I am so focused on my plans that I nearly jump out of my skin when my phone starts to ring. I look down to see Lillie’s name on the caller's ID.

“Hey, are you on your way?” 

“Well, Mother Charlotte won’t let me come over since I’m sick. I doubt I’m going to recover while she’s here, but I really want you to show her this week. I don’t know when we’ll get another chance.” Her voice sounds weak and worried.

“Just tell her to come over. I’m sure she’ll understand after I explain everything.”

“Are you sure?” Lillie asks hesitantly.

“Yes, Lillie, it’s fine. My dad will help me keep her calm and I will need someone to help me get to you. Just tell her you are going to take a nap while she comes over.”

“I can’t sleep, though. Every time I try, I just have nightmares about my body exploding.”

“I’ll come over with Charlotte afterwards, OK?”

“That sounds great. I’m sending her over now.” She hangs up.

I walk over to the office where Dad is working on something. I knock on the door to get his attention.

“Hey, Dad. Charlotte’s on her way over, but Lillie wasn’t allowed to come.”

“Ok. Where do you want to show her?”

“Let’s do the living room. It will be easier to sit and talk there. Can you come help?”

“Of course. Just give me a moment to finish up here.”

“Ok. I’ll get the furniture out of the way.” Our living room is the first room inside the door. We used the couch to create a bit of a hallway when coming in with the back of the couch parallel to the wall beside the door.  Beside the couch and at an angle is a chair.  A few feet behind the chair is a wall which misses the adjoining wall by about 3 feet, which allows some privacy from the kitchen on the other side. On the wall with the door is a window that overlooks the front yard. Across from the couch is our TV mounted on the wall with a bookshelf sitting underneath. In the middle is a coffee table.

I start by moving the chair back to the wall behind it. I move the coffee table beside the chair. I take a step back and look at the space I’ve created, visually measuring it with my eyes to make sure I would fit in both forms. This reminds me that I need looser clothes if I don’t want to strip in front of Dad, so I run up to change.

There is a knock on the door as I come down the stairs and I enter the living room as Dad opens the door.

“Hello, Charlotte. How are you today?” Charlotte is 42 but looks like she could be no older than 30. Her lean body, tanned skin and rugged style shows her love of the outdoors, which she enjoys daily at her job at Yellowstone. While she is short in stature, no taller than 4’9”, her quick temper ensures her presence never goes unnoticed. However, she definitely is known to sneak up on others.

“I’d be better if I knew what is going on with my child Lillie.” She answers before stepping into the house. She pauses and raises an eyebrow at the living room arrangement, before sitting down on the couch with my dad. “Interesting room design you got here.”

“Well, this is a temporary arrangement. That way I have room to show you.” I say, joining them in the living room but not sitting down.

“And what is it you want to show me?” 

“This.” I take a deep breath, nervous about her reaction. I then initiate the shift. I don’t take my eyes off her even as I am forced onto my forming front paws. While she looks shocked when I first started to shift, she seems to come to terms by the time my tiger body finished forming around me. I am a bit confused, but I lay down so that I don’t seem like a threat if she is hiding her fear.

She looks over at my dad with a bit of a troubled look, which makes me wonder if she is more affected than she shows. We are both quiet while we wait for her reaction.

“Has Lillie shifted yet?” I shake my head. “No wonder Lillie seems so terrified, she’s about to shift. Please tell me she didn’t see you shift for the first time.”

“She didn’t see Ash, but she did see Viv shift. This doesn’t seem to be the first time you’ve seen someone shift?” Dad responds. Charlotte doesn’t answer right away but rubs the side of her face with a look of slight frustration on it. After a moment though, she puts on a poker face.

“Well, I guess you could say that. Also, I’m not surprised because, well, I can shift as well. However, I am a cougar, not a tiger.”

I stand up quickly in surprise. Charlotte is a shifter?! I knew she loves the outdoors, but it never crossed my mind that this is why. After a moment of shock, I sit back down.

“I’m glad that you girls decided to show me, but this is dangerous. The fact that your father knows is already worrisome.”

“Why?” Dad asks.

 “It’s against shifter law to reveal what we are to a normal human. How else do you think we hide in plain sight?”

“Who and how do they enforce that?” Dad asks.

“Well, that would be the council, and if they think you have good reason to know, they hire you as a helper in a pack, or in some position in government. Just somewhere that your knowledge of them would help their society. If they don’t think so, then I would say they are better than the cartel at making you disappear, if you know what I mean.”

He’s my Dad. The fact that he raised me and is taking care of me should put him in the former part, right?

“If I wasn’t involved in the upbringing of yall, then I would say definitely. But since I was, then the responsibility of ensuring you follow the law falls on me. Did your parents leave you something you didn’t share with us that let you know what you were?” I shake my head.

All my mom had on her when she was found on the side of the road was my father’s dog tags from the army. 

“Well, I guess there was no way for you to know, and I might have a case for not recognising the signs. How did you find out?” She turns to dad to ask. I feel so uncomfortable using telepathy to communicate. 

I’m going to go change back.

They nod before continuing the conversation. Dad tells her everything that happened while I shift back. He is finishing telling her about our hesitation with telling Mom and Tina when I come back and move the chair back to join them.

“Let’s not tell them. The council is already going to have a problem with you knowing the truth. Telling them after telling me is going to seem unnecessary to them,” Charlotte advises.

“Has this happened before?” I ask. “How are you so sure?”

“For the first question, it has happened, though the cases are extremely rare. And for the second, I also work for them, though I focus on relations between different packs and groups. I don’t deal with such cases.” I chew on this new information for a moment. So many shocking facts come out in this conversation, I don’t know if I can take much more. Charlotte and Dad notice.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Dad checks in on me while Charlotte squeezes my hand. I nod. 

“I know this is a lot to take in, but I promise I’ll be here to help out. But right now-” She is interrupted with the sound of her phone going off. “Yes, Tina?”

“Lillie just shut herself in her room, yelled for me to call you, and then I just heard her scream before there was a thud. Now she won’t even answer me when I pound on the door! I’m going to call the paramedics but I need you to come over now!” Tina says in a rush.

“Don’t! I know what’s going on, and the paramedics won’t be able to help. I’m on my over now!” Charlotte hangs up after, and looks over at me. “Are you coming?”

“Of course.” I put on the closest pair of shoes, which happens to be one of Viv’s heeled sandals, and we run out of the door.