She grew aware of something nestled in her hand. It was thin, crisp, somewhat square. Its strange presence was accompanied by a sound she knew, even with her eyes shut. The gusty rush and hiss, a train of wind barreling down the valley, was followed by the crash of the trees bowing, creaking, colliding. Had the Nor’wester woken her, or this thing she held?
Raewyn opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the dim light of dawn before pulling her hand from under the covers and peering down at a tarot card. The Hierophant stared back at her. As always, he sat smugly on his throne, a priest with bullish horns. The rest of the tarot deck was strewn across the top of her duvet. She hadn’t been using them last night. She couldn’t remember using them for at least a week. She didn’t do readings anymore, and when she did get the cards out for herself, she always put them snugly back in their bag on her desk. Hadn’t they been there last night when she’d turned out the light?
Raewyn glanced toward the desk, but her view was blocked by the man slumped across the end of her bed. She jerked her feet away, knees to chest in self-defense, barely stifling a girlish scream. The duvet stretched taught between them as she scrambled back against the headboard. There was no phone in her room. How could she get help? How had he gotten into the house? Raewyn scanned the room with her eyes, looking for Tubby Ted or Mischief, the two cats that usually slept at the end of her bed. They were nowhere in sight. Probably hiding somewhere safe.
The man on the bed hadn’t moved. His face was turned away from her, but Raewyn could see he was dressed to the hilt in a silverish tuxedo with subtle grey stripes. His hair was grey as well, though she would have guessed him to be quite young based on the muscular outline visible under the tailored suit. She took a deep, quiet breath through her nose, but didn’t smell a hint of alcohol. If he wasn’t unconscious, then what? Was he dead? No, she could see the miniscule rise and fall of his side. He was breathing. But he wasn’t moving. Fine. If he wasn’t going anywhere, then she would.
Slowly, Raewyn extracted her legs from under the duvet, careful not to let any of the tarot cards fall to the floor. The wind moaned like a banshee, rattling the windows in their frames. Raewyn put her feet on the cold wood floor and stood. The new nightgown she had bought herself as a fiftieth birthday present un-bunched from around her thick middle, settling over her legs. She took one step, preparing to run for the bedroom door if the grey man moved a muscle. She took another step and he rolled over, familiar green eyes staring at her lazily. She didn’t bolt; she froze, staring back. He stretched, raising long arms over his head, and then he curled up, tucking his legs in toward his stomach. He blinked once, twice, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep at the end of Raewyn’s bed.
Raewyn felt The Hierophant still clutched in her right hand. The Heirophant was that worldly Uncle who rarely came to visit but when he did, he left the entire house in an uproar. This morning he had come straight to her hand. He was up to something.
Calmly, Raewyn slipped the card into her nightgown pocket and walked around the bed to her wardrobe. She gathered up some clothes. She’d change in the bathroom, despite what she thought she knew. As she closed the wardrobe she heard a strange noise from under the desk. A quick peek revealed a teenage girl huddled there, dark Asian eyes wide with fear, short black hair seeming to stand on end. What was that style called? Funk, or punk? Something like that. Just as Raewyn crouched down for a better look, the Nor’wester kicked up, smashing the old cherry tree’s lowest branches into the roof and sending the dark girl hurtling from under the desk on her hands and knees. The poor thing tore past Raewyn, crashed into the hardwood door head first, and bounced off. Amazingly, the girl recovered from the shock of the impact before Raewyn did, reaching up and curling her wrist over the door handle. One pull and the door popped open. The girl disappeared down the hall into the kitchen, still at a break-neck crawl.
Raewyn silently cursed The Hierophant and shook her head. The wise one, the challenger and teacher, had brought a lesson on the night wind, and Raewyn was already sure she wasn’t going to like it.
Seated at the kitchen table, sipping her second cup of tea, Raewyn seethed over what he’d done. What could this possibly accomplish? Why curse her with a houseful of people?
She had dressed grudgingly in the bathroom after pulling the shower curtain closed on the scruffy old man who was sitting in the tub staring down the drain. She had toured the whole house, finding strange, well-dressed, silent people in every single room. Now in the kitchen, three middle-aged women, much like herself, sat across from her in chairs. They had been on the table before she’d shooed them off. One of them smoothed another’s hair tenderly with her tongue. They were waiting to be fed, like they always waited. But normally, they waited as cats.
