ll be okay. Deep breaths. Audrey is looking at me.

“Still, she tells me what to do,” I say, the first words that come to mind.

Audrey just shrugs and shakes her head. Between her and Nathan, they’ve got this room searched in what feels like seconds.

“Sorry about before,” I say from my perch on the edge of the bed as we’re searching the next room. “I kind of lost it.”

Audrey sits up from checking underneath it. “It’s an intense situation.”

“Not like I haven’t had those. You know, I left for fourteen years so I could see what the world outside this stupid, crazy town was like and live my own life without her controlling me. I’m back for one day and I’m trapped on an island with a face-stealing monster, and she’s acting like I’m still a child.” Do not look. Do not look. “Guess I should have stayed away longer.”

Since it’s abundantly clear that I’m not going to actively search for the dead body – the better to get backstabbed by the chameleon, no thanks – I get up off the bed and sit at the desk to poke around.

“Hey,” Audrey says, “not that it’s any of my business or anything, but staying away? Even though it’s easier, you miss out on a lot of stuff, too.”

Yeah, like fourteen years of Duke. Not like I’m going to say anything there. Luckily, there’s actually something interesting in the desk – a bunch of newspaper clippings, including one of Audrey. When I say as much, both of them come over to look, which isn’t nerve-wrecking at all. There’s a couple of old man Carpenter: him getting last rites because he’s dying of bacterial meningitis, and then one three days later about his “miraculous recovery” which was probably him being eaten by the chameleon, and his wife looking like she’s the one facing death. Audrey makes a disturbingly compassionate argument for the wife choosing to live with the thing which now looks, acts, and effectively is a perfect copy of her now-dead husband, and I no longer really suspect Nathan.

“The idea of having a wife, a home, an actual life…it must have been like a dream come true for him,” he says with a touch of sympathy.

“Twenty-seven years, and the Troubles come back, and it all goes to hell.” Then Audrey changes the subject to what it all has to do with her, and decides to talk to Uncle Vince about it.

For safety’s sake, we go back to the party room where everyone but Duke has congregated again, and Audrey and Vince go up to the first landing to talk. Mom looks at me, lips pressed together, and turns away. Chief edges casually over.

"You alright?" he asks quietly. When I give him a look, he says, "I don't think it's you. Seen too much to not recognize real terror. If you'd've been the one, you never would have screamed like that."

"I don't think it's you, either," I tell him in an equally quiet voice. "You wouldn't have told us everything if it was you. Mom's been on me since before we even got here, and Vince and Dave didn't hear anything suspicious."

"That narrows things down, now, doesn't it?"

Before I can voice my suspicions, Duke bursts in from outside, dripping wet which does nothing for making him look any less attractive but distracts me horribly from the entire issue of the chameleon because god damn. Fresh pirate on the half shell, yes please. As an afterthought, once I manage to tear my eyes away from his darkly tousled hair and the way his shirt is clinging to his chest, I notice he's got a lantern in one hand and an axe in the other and is pointing it at Nathan with fury on his face.

"You stay the hell away from me!" he yells, axe raised in a no-nonsense kind of way.

Nathan glowers. "What is wrong with you, you freak?"

Everyone's staring now, Vince and Audrey emerging from the stairwell, completing the wary circle surrounding Nathan.

"I went down to the boathouse," Duke seethes, setting the lantern down, "and guess what I found. A boat. A perfectly good boat, until you shot it!"

"I didn't shoot the boat," Nathan says calmly. Too calmly. This wasn't a surprise.

"Where's your gun, Nathan? 'Cause I looked in your duffel bag. It's not there."

I wonder where he found the axe, and if he searched Nathan's room before or after finding it. The question as to where his gun went is somewhat more troubling. Chief could have it; he did bring Nathan's bag up, but we didn't know about the chameleon at the time. So the chameleon probably has it.

Nathan looks like he’s trying to be patient. "Put the axe down."

But he doesn't. "You're the chameleon. Where's your gun, Nathan?" he repeats, louder, angrier.

"I left it in my bag." Nathan doesn't rise to the bait. How the hell is he staying so calm? But then Mom starts babbling about the boat, and the uncles join in, and he shouts, "I didn't do it!"

