Tamisin hadn’t spoken much to her parents after the night she learned that she was adopted, partly because she was still angry with them for not having told her the truth earlier, and partly because she felt odd talking to them, knowing that their relationship wasn’t what she’d always believed it to be. Every time she’d start to call them Mom or Dad, she’d stop and think, then lose her train of thought. Even so, she wasn’t so upset that she couldn’t be reasonable; she told them about the party at dinner on Halloween.
“It’s tonight,” she said. “He lives on Jefferson Street. It starts at seven thirty.”
Kyle looked up from his plate. “I’ve heard about that party. I was thinking I might stop by.”
“Will Jak’s parents be there?” asked their father.
Tamisin shrugged. “I guess.”
Their mother looked up from pouring another glass of milk for Petey. “Who else is going?”
“Heather . . . And probably Jeremy Johnson. He hangs out with Jak a lot.”
“Good kid, Jeremy,” said Kyle. “Knows how to handle a football.”
“So do I!” said Petey. “Want to see?” The little boy began to push back his chair, but his brother stopped him.
“Later, sport,” Kyle said, ruffling Petey’s hair.
Their mother frowned and set down her napkin. “Your father and I have never met Jak or his parents. We need to know more about them and if they’re going to be home.”
“I have their phone number,” said Tamisin. Taking the scrap of paper out of her pocket, she glanced at it again. Jak’s handwriting was angled oddly, and his letters were scrunched together, making them hard to read.
“I’ll be right back,” her mother said, taking the note. She left the dining room shaking her head. Tamisin could hear her go into the kitchen.
“Hello, is this Mrs Catta?” came Tamisin’s mother’s voice from the kitchen.
“Why didn’t you go to school the other day?” Kyle asked. “You seemed fine when I got home.”
“She was sick, right, Tamisin?” said Petey.
“That’s right, Petey. I was sick,” Tamisin said, looking directly at Kyle as if daring him to question her.
“Huh,” was all he said before picking up his fork again.
Her mother was talking in the kitchen. “Perhaps I don’t have the right number. Do you have a boy named Jak? Your grandson? I see. Yes, I’m sure he’s a good boy. Uh-huh. Thank you very much.”
When Tamisin’s mother returned to the dining room, she looked a bit bewildered. “Apparently Jak lives with his grandmother and his uncle, who I think is named Bert. His grandmother has a strange accent; it was hard to make out exactly what she said.”
“Will his grandmother be there during the party?” asked Tamisin’s father.
“I believe so. She said that she intends to trim her nails tonight, which struck me as an odd thing to tell someone.”
Tamisin hopped to her feet and picked up her plate to carry it out to the kitchen. “So now you know that a responsible adult will be there. I’d better go and get ready. Can someone give me a ride?”
“I will,” said Kyle. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll check out the party for you.”
Tamisin was setting her plate in the dishwasher when she heard her mother say, “I never said she could go. I’m going to call her back in here and tell her so.”
“Oh, let the girl go to the party,” her father said. “It will be good for her to do something fun to take her mind off . . . you know.”
“What?” asked Kyle. “What does she need to take her mind off?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, son,” said his father. “Just take her to the party and make sure she’s all right.”
“Sure,” said Kyle. “But I don’t know how long I’m going to stay.”
Tamisin went to the party dressed as a black cat – a simple enough costume that she was able to put together with clothes she dug out of her wardrobe. She took her bag with her, stuffing in a few extra things she thought she might need. Heather wore her grandmother’s old hippie dress and a wreath of dried flowers. She made Tamisin wait while she took her allergy medicine, declaring that there were sure to be cats at Jak’s house.
When Tamisin and Heather arrived, Jak met them at the door dressed the way he usually was – all in black. Tamisin was thinking about how good the colour looked on him when an old woman with grey and white hair and slanted yellow eyes came to get him. “Sorry,” he told the girls. “I’ve got to see about this. I’ll be right back.” And then he disappeared down the basement stairs and Tamisin and Heather were left to look around while Kyle greeted other senior jocks.
Although Jak’s house was in a neighbourhood of fairly modern homes, it was old and creaky with floorboards that didn’t quite meet and ceilings so high that Tamisin could have practised her dance-flying, as she had come to call it, without ever bumping her head. The first floor of the house was already crowded. Some boys were playing drums and guitars in the living room while costumed guests danced to their music. The girls wandered from room to room, looking at the costumes and decorations and talking to the people they knew. When they came across Jeremy in the room where the band was playing, Heather dragged Tamisin through the crowd to his side.
“Hi!” Heather said, giving him her warmest smile.