How could he change all her lovelies into people? It was just so cruel. Cruel to them. Cruel to her. If she’d wanted a house full of people she would have gotten married and had children. She would have lived in the city instead of on a remote peninsula in rural New Zealand. She would have made an effort to meet her neighbors and return her phone messages.
Jamena, Raewyn’s beautiful tortoiseshell, slid onto her lap, sensing her owner’s mood, and trying to offer comfort. However, in her current state as a large and lovely black woman, it was more disturbing than comforting. Raewyn pushed her off and poured food in all the dishes. People came to the clatter of kibble, running from all corners of the house. She spied Mischief, the dark teen from under the desk, and Tubby Ted, the grey bed-man, both in the crowd. Raewyn decided to go outside, despite the wind. She didn’t think she could stand to watch them crouch on the floor and eat. What did the Hierophant expect her to do? He hadn’t really made them people. They were still her animals, her friends. She’d get used to them in this form. If he was known to be stubborn, then so was she.
When Raewyn opened the door, the Nor’wester whipped it out of her hands, banging it viciously against the side of the fridge. With the sudden change in air pressure, every door in the house slammed in unison. Raewyn hurried out, yanking the door shut behind her so she wouldn’t hear the mayhem of fifteen humans scattering for cover. She thought the outdoors would be better. She had never been more wrong.
The five people bent over in the chicken coop were bad enough. Two women, one blonde, one brunette, were crammed into every inch of the rabbit hutch, quivering every time the wind blustered. There was really no way to let them out. Neither of them would fit through the tiny door. There was a small boy tied to the doghouse, looking at her hopefully with one ice-blue eye, one brown. Yesterday, he had been a blue merle Border Collie pup named Zed. Some farmer had thought the dog blind just because he had the merle eyes. She unclipped his rope and he immediately bit her pant leg, tugging at it playfully. With a deft hand she pried his teeth off—much easier now that they weren’t needle-sharp canines—and sent him on his way to fertilize the yard. It was then that it dawned on her that the waste alone from all these “people” might just break her. Even if the cats decided to use the litter box in their new form, she’d be cleaning it ten times a day.
Then the wind whipped up, beating at Raewyn and almost bowling her over. It crashed though the gum trees, making strange, heavy sounds she’d never heard before. Raewyn looked up into the trees and her mouth fell open. There they were, humans of every shape and size, make and model, filling the trees with their ridiculous largeness. Some were tiny brown children, balancing on the narrow upright branches, but still a hundred times the size of sparrows. She saw Bell birds, olive-skinned and just as exotic-looking in their human forms. The native wood pigeons had manifested as plump Caucasian adults with white turtlenecks and iridescent green vests. And there were so many others she didn’t know. They made no sound, as mute as the cat people, but simply stared at her silently from their windswept heights, and Raewyn felt a terrible fear wash over her. What had he done? Had the Hierophant changed the whole world to thwart her? Was the earth cursed to be peopled only by people? Tears burned in her eyes, but the wind sucked them away. No, it couldn’t be. The valley was remote, sparsely populated. He had changed it here, that was all. He would change it back before the ripples spread too far. He wanted to remind her of her own humanity. Fine. Point taken.
With another blast of wind, Raewyn’s eyes were drawn to three pigeon people scrambling for sturdier perch. One made it to a thicker branch and held. The other two, clumsy and confused in their new bodies, fell like stones as the limb they were on cracked under their combined weight. One landed heavily over a lower branch and let out an “oof” as the breath was knocked out of him, but he appeared unhurt. The other, a female, seemed to bounce off every branch on the way down. She finally hit the ground with an odd snapping sound and gave out pitiful cry, a wail neither of bird or man. Raewyn rushed forward as the woman began to thrash and flutter. Her left leg was bent awkwardly, obviously broken, though no bone poked through. Raewyn held the woman, cooing and comforting, stroking her glossy grey-green head, until she quieted. Animals knew when they had no choice but to accept human help.