Once again, Audrey steps fearlessly into the fray. "Inside voices, please! Alright, listen," she says when both of them have subsided. "We need to figure out who the chameleon is-"

"Were you not listening? I just-" Duke interrupts, but he gets interrupted back.

"No! Who the chameleon is, and what we're gonna do with him. Or...her," she adds, like it's an afterthought, but it just makes me more certain...and uncertain, because she's been the voice of reason. What's her goal? Is she a danger? "All right? I have an idea." She crosses the room to the pile of presents. "We can't really know what the chameleon knew about the person that it took."

But we can, because she said it herself: a perfect copy. Does it even have a choice in how it acts? It might need to be put down, but is that what it wants, if the other option is killing good people and living their lives?

"But we have to start somewhere," Audrey continues. "So, each of you brought a present to the Knot. I'm assuming you didn't take the time to tell Mr. Carpenter what that was. So, if you can say what's in your box, then we'll chalk one in your favor. And if not..." she looks around the room at us. "We have a problem."

Yeah. But what about you?

"I'm going last," Duke says firmly.

"Huh? Why does he get to go last?" Nathan asks, looking at Audrey.

"Because he," he answers, lifting it off his shoulder, "has the axe."

"What about, uh, cue ball over here?" Vague gesture at Dave from the Chief.

"Well, I...I brought her the dress," Dave protests.

"And the killer shoes," I mutter.

"And the purse," he finishes.

Chief gestures again. "Well, exactly."

"We're gonna start with Dr. Carr," Audrey announces like that entire exchange didn’t happen, holding a small box.

Mom looks tickled to have been chosen. "Earrings. Emperor penguins," she clarifies, like she's proud she can prove it's not her.

Audrey opens the box. "All right. Those are beautiful. Thank you. Okay, Vince...?"

"It's a book." Like Mom, he seems eager to prove it's not him. "Misery Unchained. It's a first edition, signed by the author just before that lady chopped off his foot."

Sure enough, it's a book. Whoop-de-frigging-do. This isn't getting us anywhere but off-guard and on edge, like playing Russian Roulette, but with blanks and a second gun.

"Okay. Nathan."

Who isn't the chameleon. I'm sure of it, but no one else is.

"It's a sweater," he says solidly. "Blue. Cashmere."

She opens the box and stiffens before lifting the material out. "It's a scarf."

Predictably, the room goes crazy. Nathan circles away from the axe-wielding Duke, protesting his innocence, while I edge around trying to get behind Audrey, my fingers hovering near the handle of the cheese knife. I am inexplicably certain that stolen skin doesn't bleed. If I can just-

Nathan lunges for Duke. In fending him off, they spin around and when he crosses into arm’s reach, the Chief pistolwhips Nathan.

“Tie him up,” he says tiredly, looking at the limp body of his son on the floor.

"You have a gun," Duke says while Nathan's tied to a chair, voice hard and accusing but not surprised. He’s drinking from a very old, dark bottle that he found who knows where.

Chief isn't bothered. "Yep."

"You lied."

"Maybe I did."

"Chief," Audrey says, "hand it over. We all play by the same rules."

I glance around, but no one's looking at me. I'll have to thank the Uncles for that later.

"Says who?" Chief asks.

"Says the whole room that's about to go Lord of the Flies on your ass."

That's an exaggeration, though. Mom looks wary and uncertain, as do the uncles, but Duke looks coldly determined and she can't see my expression which I'm trying to keep blank. After a moment, Chief points at the axe before he gives in and hands over the gun, which gets set on the book on the low table.

"Duke," Audrey says expectantly. When he invites her wordlessly to elaborate, she adds, "Even the playing field."

Reluctantly, he steps on the axe head and pulls it off the handle. "Happy?"

Despite my horrific unease, I'm curious what the chameleon is going to do with this powder keg. It - she? - knows Nathan's innocent, but now everyone is even more on edge and ready to blow, especially when Nathan explains he wasn't the one to purchase the gift. We've got a proto-mob on our hands, and it turns its ravening maw in the Chief's direction on the subject of the boat, but he holds his ground. Audrey goes to untie Nathan while the proto-mob breaks apart, Mom and the Chief snapping at each other. I can't help but be a little impressed that no one's suspected Audrey, and wonder again exactly how much the chameleon is at the mercy of the person it's become. Maybe it genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone. Maybe it just wants to live a normal life, like everyone else. But right now, it's dancing on a razor's edge with a mob.

