IV. That Shade of Gray

We moved out to the family farm after that. Dad's grandparents had been Quakers and farmers in the old tradition--until the economy had made that old tradition impossible. They'd managed to hang onto the farmhouse and four or five acres, but the rest had gone to the government. Which had promptly done absolutely nothing with it. We didn't mind. We now had acres and acres of privacy.

That was the best year of my life, I think.

Hired contractors had kept the house in fairly good repair, but it was swarming with spiders and those little green garden lizards when we moved in. Mom okayed the lizards, but said the spiders had to go. Since their bites couldn't hurt me, that was my job. I got over my fear of spiders real quick.

We got a flock of chickens, a goat, two cats, a German shepherd, and a couple rabbits that soon turned into a couple dozen rabbits. The goat was for Mom--she'd always adored the creatures for some unfathomable reason. The cats kept the mice away, and the dog--Ramses, we'd named him--kept the neighbors away. The rabbits were for the stewpot. Everything else was for... well, because that's what you had when you lived on a farm. We had fresh eggs more mornings than we didn't, but we still had to go to the store for milk.

Actually, Mom and Dad had to go to the store for milk. I never set foot off our property, unless it was into the old woods.

I guess the only thing really bad was that the animals hated me. I mean, seriously, in the way that only animals do. The cats used to piss on my pillow when I wasn't there, and the dog barked his head off every time he saw me. They never touched me, though. They knew. The webbing on my quills has some psychedelic black and yellow pattern. Birds might be able to get away with color for the sake of beauty, but animals like skunks and frogs and hornets--and me--well, we show our colors as a warning sign. It was a bitch, really, because I'd always loved animals. There's nothing like the feel of a cat arching under your hand, or a dog's wet tongue on your chin. "Dog slobber cures anything," I used to joke.

Anyway, Dad had lost his standing in the scientific community, and Mom had lost her job as a professor, but we made do. Dad threw himself into being a farmer, saying that the earth was in his blood. Well, maybe on his hands and face and all over his clothes, but....

Mom started writing romance novels. I kid you not! She wrote under the pen name "Harmony Braxton," and was almost immediately successful. The "Harmony" was after my name, Melody (and I'd been named after Dad's mom). I don't know what the "Braxton" was from. It's funny, in all her books, either the hero or the heroine is a mutant--though she never comes right out and says it. They've always got something special about them, like "Rock Adams," who had super strength (and the pecs to match, if the cover's anything to go by), or "Angel McGuire," who could fly. She never said so, but I think Mom was still trying to do her part for mutant rights.

Dad and I teased Mom about where she'd gotten her steamy ideas, as much as Mom and I teased Dad about not being able to raise so much as a turnip (who the hell actually grows turnips, anyhow?) and for a while all was right in my world.

A peaceful, happy family life wasn't the only thing that was great, of course, but it was a pretty big thing. I think part of it was that I was getting to know my father for the first time. Like I said before, he had always been kind of... apart. I know it sounds awful, but I think when my mutation hit, I suddenly became interesting to him.

Yeah. That sounds awful. But I didn't care. After all, my family could have kicked me out on the street, like some of the others I've met.

The other thing that was great was that Dad got it into his head to drive thirty miles to the nearest bookstore and buy a great, heaping stack of stuff on survival in the wild.

Then we started going camping.

We all went together on our first camping trip; but after that, Mom always declined, saying she'd rather stay where there was a real bathroom, rather than a bush. I didn't have as much of a problem with it as her. I'm not going to go into a full description of that end of my digestion, but--well, let's just say that not too many solids make it through.

Good grief. I can't believe I just wrote that. Color me embarrassed.

Anyway. Dad and I lived outdoors three days out of every week--which was actually pretty nice, because Mom had started getting kind of stuffy since we'd moved. He drove me really hard to be the best I could at forestry. I don't know, maybe he felt some sort of guilt about what had happened to me. After about a year, he decided that I was ready to rough it on my own. Really on my own. As in, he dropped me off in the middle of the woods, and drove off in the SUV. (Yes, we had an SUV. So does everyone else, but everyone else doesn't use theirs for safaris.)

I had the goddamnest holy shitting best time of my life. Maybe it was because I was actually using my mutation instead of living in fear of it, but it was like I was finally in my element. Okay, so when's the last time you wanted to shout to the world, "All right! I'm a predator! Woo-hoo!"

Should I say something melodramatic here, like, "I was walking on air right up until I got home"? Or how about, "My elation evaporated when I saw the blood at the door"? Yeah, that's it.

My elation evaporated when I saw the blood at the door.

The goat had been scared off, but the rabbits and chickens were as oblivious as only rabbits and chickens can be. The dog was gone. So were the cats.

I still don't know exactly what happened to them, where they went. Not the cats, I mean my parents. Inside, the house was quieter than it had been since we'd moved in. No keys typing, nothing bubbling in the kitchen, no Dad humming some off-key tune. Everything was ransacked, of course. Whoever had been in there had seen enough suspense flicks to know that you always leave your victim's house a mess. Who the hell were they trying to fool, anyway? They weren't after any jewels, or money, or deep, dark secrets. The only thing I could figure then is that someone had seen me and told someone else, who then told someone else, and then they all decided to go on a witch hunt. Make that a mutant hunt.

There wasn't enough blood for me to think someone had been killed, but... still. Whose was it? Let me make this clear: my only "superior" sense is my eyesight, and that's just a matter of opinion. I can see in the dark, but I can't see red. The only reason I knew the drops and smears at the door were blood was that I've learned what shade of gray red is.

I forgot I was a mutant then. I was a scared girl, and I called the cops. They're still after me. Of course, they'll have to get in line these days.