At first, Raewyn thought the knocking at the door was only the banging of the incessant wind and she ignored it. The puppy-boy, all sad eyes and head between his hands, had been tied to the doghouse again so she could let the cats out to do their business. She’d watched the cats, and they at least had the sense to pull off clothing before they went, and put it back again, afterwards. Now she was in the bedroom tending the pigeon woman who had managed to hobble, one arm over Raewyn’s shoulder, all the way into the house and right into Raewyn’s bed. Raewyn was just wrapping up a make-shift splint when the knocking grew to an unnatural crescendo. She tied off the ace bandage, threw the blankets over the pigeon woman’s legs and strode to the door. One glance through the top glass revealed a distraught-looking young woman Raewyn had never seen before. A stray. City folk were always driving out to the valley and dumping their poor unwanted animals, thinking it was some kind of mercy. The poor thing had more to contend with than abandonment this morning, what with the wind and the change. Raewyn opened the door but almost slammed it in the woman’s face when she began babbling a blue streak, wringing her hand and crying hysterically.
“Oh, thank God you’re home,” the woman wailed. “You’re the only house for miles. I didn’t know where else to go. The sheep are gone. I came out to check the ewes that lambed, but there aren’t any. Not one sheep in the paddock. Before that, I tried to ignore the people in the trees. When I see things I shouldn’t, I ignore them. I learned that a long time ago. But then the sheep weren’t there and I saw—I saw,” and here the young woman stopped, took a deep gulp and burst into another fit of weeping while digging in her handbag for a tissue.
“What did you see?” Raewyn asked, trying not to sound as grumpy as she felt as the wind buffeted them both. The woman dabbed at her nose weakly and looked up with haunted eyes.
“Women. I saw women huddled together under the wind breaks. They were naked and filthy, shivering. Then I got closer, close enough to see that some of them were clutching babies. I tried—I tried to get a couple of them in the truck, but they ran from me. I tried to call for help. I called Hardy on his cell. I told him. But he didn’t understand. And then I hung up. He might think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. But I don’t know what to do about the sheep and the women and the babies. Oh, the babies!”
With that, the woman threw herself into Raewyn’s arms, shaking with sobs. Raewyn stood stiffly, feeling the thin woman cling to her and wanting to run away as well. Instead, confronted with her first significant human contact in months, she guided the woman to a chair, brought her a box of tissues, and put on the kettle. The Hierophant seemed to be getting to the point, at last.
Her name was Faye Giddy, twenty-five years old and engaged to Hardy Fengate, a sheep farmer who grazed his sheep up the valley. The woman’s name alone, derived from the Cornish words for “insane fairy.” spoke volumes to Raewyn. In ages past, a village “giddy,” or idiot, was often mistaken for insane. In reality, it was more likely they suffered from the second sight. And here Faye Giddy was, seeing The Hierophant’s trick, the animal world horrifically transformed to humankind. It was no coincidence. They’d been talking for ten minutes, drinking a stiff tea, but Raewyn still had questions.
“Faye, the ewes, the ones that went missing, didn’t they have full wool on this time of year?”
“Oh, no. Hardy sheared them a month ago. He says the ewes take better care of their lambs if they’re cold themselves, so he shears them before winter hits.”
Raewyn took a large gulp of hot tea and just stared at the younger woman.
“I know it sounds bad, but if a ewe has thick wool on it doesn’t realize its newborn is cold. Shear the mother and it’ll lead its lamb to shelter.”
“Well, that explains why they were naked,” Raewyn muttered.
“Naked? But you meant the ewes, not the women. What does shearing have to do with the women? I don’t understand,” Faye said, but by the look of horror dawning in her eyes, Raewyn thought she was beginning to.
“You said you saw people in the trees. What did you see in my yard?”
“I—well, just people. I thought you might be having a barbeque.”
“A barbeque? In the middle of a Nor’wester? Then why didn’t you ask any of ‘the people’ in my yard for help?”
Faye looked down into her tea, refusing to answer. Raewyn started to speak, to prod the woman on, but then she stopped. She had been this woman at twenty-five; confused, terrified of her gift, always trying to fit in. She could see this woman’s path without the Tarot. All she had to do was look back at her own. But Raewyn had never met anyone like herself, at least not that she was aware of. If the Hierophant thought it would help, he was a bit too late. She was hardened, old, set in her ways. Twenty years ago she could have used a friend like Faye. Not now.