"If we start turning on each other now," Audrey says almost desperately, "we're just as likely to kill an innocent as we are a chameleon."

Oh, that's funny.

"So I don't know any of you very well, but I would like to."

That's funny, too.

"And I would like to think that we're better than that."

I have to actually turn away and cough to hide my bitter laugh as Nathan and the Chief tentatively make up, and just as everyone's wondering what to do next...the power dies.

I'm in motion before I'm consciously aware of my intent, lunging for the gun as everyone starts shouting and milling in panic, but my hand lands on an empty book and a heartbeat later, another hand lands on mine. Duke. I know it's him, and not just because he was closest. I can smell him, he's close enough to kiss, and despite everything happening that's exactly what I want to do so very, very badly.

"If you're the chameleon, Boss," I say quickly, my voice pitched for his ears only, "does that mean I get your boat?"

The hand on mine changes from pressing to grasping. "Not a chance, wench," he shoots back. "I'll take you next and then it will be my boat again."

He releases my hand and I move to flank him, the cheese knife out and ready to swipe at anyone who comes near.

"Hey! Don't you go for that axe head!" shouts Audrey, and Duke half-laughs.

"I wasn't even thinking about it. But, unfortunately, the gun is gone. And for once...it wasn't me."

My eyes are adjusting to the dim light. It helps that it can't be much past two in the afternoon, the window is behind us, and there’s a fire still in the fireplace. Mom, the Chief, and the uncles have all fled the room leaving Duke and I alone on one side of the room with Nathan and Audrey on the other.

"What the hell just happened?" Duke asks as a sort of verbal olive branch.

It hangs in the air between us for a moment before Nathan says, "Exactly what a predator would want. Every man for himself."

“Damn.” Three pairs of eyes turn to me, and a pair of gypsy eyebrows raises appreciatively at the knife in my hand. I point to the table by the door. “Someone took the lantern on their way out.”

“We’ll just have to use candles,” Audrey says, moving to the table where a few long, white tapers have been placed next to the cheese platter. She picks one up, then looks at me, down at the knife in my hand, and back up at my face with a look of surprised curiosity.

I tighten my grip on the knife’s handle and raise my chin slightly. Yeah, I know. What are you going to do about it? Ball’s in your court. If she becomes a threat, I won’t hesitate to end her…but I spent years tracking down the dangerous ones and ending the ones that wouldn’t change. I won’t make a move until it becomes necessary.

After only that moment’s hesitation, Audrey moves over to light the candle from the fireplace. “Duke, would you mind?” she asks, holding it out to him.

He grabs the old bottle with one hand and accepts the candle with the other. “Sure. Why not.”

Nathan fishes a little flashlight out of his coat pocket and turns it on without a word.

“Alright. Let’s check the generator, shall we?” Audrey looks around and gets determined nods. “Actually…Duke, can I have that back?”

The gesture he makes before taking a pull from the bottle says he doesn’t care.

Now with a means of lighting the way, she moves out into the hall. Nathan follows, and Duke and I bring up the rear. Neither of them question that she knows where she’s going. Fortunately, or perhaps not, there’s another lantern to be found on the way, and Duke claims it. When we finally reach the generator, Nathan pokes around before declaring that it’s not the breakers.

“This place has got to have a backup generator,” Audrey says. “We need to split up and find it.”

Whoah. Not cool.

Apparently, Duke agrees with me. “Hang on,” he says as she turns to pass him. “You said that we should stick together.”

“There are four people who are sitting ducks in the dark,” Nathan argues. “We need to get to them before the chameleon does, and that’ll be a lot easier with the lights on.”

Except that splitting up will let the chameleon get to them, and I don’t trust her motives. But with Nathan her lapdog and Duke not suspecting her…I can’t think of any convincing argument. Damn it!

“Man up,” Audrey says sharply before walking briskly away.

Duke glowers at her back. “That would be a lot easier if I still had my axe!”

“I’ve got your back, Boss.”

“Thank you.” He holds the lantern up, looking around. “Splitting up…could at least have split into pairs.”

“I don’t trust her,” I say quietly as we move slowly off.

“I don’t trust anyone.” Duke pauses. “Except you.”

