One's priorities shift when survival is at stake. Hysteria was definitely called for; I felt it bubbling around the edges of my thoughts. But now was not the time. I couldn't be certain Brand had gone for the night — he might have borrowed Clara's bed, since she'd been at Jessica's. And Clara, I couldn't bear for her to see me like this.
On the other hand, I couldn't bear to lose her.
Brand had always hated the wild card and its victims, as much as I had. He would never tolerate a joker wife. I didn't know what he would do when he discovered what had happened to me, but given that he had been involved in the murder of two men, I didn't want to find out.
But first things first. Food.
When I thought about eating my tongue flicked, flicked again, tasting the air. The smells it detected made me writhe into knots of hunger and revulsion. The cooking eggs and bacon and toast turned my stomach. Raw animal flesh was what my body needed. A prospect equally revolting, but imperative.
Three prime, New York cut strip steaks were in the refrigerator. Those would do.
I lurched and slung and dragged my elongated self over to the door. It was exhausting work; slithering is not as easy as it looks, especially when one is starved, weakened by illness, and unaccustomed to the motion. Heart racing, I turned the knob, pulled the door open, peeked around the corner. The blue was fading from my scales and a dark brown with moonstone and sand mottlings, the combined colors of the door and carpeting, faded in.
My scales gave me protective coloring. With a sudden, faint hope that I could escape this situation unharmed, I slipped out onto the cool wood floor, my colors shifting as I moved.
Frou Frou's ears pricked up when the door opened. He looked over at me. I froze.
Clara had arranged Frou Frou and her dolls in a semicircle beyond the couch. The circle included the dog, Barbie and Ken, the plastic Crybaby Cathy baby, the fine, antique China doll my mother had given her for Christmas, and stuffed animals of assorted types, colors, and sizes. Clara told Frou Frou to sit down but instead he came around the end of the couch, suspicious and confused, with a growl rumbling in his throat.
I hurled myself toward the safety of the bedroom. But I was too long and clumsy to get all of me through the door and slam it shut before Frou Frou darted inside. Bristling, with little yips and growls, he backed me into the corner. I pulled myself into a tightly coiled mass, held out my hands.
"Frou Frou," I whispered. "Hush." My colors began to brighten, responding to my fear.
Frou Frou tilted his head at my voice, clearly confused, yipped experimentally.
"Hush." My voice trembled and my speech was slurred; I hadn't yet learned to form my words quite properly with my new mouth.
Frou Frou sniffed at my fingers, then made up his mind. I wasn't his mistress, I was an intruder. He snapped at my outstretched hand and started to bark. Jessica yelled at him from the other room.
I rose up above my coils. Colors blazed on my scales; my cobra's hood spread.
He darted at me, baring his teeth, and his teeth closed on my twitching tail. Pain lanced up my body. With a cry I struck out and bit him on the left flank, behind his foreleg. While he struggled, yelping, glands in my palate emptied themselves, venom pulsed in my gums and through my teeth. Dismayed, I let him go.
He ran in circles, yowling, then staggered under the bed, fell on his side and twitched. I worked my way over to him. His eyes were glazing. I lay down next to him. His heart fluttered against the palm of my hand. Then the heart stopped beating.
Clara stood at the door.
"Clara," I said, propping myself upright with effort. Starvation and exertion made my head spin.
"You hurt Frou Frou."
"He attacked me, honey." I forced the words out. "I had no choice."
"You hurt Frou Frou! Bad snake!"
She came at me with both fists, struck at my face. One blow caught me on my nose, still tender from its transformation. At the pain, anger flooded me. I coiled and reared. My scales blazed blue with red, yellow, and black, and my hood fanned out.
Not Clara; no!
I forced down the urge to strike. The angry, brilliant colors drained from my scales. I caught at Clara's hands and held onto them till her rage passed. Without adrenaline I was so weak that it took all my strength to control a five-year-old.
"It's all right, honey. It'll be all right. It's Maman."
She burst into tears. I put my arms around her and stroked her head. My arms were almost too weak to hold her. "I'm so sorry, honey. I'm sorry about Frou Frou."
Jessica had come into the room to see what the commotion was. She stood at the door, pasty white. She must have seen me about to strike at Clara.
"My God," she said, "oh, my God."
Clara, nestled next to my heart, said, "Jessica, it's Maman."
"Clara, come here." Jessica held out her arms. Her voice was shrill.
I didn't let go of Clara. "It's me, Jessica. It's all right. It's the wild card, that's all."
Jessica squatted. Her voice was tinged with hysteria. "Clara, come here right now."
I released Clara and gave her a gentle push. "We need to talk, honey. Go on out for a minute. Jessica — "
But she snatched Clara up, took her out, and slammed the door. Loud bumps and thumps told me she had blocked the door with the rolltop desk. I crept over and tested it anyway; it was blocked.
I collapsed on the floor and panted. I was ill from hunger, all but unconscious.
I moved back to the bed and flicked my tongue all up and down Frou Frou. He was dead and nothing I could do would bring him back. He smelled like what I needed to eat. Fresh, newly killed meat.
I dragged him out from under the bed, lifted his limp head, removed his collar with trembling hands, and then gave him a last caress. I shuddered. The dog was so big, I wasn't sure I could go through with it.
I forced his head into my mouth. My throat gagged but I kept pushing, salivating heavily, and my jaw unhinged as a snake's does, so he could pass more easily. The skin of my mouth stretched over him. My throat expanded to take him.
He got stuck when his shoulders reached the back of my mouth. No matter how hard I shoved and punched at him he'd go no further. So I propped his hindquarters against the floor, struggled up atop him, and used my own weight to push him all the way in, fur, claws, and all.
It hurt a lot. I swallowed and swallowed. Tears streamed down my face. Eating him was a great labor. I swallowed some more and my powerful throat muscles carried him farther down my gullet, where he pressed hard against my ribcage and made my breathing labored.
The ache of famine was ebbing. The pain of an overlarge object stuck in my gullet remained but my body knew it had the right kind of sustenance.
Exhausted, still swallowing feebly, I lay on my side and looked down at myself. Frou Frou had lodged at about where my diaphragm tapered into the snake's trunk. My stomach — if that's what it was, though I guessed it was just a long tube with digestive juices; there didn't seem room for a set of intestines — growled and burbled. I looked pregnant.
At that thought I started to retch, and then couldn't stop. The same strong muscles that had swallowed him tried to force him back up my throat. But they were weakened now, and by concentrating and taking deep breaths I managed keep him down.
Lethargy settled over me. I stretched out against the wall behind, the bed, folding my tail double, and my scales faded to eggshell white, moonstone, and sand. I slept.
"Joan?" It was Brand's voice, and it roused me to semi-wakefulness.
The color and angle of the sunlight told me it was mid-afternoon. essica must have called him home early. I was in the throes of a massive, reptilian-grade digestive stupor, so I have only a vague memory of their voices, and of blurred images moving about the room, though I managed gradually to force myself to complete wakefulness.