“The women, the babies. We have to help them,” Faye said at last, giving Reawyn a look. It was a look that said comrades in arms. It was the same look people gave her when they wanted a reading. It never lasted past the last card. Besides, what could she do? The Hierophant was in charge of this fiasco. Let him help Faye Giddy find her gift.
“Take my advice,” Raewyn said, getting up from the table and gathering the teacups and saucers, that subtle cue that tells your guest its time to leave. “Consider this all a cosmic joke. It’ll set itself right. Laugh at it, ignore it, and go back home to your fiancé. Isn’t that what you’ve done before?”
“I…no. I mean, sometimes I tried to help, but I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I,” Raewyn said, putting distance between them as she crossed to the sink and looked out the window. The cat people played in the yard. Tubby Ted chased a windblown leaf, finally pinning it with his human paw. Then, instead of chewing it to shreds like he usually did, he picked it up carefully, between thumb and index finger, turning it, peering at it, his jade cat eyes a study in human intent. The wind sucked it from his hand and he was off on the chase around the house and out of view. But he was changing. They all were. Mischief had opened the door to the bedroom. All of them had figured out how not to foul their clothes. If she didn’t do something soon, they would cross that pivotal, irretraceable line into self-awareness. Even if the Hierophant reversed the change, putting them back to animals, they would be ruined, unhappy. Like she was. Once someone knew what they were, there was no going back.
Raewyn heard a click and turned to see Faye, her hand on the door handle, having finally taken the hint from Raewyn’s long silence. The woman trembled, then squared her shoulders, obviously bracing herself to face the wind, the world, the strangeness of her own existence. Alone.
“Faye, wait,” Raewyn said. “I’ll come, but I don’t really know what we can do. There’s a stack of blankets in the hall closet. I’ll fill some jugs of water. Maybe we can keep them hydrated and warm. Though they may not let us near them to do that.”
“I understand.” Faye said, locking eyes with Raewyn and nodding. Her lips still quivered, but the way she was jutting her chin showed promise. As they gathered supplies and loaded Faye’s truck, Raewyn questioned her own judgment. Anything they did would probably only freak the sheep women out more. It wasn’t like Raewyn could change them back. This wasn’t her game. She was only a piece. But at least she’d decided to play.
Just before they pulled out, Raewyn noticed the puppy boy, straining at his rope hopefully. He was a border collie, untrained, untried and in human form, but his instincts were good. Just in the last few months, Raewyn had noticed him herding the chickens, the cats, anything that moved, really. So she asked Faye to wait, hopped out of the truck, and untied him. He followed her to the truck and climbed in, sitting happily between her and Faye, his eyes glinting. If Faye wondered who he was, why he was coming, or why he was dressed in what looked like a mottled Halloween costume, she didn’t ask. Off they drove.
The first task was to get all the sheep-women and their babies back into the wind break. Faye said most of them had been huddled there before, but they had scattered when she’d approached. The truck pulled up to the gate, dust whipping into the sky, and the puppy boy perked up straight. His mismatched eyes darted over the paddock, settling on each cluster of women, each lone wanderer. One sheep woman, crouching close to the fence, stood over an infant trying to feed it with a dangling breast. She grabbed it and bolted away as they exited the truck. Raewyn had wondered about Faye’s description of the women “clutching their babies.” Livestock did not hold or carry their offspring. Even then they had already begun to change.
Faye wrestled the gate open, fighting the wind, and before Raewyn could say anything the boy ran into the field. They stood watching, amazed as he raced around the women in a large arc, drawing them slowly closer together and in toward the long, low lean-to made of corrugated tin and scrap wood. One woman, without a baby, bolted in panic, trying to break away from the group. Raewyn winced as the boy charged her. To her surprise, he didn’t bite, pinch, or kick. Instead, he grabbed the straying woman’s hand and whirled her around, releasing her just at the right moment so that she was propelled back toward the group. The fool thing tried to flee three more times, and each time she became the reeling, reluctant dance partner of the dog boy. Didn’t the pitiful thing realize it would be warmer, safer, better off with the herd? For a moment, Raewyn glimpsed the woman’s matted hair, an oval face made blank by distance and circumstance. Then the reluctant sheep woman finally melted into the group, resigned to her fate.
When, at last, they were all corralled into the wind break with the puppy boy standing sentry, Faye turned to Raewyn.