We make our way through a few decrepit turns, and then there’s a loud rattle and he jumps. A rusty tricycle sits in the hallway, pretending to be innocent now that its attempt to trip Duke has failed. For a moment, we just catch our breaths.

“This is why you don’t throw people birthday parties,” he mutters before moving on.

A few minutes later, he stops.

“This is stupid. The chameleon’s probably sabotaged the backup generator, too. We should be holing up somewhere and working on a way to call for help.”

“Back to the party room?”

“Back to the party room, before the damn thing messes up my radio.”

We retrace our steps and thankfully, the radio hasn’t been touched. Duke sits down and hands me the lantern before reaching for his tools and I stand beside him, lantern in one hand and cheese knife in the other, back to the wall and facing the door, while he gets to work.

Some indeterminate time later, I hear my mother let out a blood-curdling scream, and there’s a sickening series of thumps followed by booted footsteps approaching at a run. Duke looks up, puts his tools down, and takes the lantern from me. Together, we edge towards the doorway until we can peer out to see two figures, one prone at the foot of the stairs and the other crouched over it. Then the lantern light shines on them, and my blood runs cold.

“Mom?”

The Chief looks up from examining her. “I’m sorry,” he says heavily. “She’s gone.”

No…no… I sway on my feet, vaguely registering the strong arm around my shoulders, my fingers cramping around the knife handle. My mind is a sea of confusion, waves of irrational terror at Mom’s still form and disbelief that she’s dead and from somewhere dark and bloody, a whisper that I should cut off her fingers. Hysterical sobbing bubbles up, but I swallow, trapping it in my throat. It’s not grief. I don’t understand what it is, and I don’t want to. I don’t want…

I’m backed into the corner, by the door to the outside, my eyes glued to the corpse of my mother, wide and trembling but dry as a bone. Chief is spreading a dust cover over her, and I don’t know if that makes it better, or worse. Duke tries to take the knife from my hand but I won’t let go. I might need it, might need to…I don’t know, but I won’t let it go. The uncles creep gingerly down the stairs, Vince with the lantern, Dave with the fireplace poker, and skirt Mom’s covered body. Audrey and Nathan approach minutes later, just as the lights flicker back on, and I’m so glad to see Audrey because that means my mother isn’t…

A sob squeezes its way out of my tight throat, emerging as a high, thin whimper. I turn and bury it in Duke’s chest, clinging to him the way I did once as a teenager, needing that same reassurance. Whatever else is being said, I don’t hear a word of it; my world is tightly-wound emotions and Duke’s damp shirt and his arms around me.

Then there’s a gunshot, and Duke shouts Nathan’s name. Somehow, we’re in the party room where Audrey is lying on the floor with a gunshot wound on her chest. It’s not bleeding. I knew it wouldn’t.

Nathan drops to his hands and knees beside the chameleon as it gasps for breath. “You killed my friend,” he says in a voice that trembles.

“How-how did you know it was m-me?” the thing asks.

He leans down to whisper something.

“What did you do?” Vince demands.

“She’s the chameleon,” Nathan answers in a hard tone.

“I’m sorry,” it burbles. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. The doctor…the doctor, she saw who I was. And…Audrey…I was weakening, and I thought she could help me. Like Lucy.”

The terror is receding. Duke still has his arm around me.

“If you thought she could help,” Nathan asks, “then…why did you kill her?”

“She’s different,” comes the distorted answer. “She…she…should have died…”

Should have…

Nathan comes to the same conclusion. “She’s alive? Where is she? Where is she?”

It whispers something I can’t make out, but Nathan hands his gun – the Chief’s gun, he was the one who got it before I could – to the Chief and nearly knocks us over running from the room. Duke and I follow, along with the uncles. It’s a stone-walled room, just past where I’d found the molt, and I hit the lights on the way in. Duke and Nathan are already opening a steamer trunk, calling Audrey’s name and lifting her limp form into a sitting position. For a moment that terror comes back, but then Nathan says she’s alive and it retreats again.

“Julia,” he calls sharply, “some help?”

I quickly kneel between them and check Audrey’s vitals. She needs… “Hand me that disinfectant,” I say to the room in general, pointing. The Chief’s here now, too. He must have made sure the chameleon was dead.

