Then Leopard was gone. Mattie’s reflection was broken by a fat frog, which peeped at him before diving to swim into the shadows at the edge of the pool.
* * * *
Mattie walked on two feet into his parents’ cabin. Mumma and Papa were out, tilling he supposed. Juna sat wrapped in a blanket and staring at her teacher in the wall. Mattie felt naked without his Leopard nose to wrap him in the maps of scent, but he kept the warm mask firmly under one arm.
“Juna.” His voice was hoarse from disuse.
She turned, blanket dropping from one dirty shoulder. “Mattie!” Juna jumped up from the floor and ran to hug him. He swept her in his arms, realizing as he did that he was taller and stronger than he had been the night Benno died.
Had it only been a few weeks?
“Mattie…” she said, smiling. “Are you back? Are you come to live among us?”
“Yes,” Mattie smiled. “It is over. I shall kill Leopard as he killed Benno and be your brother once again.”
“Agnes.” Juna’s brown eyes welled over a pout. “He killed Agnes, too.”
“Leopard will die for your sheep as well,” laughed Mattie. Inside his mind, Leopard growled.
* * * *
The only thing Mother hated more than waterhunting was fire. Heat could be used as a tool or for cooking, but men were sometimes slain outright for keeping open flames. There were too many dangers. Only Priest had leave to have a fire, and it stayed inside his Lodge. So Mattie went to the Lodge.
Priest was out, doubtless doddering on some errand. The animal hide blocking his Lodge door was a stronger barrier to most than the stoutest latch, but Mattie had lost all fear since the night Leopard killed him. He pushed through into the Lodge. His fingernails left furrows in the hide.
It was as before, crowded, close, warm. The fire pit seemed cold at first. Squatting next to it, Mattie could see the coals cooking in the ashes below. He set the mask down next to him. Leopard’s skin twitched as it left his fingers. He searched for something to blow on the fire. Every child knew airflow brought oxygen that fed flame. A large bellows lay close to hand. Mattie grabbed it, began working the coals.
“Yes, Inspector, he is taking to it. At his own pace.”
Priest’s voice came through the door. Mattie pushed the bellows back where he had found them and scuttled into the hanging junk along the wall behind. The door skin lifted and Priest limped through, followed by a tall, unnaturally pale man in tight-fitting clothes.
“Neuron paths seem to be asserting?” asked Inspector. The seams in his garments were almost invisible.
“He had little problem with the initial transformation. It is in his bloodline. The stress of events served as an admirable trigger.”
Mattie realized that Leopard’s skin still lay next to the fire pit. It was virtually at the feet of Priest and Inspector.
“We are concerned about his youth.” Inspector made notes on a small handslate.
Priest shrugged. “Only time will answer for that. The boy is large enough. Spirit matters far more. All of my sister’s children are well supplied with that.”
Inspector glanced down. He nudged Leopard’s skin with his booted foot, clearing his throat with a significant glance around the Lodge. Priest looked down, then back at Inspector.
“Time, Inspector…we all grow into what we are.”
Mattie bounded out from the debris where he had been sheltering. He dove between Inspector and Priest and grabbed the skin. “Get back, both of you,” he yelled. They both stepped back, Priest’s limp forgotten in the moment.
“It ends here,” growled Mattie. He threw the skin into the fire pit. The mask flipped as it fell, twisting like a cat to settle over the coals. Flames burst upward, carrying a smell of burning hair so strong Mattie gagged. He turned in triumph to Priest and Inspector to meet the horror in their eyes.
It wasn’t there. Only pity.
“It’s much easier to give it away again if you haven’t had to grow it yourself,” said Priest with sorrow.
“Mother’s people will have the gift of Fear,” added Inspector.
Mattie snarled and bolted through the hide curtain, dropping to all fours when he reached the path outside.
* * * *
Leopard waited inside his reflection at the pool. The frogs slept as Mattie stared through the hair growing across his face into Leopard’s eyes. Leopard seemed filled with pity, too.
The hunter must know the hunted, Leopard told him. The killer grieves for his prey.
Mattie thought of all the blood he had drunk since fleeing Priest’s hut -- the sheep, the stray child whose name he remembered only as he leapt. Why me? Why one of us?
Mother doesn’t have sufficiency to raise Leopards like people raise sheep. We would take more than She can afford to give. So we live only within you, coming out to kill as needed.
Mother’s servants haunted Mattie. But Fear… Death…they are not so needful…
Mother’s worlds are many and small, with close-set limits. Boundaries keep you whole and safe.
Memories of the fire. But me? Now I cannot take off the mask.
Leopard smiled, a carnivore grin that threatened more than it comforted. As Mother meant it to be, when you grow old and tired of the hunt, you would give your mask to a youngling full of hot blood and quick fire. Now Priest will have to flay it from your body.
Mattie considered that as the newly wakening frogs began to peep. He smelled sheep moving nearby, but hunger did not command him for now. So now, I must hunt, and sow Fear, until I die. Never to live again as my other self.
Leopard coughed, apologetic in the water.
Mattie continued. Mother does not have enough for even one Leopard’s lifetime, does She? People would starve if Leopard fed endlessly on their sheep.
Leopard had no answer. Only Mattie, face hairy and jaw bulging as teeth shifted permanently forward and sharp, looked back from the pool.
He bounded off through the grass, ignoring the prey that bleated around him. Thinking of masks and bloodlines, Leopard went to find his sister.
GABRIEL-ERNEST, by Saki
“There is a wild beast in your woods,” said the artist Cunningham, as he was being driven to the station. It was the only remark he had made during the drive, but as Van Cheele had talked incessantly his companion’s silence had not been noticeable.
“A stray fox or two and some resident weasels. Nothing more formidable,” said Van Cheele. The artist said nothing.
“What did you mean about a wild beast?” said Van Cheele later, when they were on the platform.
“Nothing. My imagination. Here is the train,” said Cunningham.
That afternoon Van Cheele went for one of his frequent rambles through his woodland property. He had a stuffed bittern in his study, and knew the names of quite a number of wild flowers, so his aunt had possibly some justification in describing him as a great naturalist. At any rate, he was a great walker. It was his custom to take mental notes of everything he saw during his walks, not so much for the purpose of assisting contemporary science as to provide topics for conversation afterwards. When the bluebells began to show themselves in flower he made a point of informing every one of the fact; the season of the year might have warned his hearers of the likelihood of such an occurrence, but at least they felt that he was being absolutely frank with them.
What Van Cheele saw on this particular afternoon was, however, something far removed from his ordinary range