“He’s a dog,” she said.
“Yes,” Raewyn confirmed, pulling water jugs from the back of the truck and walking off before Faye could continue. Half-way to the wind break, Faye caught up, lugging the blankets. She started to say something, but Raewyn held her finger to her lips, indicating the sheep women. They approached silently. Faye knelt before the first one, the squish of sheep dung under her knees as she wrapped a blanket around the wide-eyed thing. Raewyn needed to think of them as things, needed not to see the straw and shit matted in their pubic hair, the blood running from some of their nipples, the goose pimples raised and raw on their exposed skin. She followed behind Faye, putting the water jug to one flaccid mouth after another, trying not to douse the babies that Faye had tucked under folds of blanket.
Raewyn stumbled into Faye, who was squatting in front of her, having suddenly ceased the gentle cadence of her blanket placement. The water jug sloshed, its contents dribbling coolly over Raewyn’s hands. Why had Faye stopped? She wasn’t out of blankets yet, or sheep women. Raawyn wiped a wet hand on her pants and glanced over Faye’s shoulder to see what had stalled her.
There, straining away from both of them, eyes rolling back in her head, was the woman who had tried to escape the herd three times. The water bottle slid from Raewyn’s hand, making a dull thud in the dirt. She flung herself backwards, tripping on a tree root and landing painfully on her ass. Still she scrambled away on her hands and feet like a crab, away, away from that face, those eyes, that nose, those lips and breasts. She clenched her eyes shut and clung to the trunk of a tree she’d come to. The wind tore at her, slapping at her face, whipping her hair into her stinging eyes. She didn’t hear Faye come up, but the weight of the blanket over her shoulders brought her back a little.
It came to her that Faye was in the blanket too, that they were snuggled in, shoulder to shoulder like native sisters. Faye handed her a small bottle and Raewyn gulped, gasping as the fire of strong alcohol burned its way to her belly.
“Hardy keeps it in the truck for emergencies,” Faye explained. Raewyn took another long swig, then handed it to Faye, who partook as well.
“It was me.” Raewyn said. “He made a goddam sheep look just like me.”
“Who? Who did this?” demanded Faye angrily.
Around them the Nor’wester raged on, attacking the tree, banging the tin roof of the lean to, rattling the wood till it groaned. The sheep women shuffled and hunkered down in their blankets. A baby stopped crying. The puppy boy appeared and lay at Raewyn’s feet. She stuck her hands in her coat pocket and felt something come into her right hand. It was stiff, crisp, and somewhat square. She didn’t have to draw it out to know what it was.
Raewyn pulled The Hierophant from her pocket, handed him to Faye, and at that exact moment the Nor’wester died out.
It was like being reborn into a world of silence. At Raewyn’s feet, the puppy, no longer a boy, raised his head, his dog ears swiveling back and forth. From the lean-to came the tentative baa of a sheep breaking the quiet. The invisible barrier that had pushed and pulled, beaten and battered, whipped and blinded, was gone. The air was benevolent again. The tree branches whispered. A gentle breeze touched Raewyn’s face.
“Who is he?” asked Faye, brandishing the card and raising her eyebrows.
“He’s called The Hierophant.” Raewyn said, “It’s a tarot card. He’s a teacher, a priest who never lets us forget what makes us human. He’s also a pain in the ass,” Raewyn concluded, laughing.
“He’s real?” Faye asked, turning the card over.
“As real as he needs to be. As real as sheep women and dog boys.”
“And there are more cards like this?” Faye asked, her eyes just like the puppy boy’s when he’d first surveyed the field of sheep.
“An entire deck. I could do a reading for you, if you like.” Raewyn said, extracting herself from the blanket. A sheep hobbled out of the wind break, followed by several others. The puppy looked up at her hopefully, but he seemed to know that the time for herding was over. Faye stood up next to Raewyn.
“They seem like dangerous cards,” said Faye.
“Yes. Even more so if you know you should use them, but you don’t.”
“I see.” Faye handed the Hierophant back to Raewyn. “I’d better have that reading then.”
They headed back to the truck together, gathering blankets and jugs on the way. As the puppy clambered into the truck between them, Raewyn took a last look at the sheep, but she could no longer single out the one that had been her.