Fur
Prologue
The only thing Christine knew for sure was that there was something very wrong with her daughter.
It started when little Angie was eighteen months old. Christine walked into the nursery to find her cherub faced daughter in her pink care-bear onesie sitting on the ceiling, meticulously dropping blocks on the cat below.
Christine had screamed and snatched her child from over her head and run with her out of the room, heart and mind racing. She floundered for an explanation but each time came up blank. A week later, just as she had nearly convinced herself that she'd imagine the whole ceiling incident things simply got stranger.
Christine left her daughter in the nursery as she went to get them both snacks. When she returned she found every toy in her daughter's room, cards, barbies, blocks, plastic horses, and stuffed animals swirling around the laughing baby in a vortex. Christine's stomach churned as her mind called up every horror movie she'd ever seen Poltergeist, Ammityville Horror, even (god forbid) the Exorcist. She fought her way through the circling toys to her daughter, swatting at floating playing cards and my little ponies. She choked back panic as she grabbed her child and sprinted from the house, trailing a procession of floating stuffed animals like a macabre Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Whenever she looked at Angie, all Christine could think of was the devil. She did the only thing a God fearing catholic could do when faced with sure demonic possession, she drove to the church.
She faced the priest's skeptical look as she described the previous instances of Angie's possession. The priest inhaled deeply preparing to launch into a prepared speech about sleep deprivation and its effects on a mother's psyche when baby Angela touched the baptismal fount and it promptly burst into flames.
The fear she felt during the exorcism quickly abated when Angie seemed to go back to normal. Nothing flew around. Nothing hovered. Everything had calmed down and life had moved on, until a week before Angie's second birthday. It was a full moon. Christine heard an odd yipping noise over the baby monitor and immediately rushed to her baby's room.
In the bed, wearing her daughter's pink care bears footie-pajamas was a little red fox kit, paws resting on the top bar of the crib. Christine let out a high terrified squeal that quickly became a panicked whine. As she watched, the fox's large ears shrank and the little kit transformed into the curly headed Angie.
That night Christine wrote a letter to the man she hadn't seen since before Angie's birth.
. . .
It was August 3rd, Angie's second birthday when her mother when her mother packed her little backpack with enough pink dresses and underwear for a week, Angie's favorite stuffed bear, and a book for the road. Christine fought back tears as she safety pinned a letter to the girl's father and his address to the front of her little pink sweater.
"Where are we going Mommy?" Angie's tiny voice asked as she leveled her wise dark eyed stare on her mother.
"You get to go see your Daddy, sweetheart." Christine's voice cracking as tears once again threatened her composure.
"Why are you so sad?" A worried look crossed Angie's face.
Christine mumbled something about having to work as the reason she couldn't go. She didn't like lying to Angela but every time she looked at her daughter her stomach clenched in a mixture of sadness and fear. Sadness at what was to come and fear of the little girl sitting beside her on the bus, the little girl who grew more odd everyday, who was spinning wildly out of control. A mother can't live in fear of her own daughter.
She walked Angela to the ticket counter.
"I'd like a one-way ticket to London, please." Christine said laying her credit card on the counter.
The cashier smiled the practiced smile of the truly unhappy in their work and picked up her card. "Certainly Ms. Martinez, and the ticket is for you?"
"Oh no, it's for my daughter, Angela."
Ten minutes later Christine planted a kiss on her daughter's forehead, straightened the letter pinned to her front, handed her her ticket, and sent her through security. As the little girl tottled away from her she finally allowed the tears to come. Christine knew it wasn't right, sending her daughter away like she was. She simply couldn't do it any longer. She couldn't live in fear. She couldn't worry about her daughter showing up on the ceiling, or scaring other children, or turning into an animal. Despite the fact that she felt fully justified in holding Angie's father accountable she couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen.
At the edge of security Angie turned around and gave a little wave.
Christine couldn't take it any longer, and she broke into a run toward the door as a final sob raked her body.
Angie blinked at the space that, until recently, her mother had occupied. Then she turned and handed her ticket to the security man.
"Well, hello little one. Where are you headed to?" he reached down to look at the letter pinned to her chest. On it in her mother's handwriting was written 12 Grimmauld Place, London. He looked her in the eye, "you have quite a long way to go."
He returned the ticket, on it was Angie's full name, Angela Artemis Black.