She looked at me. “That’s not why I’m asking. Have you? Who?”
I hung my head and muttered, “All of them.”
“Really!” For the first time, Mataji looked surprised. “And nothing happened?”
We all shook our heads.
“Ever bitten anyone who wasn’t a family member?”
“No.” I said bitterly, “This was practically the first time I’ve even met anyone who wasn’t!”
Mataji got up and put her hands on my shoulders. She said, “Never bite anyone else who isn’t a shifter already. It could kill them.”
“What?!”
“When a shifter bites a non-shifter, usually they make them into a shifter,” Mataji explained. “But some people are… allergic, essentially. When they’re bitten, they don’t shift. They die. I’m sure it’s genetic, but we have no idea what gene is responsible, so there’s no way to tell which will happen. Never bite anyone who isn’t a shifter. Do you understand?”
Scared, I muttered, “Yes.”
“Does your tiger understand?” Mataji asked sternly.
Do you? I asked.
My tiger didn’t usually do what I told her, but she growled, Yes. I will not kill anything but prey. Now let’s leave this boring old woman, and run and hunt in the jungle!
“What’s she say?” Mataji asked. “Word for word.”
I repeated it. Word for word, staring right at her.
But Mataji didn’t get angry. She looked relieved instead, then chuckled. “She’s a lively one. I can see why you’re having so much trouble with her. Now, as to why your family didn’t become shifters after you bit them, there’s a third thing that can happen when non-shifters are bitten.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said simply. “It’s quite rare. Much less likely than them dying. But again, it’s a genetic trait. They’re resistant to shifting. I think this explains your problem, Destiny. You inherited enough shifter genes to overpower the ones for resistance to shifting, but enough resistant genes to overpower the ones that would normally allow you to control the shift. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but I suspect that’s the essence of the problem.”
“But you can’t change her genes,” Dad said.
“No, but many genetic diseases can be treated with medication.” Once again, she looked into my eyes. “Are you willing to experiment on yourself?”
“Nothing dangerous,” Mom said quickly.
“She’s just a child!” Dad exclaimed.
“I’ll be very careful,” Mataji assured them. Then she turned back to me. “But I will be creating a completely new medication, and testing it on you. That is dangerous. It will probably also be long and tedious and frustrating. But this is your life. Your body. Your…” She smiled slightly. “Your destiny. You must be the one to choose.”
I heard my parents protesting, but I wasn’t listening to them. Instead, I remembered my first airplane flight, and how I’d been pushed back into the seat as the plane accelerated along the runway. And then the lift-off. I’d looked down, and I could see so much. The entire world was spread out below me.
If I stayed the way I was, I’d never see more of it than my parents’ home and a few shifter towns like this one. The price of safety was never taking flight.
I stood up, turned my back on my parents, and looked into Mataji’s eyes like she’d looked into mine. “I want to try.”
Her first attempts didn’t do anything but make me tired, or give me headaches or stomach aches. Then she started working with a rare herb called sherneend, which means “tiger sleep.” It tastes disgusting to herbivores, but carnivores nibble on it sometimes. If they eat a little bit, it calms them down. If they eat a lot, they fall asleep.
At first all it did was put me to sleep. But Mataji kept tinkering with the dosage, until she got one that didn’t affect me, but put my tiger to sleep. At first I was thrilled, because it stopped me from shifting when I didn’t want to. But then I realized that I couldn’t shift at all, even if I did want to. More than that, I felt like something was missing. I felt… hollow. Like the part of me that made me me was gone.
So Mataji adjusted the dosage again, until she got one that just calmed my tiger down. She was still there, but she wasn’t so willful. I could get her to do what I wanted instead of what she wanted. Finally, finally, I could control the shift.
The whole town threw a party, Mataji’s shifter scientist friends emailed her to tell her what a genius she was, and I got to wear my bangles and swing. It was especially fun because there were so many shifter kids in the town, and we had a whole jungle outside the town we could run around in and climb trees and hunt.