“Hi yourself,” Jeremy replied, his eyes brightening when he saw her.
Knowing that Heather would be occupied for a while, Tamisin peeked into the next room where Shareena was talking to the rest of the girls from the dance group. When they saw her, they crowded around Tamisin, drawing her into the room. She talked to them for a minute, then Heather and Jeremy were there. Heather was beaming when she said, “Jeremy asked me out! We’re going to the movies on Saturday. Come on, let’s go and see the rest of the house. Jeremy said I wouldn’t believe the decorations in the kitchen. He says it’s at the end of the hall.”
There was a pitcher of milk and a bucket of water with a dipper on a table in the hallway, but no cups or glasses. A keg of something dark and musky sat on the floor beside it. No one touched it after some boys tried the drink and announced that it was foul.
The walls of the dark-panelled kitchen had been draped with tiny skulls strung together like popcorn. When Tamisin touched one and said that it felt real, Heather grew pale and refused to go near them. An assortment of food sat on the table, surrounding a pumpkin carved with an ugly, leering face. There were hunks of cheese, but nothing to use to cut them, plates of boiled vegetables coated with salt and a tureen of some kind of raw meat cut into small pieces. A cup of anchovies sat beside a bucket of fried pumpkin innards. A sticker on one bowl of eggs declared that they were raw and the other was labelled hard boiled. No one seemed to be eating anything except for a boy in a lumberjack costume who had taken an entire hunk of cheese.
Then some new guests arrived and everything changed. Jeremy and the girls were still in the kitchen when the back door opened.
“What great costumes!” Tamisin heard people say, but she knew they weren’t wearing costumes. She had seen these people before, maybe not the very same ones, but so similar that she went cold inside. Tall and short, thin and fat, every one was a cross between a person and an animal. They had ears like dogs and horses, lions and bats. She saw fangs and flippers, beaks and talons, fur and feathers and scales, and all of them, from a boy’s orange bird beak to a girl’s fuzzy rabbit ears and twitchy little nose, were real. The last time she had seen creatures like these, she had been the only one who could. Now everyone could see them, which she thought must mean only one thing – the half-animal creatures must want to be seen. And if Jak had invited them . . .
“I have to get out of here,” Tamisin told Heather.
“What?” Heather shouted over the din of the new arrivals.
When she saw that she wouldn’t be able to make herself heard without shouting, Tamisin pointed to the door and gestured for Heather to go first. Her friend nodded, and together they made their way across the room. Tamisin was about to step into the hallway when a little man with a walrus moustache and muzzle bumped into her.
“Pardon me,” he said. Looking up, he saw her face. “It’s her!” he squealed. “I found her!”
And then they were all around her, pushing and pulling with their hands and paws, separating her from Heather as they swept Tamisin towards the back door.
“What are you doing?” shouted Heather as she tried to fight her way to her friend. “Jeremy, help her!”
“I’m coming!” Jeremy called back, but he was on the far side of the kitchen, which was now so crowded that it was almost impossible to move.
The creatures were shoving her out the door when Tamisin began to scream, so they burst into a song in some indecipherable language to cover the sound of her voice. Lightning split the sky as they forced her into the garden. Tamisin twisted in their grip, screaming all the while even though thunder drowned out her cries.
When the next bolt of lightning sliced the night sky, some of the creatures cowered in fear, but enough held on to her that she was unable to break away. A girl with a pig’s snout and bouncing golden curls shrieked and ran when lightning struck again. For the first time Tamisin could see where they were taking her. Two tall trees stood like sentinels in the rear of the garden with a path leading directly towards them. In the lightning’s glare, the air shimmered between the trees like sunlight on water.
Someone behind her pushed too hard and Tamisin fell to her knees. When the creatures dragged her up, she kicked and struggled until a voice growled in her ear, and she felt the sharp prick of claws on her throat. Lightning flashed again, so close that it made the air smell acrid. A wind sprang up, carrying with it a drenching rain. Then Jak was there, fighting the creatures until only one was left, holding her with sharp claws.
It occurred to Tamisin that if Jak was trying to help her, maybe he hadn’t invited the creatures after all. When she tried to call to him, the pressure on her throat was too great. She gasped at the pain, her eyes never leaving Jak’s face. This time when lightning struck, she could feel the electricity in the air. Then suddenly there was another creature, bigger than all the rest, lurching towards her with its massive arm raised. After that everything seemed to happen at once: the creature struck, the pressure on her throat was gone, Jak slammed into her so that they tumbled backwards through a shimmering light, and lightning zigzagged through the sky. I’ve been struck by lightning, Tamisin thought just before the world went black.