Still Life with Shape-shifter Read Online Free PDF

went through the pages. Yours was one of them.” He shrugs, as if to say,
It was subterfuge, but it worked.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone else in Dagmar. Thought I’d come to you next and see what you might tell me.”
    To myself, I’m thinking,
It could be worse.
Aloud I say, “It doesn’t sound to me like anything they told you would have made you come to such a—such a preposterous conclusion. I can’t imagine why you started looking for us in the first place.”
    He nods, as if he was expecting that response. “When your family was living in Kirkwood, there were—incidents,” he says. “Neighbors would see Ann playing in the backyard. And then they’d look again, and there’d be a little white puppy racing around. A husky. And they’d look five minutes later, and the little girl would be back, but the dog was gone.”
    This is a little more damning, and I feel my heartbeat accelerate, but I keep my face impassive and only shrug.
    “One of your next-door neighbors was a girl a year or two younger than you. Named Caitlyn. She was crazy about dogs, but her brother was allergic, so her parents wouldn’t let her get one. She’d come over to your house and ask to play with the puppy, but your dad and your stepmother would always say no. They’d say it wasn’t really their dog, it just came to their house sometimes, and they’d leave food out so it wouldn’t starve.
    “One day, Caitlyn sees the husky in the backyard, so she sneaks over and lets it out. The two of them take off for some park a few blocks away, where they play for a couple of hours. The puppy is really smart, Caitlyn says—understands every word she utters. Like, after they’d been running around for a while, Caitlyn announces, ‘I’m really thirsty,’ and the dog heads straight for the drinking fountain.”
    I roll my eyes, but under the table, where he can’t see them, my hands are clenched together so tightly I think I might crack the bones. “Oh, that’s impressive,” I say.
    He just keeps going. “Finally, Caitlyn and the puppy return home, to find the whole neighborhood in an uproar. Your family is searching everywhere for the dog—your stepmother is hysterical—your father has taken the car and is driving slowly up and down the surrounding streets, looking for a little white husky. Mind you, this is a dog they claim doesn’t belong to them. When Caitlyn shows up with the puppy in tow, your stepmother falls to the ground and grabs the dog in her arms and just starts sobbing. Caitlyn’s in trouble herself, her dad yelling at her for leaving the house without telling anyone where she was going, but she can’t stop staring at the crazy neighbor lady making such a fuss over a dog that isn’t hers. At one point, your stepmother looks up and demands, ‘What happened to her foot?’ There’s a gash on the inside of the puppy’s right foreleg, and it’s bleeding a little though it doesn’t seem to have slowed the dog down any. Caitlyn says she doesn’t know.
    “Her parents are hauling her into the house, but right before she’s yanked inside the door, she sees your dad drive up. He’s still cruising slowly down the street, calling out for the little dog. ‘Ann! Ann! Come home, girl!’” Brody gives me a limpid look. “Ann? They’ve named the dog that isn’t really theirs after their own little girl? But before she can think too much about it, she’s hustled inside and has to deal with her own problems.”
    Brody takes a swallow of his Coke. I am attempting to sit there in stony silence, but the truth is I am remembering that terrible day in vivid detail. Caitlyn’s recitation, via Brody, doesn’t include the fact that I flung myself on my bicycle and pedaled as hard as I could to the places I happened to know were Ann’s favorites. There was a farmer’s market in downtown Kirkwood on Saturdays, and she loved to run between the stalls and snatch up fallen bits of fruit and baked goods. There was