“I don’t think she needs to be disinfected,” Duke says doubtfully as I pour some of the liquid onto a rag.

“The ammonia will act as a smelling salt.” I wave the cloth under her nose and get the reaction I’m looking for. “Audrey? Can you hear me?” Whether she does or not, her pulse is getting stronger and I announce that fact. “She’s gonna be okay.”

“Parker, you’re gonna be okay.” Nathan repeats it like a prayer, her hands clasped in his, as her eyes open and she groans.

“Are you crying?” she croaks. “Because crying will not be tolerated.”

There’s more than one breathy laugh of relief.

Nathan lifts her out of the trunk and supports her as we file back out, and by the time we reach the party room she’s walking mostly on her own. The still, sheet-draped form on the floor brings back my terror-soaked unease, and I find myself being pushed gently down to sit on the couch, Audrey beside me, to watch Duke make a few final adjustments and then the radio crackles to life. He calls in our location, the need for a boat, and that we have one dead. The chameleon’s body is gone and I don’t ask where it went. Dave has my cheese knife and he’s slicing Audrey’s birthday cake, apologizing for not “doing it properly” and saying that it shouldn’t go to waste, and that we should all eat if we can.

I don’t remember if I’ve eaten since breakfast. I don’t know what time it is. The cake sticks in my throat and I wash it down with a mouthful of whatever’s in Duke’s old bottle without tasting either of them. At some point there’s a knock on the door; the boat’s arrived. Uniformed men pick up my mother’s body and carry it out and we file after them. Chief has Mom’s bag slung over his shoulder. I don’t know where mine is. Duke keeps his arm around my shoulders, holding me steady as we walk down to the boat. The rain has cleared up and the late-afternoon sun shines surreally down on us.

Mom’s body is laid at the front of the boat. The others file in reverently, taking seats to either side, but Duke has to lift me into it and my legs have turned to jelly. The trip back to Haven takes forever, an eternity of sitting on the floor with something warm and solid at my back, staring at the sheet-wrapped form in irrational terror that it will start to move, but in the blink of an eye we’re pulling up and there’s cop cars and a stretcher and suddenly I remember that I have Audrey’s thigh gun. I scramble to disembark before they can move Mom’s body and catch up to her.

“This is yours,” I say, pressing it into her hand, and she looks at me in shock. Before she can say anything, I hurry off to the uncles, who are waiting by the coroner’s van. Irony. Dave has my borrowed valise in one hand, and he offers it to me as I approach. I take it with a murmur of thanks.

“I know this is a bad time,” Vince says apologetically, “but you need to come to the Haven Herald tomorrow as soon as you can. There are many things you need to know.”

“I’ll be there,” I promise. Then there’s an arm around my shoulders, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Duke. As the stretcher bearing my mother’s corpse is wheeled up, I step closer into the protection of his arm.

Audrey’s followed, and gives us an uncertain look. “Are you going to be okay?” A vague nod is all I can manage while Vince assures her they’ll make sure I’m okay. Audrey apparently doesn’t trust this, because she asks, “You have someplace to go?”

Then Duke says, “I’ll make sure she gets home,” and I have no idea what’s going on.

“Where exactly are you proposing to take me?” It can’t be my mom’s house.

Uncle Dave offers to let me stay with them. Duke declines on my behalf by pointing out that they have an evening edition to print. “And I think the doctor would prescribe a stiff drink,” he adds, “and I happen to know where the best-stocked medicine cabinet in Haven is.”

The absurdity of my mother encouraging me to drink breaks up the formless dread that had gripped me. Or maybe that’s the coroner’s van driving off. Vince clearly disapproves, but Duke’s arm silently encourages me to go with him, and I’m not going to argue. I’ve been away for fourteen years; now that I’m going to be spending the rest of my life in this town, I want to be absolutely certain I don’t lose the esteem of the one person whose opinion of me I give a fuck about. But I’ve changed; I’m not the innocent, pure little Carr girl anymore, and I don’t…I don’t know if Julia the gun-toting, heart-breaking, knife-wielding assassin cowgirl is going to be as welcome as the wee lass, the tiny wench he remembers.

Maybe, now that I’m not a teenager and my mother isn’t around to act on her threat…

No. Better to not hope. Hopes can be dashed; just accept things as they are and enjoy what you have.

Welcome to Haven. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.