Knight rode to the area that Mal had chosen for the wedding. Japanese cherry trees blossomed there, in the middle of downtown.
He came here when he had time during work, when things were slow and Paulie said he could leave early. He counted down the days to the wedding, just 27 days from now. In 27 days, he would be a married man.
He smiled to himself as he let his hand play in the water. He cast his mind back to a family picnic, one of the few that his mother brought him to even after everyone knew he could shift. The women on his mother’s side of the family welcomed him with open arms, especially his Aunt Maggie and grandmother Alice.
Memories came flooding back. He was thirteen, maybe fourteen, and it was the celebration of some holiday, probably Labor Day. Uncle Mitch had rented a park for the day, and everyone who was in the area came down for the party. His mother had brought a potluck of fried chicken that was her specialty, while Knight – Leo, in those days – made his mother’s potato salad. They arrived fashionably late, since everyone in the family usually dropped in up to an hour past the allotted start time.
Aunt Maggie, her husband Jim and her two daughters Jade and Whysper arrived soon after they did. Aunt Maggie named her kids after two characters in romance novels that she had read. Whys was not as her name seemed, a boisterous girl just like her mother. Jade could be boisterous too, but only after being started up and goaded by her sister. Both girls greeted Leo like a long-lost brother, even though Leo had more hair on his face than was seemly for a fourteen year old.
He remembered going to the playground with Jade, and they swung idly on the swing set while other kids ran around them, trying to get them to play tag. Leo was too old to play these games; and also too fast, as he could easily reach out and grab one of the younger children running around him. He was too young to sit at the adult table while they talked adult things.
Jade swung her legs a little back and forth to gain a small bit of momentum. Leo followed her motion, not having been on a swing set much and not knowing how to get himself swinging. The smaller kids, seeing that the two older ones weren’t going to play, gravitated toward the slide and started playing Pirates of the Caribbean. Jade was silent for a while, then she suddenly asked him, “How’s school?”
“I don’t go to school,” he said.
“You don’t?” She looked sideways at him, curious.
“Mom said the kids wouldn’t understand me.”
One side of her mouth frowned as the considered that. “Because of all your hair?”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t make it go away?”
“I have to shave it,” he said, “And then I look really stupid when I…change.” Truth be told, he hadn’t quite gotten the shifting of his face down, so he reverted to what he remembered. If he didn’t have to, he didn’t look in mirrors.
Jade sighed. “I wish I could change into a cat.”
“No, you don’t. It happens when you don’t expect it to.”
“Momma can change into a cat, a big cat. I remember when I was little she used to do it.”
That was why Aunt Maggie loved him so much. He tried to think: Aunt Maggie was his grandmother’s youngest sister, so did that mean that his grandmother could shift as well? His mother never mentioned anyone else in the family shifting, but did tell him that he was one of the rare boys that could shift.
“She doesn’t do it much anymore,” she said. “I wish she would.” She again looked at him sideways. “What’s it like? To shift?”
He said, “It feels like someone’s rearranging all your bones and all your insides.” She grimaced. “It doesn’t hurt that much,” he said quickly. “It feels natural.”
She pondered that as well. “Do you think you’ll ever have kids?”
He snorted. “Who’s going to marry me?”
“I don’t know. Someone who doesn’t mind how your face looks.”
“Do you mind how my face looks?” He smirked when he asked that question, not expecting the answer she gave:
“No. It makes you look older.”
He snorted again. “Say that to me when I’m eighteen and they’re not carding me to go get liquor.”
She laughed. “You don’t think you’ll ever get married?”
“I don’t want to get married,” he said. “I would pass this curse down to my family.”
“Maybe not. It skips people sometimes. It skipped me and my sister.”
“So what’s to say your children aren’t going to have it?”
“Momma said that if the bloodline is too thin, then it won’t happen. You know what genes are, right?”
“You wear them.”
“Not those jeans, silly. Genes. G-E-N-E-S.”
“Sure, I know what those are,” he said, though he didn’t. He didn’t want to seem stupid in front of his cousin.
“Being a leopard is probably in your genes. If you marry a woman who’s not a leopard, then the chances of you having a child that can change will be lower.”
“So you’re saying that I need to marry a woman who’s not a leopard and this won’t get passed down?”
“I didn’t say that. I said the chances are less.”
He shook his head. “I won’t do it. I won’t give someone this curse.”
Knight grinned. Well, he wasn’t going to be giving anyone a curse now. In his new world, and the world of his mate, any cub would be a blessing.
Aunt Maggie would be proud.
((Writing prompt What Would Your Character Do? “Scenario 1: The Family Picnic”))